SPA Modeler

I thought you might enjoy this peek at 1:48 Trimaster steel and white metal:




As far as which plane, maybe:

That's awesome Bruce. The white metal parts look especially good. Are the exhausts hollow? The steel parts are nice and strong but are a bit hard to cut from the sprues. Much tougher than brass. What was the initial release date on that kit? Late 80's? Trimaster was definitely ahead of its time. The one major error is the closed off wheel well... in this regard, the Eduard and Hobby Boss kits are better.

JV44 Doras are very colorful and interesting. Let me know if you need information on those birds as Crandall's Dora Volume 2 has lots of info on them.

Thanks for the comments guys! I hope everyone is doing well. Especially the SoCal guys with this heat that we are having right now.

On a positive note, I received the Canon S100 via Ebay. It was used so I got at a very good price but the camera is in pristine condition and came with three batteries, charger, two cases and a 16GB card that was not included in the description. Image quality is so much better than the old Optio that I've been saddled with for the past week. The functions are a little bit different than the S95 so I'm going to have to get used to that but I'm happy to have my online pictures back to the quality that I'm used to.

The Dora is at the stage where I'm preparing to mate the wings to the fuselage. The radiator cowling has been added to the front end, the tail unit has been attached to the back end and the joints for those connections have been filled, cleaned up and primered.


A view of the rivets on the starboard fuselage... just a check of the camera's ability for close-up shots. The S100 has a much shorter minimum focus distance than the S95 so I'm able to get really close to the subject if necessary.


Views of the joint at the tail unit. Fit was very good and I was able to use White Milliput to seal the small gaps without having to sand and lose detail.



Similar views of the front end. I may have to re-establish the rivets on the cowling with a needle point.



In order to bridge the gap on the bottom of the fuselage that I discovered during the dry-fit of the wings to the fuselage, I've cut a piece of thin sheet styrene to serve as a shim. This is recommended on larger gaps to facilitate a better bond. Otherwise, the gap filled with putty alone is susceptible to cracking/crumbling.


The exhaust pipes have been given a preliminary paint job. After painting, I noticed some knife damage caused when reaming out the tips so I need to fix those before I finalize the paint. I also wanted to see if the photos could discern the subtle color variation on the exhaust tips but the white background simply crushes the subtle tonal differences. I'll have to try and use a darker background next time.

THE CAMERA

The S100 is a nice camera, John. I think you will quickly adjust to using it. There are some basic deas for setting up functions on Ken Rockwell's review of the S100: "FUNC SET to AUTO, ISO to AUTO, AWB turn the ring to A4 for less blue photos." If all he is suggesting is run the camera in full auto that is pretty much a good review of a camera right there. On your photos there is a bit of a magenta cast to what I am seeing, if you want my opinion. That's not from my monitor (I'm using a calibrated display). The effect could be processing. Are you running these through LR?

THE HEAT

Thank you for mentioning the Southern California Division of the SPA Modeler family and this current heat wave... I hope you have air conditioning because I do not. This heat / lack of comfort has made working nearly impossible. I have been cleaning house slowly and steadily. "Sega, sega," as the Greeks say. "Slowly, slowly, chill, take it easy...."

THE PLANE

Thank you for mentioning the importance of a good shim as I did not know that, and I have been trying to fix a join on the Horten for awhile now that experiences flex due to it being part of the mount! Of course, adding a filler piece would have eliminated the issue of cracking putty. This is one of the small yet incredibly significant learning experiences which comes from an open forum, and I would like to thank you so much for providing the example as well as the explanation. One without the other, I would have missed the connection, but together, the connection is made securely, "Eureka!"

Nice progress looks good John! And shims are indeed a great way to fill larger gaps. Yes this heat has been a bit of a bear. Thank goodness it's supposed to lighten up a bit over the next few days. Hopefully the humidity will also.

Thanks guys! Back to work now which is nice in a way since I'm indoors with AC the whole day.

Bruce, thanks for the info on the S100. I like RAW so I can't shoot in AUTO but like you say, Ken Rockwell's recommendation to shoot in full AUTO says positive things about the camera itself. It's very similar yet different to the S95. Depth of focus "seems" shallower but I can't verify it. I know that there was a change in sensors as Canon went from CCD to CMOS with this model. I am processing RAW through LR and I've always had some issues with color cast consistency on my modeling photos. During a typical weekend day, the lighting conditions in my garage change from ambient sunlight coming in through the open door in the morning to the evening when the door closes and I turn on the fluorescent tube lights on the ceiling. I'll pay more attention to the white balance in the future. I'm using a calibrated monitor at home.

One time element that I do check with daylight photography is an hour to hour assessment; which is as you described, actually. I like to take my shots all at the same time for a consistent look. I process VSCO through iPhone, and endorse VSCO with Lightroom module as well, I can control shifting quite a bit. With your explanation, I know now that what I see as a shift is incremental over time - with deepening of dusk and or last light falling, i.e. Magic hour, there is an increase in violet. Check the Rockwell review as it is also an A/B comparison between both point and shoot cams.

Your Dora continues to inspire; I have a hard time thinking about anything except 190s and 152s these days as a positive result.

Where would you look for a replacement tail wheel for the Trimaster 1:48 version, John?



EDIT... apologies, John, you meant the closed off wheel well! My bad! I read your reply well mis-read your reply so many times as the tail wheel being a major failing, it's not--it's the closed off wheel well. I don't know! Should I worry about it?

Hmmm... I don't know if I know of a 1/48 scale tail wheel replacement for a 190. The white metal one from the Trimaster kit looks pretty accurate from what I can see. Is there something wrong with it? It looks like it could have some casting roughness to it. One trick I use to find aftermarket parts for a particular aircraft is to browse Ultracast.ca. They list their inventory per aircraft type/scale so it is a convenient place to get an overview of available aftermarket parts. It's not a complete listing since they don't carry every brand but it is a good place to start looking.

Ok... so the exhaust pipes have been repaired and repainted. Black base first and then a coat of Alclad Steel. I misted on some Alclad Exhaust Manifold over that. But this time, I decided to add some rust-colored accents by dry-brushing a red/brown mix onto the pipes. As a final touch, I spot sprayed highly thinned black to darken the exhaust tips and to tone down the red/brown. Photographed over black construction paper captures the color better than the white background.