**** DONE: GB-64 1/48 Mustang Mk.IV - One Trick Pony

[Crimea_River]

Thank-you gents. I masked the MSG demarcation and applied the Ocean Grey on Tuesday, then spent the last two sessions masking for the Dark Green. I decided to mask this rather than freehand the green because a close look at the photos on page 1 shows a very tight spray pattern that I never would have replicated.

Masked and ready for DG:

DG applied today:

And masks removed:

I had some small areas of paint peel near the bottom of the Sky Band so will need to touch that up. I also might need to adjust the MSG line a bit after studying the photos further. Once that is done, I'll blast a gloss coat over all this.

Thanks again for visiting.

 

[fubar57]

Love it

 

[Wurger]

 

[Vic Balshaw]

What George said.

 

[Jock Tamson]

Looking good

 

[rochie]

Everything looks better in RAF dark green / ocean grey !

Looks great Andy

 

[T Bolt]

Looking great Andy

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks very much guys. I got a bit anal and decided to adjust some of the demarcation lines a little after looking more closely at reference photos. Here's the tape added for the adjusted lines.

The wider Ocean Grey section at the wing fillet was the major one and there was an adjustment to the upper and lower camo demarcation along both sides of the radiator housing. The others areas were minor. The grey was a bit tricky because I lightened Tamiya's bottled OG with a bit of white, which I always do, so I had to try to colour match it. Since it was not exact, I went over all the grey areas spraying irregular patches just to break up the colour a bit.

Once all this was done, I shot a gloss clear coat on, which will now cure for a couple of days before I start the decals.

My experience with the new Eduard decals has been not great so far and I hope I don't muck them up like I did on my Wildcat. I'll experiment on the underside first to see if the whole peeling off the carrier film thing works better this time and if it's worth doing.

Thanks again for looking in.

 

[Crimea_River]

By the way, I found another photo of my bird in one of the free InfoEduard monthly publications online. These have some great articles in them so I suggest checking them out.

Info EDUARD

Monthly magazine about history and scale plastic modeling.

info.eduard.com

 

[fubar57]

Nice corrections Andy. I've got all the Eduard mags downloaded, just a matter of removing pages that won't be relevant to anything I ever build

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Looks like it's going to be another cracker.

 

[Wurger]

 

[le_steph40]

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thank-you everyone.

Started on the decals on the underside yesterday and after letting them cure overnight, I did the peel thing today. This is a unique feature of these new-fangled Eduard decals. Though removing the carrier film is optional, personally I think the decals look like sh!t if you don't but the risk is that they look even more like sh!t if you do! Here's one decal with the peeling partially done. The glossy areas have the film still on and you can see how patchy that area looks. The patchiness may well disappear if you spray a matte coat on but I decided to peel it anyway. The lighter area has had the carrier film peeled away and you can see how flat and uniform the decal is, like it was painted on.

The downside is that the exposed decal is very fragile and can easily be damaged. Here's the same decal with everything peeled away. Note the scratched where my tweezers had to scrape a little harder to get the film removal started. Also evident is that my panel line filling didn't go as far as it should have, since you can see them pretty easily.

The same decal on the other wing went much better:

I also added some stencils, which you can see in the above pic, but have not peeled these. After adding some of them, I checked my reference pics for evidence of stencils and couldn't find a single one so I think I will stop adding them. The underside is now mostly done after a light wash has been applied:

So, with confidence that the decals shouldn't give me too much trouble, I went ahead today and started on the uppers. Here are pics of how it looks right now with decal solution (Mark Fit) still doing its job. No peeling will be done until these are fully set, probably some time Wednesday.

Thanks again for checking in and I'll see you soon.

 

[fubar57]

Very nice. Not looking forward to the day I have to deal with those; all my Eduard kits are older

 

[Airframes]

Don't think I like that decal system.
After seeing your experiences with them, I'll avoid getting some for a 1/32nd scale P-51D-5, and choose a different colour scheme !

The Eduard "system" reminds me of some decals I used many years ago, on a RAF Phantom, from a UK source, now defunct.
Can't remember the name offhand, but I still have some, and they were a "dry transfer" system. The decal was placed loosely in position, with a "low-tack" backing allowing precise positioning. Once satisfied on the positioning, the decal was then pressed down, and water applied over the thin carrier film on top of the decal, which was then easily removed, leaving a perfect image with a "painted on" look and no carrier film edges, especially effective on a "metal" finish, where a carrier film can nearly always be seen on, for example, lettering blocks.
Possibly the best decals I've ever used in over 60 years of modelling.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

I think you did well there Andy.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys.

Very nice. Not looking forward to the day I have to deal with those; all my Eduard kits are older

As far as I know, the older kit decals didn't have this feature. My Avia B.534 had "normal" decals and my yet to be built early release FW190 should too. I don't know when exactly Eduard introduce this system but it wasn't always there.

EDIT, just saw this on Britmodeler, a response from Eduard: "Regarding the new decals - they can be recognized by having a production date on them - 23.06.2020 and forward."

New Eduard decals with peel off carrier film

Hi guys, according to this video the new Eduard decals are digitally printed with a carrier film that can be removed after application, leaving just the ink - does anyone have any experience of this? Cheers Les

www.britmodeller.com