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

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Airframes said:
But everything stops for tea !!
Click to expand...

If only....

The decals are finally complete. I decided not to place all of the stencils but, even so, there are a lot of them. In continuing to weather with the gloss coat on I may yet decide to partially overpaint some of them.



The "Hairless Joe" motif is made up of 3 separate decals, excluding the victory tally underneath. The original issue of this decal sheet included only one option with the character having grey hair. On this modified release, a further decal overlay has the hair in yellow. Getting the three decals to align exactly was extremely difficult. Note the slightly darker grey sprayed on the fuselage just to the right of the motif, a feature evident in some photos.



The decals are superb, opaque, and perfectly registered.



The upper inner wing area showing stencils and the recently painted doped fabric over the dinghy opening.



While allowing the decals to set, I turned to the crew hatch and added lots of detail. Unfortunately I did not include a "before" pic but the following was done: two indentations on the bottom of the door were filled, two stowage bags were scratch built and glued in place, various attachment points added, moulded door latch removed and new one added using stretched sprue, latch mechanism cover made deeper with styrene card, emergency release handle and cable added.

 
Beauty !
The Avieology decals are the biz - I used their Mossie stencil sets on my FB.VI and PR.IX.
I remember banging my head on a door stay on the now lost BAe T.III. This was a steel rod, hinged at the top right of the door (as viewed), locating into slot on the fuselage / wing root.
Whether this was standard fit, i don't know. I haven't seen any signs of a locating point, or the stay itself, on doors on preserved Mossies, so it might have been a 'on off' on the BAe aircraft.
Pic below of said Mossie T.III, from DH Mosquito Vol 1. by Stuart Howe.


 
Thanks guys.

That's non-standard Terry. The prop is a actually attached to the door at the bottom with a hinge and, when stowed, clips to the bottom edge of the door. In the below pic of KA114, you can see the open door with the prop in place. The end of the prop has a pin that inserts into a small hole in the sill of the opening.



I'm actually glad that you brought it up because I had thought that the prop was stowed vertically behind the ladder. You can see the bar that I'm talking about between the two legs of the folded ladder in the above pic. However, when I checked, I discovered that the bar is actually the handle for the emergency hand pump so I now need to add that part to my door. I had also meant to make and attach the internal pull handle but completely forgot. Another pic with the adds will be posted tomorrow.
 
Thanks for the confirmation Andy, I didn't think it was standard fit, and omitted it from my FB.VI.
Now that I know what it should look like, I'll try to add it to my model.
 
Entire model has been coated with Tamiya Flat Clear. I did the bottom first, installed the undercarriage, then sprayed the uppers. The propellers are just pressed on now - they are those ones that Tamiya likes with the vinyl bushing that allows them to pressed in and removed again.




The flat coat revealed some silvering on a few of the stencils, this one being the worst. It's always hard to see with the gloss coat on but sure pops out with the flat coat.



Some Solvaset and a pin took care of it, though it left a stain. I went over it with a fine mist of dark green to tone it down but also lost the detail. I'm not sad as it's always debatable how many of these factory applied stencils survived operations and repairs. There were outboard incidence board marks and dihedral checking points to be applied but I chose to leave those off the tail as things were looking a bit crowded.



Back at the crew hatch, I added the emergency hydraulic pump handle, the door pull (using copper wire), and the leather strap on the center stiffener which secured the folding crew ladder.



The door has been glued in place and the support prop installed, though you can't see it in this pic. Also seen here is the finished panel highlighting and streaking applied behind the fuel filler caps.



The kit canopy, which I used as a mask, has been removed and I'll now add the final touches to the cockpit (gun sight and rudder trim wheel on the coaming) and then glue on the vac-formed canopy. The latter will also get some added details, with some more electronics mounted onto the framing but I first need to go back over my thread to jog my memory of what exactly I will depict there, though I have a pretty good idea.

Thanks for your interest and patience.
 
They weren't in that pic Terry but I remembered them soon after thanks.

Gun sight and rudder trim crank added to the pit and the IFF switch box has been started. Pics soonish.
 
Thanks Hugh. The kit gun sight is the usual clear part with the too-thick reflector glass with a seam down the middle. It's de rigueur to lop off the reflector and replace it with a piece of clear packaging cut to size so that's what I did. I also added two small support struts, just to be cute. To the right of the sight is the unmodified kit part representing a small switch box for the radiator flap servos and the air filter and, beside that, the rudder trim crank. The latter should have a flex cable running from it along the edge of the cockpit coaming that I will add, if motivated, before the canopy goes on.

 
The last two days involved adding the final details to the cockpit before gluing on the canopy. One of my best references was this excellent close-up picture from the Vintage Wings of Canada website. There are a few things of interest to me here. First off, you can see the top of the Gee receiver at the extreme lower right. To the immediate left of that, bolted to the vertical canopy frame, you can see the back of the mount for the IFF control unit that Terry and I were talking about way back in posts #77 thru 82. To the left of that and just next to the observer's face, you can see a light coloured thingy attached to the upper frame of the canopy and extending down behind the pilot's seat. This features in many Mosquito pics and I knew from a drawing that I have that it was a bungee chord. I never knew what it was for until I dug a bit deeper recently and discovered that it acted as a tensioner to assist with raising the seat! Finally, just in front of the windshield and on the top of the fuselage, you can just make out the tube for the de-icer spray system. Though this is not my subject aircraft, the black canopy framing is also of interest as it represents another example of a possible replacement canopy from a black-camouflaged night fighter.



To replicate the bungee chord, I painted a length of solder and CA-glued the lower end to the back of the pilot's seat with the upper end pointing roughly toward the target canopy frame.



The IFF control unit was scratch built from styrene card, lead wire, and rod, then painted and CA glued to the canopy frame. The wiring was cut long enough to disappear out of sight behind the Gee indicator in the cockpit.



I then dry fit the canopy, snipping off small bits of the bungee with a finger nail trimmer until the canopy sat down properly with the bungee touching the frame.



This poor picture shows, barely, the flex cable attached to the rudder trim unit on the coaming.


With that done, the canopy has been glued in place and the next batch of pics will deal with that.
 
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