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F-104 "Hunting Cat"


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BoxArt.jpg

This caught my eye in the poor pathetic section of one of my local hobby shops. It is from a purchase of a kit collection and I bought it solely because of the decal option. I normally focus on WWII aircraft and prefer propellers on my kits. However, of late, I have gotten on a Tiger Meet theme. Now, strictly speaking this is not from a Tiger Meet. But, it is of a similar vein. I have no real information as to the actual aircraft other than a few pictures I found on the web. I also do not know how accurate this kit is, but it looks like/resembles a Starfighter to me. On opening the box, the first thing I noticed was the decals. They are old. How old? The instructions and wonderful trademark on the port wing indicate the kit was made in 1980. So, I am hoping this will not be a waste and the decals fall apart when I begin to apply them. I am going to be optimistic and put the kit together and paint it; then hope for the best. It has an interesting paint scheme as the port side is white and orange with the cat chasing mice scheme running its length. Starboard is a regular camo scheme and the undersides in aluminum or silver. I don’t know the date this kit was originally manufactured, but it must have been prior to 1980 as there is a lot of flash on the parts. Now it is easy to remove, but there is a lot. The parts count is relatively low, but I did not buy the kit for a massive amount of detail, I bought it for the paint/decal scheme. So, there will be no detailing or “correcting for errors” as I have no idea what to correct for. I’m just hoping the fit of parts is good.

First off, the cockpit. Not a lot of detail and not a lot of parts.

Cockpit1.jpg

I am hoping the color callouts in the kit are correct, so my apologies to Starfighter experts if I finish the cockpit incorrectly. I started with a very basic instrument panel, base painted in Nato Black and then weathered and highlighted with a dry brush of silver and some red knobs.

Cockpit2.jpg

Then the front cowling received the same treatment with some clear blue applied to a clear window that sits in front of the gun reflector sight. (Which I glued in place, but has now vanished into the great beyond. I’m thinking the chances of finding a very small clear part are slim to none. I will have to improvise later.)

cockpit3.jpg

I then painted the seat, the control stick and the cockpit tub. I weathered them and had fun with the side dials.

cockpit4.jpg

The cockpit tube and cowling were glued to one half of the fuselage and then the two halves were glued together with the following results.

cockpit5.jpg

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After the fuselage was together, I found this little lapse in construction that will have to be rectified with some plastic sheet before the canopy is put on.

cockpit7.jpg

This is going to be a long kit

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Some more parts were put in place on the fuselage, these on the bottom . . .

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The cannon cover. The kit gives the option of having the cannon and its bay exposed, but for this kit, given its scheme, I think the cover should be closed. I am just glad it fits so well.

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When I glued the cannon cover I noticed this. . .

gunport1.jpg

Just seems that a kit of this size would have the gun port “opening” opened. So, with a drill and some filing, I opened up the gun port to this . . .

gunport2.jpg

Looks a little better. I then added the intakes port and starboard

intakestar.jpg

intakeport.jpg

Now on my last two nose wheel aircraft, I forgot to add weight to make them sit correctly. I was not about to make that same mistake again. Luckily, the kit provides a very large and long nose cone which I filled with fishing weights and superglue. (More on that at the end of the post; clumsy is my name.)

nosecone1.jpg

So as the nose cone dries, I move to the other end of the fuselage to add the tail section. The kit comes with two different styles of tails, but the instructions only call out one for use in this model. I am not sure what the other tail is for. All I am hoping is that the tail insert will fit the body and go together seamlessly.

tail1.jpg

Now it would have been nice if the designers of the kit thought of how this kit would be constructed and painted. If they would have considered it, they would not have designed the exhaust nozzle to be inserted into the tail section prior to its attachment to the fuselage body. They would have been kind and designed the nozzle to be inserted after the tail section was attached so it could be left off to ease painting the fuselage. Yeah, no such luck. So I put together the exhaust nozzle . . .

exhaust1.jpg

Gave it a base coat of gunmetal (Humbrol 53) . . .

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Then doused it with some Tamiya Smoke . . .

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Put on a coat of Tamiya Clear Blue and then removed most of it with paint thinner for this result.

exhaust4.jpg

Next I dry fit the exhaust nozzle section with the tail section so I can check its fit to the rest of the fuselage.

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I had some suspicions that this assembly was not going to mesh well with the rest of the fuselage. Here are the pictures that show how “seamlessly” it will fit.

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The diameter where the exhaust nozzle fits is too small and there is a nice little step that will have to be contended with. Then there is a rather large gap where the tailplane is going to fit. Somehow, I don’t think the tailplane is going to be that thick so some sort of spacer will be needed. And finally, when the exhaust section of the tail is fit flush, there is a large gap where the rest of the tail section is to meet with the fuselage tail section. Not real sure if I can manhandle that, or more spacer material will be needed. To fix the diameter issue, I messed around with some sprue to create a spacer which increased the diameter of the tail section exhaust opening to match the diameter of the fuselage exhaust opening area.

badfit5.jpg

I think the next step will be to attach the bottom part of the tail section to the fuselage, let that dry to a nice hard bond, and then manhandle the top part of the tail section to fit flush to the rest of the fuselage. At that point, I can then dry fit the tailplane to see how I can fix that huge gap. At least that is my plane for now. For right now, I am waiting for the glue to dry on the spacer, so it can be cut down to allow the exhaust nozzle to fit.

Now originally, when I was devising my plan of attack to do the paint scheme and decals, I thought it might be best to construct the fuselage section first, paint it and then decal it. After that, I would build, decal, paint and attach the wings. As I began to look at the paint scheme of this kit and how involved it was, I decided that I should just bite the bullet and assemble the entire kit; then paint and decal. Granted it might be easier to put fuselage decals on without the wings, but it would be a nightmare to try to match up the paint schemes of the wings and fuselage if painted separately. So it’s on to the port wing which consists of the stubby little wing and the end gas tank.

wingport-1.jpg

And this is then glued to the fuselage. The fit being quite good and just minor seam cleanup on the gas tank. I also glued the nose cone to the fuselage

fuselage3.jpg

body1.jpg

This aircraft is as long as my keyboard. And this is where I am going to stop. But, not before this picture

cleanup.jpg

Now, I know what your first impressions are and this is not what you think it is. This is actually the result of a learning process of many years regarding my limitations. I am a clumsy oaf. I now admit it. I tried to ignore it and pretended I wasn’t, but I am. Most people are careful with their tins of paint, glue, filler, etc. I am not. If it can be spilled, I will find a way to do it. What you see above is the cleanup from my dumping most of the superglue I used to fill up the nose cone to hold the weights in place. Now I should know better, superglue only bonds instantly to your fingers and when you do not have the part placed properly. When you want it to bond instantly, it can take hours to set. Like a dunce, I filled the nose cone with weights, and then poured in a fairly substantial quantity of superglue to hold everything in place. Now why I then placed the nose cone down on my work desk is beyond me. Ten minutes later I notice a very large patch of superglue all over the top of my desk, slowly attempting to permanently attach everything in its path including some finished kit parts. So, what you see above is my realizing my limitations and I now only build on a desk with a glass top!! Paint spills, glue drips, filler blobs, all can be scraped off with a razor blade. If you are a klutz like me, I heartily recommend a glass desktop. All comments always encouraged and welcomed.

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Looks like a fun kit of a pretty plane. Much as I love the F-104 every time I see it I can't help but think of its nicknames. Widow maker, Flying Coffin, Fall Fighter, and Earth Nail !...

Black Humour to the extreme.

Fun decal option.

:)

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George, just to give you some information on this aircraft, it was painted this way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of 51st Stormo (wing) of the Italian Air Force.

The cat catching the mice is the Stormo insignia and has a curious history: the unit when first commissioned shared the airfield with a bombing unit, the 12th Stormo equipped with SM.79s. The 51st was initially equipped with CR.32 biplanes while waiting for the G.50. Many in Italy (and not only...) back then believed that bombers would have always managed to get through and the pilots of the 12th were very proud of their aircrafts, that were hard to intercept for the biplanes. When the G.50 entered service however the pilots of the 51st managed to "shoot down" the bombers of the 12th during an exercise over Rome. The insignia of the 12th saw 3 green mice (from an italian saying: green mice are a trouble for those who see them) and from then on the 51st used as an insignia a black cat catching 3 green mice.

The aircraft shown on the box was one of the nicer but more unusual commemorative schemes of the Italian Air Force, unusual mainly because the scheme was painted on one half of the aircraft only, the other retained the standard camouflage

Back to the model, the real aircraft was an F-104S and these have a few differences that could or not be included in the box. The most visible would be the presence of two extra ventral fins. The one on the centreline also has a different shape from the one used on the G. I would add these differences as they are simple to make, if you want more information let me know and I can send you some drawings.

Another difference would be in the air intakes... personally I would just fill the auxiliary door on the side and rescribe a new larger one.

Other difference, but harder to make: the larger doors on the main wheel wells are bulged to allow the use of larger tyres, these might or not be in the box as were used on the F-104G.

And more: the engine on the S model was a more powerful variant of the J-79 and the exhaust was longer... not much you can do I fear unless you can find an aftermarket item or the exhaust from an F-4E

Last but not least: the gun on these aircrafts was not installed since the room was used by the Sparrow CW guidance unit. The gun muzzle was covered with an aerodynamic fairing

Edited by Giorgio N
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Giorgiol,

Thank you for this information. Looks like I will do a few modifications to this kit as per your information. If you could PM about the plans, I would appreciate them. And, you inadvertently answered a question that was forming in my mind. On the box cover art and from a picture of the actual aircraft on the box cover, it appears as though the mice were black. However, the decals show them as green. I was wondering about that. With your information that included the saying concerning green mice, I am more confident about the decal portraying green mice than I was. I'm wondering about the bulges on the main wheel wells. The kit doors have no bulges. I have a slightly, if not inane, insane idea about those. I am at the stage that making modifications to the airframe is not a big deal. I am more interested in the paint and decal scheme, but if I know something is glaringly wrong, then it will bug me. Again, thank you for the information and please contact me about the plans.

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Pete,

I have started a few, completed a few, just been too lazy to post anything. Besides, kinda like always sliding under the radar. That former training and such, can't be helped.

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George, just give me a day or so and I'll send you something. In the meantime have a look at these two pictures, they show the ventral fins arrangement:

P8171314.jpg

P8171315.jpg

The central fin has a leading edge at approx. 45 deg. The one used on the previous versions has an angle of approx 30 deg, to modify this just cut a bit of the leading edge until you have a sharper 45 deg angle as seen in the picture below.

For the 2 extra fins, I'll send you a drawing from an old magazine that should have the dimensions written (going by memory here mind...)

To see the bulges on the wheel well doors, have a look at the pictures in this walkaround:

http://www.tantopergioco.it/immagini/walkaround/walkaround-aerei-jet/nggallery/walkaround-aerei-jet/f-104s

The bulges are well visible in a couple of shots. As those doors are usually partially closed anyway, it's possible to just add some plasticard on top and sand to shape, there's no really need to reproduce the bulge internally.

In the same walkaround it's possible to see well the shape of the auxiliary intake on the side of the jet intake trunking. This is rectangular on the S while on the G it's a trapezoid.

There are also on the S a couple of small teardrop antennas before the exhaust, related to the Sparrow missile guidance system. They are small so you may want to add them or not

The 3 mice were indeed green on this aircraft

Last but not least: If you can find Lifecolor paints where you live, they have both the right grey and the right green for the camouflage . I can dig the references for you and let you know.

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All right. I am totally ignoring my opening statements and am making corrections to the kit to more closely reflect it is an "S" model. So while I do some modifications to existing parts and scratch a few others to add, need some help on the paint job. For a really neat scheme it seems it is devoid of references. So, a couple of paint questions out there to people who have way more knowledge of F-104s in Italian service. (Maybe perhaps, Giorgio?) The callouts on the kit call for aluminium for the lower surfaces, the starboard top side in dark green and grey camoflauge and the port side in the "Hunting Cat" scheme with the forward part in white and the rear part in orange. I have found Zotz did a decal sheet of it and the above colors are the same callouts on the Zotz sheet. Where the instructions from Revell and Zotz differ is:
1. On the port wing fuel tank the Revell instructions have the tank front half white, rear half orange. The Zotz instruction sheet has the upper half of the tank divided the same way, but the lower half in aluminium. The few actual photos I have found do not have enough of an angle in them to definitely rule one way or the other, but sorta lean towards the Revell scheme. Anyone have a definitive answer?

2. On the Revell instructions, the upper port side of the nose cone is painted black. On the Zotz instructions, it is hard to determine if the upper port side of the nose cone is black or dark green. The confusion stems from the drawing versus the color call outs. The drawing seems to be either a flat black or very dark grey (darker than the corresponding camo grey), but the call outs do not have black listed as a color of the scheme. Again, which one is correct?

3. For the orange color, I am thinking of applying clear orange to a white base to see how well that would work as the pictures of the aircraft and the box art from Revell look like the orange is faded at the beginning of inception of the orange color in the middle of the fuselage and gets progressively darker towards the rear of the plane. Now, I don't know if that is the result of shadows in the photos and box art portrayal or the way the actual scheme was painted. The drawings on the Zotz sheet and other drawings of this aircraft are solid orange for the entire length of the fuselage.

Any clues or help to the above would be greatly appreciated. If no help, then I guess I will just wing it.

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Update that I said I wouldn’t do, but ended up doing. Remember when I stated at the first of this build: “So, there will be no detailing or “correcting for errors” as I have no idea what to correct for.” I needed some details fleshed out for the paint job and Giorgio has been very kind and gave some information as to the differences in the kit version and the version I am doing, an “S” model. So, some glaring errors have been pointed out that should not be too hard to sort out. (Famous last words) So this update is me fixing things on the kit. Whoopee!!

There are two versions of tails for this kit and I hope I picked out the version for the “S” model. It didn’t fit well. When I last stopped I had put in a spacer to help correct the differences in diameter between the main body and the tail insert. And I knew there were also problems with the tail section of the insert fitting flush. So, I begin with fitting the exhaust part of the tail section to the main body. It worked pretty well and here are the results.

fixtail1.jpg

I still have a bad gap between the tail section and the insert section. Once the exhaust portion dries completely, I will manhandle the tail portion into place.

fixtail2.jpg

And here it is all manhandled and superglued into place. Hope it stays there.

fixtail3.jpg

Well the plastic did not pop loose, so I feel it is safe to begin tidying it up, so on with the filler.

fixtail4.jpg

Sand, sand, sand, I just love to sand; not! And now add some more filler

fixtail5.jpg

And this is what I ended up with; I can live with it.

fixtail6.jpg

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Now it is ready for the tailplane to be added.

tailplane1.jpg

tailplane2.jpg

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In spite of all the sanding and forcing in place for the tail insert, the tailplane fits pretty well. To show how little I know about the F-104, I was thinking I would have an awful big gap to fill in between the tailplane and tail. After looking at more than a few pictures, it is supposed to be there. Glad I didn’t fill it!

Working my way back to the front of the plane, there are some issues with the main ventral strake and some missing side strakes. The main ventral strake has a much steeper angle than the one on the kit. So doing some highly scientific mark 1 eyeballing, I “approximated” the angle onto the kit part.

ventralfix1.jpg

You can see I am being quite precise and technical in that my first set of measurements were not quite up to snuff, necessitating further investigation and the use of more highly technical equipment to aid the mark 1 eyeball; readers. Once further equipment was utilized, a more accurate measurement was taken and then transferred to the kit part. I then took a saw to it. (Look at me living up to my own advice, measure twice saw once.)

ventralfix2.jpg

Now with that task accomplished, I move on to the side strakes. These are interesting little gems with an interesting shape. Now, how do I replicate it? I could purchase some plans (nightmares of the Whirlwind discussion come to the forefront.) I scoff at the idea of plans and once again, a highly scientific and “approved” engineering method (Acme School of Engineering taught by Professor Wiley E. Coyote; graduated magna cum fraude I did) is utilized. I found a fairly good picture of an “S” model 104; found a really good picture of the 1/32 Italeri F-104 sprue parts; compared the two images, and cobbled together the dimensions by averaging their measurements. Now mind you these are images taken off of the computer so what I ended up with was not to scale. So incorporating the Mark 1 eyeball now further equipped with readers (Gad getting old is a pain!) I compared my drawing to the kit and then estimated how much it should be reduced to “look” right. And, if Nigel ever gets over to this sight to take a gander, I have included my calculations, purposely done in fractions of an inch, (death to metrics) for his perusal.

ventralfix5.jpg

The original drawing is in the upper section of the paper with the smaller version, the paper pattern used to cut out the actual plastic versions, to the right. And here are the two side strakes.

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With the starboard side glued in.

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Placement and angle was accomplished by Mark 1 eyeball facilitated even further by a magnifying head set. This was left to harden and set so I can then match the port side as to placement and angle with the starboard side. I think it came out fairly decent.

ventralfix6.jpg

Next up on the list of modifications, the “S” version has lumpy gear doors. Apparently, the Italians use larger tires than others (compensation perhaps? Look my mother’s maiden name is Buffo, I’m allowed.) With the larger tires, the forward main landing gear doors need some bulges to be added (I’m resisting here). So, I glue two pieces of 40 thou plastic sheet together, cut out two suitably sized pieces and begin to shape.

wheelfix1.jpg

With the initial shape done, I then attached them to the landing gear doors

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Now the fun part of sanding, filling, sanding, filling, shaping, sanding, filling . . .

wheelfix3.jpg

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And you end up with two of these

wheelfix4.jpg

Now still moving towards the nose of the plane I get to revisit the gun port. I love refixing fixes. Remember me opening the gun port; yeah, that was wasted effort. Seems the “S” version, or at least this bird has a covered gun port. So, I took a piece of sprue and initially shaped it to create a gun port plug.

gunfix1.jpg

And with more sanding, filling, shaping . . . see a trend here; I get this.

gunfix2.jpg

I am almost at the nose cone. A quick stop at the starboard intake needs to be made though. The color callouts in the instructions has you paint the intake cone solid black. However, the paint scheme has it part black/part white. After a little scraping of paint, I get this which will be more acceptable when the cat decals are put on.

intakefix1-1.jpg

Now the cockpit and canopy. At the conclusion of the last post, once I fit the cockpit into the fuselage, a large gap was present between the seat back and rear cowling. That needs to be fixed. A piece of 10 thou card was placed to seal the hole.

seatfix1.jpg

This was then shaped to fit.

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And a coat of paint applied

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When the paint dries, it will be weathered to blend into the rest of the cockpit. Next up the canopy.

canopy1.jpg

Do you think these molds might be a few years old with all of the flash? It was easy enough to clean up; and then it was masked. Yecchhhh.

canopy2.jpg

A dip in Future/Klear as an experiment to see if some unnamed individuals can be trusted with tips, and it will be ready to be attached to the kit, blended in and paint to be applied.

And I have finally made it to the nose cone. I wish I was one of those builders who could state “No filler needed at any seam”, but I’m not. Even kits that everyone else can put together with no seams to be filled, I have to fill. So, in keeping with the common theme in this update; filler is applied

fixnose1-1.jpg

Filler is removed

fixnose2.jpg

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Now, maybe some fun will begin. I mask the kit to put on the lower surface paint of aluminum. I have decided to go with the Revell paint scheme rather than the Zotz regarding how the starboard portion of the fuselage will be painted.

bottompaint1.jpg

Paint has been applied, will wait a while to unmask and see how it looks.

bottompaint2.jpg

And that’s all for now. Please comment.

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Tiny update. After the first coat of aluminium, I noticed a few places along the lower seam that needed some attention. Well I gave them attention, resprayed and now they look worse than ever. And, the paint did not adhere some of the places I attempted to fix. That, and I made a little run to boot. Learning to use an airbrush it not fun. Some sort of black magic involved. Maybe I need to sacrifice something. I did not have these problems with hairy sticks. Back to sanding, and repainting and hope I get it right this time.

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When approaching the learning curve of life,

Change down a gear and throttle up....

(That sounds quite philosophical)

You know where you are with a hairy stick!

Looking good, George.

The only time I saw one of these babies in the air would

have been an Italian one at an airbase open day in the UK.

Wow! And the sounds!

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A miniscule update. After careful sanding while muttering about my likes concerning airbrushing and my obvious skill at it, I resprayed with the result below.

silverfix.jpg

I can live with this now. Next up, will spray the white on and let it harden and cure for a good week as has been suggested. (Thanks Nigel. Now if he would only come and visit.)

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wow... blast from the past. I built this when I was uhm... well... anyway... 't was a while ago. If I recall correctly, the decals were pretty amazing, but put that in the context of a 16 year old who had never heard of things like weathering or detailling. This was in the absolute infancy of the world wide web :P

Anyways... awesome kit. It's pretty huge but that made it easier to handle. Have fun building it and please let me know if the decals are as good as I remember

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Matt,

I use a combination of just plane ole' Tamiya White Putty followed by a light coat of Tamiya Primer. Then judicious applications of elbow grease until I get what looks like a light snowfall on the floor.

Basosz,

I am hoping the decals are still good. The background sheet has weathered a bit, but the decals still look okay. My fear is I will go through all this work and then the first decal I try disintigrates at the mere hint of water.

By the way, just put on the second light coat of white. I really hate white, The underlying plastic is white and still the white paint has trouble covering it. There is just something substantially wrong in that.

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Thanks george, might get me some, as I use humbrol filler at the moment.

I hate white too, it seems when I use it, it wan't to run away and hide in ths corners. Seems to me it doesn't matter what you spray it over, either bare plastic, primer or another colour, it just won't cover.

I try to avoid it where ever I can.

Matt.

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White, red, yellow, dayglo are all horrid colours to airbrush, I guess the pigment is very thin so coverage takes many thin coats.

George, your aluminium finish looks really good. That will be one impressively big model when completed.

Duncan B

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A frustrating update. Why is white so hard? Why is airbrushing a black art? Why didn’t I take Duncan’s advice and start learning airbrushing techniques with easy stuff? All right, the biggest difference between airbrushing and my beloved hairy stick painting is there is a lot more surface preparation for airbrushing. It seems you have to sand more, fill more and especially tape more. I am still debating about the benefits though. Here are the progress pictures on spraying the white down.

DSCN1291.jpg

DSCN1292.jpg

DSCN1293.jpg

This is the result of two very light coats. I got runs after the second coat. The first coat went on smoothly. When I sprayed the second coat, lighter than the first coat, it ran in a few places. Maybe I should have lightly sanded the first coat to prevent this from happening. So a little more sanding, then another light coat and see what will happen. What I really don’t understand is how spraying white paint over white plastic would really need more than two coats? I am now going to go find some suitable sacrifice to appease the spray demons and see if I can fix the white, like I fixed the aluminium. The next paint color up is orange!! How did I miss out on some sort of yellow coloring to complete this paint scheme? Comments or suggestions would be most helpful and would maybe shed a little light in the darkness that I am wandering.

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Sad to see your problems with white paint. I have found the Revell satin white covers very well and dries fast. If you spray 2 coats of that and then come back the next day for the gloss you only need a thin coat to bring up the shine.

Many years ago I made the 1/72 Hasegawa version of the kit. I recommend you use the Revell satin white as an undercoat for the orange or you risk your runny paint problem repeating itself but with bleed through as well.

Regards

The cat

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Have you thinned the paint too much? I found on my first attempt at airbrushing tamiya acrylic white was a disaster. I think I over thinned it, but found on a second attempt it worked better after dropping my air pressure to 15 psi.

I also found winsor and newton flow improver helped a lot.

Are you using acrylic or enamel?

I find my enamel paints work well with a brush, but I haven't tried airbrushing enamels yet. I'm scared it will clog up and ruin my airbrush.

Hope my ramblings might help shed some light on your troubles.

Matt.

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Possibly a bit late with this but even experienced airbrushes have trouble with white paint. I actually prefer to use white primer from an aerosol, like Tamiya's white primer, to get the coverage then put a thin coat of the white paint over it. I have also used White Mr Surfacer 1000 through the airbrush for the same thing.

With yellow I would use a white primer underneath it too.

The runs make me think maybe your paint mix was too thin, it should have the consistency of semi skimmed milk once mixed. If it leaves a slight film on the side of the jar, or whatever you use for mixing, in the same way a brandy would when swirled round the glass then you've got the mix about right.

Another top tip, don't mix the paint in your airbrush, get some empty Tamiya style glass jars to mix in. That way you don't end up with a slug of unthinned paint deep down in the airbrush ready to go splat all over your nicely prepped kit.

Don't give up on the airbrush, it's well worth the effort and pain once you master the thing.

Duncan B

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Wow, it looks like I am late to the party (only just found this thread tonight). We really need a better system so we all know what the others are doing!

I feel your pain on the white paint issue George and I wish I could offer some guidance but since I am barely half a step in front of you regarding airbrush skills, any advice I could offer would be guesswork at best. The aluminum did look good though, so you must be doing something right.

I think that a lot of novice airbrush mistakes are due purely to pressure and distance. I have now backed my pressure right down to somewhere around 12 psi, and am finding that I am getting better results.

No doubt the mix ratio is important too, but I think that there is much more leeway with the mix ratio - as long as you have the right distance and the right pressure.

I wonder if the thinners have anything to do with it? When I am using water based acrylics I don't seem to have any issues, but when I use any kind of solvent based paint I seem to have trouble with runs - as if the solvent is reactivating the "dry" paint, resulting in too much wet paint on the model .... thus the runs

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I thank everyone for the paint advice. I thought about primer, but reasoned since I am spraying on white plastic, a rubdown with sandpaper should work with no problems. Oh, by the way, I am using enamels as that is what I have mainly used throughout my modeling excursions. I may have made the mix too thin. Also, I think I should have roughed up the first coat with some very fine grit paper before I sprayed the second coat. Finally, I may not have waited enough between coats. There are so many variables to this!!

So tonight I am tasking myself with seeing how gentle I can be with some very strategic sanding, then go over the whole area with some very fine grit paper and lastly, give it a very light 3rd coat to even things out. That is essentially what I did with the aluminium finish and that finally came out okay.

Then, taking Nigel's advice, it shall sit and dry for about a week before I try the orange experiment.

The drawings of this kit, other than the box art, show the orange to be a solid color, somewhat shiny. The actual photos of the plane and the box art seem to portray this color as translucent. I do not know if this is due to a gloss finish on the real plane interacting with the light and camera angle or it actually is translucent. I think it is a pretty cool effect. So, rather than do a solid orange, I am going to play with various coats of Tamiya Clear Orange to see what I can achieve. Since it is going on a white plastic background, it may work. If it doesn't then I just overspray it with Humbrol solid orange and be done with it. Any thoughts as to this course of action?

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