Italeri Macchi C.205 Veltro

[davenport49]

This is my current project, the Italeri Macchi C.205 Veltro (#2765). I'm at the point where I have to decide whether to paint the smoke rings or use the kit decals. I would appreciate any anecdotes of folk's experience or recommendations on the best options.

[Vincent Fiore]

Hello,

I as a comparison used the decals and painted. These are my findings. They take a long time to apply. You do not get the slight overspray as on the real aircraft. With the right airbrush as the H and S with a .015 needle and Laquer paint such as MRP you get a more realistic finish. I find painting is much faster and you can be more creative. Get a paint mule and on a small area try both methods. Good luck and show us your results. I am sure it will be excellent.

[Vincent Fiore]

MR. Davenport I forgot to mention the Air Preasure should be low between 8 to 10 psi.

[Editor]

Richard, if you aren't willing to spray the smoke rings onto your model then use Mike Grant's decals (he lives in town). He made his smoke ring decals (before Italeri) and I think he may still carry them. Mike's decals look really good when applied (you need to follow the instructions). The decals are/were made on an alps printer (now discontinued) :

Here's a model Mike built using his decals:
https://stormomagazine.com/ModelArticle ... _MG_1.html

Here's Mike's site:
http://mikegrantdecals.com

[davenport49]

I checked with Mike; the decals are no longer available. But I just got word about a new release by Eduard - D48084. Is anyone familiar with them or know of a source other than Ebay where shipping costs more than the product?

[Editor]

I think Mike no longer prints these decals because the printer he used (Alps) is no longer supported but I think he came closest to a good representation of the smoke rings - Mike is a great modeler btw. Mike dropped by many years ago with his final product (the model in his photos) and I was amazed how well his decals applied and as Mike may have explained I sold many of his decals.

I'm not familiar with D48084 but I think it's worth a shot, its Eduard, I expect reasonable quality. I was planning to do a series of these decals (as well as the Breda style camo) because even the smoke rings varied in style. One other way to do the smoke rings is to use a pencil and draw them onto the model (use a photo) and then carefully spray the smoke rings using a fine needle and a good airbrush and lots of practice - don't rush it. Here's an example of this approach on a CR.32:

https://stormomagazine.com/ModelArticle ... VT_1a.html

[davenport49]

I like the idea re: pencil. I'm going to practice to see if I can get the paint right; then, if that works, I'll use your suggestion.

[davenport49]

I finally did it! After weeks of trying, I finally managed to paint the "smoke rings". I got the Eduard decals, but I can't say they're any better than the original Italeri ones in the kit; just different. I finally got the MRP (Mr Paint) Verde Oliva Scuro 2 (MRP-303) acrylic lacquer which worked pretty well. It's not perfect (I had to do a bunch of clean-up) but I'm pleased.

[Vincent Fiore]

I think you did a great job, you should be very happy. Keep up the great work.

[davenport49]

Thank you. From you, that's high praise!

[Editor]

Great job Richard. The smoke rings are probably the hardest camo to do free-hand in all of modeling. Also experiment with different types of paints, as modelers we tend to think of what's in front of us (e.g., Testors, Tamiya (acrylics), Gunze, Humbrol (enamels) etc.), but these paints may not be the best to use to do this kind of work, inks/lacquers for instance will give the Jean Barby look.

[davenport49]

Thank you also, Vince, I appreciate the compliment. Yes, that was my experience: I tried and tried to work with LifeColor acrylic paint - either I had it too thin, resulting in "spiders" everywhere, or it dried in the airbrush. Switching to the MRP acrylic lacquer STRAIGHT from the bottle, gave better flow without drying in the airbrush. Using a 0.2 tip at 40psi I got a fairly tight pattern without excessive overspray. As I said, not perfect; there were places where the line flared more that I would have liked, or where my hand twitched at the wrong moment. But I believe the end result looks more authentic that the decals would have.

[Editor]

A common use for airbrushes is automotive custom artwork and I've seen automotive paint used in model work.

[davenport49]

Okay, here's my next problem....
I'm working on MM.9291 of R. Gaucci, using the Stormo Decals. The instruction sheet shows only the port side of the aircraft, with the individual aircraft number BEFORE the stripe, and the squadron number AFTER the stripe. Two issues -

First; is that illustration correct, as the next example shows the squadron number first, then the aircraft number, as does this image of an Re.2005 - https://comandosupremo.com/reggiane-re-2005/ as well as the image of the C.205 of 352 squadron in this image - https://comandosupremo.com/macchi-c-205-veltro/

Second; if, however, the squadron number is after the stripe, after the stripe on the STARBOARD side as well, as seen on another aircraft of 360 squadron farther down the page on
https://comandosupremo.com/macchi-c-205-veltro/ ?

I haven't been able to find any definitive directives on this topic. Any help you can give is appreciated .

Oh, and by the way, I'm trying to make out his rank, and don't know what m.llo stands for......

[Editor]

Every unit painted its individual aircraft number + squadron number differently (relative to the white band and in style) and this continued in the ANR - there were no directives for the placement of these numbers. m ll = Marisciallo (Marshal). I don't know when Gaucci became a Marshal, Stefano would like know but it's unlikely while he was flying 3-360, for instance Tarantola became a Marshal after the war and is often titled m ll (his last rank) in documents. Here are a few port side photos of 3-360. If I had to redo the profile for this plane I would make the smoke rings thinner as in 48009.