hendie Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 I normally add a drop or two of water to pva to help it dry clear. The only other thing I can think of is crash mold the front end with clear plastic, cut of the kit, replace with crash molded part, then paint everything except the window. - but I appreciate that is a LOT of work 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 19, 2015 Author Share Posted March 19, 2015 Its not sealed up so the Klear had plenty of ventilation to dry. I've not got any Humbrol Clearfix in the stash but I can probably take a trip to Hobbycraft in the next day or so to pick some up and have a go with it at the weekend.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 Woot, Humbrol Clearfix did the job beautifully! Pics later when I get home and the bloody electricity comes back on! 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 As promised here is today's update: First off, building some TV cameras and gear for the observation points on each side of the nose: Since this was taken I've added two more "cameras". These will be fixed in and then I'll have a go at glazing the observation windows with Clearfix. Speaking of which... ta da! Can you see it? Its bloody good stuff! More on that later... Inside the lower hull, work has progressed with the wiring for the lighting: and on the underside I've added the vertical thrusters that are red on TB2 - these come as red plastic pieces that are just glued in. Next I added brass tube to the holes to take the legs to represent the times when these are actually vertical thusters The tail has been glued onto the upper fuselage: and now for the big reveal... (drum roll)... The cockpit has been installed in the upper fuselage and when the light is on it looks pretty damn good, but is unfortunately almost un-photographable... I've had a go however.. You can just about see Virgil and the console in that one Reflections ruined that last one. However to the naked eye you can see quite a lot of the detail. I'm hoping to have this finished for Cosford, so you can all hopefully come and see it in person!!! 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Laidlaw Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Excellent! The Clearfix worked really well, and the cockpit lighting is nice and solid . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 23, 2015 Author Share Posted March 23, 2015 This weekend the final wiring got put in place and the fuselage halves were finally joined!!! the joint was pretty horrendous so after a significant amount of sanding, it was ready to try some primer to check the joint. This resulted in a lot more sanding and this is the result: The intakes were the WORST! Several application of Mr Surfacer 500 along the joint and lots of sanding later and it finally settled down. There were HUGE gaps around the tail where it joined the fuselage. These eventually closed up after painting and dribbling Mr Surfacer 1200 into the gaps and some careful sanding down. Finally I was happy - about 4 layers of primer later!!! Then came the green... There have been endless debates over the exact shade of green for TB 2, not least complicated by the fact that there were several different TB 2 models in different sizes, all of which appeared to be a slightly different colour! Frankly, I can't be arsed trying to do complex colour matches - I honestly don't believe in all this exact colour matching palaver, even in aircraft or military models. Colours change so much due to weatehr conditions, age, dirst, wear aand tear, time of day and so on. Trying to match colours from photos adds all sorts of extra problems in that cameras don't see colour the same way the human eye does - hence that intense argument recently about the blue/black white/gold dress on the internet. So that long-wided diatribe out of my system, I picked XF-5 flat green as the basis of my colour mix and added a few drops of XF-3 yellow and when that still appeared to light I added a drop of XF-26 Deep Green to the mix and that seems to be a satisfactory colour... Now of course in that photo, the green isn't the same as I see it with my eye - I took multiple photos with the flash and without and various lighting options to get it as close to how it looks in real life. Here is also a perfect example why colour matching in photos doesn't work: Are ANY of those greens the same? 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Vale Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Colour looks great to me, I totally agree with your philosophy there. Did you mask the windows (if so how??) or will you remove the Clearfix and add new once the paint is finished? Will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 Are ANY of those greens the same? Nope, but I like the top photo best. I was also going to ask how you were going to mask the windows - it has been bothering me all day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Rose Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 TB2 is green and you've done it green, so that must be right Looking great Kallisti 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madhatter Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 very cool build so far. I've been sitting here quietly watching you bring it together and I really like what I see As you've pointed out, all of those photos have different shades of green, but the top one even has a different coloured engine exhaust and all 3 have different weathering to them. Very confusing if you were trying for screen accuracy. Still, that's the beaut thing about this genre - it's so flexible with colours MH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theanorak73 Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 looking good to me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 26, 2015 Author Share Posted March 26, 2015 Masked up the yellow stripes and gave it about 4 coats of yellow to cover the green and it came out quite well. A couple of spots needed touching up and if you check the tail out you'll see an area of overspreay that I failed to mask properly Thats been fixed and next will be the red intakes... gulp!! In the meantime the engine exhausts have been done: In this case I used the kit decals for the yellow and black stripes. These are made in soft poythene-like plastic so I was a bot worried about them taking the paint, but the primer went on okay and the gloss res seems to be holding okay. Still need to do the end-caps steel/metal colour. Its getting there! 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Shumsky Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Looking good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Nice stripes. I did the intakes freehand. Humbrol gloss red and there's enough of a lip to aid you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Gooks great. This kit went to my shelf of Doom ages ago. Maybe I should dig it out and use your wip as a guide. Rene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 27, 2015 Author Share Posted March 27, 2015 I've done the intakes - I cut my own masks but as Petet said that wasn't too difficult as there is a definite change of surface shape to guide the mask cutting process: I used gloss red which is why it looks a bit odd in the photo as you are getting internal reflections around the intake. I intend to matt this all down later. As you can see I've also started adding some decals, but they are still drying hence why they look a bit odd as well The window masks also came off and were pretty good as masks! I freehand painted the yellow stripe around the outside of the engine intake. I still need to add some darker wash to the engine intake slats to make them more 3D. One other thing has been done today as well - the inspection hatches have been re-painted back and the cameras installed Tomorrow once its cured I'll try to glaze these windows with Clearfix... 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Top notch work there Kallisti, this is looking really special. I presume it will be available for viewing at Telford if not sooner? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 28, 2015 Author Share Posted March 28, 2015 If it works out well it'll be in the Telford comp this year - can't NOT enter a Gerry Anderson model can I I'm aiming to finish this for Cosford which is in about 3 weeks time... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickpadwick1801 Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Looks great, nice job. Can't wait to see it finished. Rick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 29, 2015 Author Share Posted March 29, 2015 omg what a nightmare!!! The inspection windows will just not close up with clearfix, its turning intoa right mess and risking damaging the paintwork all around the windows! I wish I hadn't cut them out now!!! There are 2 problems here - 1) the window is curved and 2) the window is too big for Clearfix I think Clearfix is limited to the sort of size of window i used it on for the cockpit... these are just too big. I've had to dump the "cameras" that were supposed to be inside the gaps as that just made things worse... More tomorrow... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Clearfix has its limitations. I look forward to seeing how you sort out the windows. Best of luck. Nigel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 29, 2015 Author Share Posted March 29, 2015 (edited) Well eventually with patience I got it sorted out... Clearfix eventually gave me a result I was happy with. I did start experimenting atr one point with chopping up very small pieces of acrylic rod, but that really didn't work out.So after finally getting a set of windows I was happy with, I masked them all up and gave the general area a dusting over with the green from the airbrush as I noticed that touching it up with the same colour paint using a brush gave a darker colour. So once all that was dry and the bits of paint seepage sorted out, it got a final spray of matt varnish.The end result is this:and if we zoom in on that a bit...These are only teaser photos - I'll take some more in daylight tomorrow and post in the gallery. Finally to illustrate the flickering LED effect on the exhausts, I tried making a short movie but the camera overexposed the LEDs so you can't see it as well as it looks in real life. However now this is completed it does mean it will be making its first "public" appearance at the Cosford Model show in 2 weeks time! Edited March 29, 2015 by Kallisti 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carts Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 Excellent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitestar12chris Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 Cracking job Kallisti, well done, TB2 was always my favourite, you've done her proud. All the best Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Rose Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 Hot damn that is all kinds of awesome! Great work on this it looks top notch Kallisti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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