A Pair Of Pioneers

[Stevehnz]

Looking good Bruce, I've still a little hope for the HPM one I have, a reflection on what you're managing with yours. Thanks.
Steve.

[BWP]

Painting has started in earnest. I thought I would have to go purchase some yellow paint, as the several I already have are either too "lemony" or glossy, but on a double-check I found I had an old pot of Humbrol 24 (which so far as I can tell is pretty much a perfect match for RAF Trainer Yellow) from their first attempt at an acrylic range, which I purchased in 1989! The paint is still perfectly usable, and although I was worried about brush-painting yellow (always potentially difficult) it actually goes on a treat. I hope their current acrylic range works as well, I shall be very sad indeed when this pot is empty. Of course several coats will be needed. Here's how things are looking after two coats:



Now for something I've been dabbling with while building the kits. The FROG kit comes with a pretty awful pilot figure, which I have dispensed with -- I don't put pilots into my kits, for various reasons, one of which is that I dislike painting figures that small. However the kit also comes with a standing pilot figure that is much better detailed, that is technically 1/72 scale (it's 25mm tall, i.e., 1 inch to 6 feet) but is in fact completely out of scale with the rest of the kit! He's much too large to fit into the cockpit (if he were sitting) and an absolute giant compared to any 1/72 pilot figure from any kit (including this one!). So that's a little bit of a mystery. Any way I figured he adds some character and he's just large enough to be worth the trouble of painting. Here he is, more or less completed (perhaps still some minor work to be done):




He will be attached to the base alongside the FROG kit.

[Clashcityrocker]

I like the pose on that figure. Nicely painted too.

Nigel

[BWP]

Just a quick non-photographic update. Painting has been progressing, had a bit of an "oops" moment, I applied Dark Earth to uppers of both kits, then did the Dark Green on the HPM kit ... and not really thinking about what I was doing, did the same to the FROG! Of course the latter needs Ocean Grey not Dark Green, so I then had to paint over that. The Dark Earth and Ocean Grey are more of the ancient Humbrol acrylics, purchased at the same time as the Yellow, although both have "jellified" to a great extent -- unlike the yellow, they're not usable out of the pot, but they thin down with water and become quite pleasant to use. The Dark Green is LifeColor from their "RAF Battle of Britain" mini-paint set.

Currently it's all progressing (slowly), I'm just continuing to apply additional coats as needed. The canopies have been attached. Neither canopy actually fits very well, the HPM isn't terrible but it could be better (although it's possible that I didn't cut out the vac form properly). The FROG canopy is just a poor fit, period, and needed shaving of the plastic around the edges -- it's supposed to "clip" in but doesn't. I did try the HPM canopy on the FROG (since it comes with a spare) but although it's close, better than you might expect given how badly off the FROG fuselage is, it's still not nearly good enough. One thing that I noted was that the FROG canopy is missing a little bulge on the top, I don't know what the actual purpose of it was but it's quite prominent (it's painted, not clear). I have tried building it up with drops of Krystal Klear, although it's taken a few goes since it shrinks when it dries. The FROG canopy has also scratched up a bit, not sure how that happened, I must have slipped while trimming the edges. It might improve once I get some clear varnish on it.

As for other news ... I did finally manage to track down a copy of the Pavla kit from eBay. It took a while to get to me otherwise I would have included it in this build. Just looking at it in the box it appears to definitely be the kit to get (if you can get it). It looks to be dimensionally as accurate as the HPM, appears to have a complete interior (all in resin, including a nice one-piece cockpit-intake-nose wheel well insert -- same idea as the FROG kit, but accurately dimensioned), two vac-form canopies and markings for three versions: the unpainted (bare metal) pre-flight configuration as well as the classic DE/DG/Y and DE/OG/Y schemes. Finally it includes the tail "finlets" as optional pieces. About the only thing it appears to omit is the W4046/G serial number for the other airframe. When I get around to building it I shall probably construct it as W4041/G with finlets (for contrast with the two kits I'm doing now). It could even be worth tracking down another one to complete the set with a bare-metal finish ....

[ShaunW]

This pair are really progressing very well Bruce. I very, very, rarely use pilot figures as I prefer to model aircraft gear down - models on stands just don't really appeal to me.

[BWP]

I'm calling painting and construction done on these.

As relatively nice as the yellow paint is, it still would look a lot better if it was airbrushed, or at least sprayed. Unfortunately, I don't think the Humbrol aerosol cans are available in Australia (not that I've seen in the local hobby shops, any way) and the Tamiya aerosol cans which are readily available don't have anything remotely the correct colour. A nuisance, but I'll cope. I'll be in a position to use my airbrush again eventually.

HPM:









FROG:









Next steps: Future coats, then decals, then sealing coats (matt for the HPM, glossy for the FROG).

[BWP]

Got the decals on last night. Photos shortly.

A mix of decals was used on the HPM, as the decals supplied in the HPM kit are not appropriate for the 1941 "first flight" scheme. I used roundels from ModelDecal and Xtradecal sheets, fin flash from an Airfix Spitfire Mk.1 kit (I had a spare set), and the serial numbers from HPM. I had no real problems with any of these, although one of the Xtradecal B-type roundels broke into several pieces as I was applying it. Fortunately I was able to re-assemble it with not much fuss.

The bulk of the decals on the FROG were from the HPM sheet. These were not so nice. Firstly, every different colour on the various roundels was a separate decal. While I understand why -- helps to avoid printer registration problems -- it makes them a PITA to assemble, especially since the HPM decals threatened to shatter. One of the under-wing red dots did shatter and I had to replace it by committing a roundelectomy on that same spare Spitfire sheet. Not 100% the correct size, but close enough for a casual inspection. A further problem with the HPM decals is that once applied they were resistant to being relocated -- and with a tendency to shatter, I didn't want to try too hard! Fortunately I was able to coax them all into the right positions, and once in place they look good. Personally, I'd rather they were one-piece and I'd risk the printing issues, rather than the fiddling about they actually require. Finally I added the W4046/G serials as individual items from the Ventura sheet. These went on well but getting them all neat and in a straight line was taxing, not helped by each digit being quite small, obviously. There was no "slash" decal so I sacrificed a couple of "7"s.

So, just final varnishes to apply and they will be done!

[fearless frankie]

Nice to see the side by side comparison, keep up the great work. Are you doing the same aircraft twice or both prototypes?

[BWP]

All detailed on the first page, ff.

The HPM is W4041/G. The FROG is W4046/G.

When I get around to building the Pavla I'll do it as W4041/G with the tail finlets added, which means it will have the same paint scheme as the FROG*. Looking closely at the Pavla decals the roundels seem to me to be the wrong size (for every variant it offers) which is annoying, but it just means I'll have to dive into the after-market sheets again. That's hardly a problem except for the 30" Type B's because I can't source the Modeldecal sheet for those and the Xtradecal sheet has 2, count them, 2 in that size -- and I've just used them! Annoying to have to buy the same sheet again just for that. Never mind, it's not something I'll be doing in the near future, there are other kits to move on with! I already have my next pair planned for another simultaneous build.

* Later edit: No it won't! See next post for details ....

[BWP]

Soooooo ... and I thought this would be simple.

All right. Painting done. Sealed with Future. Decals applied. Sealed with Future. Safe to varnish, right?

Wrong. So very wrong.

Firstly, let's get my first piece of gross stupidity out of the way: I forgot to mask the canopies before applying the final varnish. This led to clouding. I was able to reduce the effect somewhat by rubbing with IPA and reapplying more Future, but the final results were sub-optimal. There's really no excuse for this, I just wasn't thinking.

The second problem, though, I don't think is really my fault. The matt varnish I used on the HPM kit regarded the protective nature of Future as a challenge, and it very nearly won. The upper-wing roundels (and only those) became clouded. The upper camouflage suffered actual damage in a couple of places. And on the lower surface, large areas of the yellow paint cracked like concrete. Not flaking; the paint coverage is still good! Just what was once smooth ... now isn't. Again, I touched up what I could. It is what it is.









The satin varnish I applied to the FROG kit had no such issues. Everything looks good there, right? Ha ha, you fools, got you again. Happening to recheck my sources ... and looking again at the COLOUR PHOTOS that I've been staring at this ENTIRE TIME ... I realise that I've painted the %#$$@# thing Dark Earth/Ocean Grey, when it was supposed to be Dark Green/Ocean Grey. AAARGGGHH!! No way to fix that now that the decals are on ....









There. Done. Always move on, don't look back ....

[Clashcityrocker]

Despite the problems and faults you point out to us Bruce, they still look like nice models.

Nigel