Special Hobby Super Mystere B2 (J52-engine) 'FAH 2002' Fuerza Aerea Hondurena 1/72 - 15th June - tackling the Shafrirs again!

[Gondor44]

Looking really nice. Definatley hope this gives me insperation to tackle the two kits I have of this boxing and the new Duo kit that I received today from Special Hobby which now leads me to the problem of which markings to do the two Israeli version, sort and long jet pipes, while the other two will be French and Honduran versions.

 

Gondor

[Graeme H]

Another who has only just found this one, great work, never thought of using my gyrocutter for doing camo, mostly doing wheel hub masks with it, excellent idea will be using it for that from now on

 

[RidgeRunner]

9 hours ago, Gondor44 said:

Looking really nice. Definatley hope this gives me insperation to tackle the two kits I have of this boxing and the new Duo kit that I received today from Special Hobby which now leads me to the problem of which markings to do the two Israeli version, sort and long jet pipes, while the other two will be French and Honduran versions.

 

Gondor

Thanks mate. I appreciate your comments. 

 

Please see my PM sent to you just now. Thanks.

 

9 hours ago, Graeme H said:

Another who has only just found this one, great work, never thought of using my gyrocutter for doing camo, mostly doing wheel hub masks with it, excellent idea will be using it for that from now on

 

You'll find it is very useful, Graeme. ;). Thanks for your kind words. I used it, for example, on my recent Mustang:

 

 

Martin

Edited April 1, 2020 by RidgeRunner

[Bensi]

Hello Martin

 

Great job so far

I am also building a Super Mystere but in 1:48 scale, from Fonderie Miniatures - not for beginners I'll say 😉.

 

Looking forward to see whats next...

 

Bensi

[RidgeRunner]

With the airbrush already armed for the Skyraider, I then set about the second green coat on the SMB. It was merely a matter of adding the remaining masks, checking the edges and fixing with blutac and getting the paint flowing

 

 

 

 

That really should have been it today but I just couldn't resist removing the masks after an hour or so. The Colourcoats are great in this aspect as they are pretty touch dry after 30-60 minutes. 

 

 

I do now need patience, allowing the paint to dry before I mask again for the jet pipe, gun surrounds, wheel bays, fin scuff plate, speed brake housings and a little bit of repairing. Overall I'm very pleased.

 

I now realise that I probably should have fitted the wing tip lights before painting. I'll see how they fit and, if necessary, will fit them, fill and tidy and then paint the tips again. Of course they might fit snuggly! 

 

Martin

   

Edited April 3, 2020 by RidgeRunner

[RidgeRunner]

Thanks for your "like", Jamie @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies I'm afraid my hurried photo doesn't do the paints justice. The tan, particularly, doesn't show as it is in reality. 

 

Martin

[RidgeRunner]

After a hiatus of nearly two months I am returning to get this baby done :). I had put her aside while awaiting the decals and with the Covid-19 stuff hanging around this just took a bit longer than expected. No problem. Credit must go to Giorgio @Giorgio N for assisting me via his CorelDraw skills and knowledge and, too, to Mika and Arctic Decals. It seems that these are now winging their way to me and so it is time to pick her up and get her towards the finish line :). I have been a little distracted with my Skyraider and various nw ideas for projects! Wez @Wez has done a sterling job in propagating my new found interest in things Gallic and so while my current Fouga Magister slowly creeps towards the paint shop I prepare, via a Harvard, to embark on some French subjects - SIPA S.121, T-28, etc :). Somewhere I hope to fit in my SAR Lanc

 

Back at you soon . Next jobs are:

 

-paint wheel wells, jet pipe outer, speed brake wells, fin scuff plate area

-Glosscote ready for decals

-assemble rocket pods

-paint the seat   

 

Martin

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by RidgeRunner

[RidgeRunner]

Catching up a bit .......

 

With her sitting on the shelf a while I had noticed that I hadn't got the intake perfect sat on the fuselage. It had a slight mismatch along the join. So I had to get the sanders out and tackle it. Fortunately it wasn't too much sanding and quickly I got to where I was happy. This is the second time that I have had this and I wonder if any other builders of this kit have had similar issues? 

 

 

So, with that done the Badger 200 came out again and I got a few layers of Colourcoats US Dark Green on, having masked the areas where there is tan and the underside grey.  With that done she got to this stage. One step back and just one step forward!

 

 

Next I needed to fix the odd blemish in the paintwork - some airbrush overruns, etc. Thereafter it was the last few items to paint before the decalling Glosscote. These were - 1) the speedbrake housings 2) jet pipe, fin scuff areas, For the speedbrake housings I see that in all images I have they seem to be white/of fwhite. I thus used Colourcoats Matt White which, and this is one of my rare disappointments with CC, comes out slightly off white in finish. The jet pipe is now Humbrol 27002 as is the scuff area on the fin. You can see that I put a Hannants delivery note to good use! Initially, though I got the scuff area wrong. It was actually a lozenge shape when these aircraft were in this scheme, later reduced in size when they adopted the greys scheme. 

 

 

 

My masking wasnt the best and I had, yet again, some paint ingress. More repairs! I must concentrate and not rush things! 

 

I have now taken some Tamiya Weathering sticks to the scuff area as this was always quite dirty and stained. I used a combination of Oil Stain and Rust.  I have also painted the recesses for the wing tip nav lights. She now looks like this, awaiting her Glosscote. I hope to get the decals on tomorrow. I commissioned these from Mika at Arctic Decals. Giorgio @Giorgio N kindly drew them for me. Having tested a couple already I have found them to be extremely fine and adhere to the surface extremely well. You can see that I took the opportunity to get a Sabre ( @Sabrejet ) set done too! 

 

 

So, she is now sitting patiently like this:

 

 

   

More tomorrow, all being well!

 

Martin

 

Edit: as a Post Script, and a little "off piste", I add one shot of the other kit that is calling on my attention at the moment.... A Special Hobby Fouga Magister. She'll be ready for a coat of Humbol Metalcote very soon :). Right now she is primed and has the intakes painted as well as the tip tanks, the latter being Model Master Fluorescent Red-Orange. I've struggled a bit with her but now she is starting to look the part!

 

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by RidgeRunner

[RidgeRunner]

I managed to get her Glosscoted and so tomorrow she'll be ready for decals. In addition to the Arctic Decals set I will be using some kit decals as well as some white stencils from a Superscale F-4 set that I bought for the job a while back. In fact, on @Sabrejet's suggestion I bought three. They are a great source of generic-looking white stencils .

 

I have also been wrestling with PE - which I hate! However, I do appreciate the detail it gives. So, I tackled the speedbrakes. I had debated building them in card and rod but I got brave! ;). No photos yet ...... soon ....

 

Here's the SMB all shiney!

 

 

Back tomorrow

 

Martin

 

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by RidgeRunner

[Hook]

Inspiring!

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[Courageous]

Nice bit of camo work there Martin.

So, what have you been buying from Big H then?

 

Stuart

[Terry1954]

Very nice finish there Martin, looking forward to seeing some decals going on. Good luck with the PE airbrakes!

 

Terry

[RidgeRunner]

On 6/1/2020 at 3:38 PM, Hook said:

Inspiring!

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

Thanks Andre

 

7 hours ago, Courageous said:

Nice bit of camo work there Martin.

So, what have you been buying from Big H then?

 

Stuart

The Big H seems to have a regular drop-off at my door ;). Most rescently were an Eduard MiG-21PF and some aftermarket for an RV MiG-21UM . Thanks for you comments, Stuart.

 

 

5 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Very nice finish there Martin, looking forward to seeing some decals going on. Good luck with the PE airbrakes!

 

Terry

Thank you, Terry. I managed to get a good Glosscote on and keep dust to a minimum ;). 

 

On the subject of the Speed brakes I buit one set yesterday and I was happy(ish) with the result. Over night I thought I'd try again as I had a second set in the box. The issue was the two "arms" on each. The Speed brakes come in two parts - the outer shell and a perforated inner. You have to bend them and curl them in to shape. That was the easy bit. The outer and inner then had protrusions to represent the "arms". These are intended to be pinched together to form a point. To me it looks ugly and my ham-fisted efforts didnt do them much good. So today I have built the second pair, using square rod behind each "arm", which I have then shaped to form the point. To me they look better. They are certainly as good as I'm going to get! Thankfully it seems that Speed brakes open on the ground as a routine was peculiar to the FAH and so the French builds in the future will remain firmly closed in this respect. The reason for the FAH machines being operated this way, as I think I've previously said, was the unreliability of the hydraulic system. The Israelis mandated them to be left open at all times when on the ground. So, here they are:

 

 

The ends have been filled with PPP rather than using the fiddly PE part. I just need to clean up. These and the other remaining parts are now ready for cleaning and priming. These are essentially the undercarriage parts (legs, wheels, doors), Shafrirs and rails, theseat, rocket pods, and a few antennae and the pitots.

 

 

I also got the SMB decalled today. I used the drawn FAH markings, some kit stencils and underwing markings, and some Microscale F-4 white stencil decals (AC72-0052).  She is now drying before I apply another Glosscote. The Arctic Decals went on well - very thin and adhered nicely. They reacted well to both Micro Set and Sol. Thereafter she will need a week to dry before starting weathering etc. No photos as yet.

 

Martin

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by RidgeRunner

[Wez]

Martin,

 

Well done with the PE, all of those lightening holes, bit of a sod to make out of plastic card, but maybe...

 

The SMB2 is looking grand, looking forward to seeing the decals going on.

 

 

[exdraken]

Very nice progress!

[RidgeRunner]

13 hours ago, Wez said:

Martin,

 

Well done with the PE, all of those lightening holes, bit of a sod to make out of plastic card, but maybe...

 

The SMB2 is looking grand, looking forward to seeing the decals going on.

 

 

Yes, Wez, I agree that it would be more fiddly to produce in plastic and, almost certainly, wouldn't look so refined.  I just need to neaten them up a bit where I used the PPP. The decalling is pretty much done so I just need to get the detail bits done. 

 

12 hours ago, exdraken said:

Very nice progress!

Thanks mate. It has taken a while because of the decal preparation. I'm back at her now so soon I hope yo get her RFI'd :).

 

Martin

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Martin, as usual, spectacular work!  The work you did on the NMF area on the tail was breathtaking to my eye... well done sir!  Best, Erwin

[RidgeRunner]

You are too kind, Erwin. The truth is that my mojo lapsed with this build and right now I am struggling to get my head around everything that needs to be done to get her finished. As a result I am making mistakes and so I am not happy with myself. I am currently working through the fiddly bits at the end of the build, discovering some things that need more attention and finding some damaged parts :(. I'll get there for sure.  

 

Martin

 

 

[RidgeRunner]

Hi all, 

 

Sorry its dragging on ..... :(. I really must get my a@@e in to gear! Today I started my second attempt at getting the Shafrir 2s done. Previously I had assembled the kit parts (the body and a set of rear fins). These missiles are essentially white with black fins and NMF roller tips on the rear. My attempts at getting these SH examples was woeful to my eyes (the right in the image below). There was no precision to the demarkation between black and white and the detail of the rollers is not well defined, at least not on my example. So, I toyed with using more kit missiles from the kit I abandoned earlier in this WIP but decided to go with the Brassin set that I had purchased at the outset. I'd initially rejected them as I hate PE but they will certainly have the detail I need. So, today I got them cleaned up and with their rear end (jet pipe) PE supreglued I started with the rollers and a touch of thinned 27002 Polished Aluminium. So far so good. I will then mask the 27002 areas and paint he black, including the PE forward vanes (see below). 

 

 

I have also just about finished the painting of the remaining "fiddly" bits - u/c legs, wheels, seat, antennae, u/c doors, speed brakes,  LAU-68 rocket pods, etc. I have also fitted the canopy strut. This is tricky installation is there is a huge void under it. In hindsight I would fit a card piece under it before cementing the two fuselage halves. I'm pleased with my speed brakes

 

     

As I mentioned earlier, the aftermarket indstructions tell you to use a simple rod for the actuator but I elected to make a stepped piece using stryene rod and brass to mimic the real thing as best as I can.

 

 

That's about it for today. Having got everything ready I'll give the model and a few other parts a glosscote later today in readiness for a Flory wash in about a week from now. Getting there! Meanwhile I'll getmore done on the Fouga and the MiG-21UM

 

Martin

 

 

[Courageous]

Glad to see an increase in your mojo Martin, nice seeing your work. Trying to clear my own decks of 'waifs and strays' before getting back onto an air frame, not the easiest thing to do at this time of year with gardening and stuff.

 

Stuart

[RidgeRunner]

20 minutes ago, Courageous said:

not the easiest thing to do at this time of year with gardening and stuff.

I'm with you there, mate. Just a final push now

 

Martin

 

PS: I must admit to being distracted today while watching the antics across Europe on ADSB - 3 x B-52s over Bornholm, loads of support everywhere, ....... You must have seen an increase in tanker traffic over the past fews days, Stuart?

 

 

[RidgeRunner]

She's now sitting awaiting the drying of the varnish :). Apart from the Sharirs I can put her to one side now for a week. The Fouga has had another wing tip application as I had some structural issue(!). I can also get a little done on the MiG-21UM :)....

 

 

Martin   

[Courageous]

3 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

You must have seen an increase in tanker traffic over the past fews days, Stuart?

I'm oblivious to much of it. The tankers seem to stay north of me, it's just Herc's and the stray Osprey that pass anywhere near me.

 

Stuart

[Terry1954]

1 hour ago, Courageous said:

it's just Herc's and the stray Osprey that pass anywhere near me.

Snap! We get a lot of Herc's down here, and have had the odd Osprey too. In addition lots of Merlin's and Wildcat's but sadly fast air is very rare down here although sometimes we get the Falcon's out of Bournemouth making their attack runs on warships out to sea off Portland.

 

The Super M is looking good Martin.

 

Terry