Speedman
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Posts posted by Speedman
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Got the nose gear brace/collar done this morning, now I'm looking through all the photos to see if there are any other little details peculiar to the museum exhibit. I know at some point I need to make a windscreen wiper for it and that is going to be a really fiddly job
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I've finished prepping all the parts for the rest of the build and have added a few little details to match the museum bird. I've made a couple of bridle hooks out of stranded wire, superglue and Mr. Surfacer. There's a small plate top & bottom of the wing to hold the aileron in place on the exhibit so I've replicated them with some tiny sections of Pepsi can.
The good news is that I've finished my "unusual" FAA Corsair II today so I can spend a bit more time on the Skyhawk. Check out the Corsair if you want a giggle
Click for strange Corsair
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I watched the Disney film "Planes" a couple of weeks ago, fun film and full of little aircraft related jokes like "U.S.S. Dwight D. Flysenhower"
I came across the Zvezda range of snap together models for the film (and "Cars", I can see a fully detailed Mater in my future...) online and the "Skipper Riley" F4U caught my eye. I wanted to build one for a bit of fun, adding some detail and fully paint it but then it struck me, why keep it as the film character?I decided to do a FAA Corsair II so I picked one up from Antics and opened it up at home and was really surprised with how much detail there was for what essentially is a kids kit. Finely engraved panel lines, rivet detail, beautifully detailed undercarriage and engine... Not at all what I was expecting! The only thing not catered for were the main gear doors but that was sorted with a little plasticard. I decided to drop the flaps which was a nightmare to do because that part of the wing is one piece and it took a long time to score/cut through them but eventualy they were free. Some card and sanding to round the edges and I made the little flap filler to finish them off and the only thing left was to clip the wings.
I mixed all the paint colours buy eye using Revell acryilics and the decals were from the spares box. weathered with oil washes and pastels and a final coat of Tamiya satin varnish. I needed to name it, after a bit of thinking I came up with Ken Decklander. Ken, for my late grandfather who served in the Navy in WWII and Decklander because... You get the idea
What it looks like out of the box. (It doesn't come with decals, stickers are supplied but this photo I found has been photoshopped
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The correct tank is 95% done, just a couple of very small sink marks to take care of. I've finished the flaps and also prepared a few other parts as well. I'll be making a start on all the undercarriage tonight, just removing the parts from the sprues and getting them cleaned up and ready.
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Isn't it annoying when you've looked at dozens of photos of the aircraft your building and missed an obvious detail... Looking at a few shots of the flaps today I noticed, for the first time, that the centreline tank has fins! So I did a bit more research and it's an Aero 1D, the tank I'd already built is in the parts box and one of the kits wing tanks will be replacing it. Luckily I had only tacked the pylon on so it came away cleanly from the old one. I've already added weight to the front and joined the two halves, just a little filler and a quick sanding session and I should be back on track.
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Get those photos up!
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I've assembled the wings and replaced the part of the upper wings where the flaps were cut out, the wings went together flawlessly. Still working on the lower flaps and I want to get the two pylons fitted today.
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After a couple of days on other builds, (including a rather special FAA Corsair II, keep your eyes peeled for it
) I fitted the "pit" and joined the fuselage halves yesterday. After a dab of Mr. Surfacer, a bit of light sanding and some rescribing and it's looking pretty good! A far cry from my previous Airfix A-4 experience, the old Top Gun "Jester" release... Now I feel old The lower wing is just dry fitted for the photo but I have now removed both of the flaps from the upper wings and I'm going to be working on them today. I spotted a couple of tiny sink marks on the the tank yesterday and filled those as well as the sink marks on the wing leading edges, still plenty to do but It's going smoothly so far.
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I gave the Revell Aqua-colors a try... really do not like them at all. But I will persevere and stick with them. Need a lot of thinning down tho.
They are very inconsistent across the colour range for their viscosity, some are Ok but others are ridiculous. I bought some empty "Vallejo" type bottles on ebay and made some ready-thinned colours up. I put a couple of small beads in each bottle to make it easy to mix before use. I use a very thin mix, almost like painting with water but it needs to go over a good primer. I usually do 3-4 coats with a small flat brush and dry each with a hair dryer on low heat. Because it's so thin by the time you've painted a coat it only needs 20-30 seconds of heat and it's dry as a bone and ready for the next. One handy thing with the really thick colours is that you need to thin them so much they will last for ages
A couple of colours to watch out for...
05 matt white, or as I call it "very light cream". Need I say more? I mainly use it for colour scaling, 25% white to 75% whatever colour I'm using for 1/144, other than that I use Tamiya's flat white.
15 matt yellow. Ignore the colour on the sticker which makes it out to be a lemon yellow, it's more like Humbrol's 24 trainer yellow.
34 gloss Ferrari red, nice shade and good coverage unlike the gloss yellow, green and a couple of others.
09 matt anthracite, beautiful shade which is great for tyres and exhausts in 1/144.
92/93/94 brass, copper & gold. Awful! The particles are huge and no amount of stirring prevents a total mess.
90/91/99 silver, steel & aluminium. Good coverage, a discernible difference between the silver and aluminium as well. The aluminium is a nice matt finish once dry. If you need gun metal go for Tamiya.
Hope this helps
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Exhaust and intakes now fitted and I've removed the port flap section. I'm going to replace it with some plasticard and thin the existing part down to become the lowered flap.
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I've been finishing off a few other projects today but I managed to get the cockpit painted, just needs a quick spray of matt varnish to even the finish up and seal in the weathering. The only thing I added to it was the ejection seat handle. The belly tank is done and I've been filling a few small sink marks plus I've worked out what I'm going to do to drop the flaps.
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Main parts of the cockpit built and first paint on. Tail pipe built and the inner seams sanded smooth after a little Mr.Surfacer was applied, got that painted as well. I've also added weight to the nose and the front of the centreline tank with Liquid Gravity, first time I've used it and it's fantastic! Rather than make any type of plasticard bulkhead to keep the balls in there while I added a few drops of super glue, I just used some blu-tac and popped it out before the glue set.
Right, nearly 03:30 time for bed. Got to figure out how I'm going to drop the flaps yet...
It's 08:02, photos taken, rather that use another post I'll stick them in this one.
Compared to my normal 1/144 everything is very, very... BIG!
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As I'm awake and it's past midnight I opened the bag and made a start. From the few parts I've dry fitted I must say I'm impressed at the quality of the kit, although I do find the plastic a little soft to work with. Should get a bit done in the next few hours (I only sleep 4 hours a night) and I'll get some photos up in the morning when I've got some proper light.
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I use Fairy Power Spray oven cleaner. Spray it on, leave it overnight, scrub with a toothbrush and rinse in water. It sometimes takes a couple of applications to remove it all but it gets there eventually. It's so far managed to strip everything I tried it on regardless of what type of paint it is and It's fine for use on canopies as well.
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I always find it funny when a company researches something, goes to all the effort of putting it into production and makes a daft little mistake. Check out the Microscale decals, the Australian and New Zealand flags on the starboard strip are facing the wrong way compared to the real aircraft
I'd love to know how many sets of eyes missed that during design.I wouldn't worry about it though, it's just one of those quirky things that let you know not everyone's perfect.
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That's interesting, thanks. I wasn't aware of that. I doubt I'll be able to correct that one the kit
Don't worry, no one will see... It's dark under there
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I very much doubt anyone who builds in these GB’s can ever say they’re in it to produce 100% accurate models, rather they’re in it for the enjoyment.
That's my view of modelling these days, I took a 12 year break due to having major meltdowns over accuracy and never being satisfied I had produced a good kit. I quit my local club because I would complete a model, take it along and often get picked up on something (non constructively
). It just made all my efforts seem worthless and in the end felt there was no point continuing and sold off most of my stuff. I got back into it in December and now I just enjoy myself. I love building so I switched to 1/144 & 1/200 because they are quick and easy (most of the time) and as long as the pointy bit is at the right end and wing aren't on backwards I'm happy. -
Just noticed that both the kit and the Microscale decals have Black sheep markings, what are the chances of that?!
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Whatever happens it’ll be fun and a lovely addition to the collection. plus who can't love
Sorry, had to do be done...
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It looks to be a great little kit from all the reviews I've read. I haven't built an Airfix kit since the late '90s so I've not experienced the "new tool" generation yet but I'm looking forward to it. I might make a display base for it with the rails, chocks and plaque... As long as I don't get carried away and build an entire 1/72 USS Intrepid
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Bought this cheap on eBay and was surprised how small it was compared to other aircraft I have in this scale. After disassembly, I stripped the paint and once it was back to plastic started the build. Painting the cockpit was quick and easy and having finished that I started assembly. No real problems apart from a small step front & rear engine nacelle/wing join, a little plastic card sorted that out. Had to remove the two lugs from inside the canopy so a fair bit of polishing went on to bring it back to clear, not that you can see much inside on this scale.
Brush painted with Revell acrylics, weathered with oils and given a top coat of Tamiya satin varnish. The Hinomaru decals from Mark 1 are fantastic, other decals are from the scrap box. A fun little two day project and a nice addition to my 1/144 collection.This is what is started out like.
This is how it's ended up.
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Hi,
I had an online £5 voucher (with no minimum spend) for Argos a few weeks ago, looking through their kits found a few offers on their starter sets. The A-4 was down to £6.88 with free delivery, so one brand new A-4 kit was delivered to my door for £1.88!!
(Is there a prize for the most inexpensive build? )
I had intended to build it OOB representing BuNo 142833 (kit markings) as exhibited in the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, but looking at a few photos I will need to do a little bit of work to match it. I'll have to drop the flaps for starters and there is a brace/collar on the front undercarriage to I'll have to make as well. More things will probably come to light as I find more photos if it online. I've been working mostly in 1/144 & 1/200 since getting back into the hobby so going back up to 1/72 for this feels like I'm in "The land of the giants"!
Couple of pics to start off, the kit (which I haven't even unbagged yet) and what it should hopefully turn out like.
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Seeing how Revell do such good 1/72 kit of the F-16, I would love to see a 1/72 F-16XL (including a two seater) from them. Also a Hawk, Buccaneer & a new tool Phantom in 1/144 (My main scale) would be nice from them.
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You know when you buy a kit, open it up and think "This is going to be a lot of work."... This wasn't one of those kits. My first reaction was "I'm binning it!", and I did. Seriously, I threw it away. A couple of hours later I decided to take another look at it, I had paid £3.69 inc. delivery for it off eBay after all!
I decided to just build it OOB for a quick project but as usual I got carried away and started to compare it to scale drawings and realised it wasn't as far off as I imagined. The wing chord was short and the fin needed correcting but apart from that it was fairly accurate. It had raised panel lines so I had to scribe it which was not an easy task as the plastic was very brittle and felt more like resin to work with. All external detail had to be scratch built apart from the refuelling probe, tanks & pitot, those came from a F-Toys model which I converted to an early F-100A. (I've got a topic up for that one already) The canopy was a joke, it was almost like Otaki had never seen a F-100, so that had to be cut down, re-profiled (along with the surrounding area) and due to this I ended up without a usable clear part. Plasticard and Milliput helped patch it up and save the day, I ended up just painting the canopy glazing on.
The kit's decals were yellowed beyond use so I decided to do it in Royal Danish Air Force markings. I've always loved the early all over green due to the fact it weathered really badly and it would be a challenge in this scale. I made the decals out of spare sheets with a set of punches and the fin flash is two thin strips over a red base. I've included a couple of shots showing just how bad the kit was to start with and how much I had to make for it, I hope you all don't mind.
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I came across the Zvezda range of snap together models for the film (and "Cars", I can see a fully detailed Mater in my future...) online and the "Skipper Riley" F4U caught my eye. I wanted to build one for a bit of fun, adding some detail and fully paint it but then it struck me, why keep it as the film character?
)
Brush painted with Revell acrylics, weathered with oils and given a top coat of Tamiya satin varnish. The Hinomaru decals from Mark 1 are fantastic, other decals are from the scrap box. A fun little two day project and a nice addition to my 1/144 collection.
(Is there a prize for the most inexpensive build? 
Airfix 1/72 A-4B Skyhawk VA-95 "Green Lizards" - Completed
in A-4 Skyhawk Single Type Group Build
Posted
Wing and tailplanes in place now, should get some primer on it tomorrow