DaveJL Posted March 19, 2012 Share Posted March 19, 2012 Looking good mate. The Daco book should help no end! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted March 20, 2012 Author Share Posted March 20, 2012 (edited) Thanks a lot guys ! Must say that watching the model progressing makes me feel good ! Creature, you're right about the nozzles: usually one is open and the other closed. Fortunately the hasegawa kits (and others) offer both options, so it's possible to replicate this feature with the parts from the Box. Freezer, the Daco bok is a great help and the latest copy arrived just in time.. ! Some good shots are also available on the Squadron Signal Walk Around. This is for some things better if someone's building an earlier tomcat, as the aircrafts depicted lack many of the improvements added later. Still, the Daco books are probably the best ever made for modellers in terms of details. A small but important update: the fuselage is progressing ! What used to be a lot of plastic bits, now is starting to look like a Tomcat ! Edited March 20, 2012 by Giorgio N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted March 25, 2012 Author Share Posted March 25, 2012 As usual the weekend was supposed to bring plenty of progress, however this was not a lucky weekend for modeling.... Work continued on the fuselage and a few more bits are now together. Than it was time to work on the exhausts... the exhausts look ok, although the fit of the various parts was pretty bad. I'm finding a lot of fit issues with this kit, more than those normally encountered with even a complicated kit like the hasegawa tomcat. I believe that the age is now taking its toll on the moulds... maybe that's why the original owner sold this kit for £15? Once the exausts were ready, I primed them and decided to use humbrol metalcote steel on the partcloser to the fuselage while using a darker metal for the petals. And here disaster struck ! One exhaust was fine but while priming the second one the airbrush I use for enamels started to spit paint all over.... in the end the paintjob was ruined and even the primer lifted. At that point I decided to strip both, prime again and now I'll use arylics. I'm planning on trying a new trick here: last week I bought vallejo's metal medium and when this is added to any vallejo paint it turns this into a metallic paint. Depending on how much medium is added, the metallic effect is weaker or stronger. As especially the petals usually only have a hint of metallic, this medium should allow me to achiee the desired effect. Only picture for today: the tomcat fuselage beside the hasegawa F2A-2 Buffalo I'm buiding OOB to relax between the various sessions devoted to the big cat. Both carrierborne fighters, but what a difference !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dermo245 Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 That's shaping up nicely! I've only seen the DACO book once but it's a beauty... Nice work on the Buffalo too.. Shamrock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 Quick update with no pictures: this afternoon after work was used to paint all the landing gear bits in white. The exhausts have also been completed, now I'm not sure about the best way to fit them: glue and mask them before panting the fuselage ? Glue them after the main fuselage parts have been painted ? A test fit showed that the small parts on the side will prevent the exhaust cans from being fitted, so if I want to leave the exhausts off I also have to leave the small rear parts til the end... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Navy Bird Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Quick update with no pictures: this afternoon after work was used to paint all the landing gear bits in white. The exhausts have also been completed, now I'm not sure about the best way to fit them: glue and mask them before panting the fuselage ? Glue them after the main fuselage parts have been painted ? A test fit showed that the small parts on the side will prevent the exhaust cans from being fitted, so if I want to leave the exhausts off I also have to leave the small rear parts til the end... Hi Giorgio, I had the same dilemma. What I did was tack the small fuselage side panels on with white glue and then did the full fuselage painting, etc. Then I popped them off (white glue is easy to break free) and I could install the exhausts with no interference. Then glue the side panels back on permanently. Works well! Cheers, Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 Thanks a lot for the tip Bill, I've followed you advice in this way: glued temporarily the sides, sanded to achieve a good fit and detached them. I then painted everything separately and will glue them back on after the exhausts. The update today is small but very important: The final coat of light gull grey is on every part ! A coat of Klear has also been added on top. Now I have to paint the various details (wing sweep bags, leading edges, gun panel) and it will be time for decals. Decals that I've finally decided will be for the aircraft with the standard grey radome instead of the one with the black scalloping. This one might follow sometime in the future. The initial plan was to add some weathering, but now I don't know if I can finish the model in time, so I might just add a wash to make some areas dirtier... I'll got to town with the weathering on the next tomcat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev1n Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 well they werent always dirty...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 well they werent always dirty...... You're sure right ! The overall grey finish did not weather as much as the later TPS and these aircrafts were actually quite clean whenever they operated from land. After a few months on a carrier things were very different though... Still, it's not a huge "mistake" not to weather a tomcat of this vintage. While I was applying the first few markings I noticed that the reinforcements on the tails are very noticeable and started wandering if my aircraft had them or not ! Pictures of aircrafts of the same block and unit seemed to show them, however not as noticeable. Finally I found a very big picture of 161608 taken in the same year as my aircraft is represented... different aircraft but same unit and most important same GR.125 construction block ! The reinforcements are visible but the main problem is that these are a bit overstated in the hasegawa kit. This might give problems with the decal for the yellow tail tips.. I'm thinking that here painting the tips might be a better option.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Navy Bird Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 You're sure right ! The overall grey finish did not weather as much as the later TPS and these aircrafts were actually quite clean whenever they operated from land. After a few months on a carrier things were very different though... Still, it's not a huge "mistake" not to weather a tomcat of this vintage.While I was applying the first few markings I noticed that the reinforcements on the tails are very noticeable and started wandering if my aircraft had them or not ! Pictures of aircrafts of the same block and unit seemed to show them, however not as noticeable. Finally I found a very big picture of 161608 taken in the same year as my aircraft is represented... different aircraft but same unit and most important same GR.125 construction block ! The reinforcements are visible but the main problem is that these are a bit overstated in the hasegawa kit. This might give problems with the decal for the yellow tail tips.. I'm thinking that here painting the tips might be a better option.. Gipsy, I ended up painting the tips of my VF-31 bird for that very reason! Cheers, Creature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 Painting the tips is probably the best way around your conundrum. Will prob look better too. Only problem you could have is matching the paint to any yellow decals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev1n Posted April 4, 2012 Share Posted April 4, 2012 ....matching the paint to any yellow decals. constant playing around with mixing is the answer, but remember paint dries slightly darker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 6, 2012 Author Share Posted April 6, 2012 Yes, paint dries darker, especially the acrylics I normally use today. I found out the problem with the Hasegawa tails: the reinforcements went through several stages and hasegawa has reproduced the final stage where more than one plate was added on top of the other. My aircraft however only had the initial plate that is much less noticeable. Should I build it again I'd either sand the detail a bit or use the non reinforced tails and add the plates with thin plasticard... it's too late now anyway, I'll live with the tails I have on... and I'll most probably have to paint the tips ! While I haven't painted the tips yet, I did some details painting and started applying some weathering Here's the fuselage top and the wings: And here's the fuselage bottom, where I applied a bit more dirt A view of the detailed main wheel bays. I've yet to weather the part where the landing gear is mounted, this will be done at a later stage. I feel that the work on the wheel bay has improved the look even if it's not as complete as it could be. In the meantime I've also started applying the decals on the tailplanes, and here I'm not happy ! The decals take ages to leave the backing paper, I hope I'm not going to have problems with the larger markings ! At worst I have another set of VF-21 markings in the hasegawa Pacific FS box, but the colours are much nicer in the sheet I'm using. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bandwagon 106 Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Nice work 2IC! VF-21 always seemed very clean in LGG. They, and VF-154, seemed to be hi-viz for ages-far longer than any other unit. I always paint the fincaps first, then add the decals as there is nearly always a bit at the very top that no decal can reach! Joel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted April 9, 2012 Share Posted April 9, 2012 Looking good Giorgio, coming along nicely now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 10, 2012 Author Share Posted April 10, 2012 Thanks guys ! I'm now wondering if I have maybe applied too much weathering... but as usually the final clear coats tone down the effect, hopefully my tomcat will be good enough from this point of view. Fin tips have been painted with tamiya yellow, fortunately this was found to be very close to the original decal colours. Now I have to add the thin black strips and I'll probably use my usual method: rub-on transfers (that I've had for many years) applied on clear decal sheet. I've also found a picture of the same 161601 depicted by Hasegawa in the same year. The picture shows that hasegawa has intepreted correctly in the instructions the lack of some stencils, however there's one big difference: the picture shows a TCS pod while hasegawa suggests the older IR sensor.... now pictures of other VF-21 aircrafts in the same timeframe show a mix of both, so maybe mine received the new sensor at some point while wearing the same markings. I hope so, as I had already glued the IR sensor... one interesting feature in the picture is that while the aircraft has the black antiglare panel front and rear and black windscreen frames, it has a grey framed canopy ! Mosty likely this was a replacement from another aircraft of another unit. Replicating this would make for an interesting model.. but I prefer the original black framed canopy ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Nice one Giorgio, Sounds like this is coming along well. I love the depths of reference you have for this bird! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 11, 2012 Author Share Posted April 11, 2012 I like building a model with a picture of the real thing in front of me, alhough pictures sometimes raise more questions.. still, it's very useful especially with the decals. Speaking of decals, there are a lot to be applied to this model ! My usual plan is start from the stencils first, then progress to the insignia and finally the unit markings... of course often the plan must be changed ! Here's the tomcat with some decals on... actually "some" here already means at least 40 bits, with all the "no step" markings and so on. Unfortunately the big black decal for the rear antiglare panel broke, so I'll have to touch this up with black paint. No big deal. It was worse when the port star broke ! Fortunately I managed to put the bits back together and now it looks ok. In the background are the decal liquids used: the microscale ones for most decals and the gunze one for the biggest ones. The gunze solution is stronger and is good for the decals of most japanese kits that tend to be thicker than most. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveJL Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 looking good mate! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabba Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 That is looking good. I tend to find that the Micro-scale liquids work well on any sort of decal, but that maybe just me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev1n Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 nice work gypsy - keep going....I am also suffering from stencilitis atm but we'll get over it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 14, 2012 Author Share Posted April 14, 2012 I know it's not how it should be done, but today I decided to press on with the tomcat without taking pictures...the time needed to take a picture can be used to add another "no step" marking ! The model now has all the decals on and the main parts are ready for a semigloss clear coat. In the meantime I prepared the landing gear, and found that the main legs are covered with ejection marks ! This has meant some work with a knife and sanding paper, that itself means tomorrow I'll have to spray on some more white paint. The same paint will be used for the single Phoenix missile I'll hang on the ventral pallets, courtesy of the academy kit. The Sparrow and Sidewinder are coming from that kit too. They are not great but are not that bad either. It was only this evening that I realised that I have a fujimi tomcat still in the box and the missiles are nicer. Oh well, I'll use them for another tomcat (while the fujimi kit will become a VF-103 B model bombcat with LGBs). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 15, 2012 Author Share Posted April 15, 2012 Well, in the end I managed to kind of finish this... I say kind of because the model is not complete as I'd have liked... today I had several problems that slowed down the build, so I decided to leave off any weapon for the moment, wing pylons included. It's very rare to see a Tomcat without pylons, mine will be one of them.. Anyway, some pictures now ! The previous picture showed the model during the very long decal application phase. At the end of this the model looked like this: I had found another picture of the same aircraft and this showed that hasegawa got one stencil wrong unfortunately. However some decal placements shown in the instruction that I was not convinced of proved to be correct. As VF-21 wa based in Japan I guess the hasegawa research team had seen these often ! As I had said yesterday, I hadto repaint the landing gear legs. And here they are on the model ! And after the landing gears, it was time to attach the wings, that had been prepared earlier (I love the way the hseagwa kit allows the wings to be done separately !). With the wings on, it really looks like a tomcat ! The day saw several disasters: the first was that the paint flaed off the wing pylons. No idea why, still this meant having to redo these...and as it was too late to fire the compressor on, the pylons were left off the model. I'll add them at some point in the future together with the missiles. The missiles were affected by another problem: I had prepared strips of decal in yellow and brown to depict live missiles as normally carried during a carrier cruise, but for some reason the decal did not adhere at all ! In the meantime I've found some stripes from another model, still this means the Cat will not be armed for a while... Worse problem: I lost both clear parts for the navigation lights on the two tails ! Fortunately I have another 3 hasegawa tomcats and one of them donated new parts. When I'll build this I will use my standard technique to replace these: glue a bit of clear sprue and sand to shape. To reproduce the colour on these parts, I use permanent markers. These are translucent so the final effect is just a clear red or green part. Easy and cheap ! At the end of the day, with little more than one hour to spare, it was time to put the model on the base I had bought a while ago: The size of the base is barely adequate for a big aircraft like the Tomcat.. yes, sometimes size does matter ! However the more I look at the completed model the more I dream of walking down the deck toward one of grumman's finest and read the name Giorgio "Gipsy" N. on the pilot canopy.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyC Posted April 15, 2012 Share Posted April 15, 2012 Love it. I have an F-8 in a similar scheme. Great work and nice to see her finished Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted April 15, 2012 Share Posted April 15, 2012 She looks cracking! Glad you got it finished, and there's me thinking I was cutting it close Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts