Swedish Piston Fighter Colours: 1925-1954

Mikael Forslund's new book about the Swedish piston fighter era came in the mail today. And what a happy surprise it was, I thought it were to be a small paperback like the same author’s book on the J-21 fighter but it turned out to be a big A4+ size, 264 page, hardback.  It is loaded with photos, some in color, and beautiful color drawings depicting various camouflage and markings for the different types of aircraft . All aircraft are described in english text and in chronological order from J-1 Phönix D.II to the  J-30 DH Mosquito NF Mk XIX, all with plenty of pictures and illustrations  At the end of the book there is a short summary about colors and markings (but if you want to immerse yourselves in that topic you really need the book “Kronmärkt” ISBN: 9789172430037)

This is the book to have if you are the least interested in piston fighter aircraft in Swedish air force service and it is an Aladdin's cave for the Swedish Air Force modeler. The price for the book ranges from 28 to 40 Euro so it pays to check prices online. I bought my copy online for aprox. 28 Euro including shipping.

Publisher: Mushroom Model Publications

Language: English

ISBN-10: 8361421726

ISBN-13: 978-8361421726

Harder & Steenbeck Infinity Airbrush

I bought a new airbrush today a Harder & Steenbeck Infinity 2 in 1. I will use it for fine lines and advanced camouflage like leopard dots and smoke rings, etc. The Infinity 2 in 1 kit comes with two needles, 0.15 mm and 0.4 mm. I will use 0.15 mm set up most of the time but it's good to have a medium needle backup in case my Iwata should ever fail. 

Now I have three Airbrushes, the Iwata for most jobs, the old Evo for solvent based paint type Alclad II and the new Infinity for the really delicate jobs. I will be back with a Review in a year or so.

SPECIAL HOBBY 1/72 Seversky J9 - Build report.

Construction of the Seversky J9 is moving forward. All parts are painted and only assembly of wheels, weapons, etc.. Remains. I'm a little unhappy with camouflage, I feel that the dark green color needs to be a little more dominant, I might paint on another coat of dark green.

The kit is relatively easy to build, the only difficult part is fitting the wing to the fuselage. Generally, all parts fit a little tight so sandpaper and small drills are good to have on hand. The instructions say that you should paint the parts B22 and B7 black, but if you do the instrument film will not be visible, it is better to paint these parts white where instruments film should sit.

If you choose to paint scheme A then you should use part A13. I used the recommended colors except the yellow-green that I mixed Tamiya XF4 with XF3 until the mix was more yellow than green.

Seversky P-35 update

The arrival of the excellent book” Swedish Fighter Colours” trigged some last minute changes to my model.  At page 100 there is an excellent colour picture of Blue Erik at F8 wing and my first reaction was that it was the same as the kit version A, but a closer look reviled lots of differences, In fact it’s a another individual.

  The most obvious is the lack of the blue ring around the engine cowling and black & white marking on the wing bottom. Minor differences is the smaller size national insignia on the upper side of the wing, lacking of white bottom on the letter E, a blue spinner and the longer air intake on the engine cowling. All this needed to be corrected.  Now it´s just waiting for a light wash and a satin finish.

The kit is highly recommended.


Pictures of the finished model is here:

http://hogges-modellbygge.blogspot.se/2013/01/special-hobby-seversky-p-35-j-9-finished.html

2012 Summary

Royal Air Force Museum London 2011

Some mixed picture from my visit.

Perhaps Revell shoud have employed Airfix´s mad riveter instead of the crazy trencher from Matchbox when they made their new B-17.

;-)

Cheers!

Special Hobby Seversky P-35 J-9 Swedish Defender

Special Hobby Seversky P-35 is good news for fans of both the U.S. Army Air Corps and the Swedish Air Force in 1/72 scale. While supporters of the quarter scale has been fortunate to have academy's nice kit, the 1/72 scale fans have not had the same luck and for years the only option has been MPM short run. 

This all new tool meet the current expectations for fine details and recessed lines. Besides three sprues of plastic parts there is also a few parts of resin and a small sheet of photo etch. I compared the parts against drawings of J-9 and they match perfectly. Finaly the beautiful decal sheet is really sweet icing on the cake and it gives you four choices of marking all in perfect colors and register. If the kit goes together as well as it looks I will give this kit top score! 

Thoughts on color

 I have come to the conclusion that it is difficult to nearly impossible to apply the "correct" color on a model. There are simply too many variables. Just look at the lack of contrast between the colors of my Ju 52, or some of my Swedish aircraft painted with Vallejo olive which became green after a year. Scale effects are also problematic, you can not just pour white in ready mixed paint for it easily becomes grayish. Although I still think it is very interesting to read and know about the real colors but I will choose a more "artistic" approach when I paint my models in the future, sticking with colorfast Gunze and Tamiya paint for airbrushing. For me it's a hobby, not an obsession. (not ruling out any future experiments just for fun though ;)