A little work in progress

[Nick]

I've always wondered how you paint helicopters with open cabin doors. Surely when you spray the body the paint must blow into the cabin so it would cover the interior so then you need to get in there with a brush - very fiddly. Or is there a way to plug the doorway when coating the outside?

Paint round the door frame in the colour you are doing the airframe then tack the door in place using maskol. seals the hole allows the door to match the fuselage around it and then it can be popped off and the maskol removed. Simples.

Deluxe products "tackywax" is your friend there. It helps with a temporay way to tack the door inplace for painting............

Thank you chaps, it makes sense now. I could always use a piece of card or styrene if I don't have the door. Do you think that blu-tack would work instead of tackywax or maskol?

[Old Wombat]

Only if you're using acrylics & it can still take a bit to clean up, sometimes.

[NARSES2]

Only if you're using acrylics & it can still take a bit to clean up, sometimes.

Agree. Blue Tack can be very useful, but little bits of it can hang on rather tenaciously. So be prepared to spend some time with a sharp cocktail stick

[Mossie]

Me too, I used to use it for landing gear wells but it's a b*gger to get out of fine details.  One trick is to use a larger blob of blu-tack to remove stubborn bits with a rolling, dabbing or rubbing motion.  You can tease it into a point to get into trickier to reach bits.

[Tophe]

Belated congratulations for the (beautiful) Spitfire Rammer! May I photopaint it into a Zwilling Twin-Rammer?

[Martin H]

Belated congratulations for the (beautiful) Spitfire Rammer! May I photopaint it into a Zwilling Twin-Rammer?

No problem Tophe

[Tophe]

Thanks!:

For a suicide fighter, a two-seater is more efficient, avoiding false bailing out pretending of an engine jam without witness...

[Martin H]

There may well be a Dutch SeaHarrier joining this bird in due course...................

Ho hum, well I did say that didnt I.......................







A Hasegawa SHAR that i picked up 2nd hand in a bag and no instructions. Built OOB, bar the Model alliance Orpheus recci pod. (shortened by 10mm to fit the centreline).
Paint work is Gunze sanyo, and decals from the spares box.

[TheChronicOne]

Pass the Dutchie!!!   

[Hobbes]

Very nice, I wish we'd replaced the Karel Doorman with an Invincible class in the 1970s instead of giving up on carriers.

[Martin H]

and another done........................

This one started after finding a DHC pamphlet on the Twin Otter for the RAF at SMW this year.


One of the pages shows proposed armament options.


Que a lot of brain storming between me, Geoff and Joe...................
Geoff started nailing a Matchbox/Revell kit togeather for an un armed version, while I ordered a load of AS11 Anti tank missiles from Shapeways for a tooled up version. I realy wanted six to match the artwork, but settled on four as they were priced at £8 a pair plus shipping.


In the end we ended up with this.....


a better shot of the things that go "Woosh! Bang!"


And now the question of why 6sqn? Simple I wanted to insult a fighter squadron by down gradeing them to a light but tooled up trash hauler outfit, and seeing as its lugging anti tank missiles the flying can openers it is...............

This was a Revell boxing of the Matchbox kit, The tooling hasnt aged to well. There was a fair bit of cleaning up to be done while building.
Paint is a mix of CJ aerosol rattle cans and Gunze sanyo. Decals are a mix from the spares box.

some other pics of this beast





There may be another one of these from me with the cheek mounted Zunni pods in the new year.

[kitnut617]

Nice one Martin, that's quite a find about the RAF requirement (or was it just a proposal)

[Martin H]

Nice one Martin, that's quite a find about the RAF requirement (or was it just a proposal)

I suspect it was just a proposal from DHC.

And now for what is going to be my last 2018 build. And its back to where the year started. A furious palm tree............

The Westland 532 Couger HC-1, of the Army Air Corps. Dated around about now.



An Italeri kit build OOB with a noticable deliberate omission. (lets see who spots it first)
This one was started along side the RAF SAR Puma I did back in the summer. But it stalled as I kind of lost interest in it untill yesterday............
This idea is a stripped out Army combat assult chopper to carry an infantry section into action. Something the Army currently has to look to the RAF to do for them.

[kitbasher]

God stuff, Martin, thanks for sharing.
RAF Twin Otter? Why not - a Twin Pioneer replacement perhaps.
As for the Cougar, the main undercart is sans sponsons, going all Lynx AH9 on us.

[NARSES2]

Neat pair Martin