Mossie FIGHTER

[John Howling Mouse]

Thing is, I'm not even sure it should be military anymore.  Just seems way too small to carry either guns or cameras.  I was thinking of maybe some sort of new class in air racing: Sport-Mini Category or similar.  My next Scale-O-Rama will be the same treatment to a 1:72 Avenger made into a 1:48 Sport-Mini.  I think it would look cool to show these on a tarmac diorama with 1:48 figures nearby to convey just how small they really are.

Hmmmm...Yellow with black and white markings including sponsor dEEcals...

Is it true that some people paint a very pale pink as a basecoat for yellow instead of just using white?

[jcf]

Thing is, I'm not even sure it should be military anymore.  Just seems way too small to carry either guns or cameras.  I was thinking of maybe some sort of new class in air racing: Sport-Mini Category or similar.  My next Scale-O-Rama will be the same treatment to a 1:72 Avenger made into a 1:48 Sport-Mini.  I think it would look cool to show these on a tarmac diorama with 1:48 figures nearby to convey just how small they really are.

Hmmmm...Yellow with black and white markings including sponsor dEEcals...

Is it true that some people paint a very pale pink as a basecoat for yellow instead of just using white?

Call it a kit plane and make it an entry in the Sport Class:
http://www.airrace.org/classSport.php

Flat yellow over white primer also makes a good base coat for gloss yellow.
Also I've had pretty good results in the past using an ocher or German tank
yellow as a base for a bright yellow gloss.

Jon

[Eddie M.]

dEEcals...

Don't you mean deckles?

[sotoolslinger]

ALLRIGHT DANGIT that is enough of that Now you get some guns and camo on that plane......don't make me come up there

[pyro-manic]

I've sometimes wondered about Green Stuff, but I've been put off by it's price.

Green Stuff (or Kneadatite to give it it's other name) is frankly crap for scale modelling. It doesn't dry hard, sands very badly, and isn't especially strong. It's much more suited to sculpting. There is also a Brown Stuff that is better - dries harder, holds sharp edges nicely - but again it's pretty expensive, and there's better stuff around.

On-topic, that's looking gorgeous, JHM - I'm very impressed by the way you did those new radiator inlets. I'll have to try that some time.

As for the racer/fighter dilemma, what about a "sport fighter"? Mount a laser on there somewhere, and have these aircraft fight a laser-tag match!

[Mossie]

Thanks Alun, glad I haven't plumped for it!  I always wondered if it was really worth the price.  I guess it is, for a niche market, but the rest of us can make do with good old Milliput at half the price!

[pyro-manic]

It's good for sculpting, like I said - if you want to modify pilot figures or something, it's very good stuff. Nice and easy to work with, and holds fine detail well. But yeah, doesn't sand well at all. If you do fancy getting some, then for gawd's sake don't buy if from Games Workshop. Andy Foster over at Heresy Miniatures sells it in much larger quantities, at a much better price: http://www.heresyminiatures.com/putties.htm

Good guy, Andy. He makes some very cool monster miniatures as well (check out his Netherlord and his upcoming dragon! )

[John Howling Mouse]

Most of my Whiffery gets to exactly this point and usually dies a withering, dust-covered demise:  the attachment of a mismatched canopy to the main assembly.

I knew it going into this build, too.  I've considered doing a build-up with Aves Apoxie Sculpt over the partially-fitting canopy but it's hard to keep the delicate canopy from getting damaged (I normally apply Tamiya modeling tape with a top layer of aluminum heat tape for protection but the canopy still takes a beating).

So I thought to myself, if I'm a real modeling fool (and I am), I should be able to carefully cut and curve small bits of styrene sheet into just the right gap-filling pieces to blend into the fuselage.  Let's see if I pull it off!

Here are the gaps in question including some close-ups so you can see just how big a challenge this will be:

[Sauragnmon]

Best bet would be some strip, cut to fit into the gaps, to join the glass to the fuse, and then some putty to smooth it over into a proper blend.  Especially with a gap like that.  Use the strip's edge to link to the glass and the fuselage, wrap it around the curve, use two angle-cut pieces to fill the base gaps by the canopy, it should fit well after that point.

[B777LR]

How would a Focke Wulf canopy be like?

[BlackOps]

Barry, I agree, this is just too sleek not to be a racing plane, give it a nice two or three tone paint job ala Reno Air Racer and it would be a real knockout.

[Mossie]

Baz, if you trim/sand the sill that main canopy is sitting on so that it sits lower, you might have less of a gap to fill for the windscreen?  Depends how much play you have with the seat I guess

If your going for a racer, I'd clip the wing back to at least the panel line nearest the tip.  That's a big wing & the unlimited warbirds often have their wings slashed drastically.  They're looking for high maneouverability low down & as little drag as possible, short wings suit this.

[John Howling Mouse]

So, I did pretty well at cutting and bending the required shapes to form a sheeted canopy shroud out of 20-thou styrene (I got lucky, in other words):



The shroud pieces all taped into place:







The canopy re-masked to protect from the next putty stage (the yellow Tamiya tape you see here was covered with a second layer of regular, heavy masking tape):





The plan was to use very small amounts of filler to blend in the shroud edges (which were already sanded down to tapered edges) to the fuselage.  Well, so much for subtlety!

[sotoolslinger]

That is some sweet blending your doing right there Baz

[Sauragnmon]

Oh come on, Baz, it's subtle... it's a subtle job... subtle like a sledgehammer of course.

Keep up the work!