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1/72 Italeri/Esci F-5B Turkish Air Force - Completed -


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Small update with no pictures: the landing gear bits have been painted, should be attached at the very end but I may change the plan if this helps in completing the model in time.
To paint the wheel rims I've used something I had never tried before, a silver paint marker. Have to say that the results are quite good, I may use this again in the future.

I've also restarted working on the seats. I had to stop because the resin I had was not working well, guess it's simply too old (had it for some 3 years, usually the shelf life is around 12-18 months). A quick diversion after a business meeting supplied me with new resin and new rubber too (this was simply finished, shelf life is fortunately very long). I should be able to clone the Sword T-38 seat that has the correct type of headrest.

Decals are really bad though, I tried to overpaint the light blue serial with the correct grey but it was not easy at all.. I've put the port code on the model and the result is decent if viewed from 5-6 ft but not good if viewed up close...

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And here are some pictures ! Forst of all some good news: thanks to David/MirageIV I now have a set of turkish roundels with which I can complete my build. Thanks again !

The fuselage roundels have now been applied and these (from a Revell sheet) are of totally different quality compared to the Carpena sheet. Who said that aftermarket sheets are necessarily better than what comes in the kit ?

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The picture above shows not only the nice new roundel but also how bad the tail code is. I tried to paint over the bright blue figures using a small brush but I'm not sure the result has been particularly good. The decal is not only printed in bright blue but suffers from the same register problem as the roundel and in some areas there are white spots showing..

As said before, things look a bit better watching the model from a certain distance...

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Hopefully the various clear coats will help disguising the matter.

And here's the first resin casting of the seat (a copy of the Sword T-38 part):

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Some flash but very few bubbles, almost invisible. Should be good with a coat of primer. Interestingly I noticed how the side structure has some delicate rivet detail. Even more interesting, the Esci/Italeri parts have exactly the same rivet detail ! Nothing surprising in a sense: short run kits are often mastered starting from existing kits, guess that whoever made the T-38 master for Sword used the Esci kit for a few details.

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Thanks guys ! Your comments are a great help in keeping the work going, I admit that I've had moments when I just wanted to throw the model off the window..

Decaling continues. With the roundels sorted I looked into the stencilling. Pictures of this aircraft however don't seem to show any stencil at all, apart from the rescue markings in black on the left front fuselage. I believe however that the standard stencils are applied, although in low visibility (that is mostly in small black lettering). What to do now ? The Italeri sheet has some stencils in black however these would be very noticeable because of their size. At the moment I'm leaning toward leaving the stencils off, apart from the rescue markings that have been already applied as shown here:

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This was printed using my laser printer on Expert's Choice clear decal. All the lettering is clearly readable even if the whole length of the decal is 5.5 mm ! Much better than the Carpena sheet.

While I was printing, I decided to try printing the tail flags on some white paper

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I'll have to cut each flag (they are 4 because I always print spares just in case) individually. I already know that the edges will lose some colour while cutting however I hope that some red paint will solve the problem.

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And with less than 30 minutes to spare, the model is completed ! Not as I wanted as I couldn't attach the underwing tanks. Fore some reason they don't fit and are pushed out by the wheel well doors, very strange. So I decided to leave them off for the moment, a pity as they were ready and gave a nice touch with their SEA scheme.

Pictures will appear soon in the gallery, and later in this thread

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Pictures uploaded, I declare this officially completed !

I really didn't have much time to take pictures apart from those going into the gallery. Here are a couple though. First of all the model almost completed shown in that mess that is my modelling bench

IMG_1438_zps0nrj4wjv.jpg

And then a test fit of the modified seats. The rear rails on the seat come from the kit parts for the front seat and were made form plasticard for the rear seat. This because the other kit part was lost somewhere.

IMG_1440_zpsj1kh9duw.jpg

Among the parts I had to modify was the pitot tube that was replaced with two brass tubes. To the seats I added belts from the kit decal sheet. They don't look very good, actually they don't look good at all, but at least they are better than nothing.

How should I rate this model ? Not one of my best, I'm not too happy with the final result. I struggled with the paint scheme and then the decals gave me a lot of troubles

Would I build another ? Absolutely ! Actually I already have another Italeri F-5B in the stash that I'll build taking into account all the problems I've had with this one. I'd rate the kit as good.

The decal sheet is another story, the decals were out of register and some had the wrong colours. Very disappointing considering that there are several subjects I'd like to build in that sheet and in the other made by the same Carpena for the F-5.

Most important, thanks to all who watched this thread, I hope it was of some interest. Thanks to all who have replied with comments and advices. Many thanks to David for sorting the Turkish insignia, without these I'd have never been able to complete the model. And of course, thanks to the hosts for proposing and managing this STGB, it was one of the most interesting I've participated in. Wonder if one day there will be a chance for an F-5 part 2 STGB ???

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Well done Giorgio you made it just in the nick of time I see.

Even after all the issues you had it sounds like you enjoyed yourself and have found a bit of love for this aircraft as well!

As to another F-5 STGB well that is something to think about, would be 2018 at the earliest, but 2019 would be better. We'd have one then to celebrate it's 60th anniversary since the models first flight!

Anyway I very glad you could join use and it's great you could add a different member to the F-5 family, well done.

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Lovely job Giorgio, really like the colours on this one. Hmm I read about the fuel tank/landing gear issue last night after reading your post. Turns out a few people mention the inner and maybe outer pylons are located a few mm closer to the centre than they should be! I didn't even realise when building mine in flight :rolleyes:.

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