Spitfire MkXXI Interior Construction

Well it has been awhile since I have been able to post. Between getting ready for and running the booth at Adepticon and playing catch up with Armorcast orders, I haven't had the time to post anything new.
I have been pecking away at the Spitfire. The photo-etch for the interior has been a beast to say the least. I had to remove the vertical control surfaces and the molded in interior detail to accept the new Eduard pieces. Then I needed to laminate the new air frame structure that are photo-etch components to the body halves.
I also was able to finally troubleshoot and figure out what was wrong with my airbrush set. I thought it was something wrong with the Badger compressor or the water trap since I would get a lot of water blown through the brush. The problem child was the hose. The hose appeared to be in excellent shape, but it had dry rotted from the inside out and must have allowed ambient humid air into the line or shrank and caused pinched areas in the hose causing moisture build up.I got another newer hose out of the box of airbrush parts I inherited from my friend Dave of Warpath Studio who passed last year and everything worked out great without any water spatter.

Right side of the fuselage with Eduard photo-etched airframe in place and painted Tamiya interior green

I then used Vallejo gray primer through my Badger 155 airbrush for the base coat. Then I used Tamiya XF-71 Interior Green for the interior color and thinned it with rubbing alcohol. The mixture of alcohol paint went fine but I used Createx airbrush cleaner between the primer and base color. It did an excellent job of cleaning out the primer but left an oily residue in the airbrush that effected the green paint. I had to strip the paint off and shoot it again. So I found out I needed to run water in the brush to clean out the cleaner. The cleaner has a glycerol base that kept the paint from drying and left it glossy. After cleaning it up with a tooth brush and some lava soap and then the Tamiya paint went on without a problem. Lava soap has a fine pumice grit that roughs up the surface very nice without leaving any heavy scratches.

Viewing the left side of the fuselage the glossy film is from the Createx cleaner that I did not  remove from the airbrush. The paint remained tacky for over 15 minutes before I realized what I did wrong and corrected it.

I followed up with a wash of the new Vallejo 76-512 Dark Green Model Wash to bring out the details and then highlighted with Tamiya XF-21 Sky. I edged the top sides of the airframe and layered glazes of Tamiya Sky into the panels to bring out the detail and add some visual interest.

I flowed Vallejo76-512 Dark Green Model Wash around the airframe to create depth.

I highlighted the edges of the airframe and the inner panels with Tamiya XF-21 Sky

I also forgot to mention that during the priming stage I built up sub section number five which is floor structure and framework for the seat. Needless to say I primed one side and then flipped it over and it was not secured enough on my loop of tape and the air pressure sent the part flying across the the workshop onto a gray concrete floor with a fiddly gray 3/4" long part. I am surprised with myself, I didn't throw the model across the room, I didn't pack it away. I figured out really quick how to fix it. I will discuss that in detail in my next entry and add some of my viewpoints on handling photo-etched parts. So I have been pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I am building an airplane and I really do not know much about the subject, I am using photo-etch parts that are soft copper, not stainless steel, I forced myself to get the airbrush out and fix the water problem in the line and I didn't shelve the model after the loss of a major interior component.

First Primer Coat on Vampirella

After hours worth of filling, puttying and sanding I finally laid down the first coat of primer only to find more pin wholes and areas that still needed filler to be feathered out.

I started to use Citadel Liquid Green Stuff to fill in the fine pin holes. Many needed to be opened up so the filler could flow in on the face and hands. I still have a lot of work around the face where the hair meets the face. There are many gaps between the face and the separate hair component.

And Now for Something Completely Different!

I was allowed to pick out a 1/72 scale airplane kit from a fellow IPMS member from the John Glenn Chapter. Rick was kind enough to let other club members take a kit from a pile of models he brought in. I noticed the Czech made kit from Eduard ( Being of Czech descent it caught my eye). I thought, what the heck, a free kit, I'll try that and if I botch it up, I at least will have tried an airplane model. I was also invited to a local sub group meeting called the "DSS" or Divine Scale Society focusing on all things 1/72nd scale. I brought this model along and started the prep work at that meeting. I started the model in early January.

Above is a picture of the box art and I am going to build the contra-rotating propeller variant with the bare metal finish... More pics coming soon

Making a Silk Purse Out of a Sows Ear or How to Prepair an Ancient Resin Garage Kit

I was approached last fall by a fellow member of my local IPMS chapter to finish and paint an old Vampirella garage kit from the early '90's.

I agreed, but my fears were proven to be too true.
First off, I was told the model was "started" by a fellow member of the club but he didn't get the model finished. Ok, I viewed the model and it was assembled and in the familiar to me early vintage resin in a translucent caramel color. So this dated the kit for me and I could see that the model had hundreds of sub surface air bubbles, yuck. Also the model had major mold slippage. There was at some
point somewhere between 1mm to 1.5mm mis-

registered mold halves, especially along the legs and arms. This is still a lot of work on a large scale model. A lot of anatomy has been ground away and needed to be built back up. There are two ways in my mind to fix this problem, one try to find a mid point to fill up too between the two sides or I have seen modelers grind all of the way down to the base point and rebuild. In my case the model was the latter, not the former. Also at the part joins the model was ground away to make a shallow "V" so

the filler can be feathered. The model had only a few spots filled and a lot of very rough motor tool grinding marks at every seam. It looked really ugly and the person who commissioned me was hot under the collar about how it looked and that it was "ruined". I tried to explain what was done and that you are seeing it at probably the worst point in the prep process. So I have started the arduous process of sanding, filling, priming, rinse wash and repeat
over the past few months. I do not have a lot of free

time to model so when I do I try to really hustle to get the job done. I used Avy's Epoxy Sculpt as the main filler and Citadel's "Liquid Green Stuff" and many sanding sticks. Over the Holidays I was really able to get the bulk work done and in late February I was able to get it relatively under control. The problems I encountered were many fold. The sub surface air bubbles mean that the kit was cast without the aid of a vacuum or pressure to make a clean casting. Any sanding or filing caused the bubbles to show thru the surface and give Vampirella the look of acne scares. The anatomy in many places are really not as good as what it should have been since I did not have the orginal model to take reference photos to ensure I do not loose the contours. I just had to wing it. You can see from the photos that over 30% of the surface has putty on it. with the old resin there are many hazards in trying to work with it, it is brittle and can break easily. It is dense and heavy and tiresome to hold while sanding. I always wet sand resin whenever possible to keep the dust down as well! This is the stage of the model back on 12-29-12. The next installment will show how the model looks with its first and second coat of primer.

Welcome to Ginfritter's Gnomish Workshop

In this blog I will be working on my personal modeling projects, reviewing various modeling supplies and giving updates to new Ginfritter and Armorcast projects I am personally working on.