Monday, May 5, 2008

Some glimpse into new seaplane project

Well Guys, its been sometime since a model appeared in these pages....well, I am back...only for a while, with Ascendent and FRAL companies opening up in Johannesburg, Lopburi, Fort Lauderdale and Singapore, its tough to have anytime for anything called hobby. To business partners, its maddening, but God has given us life to enjoy with length of days and long life to show us His salvation.
Well, the last bout on the Kyofu, somehow, DVD went missing at Tamiya Magazine, so I have to make a completely new seaplane along the lines of the same Zinc Chromate, Ferric Oxide primers and followed by dark IJN green and highlight it with Russian Green.
With this in mind, the model is first sprayed with Gunze Silver. Never use the metaliser, I made the mistake, and after 3 days I find myself staring at blank plastic and have to repaint the whole thing again! Use regular silver, Clear coat it in Pledge Future. Next the ZC layer, which I used a mixture of some Russian Green, Desert Yellow and white. Then I sprayed on the Fe2O3 with Ferrari red mixed with some orange and hull red.
For the tops, I can use the dark IJN green as the shadow, for the RLM lower parts, I have no choice but to spray preshades of IJN green on the panel lines before I build up my RLM Grey Blue.

This is a result of very much patience and the unnerving exercise that follows it with the rubbing it away with JIF rubbing compound!!!!!

Here we find the top fully coated with IJN Green and highlighted with Russian Green. Then comes the unnerving part!


Here is the bottom now with the leading edges already put in, the Catapillar yellow band.


The results of 2 hours of soft and water soaked rubbing....we get a 4 multi coloured won out float system of the Aichi Seiran. Remember to rub in the direction of the water and airflow in order not to make it look like a clown!

Here is how it looked like on the top surface of the flatation tank. Note the ZC and Fe2O3 showing through the paint and the deepest recess is silver?

And Finally, ready for the cockpit canopies and the wires for the antenna! Opps, forgotten to paint the props!~ needed it in Silver, Red and Hull Red. Rubbed of course. The canopies are painted white, then masked and painted green, then rubbed down with a stick blunted out so that it has an uneven painted look with a white lining, showing that it is oxidised aluminium. Also, some fogging of the canopy is welcomed even though I removed some fogging with Future to make the cockpit more apparent.



I switched the pitot tube with a telescopic metal variety which I scratched. See I even never let the decal off the hook. Since the Hiromaru is painted red on white, the rubbing it down shows a good effect.

Happy????? Now that I have done up another seaplane?