CedB Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 Very nice Jaime, those seams have vanished nicely and she's looking very smart in her orange. Fingers crossed for the decals 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 23, 2017 Author Share Posted July 23, 2017 4 hours ago, CedB said: Very nice Jaime, those seams have vanished nicely and she's looking very smart in her orange. Fingers crossed for the decals Thanks Ced! The seams didn't disappear completely but under the right lighting they're not too noticeable The decals weren't very good but at least didn't auto-destroy and look Ok from normal viewing distance. In the following post, I'll show how they turned out. Cheers Jaime 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 23, 2017 Author Share Posted July 23, 2017 I was almost finishing this post last night when suddenly the BM server seemed to go down and I lost everything. So, I'm rewriting it now. Continuing from the previous update, I left the Aqua Gloss coat to dry for 2 hours. The next step was decaling. Since the decals were very old and I feared they would behave badly, I scanned them first at high resolution. This is the set-up for decaling, were the usual tools and decal solutions can be seen: IMAG4714 The decals behaved reasonably well after all. There was just a bit of wrinkling in the side ensigns, which was made to almost completely disappear with a few cuts, made with a nº 11 blade, and additional application of micro sol. However, the decals were not good, being noticeably out of register, which was evident in the ensigns and Bell logo. Here's the end result: IMAG4715 IMAG4716 IMAG4717 IMAG4718 IMAG4719 Next I checked the fit of the canopy and found that it couldn't sit properly on the cockpit edges because the instrument panel was protruding too high above the edges. IMAG4720 This was due to the oxygen tube hanging from the instrument panel, that was too long for the space available in the cockpit. So, I carefully unglued the instrument panel and repositioned it leaning a bit forward. I managed not to damage the painting too much but had to do a few touch ups with matt black: IMAG4722 IMAG4723 Now the canopy fitted perfectly and I glued it in place using Contacta Clear: IMAG4724 A few minutes after glueing the canopy I noticed I forgot to glue the control column inside the cockpit. So, I unglued the canopy and installed the control column: IMAG4725 IMAG4726 IMAG4728 Now the canopy could be glued in place for good. I also glued the nose pitot tube and touched up a few spots around the canopy edges with orange. Here's the end result: IMAG4728 To finish with for the day, I applied the final Aqua Gloss coat and left the aircraft to dry overnight. Today I expect to install the landing gear legs, wheels, wheel well doors and wing pitot tubes and call the build finished. Thanks for looking. Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyTiger66 Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 Superb progress Jaime ! Some moments of last minute drama around the cockpit ! Your calm tenacity overcame non fitting I/P and the need to unstick the canopy to fit the control column: nicely done. It's a gorgeous orange; is it Tamiya paint? I'll second what Ced said about the seams; I can't see them at all. Good decals too, good colour density. Good luck.... a full 8 hours and 7 minutes to go !!! Best regards TonyT 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 23, 2017 Author Share Posted July 23, 2017 Hi Tony! thanks a lot for the kind words and for the incentive! The orange is Gunze's acrylic H14. The decals are not very dense, unfortunately. The white in the ensigns lets the orange pass a bit through but I'm happy the decals didn't auto-destroy I'm nearly done but still have a few tasks to finish. Cheers Jaime 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyTiger66 Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 It's a lovely orange Jaime, I will purchase a jar of that one. I have a few 'polar exploration' build subjects planned and I think it could prove to be a very useful colour . There's something nice about using original decals, I often can't believe that they still work at all after sometimes up to 40 years in the box ! Great stuff, onwards and upwards ! TonyT 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 Very nice Jaime. Good save on the canopy fit and the decals - she's looking VERY smart indeed 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 23, 2017 Author Share Posted July 23, 2017 Tony, Ced, Thanks again for the kind words. The build is now completed. I'll post the last WIP update and then I'll upload the final pictures in the gallery. Afterwards, I'll post a longer RFI. Cheers Jaime 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 23, 2017 Author Share Posted July 23, 2017 Hi again, This is the final build update, since I've finished the model by now. Today I started by removing the blu-tac masking from the wheel wells. This caused some damage to the wells painting and the edges also need some touch-ups. Here's the starboard well: IMAG4729 The port well: IMAG4730 and the nose well: IMAG4731 I also removed the masking from the oleos of the landing gear parts: IMAG4732 After repairing the damaged painting of the wells and letting the touch-ups dry for two hours, here are the results. Starboard well: IMAG4737 Port well: IMAG4738 Nose well: IMAG4735 Now was the time to install the landing gears. It proved to be a challenging task, as there was a lot of parts and the fit was awful. Here are the landing gear leg parts and well doors for the main landing gear port side. I already glued the extension link on the main door. The other parts are still glued to toothpicks: IMAG4739 After a lot of dry fitting to try and find the best installation order, I finally decided to install the leg parts first. Here's the port leg: IMAG4740 IMAG4741 IMAG4742 The process was repeated for the starboard leg. I used Tamiya's regular glue, to minimise damage to the painting and also have more time for adjustments. Nonetheless, there was some damage inflicted to the well and leg parts painting, which was repaired after all glueing was done. After letting the glue dry, I reinforced the contact points using thin super-glue. Next, I glued the nose gear in place, as shown here: IMAG4743 IMAG4744 This was followed by installing the nose well door and smaller main well doors: IMAG4745 and finally the larger main well doors and all the wheels: IMAG4746 It should be noted that I had to remove the nose leg from the well in order to fit the nose wheel in place. After this, the nose gear was reinstalled. Here are some detailed views of the main gear. Starboard side, from the front: IMAG4747 Port side, from the front: IMAG4748 Starboard side, from the back: IMAG4749 and this is a detailed view of the nose gear: IMAG4750 With the landing gears finished, I moved to the rear of the aircraft, to install the exhaust piece. It didn't fit and I had to slowly carve both the exhaust piece and the back end of the model until it fit in place. I also add to repair the paint that was damaged in the process. Here's the end result: IMAG4751 Next, I installed the wing tip pitot tubes/probes: IMAG4752 IMAG4753 Finally, I removed the canopy masking and applied a new coat of Aqua Gloss to the transparent panes using a small brush. Here's the end result. It's almost impossible to see anything inside the cockpit: IMAG4754 IMAG4755 With this last step the model was finished. Here are two pictures of the final result: IMAG4756 IMAG4758 I will now upload a few proper pictures in the gallery and latter I'll post a longer RFI in the aircraft RFI section with many pictures. Thank you all for the interest and support during this build and in particular to Tony, the host of the GB. It was fun building this little beauty, though challenging due to the fit problems. I'm very happy to finish my entry to this GB in time. It my first fulfilment of a regular GB deadline (not counting with KUTA GBs). Thanks for looking Jaime EDIT: photos uploaded to the Gallery. RFI with more pictures here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 Very nice Jaime, your usual precise finish - she looks very smart. Good job! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 23, 2017 Author Share Posted July 23, 2017 Thank you Ced, that's very kind, as always! Cheers Jaime 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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