Scale Model Shop

**AlanG** · 29 July 2010, 16:43

Have a read of this thread and also this site has a shop. If it's not in the shop i'm sure John can order it in for you

http://www.scale-models.co.uk/chit-chat/10079-general-advice-returnee-please.html

Oh and welcome to the forum

**Guest** · 29 July 2010, 16:49

I? take it from the use of $ that you are n the States? We do have a few American members who cold advise of suppliers over there but the internet is still the place to look. Buying different paints for different models is all part of the hobby I am afraid. The only way around it is to make models of a similar type, nationality and period.

**Ian M** · 29 July 2010, 18:14

As for paint thats a night mare we are all ridding! The biggest thing to over come is do you want 100% acurate colour or do you want a result which is good on the eye and pleases YOU the builder.

Xtracrylix paints are acurate and if you shop around you can find them at a reasonable price. White Ensign also do matched paints. I use both when I what 100%. A lot cheaper are Vallejo. Waterbase acrylic huge colour range and easy enough to either fine THE colour or a close match. The only down side are the names that they give the colours. Rather misleading. An example being "Russian uniform". OK its the colour that they had. However the colour is a dead match for dark slate grey as used by the Fleet air arm!!!

Enough about paint from me.

Tools: A good knife or two. One with a fine pointed blade the other with a rounded blade. Wet and dry 'sand' paper- From the 800 corn right up to 1200-1600 corn. (which is so fine its silly). A set of fine files for generally shaping bits, a selection of drill bits 0,5mm upwards in ½mm steps. Acouple of clamps to hold things, tweezers to drop things with!!! A good light and a magnifier are also handy.

Welcome to the world of scale modelling.

Ian M

**Guest** · 29 July 2010, 19:20

Oooh, ok, here goes

You need,

A model stash, minimum of 5, (owning essential, building them optional)

A selection of 'decent' hobby shop bristle brushes from 00 to about 4

At least one of every colour of your favourite brand paint and some thinners, extra ones of the colours you really like

Double action airbrush, (optional but you can get a basic decent chinese one for £20 and the finish you get is superb), compressor, again hobby compact ones are fine for starters and can be had quite cheaply, (just think how many cans of compressed air you'd use)

A vast library of reference material ranging from Pamphlets, leaflets, war propoganda, books, paintings from the period and a DVD (or video if you're into antiques), of every war film ever made, good or bad, accurate or inaccurate, and if possible the original draft of the script from the aforementioned movie, oh and the storyboard too, i'd recommend Kelly's Heroes to start with.

A man cave, (this can be a room in the house, garden shed, garage, or old unused bunker left over from WWII in which to sit and think about what you're going to do with your model, actually doing it is optional)

A really good and reliable fast internet connection for browsing on here whilst looking for advice and to be inspired and look at the member galleries and think, 'I wish I could build things as well as that'

A ready explanation to your wife / girlfriend / SO / Mum etc as to why you absolutely NEED all the above

A ready parallel to draw if the above fails, for example, 'well i don't go on about all the shoes and handbags you buy do I?'

But seriously, welcome to the forum

It really depends on what your intentions are, your chosen field you wish to model and if you want to go for the airbrush or brush painting.

If you're solely doing warbirds then you can likely get a range of something like the Vallejo acrylic paints (I think it's these) as they are sold in sets according to the military application, i.e. Allied / German / Japanese etc

Have a quick shufty through Johns shop to get an idea of whats available, and if you are US based then a good google about will point you in the right direction for shops closer to you.

Worth checking if you have any modelling clubs near to you also for advice.

scale-models Online Shop

**Guest** · 29 July 2010, 19:30

Thank you! I generally wouldn't care about a micro-difference in the shade, so long as it at least subtly resembles what I'm building. I thought mixing the paint for airbrushing was a technique? Anyway, all I'm looking for is a place where I CAN buy those rare colors if I need them. I could care less sometimes, but the 30ish different colors my hobby store sells might not cut it all of the time.

Thanks for the link!

And yes, I live in the U.S.

I can't get my mind off of that BF109 E-4, but I also want to do a Spitfire Mk. II

Thoughts!? (:

EDIT: M1ks, thanks! I posted right after you did, I will check out that set of paints it really looks like what I'm looking for.

**stona** · 30 July 2010, 13:42

Hi and welcome. If your main interest is going to be WW2 era aircraft it would probably be worth building up a collection of paints of the relevant colours. I found my collection grew over some time so that after an initial investment the monetary impact wasn't too painful! You are quite correct not to worry too much about exact matches,there are many reasons for this not least being the so called "scale effect". I use Xtracrylix which are very well matched to original colours but I invariably lighten them,in a completely unscientific manner, for my models.

What scale E-4? Graham (Fenlander) has just built the Airfix 1/48 version and gave it good marks. As for the Spitfire Which MkII are you interested in? I'm not particularly well read on the Spitfire but I thought that the MkIIs were pretty much a re-engined MkI c/w eight .303 Brownings (MkIIa). Some would have been cannon armed (MkIIb). They were built just up the road from me at the Castle Bromwich plant rather than down in Southampton.

Regarding colour,here is a quote from renowned Luftwaffe expert,author and artist Jerry Crandall about just one colour. It refers to RLM66, a dark grey used primarily in Luftwaffe cockpits and illustrates perfectly why we modellers will only ever make an approximation.

"The changes that RLM 66 went through during the middle of the war was caused by adjustments in the chemical make up and function directed for this color.

One major paint company alone changed this formula eleven times from 1 December 1941 to 29 April 1942. For instance the first formula included gloss purple which gave the original formula for RLM 66 a dark bluish black tint. That color was dropped and other pigments were added throughout the changes that altered the color to a cooler dark gray which in some light almost has a dark green cast to it. We have samples of this color in our collection that all match very well, this includes a Bf 109 K seat, Me 262 rudder pedal, Fw 190 D-9 instrument panel and so on. Comparing this color to the earlier version, which is on our Bf 109 F canopy frame it is more of a charcoal gray.

The actual paint formula was not supplied to the approximately ten paint companies that produced quantities of paint for the Luftwaffe, so there is some variation in these mixes. Comparing a chart for instance, from Muster Schmidt with another prominent manufacturer,there are some variations.

The reason I have asserted that there were eleven changes in this time frame is that I have the ORIGINAL FORMULAS from a major paint factory that supplied the Luftwaffe during WWII. Besides RLM 66, we have most of the other important color formulas."

Cheers

Steve

Scale Model Shop

Need a list of supplies! (New to modeling)

Need a list of supplies! (New to modeling)

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