Legendary Blackbird - Part 2: M-21 Mothersip with D-21 Tagboard (Italeri Conversion)

[Serkan Sen]

After a long break, I made some progress on M-21 project. First the D-21 was coated with Alclad gray primer. After then the entire M-21 and the chine of D-21 were coated with Alclad Gloss Black Primer:

 

Next step is to mask both M-21 and D-21 chines and paint both in titanium.

 

Serkan

Edited September 2, 2021 by Serkan Sen

[billn53]

That is pure eye candy! 🍬🍬🍬

[Serkan Sen]

The black areas were masked on both M-21 and D-21:

 

Both airframes were painted with Tamiya Titanium color:

 

Next step is to apply the shades of metallic colors on various panels.

 

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

Three months later all the masks have been removed assuming that all the paints cured enough 🙂

 

Also the landing gear assemblies were painted and placed:

 

Both mother and daughter were coated with gloss coat:

 

Now the decals can be applied.

 

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

I realised that I forgot to paint the light blue coating on which the markings will be placed at metallic surfaces:

 

With a bit masking effort these patches were painted:

 

Another gloss coat layer was applied on these areas. Next step is to apply decals...

 

Serkan

 

[billn53]

It’s great to see you back to work on your Blackbird project, Serkan! Let’s see if you can wrap these up for the holidays! 😛

[Chemguy3000]

Hello Serkan.  It’s good to see you are progressing on the M-21.  Excellent work, as always.

 

It appears you have a metallic finish on the inlet spikes.  The spikes were a composite material and should be black.  The tip of the spikes was solid metal (and very sharp!), and I believe they were unpainted.  In 1/72, the metal part is only about 1 mm, IIRC.

 

Keep up the good work.  I’m looking forward to the next update.  You are close to the finish line!

 

David

[Serkan Sen]

10 hours ago, billn53 said:

It’s great to see you back to work on your Blackbird project, Serkan! Let’s see if you can wrap these up for the holidays! 😛

Thanks Bill. My target due date is latest end of this year 🙂

 

2 hours ago, Chemguy3000 said:

Hello Serkan.  It’s good to see you are progressing on the M-21.  Excellent work, as always. It appears you have a metallic finish on the inlet spikes.  The spikes were a composite material and should be black.  The tip of the spikes was solid metal (and very sharp!), and I believe they were unpainted.  In 1/72, the metal part is only about 1 mm, IIRC.

Thanks for your very valuable remark David. One hour ago while I was checking the reference pictures for markings I also realized that the spikes must be painted to black except the sharp tip... I was busy with masking the intake and tip and painting the spikes in black during the last 30 minutes. When I finished the paint job I saw your post 🙂

 

The metallic sharp tip is a bit longer than 1mm but I can live with this 🙂

 

Now I have another problem with the decals. The Italeri kit decals are not fully correct especially for Rescue markings and the little "134" at the both sides of the nose. But I can slightly modify the decal artwork I did for my A-12 build:

 

Serkan

[Chemguy3000]

Serkan, how are you able to print white? Do you have an Alps printer?

 

David

[David H]

On 12/6/2021 at 2:54 AM, Serkan Sen said:

I realised that I forgot to paint the light blue coating on which the markings will be placed at metallic surfaces:

 

With a bit masking effort these patches were painted:

 

Another gloss coat layer was applied on these areas. Next step is to apply decals...

 

Serkan

 

I never knew that these underlying areas were grey....

[Serkan Sen]

44 minutes ago, Chemguy3000 said:

Serkan, how are you able to print white? Do you have an Alps printer?

 

David

Yes David, I have one of the last produced genuine MD5500 from Japan. The shipping and custom was a bit costly but worth every cent.

Also I have white toner cartridge from "Ghost Toner" which can be used with HP-M252 laser printer. It prints well but not opaque enough and white background printing is not possible. 

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

10 minutes ago, David H said:

I never knew that these underlying areas were grey....

I think it is light blue rather than grey (at least I painted to mixture of flanker blue/grey)

[Serkan Sen]

Decal artwork is ready:

 

Next step is to print the decals and finish the model (hopefully...)

 

Serkan

 

[heloman1]

Excellent progress. I remember, some time back in the 1980's I scratch built the drone in 1/48th scale. It was to go on the Italeri kit but sadly that got damaged in house move and the drone disappeared! Such is life!!!

 

Colin

[Serkan Sen]

On 12/8/2021 at 11:46 AM, heloman1 said:

Excellent progress. I remember, some time back in the 1980's I scratch built the drone in 1/48th scale. It was to go on the Italeri kit but sadly that got damaged in house move and the drone disappeared! Such is life!!!

 

Colin

Thanks Colin and sorry for my very late reply. I have recently started another topic in 1:48 scale here:

 

If the the 3D printed fuselage parts from my ongoing CAD project fit well to Italeri/Testors kit and later on recently released Revell kit then I can think about modelling the D-21 drone as well.

Serkan