<> **** DONE: 1/48 Fairey Swordfish MkII - WW1 / WW2 over Water.

[Crimea_River]

Thanks all.

Looking for honest opinions on the colour of the exhaust ring. Mixture of black and gold, oversprayed with a very thin mix of dark brown. The engine is just dry fitted so I can fix the colour as needed.

 

[Michael Stolting]

Andy,

I know what I did won't be of much help since you're looking for authentic, for sure, absolutely, positively the most accurate, historically correct color. All I did was follow the Tamiya color (colour for those of you from the Empire) call outs - Page 6 of the instructions, step 10. I really have no idea if they're accurate or not. For what it's worth here's another shot of my poor, busted up Swordfish's cowl.

Mike

 

[Airframes]

Looks good Andy, but perhaps a touch light. Mike's looks a bit closer,
Maybe a thin coat of Tamiya 'Smoke' dusted over the top, will darken it a touch, and give a tarnished, 'heated' look ?
When I've done collector tings in the past, I've mixed Dark Earth with a little black and red, and added either silver or copper, mixed until it looked right - all enamels, BTW.

 

[Wayne Little]

Can't help on the colour Andy...doing good anyways...

 

[parsifal]

looks good to me Andy.

For purely selfish reasons, what colour did you select for your crank housing?

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks everyone. My initial thought was that it was too light as well. Michael, I just did the entire engine in gloss black and drybrushed in silver.

 

[stona]

I avoid copper, but it's a tricky one.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Steve. I agree not copper. I think I will go over mine with a very thin layer of black and see how that goes.

 

[Michael Stolting]

"Michael, I just did the entire engine in gloss black and drybrushed in silver."

Andy, I tried (without the measure of success you achieved) to do the engine in the same vein. I only use acrylics as I don't wish to open the windows in my hobby room/man cave to install (even temporarily) a window exhaust fan since the condominium "police" send nasty letters to those of us who would have the audacity to allow the exterior of our units to differ in any way from the common "look".

I realize I'm a little slow on the uptake here, but why, just out of curiosity, are you not following the Tamiya color guide?

Mike

 

[Crimea_River]

I've painted the entire engine black like Tamiya says. Drybrushed silver is to enhance detail. If you mean the silver exhaust stubs that Tamiya called out, I chose not to do that, figuring these would have fouled pretty quick.

 

[Michael Stolting]

I've painted the entire engine black like Tamiya says. Drybrushed silver is to enhance detail. If you mean the silver exhaust stubs that Tamiya called out, I chose not to do that, figuring these would have fouled pretty quick.

View attachment 368310 View attachment 368311

Andy, No, I meant the exhaust ring. Tamiya calls out for X-31 (Titanium gold) for that "skinny" portion and one part XF-7 (flat red) + five parts XF-56 (metallic gray) for the remainder of the cowl. Of course you may not be using Tamiya acrylics in which case my question was based on both ignorance as well as curiosity.

 

[Crimea_River]

Oh I see. I though you meant the engine block as that's the pic you posted. I do use Tamiya acrylics but I don't have all the colours they called out and I wasn't about to go out and spend a day trying to find some for what amounts to a teaspoon of paint I will likely never need again. For metallics I use Alclad paints but I don't have any lacquer based paints that I can mix into them to get the colour I want. So I wing it with what I have and eventually end up with something I like.

I've now sprayed a thin coat of black over the ring and like the result. Pics tomorrow.

 

[Michael Stolting]

"I do use Tamiya acrylics but I don't have all the colours they called out and I wasn't about to go out and spend a day trying to find some for what amounts to a teaspoon of paint I will likely never need again."

Andy,

I sympathize! I'm not usually patient and I am relatively adept at mixing colors but I still enjoy having some colors around that (probably in a mistaken belief) I feel I might use again. Recently I found that it was more and more difficult for me to find the colors I was after in one of my cabinet drawers that was chock full of paint. I ordered a wall cabinet (picture below) meant for model trains that accepts my Tamiya and other brands of paint perfectly. What you see is about 1/2 of the paints I have. The cabinet drawer is still half full - or more than half. I guess I'll have to find a 12 step program for chronic paint collectors.

Mike

 

[Wayne Little]

Now that's a good paint storage idea...!

 

[Crimea_River]

I made my own but it's not big enough. Also won't hold my Alclads as they bottles are too tall. I made it before I started using them.

Anyway, here's the same cowl with the collector ring oversprayed with a thin coat of flat black and the engine now glued in.

 

[Airframes]

The collector ring looks much better Andy, but that bench is just too bl**dy organized !!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Terry. Just cleaned it off with all the Beaufighter flotsam no longer needed.

 

[parsifal]

I'm with Terry. crikey if I was to post a shot of my workspace, it would be embarrassing. but I do know exactly where everything is....

Like the paint storage system. I have my paints in a flat tray that sits on a shelf. You guys have a much better idea.....

 

[Crimea_River]

Cowl support struts have been added. Tamiya's PE set provides incorrect struts for the Mk II as can be seen by the various photos posted above. The struts provided are for a Mk I so I made my own.

At this point, I've made two key decisions. One was to go with the kit-supplied scheme for Swordfish HS158 of 816 Squadron, HMS Tracker in 1943. Two pics of this aircraft are shown below.

Note the deployed leading edge slats which, once again, Tamiya have failed to provide as separate pieces. This is a pet peeve of mine with Tamiya (109 and 262 models are the same) in that these slats were always deployed on the ground and in slow flight so I will need to cut them off the wings and scratch build supports to show them in the correct position.

The other decision is required at this point in the build, namely to display with wings folded or not. I've decided to have it both ways and to fold the starboard wings only and have the port ones extended. Hopefully the model won't tip over!

 

[Robert Porter]

That sounds rather interesting! Have the best of both worlds.