1/48 Tamiya Mosquito FB VI

by Philip Limbert

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This kit was built from the Tamiya 1/48 scale Mosquito FB VI kit for my friend Slobodan who is leaving Indonesia after 7 years of duty here.

After Yugoslavia broke up with the Soviet Block (Warsaw Pact) in 1948, it began receiving significant military aid from the west, mainly from the United States and Britain.  Initial batches consisted of surplus equipment left over from the World War II, such as propeller-driven aircrafts. In the early 50s, more modern weapon, including jets, were delivered.

As part of the British and French military assistance, the Yugoslav Air Force received nearly 150 DH Mosquitos, including 46 FB.VIs, 60 NF.38s, and some T.IIIs. These remained in front-line service, particularly as naval bombers equipped with LETOR-2 torpedoes, until early 60s when they were withdrawn from the inventory and left to rot at various airbases.

None of the wooden Wonders survived because they were quickly cut up for heating by the troops guarding the airbases during the harsh Balkan winters.

Click on images below to see larger images

The fit of the kit is as expected from Tamiya. Detail is very good. I did add some detailing for the cockpit such as seat belts, wires, and yellow-black lines in the cockpit areas. Since the markings of the Yugoslav AF is not included in the kit, I tried to make my own decals but failed to produce the correct colors and registers. Using the clear ones resulted  in a too transparent decal. My friend Slobo came to the rescue with decals from Aeromaster albeit one  that supposed to go with YAF   Il-2 and Yak-1.

This is the second time I painted  my models using enamels. Usually I prefer acrylics such as Tamiya to do the job, but I want to try the Revell RAF WWII color set. I was too lazy to get the matching color from Tamiya line. Bad idea. From my first attempt which was a disaster, I learned  to overcoat the enamels with Future (3 layers worth). Left to dry for about 2 days, I oversprayed it with Tamiya clear. To my horror, the Tamiya Clear ate through the Future layer making it wrinkle  worse than an  orange peel. At first, I felt hopeless and left it there for months because of other kit projects.

Then Slobo called to tell me that he was leaving Indonesia  in 3 months. I took a look at the kit and suddenly felt that the aircraft  was salvageable. I immediately resanded  the paint in the damaged area, mostly the upper wing areas. Perhaps after having been left for several months, the enamel ha dried completely and was smoothed very easily. Voila,  the mosquito was revived.

Another bout of laziness almost ended up in another disaster. The mosquito's canopy consists of many frames,  some with different sizes. Usually l go with Tamiya's masking tape, but the frame lines in the clear parts are very fine. I was having a hard time finding the correct pane and frame lines. I read about the bare-metal-foil/BMF method and thought it was a good time to try. From the how-tos that I read it looks very easy. True,  the masking process was quite fast, the frame lines were easier to spot, and the cut produced straight lines.

From the beginning of the process, I already suspected that lifting the BMF can be very difficult due to the thinness and adhesion, and I thought, well, if the paints and coatings are thick enough, it will help the BMF from tearing to pieces. Wrong , wrong , wrongI had to endure hours of peeling and scraping the BMF with my scalpel blade. Even after getting a sizeable area that I thought can be peeled easily with a tweezer, the BMF always tore apart. It probably took me 8  hours to remove the BMF. After that I realized that the adhesive's residue was fogging the clear parts. Luckily, Tamiya's new compounds helped me restore the shine of the canopy.

The rest just followed  through smoothly. I used a very "organic" material for the antennas. I hope you all enjoy the end result.

Philip

Click on images below to see larger images

Photos and text by Philip Limbert

Historical background supplied by Slobodan Lekic, and

YAF FB.Mk VI drawing from O.Petrovic-YUVAM 4/86