Well I picked this up at the Roscoe Turner in Indy this year it was just odd enough that it stood out.
I have already start on this a bit before I took any pics just putting together a few bits that go in the cockpit and the fantastic engine that comes with the kit. After they was assembled I gave everything in the cockpit a coat of Tamiya black followed by Tamiya RLM Gray on the floor and Tamiya sky gray for the side walls. The leather seats are painted in a very very thin mix of Val model color leather.
After the paint tried I picked out a few things that needed to be painted black. One thing I don’t like so far on this build is the PE gauge panel I normally like them from Eduard but this one is only one piece and you stick a piece of paper on the back that represent the gauges there two piece metal gauges look alot better to me. Either way the panel got dry brushed a dark gray and hit with a coat of Mr. Super Clear Flat. once that dries I will hit the gauges with some Micromark clear part cement to represent glass.
The rest of the cockpit got a clear coat of Alcalad Aqua Gloss. This was the first time I have ever used this and I am very happy with the way it went down. The bottle says it takes 6 hours to cure so weathering is gona be held off till tomorrow. Well thats it till this sets up thanks for looking
Nice start here. This is a little gem of a kit. Got a pic of the instrument panel? Are the gauges a decal or printed on clear acetate? I rather prefer Eduard’s old ways of using acetate printed dials with pe bezels that go on top.
Hey Nathan nope the instrument panel gauges are just printed on a piece of white paper, but while looking over the part trees again I found a panel on it so I tore off the PE one striped the paint off glue the plastic one on then repainted
After I got that taken care of I gave the cockpit parts a dark pin wash then after that dried I gave it a coat of Mr. Super Clear Flat
Tomorrow I will start on the seat belts not a fun task for me. also masked off the top of the motor and gave the rest a coat of alcalad duraluminum
Thanks for looking in any comments on how to improve this are welcome
Got a bit more work done over the past few days I had primed the belts gave them a coat of tamiya buff then picked out some things in silver and val orange brown then gave a final flat coat. Then after all that when I went to bend the belts around the seats the paint still flaked off to bare metal in a few parts so I repainted them in val buff that’s alot more yellow in color the tamiya.
I’m gona go back and probably paint them a dark sand color the yellow buff is just to bright
Also with the belts it had PE hooks on the back I drilled out some holes in the support and replaced the PE with wire.
Got some work done on the motor too and got it installed
test fitting the wings with the cockpit installed found that there was a problem with the gear wells that needed thinned down so everything could fit nicely.
There’s also a gap at the wing roots but that dosen’t seem like to huge of a problem but the nose is strange almost as if its undersized I’m not to sure how I’m gona deal with this one
Thanks for looking, any help especially with that gap at the nose is appreciated
Ouch! That looks tough. If anything…I might suggest at a first thought to use CA to fill the gap there and to also make a softer transition between the two parts. I don’t know if that’s the way you want to go about it. If you sanded the cowl down to match it some, that could somewhat improve it as well.
Rob and bvallot. Im still not sure how I want to take this on but I do know I got to build it up with something either CA or I’ve had luck with bondo spot putty for gaps before
I got a bit more done on the108 this week think I got that nasty gap/step taking care of
This was my first time using Mr. Surfacer have to say I’m not to impressed with it if I had to do it over again I would of just used Bondo spot putty or Tnx and sprue mix. Now that’s out of the way I also got the wings put on got a few gaps here and there I knew from a few reviews that there’s one that will show up around the wing root and it did but they shouldn’t be a big deal
Look into Milliput. It’s a two part putty that can be used to sculpt. Another person here on the finescale forum, Baron, told me about it. It’s great stuff. You may not find a use for it for every build, but when you need it…it’s a charm. =]
Mr Surfacer has its place in the tool box, its not meant to fill extremely large gaps like CA or putty, I found this out the hard way a long time ago. All in all, once you find the best way to use it for your own needs, its a great thing. Also if you let the applied Mr Surfacer set up for a while, three days or more, its much more sandable and if youre using it to fill large areas, build it up by grade, 500 as a base, 1000 next and so on, true its not as fast as CA but youre not fighting time like you are with CA once you hit it with accelerator.
Anyway, I like the progress youre making, this is gonna be a nice looking bird
The panel lines look like they match up very well. I think I would use sheet styrene and laminate the top and bottom of the cowl piece with a strip or strips as necessary to fill in that step out to about half to three quarters of it’s width. Then I’d gently taper in from the base toward the forward end. Specifically, I would use pieces of sprue to temporarily brace the cowl piece from top to bottom and side to side so it will hold it’s shape and use copper wire twisted tightly as a form fitting clamps to hold down the sheet styrene. When the cement dries, remove the wire “clamps” and reshape the part. When finished, remove the sprue braces. Little to no molded on detail will be lost…
bvallot: I’ve used miliput on figures before I really like the stuff I’ve even used it to make ground work for small dioramas. I didn’t think about it for this and its sitting no more then 2ft away from me
USMC: The guy at the LHS gave me about a half bottle of Mr. Surfacer and told me it would be the best thing to use I didn’t even know there was different grades but this one says 1200 guessing this wasn’t the best one to try to use then it took about 6 coats some places 8 to get it to fill in
Ray: Thanks for the info if I find myself in this spot again I will give that a try
1200 is about the finest of the series, I believe they’ve come out with 1500 now, but 500 or 1000 ( the latter is a BIG MAYBE) would’ve worked much better.
Anyway you slice it though, youre building a good looking 108
Howdy Clint. That is a great start on your Taifun. I’m watching closely, as I’ve got one in waiting. I picked up the Monogram In Detail, so let me know if you need a reference point or two.
