Brush marks on cowling

[stona]

How will he get rid of them?

Steve ( 'avin' a laugh)

[yak face]

never mind the brush marks,how much did that 5 litre pot of WEM colourcoats cost him!!!!? he he!

[stona]

never mind the brush marks,how much did that 5 litre pot of WEM colourcoats cost him!!!!? he he!

Dunno, he obviously had to sell his good hat to get it!

[Gern]

I think he should have puttied and sanded all those seams before he started painting!

[stona]

Not wishing o be too serious here but the seams running along the fuselage frames so beloved of modellers were puttied and virtually invisible!

Andone more

Cheers

Steve

What the hell - one more. Love the Grunherz and what the heck are these colours?

[Guest]

I used to work with an old commercial artist who's job it was to hand paint aircraft markings during WWII. He loved to demonstrate how he painted roundels freehand with a brush!

[stona]

Wow! he must have known what he was doing. I'm sure he did a better job on his roundels than these clowns are doing on these invasion stripes!

They have even painted on to the aileron. They were carefully balanced and I'm not sure they are going to be very popular.The RAAF made sure that control surfaces were one colour in their camouflage schemes, it made repairs/replacements much quicker. On British camouflage schemes you could end up with a mis-match. This Canadian Spitfire has had an extensive repair to the starboard wing including a replacement aileron. AN*V is done in a "B" scheme but the replacement aileron carries "A" scheme camouflage!

Steve

[Guest]

Wow. some interesting pix you guys posted !

I restore full size planes, both "tin cans" and fabric covered and I have to agree that the pannel lines, joints and pinked tapes ect. is not realy all that visabe from 10 to 15 m away.Let allone 1/72 or even 1/48 scale unless you have super vision.

But then it does give some "feel" to an otherwize bland fuselarge.

Another thing I note is that some modlers try to get all the imperfections perfectly smooth, yet if you ever have the oppertunity to look down a plane's fuselarge/wing they are full of dents, wrinkles and "waves" where the skinn is rivited to the structure.

Just look at planes like the DHC1 Chipmunk, you guys in the UK must have loads of them, will fade and weather differently on the allu skin leading edge/fearings ect. than on the fabric wich is usally a more satin or matt finnish due to the dope used.

Later

Theuns

RSA

[stona]

A good point Theuns. I would never presume to tell someone else how to finish their model, it is after all entirely up to them. I think there is a valid case for accentuating some panel lines on a model, even if this is slightly unrealistic. I agree that it adds interest and makes it less "toy like". It is my personal opinion that the modern trend is to over do it, but again I emphasise that that is just for me!

Those " dents, wrinkles and waves" are very hard to do in plastic. I have seen some modellers thin and indent panels very realistically but I'm afraid it is a technique beyond my rather more meagre abilities! I think you can give a good impressiom of the effect with careful shading.

Your other point about the way different paints and materials weather is interesting. I always try and make some kind of distinction between, for example, the aluminium skin of a wing and the fabric surface of an aileron or elevator where appropriate.

I once had the chance to look closely at an original Bf109 with an american aircraft engineer who had never seen a WW2 German machine before. He was very impressed and surprised at how well constructed it was. I remember him commenting on how nicely the panels were "let in" (his words) and flush riveted. He was also shocked at how small the aircraft was, but as I said he was american!

Cheers

Steve

[stona]

Just to show that panel lines could become more visible I'll post this lovely image.

The Emil was known to lose a bit of oil and this has run under the fuselage and wicked up between the panels on frames 2,3 and 4 (behind cockpit to infront of national marking)

In the interest of balance here is another Bf109E on display in Berlin. If you can see a line you've got better eyes than me!

Steve

[Guest]

You are absolutely correct about the difficulty in trying to replicate the skin texture of full size plane on the small models, I will not eventry it!

But then also the modern high gloss paints used tend to accentuate and show those areas a whole lot more than with a matt or satin finnish.

I Looked a the pix of the 109 in mottle cammo, and the "marks" in the pannel lines you talk about almost look like they were painted on with a sealer if sorts to stop water to seep in because of the flush fit.

Usualy the pannels are overlaped front to back on the joint line, but I have seen sealer (looks almost like a spray rubber) painted on joint lines for protection.

Your idea that it is oil is very interesting I must say.

The reason that fabric and allu fades at different rates is because the allu is most likely painted with a enamel or polli utethane paint, and the dope on the fabricis a satin finnish.

What folks do these days is to piant the fabric with the polli urethane auto motive paints with a flex-agent mixed in to keep it more flexable.It does tend to seep out over time and this is when the paint cracks and start to come off.

Yes your American friend is right about the ME being small in comparison to the US planes.

I believe the RAF had the same "glove fit" on their planes ie. Spit vs. Mutang or the Chipmunk vs. T-6 Harvard.

The South African airforce operated mostly europian planes - Aermacci, Dasault Mirages and they are all small compared to F-15, F105 ect.

Off topic I know (sorry) but the USAF and SAAF had air combat simulations between the F-15 and Atlas Cheetah (rebuilt Mirage 3c) a few jears ago.

Although the F-15 had far better long range radar, the pilots reported difficulty in aquiering the Mirages (aprox half the 15's size) visually.

So sometimes being small is OK!

Theuns

[stona]

Your idea that it is oil is very interesting I must say.

Theuns

I can't take credit for the idea as I picked it up somewhere. It seemed (no pun intended) at least feasible.

I can say, first hand, that the joints are virtually invisible at a real distance of two or three metres. Also these machines were not all built by Messerschmitt, there were many sub contractors (Fieseler, Arado etc) so whose to say who did what.

I don't want to sound too serious about it - I build my models for fun - but I quite enjoy researching my intended "prey".

Hopefully we all agree that the most important thing is to make models the way you like. If someone makes a nice model with black panel lines running around the fuselage it is still a good model and I'd be the first to say so.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

Oh yes, we should be in this hobby to enjoy it and not to be overly acurate.For that I still lack lots of experience.

I try to stay with SAAF 1/48 planes where I can as they are easier to replicate and get pix of here.

But then I must say there are few shapes as beautifull as the plan view of the MK 9 Spit.IIRC the SAAF flew Mk 9's up in North Africa and Italy.My Grand dad was an aircraft mac. on Hurricanes in WW2 for SAAF.

I have been looking at a 1/48 Bf 109 (academy kit) but don't have an airbrush yet to do it justice :-( My spraygun I use on full size might be a tad big!

Theuns

[stona]

I read somewhere that the South Africans handed their Spitfire Vbs over to the Canadians when they "upgraded". I can't remember which units. I'm not sure how happy the Canadians would have been, I'm sure they were not too thrilled.

Steve

[Guest]

I will have to look into that one.

I know we had stacks of DH-82 and T-6 that the then Union of SA used to train commenwealth RAF pilots prior and during WW2.

Most SAAF fighter units in North Africa used P-40's ,Hurries and some Spits.

Later they flew DH Vampires.

Upon returning from Koera, so the popular story goes, most of the SAAF P-51's were dumped at sea to make way for F-86 Sabres that they used untill the Mirage 3 and later Mirage F-1's came into use in the mid 60's before the arms embargo stopped all aircraft sales to the SA gov.

The F-1's came up against the Mig 21's and 23's in Angola in the late 80's and 2 21's were destroyed (by the same pilot) using the 30mm cannon at less that 300m.

When our planes were being outmached by later generation stuff, we upgraded old Israeli Kifir airframes to the Cheetah c with better electronics,engine, airframe upgrades and "other stuff".

This was used by the SAAF untill last year and they are now using JAS Grippens and your BAE Hawks for training.

Seems we have been let back into the world again;-)

The SAAF is the oldest or second oldest airforce in the world after the RAF if I am correct.

The SAAF flew SE5's during WW1 and there is a nice example of one here in a meusum.

Theuns