Bluesteel's Coastal Swordfish ***FINISHED***

[jssel]

Julian, that looks fantastic.

[Dirkpitt289]

SWEET!!!

[MerlinJones]

Is that just black black, or a fancy Julian black?

Regards,
Bruce

[bluesteel]

Is that just black black, or a fancy Julian black?

Regards,
Bruce

This one is most definitely 'Johnnie Painter Black', black, blaack, blaaack!

[bluesteel]

Crew, rockets, machine gun and inter rigging rods painted.

I was also going to add the R/F aerials as shown on the back of the Matchbox box but... The photos of the Duxford black Swordfish don't show any. Now I though this might be just the restoration and the restorers not bothering or leaving until later. Then I found a photo at the foot of page 122 of Chris Ashworths 'RAF Coastal Command', of a 119 Sqn black Swordfish that doesn't show the above fuselage R/F aerials either. So I'm going with that and omitting them at the moment. Maybe Radar equipped Swordfish have something different.

[bluesteel]

Crew, gun and wind shield installed. A little touching up and then the decals to go:

[Martin R]

Julian,

It looks fantastic. Great job!

regards,

Martin

[bluesteel]

Now I have hit the only real problem with this build - some of the decals.

The roundels and tail flashes from the Revell Matchbox re-pop are fine. But the squadron codes from the original Matchbox are silvered to death. Using all the usual de-silvering techniques have only reduced them from earth-shatteringly badly silvered to tragically silvered. I could take them off and print new ones, but they would have to be on white decal paper to show up on black and I'd end up painting around them. So I may as well paint around these once they have dried.

[MerlinJones]

Given the intense mattness around the decals, I don't believe that you applied your decals directly onto wet Klear!

Or did you and the matt simply absorbed it all?

Regards,
Bruce

[bluesteel]

Given the intense mattness around the decals, I don't believe that you applied your decals directly onto wet Klear!

Or did you and the matt simply absorbed it all?

Regards,
Bruce

Yep, they were onto Klear. But it's mostly dried by the time I took the photo. It did help a bit, but not a lot.

[bluesteel]

Patience, Julian. It might be just that the glue on the decals hasn't dried yet. Does it truly look like there is air trapped beneath, or do they look a little whitish under the decal film?

No air trapped. They were quite hard to tease off the backing paper and had a whitish tint to the 'clear' areas when removed, which might have blended down on any background other than matt black. I've painted around and they look OK now.

[bluesteel]

Finished. NF 370 printed and applied. It's hard to photograph as the pre-flash does odd things to the focus, must be the matt black.One photo here the rest will go in the completed builds section:

[Martin R]

Great finish, Julian - it was a pleasure to watch your build progress.

[Dirkpitt289]

Stunning build. It looks great in black dress

[PaulBradley]

Nice one, Julian!

Yes, please get some outdoor glamour shots - a typically hazy British summer's day should work perfectly, especially towards evening.