Matt Posted April 28, 2005 Share Posted April 28, 2005 After 3 years of half finished detailing projects, a prolonged house move, a broken collarbone and a lot of late nights at work, I finally have a project moving along far enough to post some pictures. (That and I figured out Macro mode on the wifes camera). The kit is the venerable Airfix Dambuster Lancaster. I bought it as a donor kit after I completely hosed to bomb bay doors on my other Lanc project. As I lost impetus in that kit, I turned my attention to this one with a new set of rules. 1. Keep it simple. For a change, build it OOB as much as possible. I even went for an In-Flight pose so I could skip the pesky landing gear and wheels. 2. Try out some new techniques. Time to put into practice stuff that I've picked up on ARC but have not got to testing out. 3. Practice my airbrushing skills. This isn't meant to be a winner, just something to remind me how fun modelling can actually be. The stand is an oak plinth from Home Depot, with a length of oak dowel from the same place. The dowel has a short length of square brass tube inserted, which telescopes into a slightly larger piece in the belly of the beast. Here she is, primed and ready for paint. Cheers, Matt Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Matt Posted April 28, 2005 Author Share Posted April 28, 2005 And here's the upper camo done freehand (See previous rules). I had supreme grief with the PollyScal paint. It kept clogging the nozzel in the brush, so the initial Dark Green pattern isn't as tight as I would have liked. I went back and bought a fresh bottle and proper PollyScale thinner, and did a slightly lighter pass in the center of the pattern, just for practice and to see what it would come out like. Not totally accurate, but at least I proved I can do it and solved the clogging problem. Cheers, Matt Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andy Mullen Posted April 28, 2005 Share Posted April 28, 2005 Looking good Matt seeing this, I might have to did my Lanc out shortly. B) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
David Walker Posted April 28, 2005 Share Posted April 28, 2005 I'll be looking forward to seeing more photos. The paint has a nice worn look and from what I can see in the first picture you've done a nice job on the stand as well. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Matt Posted May 2, 2005 Author Share Posted May 2, 2005 Thanks all for the feedback. Here are some more photos from the end of last week and the weekend. The underside black is done. I'm using a much thinner paint mix than I'm used to, and as a result, with the raised detail I had a small amount of bleed under. Nothing that a few minutes with a small brush couldn't touch up. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Matt Posted May 2, 2005 Author Share Posted May 2, 2005 As this is meant to be a build to experiment and have fun with, I thought I'de try and paint the major markings (Roundels, Flashes and Squadron codes) rather than use the kit decals, plus the Airfix C1 Roundels had the yellow out of register. Seemed like a good idea at the time. For a cutter I used a mixing needle from a syringe clamped into a drafting compass. I used the wise 40mm Tamiya tape (the bright yellow stuff). After cutting the outer diameter masks, and placing them, I decided to use Tamiya rattle-can primer first before airbrushing the colours, so I went on a massive and butt-ugly masking job. This proved to be my biggest mistake. The colours were based on whatever PollyScale I had in stock, mixed to Mk1 Eyeball accuracy. The blue is roughly 50/50 French blue and Weather Deck Blue, the red is 50/50 RLM 83 Red and Panzer Red/Brown. After removing the masking I realised I had 3 problems. 1: The white primer had managed to overspray into all sorts of unmasked areas I couldn't have imagined. 2: The white primer bleed through under the masks, forming a white outer ring. 3: The white primer built up a 'ridge' around the mask that makes the markings look like a thick decal. In the end I resprayed a bit to fix #1, used a fine brish to clean up #2 and chalked #3 up to experience. Also the accuracy of my cutter wasn't great, so the edges are bit ragged, but then period photos I have show that the markings are not perfect either. After this experiment, I decided to use the kit Squadron codes. Not pushing my luck any more. This is markings masked and primed. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Matt Posted May 2, 2005 Author Share Posted May 2, 2005 This is the upper wing type B. Note the white ring still in need of a touch up, and the white over spray on the engine nacelle. The flash makes the blue seem brighter than it really is. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Matt Posted May 2, 2005 Author Share Posted May 2, 2005 Fuselage type C1, in need of touchup and looking a bit ragged. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Matt Posted May 2, 2005 Author Share Posted May 2, 2005 Here's the end result after touch up and respray. If I were to do it again I would use a better cutter and airbrush down a light grey as a primer base, so I would have more control. Next week, my pet hate, decaling wing walk markings. Cheers, Matt Quote Link to post Share on other sites
alvin5182 Posted May 3, 2005 Share Posted May 3, 2005 Matt: Looking good! Alvin5182 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.