1/48 Revell Ventura Part VI - Weathering

The RNZAF Venturas were very heavily weathered and I wanted to try and depict this.

I've also been reading a few armour modelling mags and I tried to incorporate some those techniques on the Ventura.

After applying a layer of Testors Flat coat (not Dullcoate) . This is first time I've used this and whilst it flattened down nicely it took a couple fo days to dry. Unlike dullcoate which I find dries to the touch in about 5 minutes

I started with a filter of a blue and then some oil dot filters to try and get some tonal variation on the wings in particular. I wasn't particularly successful, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps I didn't leave the enamels and oils long enough to dry, or perhaps the flat coat wasn't flat enough for the oils and enamels to stick. I did use the sponge technique for the chipping on the wing roots. I noticed this chipping on a image of a Ventura  taken from for aircraft flying above.

Losing interest in this I sealed results with Dullcoate this time and returned to my usual weathering methods using ground up pastel chalks. These were applied to the model and rubbed in with a brush and my fingers.  Once happy I sealed them again with dullcoate.

The next step, and the one I fear the most, was removing the masks from the clear parts. For once I'd applied the masks well enough to protect the clear parts

Anyway, enough crapping on here are the pictures

Now onto the remaining 20% of the build -  which seems to take 80% of the time.

1/48 Revell Ventura Part V - Decal Dilemmas

Onto the gloss coat.

As usual it was 2 coats, a day apart of Tamiya X22 Clear thinned with Lacquer thinners. The lacquer thinners I'm using at the moment makes the X22 go cloudy but this doesn't affect the finish.

I usually give the first coat 8-12 hours to dry before giving it a light wet sand with mirromesh 1200. After that I give it a wipe with a damp rag to clean of the dust and once dry shoot another coat of X22.

After letting this dry and harden for 5 days it was onto the decals....

I wasn't happy with Zotz's depiction of the upper roundel for NZ4540. The Ventura Publications "Pacific Twins" book as an image of the upper wing of NZ4540. To me, the roundel in the image is quite faded, but not as light as Zotz depict. I also think the Zotz roundel is to large compared to the on in the book. Of course I could be completely wrong.

I have all 3 decal sheets (as far as I know) that feature 1/48 RNZAF Venturas but as I discovered, each have slightly different sizes for the upper decals, plus there are actually different "versions" of the roundels. None of which I deemed suitable (again I could be completely off base here). I did consider a Avenger rounder for the old Aeromaster sheet but it has the blue strip around the white. Although I could cut it off I decided to save that for the Avenger.

So I decided that I'd give making a mask and painting the roundel. I had a set of dividers , some wad punches and a circle cutter.

First I cut the circle the size of the roundel, I actually went through several different sizes until I was happy. To try and get it in the right spot I actually placed the cut circle on the wing first, then I placed the mask around it and removed the circle.

Once happy I painted the circle using Mr Color #72 Intermediate Blue. Whilst waiting for the blue to dry I used the circle cutter to cut the outer edge of the white ring. The roundel mask with the big hole was applied to the wing.

Using a wad punch I punched out a mask for the inner blue ring and then put this into the appropriate position (sorry no photos so I hope this makes sense). I then airbrushed the white ring using Tamiya flat white.

To apply the white stripes I worked out what size I wanted and cut a rectangle out of Tamiya tape. This was applied across the entire roundel and then I masked around it. This helped to ensure I got the proportions the same on both wings.

Once masked I removed the rectangular strip and airbrushed the white.

All the masks, except the big circle was removed. This was left to touch up some of the edges with the dark blue of the wing.

Once masks were removed I wasn't entirely happy with the outer edge of the white. The diameter of this was as small as the circle cutter could cut and I didn't get as good an edge as I'd hoped. I gave the roundel a light sand with a 4000 micromesh pad to remove the ridges.

Luckily I had a wad cutter slightly smaller in diameter than the ring (3/8 IIRC), so I cut 2 masks, stuck them over the centre of the roundel. A quick burst with the airbrush and I was happy.

 The next challenge will be simulating the faded numbers on the tail....

1/48 Revell Ventura Part IV

Into the paint shop.

I've decided that NZ4540 is the aircraft I'm going to depict. There are several reasons for this, firstly it is one of the aircraft that retained its fuselage art when on operations, secondly it has a couple of distinct patches and splotches on the rear fuselage and tail which IMHO add interest, and finally it was operated by No 2 Sqn, which I serviced in when I was in the RNZAF.

There are a 3 photos of NZ4540 being broken up in the Ventura Publications "Pacific Twins" book, which allowed me to confirm the patches and that it was quite weathered when it was broken up in March 1944.

The aircraft is in the 3 tone USN Scheme of Non-Specular Sea Blue (upper fuselages and wing leading edges), Semi gloss sea blue  (upper wings and upper tail plane). Intermediate blue fuselage sides and tail surfaces and non spectacular white lower surfaces.

My problem with USN schemes is that in 1/48 Sea Blue straight out of the bottle is almost black. The photos of NZ4540 show the sea blue darker than the intermediate blue, but the contrast is nowhere as dark as using Sea Blue direct from the bottle would appear on my model.

So as usual I went with my eye and chose colours I could live with. 

I like the Mr Color Lacquer paints for spraying, although the lighter colours can be a bit tricky to apply. I also like the Tamiya AS spray can's. These spray beautifully and it's a cheap way to buy paint.
 

Although the upper wings and fuselage are supposed to be the same colour but with different gloss levels, in all the images I viewed, they looked the same. I decided to try and do the same.

The base colour for the upper surfaces was Tamiya AS8 "Navy Blue" decanted and mixed with a touch of Mr Color #311 FS36222 to lighten it. This was applied first. Using various blues and blacks I applied random marks and shading to this area.

The leading edges are supposed to be the same as the upper fuselage. But again in the images I viewed the leading edges looked considerably lightly than than the wings and upper fuselage. I used Mr Color H72 intermediate blue to simulate this.

Next was Mr Color 366 Intermediate blue which was applied freehand with my Sparmax airbrush to the fuselage. This intermediate blue comes from Mr Colors USN Navy color set, and is quite different hue to H72, which is also intermediate blue.Again, using blues and greys, I applied some shading, mottling, and marks.

Next was the lower surfaces. Rather than white I used a gray,  Mr Color #311 FS36222. In my opinion white of this much would look to stark This is one the colours that is hard to apply and I was having trouble. So I switched to the Mr Hobby (Aqueous) version of this colour. I used some thinned darker greys to show weathering.

Finally I applied the patches to the tail. The decal sheet and Pacific Twins show this a light gray and from the photos it impossible to tell so I went with their recommendation. I used Mr Color # 315 FS16440, again applied freehand