**** DONE: GB-36 1/48 FW190A-5 - Axis Manufactured Aircraft of WWII

[fubar57]

Coming along nicely. You've probably already checked this route...Frisket Film

 

[Crimea_River]

Yeah, thanks Geo. Had trouble finding it in town last I looked. It's pretty close to the first stuff I tried though.

The issue I now have is with the cutter. I've cleaned up the files and retried the cuts but it seems that the cutter rotates in its mount, leaving small gaps and round edges in places. Not sure this is going to work for the crosses.

 

[JKim]

Hope you get it figured out Andy. At least you have lots of options. I really like the Montex masks but that would be an added cost. And there's always <gasp> decals.

 

[Crimea_River]

Took a crack at creating masks for the underside crosses which actually are even smaller. I used the out-to-out dimensions of crosses in my decal stash to confirm that these are 18mm wide and made the masks to suit. In doing so, I know I'm pushing the limits of the Cricut machine and the mask material as the outer black L's on the crosses would scale to just 18/32 or 0.56mm thick.

I started with masking for the outer limits of the cross and painting the white first this time.

The masks for the white L's were then applied, 4 in each cross, and I was able to use some of the extremely thin black L pieces to line them up and eyeballed the location of the rest. I then painted the black colour using Tamiya Rubber Black which is a duller black.

This is the reveal immediately after pulling the masks. As you can see, the thickness of the outer L's is inconsistent which was to be expected given the thickness.

Here's the other side after touching up the black using a .5mm art pen. Not bad I think. There are some tiny areas where the white needs to be touched up but I will need to wait for the black ink to dry.

Having now produced an acceptable painted hakenkreuz, I know the capabilities of the machine. I'm thinking that these smaller crosses are a lot more work than it's worth and certainly don't see myself making the complex (black/white/black) swastikas. However, the simplified, late war insignias should be a cinch as would be aircraft numbers, squadron codes, and simple personal markings.

I'm now debating whether I'll do the fuselage crosses as these are the same as the ones above but the upper wing crosses are probably a go. I like that I can control the colours using this method.

Thanks again for your interest.

 

[turbo]

Nice job Andy. Looks as though they'll always need some touching up but that's a small price to pay for the advantages of painted markings over decals.

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff Andy.
If it's a bind doing the crosses, then that's not too much of a disadvantage, as decals are always available. The big advantage of the machine is being able to do numbers, letters, roundels and other shapes, not readily available as decals, and that alone is worth the investment.
I've lost count of the hours spent searching my decals files, and supplier's web-sites, for a certain style, size and colour of number or letter, only to come up 'zero' !

 

[fubar57]

Agree with Terry. Insignia masks are a dime a dozen....or more accurately, $150 a dozen. However, a lot of projects I am stalled on have to with the inability to acquire the correct size shape or color of a squadron code. If your machine can achieve this, I'm in. I would still suck at it

 

[Crimea_River]

All true gents but painted "decals" are superior in my opinion if a good likeness can be achieved. I did want the machine mainly for the instances Terry has talked about but if I can get this to work for insignias then so much the better.

 

[Airframes]

Oh, definitely - if you can master the masks for crosses, in particular, then painted marking will always look better. It'll be a bonus if you get it sorted Andy, but those crosses you've done so far aren't too bad anyway.

 

[parsifal]

painted insignia.....looks hard to do to me but I can also see the superior finish as well.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far Andy!

 

[Wayne Little]

A tough task, but getting there Andy..

 

[JKim]

Great you're getting the masks sorted out, Andy! Still a toss-up choice between the masks and decals, IMO.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks very much everyone. Since the last update, I managed to do the upper wing crosses, which are a slightly different pattern than those on the fuselage and wing undersides. I used a lightened black for these as they would have seen a fair amount of sunlight adn, after these were done and touched up, I glossed the model. I've decided to decal the rest as I've proven to myself that the fuselage cross and swastika will probably be too delicate in detail to obtain a crisp rendering. I'll definitely use the mask method for roundels though and will need to give US insignia a go as well. Japanese would be a cinch!

 

[Wurger]

 

[fubar57]

Beauty

 

[turbo]

Looking good Andy

 

[Crimea_River]

Thank-you gentlemen.

Fuselage insignia and the personal marks. A couple of bubbles on the cross to be poked and pressed down.

It occurs to me that the tail wheel sits a bit high and looking at one profile shows that the distance between the top of the tire and the yoke could be much smaller. I'll need to check into that some more and make some adjustments if necessary.

 

[Airframes]

Nice ! The crosses turned out well, and it's looking the biz overall.
Maybe the tail wheel assembly was modelled from an example hanging from a roof, or up on jacks, when the yoke wouldn't be under load ?