Crimea_River
Marshal
Now now, think positive !
Tamiya 1:32 Corsair F4U-1A Build
- Thread starter Builder 2010
- Start date
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Now now, think positive !
- Thread starter
- #122
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
All kidding aside, I am nothing if not positive. AND, having the practice piece worked as you'll see in today's post.
Milestone Day!
First up was to paint the wings. The Life Color Intermediate and Sea Blues are not as "bluesy" as the Tamiya color sheet, but look pretty realistic based upon photos of the real planes that I've seen. The outer wings undersides are not insignia white. Instead they are the intermediate blue since when on the decks with wings folded, the white wings shining upward would make the ship captain very unhappy. In fact, that blue is not much different than the aircraft carrier blue wood deck stain used in WW2.
After the paint dried (helped with the hot air gun) I carefully removed the liquid mask off the light lenses and I was very pleased, especially the landing light. It really looks like a silvered reflector under there. You can't beat the chrome pen. Chrome silver paint just doesn't cut it. The image doesn't do it justice. It's actually more impressive in person.
Then it was time see how I could free hand paint the multi-color scheme with the airbrush on the test article. I am soooo glad that had that since it really built my confidence that I could actually do it without a hard masking line or setting of the masks with blue tack or rolls of masking tape.
I used my main line Badger for this, but the demarcation was a bit too fuzzy so I tried the detail brush. While I was able to sharpen up the line a bit, the brush was working terribly, and was sputtering putting big drops out in all the wrong places. I tried a total cleaning with acetone, which worked, but then I noticed that the tiny O'ring behind the air nozzle was shot and dissolved in the acetone. What kind of paint spraying tool uses a rubber that's not compatible with acetone???
While not perfect, it proved that I could paint to a line. The line, BTW, I drew with a pencil before spraying. I took the pattern from the Tamiya instructions.
I then drew the pattern on the real model only spent more time on getting it correct. I needed to do some extensive masking to keep overspray from getting on the white areas that would be in the line of fire, e.g., flaps, landing gear and doors, and of course the entire exposed cockpit. I sprayed the vertical stab and rudder, and after force drying, masked it from the rest of the model since the rudder has a sharp color separation line.
Then I drew the pattern. Incidentally, using the liquid mask as a temporary adhesive to hold the removable cowls in place worked! I sprayed the intermediate first letting the line wave a bit between the white, which apparently it did in the prototype. I then did the sea blue. I didn't like the demarcation and I was able to go back and forth a couple of times to get it to be fuzzy... but not too fuzzy.
After demasking and doing some very minor touchup, the bird is painted. I'm letting it dry well over the weekend and will gloss it to ready it for all the decals and stencils.
After these pics were taken I went back and cleaned up the separation around the oil cooler inlets.
Tamiya provides nice masks, perfectly sized, but you have to cut them out. I used a fresh #11 blade and cut just enough depth to cut the mask and not the backing sheet so it was easier to separate the two. I actually enjoyed this. It was a nice delicate cutting op on something that wasn't styrene. It's the last thing I did today and I'll airbrush them on Monday. They get black first (the inside color) and then Sea Blue. I am sure that this paint job will come out very well.
The plane needs some gun shot residue around the gun ports and some residue at the shell ejection ports. I'm not sure what kind of debris is around those. I'll have to check the reference shots.
Milestone Day!
First up was to paint the wings. The Life Color Intermediate and Sea Blues are not as "bluesy" as the Tamiya color sheet, but look pretty realistic based upon photos of the real planes that I've seen. The outer wings undersides are not insignia white. Instead they are the intermediate blue since when on the decks with wings folded, the white wings shining upward would make the ship captain very unhappy. In fact, that blue is not much different than the aircraft carrier blue wood deck stain used in WW2.
After the paint dried (helped with the hot air gun) I carefully removed the liquid mask off the light lenses and I was very pleased, especially the landing light. It really looks like a silvered reflector under there. You can't beat the chrome pen. Chrome silver paint just doesn't cut it. The image doesn't do it justice. It's actually more impressive in person.
Then it was time see how I could free hand paint the multi-color scheme with the airbrush on the test article. I am soooo glad that had that since it really built my confidence that I could actually do it without a hard masking line or setting of the masks with blue tack or rolls of masking tape.
I used my main line Badger for this, but the demarcation was a bit too fuzzy so I tried the detail brush. While I was able to sharpen up the line a bit, the brush was working terribly, and was sputtering putting big drops out in all the wrong places. I tried a total cleaning with acetone, which worked, but then I noticed that the tiny O'ring behind the air nozzle was shot and dissolved in the acetone. What kind of paint spraying tool uses a rubber that's not compatible with acetone???
While not perfect, it proved that I could paint to a line. The line, BTW, I drew with a pencil before spraying. I took the pattern from the Tamiya instructions.
I then drew the pattern on the real model only spent more time on getting it correct. I needed to do some extensive masking to keep overspray from getting on the white areas that would be in the line of fire, e.g., flaps, landing gear and doors, and of course the entire exposed cockpit. I sprayed the vertical stab and rudder, and after force drying, masked it from the rest of the model since the rudder has a sharp color separation line.
Then I drew the pattern. Incidentally, using the liquid mask as a temporary adhesive to hold the removable cowls in place worked! I sprayed the intermediate first letting the line wave a bit between the white, which apparently it did in the prototype. I then did the sea blue. I didn't like the demarcation and I was able to go back and forth a couple of times to get it to be fuzzy... but not too fuzzy.
After demasking and doing some very minor touchup, the bird is painted. I'm letting it dry well over the weekend and will gloss it to ready it for all the decals and stencils.
After these pics were taken I went back and cleaned up the separation around the oil cooler inlets.
Tamiya provides nice masks, perfectly sized, but you have to cut them out. I used a fresh #11 blade and cut just enough depth to cut the mask and not the backing sheet so it was easier to separate the two. I actually enjoyed this. It was a nice delicate cutting op on something that wasn't styrene. It's the last thing I did today and I'll airbrush them on Monday. They get black first (the inside color) and then Sea Blue. I am sure that this paint job will come out very well.
The plane needs some gun shot residue around the gun ports and some residue at the shell ejection ports. I'm not sure what kind of debris is around those. I'll have to check the reference shots.
Lovely work so far!
Crimea_River
Marshal
Impressive build. Check your AB manufacturer documentation about cleaning with acetone. Not all O-rings like the stuff,
- Thread starter
- #126
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
No kidding. This one didn't like it at all. My Badger has no problem since the only seal is a Teflon ring.
Rare Saturday session...
First thing I did was air brush the canopies starting with semi-gloss black and then with sea blue, I also airbrushed the frame on the bullet proof glass plate.
The results were gratifying. The Tamiya masks were very accurate only limited by your ability to cut them out correctly. In retrospect, I should a have left the masking in place on the outside until it was glued onto the plan to protect the glazing from anything. I may put some masking on them just for that purpose. It won't have to conform to the canopy frame, just protect the clear stuff.
I was trying to decide what kind of gloss clear I was going to use prior to decaling. I have Pledge with Future, Tamiya Gloss Spray and Testors High Gloss Clear Coat for model car building. I painted the rear of the test article with Tamiya and the front with Testors. I know how Future works. I like the level of gloss the Testor product produced. It's not Gloss Coat, it's a differently formulated product.
I then, using the extra decals from configurations I'm not building, applied a stars and bars to the front on the Testor coating. I read that the decals are thick and unforgiving, and they were right. Not only was it thick, but it fell apart in three places. I got it to settle in a bit with MicroScale products, but wasn't very pleased. I then coated all the decals my config was going to use with MicroScale Decal Film coating. When it dried I put another decal on the aft and this time it was successful. Here was the broken decal.
And here's the successful one.
I then glossed the wings on the two faces that are receiving the big decals. That's the only drawback with 1:32 planes (besides finding display space), the decals can be huge.
With the decal film coating, none of them cracked or broken in such a way as to make them unusable. The first one did crack, but with setting solution, it's not visible. Here is a shot showing both wings just after decaling before the setting solution finished working.
When fully dried, they did settle in pretty well, but do obscure some of the underlying details. I got a note from one of my buddies at the hobby shop that I should use AK Ultra Matte to re-coat after decaling. I will buy it if Marty recommends it. The decals have actual holes in them to enable some protruding details to show through. I was careful to not put the decal film liquid on these holes so they would be clear and not any trouble.
I then re-covered the pilot with some wet toweling so the gloss would get him, and sprayed the plane in the areas where big or complex decals were going.
And then the first diaster happened. To spray the plane, I was holding the plane by the cowl since it didn't get many decals, and then the engine separated from the plane!! I didn't realize that the joint was not that structural.
To add insult to injury, when I grabbed at the fuselage which was falling away I grabbed the very tacky gloss coating and gave it some nasty fingerprints.
I glued the engine back on, and let it set up and then went to repair the fingerprints. Luckily, they'll behind the big fuselage decals.
And then the 2nd disaster hit. Engine separated again, and this time, engine and plane hit the concrete!! Speed ring detached from the front of the engine, that pesky landing gear door came off for the 4th time, a faux wing hinge broke off, and the two bottom exhaust sets broke loose.
It took me a while to triage the mess. I needed to reattach the exhaust with brass pins and did the same with the broken wing hinge. The gear door went back where it came from without protest. I got the engine back on with Testor Tube Cement this time to give it more manipulation time, and got a bit on the cowl behind the cowl flaps. I was able to touch up spray the sea blue to fix the glue smudge, and got it all back togeher. Whew!!
Alls well that ends well. It could have been much, much worse. The landing gear didn't get hurt. Those delicate wing fold regions were unscathed except for that fake hinge. Nothing in the cockpit was harmed, and nothing on the engine itself, even though it bounced around on a concrete floor. So I'm relieved.
I also got that all important P&W decal on the engine gear case.
I did get most of the stenciling on the wings' bottom, and the fuse with have a chance to dry completely before decaling it. So it was a productive and scary Saturday.
Rare Saturday session...
First thing I did was air brush the canopies starting with semi-gloss black and then with sea blue, I also airbrushed the frame on the bullet proof glass plate.
The results were gratifying. The Tamiya masks were very accurate only limited by your ability to cut them out correctly. In retrospect, I should a have left the masking in place on the outside until it was glued onto the plan to protect the glazing from anything. I may put some masking on them just for that purpose. It won't have to conform to the canopy frame, just protect the clear stuff.
I was trying to decide what kind of gloss clear I was going to use prior to decaling. I have Pledge with Future, Tamiya Gloss Spray and Testors High Gloss Clear Coat for model car building. I painted the rear of the test article with Tamiya and the front with Testors. I know how Future works. I like the level of gloss the Testor product produced. It's not Gloss Coat, it's a differently formulated product.
I then, using the extra decals from configurations I'm not building, applied a stars and bars to the front on the Testor coating. I read that the decals are thick and unforgiving, and they were right. Not only was it thick, but it fell apart in three places. I got it to settle in a bit with MicroScale products, but wasn't very pleased. I then coated all the decals my config was going to use with MicroScale Decal Film coating. When it dried I put another decal on the aft and this time it was successful. Here was the broken decal.
And here's the successful one.
I then glossed the wings on the two faces that are receiving the big decals. That's the only drawback with 1:32 planes (besides finding display space), the decals can be huge.
With the decal film coating, none of them cracked or broken in such a way as to make them unusable. The first one did crack, but with setting solution, it's not visible. Here is a shot showing both wings just after decaling before the setting solution finished working.
When fully dried, they did settle in pretty well, but do obscure some of the underlying details. I got a note from one of my buddies at the hobby shop that I should use AK Ultra Matte to re-coat after decaling. I will buy it if Marty recommends it. The decals have actual holes in them to enable some protruding details to show through. I was careful to not put the decal film liquid on these holes so they would be clear and not any trouble.
I then re-covered the pilot with some wet toweling so the gloss would get him, and sprayed the plane in the areas where big or complex decals were going.
And then the first diaster happened. To spray the plane, I was holding the plane by the cowl since it didn't get many decals, and then the engine separated from the plane!! I didn't realize that the joint was not that structural.
To add insult to injury, when I grabbed at the fuselage which was falling away I grabbed the very tacky gloss coating and gave it some nasty fingerprints.
I glued the engine back on, and let it set up and then went to repair the fingerprints. Luckily, they'll behind the big fuselage decals.
And then the 2nd disaster hit. Engine separated again, and this time, engine and plane hit the concrete!! Speed ring detached from the front of the engine, that pesky landing gear door came off for the 4th time, a faux wing hinge broke off, and the two bottom exhaust sets broke loose.
It took me a while to triage the mess. I needed to reattach the exhaust with brass pins and did the same with the broken wing hinge. The gear door went back where it came from without protest. I got the engine back on with Testor Tube Cement this time to give it more manipulation time, and got a bit on the cowl behind the cowl flaps. I was able to touch up spray the sea blue to fix the glue smudge, and got it all back togeher. Whew!!
Alls well that ends well. It could have been much, much worse. The landing gear didn't get hurt. Those delicate wing fold regions were unscathed except for that fake hinge. Nothing in the cockpit was harmed, and nothing on the engine itself, even though it bounced around on a concrete floor. So I'm relieved.
I also got that all important P&W decal on the engine gear case.
I did get most of the stenciling on the wings' bottom, and the fuse with have a chance to dry completely before decaling it. So it was a productive and scary Saturday.
Crimea_River
Marshal
Model abuse!!!!
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Glad you overcame the problems, and it's looking good.
- Thread starter
- #130
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
Guilty as charged! I was probably rushing. When really bad things happen, it's because I'm trying to hurry. I should have given more thought of how to hold the model while shooting the clear coat. Just grabbing it by the cowling wasn't such a good idea.
Great work so far!
- Thread starter
- #132
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
Happy Monday. Started the day visiting my cardiologist to see how to stop my latest AFib experience. It's not too bad. The last time, a year and a half ago, ended itself after 11 days. I'm at day 9 of this episode. He wants to do a stress test and another echo cardiogram just to rule out any physiological abnormalities. My BP was actually pretty good considering.
Then went to the LHS to buy some AK Ultra Matte, of which they were out, so I bought some Tamiya Flat Clear instead. I also bought a Badger 200 (made in USA) single action detail air brush to replace the Chinese ones that are less than a year old and working poorly due to their dissolving O'rings. They are incompatible with acetone, but they don't mention this in the instructions, and to get dried acrylic out of the fine passages, acetone works great.
I got to work after 2:00 p.m. and finished stenciling the wings on both sides. The top side (which will be practically invisible in the folded position) has some skinny walkway decals which gave me a little trouble, but they're okay. He wings now have to be flat coated which will disguise all the contrast inconsistencies.
Got to work on the Fuze decals starting with the big stars and bars on the port side. It went on nicely without tearing.
Of course, all this success can't be allowed without another ridiculous setback. The wing support spar that has broken 2 times, broke completely off again when I inadvertantly put some side pressure on it. Believe me, it was not a lot of pressure. The cause: the styrene walls of the holes holding the metal pins were so thin that the side pressure broke them out and the pins were FREE. This time, I could no longer drill and pin... there wasn't any material left in which to do it. It was like when you have a previously filled tooth break, especially one with a big filling. There's nothing left to hold any more filling and it's time for a crown. Unfortunately in this case, a crown was not an option.
So I turned to my next standby, J-B Weld. I got the pins back into their now-open grooves and held them temporarily with thin CA and then applied the epoxy which will cure overnight. It should hold... hopefully. If it doesn't, I'm kind of at a loss. I could get a new part from Tamiya, cut off the entire hinge assembly which is molded with the main spar, and then glue and pin the hole assembly to the spar. That would be the end game.
I may clean up the epoxy when cured to give a bit more definition to the now-lumpy detail. Moral: don't break the darn thing in the first place.
I just went down and checked it, and it's already cured enough to tell me that it's holding. So here's hop'n.
Then went to the LHS to buy some AK Ultra Matte, of which they were out, so I bought some Tamiya Flat Clear instead. I also bought a Badger 200 (made in USA) single action detail air brush to replace the Chinese ones that are less than a year old and working poorly due to their dissolving O'rings. They are incompatible with acetone, but they don't mention this in the instructions, and to get dried acrylic out of the fine passages, acetone works great.
I got to work after 2:00 p.m. and finished stenciling the wings on both sides. The top side (which will be practically invisible in the folded position) has some skinny walkway decals which gave me a little trouble, but they're okay. He wings now have to be flat coated which will disguise all the contrast inconsistencies.
Got to work on the Fuze decals starting with the big stars and bars on the port side. It went on nicely without tearing.
Of course, all this success can't be allowed without another ridiculous setback. The wing support spar that has broken 2 times, broke completely off again when I inadvertantly put some side pressure on it. Believe me, it was not a lot of pressure. The cause: the styrene walls of the holes holding the metal pins were so thin that the side pressure broke them out and the pins were FREE. This time, I could no longer drill and pin... there wasn't any material left in which to do it. It was like when you have a previously filled tooth break, especially one with a big filling. There's nothing left to hold any more filling and it's time for a crown. Unfortunately in this case, a crown was not an option.
So I turned to my next standby, J-B Weld. I got the pins back into their now-open grooves and held them temporarily with thin CA and then applied the epoxy which will cure overnight. It should hold... hopefully. If it doesn't, I'm kind of at a loss. I could get a new part from Tamiya, cut off the entire hinge assembly which is molded with the main spar, and then glue and pin the hole assembly to the spar. That would be the end game.
I may clean up the epoxy when cured to give a bit more definition to the now-lumpy detail. Moral: don't break the darn thing in the first place.
I just went down and checked it, and it's already cured enough to tell me that it's holding. So here's hop'n.
Crimea_River
Marshal
It's why I was talking about keeping my fingers crossed for the repair. Hope it holds finally.
Great work so far!
- Thread starter
- #136
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
Thank you! Today I actually made it through without breaking anything… And the J-B Weld worked so the wing spar is back on…again!
Before I discuss today's progress, I finally got a handle on spilling stuff. Even though the Tamiya glue bottles are wider on the bottom than the top, they DO SPILL and often with horrendous results (see my repair on the island of the USS Essex...). And the Microscale bottles are far, far worse. They spill even if you open them carelessly.
So for the Tamiya bottles I took a piece of scrap and routed out a cavity for the bottles and then used some servo tape to secure them into them. I could have made the plank wider, but it seems to be working. And for the Microscale decal solutions I simply clamped them into my woodworkers vise... not to tightly, but enough so they WON'T SPILL.
Spent the entire work session putting on decals and I'm almost done. I first coated the underside with the Testor's One-coat Clear Lacquer since I had forgotten to do it. I used the Tamiya Clear flat on the wings, and caught myself only matte finishing one nav light before I realized I had to remask them if I ever wanted to look through them again. So I stopped and quickly added liquid mask to all the wing transparent parts... and then did the flat painting. The results are good. The Tamiya flat seems to lay down more evenly than Dullcoat.
Still to be done with these is some very mild powder stains from the gun ports and ejections chutes.
I brush painted some Tamiya gloss onto the upper part of the landing gear strut to prepare it to receive the trickiest decal to apply in the whole model; an specification plate on the Oleo Strut. I let this dry and worked on getting some more stencils on the fuselage. I took the decals off their backing with tweezers and placed them on the two main struts and then used a toothpick to manipulate them to get them in place and vertical. It was finicky and my hands were very shaky. I hadn't had lunch. When I had lunch I also took a shot of some wonderful 18-year-old, single barrel Elijah Craig 90 Proof Bourbon. In about 10 minutes, my hands were much steadier. It would have been much easier to put on this decal during gear assembly, but that would have made it impossible to airbrush the entire assembly. Instead, I held off until I was doing all the other decals.
There were tons of tiny stencils on the fuselage and some big and tricky decals. I worked methodically from aft to front and held the plane in the Panavise during most of it. The big stars, like on the port side, went on nicely. I had no tearing after coating them with the Microscale Decal Film. Then I got to the white striping in front of the cockpit.
What this detail actually represents is sealing tape that was put on the early Corsairs to prevent fuel from seeping from the fuel tank compartment and fouling the windscreen. I've also read that it was to stop fumes from entering the cockpit. In later iterations, they no longer needed this taping. Until my research I thought it was some kind of identifying feature, but it wasn't... it was operational.
So I got the decal wet and then realized, after looking more closely at the positioning, that part of the decal wraps around the FORWARD CANOPY. Yikes! I wasn't planning on installing that now! And before you can put it on, you need to glue on the bulletproof glass shield and reflective surface for the gun sight. So I have an important decal sitting there all wet and I have to get the canopy on. I needed to kill the gloss on the top of the instrument panel too. I moved quickly and got it all glued in without screwing anything up.
Once I was applying the decal it went on pretty smoothly and needed a lot of setting solution since it bending around some curves.
I finished all the rest of the stencils, painted the gas cap, and got walkway strips on the tops of the mid-wings.
I flipped the plane upside down and started working on more weathering and stenciling on the belly. The Tamiya Panel Line Highlighter works much better on a sealed surface and its low surface tension lets it flow down the seams pretty easily. I used some mineral spirits to clean up excess since it is solvent based. I used some black weathering powder to add more exhaust stains. I then got all the bottom stencils in place. I added the four remaining little gear doors that close behind the extended landing gear. These too had to wait until all the hydraulic piping and detail painting was finished since they really block access to the front gear well... and blocks seeing some of the neat details too.
There are a smattering of stencils left for the horizontal stab and elevators, and then the plane's decals are done. What's left? The entire model minus the wings need to be matte coated, and I now know that the Tamiya bottle flat finish does airbrush very nicely. I have to put on the wheels and attach the tail hook. I need to paint and build the beautiful propeller, which also has some decals. The yellow tips are actually a decal in this kit. Never had that. There are two added vertical antenna masts that need to be installed and then some radio antenna wiring (E-Z Line) that I need to run. And I have to build, paint, decal and install the one piece of ordinance; a 500 lb. bomb. I can't forget the pitot tube, which should be the last thing to add since it will be the first thing to break. And the model will be finished.
Before I discuss today's progress, I finally got a handle on spilling stuff. Even though the Tamiya glue bottles are wider on the bottom than the top, they DO SPILL and often with horrendous results (see my repair on the island of the USS Essex...). And the Microscale bottles are far, far worse. They spill even if you open them carelessly.
So for the Tamiya bottles I took a piece of scrap and routed out a cavity for the bottles and then used some servo tape to secure them into them. I could have made the plank wider, but it seems to be working. And for the Microscale decal solutions I simply clamped them into my woodworkers vise... not to tightly, but enough so they WON'T SPILL.
Spent the entire work session putting on decals and I'm almost done. I first coated the underside with the Testor's One-coat Clear Lacquer since I had forgotten to do it. I used the Tamiya Clear flat on the wings, and caught myself only matte finishing one nav light before I realized I had to remask them if I ever wanted to look through them again. So I stopped and quickly added liquid mask to all the wing transparent parts... and then did the flat painting. The results are good. The Tamiya flat seems to lay down more evenly than Dullcoat.
Still to be done with these is some very mild powder stains from the gun ports and ejections chutes.
I brush painted some Tamiya gloss onto the upper part of the landing gear strut to prepare it to receive the trickiest decal to apply in the whole model; an specification plate on the Oleo Strut. I let this dry and worked on getting some more stencils on the fuselage. I took the decals off their backing with tweezers and placed them on the two main struts and then used a toothpick to manipulate them to get them in place and vertical. It was finicky and my hands were very shaky. I hadn't had lunch. When I had lunch I also took a shot of some wonderful 18-year-old, single barrel Elijah Craig 90 Proof Bourbon. In about 10 minutes, my hands were much steadier. It would have been much easier to put on this decal during gear assembly, but that would have made it impossible to airbrush the entire assembly. Instead, I held off until I was doing all the other decals.
There were tons of tiny stencils on the fuselage and some big and tricky decals. I worked methodically from aft to front and held the plane in the Panavise during most of it. The big stars, like on the port side, went on nicely. I had no tearing after coating them with the Microscale Decal Film. Then I got to the white striping in front of the cockpit.
What this detail actually represents is sealing tape that was put on the early Corsairs to prevent fuel from seeping from the fuel tank compartment and fouling the windscreen. I've also read that it was to stop fumes from entering the cockpit. In later iterations, they no longer needed this taping. Until my research I thought it was some kind of identifying feature, but it wasn't... it was operational.
So I got the decal wet and then realized, after looking more closely at the positioning, that part of the decal wraps around the FORWARD CANOPY. Yikes! I wasn't planning on installing that now! And before you can put it on, you need to glue on the bulletproof glass shield and reflective surface for the gun sight. So I have an important decal sitting there all wet and I have to get the canopy on. I needed to kill the gloss on the top of the instrument panel too. I moved quickly and got it all glued in without screwing anything up.
Once I was applying the decal it went on pretty smoothly and needed a lot of setting solution since it bending around some curves.
I finished all the rest of the stencils, painted the gas cap, and got walkway strips on the tops of the mid-wings.
I flipped the plane upside down and started working on more weathering and stenciling on the belly. The Tamiya Panel Line Highlighter works much better on a sealed surface and its low surface tension lets it flow down the seams pretty easily. I used some mineral spirits to clean up excess since it is solvent based. I used some black weathering powder to add more exhaust stains. I then got all the bottom stencils in place. I added the four remaining little gear doors that close behind the extended landing gear. These too had to wait until all the hydraulic piping and detail painting was finished since they really block access to the front gear well... and blocks seeing some of the neat details too.
There are a smattering of stencils left for the horizontal stab and elevators, and then the plane's decals are done. What's left? The entire model minus the wings need to be matte coated, and I now know that the Tamiya bottle flat finish does airbrush very nicely. I have to put on the wheels and attach the tail hook. I need to paint and build the beautiful propeller, which also has some decals. The yellow tips are actually a decal in this kit. Never had that. There are two added vertical antenna masts that need to be installed and then some radio antenna wiring (E-Z Line) that I need to run. And I have to build, paint, decal and install the one piece of ordinance; a 500 lb. bomb. I can't forget the pitot tube, which should be the last thing to add since it will be the first thing to break. And the model will be finished.
Crimea_River
Marshal
Looking very good.
Doing a great job there ...!
- Thread starter
- #140
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
I just read Turbo's complete thread on his construction of his Tamiya kit and it was wonderful! I just wish I had read it BEFORE I started putting on the kit's big decals. I should have painted mine on with stencils. Furthermore, he is a much more advanced weatherer than I am, and while inspired, I am not going to heavily weather this plane. They all had to look pretty new at least once in their lives, right? I notice too that he spent the time to add details behind the cowl ring. I kind of wish I had done that too, but it really is hard to see. Lastly, my life would have been much simpler had I chosen the "Wings Down" version. The wing fold has been the bane of my experience with this model having to repair the broken spar so many times. I really don't have the display space for a 1:32 wings-spread model. He and I both agree that this is one of the best engineered kits either one of us has built.
