Karaś

Alec K
Just acquired this kit at the USA IPMS Nats. Will be following this 👍

Łukasz Gliński
Fuselage closed, main canopy and bombardier's workplace will come next

Alec K
Nice 👍. Are those tail surfaces aftermarket items?

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks. 🙂 Nope, this is the original colour of the sprues. The rest is already sprayed with a surfacer. There are not many aftermarket sets available yet as the kit itself is quite new.

Alec K
Ah, got it (if only I looked closer at the pics 😄)

Łukasz Gliński
Closed the cockpit, mounted the gondola and undercarriage (without wheels). Sprayed the first layer of khaki (Humbrol 142) on canopy frames (so they will have the same colour as interior) and on the undercarriage tarpaulin parts. The rest will be painted using Revell 49, Humbrol 116 and some yellow.

Cuajete
Looking so good, Łukasz.

Łukasz Gliński
One of the gondola hooks went for a trip and never returned. So I scratchbuilt two new ones, using two pins & Part's PE fret (intended for the Heller kit) as a template. They're bit thicker than originals, but I was really annoyed by that finding...

Łukasz Gliński
Did the preshading few evenings ago. Then sprayed what I think should be yellow - I decided to spray the engine cover yellow as well, as it seems very bright on the pic I have (see the pic 14). Then I opened freshly bought Revell Enamel 49, mixed it, sprayed it few times and it looks horrible - as can be seen on pics 15 & 16... Any idea what did I do wrong? With Humbrol enamels and old yellow Revell Airbrush Enamels I don't have such issues...

Alec K
Ouch! I am so sorry. If I were to venture a guess, I would say the paint was too thick, the standoff was too large, or both.

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks Alec, looks like Revell enamels differ a lot from Humbrol ones - I sprayed both using the same settings.
I read somewhere to add the Yellow Gunze levelling thinner and sprayed a thin mist once more, didn't help much.
So I got desperate and sprayed thin layer of Wamod acrylic cleaner, helped a bit, but few panels around gondola will need repainting... probably will do it using a brush...
Of course preshading is gone, hopefully I'll recreate it using Tamiya smoke afterwards (like I did on my An-14).

Cuajete
Hello Łukasz. Maybe the paint needs to be mixed with retardant? It seems that it arrives dry from the airbrush to the plastic, although surely there is someone much more expert than me that can help you. I hope you can resolve this problem.

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks for your input Cuajete, I thought of it too. But I'm confused as revell.de says it's enamel paint needing minimum 24hrs to dry...

Alec K
Yeah, not sure if retarder or leveler is a solution for enamels - these products were developed for acrylics, which dry and cure much faster than enamels.

I think this is a thinning, standoff, or possibly air pressure problem. The sprayable paint should be thin (like fat free milk). After that, experiment with the standoff distance and air pressure to make sure that the paint goes on wet. I generally keep a scrap wing to experiment on before trying "for real" on a project.

One other possible culprit could be the thinner, and its compatibility with the paint. You mentioned adding Gunze leveling thinner: I don't think it's compatible with enamel-based paints.

Regarding pre-shading: you can always redo it once you fix the surface and apply the new paint.

Anyway, sorry to flood you with commentary. I am sure you will figure it out. I found that "sleeping on it" is the best way to figure out and overcome these setbacks. Keep us posted 👍

Alex-Ovidiu Mihailescu
Following with great interest!
Łukasz , romanian Karases had only the undersides of wing tips yellow and rear fuselage band also yellow. Here is a link with a good build of a Karas
cartula.ro/forum/topic/14153-pzl-23-karas-arr
cartula.ro/forum/top..-23b-karas-nr13-arr/

Łukasz Gliński
@Alec: I don't mind commentary flooding, all constructive comments are very welcome 🙂 I read MrColor Levelling Thinner is like cheese - good with anything 😉 And it seems to work.
Currently my strongest suspicion is the surfacer - I will check today the Humbrol 116 on the topside over the same surfacer.

@Alex-Ovidiu: Thank You for the links. I know the most of them were painted the way You wrote, but one of the pics on that Romanian forum shows also a yellow engine cover: cartula.ro/forum/ind..re&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=3344
I have to rethink that idea once again...

Łukasz Gliński
Painted the topside using Humbrol 116, looks better than Revell. I got a nice shading effect, which somehow is hard to photograph... 🙁
I believe I sprayed surfacer from too big distance, probably it is time to stop using cans for that purpose and switch to airbrush finally (Started testing Surfacer 1500 in a rattle can last week though 🙂 ).

Cuajete
Far better, Łukasz.

Alec K
👍

Alex-Ovidiu Mihailescu
Łukasz take that photo with a grain of salt. I have seen photos of the same aircraft and they were totally different. May look like this because of the light . If you look closely at the photo , it looks the same colour is also on the leading edges of the wing.
Here is another photo, you could say that engine cowling ring looks also yellow cartula.ro/forum/ind..t&attach_id=1340
In that profile you mentioned earlier, the yellow cowl ist the artist interpretation. It comes from a polish book about the Karas . I will have to look, but there's an order from romanian high command prior to Barbarossa where it says that all the upper surfaces should be painted in camouflage colours. So if there were any yellow cowl this should have been overpainted in dark green most likely. In this case only yellow could be found on the underside of the cowl . I hope I was clear enough.
Now for the trouble with paint , my opinion is that paint has dried on air before had reached the model . It had happened to me also. This might be because of pressure/dilution/air temperature , and the distance between the airbrush and the model.
This is a great kit , and you do a great job. I have to do one , hope I shall find the time . I still keep in stash the good old Heller . I shall do that one too , specially when there is a great P.E. set from Part for that kit .

Łukasz Gliński
@ Cuajete & Alec - thx a lot for watching 🙂
@ Alex-Ovidiu: I have to admit your agruments are v.convincing. As I'm currently in progress of spraying burnt iron on the engine cowling, I'll remask it later and cover the yellow part with Humbrol 116. It's always good to have some local source of informations, priceless 🙂
Regarding the Heller kit - I have the SK Model repack and the Part sets too. I can sell it all if you prefer. I couldn't stand waiting for the late 'b' version by IBG (always wanted to build the "tiger" one shown on Heller's boxart), so I started the 'a' version in FARR colours (at least in the photo it looks like an 'a' variant). Please don't tell me it was 'b' actually 😭

Alex-Ovidiu Mihailescu
Romanians didn't marked the Karaśes by version. Mainly because when they arrived in Romania they were in a bad shape because of war weariness. Total number of Karaśes that arrived in Romania was 21. They were overhauled by cannibalisation , and 19 were airworthy . Some featured characteristics of both versions. So you are free to build what version you like . There's a book about the Karas written by Tomasz Kopanski . This is a very good book about the Karas.
Please don't use the FARR (Forțele Aeriene Regale ale României) because this is wrong. I know it has appeared in some of the books regarding the Romanian Air Force but the official name was Royal Romanian Aeronautics in short ARR(Aeronautica Regalã Română )
Keep up the good work!

Łukasz Gliński
No idea whether the lower side of the engine cowling should be blue or the whole cowling should be green. I can't judge from the pics I could find in the internets. Are you still there, Alex-Ovidiu?😉

Łukasz Gliński
Finished spraying the basic colours. Still having issues with Revell's 49, however left undercarriage leg is almost finished. I plan to seal it with a glossy Pactra varnish this week and start decalling finally.

Alex-Ovidiu Mihailescu
Hi Łukasz! The underside of the cowl should be yellow. According to the Axis regulations all airplanes that were in action on eastern front should have engine cowling ,undersides of the wing tips yellow and an yellow band on the fuselage before the rudder.
To this there's also an order of the Romanian state undersecretary of air prior to Barbarossa that says that all the upper surfaces of the engine cowling should be painted in camouflage colours over the yellow.
Nice work so far .

Łukasz Gliński
Damn, looks like I sprayed too much green over the yellow on the cowling 🙁 Will have to fix it somehow.
Thanks for your help once again, very much appreciated 👍

Łukasz Gliński
Mission accomplished (I hope) 🙂 Currently the gloss varnish is drying, decals should follow later today.

Alec K
👍

Alex-Ovidiu Mihailescu
Looks good so far. No need to thank me. I want, and I'm willing to help anyone who wants to build an Romanian Air Force plane.

Łukasz Gliński
Looks like the Alclad metalizers are nitro lacquers actually - wanted to do some minor corrections on the cowling using the Alclad Burnt Iron and it started to melt the plastic...
Need to sand and repaint now.

Łukasz Gliński
Accidentially I looked once again into a review of that kit (by KFS). And it turns out that the cowling is all wrong and needs rescribing (see the last picture - the line separating colector from the rest of the cowling should be straight and there should be 2 horizontal lines too). So I washed the cowling yesterday and scribe it today. Repainting will be next.

Łukasz Gliński
Washing in progress and in the meantime the yellow paint dries on the engine cowling (to be followed by dark green and burnt iron respectively)

Łukasz Gliński
Gauzy Agent + black-foil-masks (vinyl?) = disaster. Never again will I use that combination. Next time either drowning in Gauzy agent and the yellow masks or some kind of masking fluid or black foil and gauzy agent paintbrushed afterwards...

Alec K
Hmm, weird. Any guesses as to what happened? Could it be that the Gauzy Agent was not dried properly before you put the mask on? Also, how did you apply the GA (not sure what they recommend for GA, but when using Future, dipping/submerging is the generally accepted method).

IMHO applying GA afterwards may be problematic, unless you mask the canopy framing and the remaining airframe before application. You also rob yourself of an opportunity to see if the canopy has any flaws, and fixing them before installation and painting.

Łukasz Gliński
Well, the issue in my opinion is the strong glue on the vinyl masks, it started to take off th GA layer here and there. I'll try with some other masks soon. In case of vinyl masks I already bought - I'm going to use the GA in the end, maybe even spraying it, who knows...

Łukasz Gliński
Currently I'm correcting the canopy frames using Hu116. Mounted the MGs today, the engine is just dryfitted with propeller. The main canopy received 1-2 layers of GA after scratching off the rest of the first layer (the onne damaged by masks). Probably it will stay this way, maybe one thin layer more, but that's it, no improvements visible here...
Happy to see that no rigging is required😉

Łukasz Gliński
Mounted the engine cowling with the propeller (no, it's not moving), the exhaust pipes, corrected the canopy once more and added some GA here and there. The last element was the camera window on the underside. Struggled with that a bit, thus on the inside multiple layers of Kristal Klear can be seen, but I'm gonna leave as it is in order not to remove it for the 4th time... Will upload the pics tomorrow.

Alex-Ovidiu Mihailescu
Hi Łukasz ! You did a great job here! I'm sorry for the misfortune with the GA. But even so , your work is most impressive! Keep up the good work!

Łukasz Gliński
Thank you, just uploaded last pics of this project. The results of GA and Revell 49 issues are visible, but the overall look is not the worst I think 🙂

Alex-Ovidiu Mihailescu
It looks awesome! You did an excellent job!

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks for compliments and your support during the project 🙂

Razvan Coman
Great model Lukasz.

Alec K
Great recovery and finish Lukasz 👍

Łukasz Gliński
Díky Alec😉

Cuajete
Very nice. Congratulations one more time, Łukasz!