Trumpeter 1:32 F-105G Wild Weasel Build Thread

Great job duplicating that part.

Thanks! I didn't really start being able to scratch-build until my mid-60s. Now... based on the major projects I've done for my railroad, it doesn't phase me.

Finally today was the first painting day. I mixed up a very light, light gray using gloss Tamiya White and just a taste of Nato Black plus some Iso Alcohol and a few drops of retarder. I put the first coat on the gear doors after affixing them with some masking tape loops, and was going to paint the nose gear doors when I saw that a) I hadn't painted their insides with interior green and b) there were huge ejection pin marks that I really couldn't ignore since these WILL BE SEEN. So I stopped painting and filled the divots. Some were proud of the surface and needed to be chiseled off and others were indentations requiring filling. Early Trumpeter is nortorious for this.



I then stuck them to some tape along with the others and painted them all.



I paint their interior green parts after all the white work is done.

I drilled the missiles on their mating surfaces to accept some green florists wire. The wire is 0.046" and the drill was 0.0455 so it was a very nice push fit. I then attached all the wires to the rotary painting stand in prep for their painting which would be straight gloss white. I won't need to fill these holes since they're hidden by the mounting racks.



I didn't paint them until all the off-white bottom paint was done.

I started painting the model's bottom. It took several passes to get a nice coverage. Using gloss white as a base means I don't have to gloss it before decaling. That saves a step and reduces another chance for error. That dark spot at the foreground wing root is a reflection. The paint went on flawlessly. I'm letting dry thoroughly overnight so it's going to be easy to handle.



I also painted the bottom of the centerline tank since it's bottom color, not pure white.



The instructions show this tank as all white, but I've seen pictures that show it a two-tone affair with the dark green camo color on the top half with a soft edge.

I then painted the missiles their pure white. This is also gloss so it will faciliate decaling. There are lots of decals on the missiles and the their supports. Having glued on the pylons will not make decaling easier.



The last things I did was mask the canopies and put on their respective base coats.

I completely masked the inner surface and then masked the glazing on the outside.



I painted the base coat for the canopies the interior gray color I've been using. There's a bunch of Eduard PE that goes into these parts after the paint is complete. This was Tamiya Light Gray Primer.



I painted the windscreen a black base coat to work with the rest of the black forward cockpit area. This is semi-gloss black, but it doesn't matter since it's going to be glossy looking at it from the inside.



Tomorrow, I'll start working on the camo scheme. I've sent a note to my patron asking which version does he want, Bam Bam or the one with the shark mouth. I don't need him to decide right now since it's a decal question and I've got a lot of painting and masking to do.

Very nice work and congrats on awards

Many thanks!

Short session... Started the color painting. Decided to try using the "rolled up masking tape" method of making a soft edged mask. I decided to use the centerline tank as my test subject. It didn't work well with the overspray being significantly different where the tape rolls were and not. So I had to do a hand re-shoot. As it turned out, I liked the way the hand spray worked better. The results are passable and give a very soft edge.



Using a pencil, I marked out the tan, light green and dark green areas of the SEA Camo scheme as shown on the instructions color sheet. My patron has chosent the shark mouth plane, but the camo doesn't change. I just found out today that the Wild Weasel has that afterburner vent intake at the base of the vertical stab was plugged with a aluminum plate. It's not too late to make that conversion. I also know that the tail is too short for the G model, but I didn't want to spring for the resin replacement.



I started painting with the "tan" and hand sprayed the "T" marked areas. I thought I lightened the light brown enough, but the end results are just plain wrong. It looks more like a NATO tank color scheme, not a late 1960s Vietnam Era aircraft. I will reshoot this bit. Since none of the other colors are NOT there it shouldn't be too difficult.



Tomorrow should he a longer session so we'll see how I do. I don't have much experience doing camo schemes since the last two planes I did were late WW2 Naval planes. I'm seriously thinking about not using any masks and doing it all freehand. Any opinions? The hobby shop has a new product that specifically designed to do free-form camo masking. It was $15.00 so I was reluctant to get it, but now I'm no so sure...

I just finished a freehand camo scheme on my much smaller Hurricane model. A tight demarcation is possible with an airbrush if you go with a thin paint mix and low pressure. For Tamiya acrylics, I used about 60 to 70% thinner to 30-40% paint and a pressure of about 13 psi.

Lovely work so far!

I just did a cross check and the callout for the tan color is FS30219, and this checks out to be "Flat Earth" with a color very similar to what I put on the plane. Nothing is coming up with the light tan shown on the model color sheet. The color sheet calls out FS30219 also. I'm in a quandary and may leave it as it is. Also, I plan to do the freehand camo as you advised. With my new air compressor I can adjust the pressure.



With the color decision made, I got to work.

Did all the body painting today, and all by hand. I used the suggestion by Crimea-River with the fine line gun and 15 PSI pressure. I then went back and forth several times further refining the lines, and then fixing the light bottom which had been receiving some minor over-spray during all this. I'm okay with the results. Again, since this model is for someone else and not me, I felt more comfortable not trying any techiniques about which I am not familiar, specifically "pre-shading panel lines." I leave that experimentation for a kit which I'm going to keep.





I also painted the colors onto the canopies and the refueling probe door that will be open on the model. I still have to mask the nose and paint it black, but I'm waiting until Monday when everything is really nice and dry before touching anything. I happy that I was able to do all the painting freehand. It saved a lot of handling.

For the light green I took Tamiya standard flat green and added a bit of white to it. I was comparing it to a FS color sample on my phone. I know this isn't precise, but it gave me the contrast difference I was looking for against the Dark Green.

After it's all dry, I'm going to overcoat it with some gloss or another. I may use Pledge or go with Tamiya clear. On the Corsair I used Testors "Wet Look Gloss" which worked really nice. I may go that route too. I'm a little squeamish with rattle cans since you really can't control them like the airbrush.

Nifty looking paint job

That turned out well. Good stuff.

I agree, nicely done.

Thanks for all the nice thoughts!

Busy day, that is after I fixed a bone-headed mistake on installing A SECOND CEILING FAN. On Sunday, I replaced one of two ceiling fans in our sun room. Other than being somewhat of a pain working overhead, didn't have any problems. When we compared it to the other 20 year-old fan, we quickly decided to replace it also, so I went back to Lowes and bought another. I put that in yesterday. Last night I'm staring at the thing and something seemed wrong. It was! I had put 3 out of 5 blades on their brackets upside down with the ribbed shiny side facing downwards and the nice fake wood grained side facing up. To remove the blades you have to remove the light housing and then reach the blade screws working through a hole in the light switch housing, and it's a pain. But it's right now. My wife says it was my ADD showing its ugly head.

Then I got downstairs and did some serious work on the Thud.

First up was masking the nose cone and painting semi-gloss black. I'm going to back mask it when I over-coat it with flat spray. I want the nose cone to have some sheen. I used the Tamiya narrow flexible masking for curves. There is a yellow stripe separating the black from the camo. I have tape for that too.



I pulled all the masking from the plane including the paper towel wadding in the wheel wells. I needed to touch up the interior green with a brush. I took the gun compartment cover off the Vulcan and after carefully removing all the Blue Tack and then touching up the Nato Black paint.

I needed a way to hold the plane upside down and not in my lap. I tried that and it was way to precarious. I have lots of big styrofoam blocks left over from scenery building on the railroad. I cut out some notches that let the fuze and the tail sit down and ended up with a very good way of working on all the bottom stuff that was coming.





I then masked and painted the black portions of the Targeting Pods on the lower fuselage flanks. Again, I made use of the Tamiya flexible curve tape to wrap around the curves. It did some almost completely except the football-shaped antenna end in the middle of the pods. In normal use this pod is a cylindrical affair that usually underslung on a plane. In the case of the F-105G, they split the cylinder in half and permenantly mounted each half to the planes undersides.

I used some liquid mask on the football's ends just to seal that tight little curve.



I then fully enclosed the area with wide Tamiya tape and then fully dressed the "surgical area" with newspaper so no black overspray went anywhere I didn't want it. A lot of work for a very little bit of paint.



The end result was pleasing with a couple of tiny spots that needed some touch up with bottom color.



It was time to overcoat the flat-painted areas with some gloss to both protect the paint from the Tamiya panel accent AND provides the decal surface. I used Tamiya gloss clear from the bottle thinned a bit and airbrushed. It's not the glossiest, and maybe I should have used lacquer, but that train has now left the station.



Then I decided to get really frisky. I wanted to try and use Tamiya Panel Accent Color and bring out the panels and fasteners on the bottom (and the rest of the plane).

I again watched some videos on using this product since I'm not quite sure when to remove the excess. Apparently, you should wait until it dries, then go back and with a very lightly moistened Q-tip with some low-odor mineral spirits. After that you clean the residue with a clean Q-tip.

On the first side I added the accent to the panel lines AND all the fasteners, but it created a lot of product to remove. On the other side, I just added it to the seam lines. I think that may be better. In either case, there is some residue left behind that adds some character to the bottom. It's no longer prisitine.

This was the side with the fastener coloring. You can see that stainless steel muzzle panel in this picture.



Here's is the entire bottom done. I went back and cleaned up the dirty area behind the front landing gear after I took this picture. These planes were rode hard and put away wet so a little grunge probably is okay.



I brought the panel painting up around the plane and it's looking decent.



I find the success is simply based on the depth of the engraving done by Trumpeter. The vertical seams are engraved more sharply than the horizontal ones. When I do the wipe down, the horizontal lines tend to lose the accent.



I went downstairs tonight to take these last pictures. This last one I tried on the canopies just for fun and found that my painting of the aft canopy needs a repaint due to having light green where dark green should to. Easy fix. And I don't really like that fit either...



Tomorrow I will continue on this path and finish up the panel line work. I then have to get serious about finishing the cockpits and canopies with the PE that needs to be added. I'll then start decaling of which there are a lot. Finally it will be dull coat time.

Looking very nice. My 2¢ on the panel wash. I watched and followed a few videos and I never got the same results. On my second model I waited about 20 minutes and went at it. I also ignored the very lightly moistened part. As for Q-tips, I found they were too spongy, going into the panel line and removing more than I wanted. Instead I used these, about $4.99CAN in the pharmacy beauty section.....

Tamiya sells something very similar and recommends these in one of the videos. Tamiya's cost more and you get less. I used Future as a gloss coat. My method seemed to go against the norm but it worked for me. I also wasn't to worried about completely removing some of the wash as it wasn't perfect in real life either

Looking very good. Are you going to apply wash to the wings as well? They look comparatively clean.

Looks good so far!

Thanks for the feedback. I kept experimenting and found that I was putting on too much wash in the first place making removal even harder. I too am using a Q-tip with the solvent mostly removed. I also found that after removing the bulk, not to go back with a clean Q-tip too quickly since it keeps pulling wash out of the lines. I did however do every panel. Now that you mention it, it probably only should be panels that are regularly opened. And you're right, the Q-tips are too soft and clean out the grooves too much. I'll find those things you showed and try them.

I also found that I was being too impatient. I found that after touching the engraved line, I would wait and watch how far the liquid moved along the line before adding the next amount. This wasy I was able to limit the amount of accent I was putting on. Again, it was directly affected by the depth and narrowness of the line. The deeper and narrower the more effective was the capillary action pulling the accent alone. I found one more thing, the transfer was enhanced is I laid the applicator brush more horizontally in the direction I wanted the flow and kept it there while the capillary action pulled more accent. I didn't figure this out until way later. Thud's were worked hard and probably weren't as pristine as Naval aircraft.

And I did the wings (at least the tops) and here it is showing the application before removing the excess. The wing's engraving was generally better than the fuselage's.



I also did the panel lines on the pylons, but I did not apply it to the wing bottoms. Enough is enough...



So here's the entire plane with its panels done.





I'm letting this dry more thoroughly. And while I was waiting I started decaling the missiles. The decals are produced by Microscale and are very thin and started to come apart so I carefully coated them with Microsol's Liquid Decal Film.

I started with the Standard Harm missile. While the missile has a bunch of decals, the pylons and launch rail have many more.



Tomorrow, I'll continue with the missiles and then get back to more work on the aircraft. Oh… and one more thing. My painting on the canopies was correct. I had the canopies on the wrong opening.