DannyB Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 This is my next build and my first not in a group build so hopefully I can maintain the motivation! I bought this kit for the large mouth intake for my TMOA build so figured as it was sat on the shelf I would give it a crack. I'm building this as it's suppose to be, a replica of the 2009 thunderbird that visited Japan. A whole load of white plastic! Every build at the moment I'm trying to learn new things and stretch my skills, so this new bit of this build will be the excellent aires wheel wells as this was an area of the last hasegawa F-16 I built I thought was lacking! The only thing I hope is that I can do them justice, the level of detail is incredible, something that I would never of guessed with the pictures I'd seen! I'm also planning on painting the markings as the kit decals are about an inch thick but I've got to find paint masks first or I'll end up trying to masking all out. Sprue Brothers have the ones fitted to the tamiya kit in 1/48 but I don't know if they will really fit! Any advice/pointers/criticisms are always welcome, I'm trying to learn with every build I do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris W. Balmer Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 Those wheel wells are amazing eh? When I got a set I spent AGES just looking at the detail... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted September 14, 2012 Author Share Posted September 14, 2012 To right Chris, funnily enough that's exactly what I did last night, that and tried to figure out how I'm going to straighten up the little extra bits that have all got a curve on them! Haven't worked with resin before so really not too sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted September 15, 2012 Author Share Posted September 15, 2012 Well, managed to get a start on this over the last couple days. Here's my pilot, I haven't painted any of these before, I normally don't bother, but as yeah get the decal for the back of the helmet I thought it a little rude not too The pictures aren't the best as they were taken on my phone, but I'm pretty happy with the outcome The instructions would have you hit the pit next but I'm going to tackle the intake first, it'll be tricky especially with the aires front wheel well to go in as well, but I'd rather get the difficult sub assemblies out the way first in an attempt to keep the momentum going later on in the build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark73 Posted September 15, 2012 Share Posted September 15, 2012 Looking forward to your next post, those wells look amazing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted September 18, 2012 Author Share Posted September 18, 2012 Thought I'd post a quick peek from tonight's work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted October 3, 2012 Author Share Posted October 3, 2012 Sorry for the lack of updates guys. I have been quietly ticking along with this but with the hassle of the hasegawa intake it was definitely close to going back in the box! Any way, here's the pictures as it stood last night. Office is all but done, just need to add some tamiya tape belts and it'll be there. I've also got the wheel wells in place as well. The front wheel well was an absolute pain in the a**e and in the end I've built up the inside of the lip as I couldn't get the well thin enough to fit the way hasegawa had intended. I'm still not massively happy with this are and will probably either do a FOD cover or have another crack it. Also got the matt black area around the cockpit painted ready for the 2 halves to be joined. Next up, and this is where the fun begins, I thought I would add a bit of interest to the plain white paint job and would show the flaps down! I'm following Ryan Fernandez's fantastic how-to on hyperscale for this (http://www.clubhyper...aperonsrf_1.htm) so first job up is to take a perfectly good wing And using the back of a scalpel I set about taking off the flaps! Next up I need to pick up some evergreen half round rods to build up the front of the flap and file down a matching groove on the back of the wing for it to slot in to, no turning back on this one now Still struggling with what to do about the decals, the box decals are soo thick and trying to get the to conform is going to be a real headache but the only set of paint masks I can find on sprue brothers is for the tamiya F-16! Does anyone know if there are any major shape/size differences between this the hasegawa F-16C and the tamiya F-16C or will the masks fit with some small adjustment?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted October 4, 2012 Author Share Posted October 4, 2012 The wings are well on their way now, so definitely no turning back! I couldn't get hold of any evergreen half round so I carefully sliced a large round piece done the middle. Then attached it to the flaps. This is the initial rough attachment and after a LOT of sanding down I'm left with this. So to clean the edges up I set about running a bead of dissolved putty down the edge to clean up the join and give me a smooth edge. This is still waiting for it to dry, planning on leaving it a good 24 hours to really set hard and don't worry there is plenty more sanding to be done on these!! Next was on to the wings themselves, I needed to create the channel for the soon to be round edged flaps to sit. So, out came the needle files for yet more sanding. I'm pretty pleased with the channels especially as I have never done this sort of thing before but I'm pretty certain they are going to to need adjusting once the flaps are completely sanded down. Next up it's tidying up the canopy and masking the inside frame work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdriaN (MLT) Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 I have the tamiya one in 48. Say are you going to prime the white plastic with grey before painting it white? or white on white? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avgas Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 I'd go white on white. Building the odd airliner showed me it is far easier than trying to cover the grey with seven hundred coats of white. Nice work so far DannyB. Those wheel wells would make me want to display it upside down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdriaN (MLT) Posted October 10, 2012 Share Posted October 10, 2012 Wouldnt it be like 'spraying blind'? i mean how can you see where you have sprayed and not? and if the paint is spread evenly? when i do mine ill mix the grey primer with white to make it easier to spray on the white Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avgas Posted October 10, 2012 Share Posted October 10, 2012 In my case the primer and paint had slightly different hues and textures. I found holding it at an angle toward the light helped distinguish which was which. Adding a touch of grey to the white would probably help have the similar effect, so probably a good idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted October 10, 2012 Author Share Posted October 10, 2012 Thanks for the comments, she is slowly starting to come together. I'll try and get some pictures up tonight as I've now finished and attached the flaps. Funny enough the issue of priming and painting has been causing me some head-aches as well. The trouble I've found with the white plastic is that it is really hard to see any imperfections or issues with fit/finish and the lack of contrast is becoming a real pain. My initial thoughts were to spare a thin coat of surfacer 1200 to show any issues, fix them with disolved putty and then buff it back with micromesh before adding limited preshading and the final coat of white. I'm using the FS insignia white which, when compared with tamiya white, does a slight cream hue to it which could well help with coverage. But, I'm not quite at that stage yet and the jury is still out on how I'm going to tackle it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted October 12, 2012 Author Share Posted October 12, 2012 As promised here's the latest progress pics. Have got a bit done and the fuselage is now together with wings in place and flaps in the down position. I've got a bit more tidying up with some more sanding needed but it's getting there now. I always forget how fast these F-16s come together! I've started work on the engine and the canopies which I need to finish off before moving on, slowly ticking along! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z Aviator Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Even though I'm sceptical of any kit not moulded in gray styrene, I must say that I'm really enjoying this build! You've done a smashing job so far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdriaN (MLT) Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 In my case the primer and paint had slightly different hues and textures. I found holding it at an angle toward the light helped distinguish which was which. Adding a touch of grey to the white would probably help have the similar effect, so probably a good idea. I think youve missunderstood me What i meant was... adding white to the grey primer, to make the primer lighter, to hopefullt make it easier to spray the white! adding grey to the white base colour isnt a good idea if it needs to be brilliant white Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avgas Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 (edited) I meant adding grey to my white primer, sorry - still had my spraycan in mind Edited October 12, 2012 by Avgass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted October 31, 2012 Author Share Posted October 31, 2012 This has been ticking along at the moment as I waited for bits to come in and pulling myself out of the doldrums get on with it! Everything together and ready for painting I applied a thinned and whitened coat of mr.surfacer 1200. Word of warning don't try this stuff through a delicate airbrush, it clogs the cr@p out it! After an initial disaster I resorted to my less than accurate revell air can powered powered sprayer, the finish has actually come out nice and smooth and the revell sprayer is sooo much easier to clean. Next up is probably the most controversial bit of the build, if any of the recent topics are anything to go by! The pre-shading! After some great advice on another topic I've used H305 for the shading instead of black to hopefully end up with a more subtle level of shading. I started off by masking up the dropped flaps Seeing as I was only using very light pressure I didn't go the whole hog with the masking, also an incentive to get a bit more accurate too! I repeated this process over most of the control areas and areas I want to add some depth to, both on top and underneath. Ironically the shaping, especially on the drop flaps looks a lot darker than it actually is because of my mistake lighting and only having the camera on my phone to hand! Next up I lightly picked out some of the most prominent panel areas, these aren't finished yet though. I plan to go back through the centres of these panels with white to tidy them up and imply a bit more depth. All in all quite a productive night and I'm pretty chuffed with the results Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted November 2, 2012 Author Share Posted November 2, 2012 Started the first coat of white last night and soon realised this is going to take ages! I fear I would of been better off doing a coat of flat white after the primer, then pre-shading and then using a final coat of white to blend it in. But I didn't Here she is, the lighting and camera hide the fact it's a lot greyer than the picture suggests so the plan is to build up thin layers of white until I get the right coverage, but on the plus side the pre-shaded areas are starting to blend in well. I've also been thinking ahead and trying to decide if I'm going to mask up and spray on the large thunderbirds design or use the very thick hasegawa decals. At the moment I'm leaning towards masking off the large areas and using the decals for the smaller bits. I'm thinking of creating my own stencils using the self adhesive labels that you can put through a laser copier but that'll be an experiment for another day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 Thought you were being a bit brave pre-shading with a white finish! Looks like your plan will avoid the temptation to use thicker coats to speed up the process... keep it thin! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdriaN (MLT) Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 This is why i was woried about grey primer. when it comes to spraying white, the grey will keep showing up, meanining more paint! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdriaN (MLT) Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 (edited) P.s Are you sure you want to pre shade the model? in turn giving the paint a broken/dirty slightly faded look. thunderbirds aircraft are kept very clean, and are washed/plolished before each display. even the tires are polished. Edited November 2, 2012 by AdriaN (MLT) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colin Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 Trouble is if you don't break up the white the end result can look too toy like Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdriaN (MLT) Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 Trouble is if you don't break up the white the end result can look too toy like true thats the problem! when i do my one, i will paint then some panel washing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 Hiya, I think you're going about it the right way. It's just that the white you're using is too transparent. How much are you thinning it? It might have been better to have inserted a Tamiya fine white primer coat OVER the pre shading you did and under the gloss white. To gloss white over pre shading is going to take many layers of thinned white. Can you take it all off and start again? If not, shoot a thin layer of Tamiya white primer (fine) and then gloss over it. You could also shoot Tamiya fine white primer and then carefully polish it with micro mesh to a polished appearance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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