Sting67

Also from me to you Giorgio a very Happy New Year! Ramon

Interesting solution to replicate the intakes. I did something similar when I tried to build intakes for a Saab Gripen, but the material I used is very hard and it takes forever to sand it to shape. Your approach seems much easier using a much softer material. Well done! Ramon

Good to see you on the next project, Giorgio. I don't know how accurate you want to be and if you prefer to scratchbuild the air intakes but there's an easy solution.... Here http://xmold-modeling.com/products-page/scale1-72/172-f4d-1-skyray-seamless-air-intakes-for-tamiya-kit/ Cheers Ramon

Also from me... Congratulations for the Silver Medal! Ramon

Fantastic artwork, Giorgio! The final A-10 looks great and I can't wait to watch you building the Skyray. Ramon

@ShalakoSorry, but I can't say much about the Hobby Boss kit. I have the Italeri AND Hasegawa kits and can compare both of them. So far my favourite is also the Italeri kit.

Hi Giorgio, first of all, welcome back and good to read that you had a fantastic time in California. I was in the northern part of California in 1999, also in San Francisco. I could also visit an old aircraft carrier there in Alameda (next to Oakland). It was the USS Hornet. So I know about all these impressions. Also, as always, very cool progress pics! The A-10 looks nicer every time. I see, you managed to assemble the fiddly Gatling Gun Well done! Best Regards, Ramon

Have a nice break/Holiday! As always, beautiful pics. Ramon

Thank you for all the infos Gabor, did the few soviet MiG-21MF look like this one? Matchbox MiG-21 I built it many many many years ago. What versions of the MiG-21 were the most commonly used in VVS? Best Regards Ramon

Ah, ok. I read a few things on the Wikipedia page, but there's not very precise information on the MF version. Thank you for the more detailed info, Gabor Ramon

Hello, when the kit came out I first thought this was a version of the MiG-21 that was only built for the export and I want to build a Soviet one. But now, also thanks to the very interesting and helpful background information you give us, ya-gabor, I know that the MF version was also built for the Soviet service. So, if I understood it well, most MiG-21MF that were built in the Moscow plant were for the export and those from the Gorky plant were built for the domestic Soviet Air Force. That makes me get after the kit one day. I will definitely use this thread as a reference guide. Excellent build! Ramon

Thank you for all the informative updates with all the helpful pics. Looking at all the struggle you have with wrong or missing decals the only solution I have is that you have to address creating custom decals sooner or later. I have a similar problem. I bought a nice decal sheet which contains a EA-18G Growler among others. Everything is fine excepting the serial number. Just one tiny number is wrong and has to be fixed. I'm still experimenting with decal papers, working with graphics and the whole subject. But it's a must to fix some errors etc. Ramon

California, nice! Also I wish you an awesome holiday. There's a lot to see there in Cali. Enjoy it! Ramon

Hello Giorgio, as gota mentioned, the ECM Pod and the Sidewinder positions are swapable. However, the most common position is the one I showed you. You can see it on most pics. By the way, it looks like some pylons are completely abscent using the current loadout scheme. The center pylon is completely abscent and the pylon next to the ECM Pod and the Sidewinders. Ciao Ramon

Hello Giorgio, looks good. Just switch the position of the ECM pod and the Sidewinders. They have to go vice versa. Look at this: Here you see a very nice configuration. My A-10 will also have this loadout. The ECM Pod has to be painted in FS34092 Ramon

Sorry, but for some reason I can't continue writing or even edit the empty post above. Giorgio: As mentioned above, no matter what armament configuration, there are always empty pylons. I think the center pylon is empty, then the next two pylons left and right to it carry a Rockeye. The AGM-65 come next. The outer pylon carries two AIM-9M Sidewinders on one side, while the other side carries the ECM pod. Speaking of Sidewinders. I have the beautiful F-16 from Tamiya and I find the color instructions for the Sidewinder very accurate. The A-10 has the same AIM-9M. Check out this as a little reference. AIM9M Ramon

@giemme

@giemme: Giorgio, regarding the armament, I would take the better looking Mk.20 Rockeye in combination with the AGM-65 Mavericks. Skip the SUU 30. If I remember well that's one of the most common loadouts beside the combination of Mk.82 and AGM-65. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Beautiful modelling job so far, by the way! Ramon

Ah, ok. A/B = Aerobonus . I read something about Quickboost and thought there was another set. Anyway, excellent surgery! One question (and I hope it has not yet been mentioned somewhere), what liquid resin did you use for the casting of intakes and exhaust nozzles? Is it a 5 Minute resin or have you got more time till it hardens? And, is it very liquid? Ramon

Tony, looks like you already have a solution for the right pilot figures and ejection seats for the F-14 you are building and maybe this comes a bit late. But here's something I found and could be of use to you for a future build. Aerobonus (which belongs to Aires) has a set of two F-14 pilots on their seats, no mask on, hands free. The only detail to be scratchbuild is the visor. Aerobonus says that the figures are for the F-14A and B. (At the moment I don't know if it's the same seat used in F-14Ds). The link goes to a German modelling shop (ignore that). I took that one as it shows more details of the pilots/seats. On the Aires website they only have one pic of the set which does not show much. This set should be available everywhere where Aires products are sold (like Hannant's). Ramon

@Tony: Thanks a lot for sharing this valuable information about the decal's color mismatches. Especially the Reaper decals are what I'm also interested in. But it's a real disappointment and a waste of money to get expensive decals with the wrong color. I also have this dilemma with the B-2. Twobobs designed the decals for the Modelcollect B-2. The decal sheet is nice and contains the most important decals (with some missings, however). Then Twobobs launched a nice own decal to decorate all existing B-2s. Unfortunately, Twobobs own decal sheet is without the long walkways/No Step stencils. They recommend to use the ones from the kit's decal sheet. So far, no problem, I ordered the Twobobs B-2 decal and thought, that Twobobs let it all print by Microscale (also the kit decal). Guess what... I received the Twobobs B-2 decal, compared it with the kit's decal and saw a notable color mismatch between the greys. This is clearly visible. That is a no-go and a disappointment. All decals come from the same source and are printed by the same source and still that. That means, I cannot build the unit I wanted to build because of the differences in the color shades. Frustrating. I found something. Maybe you know it already. The decals doesn't look that bad. Click! Ramon

Giorgio, here I have a quick solution to tighten the fit of the Intakes. I just took simple Kabuki tape that I wrapped around the area of attention and now there's no more room for the piece to move in one direction. This was a quick example. I suggest cutting a stripe of sheet styrene and glue it to the area. By trying you'll find the best thickness. k-P1110708 by Ramon Gomez, auf Flickr On this pic you see the result of the fan in place. What seems to leave a noticeable gap is not as serious as it might seem. When you press the fan piece into place, the gap will almost disappear. It's just a simple dry fit. k-P1110711 by Ramon Gomez, auf Flickr Ramon

Thanks Giorgio. I had a try with these technique already, but it seems that I have to improve the way I did it, as the results were close but still not convincing enough. Another tricky and tiny thing I want to fix is that I have resin wheels for the Hog. When you remove them from the casting block and file that area of the tire smooth, at the same time you loose all details of the tire lines there. Most will say, it doeasn't matter, as the kit stands on that filed area and you can't see a thing. Nevertheless, I try to rescribe the lost lines, which is very difficult. Here, all the tapes or templates don't help. Besides, once you have found a good technique to cleanly scribe tire lines, it will also be helpful on kit wheels you want to improve where no replacement is available. All this is getting very very deep into detail :D Ramon

Giorgio, my goal is to go to the limit with superdetailing and correcting the kit. I have many years of modelling experience (since child) but I always built the kits out of the box. Then I started with subtle detailing of kits. And now I am trying to do the very tricky and hard things, everything that is possible. I always get stuck because I need solutions for very small problems. Here a few: The cockpit IP coaming(?) has very tiny ventilation openings. First attempt to drill them failed. Need to find a better method. The engines, you don't see much of the interior of the nacelles, but there's a gap I want to remove with a very thin piece of sheet styrene properly cut (which is a challenge). There are probes(?) that come out at the bottom of each engine nacelle, very tiny. They look like a hypodermic needle. Same for the rear section of the belly. With the difference that this is larger. I'm trying to replicate everything and I'm trying to find the right material for these tiny pieces. The needles, even the smallest Insuline needles are too thick. The wall is too thick and I think it is quite difficult to bring them in the right shape. The front gear well wall has something that I have read are weights to balance the aircraft well in the air. (Little squares with holes). Those of the kit look all the same but the real aircraft has them in different lenghts and widths. That's what I'm trying with styrene strips. First attempt to drill the tiny holes failed. That's mostly because I can't perfectly see where the drill goes because of the white styrene. Next I will try to paint them in a dark matt to see everything better. I have an Aires detail set with the front gear well included, but these weights are missing and some ribs(?) from the interior are (so I find) too weakly represented. Also this will be corrected with cut sheet styrene. These are some of the current problems I'm fighting with. Sounds a bit crazy to some and the way I plan the project seems that it all never comes to an end. But my goal is a very eyecatching model. Ah, yes, I forgot to mention. Another problem: My Hog will be fully armed to the teeth. I have beautiful Maverick missiles. Good enough to leave them as they are, but the seeker head is in a milky transparency. I'm trying to copy these seeker heads (or lenses). They need to be thin and clear, because I will try to also build a seeker for day attacks. (The hog used at least two different types of Mavericks). The way it is I can only build the Infra Red seeker version. :D Ciao Ramon

They have not a perfectly tight fit. But I find that the margin of fitting is still acceptable. Still a bit of room to move the fans around a bit. It's always a bit difficult to show it on pics well. At least to my view they are good enough. I bought enough of these Intakes for all five kits (4 Italeri, 1 Hasegawa) I have. At the moment I'm fighting with more serious problems of the kit.