Operation Lancaster / Bismarck

Well it been a short while, a rough week at so today was day of relaxation, finally after bump starting my body with a cooked breakfast and numerous coffees went up to my Workshop I really need to sort it out but in the mean time until my new workbench [Danas office desk at the moment] moves it way to the attic im stuck with the one ive got, i also realised that i don’t really need 4 model projects going on at one time,

• Ford Focus just needs some more detailing
• Red Arrow Gnat, a present from my Dad to Jake, which ive been building for a while,
• Bismarck, coming on well, but a reckon another 3 months and it should be done
• Lancaster, well started that today

Also took some photos of my workbench and the hull of the Bismarck being sprayed Hull Painted The hull was prept with 1000 grade Wet-N-Dry, to enable the paint to key to the surface, 3 spring clamps were used to grip the inside and act as a stand Mixing the paint is really personally down to you, for a covering this size i used my Airbrush set on a mixture of 50/50 of paint Vs Air, and the paint mix is 60% paint 40% Thinners, a paint area this size will need covering twice, the first is a high coat of paint, once dry rub down with 2000 grade wet and dry in soapy water, wash off with clean water, and rub down with a tac cloth, the final coat as its going to be a Matt finish needs to be 25% paint 75% thinners to make the thinners flash off quick and give a smooth and flat surface, on the pictures you can see the paint has been sprayed on and you can see where ive started to rub it down to flat it off. Meanwhile paint the deck area has started to come to the finish section, however times have moved on and now Liquid Masking is used a lot, i prefer the Latex type , its clearly seen in the picture, the Deck coating was sprayed done and allowed to dry off, then grey need to be sprayed on, so apply the liquid mask and let it dry, cut out the lines with a scalpel , peel off the section that needs spraying and away you, once dry peel off the purple coating and you have a clean line and paint area. OPERATION LANCASTER I also started on the model Jake got me for Christmas, so whilst waiting for the Hull to dry, i started on getting the Lancaster ready, I store each model im working on in its own plastic draw, i cut the model box front off and that gets stuck to the wall as a quick reference. All the parts are stored in this one plastic draw, then with the instruction in hand you need to sort your paint out, Once they are selected from your Paint tins/bottles, lay them out ready, some parts need paint mixing together, i normally make up a full bottle to save time later on, Then its start cutting and filing, after ready the instruction, select the part you need, I then trim the spurs off from the plastic injection moulds now, using a thin blade scalpel, a file and wet-n-dry i rub and file the excess away making it smooth. When it comes to gluing it’s a mine field out then, super glues, epoxy, Liquid Poly, Normal model glue, glue for silver plated parts, anyway i like to use Liquid Poly, hold the parts together and just dab the glue on one of the joins, capillary reaction will draw the rest of the glue around the join. I use various tricks when im building my models, but the most common ones are Plasticine, and Medical Forceps. Ive started on the gunners section, two of the crew are stuck down to the plasticine and then dry brushed with Olive Drab paint, Anyway its all about waiting for it glues and paints to dry now, Tune in Next week to see Hull Detailing Begin.