Jamara Marchetti SF260

[Colin]

Here is a rather belated build thread for my Jamara Marchetti kit. If you don't know the SF260 you may remember it attacking a DC-3 in 'Quantum Of Solace'

The original I am trying to model is D-EDUR - which as it turns out was a bad choice - but more of that later.

D-EDUR.jpg (6.25 KiB) Viewed 5353 times

[Colin]

OK, so on to the kit.

Although a small model it is certainly not a beginner's model. The instructions are sparse and the plans are simply provided on a CD, and turned out to deviate from the contents of the kit in many areas.

The laser cutting was good but the wood quality was extremely poor. The ribs especially were prone to breaking at the slightest provocation.

The initial build was not photographed but consisted of a fairly standard build for a laser cut kit - i.e. built essentially in your hands rather than using a jig and it did not take long to get to this stage...

Build 1.jpg (88.6 KiB) Viewed 5352 times

[Colin]

The tip tanks provided in the kit consisted of ABS mouldings - 2 halves for each tank.

I always have a problem getting these sort of moulding to mate to each other successfully, and these were no exception resulting in wide gaps between the two halves.

So I gave up on these and instead carved a pair from blue foam...

Tip tanks.jpg (26.11 KiB) Viewed 5352 times

[Colin]

And so on to covering.

Here I am using a mix of white Solarfilm for the underside and coffee HobbyKing film for the rest ...

Build 2.jpg (99.63 KiB) Viewed 5352 times

[Colin]

So now on to the painting.

The green camouflage colour was mixed from cheap acrylics from 'The Works' - a good standby.

I also needed paint to match the coffee HK film for the canopy and tanks, and used my usual trick of getting a B&Q tester pot matched to a sample of film.

So now it is all painted and ready for the pilot, cockpit and decals ...

Build 3.jpg (120.32 KiB) Viewed 5352 times

[Colin]

And here we have the problem. Remember I said that D-EDUR was a poor choice?

Well here's the problem. If you have a look at the first pic you will see that D-EDUR is sponsored and covered with logos. That is no problem and I have generated all these, but have a look at the Sennheiser logo here ...

logo.jpg (35.66 KiB) Viewed 5352 times

There are two problems. Firstly the background is transparent so the camouflage can be seen behind it.

This is no problem in itself, as I have transparent background decal paper. But we then have the problem of the logo being white.

So what's the problem I hear you say? Well you cannot print white !!! When you print white on a PC printer you simply print nothing and allow the white paper to show - so if I print a white logo on transparent background, then I get nothing!

So the best I can do is use the decal paper with a white background so I can get the text OK, and then try and colour the background to match where it is on the plane, which means matching both the colour and the actual camouflage pattern where it is covered.

Watch this space!

[David Cowley]

Colin
Had the same problem, did get round it but for the life cannot remember how

Looks good keep the good work up

David

[brian]

Nice looking plane Colin. Is this one that is going to be a hanger queen or fly. Have you thought about getting some vinyls printed in white.

[Colin]

That costs money Brian!

OK - first decal sheet done, getting around the problem by filling in the background where necessary...

Decal Sheet 10.jpg (94.36 KiB) Viewed 5321 times

I think I have the colours matched. (Bit tricky when you think that on a PC you can have each of red, blue and green set to any of 256 levels. This means that there are potentially 16,777,216 colours available!)

Of course it's not just the colours that have to be matched - the camouflage contours have to be matched too. Look at the 'GA Buyer' logos to see what I mean...

GA Buyer.jpg (43.56 KiB) Viewed 5321 times

The Sennheiser logo is next to be worked on - this takes time as the background of the logos have to have the colours corrected pixel by pixel. The issue is that what appears to be a simple two colour image...

Sennheiser.JPG (31.15 KiB) Viewed 5321 times

... is actually very pixelated at the edges, and when you change the background these have to be corrected individually...

Sennheiser close up.JPG (49.66 KiB) Viewed 5321 times

Just a pointer for those of you that do your own decals!

[Colin]

OK - so I have started to apply the decals.

Here's what I am trying to emulate...

D-EDUR - 3.JPG (42.65 KiB) Viewed 5320 times

And here's the 'GA Buyer' logo in situ on the model. Still a slight mismatch on the brown, but I can live with that.

Decals - 1.jpg (88.54 KiB) Viewed 5320 times