Tamiya 1:48 Douglas Skyraider A-1J

[Guest]

As requested, here are the details of the drier. It has been assembled using instructions from Bobby Waldron on Genesis Models.

The box assembled ready for use. Temperature can be varied using the dial on the fan heater, or by moving it further away.

The box is one of those plastic containers found in piles in the pound shops. It is a little brittle to work with, so care is needed when cutting and drilling.

An aperture slightly smaller than the size of a pan scourer is cut into the box. The scourer is held in place with duct tape and alu cooking foil is place on the outside face of the plastic box to keep it cool. The scourer is a good dust filter and can be replace for a few pennies if needed.

A few holes are drilled in the back of the box to allow the warm air to flow through the box.

This is where the hot air enters the box. As you can see, I have made every effort to make the build look pretty - NOT! :-)

No foil at the back of the box. A cheap thermometer gives an idea as to whether you model is about to melt or not.

All of the rest of the box is lined with cooking foil to bounce the heat around inside the box.

I already had the fan heater so it cost me less than £5 UKP to build this.

It really works, and lets you dry paint, fillers, and glues much more quickly.

[Guest]

The next stage completed, pre-shading....

My patented sander/rescriber/riveter checks that I havent missed anything

[Lee W]

Thanks Graham. Think I might have to invest in said parts

As for the patented sander/rescriber/riveter, i'm gonna pass thanks, I can't see it catching on personally .

The A1 is looking the bees

Lee

[Guest]

Awww so sweet! Although my moggy would have thought it to be food & licked half the paint off!

[Guest]

The Skyraider's looking good so far, and the "drier box" is a top idea.

[Guest]

Excellent preshading work

[Guest]

I have the feeling that we are going to see another masterpiece.

Francesco

[Guest]

This is the first model that I have tried to paint using 1/48th scale paint adjustment. I have often found that the standard colours on my models look dark when used, so here are the colours I have mixed up for this Vietnam canouflage Skyraider.

I just used a mix of Tamiya colours that I had on the shelf.

This is the tan colour mixed for a lightening scale effect.

The scale effect green.

Scale effect Olive Green.

And finally the underside.

For the underside, I airbrushed on a very thin coat of the light grey and let it dry for a few minutes. I then sprayed about 5 thin layers until the desired amount of pre-shading showed through. Once I had dried it in my drier, I went over the paint with a polishing stick to merge in the pre-shading with the grey and smoothed of the matt paint.

The camouflage scheme took a bit of planning! The kit comes with a full model scale plan of the paint scheme, so I placed wide masking tape on the plan and traced the camo. outline with a pencil. Once peeled off, I cut the curves in the masking tape with a modelling knife and stuck them on. Onece the light tan was airbrushed, the mask was peeled off. The camo lines on the fuselage were masked using 4mm automotive flexible masking strip, which sticks well with no residue left and is lovely and bendy

I continued with the olive and then the green, drying the paint and then buffing it down with a polishing stick, to give a more worn and bleached effect.

I finished of with a few coats of acrylic floor gloss (Lakeland brand) to seal it all in. Decals and weathering next, I am aiming to try and keep it reasonably subtle, but I'm not sure yet how it will turn out!

As usual guys, any observations or constructive comments are welcome.

[flyjoe180]

That is amazing attention to the scaled paint detail. Very nice work. look forward to the next installment.

[Guest]

Excellent stuff! I'm all for the concept of colours mixed to scale - for instance black should never be ' black ' as it's too dark in small scales.

The camo looks amazing, such a clean finish!

2 questions : what's the program / application for determining the scale colour & what polishing stick are you using?

Cheers

Patrick

[Guest]

Thanks guys, my reference for scale effect colours are taken from cybermodeler.com. I then used the app to mix up the colours from the paints that I had on the shelf.

The polishing sticks come from flory models.

[Guest]

Thanks Graham, I'll check them out

[papa 695]

That's looking great Graham

[Guest]

Thanks guys, my reference for scale effect colours are taken from cybermodeler.com. I then used the app to mix up the colours from the paints that I had on the shelf.The polishing sticks come from flory models.

[Guest]

All done!

Please feel free to make any obsetrvations or ask any questions.......

Thanks for looking.