MrB17

Started the foiling today. I left off the empennage and started with that. I was really curious to see how the stressed skin would look. I think I am happy. The burnishing was followed by polishing, I used Autosol, it comes in a tube and is generally used for chrome or metal polishing. It leaves a protective film that will have to be removed before clearing and decals. It does look ok, the rivets and fasteners are subtle, but they are there. One thing I learned is that you don’t necessarily need to scribe the major panel joints. I used kabuki tape to outline the panels and then used them as a guide to trim the foil, by using this method I can make a little bit of overlap to ensure complete coverage. I am going to have to tint some panels with transparent black thinned out so I can gradually build up the tint without going past the point of no return. I can also add a pinch of flattening agent to change the sheen. The Bare-Metal foil smooths out really nicely, but it doesn’t stretch much to negotiate compound curves, but it can be overlapped in sections and then burnished down with a polished aluminium rod. The seam is extremely difficult to detect with the naked eye. Here’s some pictures of the empennage being foiled. Cheers Jeff

After meeting with Ken on Wednesday, we decided on going with the Bare-Metal Foil. I ran around the fuselage with my knife and deepened the panel lines a bit, just so I can see clearly where to trim the foil. It will take more time but I am on it today, I just finished airbrushing the last of the non metal panels. I had to order a Leading Edge decal sheet for the stencils, they should be here by next weekend, which will be good timing. I will post pictures later. While I was going over the fuselage to check everything was ready, I noticed that the burner can seemed to be sticking out a little too far, and was tight against the inside of the fuselage. I had already cemented the empennage on, so I had to carefully saw into the joint with a .1mm saw. I got it off cleanly and noticed the front of the engine was binding and not seated properly. I neglected to check the bulkhead that the engine face fits into before I cemented it in (the bulkhead). Fortunately I didn’t cement the engine in place, so I pulled it out, had to get in there with a sheet of sandpaper rolled into a tube to clean it up. Now it looks good. The tire portion of the main wheels was damaged, but I have a set of rubber ones from the Revell kit. The Hasegawa 104 originally had hollow rubber tires and they were soft enough to give a slight bulge, but the Revell ones are solid, so I’ll have to settle for a flat spot. The Revell wheels however, were pretty crude compared to the Hasegawa ones. So I carefully removed the tire portion of the Hasegawa wheels and it took about 3 hours of filing and fitting, but I got them to fit. So on with the foiling tomorrow. Here are some pictures of the painted areas and the wheel modifications. The raw fibreglass panel on top of the fuselage behind the canopy was a lot of thinned down paint layers overlapping and then sanded through some layers, yellow green, buff, transparent yellow, red brown and pale grey. I have to polish the light lens and make a flat ring of foil to fit around it. While I have the engine out, I’ll finish painting the burner can. The large main gear doors cycle to almost closed, but there is not a trace of where to cement the actuator and no indication of a piano hinge, not even a panel line, very strange. The large gear doors are foiled and burnished, while the small ones aren’t, just to show the difference, also one of the nose gear doors is half burnished. The application is easy, it’s the burnishing that takes time. The canopy will be closed, and fortunately I test fitted the clear parts, only to find the pilot’s helmet was hitting the canopy. So I had to reposition him and it’s all good now. I taped him down snugly until the cement dries. Cheers Jeff

Beautiful work Stuart. I have the same decals and the Tamiya kit, so thanks for the tips on the colour and gear doors. It looks very sharp in those colours and your paintwork is amazing. Cheers Jeff

Yesterday I was able to mask and paint most of the non aluminium surfaces. I used Tamiya XF-12 JN grey with a little bit of transparent green blue added on the fin panel, nose cone and on the outside of the intakes. I custom mixed the transparent green blue by mixing Tamiya clear green and clear blue. I did this because green navigation lights are a very dark green blue colour and just using Tamiya clear green doesn’t really look right. They should make a transparent green blue specifically for navigation lights, but also it comes in handy for painting on the edges of parts that would be laminated glass or armoured glass, you just need to reduce the intensity with some Tamiya clear added. I used this technique on the HUD and I will try to get a good picture today to show it. I sprayed Tamiya XF-1 flat black on the intake lips and shock cones, forgetting to stir it with my little electric hand mixer, I ended up with satin black, old age has its drawbacks. I also sprayed the inside of the hot section of the engine with the same now satin black paint. This will make a good base to give it depth when I add the streaks and soot etc. I sprayed the inside of the wheel wells with flat aluminium and again forgot to spray the inside of the gear doors, I did spray the landing gear though. Ken will be here shortly and we will discuss the aluminium finish. Whether to proceed with the foil, or use a good paint. When I foiled the gear doors and the bit around the intakes, I could barely see the detail underneath. Even with the Bare-Metal foil which is thinner, I got the same result. So I either need to scribe deeper or use paint. The parts that I painted show the details very clearly, so we’ll choose how to proceed today. Cheers Jeff

I just use household foil, and Micro metal foil adhesive. You can either paint it on the foil or on the section of the model you want to foil. Most foil has a visible grain, so you can change the direction of the grain between panels and use shiny or dull side as well. If the metal foil adhesive isn’t available, you can use thinned out furniture varnish, but you have a short window of tackiness to get the foil down. The metal foil adhesive will stay tacky much longer, so you can cover a large piece of foil with it and use as needed. I tape the sheet to a piece of cardboard and after the adhesive is on, I just lean it against the wall with the foil down, so no dust collects on it. I have a sheet ready to go now, so I am very close. The wings and stabilator are painted and I have the undercarriage assembled and ready for paint. Cheers Jeff

The scribing etc. has taken longer than expected, but now I am at the stage of getting it wet sanded and polished prior to foiling. I tried to simulate the stressed skin in various areas, especially the empennage around the engine. I filed the plastic down along the rivet lines and then sanded until I had a smooth transition. It’s really hard to see in the pictures, but I can feel it with my finger tips and I’m confident it should look right. I cut all the panel lines and used my rivet tools to replace the rivets after the initial wet sanding and final treatment of the seams. The final wet sanding and polishing will take down all the cuts and rivets but they should still be visible under the foil. I’m hoping to have it all foiled when Ken comes over to see it on Wednesday. I have my work cut out for me. Cheers Jeff

Always love a B-17 build. Deicer boots were removed on a lot of B-17’s after numerous accounts of the rubber not departing the aircraft when battle damaged, and causing further damage and possible control surface failure. If it’s missing from the vertical stabilizer, probably the rest were removed at the same time. The problem with B-17’s is the constant changing of major components and often you might have parts with the boots and parts not. Given it’s an F, and well weathered probably no boots. I have done a lot of research on the B-17 and unless you have a top, bottom, left and right photo of it taken on the same day, it comes down to an educated guess. The site I get all of my 100th BG research on is this one: https://www.splash.100thbg.com/index.php?option=com_bombgrp&view=aircraft&id=10043&Itemid=326 There are several different photos of your aircraft on this page, and if you look at the small inset photo with the Mark Styling profile that is framed, you’ll clearly see the glare coming from the leading edges of the wing. In some photos, they appear to have been overpainted. Other options are doing it early in its career, where all of the boots are installed and the weathering less extreme. It’s your B-17, and any B-17 is a good choice. I’ll watch this if I may. HTH Cheers Jeff

Ok, missed a few days, but made good progress on the 104. With foiling, the intakes took a bit of figuring out. If I glue the intakes on and then foil, it would be tricky to get the foil in between the intakes and the fuselage. So I foiled the area where the intakes cover the fuselage. I just went to the nearest panel line with the foil. I painted the inside of the intake Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black and assembled the intake cone into the intake, then I puttied the inside of the intake assembly where it’s visible. I foiled the inside of the intake assembly where it is separated from the fuselage. Then I cemented the intake assemblies to the fuselage, I made sure the mating surfaces were flat and they fit really tight along the visible joint. Although the joint was tight, the outside edges were at different heights and would be noticeable, so I was able to wet sand everything down to be flush without using any putty. The dark area on the intake/fuselage joint is just the way the silver plastic looks when you sand a lot of it down. I was able to do this without touching the previously foiled areas. Although I haven’t done a lot of foiling lately, I did quite a bit in the past. One pleasant surprise for me was that the Tamiya kabuki tape won’t pull up the foil, I accidentally taped over a foiled area and winced when I pulled it gently back as best I could and it didn’t seem to have any effect. I tried it on some other areas and it worked fine. I also drilled out the holes for the old formation lights and filed out the area on the fuselage spine where it appears to be a fibreglass panel behind the canopy. I filled them with some UV cure clear that had now turned amber, I can tint later. At least the lights are round and not oval like the kit representation on the empennage. I was able to wet sand the lenses flush and they polished well. The pilot figure is representative of an RCAF pilot with the early bone dome before the red ear-muffed variety. I had to add an oxygen mask and hose to the pilot’s open face, I wound some fine brass wire around some plastic rod and gave it several coats of dark green. I made the mask from Tamiya quick type epoxy putty, moulded right on to the face. I had painted the pilot’s visor with a couple of coats of Tamiya clear black smoke, it looked really nice until my big clumsy thumb collided with it. So I removed the paint and will redo it after I’m done manhandling the fuselage. I forgot to take a photo of the finished pilot before he got strapped in, but I added more little details, like the pen pocket on the left arm and added some indication of zippers elsewhere on the flight suit. I will also add the seat harness before I close the canopy up. This thing is a beast! It’s length is impressive just sitting across my horribly cluttered desk top. Cheers Jeff

Excellent work, especially the reworked fabric. I didn’t realize these had fixed pitch wooden propellers and yours certainly look the part. Cheers Jeff

Very true. Back in 79, a RNoAF Herk visited my base, CFB Namao. A couple of mates came into servicing and told me to go have a look at the Norwegian Herk on the ramp. I did so and concurred with what my mates had said “So clean you could eat off of it”. It was what you might expect to see at an Air Tattoo, very impressive indeed. I think it was in camouflage if my memory serves me correctly. @Robin-42 impressive project with the Mach2 kit. Serious Modelling experience required. The few times I serviced the Falcon, (412 squadron) we were required to wear our “VIP” clean white coveralls that we kept in our locker. I always thought that if the VIP’s saw us in spic and span white coveralls that they would think we didn’t work very hard. Looking forward to seeing the build. Cheers Jeff

The cockpit is mostly finished, and I was able to get the fuselage together as well. The old raised detail instrument panel looks ok painted up. I have crystal clear drying on the panel in the photo, so it’s still milky. With the fuselage now together, I can fill the seams and scribe it tomorrow. I think there’s some extra detail that needs to be added to the seat. The pilot will be seated in it, but the top on either side of the headrest is barren. The side consoles are Tamiya Nato Black with a black Vallejo wash and then scruffed up a bit. The scope is two coats of Tamiya Smoke over the silver plastic. Cheers Jeff

Got the white on the tops of the wings and the red on the stabilator, and some more work on the cockpit. Wet sanded the raised lines and rivets off of the fuselage and intake parts. The wings took 4 coats of Tamiya flat white, thinned down 50/50, that keeps it nice and smooth. Everything is getting a coat of clear gloss acrylic before any decals. The instrument panel has a few differences from the CF-104, but I don’t have time to address that. I want to have the fuselage buttoned up by the weekend, so I can start foiling. The last time I built a Hasegawa 1/32 Starfighter, was in 77 while I was at CFB Borden. It was the C model, but the only one available. I have a picture of it somewhere that I took on the floor of the barracks, with the tail under the wall heater so it looks like it’s coming out of a hangar, that way you can’t see the short tail. I’ll try and dig it up for the inspiration gallery. Cheers Jeff

Got the weird grey on the bottom of the wings, and ready for the red stabilator now. Started painting cockpit details and made some modifications on the pilot figure. Cheers Jeff

I’m building this for a dear friend I’ve known since we were in Air Cadets. Ken and I have talked on the phone for hours, many times. We both have a passion for aircraft, and modelling them. Ken had his commercial license and was off to a great career when he became mentally ill, and his life changed dramatically. He could no longer work, so he played at many events and restaurants with his accordion, to earn a bit of extra money. We both built models of aircraft, including rubber powered and later RC, however Ken liked my paintwork and I ended up giving him a lot of my built models and even painted a few of his builds. We both love the CF-104 Starfighter and have seen and heard them fly, many times. Ken bought a 1/32 Revell Starfighter that was already built, in the CAF Tiger Meet scheme, and he wondered if I could strip the paint off and redo it in regular RCAF bare metal. I have stripped many models, but the yellow paint must have been industrial grade paint. It took a long time with many applications. I have worked on it on and off for a while, the kit was poorly moulded with a lot of sink marks. So I purchased a used Hasegawa kit for Ken and I am building it here because I have to finish it asap. Ken was recently diagnosed with cancer, I promised him I would build the Starfighter and if there’s enough time the Airfix Mk.IX Spitfire in Buzz Beurling’s markings. So I am dedicating all of my time to getting these done so he can enjoy them and display them in his apartment. Sorry for the long intro, I just felt I needed to do that. So here we have the Hasegawa kit and I have already desprued everything, removed parting lines and wet sanded the raised detail off. The nice thing about silver plastic is that when you sand off the details you can see clearly exactly where they were, so scribing goes quickly. I have scribed the wings and they should be ready to paint tomorrow, I can also do the red stabilater. I try to paint first before foiling to avoid having to put masking tape on the foil. I have put together the ejection seat and cockpit tub, and cemented the empennage together, as well as the engine. The kit is designed to have a removable empennage so the engine can be displayed. I also custom mixed that 501-109 greeny bluey grey for under the wings, I added some transparent teal to Tamiya XF-12 IJN Grey and I’m happy with the result. The basket case Revell Starfighter above is going back to the closet. The Hasegawa 1/32 Starfighter is off to a good start. Not sure about the engine yet, but Ken wants a period correct pilot. The pilot figure just to the left of the engine has the early style helmet with the unprotected visor, so it can be detailed and look good in the cockpit. Having a pilot in the cockpit negates the need for all the remove before flight paraphernalia if one is going to display it parked on the tarmac. Ken actually had a lengthy phone conversation with Wing Commander Bob Middlemiss, talking about Buzz Beurling and the Starfighter. There’s a photo of Bob Middlemiss in the cockpit of one of the first CF-104’s, and he has the early helmet, so I’ll try to make the pilot figure closer to what I see in early RCAF photos. More tomorrow… Cheers Jeff

Regarding the STOL leading edge. When I worked at Victoria Air Maintenance, we had an Otter that had the PZL 1000hp conversion as well as the STOL kit installed. Airtech did the work but I managed to find time to watch how they did the leading edge. A series of composite foam nose ribs were glued to the existing leading edge and the preformed new leading edge was placed over them and riveted in place, so it’s more than drooped, it’s also extended. HTH Cheers Jeff