Post-shading and blending everything

Airbrushing sessions are going rather well these days and seem to be following each other in rapid succession. Maybe it's the weather, maybe I'm counting the days until we go on vacation (4 more days). Best not to dwell on it, in case we jinx it.

I wanted to do some post-shading, because last time, the green layer went on a little too heavy. With a slightly lightened version of the green, last time's smaller nozzle and some extra thinner to keep it all flowing, I slowly attacked the centers of all (well, most) panels. I soon realized it wasn't light enough, so I added some white. Still not enough, added some more, but the paint started flowing more slowly.
Long story short, by the time the thicker paint had left the nozzle and the easy-flowing mix was spraying again, it was TOO LIGHT and I had to add more green. Grmbl-mbl ... I messed up a few of the panels, but all in all the result is adequate and it was a good lesson in patience for next time.

Next up : blending it all together. The green is too sharp against the grey, so I decided to give another try at misting it all over with a very fine coat of grey. Remembering a tip one of you guys gave in a comment to an earlier (failed) attempt, I used 10 parts thinner to 1 part paint. It sprayed nicely but the result was negligible. 5 parts thinner to 1 part paint and we were slowly building opacity.

Everybody always has the same to say about this technique : "If you think it needs one more pass, STOP!" I can agree wholeheartedly, having just taken it 1 or 2 passes too far. I have no idea how further varnishing and (subtle) weathering will influence the colours.

Oh, and I broke off one of the forward antennae. Easy fix, no biggie.
Below is the before and after. Next step : masking for the red and black area's.

Second colour is down

Masking is done with silly putty, because it easily conforms to the contour of the kit, can be shaped anyway you want and is incredibly easy to remove afterwards. The gaps in between are filled with masking tape. I prefer to use regular painter's tape where possible, because it's a lot cheaper per meter than the Tamiya tape.
Then again, the Tamiya tape is THE best tape for straight lines. Regular tape doesn't burnish down as well and paint is more prone to bleeding under the edge.

After the problems last time painting the panel centers (I'm sure you noticed the huge overspray), I decided to give the smaller nozzles on my Aztek another try. I have been experimenting with them in the past, with mediocre to bad results. They're not intended for acrylics - according to the manual - but how else will I do some finer work?
Past experiments always ended with a non-spraying nozzle, requiring several minutes each time to get it going again. I'm not known for my patience, so those experiments were quickly halted. Many months later, I may try again, as was the case yesterday.
To prevent clogging I thinned the paint really well (even though Vallejo is supposed to be usable unthinned) and gave it a go. It was actually too thin to cover the panel centers up close, because the paint was spidering away, but from a longer distance, it worked remarkable well and kept on spraying for the entire session. A victory in one field, but it does mean there's no recognizable shading in the green area.

I'll try to fix it with some post-shading (i.e. going over the panel centers in a slightly lighter version of the paint) and follow up with a very thin coat of the grey misted all over to blend it all together. This is a widely used method to remove contrast between camouflage colours, but something I haven't been able to pull off yet. I'm feeling confident though, so wish me luck ...

Chinook - Time for paint

It took  a long time, but the Chinook-project has reached the painting stage. After getting the canopy in place, I added all the fiddly bits, like antennae, searchlight and stuff I know neither function nor name of.

Some decisions:

• I left out parts 32 at the tail because I couldn't find it on any reference photo's and they just looked wrong. 
• I omitted part 23 because it was badly molded and would just look like an ugly lump at the back of the tail.
• I attached parts 31/38 upside down (also missing on reference photo's), because I'm stupid or blind. The instructions were clear, but I must have had a short circuit in my brain.

Anyway, the only thing left to do was mask up the windows, because after all that work I spent on the interior, I did not want to ruin it with black primer flying through the windows onto my seats.

I settled on cutting pieces of plastic (roughly octogonal) until they fit in the openings and attached them with Maskol (Humbrol's liquid masking stuff), easily removed when painting is done (at least, that's the intention).

Out came the trusty black Vallejo primer for a nice coat of "Don't I look awesome and fierce!?"

I decided to do some panel shading, just because I hadn't really done it before. I always follow the reasoning behind it - breaking up monochrome plastic, accentuating panel lines - but had yet to really try it out. Inspired by several articles/posts/blogs and pushed over the brink by a recent post of Doog's, I tried filling in the panels first, then going over it with a diluted version of the same colour.

I dare say the result so far is looking okay, but we'll know more when the other colours have been added to the model. The colour nuances are actually a lot more visible with the naked eye, not quite getting captured on camera. We'll see how this evolves...

Cockpit repair and some further fiddling

Last time, we ended on a very sour note, with a cockpit looking like this :

A 2mm gap because the canopy is stuck against the control panel

The reason was that I assembled the middle part of the fuselage too far forward and the control panel inside turned out to prevent the canopy from closing.

So, the control panel needed some "adjusting". I have a motor-tool just for this occasion. I ground away about 2mm over the entire width of it, and then the canopy closed easily. I wouldn't say it fit perfectly, as the overall fit of the kit seems to be rather wanting, but it's a hell of a lot better than before.

If you do not own a motor-tool, I can highly recommend one, but if you don't want to spend that kind of money, I recommend metal files, not just sand paper or sanding sticks. You're more likely to ruin a perfectly fine (and surprisingly expensive) sanding stick before you manage to remove enough plastic, especially if it's the harder kind of plastic. I once bought a set of 10 metal files for something like €9 altogether. If used only on plastic, these files will probably outlive me before they show any sign of wear and tear.

Normally, I attach clear parts with MicroScale Kristal Klear, which dries translucent and is ideal for these parts, but it's gluing quality is less and probably inadequate for this big piece. So I used white glue instead (plain old "wood glue"). It dries white, but can be easily handled for several minutes after applying so you can remove any excess with a wet cloth or q-tip.

Tip: avoid the regular cement for clear parts, as well as CA glue, as this last one tends to "fog up" the inside of your canopies.

Lastly, because I didn't like the total lack of detail on the inside of the kit, I decided to add some ribs to "busy it up". It's not accurate by far, but gives a better impression than just bare plastic. Or maybe that's just my opinion.

 

Chinook - Closing up

For the left side of the Chinook's interior I had settled on 2 crates and a row of stretchers to carry patients. The trusty "third hand" helps hold the pieces together until the glue has set. I'm not going to bother providing straps and seatbelts.
I must say this Evergreen styrene is a joy to handle and glue. The Tamiya cement I use glues it together in seconds. That may be because the pieces are so small, I dunno.

A few days and some painting later, this last piece is ready to be installed.

I took time to take some pictures of the finished interior, because - once closed - I doubt you'll see much of it, unless I can get some really good light through the little windows.

And now it's time to close the hull up. Out come the trusty clamps and a day of patience.

The seam is big and will require work, but seems manageable (Keep reading, it get's worse)

I didn't go too sparingly on the glue. When you press the parts firmly together, some of the molten plastic will ooze out. Resis the temptation to remove it while still wet. When sanding the seams afterwards, this extra plastic should have filled all the little gaps. This way, you don't need putty anymore.

The last piece goes on the bottom. Getting the alignment right required some - or in some places a LOT of - extra strips of styrene to make it sit flush.

Here's where the overall fit proves worst (so far), so it will need a lot of filling and sanding and even more ... to get it all smooth.

And the worst part : when trying to fit the canopy, something seems off. That's not merely a gap, you can fit and arm or a leg through it (in scale).

I suspect the middle part (the floor sandwiched in between the two hull halves) sits too far forward. This is because there aren't any locator pins or tabs to get positive positioning of the parts. Now the control panel is preventing the canopy to close. Normally, if this were a simple hull not closing, you'd snip off some of the interior bulkheads until it fits, but this specific part sits behind a clear window and will remain visible.
This will require major surgery to get right. We'll addres that next time.

Chinook - Adding seats and gluing fingers together

The hull consists of three pieces : the bottom, left and right. There's actually a fourth piece - the outside bottom - but I wouldn't call it's fit even remotely acceptable. Filling and sanding will be needed, but that's a problem for later.
There are no locator pins, holes or even small tabs, so it's a bit guessing how it goes together. Overall fit on the parts seems not to have been a big concern in this kit, but I'll do my best.

To make sure the fit remains as good as possible, I glued the right side to the bottom and clamped it all up with the left side as well, but without any glue to it. I left it for a day, to be 100% sure. Then I removed the left half and added the seats inside. The result is to my liking.The height of my scratch-build seats was spot-on and the top bar fit perfectly in the designated groove.

 

So, with the right side done, I had to decide to mirror the other half or to do something else and I decided to go for a row of bunk stretchers, to transport patients. On the far end, I wanted to add some stacked crates, just for the hell of it.

The styrene sheets I have are REALLY thin (.005" - or 0.13mm if you believe the metric system is the future), rendering them absolutely useless for creating anything box shaped.
I decided to use an old credit card. Of course, this kind of plastic cannot be welded together with plastic cement, so we resort to good old CA glue. I had forgotten how I hate working with this, and in no time, my fingers were firmly stuck together.
Some pulling, cutting (yes, I cut my fingers apart - carefully!) and a surprisingly wide range of strong language later, I figured I needed several extra hands, only to realize shortly after that I HAVE an extra pair of hands, which I bought for my attempts at soldering stuff together (which I should really get around to doing anytime soon, but I digress).

So, without any more problems, I created two boxes and glued them together. Some extra styrene strips finished the load and it's ready for painting. To be continued ...

Chinook - Progress report

Just a quick update on the Chinook. I finished 2 more sets of seats and primed them black, because I don't know how well the paint will stick to the Evergreen styrene without it. A first coat of Scarlet Red was too wet, so a second will be added later.

I also spend some time masking the canopy. Everybody loves canopy-masking, right?

Sprue Cutters Union 29: While you are out

The Union is back! Just a small change : assignments will be monthly instead of weekly. Kudos to Jon for finding a way to bring the Union back, even though his work and modelling schedule were drastically changed (and reduced).

- How do you stay in the hobby when you're away from the bench? -

I'm not a super-active modeller. Sometimes weeks go by without a visit to the workbench and I do believe it's been over 2 months now. That's actually way too long if I ever hope to at least pretend to finish some of my stash, which is why I continued work on the Chinook a few days ago.

This is actually an important role of the Union (for me personally, at least) : triggering the urge to have something to write about and dragging me back to the workbench.

What do I do when away from the workbench?
When not playing or preparing for AD&D, playing Diablo or just catching up on NCIS or Hawaii Five-0, I do most of my modelling-related research and preparation a few minutes in-between stuff at work or in a spare moment.

• Googling pictures of one of my current projects, either to make sure I'm going to use the right colours or finding inspiration for a paint-scheme.
• Looking up articles on a new technique I want to try (currently : filters)
• Reading all your blogs and watching a lot of pictures in general. Facebook is the easiest way as you just keep scrolling and model after model passes by. I keep finding inspiration, be it a technique, a tool, a kit or a setup. Not sure when I'll put it all in practice, but I have a lot scheduled for "one day".
• Taking and replenishing inventory : tools, paint or whatever. Ordering Evergreen stuff online in preparation of some scratchbuilding I intend to do. I hate when you sit down at the bench, only to discover you're missing something or ran out of a specific colour.

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Check out what fellow unionists wrote :

• Scale Model Soup
• Build the world with me
• The Eternal wargamer

Scratchbuilding stuff

Ever since I started work on the Chinook, even though there hasn't been much progress, I've been thinking about and researching how to do the interior, if I want to leave the cargo hatch open.

Out-of-the-box, the kit is bare on the inside, but I'd like it to look more like this :

That means adding some detail on the sides of the hatch opening and find a way to make some seats in there. Both will require fiddling with styrene, something I've been meaning to do for a long time, but have been postponing. I finally decided to bite the bullet and purchase some Evergreen sheet, strips and rods.

Eduard has several nice interior sets, including seats and stretchers. At roughly €15, the price is acceptable in itself, but almost twice what I paid for the model. I try to steer clear of after-market as it's a slippery slope once you start buying upgrade sets. Also, buying photo-etch would completely defeat the purpose of trying to build something from scratch.

For the seats, I decided to go with (Tamiya) tape, instead of styrene sheet, because of 2 reasons : I'm hoping it will look convincingly enough like textile (styrene sheet would be too smooth) and it easily bends around the rods. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Once the glue had set, I was eager to test-fit it inside the fuselage, to see if I got the dimensions right. At first glance, results look promising.

I'll have to make 5 more, but have not yet decided on the exact configuration. Existing configurations are 2 rows of seats, or 1 row of seats and 1 with stretchers for a medical evacuation, but any combination will probably have existed sómewhere for some practical purpose. I'm currently thinking of 3 seats (1 folded down, 2 up - easier to make :-)), 1 or 2 stretchers and 1 empty space with some cargo-crates.