Christer A Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 (edited) Hello! One and a half year ago I started a Harrier GR.3, but I never got round to finish it. I think it's time to do so now! Main reason is that I want to paint something, and since my Tiffie is still in the detailing stages the urge to shoot some paint around is big. But first, a recap of what's been done so far! Here's what I'll use for this build (i have another GR.3 that will be decked out with more AM stuff) Yes, that's a replacement fin from Freightdog. 2mm too short height for the Airfix one, and not something i'd be bothered fix by myself. I started with the bits that goes bang, and promptly raided the other kit for its rockets. They probably never flew during the exercise with all four pods, but it just looks cooler this way. That means that my second kit will have a recon pod and a Sidewinder, together with some fueltanks, but that will not happen this year. The Gunpods benefited from drilling and opening of some holes.And why not drill out the fuel dumping pipe as well? After much fussing with how to paint the intake I found this thread http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234947602-another-one-for-the-harrier-gr1-experts/, And promptly painted one of the green, that other grey. Well, my guess after reading BM for too long is the the rocket pods at this time probably were mostly unpainted, maybe like this,Keeping with the loud stuff, here's the bang seat:Four plastic parts, and two small stencils.Turned out nice enough closed 'hood!Cockpit complete The next one will have a Zoom set, to spice it up further! Added the nose without the extra warts, since that equipment wasn't installed at that time. (Falklands only?) The fin was installed, and fitted perfectly, except for a tiny air bubble which was filled. Eagleeyed spotters can see that the elevator isn't installed. I reasoned that with grey undersides the masking job will be very tricky to solve, and cut the onepiece affair in two.There's a huge gap on the underside of the main wing though :-(Plastic shims to the rescue! Looks quite ok. The gunpods have a big gap too, but i plan to fill that with all kind of dirt and goo. There's no such thing as clean gunpods, i'm sure, especially on the underside of an british fighter! After that, the underside was cleaned up, and sprayed Light Aircraft Gray (Xtracrylix) Now, the plan is to winterize this one, more or less like RAF did it. That means, normal cammo colors on, gloss coat, decals, more glosscoat, hairspray and white, add scratches with a toothbrush or similar, and then seal it with a final flat coat? What could possibly go wrong? Just to be sure, i experimented on an old MiG-21 fin. Dark green with Alclad Aqua gloss.Then, Hairspray and Tamiya white.One hard brush and some water later:This could actually work, I think! And that was the start. Let see how it goes in the coming weeks //Christer Edited November 10, 2015 by Christer A 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col. Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Quite a few of us are watching your progress to pick up trips for our own projects Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AntoineG Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Hi, A very fine built so far. I will be following it with great interest, especially your winter effect method. Cheers, Antoine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christer A Posted November 11, 2015 Author Share Posted November 11, 2015 Quite a few of us are watching your progress to pick up trips for our own projects No pressure then, eh? Hi, A very fine built so far. I will be following it with great interest, especially your winter effect method. Cheers, Antoine Thanks Antoine! Yeah, I can't wait to try it. My main worry is how to cover the decals, without them beeing ripped of in the process. But that's a later problem! Gunze Dark Sea Gray went on without a problem. This will cure for a few days before the big taping session, but hopefully I can get it done during model club meeting in friday evening. 'Till next time! //Christer 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christer A Posted November 29, 2015 Author Share Posted November 29, 2015 Well, what do you know...I didn't finish the masking during the club night. Surprise! (not) It took me almost 3 hours to mask it all up, but it got done finally. Them some Gunze Dark green (the late version, not the WWII shade) hit the model with some help of my fancy Iwata. Now I'm contemplating the next step. Should I remove all masks, glosscoat put on the decals, more glosscoat, cover all (and they're lots of them) decals with tape, pray to the modelling gods that the tape isn't strong enough to pull off the decals, and mask the Dark sea grey again (and partially the underside) and then do the winterization? Or is it a better approach to guess where all stencils are supposed to go, cover that spot with tape and then do the hairspray + white trick? Less risk of ripping of the decals, but a larger guesswork trying to cover them. Decisions decisions. It seems though that the groundcrew was very careful when splashing around the winterwash, because it looks very neat, with all stencils properly covered and all edges are quite sharp. I'll let the question sit for a while... //Christer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousAA72 Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 (edited) Well, what do you know...I didn't finish the masking during the club night. Surprise! (not) It took me almost 3 hours to mask it all up, but it got done finally. Them some Gunze Dark green (the late version, not the WWII shade) hit the model with some help of my fancy Iwata. Now I'm contemplating the next step. Should I remove all masks, glosscoat put on the decals, more glosscoat, cover all (and they're lots of them) decals with tape, pray to the modelling gods that the tape isn't strong enough to pull off the decals, and mask the Dark sea grey again (and partially the underside) and then do the winterization? Or is it a better approach to guess where all stencils are supposed to go, cover that spot with tape and then do the hairspray + white trick? Less risk of ripping of the decals, but a larger guesswork trying to cover them. Decisions decisions. It seems though that the groundcrew was very careful when splashing around the winterwash, because it looks very neat, with all stencils properly covered and all edges are quite sharp. I'll let the question sit for a while... //Christer On mine, I sprayed a section of decal sheet Dark Green. I then added the relevant decal, including the serials, and then cut them out and added them to the white painted sections....http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234951646-airfix-harrier-gr1a-two-gr3s-and-a-gr5-in-172nd/page-2 Edited November 29, 2015 by Bill Clark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary West Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Should I remove all masks, glosscoat put on the decals, more glosscoat, cover all (and they're lots of them) decals with tape, pray to the modelling gods that the tape isn't strong enough to pull off the decals, and mask the Dark sea grey again (and partially the underside) and then do the winterization? Id personally take this route - providing you apply the gloss coat adequetly and allow at least 24hrs drying, it should be ok over decals, especially if you use a low tack tape? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col. Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 With the same scheme planned some day in the future I was planing to spend a lot of time measuring decals to create masks then add the decals after the painting stage but before weathering was completed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christer A Posted November 30, 2015 Author Share Posted November 30, 2015 It seems to me that the best way after all is to go the whole hog with de masking, masking and the whole lot... Lets get cracking! I'll make a photocopy of the decals and use that to create the masks, but first, I'll just bask in the glory of tape removal: I'm very happy with this result! Still having a stupid hope that I do not need to remove the tape from the wings, since that is quite tricky to mask. It'll probably backfire badly... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christer A Posted December 30, 2015 Author Share Posted December 30, 2015 Finally, all stickers are in place Time for Alclad Aqua Clear to seal it all in. I wonder how long time it needs to harden before I can mask on top of it? Is it one week+ or 2-3 days? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christer A Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 The experiment with masking tape on top of the decals turned out (as expeted) a disaster. Quite a few decals were destroyed in the process, and as a result I shelved the model for years. Recently I got a GR9 from a mate and in that process I dug up this bugger again. Was it possible to save in some way? It turned out to be the case. Or rather, I just took the lazy approach and attached some decals, not totally correct for XV778 but it looks allright from a distance. Right, that's almost all stickers in place, time for Micro Sol to do its magic and then it's off to the weathering station. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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