GB-43 1/48 Mosquito FB.VI - Aces' Aircraft of all Eras

[Crimea_River]

Thanks gentlemen. Just one pic to show today. As mentioned above, I am painting and weathering the inner wing and nacelle surfaces before attaching the wings permanently so that I can better get access to these areas wityh my airbrush. Work started with a thin black preshade that intensified around the engines. I then sprayed a thin coat of Tamiya's Medium Sea Grey, slowly covering the preshade. Before I got too far, I then mixed some white into the MSG and went over the areas again in a random pattern to finish off the base coat and to incorporate the preshading until it looked right to my eye. Below can be seen the finished result. Unfortunately, the shop lighting tends to wash out some of the shades and reduces the impact of the effect somewhat.

The rectangular indentations with the holes are Tamiya's method of locking in the wings. The inserts come with pins that line up with the holes in the wing and fuselage to pull everything tight. I expect that these, and the wing roots, will need to be touched up once the wings are glued.

The next step is to add the exhaust stains. A study of many photos shows a wide variation in the extent of these but the shot of Hairless Joe in from the front quarter in post #60 shows that my subject was quite dirty. Just how I like it!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Wojtek.

Onwards. The exhausts stains on the inner nacelle surfaces were done. The high temp metal panel immediately behind the flame damper opening had initially been painted with Alclad Magnesium. Once the very thin brown and black staining was sprayed, the panel was exposed by dabbing it lightly with a cotton swab soaked in lacquer thinner.

With the tight areas now painted, I glued the wings on. Now, I tried to dry fit first with the pin piece in on one side and the trial showed that I should have filed the inner flap surfaces further back so that there would be a gap between the flap and fuselage. Tamiya's moulding is so precise that the flap is much too close. I had opened the gap on earlier dry fits but I noticed after installing the pin that it still was not enough for the deployed flap to clear the reinforcing strip over the rear hatch on the starboard side. Well, there was no fixing it now as the pin was so tight that I could not get it out again without causing a lot of damage. These wings would have stayed on without glue but I went ahead and glued them anyway.

There is a small gap that will need attention and the elastic bands were not able to close it completely.

With the wings setting, I placed the model on my granite tile and checked that everything was level and symmetrical. Satisfied, I then glued in the horizontal stabs and adjusted the level with clothes pins, making sure that they were square with the fin and main wings.

That's it for today. Thanks for watching.

 

[fubar57]

Love the exhaust staining

 

[rochie]

Very nice Andy

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Great stuff Andy. I had a similar problem with those pins when I did a NF.XII conversion from the Tamiya kit.
Good work on the weathering, and hope you can get the desired overall effect. The fabric 'skin' on the Mossie got quite dirty in service, rather hard to replicate on a model without over doing it. I remember Ted Sismore commenting on my painting of his aircraft on the Shell House attack, when he thought I'd captured the shape and action, but the aircraft was too clean !!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks chaps. I'm liking the undersides so far but will also gloss coat it and give it a grey panel wash, plus some additional grime around the engines.

With the major parts now together, I will need to clean up the wing/fuselage seams, including those pin inserts, and get on with getting the vac-formed canopy installed. In hindsight, it may have been better to add this before putting the wings on but I didn't want to risk damaging it as it's a bit delicate. The downside is that the seams will be harder to work but hopefully the fit will be good.

The canopy will also receive a scratch built internal frame using lead wire or solder that I will need to carefully shape, glue in place, and paint without marring the clear part. Interestingly, the canopy framing will be all black as it appears in photographs a detail of which I attached below. It's been suggested that this aircraft received a replacement canopy scavenged from an all-black NFII. Though the outer frames appear to be black, it looks to me as though the interior frames are grey green. Do you agree?

 

[Airframes]

Yes, cockpit grey green internal frames. Always wondered why that canopy looked black !

 

[Crimea_River]

I agree. The reason I double checked is that the frames and much of the cockpit on our B.35 restoration project were repainted black, perhaps a late/post war practice.

 

[Airframes]

Yes, I'd guess so. Many RAF WW2 era aircraft had their cockpits re-painted in matt black, sometimes quite roughly brush painted, and of course, it became the 'standard' colour in the 1950's to mid 1960's.

 

[Gnomey]

Looks great so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys.

 

[Crimea_River]

Time to cut out and detail the canopy and thanks again to Terry for sending me this Rob Taurus aftermarket piece. This is not the typical hair-thin vac-formed unit that I'm used to as it's made of a much thicker plastic and yet beautifully clear and well-formed. It is, however, a bit thinner that the kit-supplied part.

To cut the excess material off, I squashed some moulding clay into the cavity to give the canopy some rigidity and to allow it to be handled easier. A sharp scalpel was used to gradually score the plastic until it was cut through.

I spent a good hour cutting away the last few bits and making fine adjustments with a file while constantly checking the fit. The canopy ends up fitting very well if one is careful to cut away just the right amount. The trickiest part was the small box on the windscreen which represents the enclosure for the wiper motor. I could not get this to work well so I ended up cutting the box off along the line of the windshield. I'll ad that back later along withe the actual blade which is missing. The pic below has the box still in place.

With the canopy cut to size, I gave it a wash with dish detergent to remove all traces of the oil in the clay and got on with adding the internal frames. The Mosquito's canopy was made up of bent circular steel tubes with flat plates welded to them to which the glazing panels were attached. The tubes came in two diameters: 7/8 inches and 5/8 inches which scales to 0.46mm and 0.33mm respectively. I ended up using 0.4mm lead wire for the larger tubes (seen partially installed in the below pic) and will use 0.3mm lead wire for the smaller. Both have been prepainted with grey/green and the pieces were cut to length and glued in place with tiny dots of CA. The main frames shown below will also have the exterior panels masked and painted, first with grey/green so that they are visible from inside and then black. The remaining smaller frames, which are yet to be installed, will not have any further outer frames painted as these served as support frames only for the clear panels that spanned over them without any external framing.

Back to those pesky pins on the wing underside, a close study of plans and photos confirms that this are was free of any rectangular panel which these pins may have represented so it's now a matter of blending them in with the surrounding surfaces. Tamiya surface primer was dabbed into the seams and allowed to dry.

Careful filing revealed that the plates were not entirely flush with the wing surface. The high points were filed away but the low points need more fill so another dab of primer has been applied. This is my least favourite aspect of modelling and I hate it when surface detail disappears as a result of this kind of work. I'm trying to be careful not to scrub away the nearby access hatches but one (on the right) is already marred.

I plan to get more done tonight so should get some more pics up over the weekend some time. Thanks again for following along.

 

[fubar57]

I was unaware of the internal frames....cool

 

[Airframes]

Excellent attention to the detail Andy, and it's already looking the biz !

 

[Crimea_River]

Thank-you George and Terry. The framing is now done and the canopy is now undergoing the tedious chore of masking. Unfortunately, there are a few places where the CA touched the inside of the clear parts where it shouldn't have. I may be able to carefully get it off with debonder but I'm afraid that I may loosen the rest of the frames and make a real mess.

 

[Wurger]

Well done Andy.!

 

[Airframes]

Great !

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far Andy!