Bughunter

This update shows some finalized parts.

At first the airscrew.

Pic 1 After the masking in the previous update I airbrushed the same red as the other red parts of the model. Here it could be a bit darker. The golden line was painted by hand and then I applied the logo decals.

Pic 2 The back side of the airscrew.

Pic 3 After finally all sealed by a clear coat I added the hub plate, a PE part to the back side. On this side there are the bolt heads.

Pic 4 The front site, here a hub plate with etched holes. I drilled into the nuts and added 0.2mm nickel silver wire.

Now to the Vickers MGs

On the color pictures of the marketing brochure there are clearly wavy yellow lines on the Vickers MGs visible. But how to replicate them?

The Vickers itself was shown in an earlier update and painted with the dark gun metal look so far. For brush painting I had no matching yellow as water acryl and I feared to paint the wavy lines on the structured surface of the cooling jacket. And brush painting the Cadmium Yellow lacquer paint is not easy because it easily attacks the lower paint layers and does not cover well.

What about airbrushing the lines? So time for another experiment!

Pic 5 To draw such masks in Inkscape is quick and easy, once you know some features of this vector drawing program. With grouping and copying I have multiple masks cut in less then a minute. To apply the masks took longer, as the barrels are only 11mm long! (in case you wonder:on the third mask the remaining line sticks to the mask, all are identical)

Pic 6 The usual yellow was sprayed and is dry within some seconds. The nozzles were sprayed with a mask with a tiny hole.

Pic 7 The Vickers MGs are dry fit to test the look after I painted the front of the nozzle red. The Vickers will be added after the engine and cowling are in place later.

I'm happy with the result! Maybe not perfect, but that was hand painted 100 years ago and so it catches the look.

The last part is the pitot pipe, as the pilot needs to measure his speed. To allow a correct measurement the pitot is mounted outside of the propeller airflow.

Pic 8 The PART set brings nice PE holder, but I do not like the flat etched pipes. So I removed them and used nickel silver pipes with 0.3mm diameter. Soldered all together gives a nice pitot assembly. I prepared also the control horns for the ailerons. The two other plates are footboards for the lower wings.

Pic 9 The kit has the pitot on a strut, but my new one is a) more original and b) after I made new struts I need a new one anyway.

Pic 10 View from below: the pitot is mounted. The pipes are connected with 0.2mm lead wire. The black tubing are connectors, which are allowed to unmount the upper wing from the strut.