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F/A-18D BuNo:164878 VMFA(AW)224 - Live After Death "Part II"


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Hi friends,

 

Here is another rehabilitation build of an old and broken model...

Several years ago I got two built and incomplete Hornets from eBay to use them as donors. But they were forgotten in basement for a long time until last month I have found them again during clean out action.

 

As I was planning to build one of the VMFA(AW)-224 F/A-18D with the attractive tiger strips since long time, I have decided to restore the twin seater one as BuNo:164878.

 

164878-FA-18D-WK00-VMFA224.jpg

 

In parallel I am building a F-15C with black tiger strips which is very close to RFI.

 

As usual I will print my own decals. The main challenge with this Hornet will be printing decals in grey. I have some ideas to do this. We will see...

 

Serkan

 

 

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To remove at least 10 years old paint I used oven cleaner spray foam.

 

I have placed the tiny parts in a container as a layer and applied single coat of spray foam.

990.jpg

 

Between each foam coat I have placed another layer of remaining parts and a final pass to cover all the parts with foam.

991.jpg

 

Similarly the fuselage was placed in a nylon bag and the spray was applied on all surfaces.

992.jpg

 

I let the foam to soften/remove the paint layers for 6 hours.

 

Serkan

 

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6 hours later using an old toothbrush I have wiped off the oven cleaner and paint rest and rinsed.

993.jpg

994.jpg

 

The oven cleaner removed the old paint amazingly even after its first application.

977.jpg

978.jpg

 

Only at few areas some paint spots remained. Spraying a second light coat of oven cleaner only to those areas will remove the remaining paint spots.

979.jpg

 

The beutiness of this method is that the oven cleaner is very aggressive to enamel paint but it doesn't give any harm to clear parts.

980.jpg

 

However the dark and gloss colours are much more resistant to oven cleaner.

 

Serkan

 

Edited by Serkan Sen
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The 3 view drawings as well as the decal artwork took a bit time especially due to lack of enough reference pictures. Here are the initial drawings with my best guesstimate 🙂

981.jpg

982.jpg

983.jpg

 

Next step is to prepare initial decals for testing.

 

Serkan

 

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Now the test decal is ready:

984.jpg

As usual I have used Regupac RCS 2 masking paper to test the decals:

 

985.jpg

 

Next step is to place decals and make necessary corrections of undersized camouflage patterns mainly due to 2D/3D mapping.

 

Serkan

 

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Here is the old model all the paints removed:

986.jpg

 

Ok, lets start to place markings

995.jpg

 

After couple of hours the task was finally completed:

1005.jpg

 

Several pictures from various views:

1009.jpg

1012.jpg

1000.jpg

1002.jpg

1007.jpg

 

To be continued 🙂

 

Serkan

 

 

Edited by Serkan Sen
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On 30/08/2019 at 20:10, Serkan Sen said:

The beutiness of this method is that the oven cleaner is very aggressive to enamel paint but it doesn't give any harm to clear parts.

This is exactly what I was looking for...

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On 30/08/2019 at 00:06, Serkan Sen said:

As I was planning to build one of the VMFA(AW)-224 F/A-18D with the attractive tiger strips since long time, I have decided to restore the twin seater one as BuNo:164878.

Very attractive scheme. I will follow with great interest.

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