1/32 Battle of Britain build part 2- Stuka! Trumpeter's Ju 87 b-2

[tr1ckey66]

Brilliant Steve, thank you!!!

I will go ahead and scrape the framing away.

Also, looks like I need to revisit the bomb swing. Funnily enough the bomb swing on my model was the second attempt, my first looked much more like your picture. I think however that this may be a B1? Either way I think my reinforcement braces are too close to the nose. It's quite a fiddly job in plastic the rod is very thin and you have to take measurements with the bomb on the model.

I will revisit this item tho.

Great pictures by-the-way. What's the source?

Cheers

Paul

 

[stona]

Great pictures by-the-way. What's the source?

Cheers

Paul

You are welcome,I hope they will help you keep up the great work!

They are from Eddie Creek's 'Junkers Ju 87 From Dive -Bomber to Tank- Buster 1935-1945' which is absolutely the best single reference I know for the type, I can't recommend it highly enough.

Also some from Peter C Smith's 'Stuka' volumes and one or two from my hard drive.

Cheers

Steve

 

[tr1ckey66]

You are welcome,I hope they will help you keep up the great work!They are from Eddie Creek's 'Junkers Ju 87 From Dive -Bomber to Tank- Buster 1935-1945' which is absolutely the best single reference I know for the type, I can't recommend it highly enough.

Also some from Peter C Smith's 'Stuka' volumes and one or two from my hard drive.

Cheers

Steve

Those pictures will definitely help, I can't thank you enough.

I'm trying my best with this build but I think inevitably accuracy issues will still remain. This is partly the reason why I'm being as bold/honest with the info and pics of my build. In some ways I'm actually inviting debate/criticism from the experts. As I said early in the thread I won't be addressing everything but I'll try and take on board as much as poss. Other modeller's builds I've mentioned previously I admire a great deal and have taught me a lot about the aircraft. All I can hope to do is add my findings to the info already available and hopefully as time goes on more and more builds will make kits more accurate.

In the end I just hope to have a BoB Stuka that is acceptable.

Thank you again Steve, your knowledge is greatly appreciated.

Paul

 

[stona]

.In the end I just hope to have a BoB Stuka that is acceptable.

Paul

Well the one you are producing will certainly be a lot more than 'acceptable'

Cheers

Steve

 

[dubster72]

This is such a good build & just what I expect from you Paul! Your bocage Tiger was a lesson in armour excellence Personally, I don't think I'd go to such lengths, but I'm glad you're willing to!

Cheers Patrick

 

[tr1ckey66]

This is such a good build & just what I expect from you Paul! Your bocage Tiger was a lesson in armour excellence Personally, I don't think I'd go to such lengths, but I'm glad you're willing to!Cheers Patrick

Thank you Patrick I'm glad you like the work I hope you like this Stuka as much.

Polishing out the canopy - not for the faint hearted!

Managed to polish out the frames that should be on the inside of the canopy yesterday. It was pretty unnerving and fairly intricate work, not helped by the fact that I'm suffering with a pretty bad cold at the moment. The process began with scraping away the selected frames with a fresh 10 blade, then using progressively finer grades of wet and dry paper to sand the surface to a flat, albeit opaque finish. Then I went through 3 grades of polishing compound until the canopy parts started to get some of their transparency back. The parts were then dipped in 'Klear' and allowed to dry to the finish you see here.

They are not perfect but I think once the frames are painted on, both inside and out, it will look good enough...



And these are the tools for the job...



Note: to the left of this pic is my first attempt at the bomb swing I now need to look at bomb swing #3!!!

I know it's not a very exciting update but it is fairly involved work and I am a bit ill!!!

Cheers

Paul

 

[flyjoe180]

Brave man Paul. Nice work.

 

[tr1ckey66]

Cheers Joe.

My heart was in my mouth once or twice when sanding those canopy parts! It wasn't helped by the fact that I had to work around the canopy framing that was to remain as moulded, it was a selective process.

Here's an update on the build so far...

First up the bomb swing. This is my 3rd attempt at this mechanism and, although it's still not completely accurate, it is much better than the kit part. Also, in the foreground is the canopy after the scary frame removal!



Here's a couple more pics of the mech...





And here's that propeller I've been raving about almost finished. It's seems a shame to cover it with the spinner!!!



Finally a pic of the canopy masking which took an absolute age - 2 days!!! I like to mask and paint both the external and internal frames and because this had differing framing inside and out it took some thinking about.



In my head I've started calling this build Rudolph the Red Nose Stuka!!!! Either that or it's first mission is dive-bombing for comic relief!!!

...next time, the exciting bit - some paint!

Cheers

Paul

 

[Ian M]

Well Rudolph is looking very good!

Ian M

 

[stona]

Well Rudolph is looking very good!Ian M

Yes indeed, very nice.

Looking forward to some paint

Cheers

Steve

 

[monica]

agree looking very nice cannot wait to see the paint go on

 

[dubster72]

Me too! Seeing the paint going on will really make this one something special

after all your excellent background work Paul.

 

[mobear]

nice spinner mate,would of just said `WOW` but it seemed not enough lol

 

[flyjoe180]

That turned out nicely Paul. Like you said, a bit of a shame to cover up that nice propeller hub detail. Can't wait to see the paint on this beauty.

 

[tr1ckey66]

Thanks guys.

Things should happen fairly quickly on this build now as I have some time. I'm also eager to see some paint on this bird myself! There will be no fancy mottle pattern on this, no shark mouths and no semi naked ladies painted on the nose of this model! just a simple splinter pattern in RLM 70 and 71 (colours which are quite close in terms of shade). I actually like this though as all that green will really make the Stg 2 red unit emblem really ping. It also enables me to add interest into the paint finish itself.

Back soon with an update.

Cheers P

 

[Vaughan]

Looking forward to that splinter camo Paul so will it be the Lifecolor or the Vallejo?

 

[Harry Labanville]

love that centre boss on the prop

 

[tr1ckey66]

Looking forward to that splinter camo Paul so will it be the Lifecolor or the Vallejo?

I'm going with the Lifecolor RLM70/71 although I am making the 71 lighter as it is very close in colour to the 70 black green. I believe these are the right colours (my lightened version probably isn't but gives a more defined splinter pattern). I have the Vallejo as well and I still think it's too brown. This is only my view though. Should have an update soon as the splinter pattern is almost there. We can have a look at the colours then.

Harry, that prop is a really nice after market item.

Back soon

P

 

[tr1ckey66]

The Painting Process

I've had a bit of time lately to really get stuck into this build so what follows is quite a bit of pregress...

The splinter pattern has now been applied to the model. I followed my usual practice of pre-shading the primer with thinned black paint along panel lines and any recesses.



I then roughly outlined where the RLM71 needed to go with masking tape ensuring there was allowance for the RLM70 to overlap. I did this because I didn't want to completely cover the pre-shading with the base RLM71 so that the 70 would receive some shading too.



I then masked off the RLM71 ready for the splinter pattern RLM70 (black green).



This took some considerable time but I kept telling myself, 'I best get used to this as I've got two He111s and a Ju88 to finish in the same pattern!'

This is the result with the RLM71 straight from the Lifecolor pot (please note I'm trying to achieve small variations in colour so judging the actual colour of the Lifecolor paint is more difficult).



I felt the above result was very close in shade to the RLM70 (especially around pre-shaded areas) I therefore decided to lighten the RLM71 with a little RLM02 and yellow paint, mask roughly (with post-its) and apply again.

The ratio was roughly 3:1 RLM 71 to RRLM 02 + a little yellow to retain the hue of the colour.

The original colour is on the port wing with the starboard wing and rear fuselage being lightened with the new colour.



It is subtle but has made the splinter pattern stand out a little more...

...and here's the final pattern...



Later, if I feel that the colour has too much contrast, I can change the colour slightly with the use of filters. If you don't know what these are they are basically coloured washes (this is a trick pulled from my armour modelling). The application of a green colour wash will result in a subtle darker RLM71 shade whilst still retaining the variation in shade within the finish.

...and here's a pic of the underside with the pre-shaded RLM65...



I've got a bit of tidying up to do on the paint finish and I also need to apply the RLM70 to the spats but this shouldn't take long, hopefully I should have all this complete by the weekend.

Next time it's the decals...

Cheers

Paul

 

[Vaughan]

Looking good Paul I think you made the right call with the lifecolor I don't think mines turned out so well with the Vallejo paints. As you say next is the decals that will really bring her to life.