International Scale Modeller

My slightly belated entry into this SIG will be this kit from Tamiya


The Mosquito is my favourite aircraft from WWII - here's the info from the kit with some pics (some are mine - some are borrowed from the interweb)
The versatile Mosquito stood with the Spitfire fighter and Lancaster bomber and earned the respect of British pilots during WWII. In 1939 the De Havilland company envisioned the plane to be an unarmed high speed bomber, and had experience with the Comet, which was a wooden racing plane. Except for the engine and landing gear, the Mosquito was comprised of wood, offering strategic advantages. The wooden construction would save on important metals such as aluminium, it could also be built in converted furniture factories.

The air ministry was reluctant to adopt the wooden aircraft, but placed orders for 50 planes in March 1940 for reconnaissance use. In November 1940, the Mosquito reached speeds of 630km/h (391mph) during test flights, demonstrating its potential and quickly prompting additional orders of 150 planes. The Mosquito PR Mk. I reconnaissance plane was first deployed in July 1941; the B Mk. IV bomber started deployment in the Spring of 1942.

On May 31 1942, the Gestapo headquarters in Oslo was bombed. German officials delivering a daytime speech in Berlin were attacked on January 30 1943. These events demonstrated the Mosquito’s ability to carry heavy loads and delivery low altitude surprise attacks with accuracy. The camera equipped PR Mk. IV reconnaissance plane discovered the German battleship Tirpitz in the Arctic Circle and scouted V2 rocket facilities. The Mosquitoes performed their duties with minimal losses, displaying their remarkable abilities.



Onto the kit itself and this one has its origins in a 1999 new tool, but re-boxed with new parts in 2000.

Here are the sprue frames - main fuselage & wings


Two the same for undercarriage & engines


Clear parts, cockpit bits & nose section


The instruction sheet & decals


We'll cover the instructions in more detail as the build progresses


And this is the colour scheme I intend to build up


The intention is for this aircraft to form the basis for a diorama that I've had in mind since last year's bomber sig, but for this build I'll just focus on the Mosquito. This means that I'll be building this wheels up, and disappointingly there's no crew included so I'll be shoe-horning a couple of lads from this set into the cockpit


I found a build on the web where someone had done this and it did require a bit of surgery in the cockpit to make everything fit but we'll give it a go anyway.

Hopefully I'll be able to make a start this week.

Good to have you on board to help keep standards up!

Cheers Paul

Quax wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 6:08 pm Good to have you on board to help keep standards up!

Oh this is going to be good, pulling up my chair Neil

I've been thinking of getting this kit, so keen to see how you get on

Kevthemodeller wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2019 9:51 am Oh this is going to be good, pulling up my chair Neil

ElCapitan wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:02 am I've been thinking of getting this kit, so keen to see how you get on

Thanks for the support guys - I'll try not to nause it up too badly

Ok I got this underway in a couple of evenings this week and in a pleasant departure from the norm this one starts with the nacelles rather than the cockpit


But me being me I had to skip around the instructions a bit - anyone with OCD might want to look away now...

Because I wanted to build this wheels up there are a couple of sections we can bypass completely




But then we get to the main gear bay doors, so I thought I'd start there... well why not...


In a rare outbreak of common sense I got the marker out and labelled up each main part to keep track of what I was playing at


And then matched up a door with a nacelle half. As you can see there are a couple of locating pins and sockets that all needed removing and sanding back


Got all four halves done with a little fettling and filler


But had a minor gappage problem when the halves were mated


These were filled with some 0.5mm card shims and CA, then sanded back to shape... Somehow during this process I also managed to CA both nacelles to the cutting mat but that was recovered without too much angst At this point I've also scribed back in one of the more prominent panel lines but have lost a little of the surface detail unfortunately. I've also added the exhausts and flame dampener thingies - I did paint up the exhausts before fitting but you really can't see them.


Then it was back to step 2 to build up the wings


And here they are - nothing much to report other than a couple of the sprue gates impinging on the leading edges and needing carful sanding.


And finally the nacelles were fitted


They did take a little fettling to get in but that may have been due to the remnants left over from the earlier incident, and just to round it off I managed to spill some TET over one of the lower surfaces but that's been left to dry and tidied up with some gentle sanding


Cockpit and fuselage up next - let battle commence!

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend

Off to a great start mate

Kevthemodeller wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2019 4:57 pm Off to a great start mate

Cheers Kev - hoping to get some time this week to try and get the cockpit knocked into shape.

Ok - had a decent amount of bench time today and decided to tackle getting the crew into the cockpit.

The instructions for these stages look like this



Having assembled the basics I grabbed two sets of legs and two torsos out of the Revell set and started surgery


If I remove the instrument panel & navigator you can see that the surgery to the pilot was a little severe, and I've also removed the bottom seat/cushion in the navigator's position. The navigator also had a slice taken out of the torso to get him to a height that fit into the cockpit with the canopy in place.


So time to see if they'd fit into the fuselage


And with the canopy in place (been bitten by this before!)


So as well as the pilot being legless (we'll call him Arfur) they're both pretty armless at this point, so I grabbed two likely looking sets of arms from the Revell box and started cutting & sanding them into a shape that would fit into the tight confines of the fuselage


Here's how they look extracted from the fuselage halves - and with the radios installed with blu tac. The backs of the radio sets were hollow so they've been blanked off with scrap card


The additional pieces were added into the right had fuselage half


With the exception of the clear parts which will be added after painting


And down the back end scrap plastic was added to the inside of the fuselage to support the retracted tail wheel


Just a note on the tail wheel itself as I think on a previous model I sanded the tyre smooth - whereas having done some research it turns out the tyre does have a "groove"


That's all for now - everything's now been put aside to let the glue cure before final clean up and painting of the crew & internals

Thanks as always for looking

Great choice!

looking good..

DBMiller wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2019 10:10 pm Great choice!

rob12770 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 3:59 am looking good..

Thanks guys

That's quite a bit of modding for a Tamiya kit mate, not what I would expect Good save mate

Kevthemodeller wrote: ↑Sat Nov 02, 2019 8:48 am That's quite a bit of modding for a Tamiya kit mate, not what I would expect Good save mate

Cheers Kev I think if I'd built it as Tamiya intended with wheels down and without the crew then I wouldn't have had to do any surgery.

Have been making steady progress over the past week or so.

The crew & cockpit have been painted up; I thought I'd taken a shot prior to closing up the fuselage but that was obviously a TET-induced hallucination! So here they are installed in the cockpit. The interior colour is from one of the Vallejo Modelair RAF sets and the details have been brush painted with a variety of Vallejo & Andrea colours


The navigator was finished off with a scratch built board & map cut out from a Verlinden set


There was a little cleaning up needed on the fuselage seam


And underneath the bomb bay doors & rear hatch were added before cleaning those seams up too




And jumping about a bit leads us over the page to where the wings were added - I've also installed the tips but not the nav lights at this point


Just needed a smear of Deluxe PPP to sort out the minor gap at the root, and where I'd been a little enthusiastic with the sanding stick on one of the rear stabilisers


The props will be built up & painted separately and I'll be leaving the probes & stuff off until after main painting otherwise I know they'll be broken off. So next up is masking & installing the glazing and with that done it'll hopefully be ready for primer this weekend.

Thanks as always for looking in!

Looking great
The crew look awesome in there and my favourite is the guy with the map...if it were me it would be all wrinkled and unfolded
Late to the party but now on-board

Twokidsnosleep wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 3:08 pm Looking great
The crew look awesome in there and my favourite is the guy with the map...if it were me it would be all wrinkled and unfolded

I'd second that

Twokidsnosleep wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 3:08 pm Looking great
The crew look awesome in there and my favourite is the guy with the map...if it were me it would be all wrinkled and unfolded
Late to the party but now on-board

Kevthemodeller wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 4:01 pm

Twokidsnosleep wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 3:08 pm Looking great
The crew look awesome in there and my favourite is the guy with the map...if it were me it would be all wrinkled and unfolded

I'd second that

Cheers guys

As for the map... here's an expert...

This is coming together nicely, are you planning one of those Coastal type
bases?

Paul

Quax wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 6:06 pm This is coming together nicely, are you planning one of those Coastal type
bases?

Paul

Thanks Paul

Ref the base I'm going to be building my own dio base up but that'll be for another project probably next year so for this build it'll most likely just be up on a Perspex rod as an interim solution.

The last week or so has been all about masking & painting.

I invested in some Eduard masks for the glazing - these were the usual yellow sticky paper affair


And went into place without too much trouble. You can also see from this shot the minor filling I've done around the wing roots


This was all given a coat of Ultimate Grey primer, at which point the filler in the port wing root dissolved! I've had this issue with Vallejo putty before but not with Deluxe PPP. I'd left it to dry overnight but maybe it needed a little longer - anyway it was refilled and primed again.


I then applied a overall coat of Vallejo Model Air Ocean Grey on the upper surfaces, and learned that Ultimate Grey Primer is pretty much as near this tone as makes no difference


For the camo pattern I'd picked up a masking set from LF Models. These were a sort of vinyl material, and it took a while to spot the part numbers on the sheet as they were punched the same way as the masks


So after a bit of fiddling about to get them in place and the addition of some regular Tamiya tape for any gaps or awkward areas it was all masked up


Model Air RAF Dark Green was then applied and the masks removed - they worked well and I'll have no hesitation using them again on future projects


Finally the upper surfaces were masked off again (using a couple more LF masks, Tamiya tape & paper) and Model Air NATO black was applied to the lower surfaces. The green looks a little bit on the yellowish/emerald side in the photos - it's not that bad in reality and hopefully the final matt coat will help the colour balance.


Hopefully I'll get the decals down over the next couple of evenings before giving it a coat of varnish and something to pick out the panel lines.

Thanks as always for stopping by

Ooohhh looking nice there mate

Lovely looking cammo pattern Neil

gaz45 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:15 pm Ooohhh looking nice there mate

Thanks mate

Kevthemodeller wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2019 7:30 pm Lovely looking cammo pattern Neil

Cheers Kev - those masks worked out really well

Decalling is completed and they've all received several doses of Daco Red Solution to get them settled down


Most of them went down without too many issues, and have now conformed to any rivets, raised details & panel lines


The only exception was the grim reaper nose art which fell apart as soon as I took it out of the water; I tried to get as many recognisable fragments into place on the nose as I could to at least give the impression of what it should have looked like - although I've obviously broken his scythe in the process!


Finally for this update the props & bosses have been built up and painted


So we're onto the final stages. Next up will be a varnish coat to seal everything in before doing some restrained weathering, adding the final gribblies and a final coat to finish it all off. Hopefully it'll be done by the end of the week if evenings go to plan.

Thanks for looking

Just love the decal stage, really makes the kit come alive. It's all looking really good Neil

All looking good and nice work

Only just found the thread , sorry.

Looks really good and love the pilot and nav. Interested to see how you'll display her, does a stand come with the kit?

lovely build chap, really lovely work.
DW

Kevthemodeller wrote: ↑Tue Nov 19, 2019 11:31 am Just love the decal stage, really makes the kit come alive. It's all looking really good Neil

Hawkmoon wrote: ↑Tue Nov 19, 2019 12:04 pm All looking good and nice work

Stokesy44 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 19, 2019 12:29 pm Only just found the thread , sorry.

Looks really good and love the pilot and nav. Interested to see how you'll display her, does a stand come with the kit?

Donkeywalloper wrote: ↑Tue Nov 19, 2019 3:58 pm lovely build chap, really lovely work.
DW

Thanks for dropping in guys

Well much to my surprise - I managed to get this one finished last night...

When we left it all the decals were done, and then it was given a coat of AK Satin varnish and left to dry overnight before attacking it with a black clay wash. Now I think I say this every time I use this stuff but it still scares the bejeebus out of me...


Isn't there a saying about any sufficiently advanced technology appearing to be magic... I'm just a caveman...


All wiped off...


Greeblies were added


Including the tail wheel down the back


Everything was then covered in AK Ultramatte and the masking removed from the glazing


The side window came out with the masking tape - making things a little breezy for the navigator, so that was tidied up and fixed


The base is a simple affair of just some Perspex rod & tube attached to a GW flying base


Nav lights and final touch ups completed and we're done!


The reveal is here if you'd like to see how it turned out

Thanks as always to everyone that stopped by to take a look and offer encouragement

Oh yes

What wash did you use mate?

Nicely done.

Great work mate

Thanks chaps

Awesome work there Tomcat! Very lovely !!