Thanks gents !

I have spent a lot of time with all of the sanding and filling on this Monogram kit. Originally I decided against using the first one that was started by a friend of mine, simply because I didn't want to do any more sanding and filling than necessary ... little did I know what I was in store for.

So far the ICM kit looks like it has the Monogram kit beat by a long shot on fit. But it should since it's a brand new kit made with modern technologies. These older Monogram kits are still hard to beat, and among my favorites, even if you need a lot of filler on some of them.

Tonight I sprayed the white on the He-111...

I started out with the typical masking... Then gave the plane several light coats of white, just as I did with the other colors.

Here's the fuselage band. It doesn't look to be as transparent as the wing tips are. I may have applied a little too much paint, but the pre shading lines are still slightly visible. I'm going to keep this as is since I don't want to make a mistake and ruin it having gone this far.

followed by an underside view with the wing tips painted too...

Next step was to remove the masking once the paint dried sufficiently. The stripe turned out rather well.

Here's how she looks at the moment:

Topside

and the underside

I'll give it a little "Future" in strategic locations in preparation for the decals...

It's getting closer...

As usual,
"Comments are encouraged".

Good night.

Wonderful work, Louis and a nice 'how to' for others to follow. Shows a very delicate touch with the airbrush and a steady hand.

I always find this stage of the build exciting as you near the end, seeing the subject emerge and every addition makes big changes. Terrific stuff.

David T:
Thanks for the kind words. I am very happy that you decided to start this GB, as it has given me some motivation to build some kits that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. This He-111 is one of them, and overall it has been enjoyable (once I got past the marathon of sanding and filling in the seams).

David LS:
I try to post up my steps in a manner that would be easy for others to follow along, and hopefully get a pointer or two out of it. The steady hand you mentioned is actually me using both hands. One for spraying, and I use the other to help steady the spraying hand. This is one of my favorite parts of the build too. Your progress take leaps and bounds by this point. But if you become complacent, it can bite you too... I have a story to follow about this. I hope I dodged a bullet. I definitely learned something new and will pass it along to others so they don't make the same mistake... I'm glad you're enjoying this journey my friend.

Jeff my Amigo ! My brother from another mother ! Good to hear from you bud (and fellow DAT).

You need to give the airbrushing a try if you can get your Mojo up and running (which I know you can). You will wonder why you waited so long afterwards. Practice with something you don't mind messing up and remember that practice makes perfect... just like "Gunner ! Sabot, Tank !"

Good luck with this and please keep us posted.

They say that patience is a virtue...
I'm glad I didn't do any more decal work after last night's near fiasco.

I started adding more decals on the He-111 this afternoon. The fuselage codes, crosses and swastikas went on without a hitch.

I had to cut away some clear film in between one of the "legs" of the swastika to get it to fit properly around the rudder balance stops. So if you're building one of these you may want to hold off adding this part until after the decals have been applied.

The decals under the wings dried "OK" overnight. The crosses had some wrinkling in them. One was worse than the other.

There was some "silvering" present under the "S". I thought there might be, since I had to sand away the clear in this area since it had started bubbling up and turned milky looking.

I decided to carefully trim away the 'silvering" part on the "S". Then I touched this area up with the air brush. After the light blue had dried, I mixed up some clear "Future" with a little Tamiya flattening agent added to it. I thinned this concoction with 70 % rubbing alcohol at an approximate 50 / 50 ratio.

Then I started spraying this mixture over the decaled areas to reduce the shine from the previous gloss coat.

It toned things down very nicely. The wrinkles in the crosses are barely noticeable now, which is what I was hoping for.

The fuselage decals look like they were painted on. These "Eagle Cals" decals are the best I have used to date. They are getting older, but still performed flawlessly.

Here's a close up to show you what I mean... I am more than pleased with how this has turned out now. The swastikas came from another decal sheet, and they worked great too. It was an old "Super scale" sheet from the 1990's !

After the flat clear mix had dried, I started removing the masking on the clear parts... it was almost like Christmas time, removing all that wrapping...

When I removed the masking from the side fuselage windows, I couldn't help but to think about our dearly departed friend, Bernie Hackett. I mentioned something here about the ICM kit having four side windows, while the Monogram kit only had two...

Bernie promptly replied that these side windows were molded into the plastic on the Monogram kit... and that most of the time these windows were either painted over or blanked off...

and he was right... So Bernie, thanks pal.

Here's how she looks now...

I also added the "pop" gun to the dorsal "B" stand gunner's position.

The undersides look pretty good too... now I can add the landing gear and missing doors.

Here's a close up of that lovely Heinkel glazed nose... The props and exhaust can go on now too.

Hopefully this one will go together fairly rapid from this point on...

as usual,
comment are encouraged...

Good night.

Remarkable workmanship and "save," Louis. Your mistakes are, once again, a boon to us all.

Enlighten me on a couple of things:

Tamiya "flattening agent"?

(and)

Help me out of the idea of Future on part of the plane but not all, and how that effects achieving a consistent (flat) surface in the end product.

Hello David LS,
I was just looking at your B-17 and it is looking fabulous ! So it does appear that we both had good days at the bench... 🙂 Here's to many more of them in the future. I am very pleased with how the decals turned out. If not for the problem I caused by rushing things, they would have turned out almost perfect. I'll take it and run... The canopy looks great on the outside. Somehow I managed to get some dust inside it, and that is annoying. But it will have to stay... I'm not risking messing everything up on something that is not that noticeable (unless you're a judge with a pen light)... 🙂

Thanks for the kind words my friend.

David T.,
I hope that by me posting my errors here and the methods I used to correct things are of help to someone down the line if they happen to run into a similar problem. This was all self induced in an attempt to rush things. I should have known better...

As far as how I used the Future, here's a little step by step explanation that will make the process much easier to understand. They say pictures are worth a thousand words... 🙂 I know they work for me with restaurant menus !

Here's the Tamiya flattening agent. It's actually called "Flat Base", part number X-21 and comes in a bottle.

It has a milky look to it and must be stirred / shaken extremely well. Otherwise if it's not, when it dries it will leave a white powdery residue on your subject that can be hard to fix. (sometimes you can get lucky by spraying another layer of clear over it if this happens.)

Here in this photo you can see the dry white chunks on the edge of the bottle. You also have to be very careful that none of these dried particles end up in the mixture you are going to spray, so it's advisable to clean the rim of the paint jar before pouring out the contents into the mixing container...

I mix this "Flat Base" in with some clear Future at an approximate ratio of 50 / 50 using regular 70 % medical rubbing alcohol. I use one part Future to one part rubbing alcohol. Then I stir the mixture again very well to make sure the Flat Base is mixed in properly. This is a critical step. I can't stress enough about how important it is that the flat base is thoroughly mixed.

If not, you will end up with something that looks like it has been sitting in the freezer for about a year (or two). I found this out the hard way with a Sherman tank once... I was almost tempted to leave it alone and change it over to a winter time camouflage scheme...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... Now I'm thinking. I do have a 1/35 Tamiya Easy 8 "Korean War" Sherman that could benefit from this ... I'll try it out on another one first.

As far as the clear Future as a decal base:
I simply sprayed Future in the areas where I wanted to apply decals. The paint dried with a flat sheen to it, and the decals probably would have silvered if not for the shiny surface provided by the Future.

Here you can see where I "spot" sprayed the Future on top of the existing paint. It gave a shiny appearance. Then I placed the upper wing cross on top of that.

Here's another photo that shows the fuselage prior to decal application. The shiny area is visible in this picture.

Once this flat base is mixed and ready to spray, I simply go back over the areas that were previously sprayed and give the decaled areas a light "dusting" by spraying out a small amount at a time. You will have to go back over the areas several times if not more, until you achieve the same flat finish as the surrounding areas. You can blend the flat base clear too, by extending the flat base spray pattern outwards beyond the places that were sprayed with glossy Future, overlapping the areas to make it look more uniform in appearance.

This stuff dries rather quickly, (providing it's not sprayed on too heavy) so you can tell how it will look after a minute or so. If the flat base starts looking shiny and wet, you are spraying it on too heavy. It will dry if this happens, it just takes much longer.

You may have to go back a time or two to get it "just right"... but it's easy to do and works good for me. With a little practice it gets even easier.

I use regular enamel thinner to clean up the air brush afterwards. Sometimes I use rubbing alcohol first, then run a wash of thinner through the air brush again afterwards.

Hope this helps to answer your questions buddy.

It was nice to hear from you.

Pedro my friend,
It's good to hear from you too !
It has been a few days, and luckily for me I have had some productive time at the work bench... I also had some almost destructive time there that I caused by rushing things and getting in a hurry...

You are absolutely correct. I had my emotions get the better of me and started hurrying up when I knew I should have waited before adding the decals. The plane was really starting to shape up, and I wanted to get it done so I could post an article and some pictures of it.

They say "haste makes waste", and this proves it... Lesson learned for sure.

I try to analyze things before I leap when something like this happens. Sometimes I get lucky and my idea works, other times, well I'm not so lucky and end up stripping off a part or two, or even all of the paint if it's that terrible. In hindsight, I wish the under wing cross decal on one side didn't wrinkle like it did. But now that it's not nearly as visible after the flat base was applied, I'm leaving it alone.

Sometimes it's better just to live with something rather than take the risk of destroying all of your hard work seeking the "ultimate perfection"... It's a risk versus benefit thing I guess...

anyhow, thanks for the kind words and I hope to hear from you all again soon.

Last night I didn't get too much done on the He-111, other than the exhausts installed.

I'll post up another update later tonight, if possible.

Thanks again, and as always... you got it.
Comments are encouraged.

Hello Chuck !

I was just looking at you Lancaster now that the black undersurface has been painted... and it sure does look great ! Thanks for providing the information on the decal steps you use. I have tried the stronger Solvaset stuff before but not the Microset before. I also have never added dish soap to the decal water. Sounds like a great idea and I'll give it a go as well. You're probably correct about the extra humidity slowing down the drying times. It could have contributed to the problem, but I'm fairly certain that I rushed things along some as well.

I had a good friend who served on submarines in the US Navy. He told me about some of the stories about shellback parties. Then I went online and did a little follow up research and found some rather interesting stories and photos of crews during WW2. Good stuff indeed. I have never crossed the Equator either, but I have been to various countries courtesy of Uncle Sam... 🙂

Fantastic, Louis! I especially like the greenhouse glass of the front. You did an excellent job on these.