RICHARD WILLS

I'm going to be posting the order forms out to those who have confirmed their desire for a Tempest on Monday . This system worked well on the 190 logistics , so keep an eye on the post next week . There will be a stamped addressed envelope included so you just have to tick a few boxes and sent it back .

What Paul said is generally true . However I have a vast collection of wheels from different manufacturers . On the same brand you could definitely go from 70mm to 76mm for rough strips . If you are not worried about looks , I have some larger and thinner than that . So anyone having issue like that , should always ask me first as I may be able to swap out the wheels for something bigger and thinner . From a looks point of view the ones shown always look in the ball park and weigh almost nothing . Ive always liked them . But I do think you have a valid point .

Another useful tool here . The sanding drum . Makes lightwork of the edges and tidies up nicely . Just fits in a standard drill chuck . That is pretty much it . Apologies for mine looking rough , but I'm sure you appreciate I dont really have time for hanging about . I reckon you could do the whole lot in an hour if pushed . But to be fair .......Ive done a few . Any questions?

The ribs need to be flush or nearly flush with the bottom wing skin . When you are entirely satisfied with the fit . , brush some water into the cuts and then add the laser cut mount with golden gorilla glue . It will expand to make a really good grip on the foam . You can sand off nay slightly proud bits later . The kits will also include some strips of ply to line the wheel wells . I have a stock of plastic wheel wells , but never found them easy to fit or convenient . They work better on built up wings , but even then they have snags . Wood is easy as it glues well and is quick to fit . Later you will see that I lined the bottom of the wheel well with a cardboard disc.

Next thing is to remove the skin where you have drawn the lines. Although I've shown a knife , my weapon of choice is the cut off hacksaw blade . The fine point goes round corners really well , less chance of cutting yourself too. Just don't go through the top wing skin and ruin your paint job . Next thing is to scoop out the foam . For many years , I use to heat up an old undercarriage leg over the gas cooker ring and scoop out the foam . Then some genius invented the solder gun . This one is £19 on Amazon and you can change the "bit " to a bigger and squarer piece of wire which is superb for scooping out foam . (I understand you can do soldering with it too 😉)

In the pack , you will also get an A4 overlay which aligns with the wing centre line and the leading edge . First , you need to cut out the shape shown . Then holding it in the right position , draw round the inside with a black pen . Easy , so far isnt it ?

Right , lets get back to the business of putting retracts in the FW190 . As Paul says , we are waiting for wheels from a well known wholesaler , but I have a few stashed for those that are chomping at the bit . The retract kit will comprise of : Laser cut wooden parts for the mount . 2x servoless retract units . Pre formed 8swg legs with coil spring to protect the units . 70mm lightweight wheels , star dome captive wheel retainers , wheel doors and Y lead . Price will be hopefully £59.90 You can see some of the main items below. The laser cut mounts only have four parts , but the each wing will have a mirror version of the other , so take time to glue them together appropriately . For instance , the key hole rib must be inner most on both sides and the main mount plate must have the circular recess for the coil spring rearward . When you see the following posts , this will become more obvious . I would recommend using epoxy or golden Gorilla glue throughout .

that is pig ugly .

While he has popped to the loo , Ive been painting his adversary . My little fella is in a home defence squadron and as they were quite worried about being mistaken for an allied flyer in the event of a bail out , they wore a lot of arm bands etc stating clearly what they were. He looks more like a Cylon than a 1940s pilot . They may have been the baddies , but they definitely looked cool . I suppose having your tanks designed by Porsche and your outfits by Hugo Boss helped .

He's camera shy and has also has a weak bladder . Just popped to the loo.

Its all about creating a model that looks far more detailed than it really is . That suits these two entry level kits because they are supposed to be quick build, no fuss models , but that doesn't mean they have to look ordinary . Im still waiting for exhaust stacks before I call it a day . Also got to give the rudder an impression of fabric covering .

The next bit (and this is fun ) is creating and the metallic look where the paint has "worn through " . You can do this with silver paint and a brush but done very dry . However , I prefer the silver shaker pens and a finger . You can dot random little blobs on and quickly wipe them in the direction of airflow . If you cock it up , just paint the base colour over it . I like mine a bit over the top , but you can decide when to stop .

Here are a few more pictures on the finishing technique . This time using a black chalk . A soft pencil will do the same . In the ones below , you can see me using the masking tape on one panel to keep it clean , but with a circular motion I am creating dust that will overlap onto the adjacent panel . You could do the opposite with white chalk on the dark areas .

Tuppence ? Thrupence ? A tanner ? Half a crown 2 and 6 a pound Its a lost world isnt it ? (Sorry Geoff )

Wood eh ? Funny old stuff . You can get Magnums in a three pack for £3.15 . You've used two , so raised the value of the P51 by £2.10 Ive used individual Tiramisu pots for wheel well lining before and it works out more like £2 each . Conversely , you can nip into McDonalds and get coffee stirrers for nothing and those little paper cups that you put the sauce in (which I have yet to discover a use for ). Is this going to be a new kind of modelling Ron ? A bit like Kevin Costner using ski boots to walk on the sea bed in Water world ? Maybe we could make a man carrying model with stuff from the recycling bin ?

I really like it . It's funny how other peoples models somehow have more appeal . Perhaps its because without seeing the build up , they sort of enter the stage with a bit more jazz ? Colours look very accurate too. Anyway , excellent result .

In the last picture above , you can see that a lot has happened since picture one . So lets explain how to follow . (In fact if you visit the FW190 thread , there is quite a lot about weathering effects ). The lines were drawn as you saw . Then the little rivets added . The model would still look too toy like and clean . So what we need to do is make each panel jump out . On the full sized aircraft each panel would sit slightly differently and collect dirt and wind differently . The up shot of that is, that dirt stain would appear downwind of a panel line . So what I do is put a piece of masking tape along the panel line on the "upwind" side and then smudge some charcoal from the tape backwards towards the trailing edge . Sometime a circular motion with your finger works best , going onto the tape to pick up the black dust and then round onto the lower panel. When you pull the tape off , the panel will appear as an individual piece . If the panel line crosses a black stripe or other dark area, you can use white chalk in the same way . The other thing you will notice is the silver . It is just one of those "shaker pens " with a little ball bearing in . The silver sort of runs out like little blobs when you press on a surface . What I do is dot a little paint on , then quickly smudge it for and aft of the model . It simulates the way the plane would wear if people slid over the wings . The edges are also very effective . You just blob the edge , smear it along the edge very fast then drag the paint with your finger toward the middle of the wing . You can imagine pilots and ground crew constantly chucking parachutes with buckles and other scratchy kit onto the wing skin .

Well the wind has come back again , so its back to painting the Tempest . I quite enjoy this bit as I can do it indoors and its relaxing ! I have some fine indelible black pens . You can buy a whole set of different thickness nibs for about £8 on line . I dont get too hung up on getting the panel lines dead right . Lets face it , I'm not going to meet anyone who actually built a real Tempest am I ? So a three view in A4 size downloaded from the web is fine for accuracy . I already have a scale plan as I needed it for the design stage . I just draw on the main panel lines first in black . Then highlight the lines in some places with a white gel pen (from WH Smiths , about £1.90) . You can see that I've also added some rivets which I do free hand , but you can use a ruler if it helps . The trick with the rivets is to draw a little black "C" about 3mm high. They represents the rivet . The other side of the circle can be completed with the white gel pen as if it catches the light . You do need to be consistent though ,as you are telling people the light is on one side or the other, so all of your black "C"s should point the same way . You don't need to do all the rivets as some would catch your eye and others not . Its very quick to do but to get confident , why not practice on the underside ? If you really cock it up , just paint over it . I'd like at least some of you to have a go at this kind of finish , so please feel free to ask as many questions as you like . You can see that Ive also added the rather neat little cannon blisters which cover the breeches of the 20mm Hispano cannons . Mine are 3d printed (thanks Paul ) , but yours will be vac formed as its quicker for us and gives you a smoother finish . I gorilla glued them on , but painted them first . In the next post I'm going to go into a little more detail about the weathering . You can also see that Ive corrected the red part of my roundel . Your decals will be the as shown with the correct larger red portion .

The next area that can be a pain , as I mentioned before , Is painting yellow over camo . The mid war British fighters had yellow leading edges to aid recognition in head on attack . They look rather jazzy , so as the eye is drawn to them , they need to be pretty good . So Ive ordered quite a few sheets of solartrim , so that you dont have to ! Lets face it , each strip is 300mm x 20mm . Hardly worth buying a whole sheet and paying the postage . As you're all good lads , I'm going to pop a pair of pre cut leading edge stripes in the decal sets as they go out . Now here is the best way to apply them . Coat the area in PVA first . On the first one , I thought I would cut little snips in the edge every 2" so that the solartrim would accommodate the slight curve . Well, that didnt go well as when I pulled the tape taught it ripped very easy where the cuts were . So , back to super simple : Peel off the back for the first 20mm . Like applying a medical plaster to a cut , align the exposed sticky bit on the inner end of the wing where the invasion stripes stop . Rub it down firmly . Ignore the underside for now and just concentrate on pulling the strip outward as you lay it down while pulling the backing away like a medical plaster . It should only have 10mm roughly showing on the upper surface . The other 10mm can be left hanging in the air out the front. The tape goes on really easy and stretches round the long curve with no problem , a lot like electrical tape . It wont split . Rub it down hard when aligned . It sticks extremely well . Finally flip the wing over and roll you finger round the leading edge to smooth the remaining 10mm under the wing . Doesn't have to be great as people don't look at that bit . You can do all of the above in five minutes , so way longer to explain than do . End result looks crisp and punchy .

The weather has actually been nice for the last two days , so Ive been out and not in the workshop . However I plan to get the Tempest finished in the next few days . I have been adding a few things which are worth a mention . The rear fuselage has a "sky" coloured band around it, about 1.5 " wide . I am going to try and get the decal providers to add a strip of the sky vinyl they use for the squadron codes (which I like and think is pretty accurate ) . As I dont have that option and I'm interested that if say somebody wanted a matching sky spinner, then I needed a paint match that was cheap and easy . These colours are useful for any mid war British aircraft . I think ive cracked it . B&Q do a Dulux tester range that includes a matt paint called "Willow Tree" . You can see in the picture below that its very close to pour decal colour . It was only £2.40 . Comes with a little roller on top which just unclips and then you can squeeze the paint out like toothpaste . I used the super green masking tape again and had no creep at all . It was warm yesterday and the paint almost dried as it went on . You can see that Ive also added the black aircraft serial numbers which come as part of the decal set . They are on a clear transfer sheet , so you dont have to align them individually , they just go on as a set . The clear comes off last and you are left with no nasty shine around the numbers . As before , I took the precaution of lightly sanding the area and coating it with a light coat of PVA first . I even brushed a little PVA over the number after . I don't want them coming off when rough handled .

Thats a shame Graham. I love the way it looks , especially having seen the Planes films .

As Rolf would have said , "Can you tell what it is yet "? I like the way you've modelled my shed door .

Geoff , have you tried just wetting the concave side , but keeping the other dry ? That's how they get warped in the first place . One side gets damp and expands while the other stays dry . Try it and see what happens even without the weight after .

Oh you house elves ..... John means he chooses to be in the first batch , and that his building skills are like mine , intermittent . (although his Spitfire turned out a treat ) Anyway John , you're in the first batch . It'll be like the first world war . I'll blow the whistle and you gallant lads will be up and at "em " I'll be putting the kettle on .😁

Well you could get your schedule back on track , if you opened the Tempest and 190 boxes at the same time and built one with the right hand and the other with the left . Probably end up with a Sea Fury as previously mentioned😬