Washing the Spitfire

This phase is sort of ironic, in the actual definition sort of way and not the Alanis Morissette way (link for educational purposes only, not meant for any form of entertainment). Yes, irony is not coincidence. I used Winsor & Newton raw umber oil paint thinned with odorless Turpenoid. It gets applied liberally, like Bill Clinton, all over the recesses of the model. After some time drying, an old t-shirt or a lot of Q-Tips with more Turpenoid will take the excess right off and leave behind the wash. We don't want to avoid the Noid in this case.  

Note: Here are the layers that I used up to this point with no ill effects; Tamiya Primer, Model Master Acryl paint, Testor's gloss lacquer, decals, gloss lacquer, oil wash with Turpenoid.

As you can see the process gets nice and dirty. We're washing to get dirty. Understand the irony now?

I wasn't completely happy with the wash in a few places, so I added a little more to those areas.

The unwashed bottom. I just thought of the other meaning after typing that last sentence.

The washed bottom, so much better.....or is it? The lighting is different than the comparison picture, this picture was taken in natural light while the previous photo was taken under a white fluorescent work lamp.

Before finishing the decals and washing, the comparison shot. Terrible recessed ceiling lighting here.

Washed.

Boy, I used a lot of references up there. I think it's a record for me. The oil wash will take at least 24 hours to completely dry. You may have noticed the pitot tube was missing again. Yes, I knocked it off a third time. My container storing the landing gear took a tumble as well and the wheel covers that were attached came off. I'll make more of an effort to clean off as much paint and primer in the contact areas as possible for better adhesion.

I think there will be one more post for this project, it will contain the last remaining steps; silver chipping, dull coat, attach the last few pieces and unmask the canopy. Stay tuned!

The Spitfire's Bottom Decals

This evening I started the decal process. I've decided to break it into a few nights for a few different reasons. 

1. I would like to do some work on the model but not consume the entire evening.
2. Prevent eye strain.
3. Reduce frustration.
4. Finally and most importantly, give the decals in one area an entire night to set. That way, I won't inevitably put my finger in the wrong spot and mess up a soft decal. 

I've noticed that after a couple of gloss coats, the underside was a bit bumpy. I took my highest grade of sandpaper, gave it a couple of light passes and it was nice and smooth.

Every modeller knows, Micro Set and Micro Sol. The Set goes down first while the decal is soaking. It increases adhesion to the model. Once you fiddle around with the decal for a while on the model, gently touch it with a cotton swab to soak up some excess liquid....then fiddle a little more, touch it again...fiddle, gently roll the cotton swab to set the decal and remove air bubbles. Put some Sol on top and move on. The Sol will make the decal wrinkle, but don't worry, it'll work itself out and it will look more painted on then a decal.

The finished decals for the bottom. This version of the model apparently didn't have roundels on the bottom and I decided not to sweat it. I started with the bottom since the decals were small and if I screwed something up, well, it's on the bottom.

Now it's time to let it sit over night and set.

That's all I have tonight. No witty wordplay this evening, I'll try to save some up for next time.

The Spitfire's Final Paint Scheme

..........................................................................................................................................................pation. I finally finished up the last of the minuscule parts and decided to place those yet again in front of the final camouflage pictures. Well babies, don't you panic. They are a bit further down. If you happen to still be on dial-up, I'm so sorry for you because this will take forever to load. Gird your loins, here we go.

Here we have the rear view mirror and the gas cap. I left these off because I didn't know quite what to do with them. Then it came decision time. I decided to paint the gas cap silver because I wanted to add a bit of contrast to the camo pattern. I painted the gas cap when it was still attached to the sprue. I then cut it off and had to trim a little bit off and touch it up. I was very concerned with losing it, so I stuck it to some blue tack until I was ready to attach it.

Next are the resin exhaust pipes from Ultracast. I primed these when I primed the body, but I wasn't sure what to do about them.

I headed off to the closest hobby shop and just started asking questions. Sure enough, everyone has an opinion and is usually very willing to dole it out. The sales rep was very familiar with Spitfires and knew my kit was a Tamiya when I told him it was a Mk I in 1/48. Typically exhaust pipes of Spitfires from that era collected rust. I picked up, rust paint and Jet Exhaust to mix in. I ended up adding a little Leather (brown) to darken it a bit. It turned out a little more red then I would have liked, but I'm not going to strip it at this point.

After painting I dry brushed silver on the opening edge of the exhaust. After the silver, I mixed some flat black and flat white and dry brushed the back two exhausts. The exhaust on the left is untreated, the exhaust on the right has been dry brushed. It's easier to see in real life.

Both are done, and I'm fairly pleased with the results........until I attached them.

See, I told you I would get to the camo this time around! I began the process by masking off the bottom to prevent over spray. I started with the dark earth color and painted it in the places where it should be while avoiding the areas where the dark green would go down. The theory is to preserve some of that awful pre-shading to add some variation to the paint job. On the other hand, I didn't want too much of it showing through because, well, just look at it.

Profile shot. I added a bit of white to the bottle and did some post-shading inside the panel lines to lighten them up. The effect is supposed to make it appear as though the paint job was faded a bit by the sun. Just before I finished up with this coat, the plane flipped out of my hand and landed on the antenna mast.....again. A little more glue and a touch up to the tip of the mast. Infernal delicate parts.

The shot that will be the segue into the next one.

Wasn't that an awesome segue? I used some blue tack here, the same stuff that you would use for hanging propaganda posters or other such paraphernalia. It serves two functions. The first is to provide a soft edge in between the two colors. Number two-ly, it's a lot easier to make it all squiggly-wiggly than cutting masking tape.

WOOO! More blue tack. I probably could have left this picture off, but it's not like you're paying by the megabyte. Unless you're using a 4G Hotspot, then well....

Boom, pictorial segue. I knew I left that last one in there for a reason.

I just covered up the areas that need to remain dark earth with some cut paper towel.

Dark green is down and the post-shading is done. It looks lighter in person.

As you can see, most of that pre-shading mess is covered, which on the other hand removes its whole purpose. It's a trade off sometimes.

The big reveal!

I present to you, the front.

Well I've got to add all the angles for the grand inspection.

The gloss lacquer coats started yesterday. I was having trouble with my airbrush handling the Future acrylic floor polish so I just gave up on it. I saw a can of gloss lacquer, so I just used that. The gas cap and exhaust pipes are attached for the gloss coating goodness.

The glossy profile.

On the underside here, I just took some shaved dark gray charcoal and brushed it on until it built up a nice gun powder residue on the gun ports and cartridge ejection ports. I also did this on the top of the wing, but since it is so much darker it's a bit hard to tell.

That's it for now. Time has expired for this model at the moment. I'll add a few more gloss coats and when I get to the decals I'll put out another post. Here is the corresponding YouTube video: http://youtu.be/51Jhep4rQAA

I forgot to mention in the video one more paint color I used, dull red for the seat that I had in a spray can. Grand total of 14 paints. For a half ounce of paint, it's $4.95. 128 fl ounces in a gallon, x2 would be 256 bottles of paint to equal one gallon. 256 bottles of paint at $4.95 = $1254.40/gallon. Aren't you glad gasoline doesn't cost that much?

In the meantime, you may see some posts about a Gundam model I've been working on with the boys. The oldest one has really taken to it and it's been a fun project to get them introduced to model building.

A Homage To The Little Parts

I've spent the past few days working on the smaller parts, the landing gear, the propeller and the nose cone. I've actually finished the fuselage and it's ready for its clear coat of acrylic floor polish. Yes, floor polish. It's a standard modelling practice to use Future floor polish to clear coat your model to protect the paint job and give a glossy surface to lay the decals. I've had this bottle of Future for so long, it's not even called Future anymore. Which is not to say my bottle mysteriously altered its name whilst in my possession.

I thought I would keep you in suspense and post the progress on these important, yet not as exciting parts. Just like red-headed middle children, they need attention and love too, you can't just gloss over them. (See what I did there?) Yes, they are not as exciting and not as eye catching, but the landing gear hold up the plane and the propeller provides the thrust for flight. Enough with the wordiness and on to the minutiae!

The main landing gear in pieces. The struts and the wheel covers need to be paired correctly because they are opposites of each other. If I left them on the sprues the numbers would tell them apart. As you can see, they are no longer attached. I had to dry fit the parts together to make sure they fit the way they should. I checked, re-checked and checked again to be sure.

Now they are all glued together......so....hopefully it's correct. It would be a real bummer if they were backwards. My ability to hand paint wheels is not so bueno. Thankfully, the center hubs you see here were separate parts. Let's just say I'm glad the other side is mostly covered by the landing gear covers

Since the tips will be yellow, it's best to put some white down to brighten the yellow.

Yellow.

Attached.

Nose cone glued in place.

Masked off the yellow.

Blackened is the end. 

There you go, most of the little parts. I still need to figure out what I'm doing with the exhaust pipes. I don't have any appropriate colors yet. I'll reveal the final camo paint job in the next couple of days. I really want to build the antici....................................................................................................................

Spitfire Painting Has Begun!

I've started the ever dangerous painting process. So much can go wrong here. Surface preparation, paint mixture, dust/particles, humidity, moisture in the line, the airbrush needle tip, spurts, runs... an earthquake... A terrible flood! Locusts! Only experience can deal with most of these. Since this is my third model, second aircraft, using an airbrush in the past four years, I am far from comfortable and not where I want to be with the results. So get off my back already. Let's see how it went!

Before priming the model with a gray coat, I airbrushed the canopy with the color I wanted it to be on the inside, in this case RAF Dark Green.

Glamor shot of the other side. A little over spray on the wing there, the primer will take care of that!

After spraying all the parts with primer. Don't worry Dear, I didn't spray it right there.

While examining my work after the primer dried, I noticed a few of the smaller parts didn't turn out so well. I stripped them down and re-primed those. After that, I realized I forgot the main landing gear covers altogether. Had to go back and prime those little gems. Did you know, by adding those covers on the main landing gear, they reduced drag and increased the Spitfire's max speed?

Front on view, it didn't turn out too bad.

I'm sure you can figure out which side this is.

Yikes! What happened here? Well, it's a terrible job at pre-shading. Pre-shading is just a matter of painting flat black lines on all the panel lines. It doesn't have to be perfect and as you can see, it definitely is not. Straight lines would be nice, but spraying straight lines is just freaking hard.

I was having some trouble a couple of days ago with pre-shading. I couldn't get the mixture right, it was spurting and running on me, the needle tip in the airbrush was bent, and the tip kept collecting paint which was disturbing the spray pattern. You might as well have just tossed in the earthquake and locusts while you were at it. After blotching up parts of the upper right wing, I just gave up for the night incredibly frustrated. I started on the upper side as it will have a darker color and will cover most of the pre-shading anyway. That way, I could get some practicing in.

I straightened the needle tip on my sanding stick and learned not to hold the airbrush too close to the model. Today I had some success with pre-shading, but I determined to get through it this time around regardless. The entire model was pre-shaded after some length of time. Remember those little parts I told you about and being careful so you don't knock them off? Well, I knocked off the pitot tube and had to re-attach it. That's what happens when you get frustrated and start to man-handle things.

More of that hot mess.

The bottom color RAF "Sky" was applied. Most of that pre-shading terribleness disappears, but you want to leave enough coming through to give the paint job depth and make it a little more interesting to look at.

Back to the little parts lesson. While I was putting the Sky color on, I nearly broke of the antenna mast. I had to re-glue it to strengthen it up.

That's that for now. When I had finished with the bottom color I added a little white to the cup to do some post-shading inside some of the panels. Again, attempting to add some more depth here. Things were not going so well. I had collected a massive amount of water in my line that was not caught by the moisture trap, thankfully no paint was harmed during this debacle. Paint was not coming out, the compressor had been running non-stop for at least an hour and a half and was scorching hot to the touch, so I decided to call it a day. I did lighten a few panels and you can kind of tell in person.

I'll let this cure at least one day before masking it off to paint the upper side. There are a few questionable areas on the bottom side I'm not too wild about, but not incredibly noticeable to people other than me. I, however, will always know they are there. Like the heart beating under the floor boards, slowly driving me mad.

At some point I'll have to provide my lessons learned about my siphon fed airbrush.

Stop now if you're not interested in reading some airbrush ramblings.

Since you asked here you go. With siphon fed airbrushes the paint jar is on the bottom and paint is sucked upward. A gravity fed brush, the cup is on top and gravity does the rest.

The big downfalls are paint amount, angles, the bottle and cleaning. With a gravity fed brush you can put as much paint in the cup as you need and take it down to empty, potentially wasting little to no paint. With a siphon fed, you can hold a lot more paint but can only take the paint down to the level where the tube can suck it up, guaranteeing that you will always waste paint. When your paint is low, it takes me to my second point, angles.

If you are pointing the airbrush in a downward angle and your paint amount is low, the paint will pool away from the center of the jar where your tube is and you will spray a whole lot of nothing. Your only options are to spray with your brush parallel to the floor or add more paint.

Point number drei. If you are spraying something close, the bottle you have dangling there will be sure to get in the way. 

Cleaning is a bit of a pain in the neck. Not only do you have to clean the airbrush, you also have to clean the jar and the siphon tube.

Before the next model, I think a new gravity fed airbrush is in order. Can I Dear, can I? I promise I'll go to work everyday and everyone will still get shelter and three squares a day!