Steve that Sunderland looks awesome!!
Nick the pre-shading loks great. I have fixed some of my problems and moved on. Will post some photos after the weekend.
Good to hear Dodgy!
I have got some more done on the Hawk. I have worked out my diorama theme too. As you can see from the phot it is what a Hawk looks like under a foot of water…
Many thanks gents…
L.A. its ready for paint…
I started on camo working on latest pics.
got the top and bottom sides of tailplane cut out, now it’s sand-forever-time to get them thin enough to glue together. Doing the same on the wing halves.
John
John. lots of patience with those kits.
latest pics …
some over spray and touch ups to take care of.
Looking sweet Crown. So tommorrow I will post photos, but I have persevered with the Tamiya paints and learnt that with an undercoat they go down fine, provided I spray them. I have also discovered that if I spray a coat of Tamiya gloss, I can use oils, or enamel washes without any problems to the underlying topcoat. I may have to work on my mix though. At the moment I am using 50/50 paint to Tamiya thinners. I would welcome any advice.
Hi Dodgy
I typically use a 1:3 ratio of paint to thinner for my Tamiya paints when spraying and a pressure somewhere around 18 psi. For preshading you can usua get away with a 1:8 mix.
They do tend to need some sort of undercoat and I usually use either XF-1 or one of the greys (e.g. XF-66) for that job. Seems to work pretty well even on etch.
I seem to remember it taking me a while to get used to them, but they’re now my preferred airbrush paints. It also helps the Mike Starmer’s paint charts use them, plus you can reuse the empty bottles for holding mixes.
Hope this helps
Darren
Dodgy. many thanks. I agree with Darren, but I thin the paint and test spray 1st on my test mig.
better to mess up here then on your model. I do paint thin and at 18lbs you can always add coats but you cant subtract coats
Cool guys!
Piers: Good to see the Hawk together!
Falcon John: Nice work. Always heard vac-forms were a pile of work and it looks it.
Nick: Great job on the Spit!
Thanks Darren and Crown. One last question if I may, do you folks also thin the clear coats? I thinned my Tamiya flat 50/50 and it’s dried more of a satin than matt. I am spraying around 18 to 20 PSI and using an old Jagdpanther
Yes, I do thin clears gloss and flat. I apply thin coats also. I like the semi gloss look.
John, yes you have got a lot of sanding to get through, and you will end up with a unique subject out of it.
Nick, that is looking good, nice work with the preshading and thin coats.
I will have to take a leaf out of your book and try thinning more. I had been doing 1:1 like Dodgy, but I seem to loose the preshading too easily.
So I have attached the resin details on the wings (flap fairings and missile rails), made some wing fences, attached a couple of antennae and stuck on the white metal pitot tube. Taking bets about how long I can go without knocking and bending the pitot tube…
She’s coming along great Piers!!! [Y]
Dodgy, did you enjoy the earth tremor today?
Back on the Sunderland. after I attached the keel plate and dorsal turret section and saw some horendious joins. After contemplating this I decided to go with the nuclear option and just use superglue and a file.
With that discusting M0jo sucking exercise out of the way I applied some salve in the form of Tamiya putty to the injuries. Once dry, I’ll sand and sand until the offending areas are smooth.
This is looking to be quite the challaging little build. Blimey!
That is some gnarly seam work! The pilots look appreciative though 
Yeah, that’s some rough seams! You’ve got your work cut out for you Steve.
Wow Steve, they are worse than the seams on my short run Hawk!
Good luck with that!
time to step back and grab the bull by the horns.
Got 'er done! After sanding with a 320 grit sponge I sprayed the areas with a black primer. Once fully dry I’ll tell if an area still needs work. after that I’ll wet sand the areas to get an nice smooth finish the rescribe. Luckily the panels were attached like a ship so the patern should be easy to follow.
This is exactly what made me put the Kitty Hawk F-35 asside. But I’m not stoppn with this bad boy.