Graeme H Posted April 8, 2017 Share Posted April 8, 2017 (edited) Week 1 of 13 OK, I signed up for this GB as a way to get my modelling mojo going again, I have several boxing of RAAF F-111's, but have decided to use this one screen capture tool It is a bit of an odd kit in that you can only build an F-111C or G, not both, It has the instructions for the F-111C, with a small instruction sheet for the F-111G, as such it has a couple of sprues that are unique to the F111G There are 4 colour scheme options, one only for the F-111G, and 3 for F-111C's, which is my choice as I already have an F-111G in the cabinet, although it is in USAF marking, I might just use the decals from this to upgrade it to an RAAF one. So far I have cut out and started the cockpit, but not a lot of progress, as I have some 1:1 stuff interfering, so as this is the first week completed of only 13 weeks to finish this I thought I would give myself a bit of a hurry up with how little time I have Edited April 8, 2017 by Graeme H 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted April 9, 2017 Share Posted April 9, 2017 Welcome aboard Graeme, and what a fine choice you're made!! I'm glad you're doing the C model and of course you'll be doing the 4 colour SEA scheme won't you!! I love being host I get to bully everyone! It's great you could join use Graeme, I hope it's a fun build for you and look forward to seeing her in the gallery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted April 10, 2017 Share Posted April 10, 2017 Hi Graeme, Nice choice of subject and I hope this helps with your mojo. I'm looking forward to your progress. Andrew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme H Posted April 13, 2017 Author Share Posted April 13, 2017 Week 2 of 13 Moving along at the pace of a startled tortoise, still I might just get there Yes Rich, have to do the SEA camo scheme no bullying required there, I want to do the 1 Sqn with the big yellow 1, I think that was only on a couple of birds, and the s/n given by Hasegawa of A8-145 doesn't seem to be one of them, as I haven't found a photo of it yet, so still looking A little done on the cockpit, slow work there, so I thought I would move into other areas to move things along a bit, decided to paint some of the endless white that is present in all the undercarriage bays, and of course to save on some of that really pesky masking I thought I would paint some of the black underside, seemed like a good idea, hope it pans out windows 7 screenshot Well I'm going to be away for the next 3 weekends, but as I have every day off shouldn't be an excuse to slow me down, mind you much slower and I will be passed by the hare 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob S Posted April 13, 2017 Share Posted April 13, 2017 6 hours ago, Graeme H said: Week 2 of 13 Moving along at the pace of a startled tortoise, still I might just get there ... mind you much slower and I will be passed by the hare In case people don't know You really know what you are talking about referencing The Tortoise and the Hare as legend has it that you were there at the first telling of it by Aesop ... (Part of the Peanut Gallery / Cheer Squad looking on with interest and knowing that you'll get there ... eventually!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted April 13, 2017 Share Posted April 13, 2017 It's ok Graeme, slow and steady progress always gets there in the end. My build has come to a halt till mid June as I'm off to Korea again, hopefully the sailing takes place this time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme H Posted April 30, 2017 Author Share Posted April 30, 2017 Having stupidly and accidentally drilled a hole through my left thumb with a 2mm drill bit and suffered some nerve damage, I have been getting shocks of the nerves when touching things the wrong way, or when I sometimes pick things up, even simple stuff like a sprue It is now slowly getting better, but I doubt very much it will ever recover fully. This is one of those accidents, that should not have happened, I have had more than enough training about doing small jobs with proper planning. Really dumb. Next time I will have to get out my HIT or SLAM book and fill it out properly and follow the protocols Anyway I will be getting back into this over this week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 Ouch!! The thought of drilling through your thumb!!! I'm the squeamish type!! I hope it gets better soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme H Posted May 16, 2017 Author Share Posted May 16, 2017 Week 7 of 13 Over half way, my how the time flies when you are not having fun So, things are going a lot slower than I would have wished, in real life, beside the hole through the thumb, I got bitten by a wasp on the finger while putting out some washing on the line ( I use a solar dryer exclusively), going away to a small Model Show, and doing a mountain of paperwork for my late wife, but little by little getting some done. After a rookie mistake with the front end and putting the Cockpit in the wrong place and having to very carefully split front end apart, and redo it in the correct alignment, almost ready to mate the front to the rear, the wings are together Once I get this pesky paperwork done, I might be able to crack on, hope so as I'm starting to enjoy this now gifs upload 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SallysDad Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 Love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Alpha Yankee Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 Taking notes Graeme, I have yet to start mine so I will now know to check cockpit position Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme H Posted June 7, 2017 Author Share Posted June 7, 2017 (edited) Week 10 already (oh bugger) OK, have had a hard couple of weeks with little or no progress, firstly doing a road trip with a friend over 4-5 days, and sorting out my late wife's estate with one Bank, the paperwork never ends with this stuff. then due to my swimming pool gate deciding to give up the ghost, so had to urgently do a full rebuild, starting again from scratch, and this had to be done as we have very stringent laws on Pool Fencing her, especially the gate, which must be able to close positively from any distance, new one now installed and fully functional. It's a bit uneven at the moment, but who cares, they can't or shouldn't knock me for that, and it's only if they do a surprise inspection, which is highly unlikely Then in between going to Doctors, Dentist, Dietician, Health Care Professional for Diabetes control, I went out and bought a new Car. This required more trips to the Bank, selling my old car to my son's Father in Law, so getting a Roadworthy Certificate, sorting out new Insurance. SO, I eventually did some more work on this, firstly a fuselage join up I had decided that I would try these new fangles paint masks that everyone seems to use these days to see it they would help, not that the F-111 has a very hard to mask canopy, when I first took it out of the packet, I thought I had been sold a dud, it seemed to be the same both sides, and I couldn't see any laser cuts anywhere, so took it outside, and could just make out some of it by following the plan, I then painted on some of that panel line wash which helped no end. I can see I will have to do some touch up work here and there after I take those masks off, the blue tape is where it didn't go where it should have, and you can see that the left rear doesn't match the canopy at all. Then I find that Postimage is having a bit of a lie down, so had to come back to Photobucket, whatever works will do, I guess Now I'm off to Melbourne for the weekend, and big Australian model show so nothing more until this time next week. I really intend to try and get this done by the deadline Edited June 7, 2017 by Graeme H Photos 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Alpha Yankee Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 Great to see some progress, Graeme. I will be in Melbourne as well, it will be good to catch up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 gosh you have been busy!! Mmmm canopy masks, they're either really good or problematic! have fun in Melbourne......you may need to take a boat with all the rain we've having down south! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted June 8, 2017 Share Posted June 8, 2017 Looking good! Not sure how much the pre-cut masks actually helped you but the job's done... Looking forward to some paint! Regards, Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob S Posted June 9, 2017 Share Posted June 9, 2017 From this : to this : in 54 years ... Progress? Enjoying the build but still taking bets time will run out! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme H Posted June 16, 2017 Author Share Posted June 16, 2017 Well viewers in last weeks episode you may have missed mainly because it wasn't aired, I sprayed on some Compucolor 30219 Tan before I went swanning off to Melbourne for the Model Expo, and I had a very good time there. Anyhoo back home and Wednesday I got back into this, except every time I touched the Tan, it was sticky and horrible, if it hasn't dried in the 6 days since I put it on, I figure it's probably not going to. So only option is to take it off Now a complete strip is going to be very hard to accomplish, due to some of the underside being basically finished, so only other option is to sand it off, very time consuming, and the fact that a lot of the paint rolled up into balls showed it was nowhere near dry, it has taken a lot of hours getting there, but now ready to try putting on that Tan again, only this time I will use Model Master paint, don't think I have any Xtracolor. Going to have the semi gloss,/ gloss finish of the Compucolor greens with the flat of the Model Master, but will sort that when I get there. next episode should shew something a bit better, hopefully 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 That's a great shame about the Compucolour tan, Graeme, but I'm sure you'll recover to get the project back on track. The Testors MM colour should be fine (they've always been reliable for me, if a little/lot difficult to spray as anything other than an overall coat, i.e. I've never really been able to spray a fine line with them - they seem to have very coarse pigments compared to other enamels like Humbrol or Xtracolour) and I doubt that the difference in sheen between the different brands will make any difference, especially once an overall gloss coat is applied (I guess you were trying to avoid the necessity though). At least you can be confident that the MM tan will be flat and should dry! All the best for the next coats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 That's a shame about the paint! I don't know that brand at all, Model Masters is great, that's all I ever used before I moved over to acrylics. Though I agree with Andrew, it's not much good for anything other than the main coat, plus I found it to be very sensitive to the amount of thinners used. If you over thinned it it would go (well for me) quite "washy" as in it wouldn't lay down smoothly. But that said it's a good solid paint and the colour matches I think are some of the best. Hopefully you'll have better luck this time, good luck with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hewy Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 I feel your pain with the paint, a bit of deja vu for me that, all the best Glynn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme H Posted June 23, 2017 Author Share Posted June 23, 2017 2 weeks to go Well the masking and painting went on and on and on Used Model Master all the way, and found that that after the great unmasking, their version FS34102 is way off, it just looks too green, should be more yellowish Now FS34102 is one of those colours that needs to be debated a lot, there must be a lot of versions of this, I well remember the RAAF's F-4E Phantoms when they first arrived, and how the Humbrol Authentics of the day was nowhere near the right colour. Model Master have a habit, (well they all do) of changing the formula, some older FS34102 that I had was closer to the FS595 colour chart, but a bit dark, this is a different colour and very much off. I went through my stock of MM paints to see what might be a better match, and roughly painted out some to get a quick idea of what I'm looking for At this stage I'm thinking the FS34127 might be a better idea, although the FS34095 looks OK as well, strangely on the FS595 chart that is supposed to be darker than FS34079, hmmm so have one wing which is already masked so I can do a quick over spray to see how it might look Stay tuned viewers for the next action packed episode 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme H Posted June 27, 2017 Author Share Posted June 27, 2017 OK, 4 days to go Dragging this kicking and screaming, not sure if I have the stamina to get there, but going to enter the mental battle to try and get there. A lot of things are dragging me back, it's sort of 1 step forward and 10 back A case in point To find suddenly one taileron got missed in the black painting session Well just Carry on then, wings there Now the fuselage, just needed one colour changing, simples no? Achieved this yesterday, lets see how I go with the clear coat 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted June 27, 2017 Share Posted June 27, 2017 looking good Graeme, the camouflage looks spot on. At least it's just black and not camo'd, that'll make it easier to paint. Don't stress too much if you don't make the cutoff time, you'll be in good company, this appears to have been a hard build time wish for a lot of people. just keep chipping away, you're doing a great job and you'll get there in the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme H Posted June 28, 2017 Author Share Posted June 28, 2017 Thanks Rich, just did some black touch ups here and there, and can't believe I forgot the Taileron, yet again I'm beginning to think senility is taking over fast, but then this a very complex build, and I'm way out of my comfort zone 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme H Posted June 29, 2017 Author Share Posted June 29, 2017 Well, I'm crawling across the broken tiles with bloodied knees and elbows, I keep finding bits I missed () A case in point being the fairings that go on the rear fuselage near the Tailerons, how did I not see that! Oh well they are on now So After touching them up, and a clear coat, I started putting on the Water Slide Transfers (I'm old) At this point I realise that I haven't painted the NMF rear fuselage fairing () Will have to get onto that straight away, after I finish some web surfing to calm myself down Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now