Yes, this is how we spell it round‘ere!

The Swordfish Mk.II was my first time kit award on iModeler (https://imodeler.com/2018/02/model-of-the-month-dec-17-fish-on-a-string-and-sword-in-a-bag/), so it is only proper to show you what I will do to her here.

Not only that, but it is also my first Fairey aircraft and with that my first „Fish“ ever. I know, can’t believe it either!

Tamiya kit is well known, so is the subject, so no need for a lengthy introduction, I think.

The venerable Stringbag is not the sexiest thing that ever flew but in the Fairey realm it is actually quite a looker! I fetched few extras to bring its appeal to the higher level: Eduard’s p/e set, Tamiya’s metal rigging and Quickboost’s “porcupine” exhaust pipe. I strongly believe that one is better served if not using hundreds of extras available for any given kit. This said all of the mentioned sets offer some specific improvements to the kit, so I intend to pick and choose my fav details here, the spoilt scallywag I am…

One thing all aftermarket sets ignore are the leading edge slats, moulded shut in the Tamiya kit, but should be extended if the plane is on the ground. So I cut the open, but only after I glued upper and lower wing surfaces together.

This being an old school bi-wing, the crew of three was seated in a maze of struts and frames, all well represented in the kit. Tamiya successfully made a near snap-tight affair of the whole. Only a few photo-etched plates and instruments and the pre-painted seatbelts enhance the look in the office. I first painted the canvas panels on the inner fuselage flanks, representing the bleed of red oxide primer through the fabric regularly seen on these birds. After some dull masking the rest was painted “interior green” with floor panels in nekkid metal. The forward firing gun was also enhanced with the perforated cooling sleeve made of rolled p/e piece.

So much for the beginning. Stay tuned till the next episode when I will be talking about a flying horse and that Townend ring I like so much…

Cheers,
Aleks

10 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Cheers Greg! I'll try not to disappoint. 😉

Pegasus is a stunning winged white stallion. Where its hoofs hit the ground fresh water wells up. He is quite a horse, you see…

Unfortunately Pegasus doesn’t exist, it’s a myth… “Fake news!”, to use the parlance of our times. Disappointing, I know!

Bristol Pegasus is however real and did bring many ol’ flyers to the stormy skies. Here's the Tamiya 1:48 version, enhanced by some photo-etched bits, Archer Fine Transfer rivets, Quickboost exhaust pipe, painted by mix of AK Interactive and Alclad metallics, plus some Tamiya paints and layers chipped using Ammo chipping fluid. These exhaust collector rings up front provide a great canvas for some fun with the heat-stressed metal hues.

Must be kinky or something, but I just can’t resist a radial engines tightly wrapped in Townend ring…
Cheers,
Aleks

10 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Thanks George!
I am also very pleased how it all looks, particularly as this was an experiment. The new generation of hobby paints and products, chipping fluid included, makes it really easy and fun to try new techniques.

@asekular, nice to see you are back at the bench. The attention to detail is great - will follow this one with interest.

Looking forward to watching the rigging come together. I purposely avoid biplanes because I can't make the rigging look right. I'm taking notes on how you do this so I can eventually try your techniques on one of my biplane kits that are on my "build someday" list".

Nice one! You have the collector ring looking just right to my eyes. I'n fact, the entire engine is a marvel. I haven't seen those decal rivets before. Interesting.

I like the revised break points on the struts. It's a clever way to avoid difficult puttying and sanding. 10/10

Greetings iModelites!

Last time I left the things with a notion of making all the small attachment points for the rigging of the String Bag and preparing the rest of the surface detail for priming. Somewhat tedious but absolutely doable task. I planned initially to make the anchors for the rigging myself, using twisted copper wire, but then remember Eduard p/e set for turnbuckles and other connection that was sitting in my drawer for number of years now. This set showed itself very useful – each turnbuckle cut in two and made into anchors for the rigging wires to come later…

All the subassemblies were then cleaned and primed with Grey Surfacer 1200. I considered if I should use black primer, but since my Fish will be in an all-black disguise, grey base will allow for some more tonal variation and contrast to play with. Grey primer also reveals detail and imperfections much better than black, at least for my eyes.

This time around I stumbled across a very strange phenomenon while spraying the S-1200. Spider web structures were building up against the details, wherever the secondary flow of air and paint would reach them (see pictures)! I never saw this behavior before and cannot explain why it happened now. I always use the same parameters for spraying and this wasn’t the new jar of Surfacer either. These curious threads were quite easy to remove using a large brush, leaving the surface and the details immaculate. Also, due to the fact that most of the excess particles of S-1200 were caught in these spider webs, it left almost no airborne pollution, which is usual consequence of me spraying Surfacer using a large gun (0.4mm nozzle). This is a welcome benefit of this unusual effect that I will have to investigate further…

Once the model was primed and it looked like it was made in a CAD program, I knew I did a good job and it was time to turn to some paint. For a while now I was itching to break out my prized red metal box with the Iwata cm-c plus and make tight squiggles with it. MRP Nato Black would be a perfect medium to try this and lay a marbling coat for my Fish. I should probably make a separate article elsewhere on iModeler, with a back-to-back comparison of the CM-C plus and H&S Infinity, which I also have, but at this point let me just use a parallel with another Japanese icon, if only from a world of movies. Hattori Hanzo is a fictional sword maker from the Tarantino’s film Kill Bill. This is what he says after presenting his blade to the new owner: „If, on your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut.“ I learned that the same level of performance and confidence (and pleasure) one can expect from CM-C plus…

Nato Black is not a true black, but more of a dark grey/brown hue. After a dense marbling of all surfaces with this color I turned to Tamiya X-18, for a semi-transparent, unifying coat. I also masked off all the metal surfaces while spraying, to make a hard demarcation from the canvas covered areas. The result is a very interesting and dynamic tonal variation of almost black hues, that perhaps doesn’t translate so well on photographs, as it does to the naked eye. I am very curious where this journey will take me, when I try to weather this paint finish.

Next time I will be applying white invasion stripes, using a hand brush to mimic the real life irregularities. Stay tuned…

Cheers,
Aleks

12 attached images. Click to enlarge.