Thanks gents for the kind words.

As a side note, I received an email from Hannant's that the 1/48 scale Tamiya kits (new tool Spitfire and P-47D Razor Back) are on their way and should be crossing the pond very soon.

With today being a holiday, I got some more work done on the Tamiya Mk Vb.

I started out by masking off the fuselage band. Then I masked a straight line where the tops and bottoms of the letters "FL A" are going to be. This is a reference line used as an aid to make sure the letters are where they should be, and that they are square.

Then I started masking off the actual letters. I used Tamiya tape, after I cut it down to a width of 2MM.

Once I was happy with the letter's positioning, I removed the yellow alignment tape. This left the fuselage codes "FL A" behind.


The next step was to spray on some RAF "Ocean Gray". These next two pictures were taken right after I finished spraying the color. You can still see how it is wet and shiny.


I cleaned the air brush. Then I placed the Tamiya Spitfire on the stand to let it dry overnight. Possibly tomorrow I will spray on some RAF "Dark Green" in the "A" pattern.

This is how the Spitfire looks at the moment...

Calling it a night.

As always, Comments are encouraged.

Happy New Year !

Would that be in Websters? Paul

Happy New Year ! May 2019 be a healthy and happy year for all of us.

Wow... we crossed over the 300 posting mark. This has been a journey indeed, and I sincerely appreciate the comments gentlemen.

Last night I sprayed on some more colors on the Tamiya Mk Vb.

Here's how it went:

I started out by masking the plane using the "A" pattern templates.

Then I sprayed on some Dark Green. While it was drying, I cleaned the air brush and swapped colors. I had to touch up the underside Gray color under the rear of the fuselage. Then the airbrush was cleaned up again...

By now the paint had dried. I couldn't stand it any longer and had to remove all of the masking to see how it looked.

I was very happy with how it turned out. I decided to leave the area under the fuselage RAF roundel in the "Sky" color. I'm hoping this solid light color will help to keep the fuselage roundel decals look more uniformly even in color. I have had problems in the past with the differences in underside colors changing the way a decal looks in final form once installed.

Also by spraying on the "home made" fuselage codes rather than relying on a decal, I don't have to worry about any "silvering" with the fuselage codes. In all honesty, I wouldn't want to try this with any letter that was not comprised of simple straight lines. Any "B", "C", "D", "S", "O" ,"P" or "Q" would be above my pay grade ! I might have missed a few of the alphabet, but you get the idea... 🙂

The undersides look equally as nice. I am very pleased with the outcome so far.

Thanks for looking. If things work out accordingly, I might have this one wrapped up over the weekend.

The next step will be to spray the outer leading edges of the wing in yellow. This particular plane used a yellow "IFF" stripe on the on the outboard wing panels.

As always,
Comments are encouraged.

Thanks for looking.

Not that it matters at this stage, but for future planning and consideration: I always do the yellow wing leading edge stripes on RAF airplanes first, then mask them off and proceed with the rest of the painting. More likely to get everything the right size this way with not having to use a ton of masking tape to prevent any yellow overspray. Just sayin'...

Here's the progress I made so far tonight. Things went very well... 🙂

Here's the method I used for taping of the yellow stripes.

Just like Tom C. stated, there is more tape used this way. A whole lot more tape is used...

But it has worked very good for me so far. I think that part of the trick that helps to avoid overspray is that I spray using a very low pressure. In doing so, this helps to reduce the overspray. Again like Tom C. stated, getting overspray on top of your freshly painted camouflage is not going to make you happy...

It also helps if you don't "aim" your air brush in a fashion that blows the paint towards the surfaces that are not masked off. This will get overspray on top of your fresh paint too. I try to keep the nozzle of my air brush pointed at a 90 degree right angle to the surface being painted, but this is hard to do on the leading edge of the wing...

Since I was spraying yellow, the almost "mandatory" pre shade using white as a base was applied...

Once it dried, I gave it another coat of paint using yellow. The tape came off and here's the end results.

The bottom of the wing turned out very nice too.

Then it was time to apply some dry transfer letters and numbers. I wanted to duplicate the serial number of "BM-461". Using "Woodland Scenics" Rail Road dry transfers, this is how the Port side turned out.

The same thing was done to the Starboard side. After the letters were in place, I carefully took a fresh razor blade and very lightly scraped away the letters in places where the "Sky" color was applied for the fuselage codes.

The fuselage code letters were sometime painted right over the top of the serial number. This is how I duplicated the look.

This Sky colored fuselage band and code letters "F" and "L" will require just a slight touchup. They should look pretty decent once I get this done.

Next up was applying the larger decals. I wanted them to dry overnight. so that tomorrow I can tackle the small stencils.

I'm going to use some decal solvent to snuggle the decals down a little better on the underside of the wing roundels and on the upper wing roundels where the ammo boxes are located under the red center.

Calling it a night,
hopefully tomorrow I can get some more done, and hopefully have this one knocked out by Sunday...

As usual,
Comments are encouraged.

Thanks for looking !

I know I go on about it a lot, Louis. I'm just too excited for words for the photograph of this lot together. I'm saving a special spot for it! Looking as sharp as ever, my friend - you are bringing us home in fantastic style!

Such well done paint scheme, another different camo, with all the airframes you built the last year, (seems like only 6 mos), not one was alike. Very diverse. With my experience over the year with RAF and Japanese with the yellow ID leading edges, it would depend on the airframe and how complicated it would get to paint them first or after the camo has been painted. 90% of the time I will do what you did Louis and paint them after the camo has been applied. Either way the result are as you hope it ends up, a perfect yellow ID marking on the leading edges. Steve's point is actually a good one to know that is a nice bit of info. Beautiful work Louis.

The Ki-61 Hien is now finished and the article has been posted in the headlines section.

Now the race is on to get one more Spitfire completed before the deadline is here.

Last night I applied the small stencil and walkway border decals on “FL*A”. These pictures were taken as the decals were still wet. I used "Future" to help adhere them down and to assist with eliminating silvering. So far, so good.

This morning I will spray the Tamiya X-21 mixture over the entire airframe and seal the deal.