Your Gustav is looking fantastic ! Those paints look like they lay down nicely too. That's really important for a good finish and helps considerably when it is time for the decals.

I'm glad you liked the pictures. In hindsight you probably didn't need the ones with the landing gear since your plane is going to be built "in flight ". Hopefully these landing gear photos will help someone else who is building a Fort.

Now that's a cool book ! I had no idea that it was written. Ironically I have a Spitfire model that I think was flown by the author of this book. . I'm pretty sure that it has a Kiwi bird on the fuselage sides.

Since he had nine lives , and I'm on cat number four, maybe I'm halfway there ? 🙂

106 years would be great. As long as I still had my health and my wits about me. The suck thing would be losing your family and friends before you left the room too.

Thanks for the updates my friend.

Gustav is looking good !

So, today was something of a disaster. Ok, a first world, 'my Luftwaffe mottling looks out of scale and not at all the way I wanted it' sort of disaster. I guess you could call it a small scale disaster...

This was done on the hurry, between chores and trying to fit it in quickly. This is not where I want to take my modeling, but sometimes the frisson between demands and limited hobby time makes you speed up and take a ' good enough' approach which, in any walk of life is the kiss of death on improvement and learning.

So off came the fuselage and dorsal colors.

Tonight I will take an altogether more relaxed approach and post the results.

Gus is GREAT! Well done, my therapeutic friend!

In the previous "chapter" of these many topics, you wrote: "Some pilots would aim for their foe’s cockpit while others saw it as the machine they were fighting against." The one time my Dad would talk of these things, he answered my question by saying they (he) tried NOT to think about possibly killing a pilot; rather, it was suggested to think about it as "destroying a machine." He never seemed to display any hatred of his former enemies. Since he flew in both the Med and the Pacific he could have been involved with Japanese, Italian, &/or German combatants. I never knew him to dislike anyone, as I recall. Perhaps time HAD healed his wounds. I have problems with a group of folks myself, though I try to take people at face value.

But your Gustav looks great so far. I have a bunch of those same colours, (BritSpel) but I've only used a little bit of one color (AmSpel) and then it was applied by brush. It worked fine. I used it in the interior of my F6F-3 and was my first use of acrylics ... that wasn't on a wall in my house!

Franz & Charlie would approve, I think.

Thanks, Morne. I solved the 'mottlegate' issue. Good news is it wasn't me. Bad news is it's the regulator valve on the airbrush. On my second attempt at the fuselage the paint just came out in a blanket coating with no control. You can see in the photo that the Lichtblau (RLM 76) is just a solid cover with no variation.

As the airbrush is a badger (the thread in the valve has part stripped, must have over tightened it) I have to wait for a new valve to come from the States. This will take around three weeks...

So, it'll be back to the Fortress for some more building.

Good recovery on that Gustav paint scheme David! From things like this one learns. I also have a badger airbus, my first and I like it a lot. It became a default over the years but two years ago I also bought a Harder / Steenbeck for detail work. Looking good my friend!

Hey, Peter, great to see you here. It's funny when people pop in that you don't expect, it's really nice. Glad you are enjoying the build.

David my friend.

Sorry to hear about "Mottlegate"... I just recovered over "Decalgate" myself...

It looks like you are well on your way with a fix for this too. At least you can fall back on the Fortress build while you are waiting for parts to arrive.

One little trick I learned about air "bussing" on German mottling is that the paint has to be very thin. I'm talking like almost a water or skim milk consistency.

I also lower the air pressure and spray little random spots. When you change color (all depending on if you have a photo or not, and the factory where the plane was produced), try to mimic the pattern seen most commonly associated with the type.

Then if you have overspray or an area that you are not happy with, go back and try a little touch up using a different color. It's basically trial and error until you're happy with the results.

Very seldom (if ever) have I achieved the look I was after on the very first go. For me it just doesn't happen. I have always had to go back and add / subtract from the mottling until I liked what I saw.

That looks like a great book to read... and I hope your week is a good one.

Dear Friends,

Just today it was released that an almost intact wreck of a B-17 was discovered in the North Sea near the Belgian coast:
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2018/06/24/amerikaanse-b-17-bommenwerper-ontdekt-op-de-bodem-van-de-noordze/

You see, some of these bombers did not make it back to the UK and crashed into the sea. I think the picture on the site is a part of the turbocharger for one of the four Wright Cyclone engines, what you think?

They discovered the wreck when placing an underground power cable (1000 MW) to England. This will assure David LS airbrush is kept under pressure.

Deep sea WWII archeology at it's best! They also found a spitfire, a Messerchmitt wing and a Wright Cyclone engine it states.

Enjoy (Google translate may help you through the Dutch) 🙂
Michel.