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Squibby

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Everything posted by Squibby

  1. A decent bit of progress this weekend. I finished off the fuselage seams, attached the wings, cleaned them up and blasted the entire thing in primer (Badger Stylnrez in this case). The wings went together well even with my extensive modifications. I found the gear bay doors fit ok and worked well as a mask, though to be safe I added some masking tape around the edge to catch any spray through the minute gaps. Finally I can get to the fun bit but first I've got a few more NMF experiments to run before I commit my technique to the finished model. In the mean time I noticed one little area that I'm at a loss on how to finish. The exposed edge of the ailerons (visible with flaps down). I presume it'll have some sort of hinge detail but I can't find any references. Anyone got anything?
  2. Great save on the decal. The last time I tried masking over a decal bits of it came off with the tape. Did you use a decal fixing solution? The one you put on first before placing the decal. Also nice variation with the nmf, very shiny.
  3. Nice work on the paint job, the NMF looks spot on. 👍 This Eduard kit looks fantastic, I really wish I had gone that way rather than fighting with an aged Tamiya kit. Everything I've painstakingly scratch built and modified is just there... straight out of the box.... 😂 I can still see a lot of detailing that could be done but working from a good baseline makes so much difference 😀 Great job on the build, I'll be watching to see how you approach the weathering.
  4. Looks like a really nice kit, and you're doing a bang up job of putting it together.
  5. Just incredible work all around, the finish the diorama and all the little scratch built appliances. Truly masterful. And in 1/72 scale to boot...
  6. So after several days of sanding and filling and cleaning up the fuselage I've finally gotten it to a point that I like. I've come to the realization in this time that I'm comically rubbish at scribing. The main panels joins are easy enough but smaller panels and access hatches took at least 2-3 attempts and still look a bit pedestrian if you look closely 😁 The underside area is quite busy with panel lines and what the kit represents doesn't really match up with any of the 3-views I've been using. I ended up removing some panels and access hatches completely. I also filled in the little recessed bit where the oil cooler discharges with some thin plastic card due to how difficult it would have been to clean up The front was generally easier but I had some issues with the little intake slot at the front. I ended up scribing in a slot after a few attempts that looked clean enough, however even still it's a little oversized compared to the real deal. The fasteners I ended up sanding off or softening too much were added back in using a sharpened bit of brass tube in a pin vice. I started off cleaning up seams using CA + baking soda as filler but decided to try the often mentioned melted sprue in Tamiya extra thin. I just so happened to have an old bottle of the stuff and lots of sprue lying around. It took a couple of hours to melt all the sprue in the bottle and I ended up with a slightly viscous cloudy grey and very smelly solution which surprisingly worked really well for filling in those annoying micro seams. It took a bit longer to dry but when it did it sanded really easily compared to the CA and left a much better finish. I think this concoction will be my primary seam cleanup filler from now on. It has a few downsides I saw though, it takes an hour or so to cure (longer if applied heavily), don't try sanding it before hand you'll end up with a huge mess. Also it doesn't have any real structure so can't be used to build up edges (like the oil cooler flap edge in my case). Thirdly if used to fill in a deep gap (like the failed attempts at scribing that front intake slot) it remains a bit soft and doesn't always penetrate down causing the scriber to gouge out chunks 😣.
  7. Great work on the paint, I see you've bested those horrible gaps in the radiator duct as well 😄 I love watching a NMF come together. In terms of black gloss base, I've always used Tamiya X-1, thin it 1:1 with X20A. Start by spraying down a thin mist coat (onto primer). Then once that's had a few seconds to dry off hit it with a nice heavy coat. It'll lay down smoother and level off without pooling or running because it sticks to the misted paint. Be sure to spray off the model before coming back for another pass so you don't over-saturate the edges (did this even make sense?) The other challenge is to keep bits of dust off it during spraying and drying, but good luck with turning off gravity 😜
  8. Thanks mate, It took some doing, I initially filled with PPP (perfect plastic putty) but it didn't really fill that well. I mostly used it as a substrate for my usual filler of CA glue accelerated with baking soda. Requires a lot of careful sanding though which I was mostly successful at 😁 To be honest I can't see any reason to build this kit again given the far better offerings from Airfix, Eduard and Meng. The end is in sight though and we're getting to the fun stuff (painting) soon.
  9. Very impressive work. 👍 I like the use of chromate primer instead of the usual aluminium where the paint on the rivets is worn through. Nice work on the rivets as well, must have taken you an age to do.
  10. I really love the shape of the Harrier, even the ones with the silly noses look purposeful 😄 Great work on the kits, neatly finished and subtly weathered 👍
  11. Finally cracked that stupid radiator duct gap. It took what seemed like an endless process of filling, sanding, priming but I finally think I sorted it...and all the collateral damage...😐 Ignore the rough bit at the top of the duct it'll be completely hidden by the door. Annoyingly though my sanding has taken a bit too much material off one of the side walls and the door fits with a larger gap on that side. Not too noticeable when the door is in the open position luckily, but it still bugs me 😑
  12. Interesting, seems like a cool tool. In any case I've started cleaning up the fuselage. I put off the radiator duct gaps for now and worked on finishing up around the cockpit so I can button it up under the glass ready for painting.] I cleaned up the coaming and fitted the gunsight. I then messed up fitting the rear panel cover thing I scratched up to cover a mistake I made on page 3 😁 Luckily it was salvageable with a bit of sanding and repainting.. This is where I'm at now.
  13. I'll try a liberal squirt of PPP, but I think I'll need some styrene wedged in there first. Those little locating pins make this area a bit of annoying to sand, the topmost ones are useful for locating the radiator flap door.
  14. Made some real progress finally and buttoned up the fuselage. Fit was quite good generally, though the gaps around the radiator discharge duct are truly a sight to behold 😣. The engineering here is trash and results in these huge gaping gaps. Lucklily I don't need to fix them completely as most of it will be hidden by the door.
  15. In an effort to finish off any little bits of detailing before I closed the fuselage I spent a little time on the tail wheel bay. This area is fairly well hidden but it looked a bit empty given the kit has zero detail or structure modeled here. I didn't go to the effort of fully boxing it up but I added some slotted side panels to add a bit of interest if you bothered to look up there. It took me a few attempts with a punch tool to get the slots cut, and they still look really rough. I'm not going to sweat it though as this area is barely visible. I'm open to tips on cutting nice clean slots like this in a row. Whatever I do the holes always end up skewed all over the place
  16. One of the issues with this kit is the canopy. It comes in 2 pieces, one clear bit that attaches to a frame piece. The clear bit doesn't perfectly line up with the frame and can show as a step. It wasn't too noticeable unless you looked from underneath so I decided I could live with it. The second issue is that the clear bit has an attachment pin at the end which clearly shows through once fitted. After wracking my brains a bit I fashioned a covering piece from aluminium foil tape. This makes the frame sweep higher around the end of the canopy which is inaccurate but necessary to avoid an unsightly peg mark showing through the glass. I'll stick with it for now, but to be honest it's not ideal. I think I might just get a Vac form version and be done with this headache. Then again I've doggedly smashed my way through solving this kits shortfalls so far without looking for aftermarket parts so why start now...
  17. Arise zombie thread! I'm not quite done with you yet... I've been a bit busy for the last year or so with the arrival of our daughter and all the dramas that babies come with. Now that she's a bit older and before she gets old enough to terrorize my modelling bench I'm going to try to finish off this build, given the great effort I've gone to so far it would be a shame not to. I'm a bit nervous about rushing into it after being away from the hobby for a bit so I've eased myself into things by trial running some ideas around the natural metal finish. I've never really attempted a proper NMF before and I wanted to experiment with recreating a moderately worn, oxidized finish that had some variation and if possible recreate that 'oil canning' / stretched skin effect commonly seen in photos. I grabbed some spare bits from a 1/72 wildcat and after messing around for a couple of days I ended up with this. The photos don't do it justice but it looks quite good in reality, also definitely not as dark in tone as they look here... I undertook various trials using the range of Vallejo metal colours I had available. I ended up using a similar method to the 3 layer blend I use for regular finishes. First up was a grey primer, I used some Badger Stylnrez (primarily to test the stuff out). After rubbing the primer down with some paper towel I hit it with a gloss coat (Alclad Aquagloss in this case). If you had a suitably glossy grey primer / paint you could use this instead. I laid down a coat of Dull Aluminium. Dull is easier to overpaint and tones down the sheen we get later... Coincidentally this stuff is a pig to get out of the airbrush. I went over the part with highly thinned flat black (Tamiya XF-1, 1:5 with X20A) and scribbled in squiggly lines and mottled the surfaces. I also darkened a few panels. I hit the part with another coat of gloss. This is important as the XF-1 flattens the surface out. I went over with blend coat of Chrome heavily thinned with X20A (1:10 ratio) this allowed me more control with how much I laid down. I also trialed using plain Aluminium but Chrome being a higher shine shade was more translucent. The end result turned out predictably shiny, to deal with this I sprayed it over with some flat (W&N Matt UV Varnish, 1:2 with X20A). I shaded over some panels more heavily to get a more oxidized look and break up the surface some more. I figure if I slip in a coat of gloss before step 7 and get the decals on I should be golden. Also while adding the blend coat (step 6) I could use other metal tones (highly thinned of course) to accentuate specific panels or the flight surfaces etc. Anyway, baby steps for now. I'll dust off the bits and start getting into the build itself soon. Hopefully with no more year long breaks...
  18. Did you know that for some inexplicable reason, Tamiya moulded the tail wheel doors back to front? The moulded detail is fairly accurate but it's facing the wrong direction. The indents need to be facing the rear end of the plane as this is where the actuating arms (I'm planning to add) attach. So out came the knife and after some careful cutting I removed the doors and swapped them around. I cleaned up the cut line a bit and hid it underneath a 'hinge' detail made up of a bit of wire fixed under some aluminum tape and scored at regular intervals. I also took to the carb intake grilles with a pinvice and spent half an hour drilling out the holes.
  19. I've been doing a bit of work on the radiator duct areas, I added some strakes on the top surface of the exhaust duct and a little inlet pipe thing I've seen in some photos. I also added a little stiffener bar to the inlet opening.
  20. A small update... When going through another build log I found out that the kit flaps have this recessed section on the ends to allow them to fit snuggly into the wing roots when modeled retracted. Unfortunately these don't exist on the real plane and are quite visible when the flaps are lowered so I had to fill them in. The process was relatively painless, I glued some plasticard inserts into the recessed areas and filed / sanded them flush. I also started tackiling the radiator area, I thinned down the exhaust door sides and softened the strakes by sanding them down a bit.
  21. Another small update on progress, I've spent the last couple of days rivetting all the main parts and really there isn't much to show here, aside from bits with scribbled lines all over them. The main thing was deciding on what way I was going to take the wings. I started by sanding off these bunches of proud rivets on the wings adjacent the landing gear bay opening. I'm not sure what they are supposed to represent but they shouldn't be proud like that anyway. I decided I'm not going to add any further recessed rivets to the filled wing sections although I'm not going to go to the extent of removing the panel lines. The main reason for keeping the panel lines was to add a bit of visual interest to what will be a fairly plain looking section of the plane... and to avoid a lot of annoying filling and sanding of course However in that same vein I don't want the lines to be very apparent so I gave them a half-hearted swipe of PPP and when the time comes I'm not going to highlight them with washes. The PPP will likely end up being a waste of time given my usual success with filling but not washing them should hopefully create the subdued effect I'm after. Anyway, the wing sections as they stand. The drawn lines show where some rivets were added outside of the filled areas. I also redid the riveted strip over the glazing with wider spaced rivets, much better now IMO.
  22. *opens the door, pulls back the blinds and dusts off the cobwebs in this thread...* Its probably about time I got back to this... With an incoming major change in my life my modelling time is soon going to be very limited... Let's just say the theme of this build suddenly got a bit more literal It would be a shame to shelf this after all the work I've put in so far, I figure I've got about 3 months to finish this off so I cracked into it in earnest this weekend. Anyway, where was I last time? I think I promised some photos of the completed cockpit parts, so first up here they are with the completed centre section mocked up into each side. I might need to tone back the out of scale dust effect And here is the gunsight I was working on when my modelling block hit. It needs a flat coating and the projection glass to be added with some acetate sheet. 20180513_212526_HDR Here is some new stuff, I tackled the canopy and framing, this is going to a be a real fiddle to paint and fit. I added a riveted strip with aluminum tape around the glass primarily as my attempt to rivet it the traditional way went a bit awry. I'm going to mask and spray the interior framing before fitting it to the canopy base piece which I'll also have to paint beforehand. The base piece got modified slightly to allow the canopy to overlap the sides when slightly open as visible in this photo, I also thinned down and drilled holes through the cross brace. https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/view-of-an-unidentified-pilot-in-the-open-canopy-of-a-north-american-picture-id477565553 Looking at that photo though it appears I will need to revise the aluminum tape strip on the glass with wider spaced rivets. And finally I cracked into the fuselage riveting, which was a strangely relaxing process, draw the lines on freehand then roll over them freehand with the rivet wheel, and soon I was out of lines... And that's where I'm at.
  23. Great work! I really like the look of this build, your rivet skills are impressive, very clean and well defined. The last time I tried I inevitably ended up with some off kilter lines and occasional slips into the panel grooves. Then to top things off, after all the painting and weathering they barely showed... What are you using for these? a rivet wheel or just a ruler, needle and oodles of patience?
  24. Really got to say you nailed the weathering, the plane looks nice and grubby but realistically so... avoiding the stark patchwork quilt look often seen. Great work!
  25. Apologies for the lack of updates, this project is most certainly not shelved though I've lost a bit of motivation to continue at the very moment. After the immense amount of work put into the cockpit I'm a little burned out and the remainder of the work required to finish the build is a daunting prospect. With summer in full swing and a new garden to establish I've been relatively busy in the meantime. Rest assured I'll pick this up at some point soon. I just need to sit down and start knocking out a few small tasks and it should flow on from there. The radiator area is my next challenge and I'm still working the steps over in my head. Regardless there will be some annoying gap filling in my future. Then there is the fuselage riveting to look into. Hopefully some meaningful updates soon. I might even put up the photos of the assembled cockpit I promised earlier.
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