Archie McKellar

Steffen Arndt
So after another week here we are also close to finish the pit. As with kit No.1 I left of the foot straps as these are only hardly seen on the finished model. Everything is oob. I used the other seat type for this model so I could better distiguish them during the build phase.
I only noticed after the start that I would need the tank armour on this model too. The Antenna base rather looks like the early fuselage on the picture of the original I found (see here top picture: hyperscale.com/2014/..ndekalspreview_5.htm there is also a colourized version of this one online). I already masked the tank area, cut the mask to shape and used it as a template for a thin plastic sheet armour ... should look o.k. if i can get it on

Tom
Lovely work 👍

Steffen Arndt
Thanks Tom!

While I was working on the pit I also completed the wing. This way I could proceed pretty fast after the fuselage was closed. The filler hole in the armour plate was done with a punch and die set. Well see if I will have some melting on the armour. I do have this problem on the lower outer wings and I do not know yet how to cope with it

Steffen Arndt
I have added the gun sight and the head rest and put the fixed parts of the canopy on

Steffen Arndt
I have glued in the cockpit door with Maskol and cut one of the spare closed canopies to shape to fit in. I masked the canopy with the included kabuki tape masks. Here again only one set for the armored windscreen is included so I had to make the other one fit this kit. I sprayed interior green first and the underside got some black...

Steffen Arndt
After some more masking and painting white I also started on this model with the upper camo. Again I used Mission Models Dark Earth as the first layer. These paint works pretty well though I still prefer Gunze and Tamiya.

Steffen Arndt
For the camo I copied Tamiyas large instructions This crate has the same scheme as the Tamiya kit (I always forget which is A and B) So after some weeks on and off this is ready for Mission Models dark green.

Steffen Arndt
Here is the kit after airbrushing the DG and a gloss coat. After de-masking I noticed some imperfections and touched these up by brush... well that did not go well with the Mission Model paint (no problem with Tamiyas white and black). After drying over night there still was no improvement so I will keep it as it is. I airbrushed the whole kit in Tamiya X-22 Gloss. Much of the touch-up will be hidden under the roundels and I hope I can hide the rest with weathering and flat coat --- we'll see

Steffen Arndt
P.S. you may notice the sunk in plastic near the wing tips ... this is the result of too much glue. Nothing I can do about it without ruining the whole surface (I tried). Stupid mistake.

Steffen Arndt
I have started to apply decals. on the first try the decal slipped slightly down on the front side (pic 11) which I only noticed after it was dry so I removed it and applied a new code ... looks much better now (at least to me 🙂 pic 12)

Steffen Arndt
As written in the DB gallery, several weeks of applying decals stealing my motivation. Finally the stencils are on and sealed and I applied my usual sludge wash of umber and black (more black on the upper side very little below). Before flat coat I want to attach the wheels and u/c doors....

playtime 222
Ouch. Unlucky with the glue. ANd Y pic 12 looks fine 😄