James' Karaya 1/72 Supermarine Sea Lion II **FINISHED**

[Old_Tonto]

It's coming together now James. Great workon the prop.

[JamesPerrin]

Prop looks excellent! What colour exactly did you use for those stripes? I'll need to tackle my prop soon......

Base was Hu110 which I think is Natural Wood. I then used mix of Citadel Orc Brown and Black to paint the darker laminations. Tamiya Clear Orange was used as a varnish though Humbrol's equivalent will do just as well.

I've not had time at the bench this last week till now. Meanwhile some the Tamiya X-4 Blue has made it through the Christmas post in good time. This meant I needed to get some primer on sharpish.



Those of you with a keen strut awareness will notice the kit has sprouted an extra one which I'd forgotten to add. This is some sort of fuel/oil line that meet the radiator and though clearly seen in photos has been missed by Karaya and I used one of the spare struts not used for the tailplane.

[MDT]

That looks lovely and clean - good bit of strutting going on!

[JamesPerrin]

That looks lovely and clean - good bit of strutting going on!

Cheers Matt, the primer showed up a couple of blemishes that needed sorting out but these were all on the underside.

[JamesPerrin]

I had hoped to avoid having to rub down the primer with micromesh. I've got the knack now so that it doesn't form a powdery finish by spraying close and making sure it goes on wet. Easy on a jet, however with a kit that has some many nook and crannies over spray caused rough patches and showed when I put the first coat of blue on. I have therefore smoothed it off with 3600 grit and suffered the minor damage I was hoping to avoid. All the bits have been glued back now and I'm ready to proceed. I had added a touch of white to the Tamiya X-4 but think it needs another a tad more for the final coat.

[JamesPerrin]

More blue, a bit lighter in shade. Should do it this time.

[TomW]

I want one of these so badly at the moment, James it's all your fault with this great build!

Regards

Tom

[JamesPerrin]

The decals by Techmod are very very thin, the backing isn't strong enough to keep the serials as one and they ended up going on one or two letters at a time. They only supply the tail and fuselage markings, in fact the serials were also written very large under the lower wing. I think during the race it also wore a no 14 on the port side and 'SUPERMARINE' on the starboard. A real shame these extra decals weren't supplied though I can't say I would have looked forward to trying to place such large thin decals that the underwing needs.



The instructions give the wonderful direction to 'make spokes', after initially deciding not to bother I thought I'd give it a go as the exercise may prove useful for later projects. I drew a couple of crosses with additional 45 degree lines. Using a circle template I determined the tire's inner dimension and drew this on too and then covered with stickytape to stop glue adhering to the paper. An axle was cut from plastic rod to match the width of the supplied forks. For each line I then superglued a piece of wire either side of the axle.

The next step will be to cut all the wires to length and see if I can free them from the backing without them disintegrating!

[PaulBradley]

Oooh, good technique - I hope it works, as I could use it for my Martin-Handasyde!

[JamesPerrin]

I trimmed the wires and apart from one loose wire everything turned out grand and they fitted the tires perfectly.



The strange angular bits are the beaching gear. These needed blue-tacking to the fuselage to get the 3 parts at the correct angles. The blue tac lifted some paint which meant a touch up. Thankfully I've kept some of my blue mix to hand for just such jobs.

[mightymikeD]

"Also Spoke Zarathustra"...

Nice work, Sir!

[MDT]

Fine work James! those spokes look so so fiddly.

[VickersVandal]

Very impressive spokes. You make it look so easy!

[JamesPerrin]

Thanks guys, I really glad the plan just worked. Here is the finished beaching gear.

[PaulBradley]

Very impressive.