**** DONE: GB-35 1/72 A-4B Skyhawk - Vietnam French/American War 1950-1975

[Airframes]

The colour shade looks good enough to me Andy.
I agree with Wojtek re the powdering. A lower pressure should help. Also, when I had this problem on a similar 'overhanging' surface area, I found that spraying the 'flat' areas first, then masking these before spraying the 'curved' areas, avoided the problem, although I realise that this is not always easy to do.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks for the feedback guys. As I will need to fix these areas, I may yet lighten the colour slightly and allow some of the existing colour to come through, though most pics I've seen of these aircraft show them pretty clean.

 

[parsifal]

Guys I happily and eagerly defer to your far greater experience, and have learnt something to boot.

 

[turbo]

I have had this happen before too Andy. I am convinced it is due to turbulence being created in the airbrush airflow as it bounces off the 2 opposing angles (fuselage and wing). You can see it is worst where the angles are most severe. The paint whirls around in the turbulence and dries before eventually landing on the surface. The way I get around it is to thin my paint down, turn the pressure down, and get in as close as I possibly can to the area with the nozzle of my airbrush so that I am spraying directly onto the surface rather than bouncing it off the surrounding features.

Re. your colour, it does look a bit brown to me too even though it is a decent match to the colour fan. This is almost certainly due to scale effect. For 1/72 scale, I would typically lighten the colour up to 15% against a colour chip.

 

[Crimea_River]

Appreciate that Kirby and I think I will try your approach. Another thought I had was to maybe spray at an oblique angle along the intersection to lessen the chance of the air flow bouncing off a perpendicular surface.

How thin do you make your paint?

 

[turbo]

I find about 3:1 or even 2:1 thinner: paint sufficient depending on the paint Andy. That allows you to turn your pressure down to 10-15 psi but is still thick enough to prevent spiders and running. Go over in several light coats.

I have tried spraying at different angles and this can work sometimes but depends on the angles of the features and their position. Looking at your situation, I would probably try and get in as close as possible on a 45 deg angle, but the priority is to get in close.

 

[Crimea_River]

10-4. Will give it a shot. Thanks Kirby.

 

[turbo]

Good luck!

 

[Crimea_River]

Success!......More or less.

The colour was lightened quite a bit with white, though I think it's still too brown for my liking and it stands out even more now that the masks for the control surfaces have been removed. More importantly, I applied the last coat with the paint thinned to a ratio of 2 thinners to 1 paint, a pressure of about 12 psi, and I got in close very close at an acute angle and that did the trick. Filed in the memory bank for future!

I'm happy how the demarcation line turned out, though there are a few spots with a bit too much of a wave that I'll fix tomorrow or Friday.

Here's the area pointed out earlier. I removed the powdered finish with a tooth brush and wiped the area clean before applying the new coat.

Though I'm not 100% satisfied with the colour at the moment, I'm going to leave it and chalk one up to experience. The more I look at it the more I think that I may get used to it and that I'll come around.

Thanks for all the help guys.

 

[turbo]

Glad it worked out Andy!

I agree with you, the colour still does look a bit like hemp rather than light gull grey, but maybe that's a trick of my eyes against the white control surfaces. I guess if you could be arsed re-masking you could go over it with a colour you're happier with, using what's there as a pre-shade.

 

[parsifal]

I think the hue is okay. That USN grey is more tricky than it looks, and it seems to change very readily if the light changes.

If you do decide to re-do the grey andy, if anything I would paint it with slightly more grey in the mix. But if it was me, i'd be happy with what you have.

Are you going to apply a clear finish. if so, Ive had most success with a semi gloss, which ive found in itself at this scale can slightly 'tone down" colour effects

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. As I said I will leave the colour as is. Michael the next step will be to fix up the demarcation line in a few spots, paint the red on the slat surfaces, and then gloss coat the model for decal application. After the decals are on there will be another clear coat and i will probably make it just a tad glossier than matte.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

Well it's all been said on the paint issue and Kirby nailed it, been there done that....

it' is looking good though Andy...

 

[Airframes]

Yep, it's looking the biz.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys.

 

[Crimea_River]

Dammit, I think I'm going to bite the bullet and lighten the paint more. Stay tuned.

 

[Crimea_River]

Skipping ahead a few steps, I remasked the model, lightened the topcoat mix quite a bit more, resprayed the top, masked the leading edge slat surfaces, painted them red, then shot a coat of Future on the model. I will now allow it to sit until probably Sunday before applying decals but if I get time to work on the model, I'll attend to the landing gear. The downside is that I've now lost track of the paint ratio as I kept applying white to an ever-shrinking volume of mixture. I would estimate that it's now close to 3.5 parts white to 1 part XF-20 but the important thing is that I'm quite satisfied with the result now Hope you agree.

Thanks for continuing to follow the build and for the suggestions.

 

[Wurger]

Looking very good.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks my friend.