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Tamiya F-15A - 1/48


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Here's my entry for the GB. :)

Obligatory box shot

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Sorry for the blurry shot, only realised it was this bad as I was posting it! :oops:

Here's the originally bagged sprues, still as fresh as the day they left the factory over 30 years ago! This kit is actually older than I am, lol.

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I'm planning on building this straight out the box for a quick cheap build, but not sure if these decals are going to let me get through it without falling apart. If they do it'll be one of the tactical fighter wing aircraft. :)

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Managed to get stuck in to this today with a fair bit done. The cockpit and avionics bay is all build and painted and I've even managed to get the very yellowed cockpit decals down with only a couple of breaks.

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Next up are the intakes, which might be the only area that I stray off the OOB path as these will most definitely benefit with covers!

I'm not too sure how this one is going to go yet, pretty certain I'm going to use the pilot to help give the cockpit area some interest but haven't decided on canopy up or down yet.

C&C welcome as always. :cheers:

Cheers. Dan

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Cheers Robin, the computer shouldn't be on it's bench-mark stand most of time but my case developed a grounding issue that I've not had chance to get to the bottom of yet :blush:

Having spent most of today just cleaning up parts and putting bits together. Intakes are done and painted, but after plenty of dry fitting I'm actually going to go out of the box and get some FOD covers, because past the front of the intakes there is nothing until you hit the fans!

Considering it's age the kit does actually go together pretty well. Joining the fuselage halves is going to prove tricky, mainly up front, but hopefully using CA I can get the cleanest join with the least amount of mess.

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Ha! With the start you have made Danny - I think it will be ME following YOU, not the other way round - nice start. I'm trying to work out whether the decals are worth using in the cockpit - mine are totally shot (yellow) so I may do some scratch building

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If you get a good run at it I could imagine this kit goes together very quickly. You're joining the fuselage together at step 5 and with very few parts in the sub-assemblies it's pretty quick build.

My decals are yellowed as well and didn't like going down at all! It took a good amount of patience and moving bits of broken decals about once they were on plastic. The only area I had a proper disaster was the top right hand corner of the IP, which fell apart and however much i tried to get it all back in to place it just kept getting worse!

I'm hoping the main decals will be better but I'm also looking for an AM set of decals and stencils at the moment just in case, but trying to find an F-15A set that includes stencils is proving difficult. :wall:

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Hi Danny

The cockpit is looking good. I was going to use photoetch instead of the decals, but the decals look good, so I'm going use them to, save some money. Thank for the photos of the radar. I would like to make a decals for the little warning on the radar, but I'm out of paper. But I can always come back to it.

Ken

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  • 1 month later...

Well after nearly 2 months of not touching this, I have finally managed to get some time to do some work on the eagle! :yahoo:

Nothing major done though, with no painting being able to take place as my painting area isn't set-up yet after the move.

Wings put together and finished, tails trimmed off and cleaned up, rear stabilisers trimmed and cleaned up, and finally the fuselage together!

Here's how she sites at the moment. This was obviously that massive step where you do a couple of little bits and suddenly it starts to look like an airframe and not just a pile of random bits of plastic, and the moment you realise just how big it's going to be.

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Bits to hopefully finish off over the next few nights will be, getting the canopy together, installing the engines, and getting the nose attached. Also, need to finish off around the only bad fit area of the entire model, below the nose!

Quick question, does anyone know if this bird can be a tail sitter without nose weight or does it balance itself out? Tamiya doesn't mention anything in the instructions. :shrug:

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Hi mate - looks good! I did the rough 'balance on the finger' tipping test and she probably doesn't need much if any - I added about 10g just in case anyway

Edited by AndyC
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Cheers Andy, that's good to know, I'll probably just pack the nose with some white-tac to be certain before gluing it in place. :)

I don't know how you found it but the joining of the wings and tails was amazing! Perfectly aligned, and no visible wing join. Wish every kit was like this one :analintruder:

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Cheers Andy, that's good to know, I'll probably just pack the nose with some white-tac to be certain before gluing it in place. :)

I don't know how you found it but the joining of the wings and tails was amazing! Perfectly aligned, and no visible wing join. Wish every kit was like this one :analintruder:

Starboard wing was a bit 'off' for me but tails were great, so much so, that I have left them off for painting

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I don't know if it has helped at all but seeing as I'm fitting FOD covers over the intakes I left out the 'intake fans' which goes across the fuselage just where the wings attach. So, the wings were a really tight fit and only needed glueing in place to stop them drooping, but has meant the profiles line up.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This has been quietly ticking along for me, with modelling sessions grabbed between knocking things off the DIY list!

The first thing to sort out was ejection seat and pilot with these 2 shots taken just before I sealed the canopy on for priming. I haven't decided if I'm going to display with canopy up or down but I prefer to paint with it in place so it's attached with microscale klear which is easily removed, tidied up and most of all canopy friendly.

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Hardest thing about the canopy is getting it to the right shape, after 30+ years out of the mould it needed a little persuasion!

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And, then on to today's biggest update.

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I got a coat of primer on first, followed by a base coat of XF66 then pre-shading! Whenever I start a model I always forget how much fun the painting process really is! :yahoo:

Preshading is done with nato black and I have tried to add a little variation and weathering with desert yellow. Hopefully it has worked, will only know once the camo is marked out and I've got the top coats on.

Also, got the engine area done but I forgot to take any pictures before I masked it up. :oops:

Still have a fair way to go but this 4-day weekend is really helping to move this build along.

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Cheers for the comments guys. :)

Bit more work done today.

Have pretty much completed the underside, with a base coat, pre-shading then misted a thinned base coat. Really happy with it. :)

Then the big job, which I've taken a quick break from to post this. Freehand work on the camo-scheme. :banghead:

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ARGH!!! It's the wrong grey!! :wall:

Took a break from this yesterday (had to go do family stuff) and coming back to it last night I realised the base grey is wrong! I had used XF-66 - Light Grey, as per the colour call out but I'm guessing that over the last 30 years tamiya have changed their mixes. After checking back though reference pictures, and a quick test on the wings, instead of light grey/dark sea grey (XF-66/XF-54) I should of used sky grey/dark sea grey (XF-19/XF-54).

Not too sure what to do from here so I'm going to let it sit for the next couple of days. I thinking of either, stripping the paint off and starting again, but not too sure what to use and what affect it will have on the plastic, or just laying a couple more coats over what I've done so far, but then I don't want to overload the fine panel lines with paint and lose any detail. Must learn to paint with references on hand! Doh! :wall::wall:

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That's a shame Danny! Tricky one to judge - you are in a better position than any. I checked my paint conversion chart and if you are doing a similar Mod Eagle scheme to the one I did, then it suggests Tamiya XF-20 - US Medium Grey as being closest to the base FS36251 rather than XF-19?

Hope you get it sorted one way or another mate

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I would try just spraying over with fine coats to not overload it. Spraying generally puts down such a thin layers that you will hopefully get away with it. but I'm no expert... Shame as it was all going so well. I would be worried about doing more harm then good by stripping it...

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Cheers guys, I should be able to bring it back from this, just annoying. :lol:

Thanks for the heads-up Andy, I've got to pick up some more sky grey so I'll just grab some US medium grey instead. Which way round did you mask yours up? Light grey first then mask the dark grey areas or roughing shape out the dark grey areas then mask that up before spraying the light grey?

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I went Light then Dark using Blu-Tac sausages - I don't trust my airbrush to go free-hand and there are some subtle curves and 'squiggles' that I felt I had to mask!

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Cheers Andy, that was what I was planning on doing but was having a wobble in confidence. :)

Mines 'OK' for freehand stuff, you just have to watch you don't hold it spraying for too long as it starts to spit, think it's got something to do with the acrylic paint drying on the needle tip either that or the fact I've got one of the Chinese copies of an iwata! :lol:

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Unlucky with the paint shades, I'd also suggest going over with very thin coats of the correct colour, maybe even with a dash of white in it. You might end up with a nice weathered effect!

I don't think the splatter is much to do with a cheap Airbrush, my H&S does it too! I tend to keep a cotton bud soaked in thinners on hand to clean the tip regularly! Seems to work as long as I don't get carried away and forget!!

Good luck with the painting

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Bit more work this weekend, nothing ground breaking but managed to pick up a better light grey, which is now finished on the underneath and under-wing tanks.

Also thought I would take a couple of pics of the exhaust area while I was changing the masking tape as it had started to lift. :)

Top

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Bottom

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Don't know if I'm gonna reach the deadline on this one but hoping I can put it some more time during the week to push it a little closer! :bangin:

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