Military Illustrated Modeller – September 2019

Aircraft Edition 

The attachment of the lower

radiator is critical, so I decided

to make it as perfect as possible

before even thinking of gluing it to

the fuselage. After over an hour,

here is where the lower radiator

scoop stood. Be very careful with

the rear edge and curved tabs seen

at the top of this photo. Many trials

were made to insure an accurate

fit. I decided to glue the two parts

together first instead of attaching

each to its respective fuselage half,

then mating them up.

To reinforce this section, which would clearly need

additional sanding, I glued a piece of .40" x .60"

Evergreen styrene strip to the rear lip.

This resulted in a suitably sturdy assembly.

The photo-etched grille in place. The scoop now

fit acceptably.

The painted

intake.

Painting the Scoop

Painting

The next step was to paint the inside of the scoop

and corresponding section of the fuselage silver,

then paint the radiator and grill. The grill attaches

directly to the fuselage, then the scoop was added.

I glued one side at a time, making sure to get a

good fit, and let it dry before clamping and gluing

the opposite side.

This part lead me down paths I never expected

and took several hours to complete. I had to

further sand down the plastic radiator core, which

it much smaller than the photo-etched part. In the

end I tacked the top edge in place using diluted

white glue, followed by superglue. I then ran some

superglue around the bottom. This allowed me to

cut off the excess with a single edge razor blade.

On the second attempt, it kind of worked. In all I've

used four different photo-etched grills from two kits

to get to this point. Curiously when I made this part

on the B109 B, a much better solution presented

itself. Still a few tweaks to be done, but it is nearly

there. It has been painted flat black and then

brushed with powdered graphite.

Now it was time to consider the airframe's

overall colour, Silberweiss, since this would

have to be painted on the area surrounding the

radiator before this was buttoned up. I ordered

a rattle can of Tamiya AS 12, since this has

been highly recommended. After decanting,

thinning and spraying some test areas I was left

cold. It appeared grainy and didn't spray very

well. Others have had great success, but I was

looking for something else.

So it was time for some alchemy. I had

bought several different bottles of Gunze (say

it with me..."God's Paint") Sangyo silvers.

One of them, Next Plate Silver SM 08 had

the consistency of Alclad and seemed to hold

promise. After a number of experiments, I

arrived at this mix:

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This concoction sprays like a dream with

no grain. It also has very good covering

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EVERYTHING better...

This is my paint mule, used to test a number of paint experiments. The final mix with

3 parts silver is on the panel marked #1. A later mix with 11 parts silver is on the

panel marked 2. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Here I've sprayed the radiator area and dry fitted the lower cowl in

place. I've also used the silver to prime some areas to check the fit.

The major components of the airframe are at last assembled. The chin scoop

has been fared in with 5-minute epoxy, with the excess removed by wiping

with a Q-tip dipped in denatured alcohol.

I was finally pleased with the results.