Roden 1/72 Felixstowe F2A

[nickdanger]

A little slow off the starting blocks on my GB entry.

Had a busy July at home (3 birthdays in the family, two family reunions, a 20th wedding anniversary, and kid's music performances) and at work (huge annual fundraiser and exhibit opening) so the Felixstowe has been on the back burner.

Was also trying to finish up another model before beginning something as complex as the F2A. Just completed my latest P-38 last night.

So the F2A. Lots of sprues. Lots of small parts.

I decided to splurge on the AIMS aftermarket decals for the scheme on the box cover since I'd rather put my efforts into the rigging rather than masking.

The engines are models in themselves accounting for more than 50 parts in and of themselves.

Decided to paint the engines after assembly and pick out various parts for alternate colors after laying down a base coat of Alclad aluminum.

[ChippyWho]

I adore this aircraft; the Roden kit is supposed to be a peach -why aren't more of them built??! Excellent choice, Sir. Where's me popcorn...

[mingwin]

happy to see you join the GB!

i was awaiting this build to begin.(remember when you'd say you'll build that (beautiful scheme) Felixstowe F.2A)

i'll follow with great interest

[nickdanger]

Engines are painted dull aluminum and picked out some exhaust pipes with copper:

Threw in the vertical spars to paint the aluminum bits for them as well.

Also started preshading the main fuselage section.

The cart is painted but still need to add some characted with detail painting and weathering.

Did a quick dirty wash on one of the engines - starting to come alive:

Next step is to find a wood color I'm happy with for the spars and fuselage interior. First wood grain scoring experiment seems a bit washed out. Need a richer, redder color:

[mingwin]

your engines looks really cool. there's a lot of pipe in there...

i'll follow your wood attempt with great interest, as it is a very different technique than what i've been using in my ongoing builds.

...and what is the color of that sample you're holing in your hands??? seems metallic grey to me...

i would suggest you something like "skin tone" colors for your basis... with a red-brown whash... and maybe some accent of clear orange/ clear yellow here and there...? it mainly depends on what you have at your disposition.

[nickdanger]

@mingwin - The color is deceiving. It's really more of a milk chocolate brown. The lighting was from the side because I wanted to see if the woodgrain that I scribed looked good (it did not).

So the wood grain technique that I used is an adaption of a number that I found on the web. Step one is a chocolate brown base coat (piece on the left, below). Then use a wire brush to smear a only slightly thinned burnt umber along the direction of the grain:

Then used Vallejo transparent orange to give the wood a varnished look:

I'm pretty happy with the results:

Used a lighter, yellower base coat for the trolley but otherwise the same technique. Happy with that as well.

This works well enough for me, and it feels right sized in terms of scale. it'll be hard to see anything inside the fuselage and the only other natural wood on the exterior are the spars which are pretty small.

Edited August 24, 2014 by nickdanger

[Spectre711]

That's an interesting technique. Does it work better with the brass brush being all knarled up or would a new one work as well?

[mingwin]

it looks good so far! happy to see some progress are made!

your woodgrain technique is interesting, and you're right, scale-wise, it's totally appropriate!

can't wait to see more!

and thanks again for the update

[nickdanger]

@spectre - that's the brush I use to clean out Tamiya paint bottles, and it's the only wire brush that I have so I can't really say. I bet that its a good thing that it's all crazy to make the scratches a bit more random.

[nickdanger]

Starting to prep the fiddly bits. There are A LOT of fiddly bits

Still dryfitting

Seems like the fuselage will need some extra spreaders to make to top fit on nicely

As you can see, the fuselage can't be closed up until the lower wing is ready to be installed.

So next step is preshading the wings, glueing them together, and starting in on the drilling for the rigging.

Don't want to be doing drilling when things start to get complicated.

[mingwin]

that's what i call noticeable progress!

thanks for the update

[Spectre711]

Nice work

[nickdanger]

Doing simple preshading with a Sharpie to give an illusion of semi-translucent wing fabric.

When I look around at biplane/WWI builds I see it done both ways - preshade the ribs or preshade between the ribs.

With this one I'll be going with the "ribs are dark" style.

The upper wings are HUGE. At 95' the F2A had a wingspan that was only 9' less than a B-17!

Lot's of ribs to prep.

Next step drilling. I estimate at least 100 holes or divots that I'll need to drill out before moving on to painting and decaling the wings.

Edited September 2, 2014 by nickdanger

[mingwin]

i dunno if you have use Sharpie for preshading before...

but since i saw this, i've kick that idea out of my mind...

Beware the use of Sharpie!

Edited September 3, 2014 by mingwin

[nickdanger]

@mingwin - well there was no way I was going to mask all those ribs. I'm sure it will be fine.

[Check Six]

@mingwin - well there was no way I was going to mask all those ribs. I'm sure it will be fine.

That's a beautiful kit.

Let's hope you're correct about the Sharpie pre-shading .

[mingwin]

let's hope everything turn out fine! (anyway, my warning was not based on an absolute certitude that it will turn out bad... only that there is a high risk...)

but i understand you're point of view about not spending hours on masking (or miles of masking tape)

[nickdanger]

Wow. I see what you guys mean:

http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/pre_shading1/

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/2/t/81805.aspx?PageIndex=1

Sigh.

Time to bust out the rubbing alcohol....

Edited September 3, 2014 by nickdanger

[mingwin]

yeah, that was what i was talking about to you (and the reason why i even send you a personnal message to warn you before you put some paint over the sharpie preshade... )

the first link you put in your post , is the same link i was providing you in my message and in my post (the "beware the use of sharpie" in bold caracters was a link to that page...)

anyway, i would have found utterly sad that you could have mess such a beautiful model... better not preshade at all if you don't want to spen so much time... in the end it will look better!

[nickdanger]

@migwin - I didn't realize that was a link. I thought you were just underlining for emphasis!

Thanks for making me slow down and actually do some research!

If I can't remove the ink, I'll just go over everything with Tamiya surface primer. I can;t imagine that anything would get through that !

[mingwin]

You're Welcome

if you have turpentine, there should not be much problem to remove the sharpie ink. other things might work.

Edited September 4, 2014 by mingwin

[nickdanger]

Took off the Sharpie with a rubbing alcohol bath:

Assembled the cleaned up wings and started in on painting. Only done the bottom in doped linen (basically Tamiya deck tan with a little red and a little white):

Hard to see in the pictures but all (I hope) of the predrilling is finished for the wings, control surfaces, and tail.

Edited September 12, 2014 by nickdanger

[nickdanger]

Got the wings Futured and at least the bottom of the bottom wing is deacaled:

Closed up the fuselage (hull ?):

[nickdanger]

Time for the red:

Whoa. Maybe with a better background so you can actually see something:

Parts are being Futured before assembly:

Lower wings in, hull spreaders in place...

Showtime ! First major assembly complete:

Next up...starting in on the decals.

[mingwin]

thanks for the build thread update it's really nice to follow you and see that beautiful model taking shape! great job nickdanger!