Luft46's Blog

I rattle can sprayed the TaGo with Tamiya IJA green over my usual primer which looked fine. Unfortunately a ghost seam along the back half of the top of the fuselage showed up. I’ve heard of this problem but never seen it. Next step was to sand it today in preparation for another coat.

Hopefully I’ll get to this soon. I’m also working on the Kora Baka I but being limited run I’m still fighting to get the fuselage halves together. More fettling and Milliput to go. This is at the top of the picture below.

Below are some recent book acquisitions via EBAY.

I’m temporarily moving upstairs to escape the worst of summer here in Australia. Eventually I will get something I have rarely had in 50 plus years of modelling and that will be an indoor area. Even better than a shared laundry/workshop space is it will be just a modelling area only.

This won’t occur until later next year but with a new wall and doors installed I will have my own room with air-conditioning.

In front of the wall will be storage cupboards mostly for modelling supplies and some kits. There will only be very limited hand painting to occur here with the airbrushing to continue in my garage spray booth. The display cabinets will stay as is and a reading chair will be added.

Upstairs the Baka 1 is being worked on and in the garage the TaGo will continue when the weather improves.

The above is a result of the last of my children leaving home slightly earlier than expected.

I dragged out my 1.35 Wurzberg kit from Hauler today for a quick fondle and to check out the components.

I can now confirm the mesh is done in etched brass and the main frame is in laser cut wood with the outer pieces in brass also. The rest is mostly resin except for some small details like the hand rail and stairs.

I’ll be seriously tempted to replace the rail with plastic or metal tube rather than brass. I may get someone to look at metal with soldering as a better idea as this is not my skill set.

I’ve also got some radio sets in the hope of detailing the cabin.

The base is hollow cast which is sensible as solid casting would probably lead to warping of the resin.

I also managed a little primering of the Ta Go.

Regular readers will know I have struggled to complete anything in the last few years that involved airbrushing.

I completed this just now with a strange mixture of elation and disappointment. Elation with having completed it without tossing it against a wall and happiness that I at last did some airbrushing semi successfully.

I’m happy with my masking efforts as mostly this was pretty good with not a lot of touch ups needed. The exception was the canopy where the tape was left on for months and caused issues. Other things – my rescribing of panel lines was pretty good and this is was mostly down to a new scribing tool and better technique including using a fresh scalpel blade where needed.

Also happy with the little bit of weathering I did.

The dissapointments included a pebbly finish on my airbrushing that I didn’t fix so that caused issues with decals silvering that were partially solved by Tamiya Extra Thin cement and multiple layers of Mr. Mark Softer. The selection of Techmod decals played into this.

Also annoying was the undercarriage area with fit still an issue. I should have paid more attention to this as it made the end work harder.

I sprayed Vallejo Satin Varnish on last but I still had scratches in the paint after handling even with gloves on. I’d like to try someone else’s varnish next time.

And lastly the rookie mistake was forgetting to weight the nose so it’s a tail sitter with Blu Tack under the front wheel. This is something I normally sort out early on but somehow missed it.

If I do the Toad Resins version one day they at least made the nose from white metal so it won’t tail sit.

On the whole I’m happy to have completed this kit but there’s lots of lessons to apply for my next kit. But that’s what modelling is about in some respects.

After a break I’ve started in on a little modelling in assembling a 3D printed Tardis. I got as far as cutting the sides out and a bit of cleanup.

Another shop was Tam Tam and the usual Yellow Submarine. These were all in Akihabara or Electric City. Lots of nerd type stuff but with that slightly weird Japanese bent.

Just left Hiroshima and apart from the obvious visiting place also managed to go out to an island that was a Kaiten training base. Museum guide had very little English but was very helpful. It was supposedly no photography but as my partner assisted via Google Translate I was able to get a few photos.

They had a Kaiten interior that was built a bit overscale for a movie and a full one outside and there was also a more rusty one at the port we caught a boat out to the island from.

Below is the tunnel used to transport Kaiten out to the training facility including some docking areas and two pens that they would have sailed from.  The first run was 2kms out and back building up to circumnavigating the island.

Typical bullet train looking more like a fighter cockpit.

Yes folks I’ve been to Volks model shop in Kyoto. It’s unexpectedly hot here in Japan for autumn with 30 plus days the norm. I caught an Uber to the shop as it’s a bit off the beaten track.

What follows is lots of photos. I’ve got to say it’s the first model shop I’ve ever been to with two real aircraft engines and props from a 109 and a 190.

Inside is fairly heavy on being like a model show along the walls with lots of finished works on display.

Being Japanese there is an element of some fetishist figure hobbies which I’ll skip over with the other extreme being costumes for sale like this penguin one.

There were a lot of modelling tools for sale including the following – I’ll be picking up sone of the faux Tamiya tape when I get to Tokyo.

Next up is some of the display models

Size wise the store is broken up into two halves connected by a small corridor with the more serious models and trains in the back half and the tools etc in the front.

Most of the kits were Japanese with a thin sprinkling of European kits but nothing unusual I had to have.

I did pick up some thin masking tape, some guns for my SWS 1.48 Shinden and a model magazine and that was it. I hope to get more in Tokyo at the end.

I left there and on the way back discovered the Kyoto Train Museum so had a pleasant time before walking home after 14,000 steps. Glad I got the Uber one way at least.

And lastly …….

Got both the boat and plane primered last night.

Over the last year or so I’ve struggled with airbrushing. Often not able to get any paint out or just way too much. I’ve done quite a few kits that have stopped when they were ready to paint. Any kits I’ve finished have been single colour mostly via rattle can.

I’ve sought help with this but without any success. On a friend’s recommendation I bought a cheap airbrush again. This came with three needles with one already fitted. This is the thickest one.

I set up today with about 22 psi and a 50/50 mix of paint and thinner with a little bit of flow improver. I sprayed from a bit further away than usual with a light coat then flipped the model through 90 degrees and finished off in this way. Lots of light coats from further away has given a much better finish and I noticed when I moved closer it tended to puddle a little.

The end result is a paint job I am happy with which has left me in a much better place.

In other news I’m still working on the Ta Go and now adding some brass bits after adding the undercarriage struts.

The padding in the cockpit is for when I finally get to doing the undercoat.

The USV has also now had the top deck added but it’s a bit on the back burner and still needs a few PSR items fixed.

On the strength of good results with my airbrushing I went to my local HS and got the below in the larger size containers. It’s certainly cheaper with the bigger bottles.

On that note I’m off to Japan soon so any updates in the next few weeks will be from there. I may buy a few kits there but as my interests are not the usual Tamigawa stuff I’m not sure how many that will be.

Below is the view through my magnifying lenses light in between efforts to carve out the wing roots. Despite the language in the SAM review of this kit it took me quite a while to get this right. I just wish once that the reviews reflected reality instead of the highly sanitised view they convey. My weapon of choice is my faux Dremel by Miniart which works best on plastic. It doesn’t melt the plastic like my Dremel. The toothbrush was for cleaning out the deepened holes in the wing roots.

On the USV front I used up the last of my old batch of Milliput around the sides to give a little more rigidity to the whole structure. I slightly overdid it so the Dremel did come out for this job. I’m now trying to fit the top deck which has required a little fettling but I think this is more my fault than the kit’s.