It’s the week between Christmas and new years. The quiet before the storm.
737
Work continues on the 737. The light grey has been masked and sprayed, using my last, precious, bottle of Model Master Canadian Voodoo Grey. This colour was discontinued several years ago, and Model Master itself was discontinued last year, so it’s highly unlikely I will be able to get anymore. Too bad as it is the perfect colour.
Pictures above show the voodoo grey on the wings. It’s surprisingly difficult to see the grey in the photos, especially on the top of the wings. Its much more visible on the bottom. The tape on the bottom starboard wing leading edge peeled up - very visible in the first picture above - while I was painting, so I already know I need some touch up. I will also need to sand out a few dust bunnies and then see how it looks. My intent is to remove the masking, remask to protect the white upper fuselage, and then spray the PWA blue.
A lovely gloss white! I have been making good progress, and not really doing a very good job keeping up with the pictures. I had to go back and extend the coverage on the upper wings after rechecking my corroguard decals. While checking the Fowler painting instructions, I realized that I had missed the silver ailerons and wingtips, so masked and extended the silver.
My favourite white - for the moment - is Tamiya gloss white. I find it covers well, dries quickly, and gives a hard, glossy finish. First coat went down beautifully. To my dismay, when examining it after it had dried, I found two gaps - “trenches” would be more appropriate - along the top of the fuselage. No clue how I had missed these after priming, as they should have been quite visible. Some filler, some sanding, and then three thin layers of white, and things were looking better.
Happy New Year! Today is January 1 2021. Here’s to a better year. The kids are still sleeping so its a great time to sneak downstairs. Time to put some paint on the most recent repair. Three thin layers of white were needed, and then the masking was removed. As shown in the picture below, the repair along the top of the fuselage was successful. But the separation between white and silver is pretty ragged. I am not sure if I left the masking too long before removing and got paint pull up along the edges, or I had white paint bleed under the masking. Thankfully, it seems to be limited to the area over the wing, on both sides. A light sanding helped on the one side but made things worse on the other. Looks like I will need to mask up and respray the light grey.
This is the port side showing the ragged demarcation between the white and grey. It was the worst of the two sides but looked like the easiest to fix.
The two photos above show the repaired demarcation. The starboard side repaired nicely. The port side was a trial, and required a repair to the white, followed by a repair to the grey, followed by two self-induced repairs to the silver. Poor trigger finger coordination meant the white ended up too thick, resulting in an even worse ragged edge when the tape was removed. Touching up the grey corrected it, but I decided that a quick touch up to the silver immediately behind the wing was warranted. That worked really well except for the big blotch/scratch that appeared on the underside. More sanding and careful masking, followed by a quick shot of silver, did the job. Still not perfect but should polish up well enough. Time to let everything sit overnight to dry properly and then I will polish.
Looking back, I think it would have been easier to have started with the white. I have realized, thru all the repairs, that it is easier to mask from the top of the fuselage, especially over the wing area. The wing gets in the way when masking from below, making it harder to get a straight line. Something to remember for next time.
I polished out the repair but wasn’t happy with the result. The white wasn’t even, and the result bothered me. Next came one of those late night decisions that seemed good at the time but you later wish you hadn’t done I decided to mask up the starboard side so I could spray a white primer layer in an attempt to even things out. I cleaned the airbrush and quickly removed the tape while the paint was still soft. To my horror, part of the new paint and part of the old paint stuck to the tape and pulled away. The result was the jagged edge shown in the picture above. Time to call it a day and come back tomorrow.
I was on the verge of stripping the paint and starting over. With nothing to lose, I decided to first try and sand out the problem area and start over. Here’s what it looked like after the sanding.
After another round of masking, the white was sprayed using white primer. Once dry, the white area was lightly sanded, masked and the light grey sprayed. Things were definitely looking better. Over the course of the next two days, both the light grey and the silver were masked and resprayed. A moment of near panic when spraying the silver after a bit of fuzz became embedded in the paint. The paint was so thin it dried almost immediately. With paint still in the airbrush, I lightly polished the fuzz out and then finished spraying the final coat of silver.
The port side has a little tape tear out just behind the wing. It should be a straightforward repair (fingers crossed!). The starboard side is so much better than before.
The paint didn’t polish out - naturally. So another round of masking and respray. But as shown above, it’s finally fixed.
Now, for the big step - masking the blue. I had previously designed three piece vinyl masks to help paint the blue tail and cheat line. The three pieces consisted of the tail, with the speed bird emblem cut out, the rear fuselage, and the forward fuselage. I had a three part strategy for the vinyl masks:
The tail would be a negative mask. The vinyl would allow me to place the speed bird cut out properly, and properly set the width. Once set, I would use masking tape to outline the tail, remove the vinyl, and leave the speed bird.
The rear fuselage was also a negative mask. I didn’t think the vinyl would do well with the transition between the tail and the fuselage, and it didn’t. It also didn’t do well along the fuselage to tail. The vinyl allowed the shape to be set, then outlined in masking tape and the vinyl removed.
The front fuselage was a positive mask, intended to use the vinyl as a mask. I wasn’t confident that I could accurately place masking, especially as it narrowed to a point. So the vinyl was used directly as a mask in the belief (hope?) that it would provide a better taper.
I started by placing spacers, consisting of small equal height vinyl rectangles, to determine the location of the blue line. The spacers were set at the top of the silver, then the cheat line masks were set so the bottom of the blue lined up with the top of the spacer. The intent was to ensure a constant spacing between the silver and the blue. The idea worked, but made it harder to get a good seal where the mask laid over each rectangle.
Next up was the tail. The vinyl mask set the overall dimensions, and then masking tape was placed to set the outline. Once the masking tape was on, I removed the vinyl on the tail, leaving the speed bird emblem behind.
The rear fuselage vinyl mask went on without any problems. As expected, it didn’t deal with the fuselage to tail transition. Masking tape was use to outline the top and bottom surfaces. The front fuselage was a pain to place. I had hoped to set the front mask location from the rear, but this didn’t work. I had to place a piece of masking tape at the nose to mark where the blue stripe ended, then very carefully line up the vinyl mask against the tape. The port side went fairly quickly, but it took multiple attempts to get the starboard side lined up. The bottom of the vinyl didn’t sit smoothly over the wing, so thin masking tape was placed to set the bottom of the blue stripe. The picture on the bottom left shows the finished masking. The picture on the right shows the first layer of blue, consisting of three thin coats. I think it will need one more coat to ensure even coverage.
Avenger
The Avenger has progressed in between painting and repairing the 737. The fuselage has been closed up, though I forgot to add a small window at the rear of the bomb bay. The wings and stabilizers have been glued together, and test fit to the fuselage. Fit is superb, and I think I will try to paint them separately and then join them afterward.
The black areas on the upper wing is a trial using black panel liner. I wanted to see how it would flow on bare plastic. It worked really well, and could be an effective way to preshade panel lines. Will prime and then try it again to see how it works.
The engine is very nicely detailed. Here are pictures of the parts painted, and then with a wash applied and everything glued together. You can just see the cowl in the right edge of the first photo - click to enlarge and it shows better. The cowl was three pieces, consisting of a left and right half, and then a front cowl ring. It proved tricky to join, as it is an oval rather than circular. Plastic likes joining along flat surfaces if at right angles. An oval is neither, and I could have used an extra hand to hold it all together.
I decided to close up the bomb bay. Most pictures I have found show the bay closed when the aircraft is parked. The bay consists of two sides that are first glued together, then glued to the fuselage. Sounds simple but it needed a lot of tape to get all the pieces positioned and held together long enough to apply glue. A little sanding was needed to clean up the joints.
The pictures above show the nearly completed fuselage - top and bottom. The tape in the cowl was to protect the engine while a primer was applied to test the joints. The primer found a couple of ghost seams that will need a little work.
Oh, remember the phantom piece that “pinged” off somewhere on my bench while joining the fuselage halves? I was pretty sure it was a piece of the photoetched instrument panel but couldn’t find it after twice cleaning my desk. Well, yesterday, while reaching for the glue, a black part fell onto the desk. Yup, it was the missing panel piece. Not a clue where it was but happy that it was found.
I got adventurous one evening and cut out the vac canopy. It was a bugger to cut out, as it had multiple angles and directions to deal with. The straights along the bottom were mostly straightforward, but I ended up using nippers to cut the verticals, and trim both ends. I was scared to get too close to the finished dimension using the nippers, so ended up with a couple millimetres of plastic to sand. The canopy is thin and very flexible, making it hard to sand. I worked it for about 10 minutes to get enough plastic removed to allow a test fit. I will fill the canopy with silly putty, to give it some strength and rigidity, to finish sanding the edges. Here is a picture of the canopy test fit. Still need to remove a lot of plastic at the rear to get it to seat properly, but it proves the fuselage cuts are pretty close.
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