Big Kev Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 I started building this kit a while ago after winning it on eBay, but then stalled for a while as I became involved in other projects. I'm using info that Trojan Thunder (nee Aussie747) sent on correcting the nose and wing fences, as well as ATP decals with similar correction advice generously donated by bugs3144 (Frank). The livery depicted is for Mohawk Airlines. Anyway, here's my attempt to correct the nose with Milliput: I think it's still slightly bulbous on the bottom (I only noticed it after taking the photo actually), but other than that, am I close to a more accurate profile here? For nose weights, I usually glue lead shot or sinkers into place with CA, but for this build I'm experimenting with pressing them into Blu Tak packed into each nose half. I need to tackle the wing fences next... Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
nimrod77 Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 What colours are you going to do her in? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Nimrod Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 What colours are you going to do her in? If it were me it would be the ETPS rasperry ripple colours. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Big Kev Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 What colours are you going to do her in? I'm using an ATP sheet for Mohawk Airlines in their early '70s orange and brown livery. Not the prettiest you'll ever see, but something a little bit different. Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Big Kev Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 By the way, if anyone knows a good colour match for the under surface grey for this scheme (check the linked photo in the post above), I'd appreciate some input! Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RookieLSP Posted October 11, 2007 Share Posted October 11, 2007 For nose weights, I usually glue lead shot or sinkers into place with CA, but for this build I'm experimenting with pressing them into Blu Tak packed into each nose half. Kev That's what I did for my Skyhawk. Worked really well and easy as anything to do! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
nimrod77 Posted October 11, 2007 Share Posted October 11, 2007 If it were me it would be the ETPS rasperry ripple colours. *** you stole my name!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Nimrod Posted October 11, 2007 Share Posted October 11, 2007 Didn't know you existed ! I chose the name because I spent 5 years working on the Mighty Hunter at RAF Kinloss. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Big Kev Posted October 12, 2007 Author Share Posted October 12, 2007 (edited) Some more progress, with the wing fences all but taken care of. I cut the fence out of plastic card using a template supplied in an article that a fellow ARC'er (Trojan Thunder) sent me. This was cut as a blank, and then I cut a slot into the wing to take the 'head', and scribed a line on the wing top surface for the body of the fence to sit in. Much easier IMHO than trying to get a curved shape to fit the wing leading edge. Here's the starboard wing and its fence to illustrate: Here's a shot of the other wing with the fence fitted (it's just sitting there, not glued): I'm not sure how accurate the shape is in the end, but there's room for modification yet. You can still see the faint line of the old kit fence in line with the outermost...bulbous thing. Comments welcome! Kev Edited October 12, 2007 by Big Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aggressor Supporter Posted October 12, 2007 Share Posted October 12, 2007 Nice work on the nose area Kev. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Big Kev Posted October 15, 2007 Author Share Posted October 15, 2007 (edited) Thanks for the kind words Raptor. I've made some more progress, with no major problems so far. First off, I've fitted the tailplanes and windscreen to the fuselage: The windscreen was painted NATO black on the inside and glued in place with a smear of CA. I'm attempting to fix the mismatched fuselage seam with Mr Dissolved Putty. It's weird stuff: all goopy in the jar, but dries almost clear and shrinks like yer testicles in public. But it's very easy to work with, dries fairly quickly and sands pretty easily. I'll definitely need more than one application though. I've also made replacement jet exhaust outlets from brass tube. Man that stuff is a pain to cut! And finally, I made an APU exhaust outlet from styrene tube: Apologies for the terrible photo. The lack of an APU exhaust is another area where the kit varies from the production aircraft. I'll probably fudge the rest of the details. Kev Edited October 15, 2007 by Big Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RookieLSP Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 It's weird stuff: all goopy in the jar, but dries almost clear and shrinks like yer testicles in public. But it's very easy to work with, dries fairly quickly and sands pretty easily. :blink: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Trojan Thunder Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 Hey Kev, Nice to see another of your builds on the go, wish I could get motivated to get some thing finished! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Skyking Posted October 16, 2007 Share Posted October 16, 2007 Hi Kev, I'll be watching this with interest. My wife's father was the Terminal Manager for Mohawk Airlines at Rochester Airport back in the late 60's and early 70's. When I was a kid I remember watching the 111's fly over on base into the Binghamton New Yor Airport also. Mohawk also flew Fokker F-227's at the same time they had the 111's. I have two desk models of a 111 and an F-227 that my wife wants me to restore for her. They belonged to her father and he had them on his desk at the airport. I think they are roughly 1/60th scale, so I'll have to make my own decals. I'll need to find a set for the Gold?Black scheme they had before going to the Orange/Brown, just before being acquired by Alleghaney Airlines, and later becoming US Air. Cheers Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Big Kev Posted October 17, 2007 Author Share Posted October 17, 2007 (edited) Thanks for the encouragement guys. Mike - interesting story about your father-in-law. To be honest, I'd never heard of Mohawk Airlines before I started this build, so I still don't really know much about them (I'm relatively new to airliner modelling). I understand the scheme I'm modelling was relatively short-lived and was the last bearing the Mohawk name - is that right? Anyway, here's the latest on the build: The wing root and engine mount joins need some more work, but after that I can polish and mask the windscreen and begin priming and painting. Anybody have any suggestions for a good match on the grey lower fuselage colour in the photo below? Thanks for looking. Kev Edited October 17, 2007 by Big Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
David Walker Posted October 17, 2007 Share Posted October 17, 2007 You've done some amazing work there. Very nice so far. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Skyking Posted October 17, 2007 Share Posted October 17, 2007 Hi Kev, Mohawk Airlines was a small regional airline in the Northeast US, with their home base in Rome NY. They can trace their roots all the way back to Robinson Airlines (no relation :)) flying DC-3's in the mid to late 30's. They became Mohawk sometime in the mid 50's flying twin engine Convairs, model I'm not sure, but I think 440's. They started using the BAC 11's sometime in the mid to late 60's, as I can recall the big deal they made when the first one flew into Broom County Airport for it's first scheduled flight. I think it was around 1965 or so. In the early 70's they were acquired by Alleghaney Airlines, based out of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, (affectionately called "Agony Airlines") Alleghaney then grew to become US Air. You're right, your color scheme didn;t last more than a year or two at the most. Their most distinctive and longest lived livery was a gray bottom, with a black and gold flash down the sides, with a fin flash of a Mohawk Indian in full feathered head dress. http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0693932/M This is the livery I recall most often, and the one that my wife's father worked for. Unfortunately he was killed in a car accident long before I had a chance to meet him. We would have hit it off as he was also in the Army Air Corp and flew B-24's during WW2. She has some photo albums of his with a lot of pictures from his Mohawk days. I will look and see if there is anything that might be of interest in your build. Cheers Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Big Kev Posted October 18, 2007 Author Share Posted October 18, 2007 Thanks for the info Mike. To be honest I'm not really fond of this scheme - I think the version you linked to looks better - but bugs3144 here on ARC generously sent me his ATP Mohawk decals to use with this build, and they certainly look to be of better quality than the ones in the kit. It will certainly stand out from the usual white and silver combinations you normally get! My understanding about the underside colour is that most BAC 1-11s were painted the same grey, and the Airfix instructions (which, by the way, quote the kit as being 1/72 scale!) show Humbrol 166 for that. I'm going to assume that this is the same colour in use here and get a tin to compare with photos. Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Big Kev Posted October 21, 2007 Author Share Posted October 21, 2007 Not much modelling time this weekend, but I did manage to get a little bit done. I've masked off the windscreen and given the model a coat of Mr Surfacer 1200 (seen in the background): This revealed many areas that still need attention! I've started to address these using Mr Dissolved Putty once more (the spots of lighter colour around the nose and passenger entry door). I'm not entirely convinced by this product yet, as it seems to shrink too much, and forms a skin so quickly that it can be difficult to smooth into place at times. Ironically the Mr Surfacer appears to be a very close colour match for the underside colour this scheme needs, so I'm tempted to just use it as the final colour. I've already bought a tin of the Humbrol 166 that Airfix recommends for this colour, and it looks a very similar shade to the Mr Surfacer. I'm still uncertain what colour the wings should be. The instructions for the ATP decal sheet recommend the same grey as the undersides, but photos tend to suggest natural metal. I understand the the leading edges were natural metal, so it could be just that I'm seeing. Anybody know more? Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Big Kev Posted October 24, 2007 Author Share Posted October 24, 2007 (edited) OK, clean up finally done (though not entirely satisfactorily), and painting proper has begun. For a previous build I decanted some Tamiya TS-26 Pure White out of the rattle can for airbrushing, and had a fair amount left over, so I used it here as well (I store it in an old film canister). It airbrushes quite well, but like a lot of whites, is quite translucent in nature. This means gradually building up colour opacity with numerous coats. Here's the result after going over the fuselage with mist coats continually for about 10 minutes: Being lacquer-based and very thin, the Tamiya paint dries really quickly, so with misting the paint on you can just keep going back and forth between fuselage sides repeatedly until you achieve decent coverage. The downside to airbrushing this stuff is that it tends to be much more 'vapoury' than I'm used to, and even with low paint flow and moderate air pressure, still billows off the model and out into the room. I don't have a spray booth unfortunately, so the result is a stinky vapour cloud suffocating my work space. <_< I plan to let it cure for 24 hours now before giving the surface a light rub down to eliminate all the f*@#$ing hairs and dust that have already settled on it! I'll give it another session with the white after that and hopefully end up with a nice, opaque and shiny white finish. Kev Edited October 24, 2007 by Big Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RookieLSP Posted October 24, 2007 Share Posted October 24, 2007 I plan to let it cure for 24 hours now before giving the surface a light rub down to eliminate all the f*@#$ing hairs and dust that have already settled on it! I feel your pain on that one, Mate! You start thinking the finish is just where you want it, come back an hour later and :lol: see the goodies that settled on your paint. Looks to be coming along really nicely though! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Big Kev Posted October 28, 2007 Author Share Posted October 28, 2007 Time for another update, and as usual, some nice progress was followed by the obligatory minor disaster. First, here's how it looks now: I ended up using Humbrol 166 for the underside colour, and I think it's not a bad match, but probably too dark and a tad too brown. Looks OK, what ho? Well, check this out: I decided to be clever and spray a panel on each engine cowling with the underside colour, with the hope that this would impart some variation to the finish once the NMF was applied. Apart from the obvious paint ridges this left behind (d'oh!), the MM Metalizer I used over the top, being lacquer-based, reacted badly with the underlying Humbrol enamel. It was only after I saw this that I stopped to read the label on the MM paint. The mess you see is my attempt to clean it up with some lacquer thinner on a cotton bud. I also had some paint creep and masking issues in this area: As you can see, the whole show's a mess. I'll have to sand back the offending areas, mask and respray some white, and then remask and respray the Metalizer. I think my next kit will be the easiest piece of shake-n-bake modelling confection I can find. Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Big Kev Posted October 31, 2007 Author Share Posted October 31, 2007 Just a quick update this time around. I had given myself a soft deadline of the end of the month to finish this one, but I'm not quite going to make it (it's 10.30 PM on the 31st down under as I type this). At least I got the painting completed: The repaired Metalizer areas came up OK, but not perfect. Due mostly to my own ham-fistedness, the entire model hasn't turned out quite as well as I'd hoped, but it's OK. There are lots of things that I'd do differently next time, but I can't say I haven't learned a lot - and that's the point, right? Anyone familiar with the BAC 1-11 will also notice that I missed a set of windscreen frames on the side panels. :D I'll attempt to add them using white decal strips. There should also be a series of antennas along the fuselage underside, and one atop the fin, but I'm not sure I can be bothered adding them at this stage. Lazy, that's me! Thanks for looking! Kev Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kingoalie Posted October 31, 2007 Share Posted October 31, 2007 Looks great Kev. I'm glad you stuck with it. Keep it up :D John Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aggressor Supporter Posted November 1, 2007 Share Posted November 1, 2007 I really like how it looks, even at this stage. The metal finish on the engines look especially well done. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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