What's on my desk? Part 38.

Salutations on a Tuesday morning,

Let's dive right into it, shall we?

We have windows! I was able to glue the frames to the transparant sheet, cut them out and install them into the house. The 'glass' got a bit scratched along the way, unfortunately, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with the result. Here's the café:

And the grey house:

I still need to add the center post to all of these and touch up the colour a bit. The paint flaked somewhat while sanding the frames to fit.

For the large café window I didn't want a full sheet of clear glass, but one that was partly frosted. I experimented on a piece of scrap with both matt varnish and sanding with 1000 grit paper. The varnish looked smoother, so I went with that. I took the pre-cut piece home, masked it and airbrushed a layer of Vallejo matt varnish. Here's the result:

It's not fixed yet. It needs to go on the inside and will be sandwiched between pieces of wood.

Speaking of wood, I started work on the door of the grey house. This was primed in black, received some coats of tan/beige paint and then was treated with my favorite method of wood effect: oil paint (Raw Umber in this case), sloppily applied and then wiped off with cotton buds, simulating wood grain.

As per usual, oil paint takes a long time to dry, so I'll only be able to paint the other side later this week. The café door has some optional glass panes. I'll try to make these, but if it doesn't look right, I'll have to settle for the full-wood doors. We'll see!

 

Sea Harrier-wise the wing should be done. At one point while working on the front, the back side popped off again, so I needed to re-glue it... The gaps are filled now, but may need a second application of Plastic Putty. Flaps and ailerons were fixed and the tail was done as well.

The horizontal stabilizers are at a downward angle. The plates connecting these to the fuselage have a large pin ensuring a good fit, but the tailplanes themselves then have a very tenuous connection to these plates. I took some fiddling to get the right angle, but it worked out in the end, I think.

Lastly, I assembled the stores. Two Sidewinders and two fuel tanks (plus two cannons) were the usual loadout for the SHAR over the Falklands, so that's what I prepared. You can see that I had to sand the seam line on the tanks and will have to rescribe the panel lines again.

Once again, I'm nearing the point where I'll have to take this one home for painting. My paint shop assembly line is growing again. :-)

So, this week: final things for the Sea Harrier, and doors!

I've also been working on an old Matchbox kit for a customer. It's from 1987 and you can really see how plastic kits have progressed in the intervening 37 years...

 

That's it, See you next week!