Big Hog WIP

Big Hog with it's crew 

Some basic construction. The fit is rather good for an older kit. The seam filling is due to my fault. I used glue goo to fill in some gaps as it scribes as sharp as plastic does. 

Some sanding and rescribing and the basic cockpit done. 

Painted the engine in Alclad Steel and the transmission housing in Mr. Color Engine Grey. 

Primed, glossed and painted the propeller aluminum. 

Coated the whole propeller in Mr. Paint's 2K clear, painted the tips yellow and after masking, painted the blades in a grimy black. 

Tzadaah!!! 

And then hit it with 91% alcohol on a Q-tip and cocktail sticks to mangle the blades. Because of the 2K coat, the alcohol will only attack the black and leave the aluminum intact. 

This is a comparison with the pristine propeller for an upcoming Tamiya post war Corsair. 

Got the fuselage sealed up and added the instrument panel from below. Fiddly but that way I could work the seams without having to worry about the IP. 

Not that thrilled about the circular cover though.... 

Almost ready for some primer! 

And here it is! Mr. Color Surfacer black thinned 50-50 with Mr. Color Self leveling Thinner. 

Glossed the areas to be chipped with Mr. Paint Super Gloss Black. 

 

And shot those areas with Alclad Aluminum. 

Wet the areas with water and a pinch of dish washing detergent and sprinkled some salt on. 

In the meantime applied a grimy white underside with Mr. Paint's Arctic Grey which is an almost white grey. 

When the salt was stuck to the surface I came in with Mr. Paint WWII Yellow Primer.... 

....and hit that with some more salt. 

Mixed up some Mr. Color Dark Sea Blue and Dark Gray and sprayed the top surfaces. After that, I added more grey and bleached the canvas surfaces. The US and New Zealand Corsairs used lacquer paints on the metal parts and dope on the canvas parts. 

After rubbing the salt off, this is how it looks for now. I will touch up the chipping on the canvas parts though. 

Today I came in with the middle blue. My thought was if I needed to marble, I would just use the dark blue as background. 

Pictures show Big Hog having a different color rudder. 

I first used Mr. Paint International Blue but found it to be too.....blue... 

So, I mixed in more US Navy Grey-Blue. 

And eventually even a decent amount of Arctic Grey. 

 

Wanted to empty my paint cup on the sides before going back to my earlier mixture but actually liked the tone and the contrast and kept the Arctic Grey mixture for all the rest. 

 

Just stuck together temporarily. 

 

 

 

 

 

Some final bleaching of the canvas and top wing surfaces. 

In some pictures a dark patch is visible on the starboard rudder. 

The port fuselage has four distinct dots in the top color. 

Yeah......I thought this was a paint mule.... AMS is kicking in I guess... 😉 

Whoohoooh!!! Decals arrived! Sadly I had to order them twice as my first order got lost in the mail... 🙁 

First thing to do: score around the national marking and subtly sun bleach them with white lacquer paint. Let’s see if this works. 🙂 

They turned out not that bad... a bit jagged at the sides but that actually contributes to the field applied red border to the national markings.  

I resorted back to using the Academy tape decals on the nose because the Super Scale ones didn't line up with the panel lines and tore while moving them in position. 

Speaking of which, I'm not that impressed by the decals. See how the red bleeds through into the white under decal softener.  

Progress is ever so slowly... 

After researching the left wing for a while I decided to go with the Super Scale decal as it is... In reality this national insignia should be bigger and touching the aileron.  

Well, for a ‘paint mule’ it doesn’t look that bad... 

Doubting the white tape decal though... it won’t snuggle down and is not lining up with the panel lines it is supposed to seal off. 

Lo and behold, I found some modeling time! I tried to peel off the white lines but eventually had to resort to sanding them off and repaint the upper nose. 

I also found some Interior Green for the tail wheel. 

And some whiteish grey for the landing gear. I used a Molotow pen for the oleos. 

I found some spare Microscale tape decals and cut those to manageable pieces in order to align them to the panel lines they are supposed to stop leaking fluids out off. 

Not bad... Actually, the minor misalignment adds to the feel that those are pieces of tape. 

Final sprint to get it finished for club night! 

 

 

The landing gear doors don’t have a lot of glueing surface but on the other hand, they’re not load bearing anyway. 

The moment when you remove the inner masking and see those pieces of masking without any bleed through! 🙂 

And after removing the outer masking it stays that way! 😄 

Engine on the fire wall! 

Cowling on! 

Very hard to see but I added the antenna wire from very thinly stretched out sprue to keep it OOB. 

My new best friend! This stuff is awesome! Sprayed on in a thin slightly wet coat, it instantly flashes off to a dead flat finish without the dreaded frosting. 👍