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Master-Model - Brass Gun Barrels

Eduard Canopy Mask:

Gear polished up:



Removed the Clear canopy parts from their associated sprues, these are quite thin and fragile and care should be taken on this.



Dipped into the Future 2 nights ago as I need the 24 hr time window to harden.



Eduard masks in place.



Kit starts off with building the cockpit.



Located all the necessary parts and clipped from sprues, then proceeded to clean off all parts from minor seams, and sprue gate left overs.



All wing parts located and removed, cleaned from sprues and dry fitted, ready for assembly.



Work on the wing commences.



Kit wing gun barrel vs the Brass upgrade



Used some plastic card stock to align the guns properly.



Wing tops glued on and ready for some gentle sanding.



Guns aligned and tucked in.



Wing sub assembly complete and tail surfaces glued together, Butterfly Flaps cleaned up and polished.

Ready for final painting and install.

Installed the cowl flaps and choose the "open" position.




Installed the large cooler top intake and the bottom oil cooler intake.









Used a small drill bit of appropriate size and drilled all the lightning holes in the seat.

Rusted out the exhaust collector ring with some weathering powders.



Cockpit is getting close now, chipped away at the Green paint, and applied a
dirty grimy Black wash made out of with 70 to 30 Ivory Black and Burnt Sienna and 70 % orderless thinners.

Installed all the instruments and picked out some details.





Checking alignment of all the major parts.



Installed some seat belts from a left over PE set I had, just to dress up the front office a bit.

Not quite scale accuracy (as these are German).

Cockpit installed and glued onto the right side with some super glue and checked for alignment. 

Another Model Master Flat coat was sprayed on to dull out the cockpit some before closing it all up.

The glass of the gun-sight was treated with a drop of Future to give it a little extra.



Installed the Armored Glass with a light touch of Gator Glue, removed the oozed out glue with a cotton bud soaked in IPA.

Masked the fuse off and painted the Interior Green, over the outside of the frame for the first layer. 

Painted the engine bay the Interior Green.



Drilled out the head rest frame, for a little extra touch of detail.



Painted over the Interior Green with a light spray of Tamiya X-1 Gloss Black in preparation for the Aluminum to come.



Spent quite a bit of time masking in the wheel wells with White Tack.



Installed a "little" lens for the landing light, to dress it up.

Masked off the glass for the landing light and build up a new Pitot Tube out of some brass hollow tubing from Lion Roar.



Checked all seams on more time and some small re-scribing was necessary.



Polished up the plastic with various grits to 12000 to get as smooth of a finish as possible.

Applied Plastic Prep liberally and wiped off with a lint free cloth to ensure there were no greasy finger prints anywhere in sight, plus getting rid of any static.

Masked off the Green engine bay with some more White Tack. 



A quick single pass was made with 12000 Mr. Surfacer spray and let it dry for 1 hour.



Once dry (placed under a light to speed up the process - and CAREFULLY

monitored - as not to get too hot and somehow de-form the plastic),

This coat was rubbed down with a 12000 grit wet sanding sponge from MDC, in circular motions.



First layer of Alclad Airframe Aluminum applied.  Let dry for 30 minutes and

polished with a piece of an old T-Shirt, in circular motions and very light pressure.

The Alclad is sprayed in circular motion passes, neat at 5 to 8 psi, light dusty coats, slowly building up the volume.



Masked off the fabric control surfaces and airbrushed on a light layer of Tamiya Light Sea Grey + a smidge of Cockpit Green,

Although hard to discern in the pictures, I was not too happy with the overall finish of the Aluminum,

Masked off the control surfaces this time and air-bushed on 2 more coats of Alclad Airframe Aluminum, with and in-between some light polishing up.

paint the homeland defense White Bands first.

I purposefully did not place a think coat on, to make it look like the paint has been fading in the harsh Pacific Sun light.



A little hard to discern but the White is quite patchy and very Flat.

The Mr. Color White is sprayed at 70/30 thinner to paint at 8 psi, light dusty coats, slowly building up the volume
and being careful not to flood against the tape line.

Here is some worn Paint......The Blue Captain band has been painted and dis-stressed as well as the White bands.

The Tamiya paint is a home brew of Tamiya Flat Blue (XF-8) and Tamiya Flat White (XF-2) at 45/55 Blue to White

to make it look extremely sun bleached.

This concoction was sprayed at 60/40 thinner to paint at 10 psi, light dusty coats, slowly building up the volume.

Gave the paint about 10 minutes to dry and then started attacking the paint layer with a wad of sticky painters tape to distress it. 



I managed to get this effect by purposefully pulling up paint with a very sticky Painters Tape. 

Timing is quite of the essence with this technique and not a whole lot of room for error.

This is against all the rules of good masking, and not for the faint of heart. 



The metal is coming through the paint colors nicely.



The Black anti glare panel (Mr Color #125) has been painted up, lightly over-sprayed with small speckles of metalizer to make it

look like its been sand blasted by pebbles from un-improved dirt runways.



Engine glued on.



Hinamaru's painted on with Tamiya flat Red.

The Red was purposefully painted a very faint--see through--appearance, and blotchy "at best",

in hopes of portraying the fading of the intense sun.



Start of the dis-stressing the paint on the Hinamaru's





Here are the massive exhaust tubes, needed a little filler and then painted up Tamiya Hull Red (XF-9)



Re-painted the Butterfly Flaps with Alclad Dur-aluminum as I ended up stripping off the first attempt.

There where some faint scratches on the surface and just could not leave it be.

Polished them up, painted Tamiya Gloss Black (X-1), then the Dur-aluminum over the top.

Once dried, painted up the interior with Tamiya Flat Red (XF-7), then an overcoat with Model Master Gloss Clear.





Installed a brake line made from fine brass wire, held in place by small strips of Tamiya tape, to be painted aluminum. 





Painted up the Black anti Dazzle on the cowl, to my surprise discovered I had miss-aligned the Black on the fuse
by a few millimeters (To high up).

Re-masked the fuselage area and aligned with new tape and re-shot the Black for the Fuse.

We are all aligned --Fuse--to--Cowl-- and looking pretty smart.



Two coats of Model Master Gloss Clear have been applied over the entire model.

The next stage is to paint a Super Flat Clear over the "faded" paint areas.



Left to complete:



Painted the Yellow danger markers on the Propeller.

Installed Cowl.
Installed Propeller.

Decal-ed the serial #60 onto tail and main gear doors, overcoat with Clear Gloss.
Unmasked the armored front glass for cockpit.
Unmasked the left wing leading edge landing light.
Installed antenna tube in front of cockpit and install antenna wire to the tail.
Installed the rear Canopy.

Completed pictures: