SARowl's Lynx Prototype **Finished**

[ShaunW]

Nicely done John and the photo booth has helped deliver..well..a good photo of the fuselage!

[Jagewa]

Great recovery and very nice photo from your photo booth.

Cheers
Jim

[SARowl]

Time to start painting.

The first thing I did was the modified rotor head



I'm really quite impressed with the Airfix component, it is nicely detailed and looks the part especially after painting. I then gave the assembled fuselage a base coat of white primer, to show any open seams etc.



It was only after priming that I noticed two recessed 'notches' under the cabin door, not sure what Matchbox meant these for but they're not on the aircraft.



Sorry about the out of focus photo, my camera has auto focus and it would only focus on the nearest part of the fuselage which was the skid not the notch! However, out with the trusty filler.



Whilst the filler is drying I had a go at tinting the overhead widows. I read on one forum to try blue permanent felt-tip.



Not sure about the results, it looks a little streaky. I'll let it dry and try another coat.

Hopefully more news tomorrow.

John

[JamesPerrin]

Food colouring in klear or acrylic gloss varnish is another method I've heard of but not tried myself. But if you need to buy the food colouring you might as well by some Tamiya Clear Blue (if they do a blue?)

BTW are the notches something to do with the RN option's torpedo?

[ShaunW]

.......you might as well by some Tamiya Clear Blue (if they do a blue?)

They do indeed and I've used it quite a bit for AFV vision blocks. Never tried in directly onto aircraft transparencies though and, being acrylic, you might also get a bit of a streaky finish hand painting it.

Nice work on the Lynx BTW John, she's coming together very nicely.

[SARowl]

BTW are the notches something to do with the RN option's torpedo?

Yes I think you're right. I'll have to read the instructions... LOL

John

[SARowl]

Does Milliput go off? I filled the notches on the fuselage side with Milliput and after two days it had still not set. My Milliput is a few years old... Anyhow, I picked out the soft Milliput with a toothpick and refilled with Squadron Green putty - which set like a charm.



The exhaust pipes on the Matchbox kit are the wrong size, diameter and angle, so a bit of kit bashing is called for. Firstly I drilled and filed holes in the correct place to the correct size.



I found some plastic tube of the correct diameter in my junk box, which I cut to length.



I superglued the new pipes at the correct angle.



I think that looks more accurate. Now I'll wait for the glue to dry and it'll be ready for painting.

John

[ShaunW]

Excellent, I like to see a bit of kit bashing and the tubing has worked well for the exhausts John - a technique I have used myself on a number of occasions. I don't know if Milliput does go off or not, but given that it hadn't set after two days, there's a strong possibility that it does!

[JamesPerrin]

I save drinking straws from cartons for this purpose. If you can find the telescopic ones you get two diameters.

[SARowl]

I save drinking straws from cartons for this purpose. If you can find the telescopic ones you get two diameters.

Good idea, I'll start my collection ASAP

[SARowl]

Started spraying colour at last. I don't know what official colour the prototype was sprayed, from the Mk1 eyeball it looks like a darker shade of yellow, so I chose Hu24 Trainer Yellow. Hu154 Insignia yellow looks too dark. whilst Hu99 Lemon Yellow is just too lemony...



The fuselage and components with a coat of Hu24



A couple of coats of Klear and I'll be ready to decal.

John

[ShaunW]

From where I'm sitting John, Hu 24 looks like a good match to me.

[martin hale]

Excellent progress!

Martin

[SARowl]

Decal Nightmare

For the past week i've been trying to decal the little beast and I've had problems. Firstly the Matchbox decals were quite old, some crumbled as they were immersed, others would not leave the paper backing even after prolonged soaking so that the paper ended up as a 'mush'. I have raided my limited stash of spare decals and cut and sliced others. The second major decal problem has been the lettering on the nose cone, this should read 'LYNX OO-01', I tried to replicate this by using Modeldecal lettering - what a pain in the neck that was! The individual letters are tiny and they would not adhere to the compound curve of the nose, even with liberal use of Micro Sol and Micro Set. So I've printed some of my own.



The paper is clear inkjet paper from Crafty Computer Paper - http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk; - printed on my Kodak hero 5.1, then lightly sprayed with two coats of Klear. They're drying at the moment so I'll try and apply them tomorrow. Hope I don't run out of time. The other artwork is for my next project an Airfix Gazelle in 705 NAS 'Sharks' colours.

John

[ShaunW]

Excellent work with those self made decals John, I have to admit I would have been stuffed there. I've experienced similar issues with older Matchbox decals myself with the Comet tank that I built in the summer but, of course, such problems are not limited to Matchbox as any old decals can act up like that - as indeed can some newer offerings! I'll look out for your "Shark" Gazelle in due course - should make a smart looking model.