It's fast! It's British! It's a Lightning!

[Spookytooth]

Well played sir, sorted that nose U/C out a treat by the look of it.

Ladders as well eh, what else may you add, a tea truck?

 

Stay safe mate.

 

Simon.

[MikeH]

I'm with Simon on this. The nose U/C has sorted it. I think the stance/sit is just right now.

Nice work.

 

Regards

 

Mike

[Massimo]

I agree about the nose and the rest. I think  you got the best result by the exhausts and the junction between wings and fuselage and love the detail on the landing gears.

On her legs ,she looks gorgeous!!!

Well done Giorgio and...Buon Primo Maggio!

[giemme]

15 hours ago, bbudde said:

Oh Giorgio, that looks lovely and promising for the next steps. Cheers

Thanks Benedkt. much appreciated!  

6 hours ago, Spookytooth said:

Well played sir, sorted that nose U/C out a treat by the look of it.

Ladders as well eh, what else may you add, a tea truck?

Tea truck sounds like an idea!  Actually, I'm going to scrap up a simple base, inspired by this pic (By RuthAS - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27742994)

 

This is from RAF Wattisham, where my T4 should have been stationed in the 1960s.

 

Ideally, I'd also need some crew/pilots (standing). Anyone knows where I can find some?

6 hours ago, MikeH said:

I'm with Simon on this. The nose U/C has sorted it. I think the stance/sit is just right now.

Nice work.

 

Regards

 

Mike

Thanks Mike!  I think I'll go with how it sits right now, eventually  

4 hours ago, Massimo said:

I agree about the nose and the rest. I think  you got the best result by the exhausts and the junction between wings and fuselage and love the detail on the landing gears.

On her legs ,she looks gorgeous!!!

Well done Giorgio and...Buon Primo Maggio!

Cheers Massimo, tank you!  E buon Primo Maggio anche a te!

 

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been conducting some painting tests for the metal finishing of this aircraft, which I want to share with you and hopefully get an opinion.

I used the spare fin from the kit (which is for a T5) as a pint mule, together with a spare Eurofighter fuselage half from my previous build. Here's what I did: I polished the fin with the appropriate Dremel tool and then I airbrushed one side with decanted Tamiya Ts23 Light Blue

 

 Shiny and smooth  

 

On the other side, I first airbrushed a coat of Vallejo Grey Primer thinned with future, followed by (once properly cured) the sale Tamiya Light Blue

 

As you can see, the surface turned out much rougher, sort of grainy.

I then airbrushed the top half of the fin with Tamiya Gloss Black, both sides; the idea was to introduce color variations at the base coat level, and see if spraying the metaqllic coat on top of it would show those variations in the end.

So I  airbrushed some decanted Tamiya Gloss Aluminium, both sides. Here is the non primed one

 

You can just about make out the tone variation from top to bottom, but it's very subtle - maybe too much. BTW, it is only visible at that angle

The other side:

 

Not very different, I would say.

 

Then it was time for AK Extreme Metal Steel; again, non primed side

The variation from top to bottom looks a tad more evident, but still probably too subtle.

 

Opposite side

Again, not much of a difference, except that it's a lot less smoother than the other side.

 

Last one, AK Extreme Metal Polished Aluminium. Non primed side

 

This one shows a pretty evident variation top to bottom, but it's a dog of paint to work with: it stays wet for a long time and it's very delicate for handling. I'm not sure if I have a bad pot or if it's always like that with his specific color. Anyway, opposite side

 

Same result, only less smoother.

 

My thoughts after these tests: I think I'll go with light blue straight on bare plastic, I like the overall finish better. I'll mybe spray some primer along the wing to fuselage joins, just to check if there's any remedial work to be done. Either way, I'l sand it back before spraying the light blue base coat.

 

To obtain the tone variations, I'm leaning towards spraying the whole airframe with Tamiya Gloss Aluminium, then mask and spray some selected areas with AK Extreme Metal Steel.

What do you guys think? Any thoughts and opinions are welcome.

 

One more thing: on the spare Eurofighter Fuselage, I tested the paint for the intake ring, which is AK Extreme Metal Chrome; I've already used it in this build for the exhausts, if you remember, spraying it on top of Model Master Metallizer Exhaust. Here I tried it on top of Tamiya Light Blue (no primer coat) and on top of Tamiya Gloss Black

The base of the fine is Chrome on Light e Blue, the top is Chrome on Gloss Black. I tested this last combination also towards the fuselage front:

 

I love the finish of this paint, it's very shiny and almost mirror-like. I think I'll go with the gloss black base - what do you guys think?

 

Decisions, decisions...

 

Looking forward to hear your opinions  

 

Ciao

 

 

Edited May 1, 2020 by giemme

[Spookytooth]

They say that Gloss Black is the way to go, but go with what you find most comfortable.

 

As for priming first, have you tried rubbing down with 2000 + grit sandpaper, just to take any high spots off/down.

Just a suggestion that is G.

 

Simon.

[giemme]

1 hour ago, Spookytooth said:

They say that Gloss Black is the way to go, but go with what you find most comfortable.

Thanks Simon  I think I'll go Gloss Black for the Chrome part, but I'm not so sure about the rest of the aiframe - it looks a tad too dark to my eyes.  I shall ponder more.

 

1 hour ago, Spookytooth said:

As for priming first, have you tried rubbing down with 2000 + grit sandpaper, just to take any high spots off/down

I actually haven't, but that's an idea. I don't need a primer coat per se, in this case, because both Light Blue and Gloss Aluminium come from spray cans and once dry they are as tough as a rock. On the other hand, hey have no filling properties; quite on the contrary, they make any small blemishes to pop up right in your face   All in all, I think I could use some primer along the wing joins, as I said earlier - then I can try and polish it  

 

Ciao

[Cookenbacher]

Impressive work on the nose gear Giorgio, all your skills and patience on display!

 

Oh paint test! Cool. You may want to test the Xtreme metal over the Tamiya Gloss Aluminum on the test tail to make sure there is no interaction - it's 99% likely to be fine, but couldn't hurt to see, since you're all set up anyway.

 

A Lightning intake ring was my first attempt at metal foiling and it worked pretty well and provides a nice contrast if you'd like to test that out.

[giemme]

1 hour ago, Cookenbacher said:

Impressive work on the nose gear Giorgio, all your skills and patience on display!

 

Oh paint test! Cool. You may want to test the Xtreme metal over the Tamiya Gloss Aluminum on the test tail to make sure there is no interaction - it's 99% likely to be fine, but couldn't hurt to see, since you're all set up anyway.

 

A Lightning intake ring was my first attempt at metal foiling and it worked pretty well and provides a nice contrast if you'd like to test that out.

Thanks Cookie!  

 

Also for the heads up on Xtreme Metal over Tamiya Gloss Aluminium - I know it works though, I've already done it in the past (on my Typhoon build too, IIRC).

 

As for the intake ring, I did use alu tape for the inner side, but the one I have it's not good for the outside - way too thick and doesn't conform very well to complex shapes, it tends to make wrinkles. Besides, I'm very happy with Xtreme Metal Chrome finish, so I think I'll stay with that. I'll have to get hold of some proper BMF foil though, sooner or later...

 

Ciao

Edited May 1, 2020 by giemme

[giemme]

Here's another update, guys. May 1st, bank holiday, weather not so good - more bench time!  

 

Before committing to the paint job, I decided to put together the side pylons; the kit parts have mounting pins, but they are very short and quite thick, so I decided to cut them off and replace them with brass rods

 

 

I drilled corresponding receiving holes in the fuselage - no pics though, sorry

 

I then glued on the launching rails

 

When we met this week, I showed Silvano @phantom61 my model, and he prompted me to do something to improve the NACA ducts on it ... 🤬    There's a number of them on the kit, the two on top of the fuselage along the spine being quite poorly represented.

 

He said: "Why don't you try the technique Steve @Fritag used in his Hawks build?"

 

Yeah, why not?      

 

So I carved out a NACA shaped punch from a steel rod I had around:

 

 

and to test it I actually used it as a punch on a bit of styrene sheet

 

Pretty much the shape I wanted. In his WIP thread, Steve tried heating the punch to mould the shape into the plastic, but wasn't very happy with that. In the end, IIRC, he resorted in brushing a small TET pool on the area where the NACA duct was to be instated, wait till it started melting the plastic and pressing the punch on.

 

I tried both systems, and immediately discarded the hot punch - no control and it cut completely through the plastic; the TET pool went a bit better, but I couldn't obtain the ducts to be oriented exactly as I wanted; moreover, the end result was very similar to the poor kit offering. Next pic shows the test mule with my attempts with TET

 

I decided to give it a go onto the actual model too, knowing that in case of boo-boo, I could have just filled in and restarted from scratch. Here's immediately after the punch application into melted plastic

 

 

and here's refined, once dry

 

 

Definitely not good. Looking at the test I did to check if the shape was correct (basically using the punch as per its name, hammering it onto various styrene sheet cutouts of different thickness), I noticed it left very defined shapes on them. So the idea came to my mind: scraping off the area around the NACA duct, glue in the cutout with the punched on shape and blend it flush to the fuselage. This all thing should have been done much earlier, really - prior to gluing the fuselage halves together, let alone the wings and fin and all ... Crazy, moi?

 

Anyway, here's the test mule with the area where to fit the duct, scraped off to reduce the thickness, and an approximate shape actually cut out to allow for the embossed part to fit in

 

 

and here's the final result after gluing in with CA+flour, sanding and polishing

 

Happy with that, so I tried it on the model; here it is before the sanding started

 

End result (with a quick black wash to highlight the NACA duct edges)

 

 

Happy!   As I said, there are other NACAs on this aircarft; some of them are better defined, some are in places where I won't dare trying this system - I'd knock something major off, I'm totally sure.

 

That's it for the day, comments welcome

 

Ciao

 

 

 

 

[Terry1954]

Perfect looking NACA ducts Giorgio. A couple of those shots above were from Typhoon I'm guessing?

 

Terry

[giemme]

34 minutes ago, Terry1954 said:

Perfect looking NACA ducts Giorgio. A couple of those shots above were from Typhoon I'm guessing?

 

Terry

Thanks Terry  Well spotted, the test mule is the spare fuselage from my Typhoon build

 

Ciao

[Cookenbacher]

Oh no, you're as crazy as Fritag! It does look amazing though.

[CedB]

Seconded, on both counts!  

[Spookytooth]

Sure is crazy, but that is G. for you.

 

Great work on those ducts mate.

 

Simon.

[stever219]

Sorry to do this to you Giemme after all the hard work you’ve put in on this model but, before you get to applying paint, you might want to address the gaps you’ve got between the inboard ends of the flaps and the fuselage side.  On the real aeroplane there’s not much of a gap at all.  Ideally you would scab some plasticard onto the inboard ends of the flaps themselves but you’ve not got a lot of room to work there🙁.  I know you commented in a previous post that you installed the flaps when you did as it would be easier, and from my own experience of wriggling the flaps onto 1/48th scale Lightnings I can only agree, but I fear that it’s now turned round and bitten you on the bum.

 

Stever, stealer of joy😢

[Gondor44]

A number of years ago I wrote an article for a small SIG magazine about the NACA intake. You can see it here

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vfh9tgfvb49xfs1/NACA Ducts 2a.docx?dl=0

 

No idea if it will be of any help but your welcome to look at it

 

Gondor

[giemme]

21 hours ago, Cookenbacher said:

Oh no, you're as crazy as Fritag! It does look amazing though.

Am I?   Did anybody tell Steve, BTW?    Thanks for the praise, Cookie  

15 hours ago, CedB said:

Seconded, on both counts!  

Is that so??   Thanks Ced!  

12 hours ago, Spookytooth said:

Sure is crazy, but that is G. for you.

 

Great work on those ducts mate.

 

Simon.

Definitely so, then     Glad you like them, Simon  

10 hours ago, stever219 said:

Sorry to do this to you Giemme after all the hard work you’ve put in on this model but, before you get to applying paint, you might want to address the gaps you’ve got between the inboard ends of the flaps and the fuselage side.  On the real aeroplane there’s not much of a gap at all.  Ideally you would scab some plasticard onto the inboard ends of the flaps themselves but you’ve not got a lot of room to work there🙁.  I know you commented in a previous post that you installed the flaps when you did as it would be easier, and from my own experience of wriggling the flaps onto 1/48th scale Lightnings I can only agree, but I fear that it’s now turned round and bitten you on the bum.

 

Stever, stealer of joy😢

Stever, no need to be sorry. Thank you for pointing that out, I don't know how I missed this; I like to think to be quite careful as regards details, but this time I was going to screw up badly!

In fact, it would have been a lot easier to address this issue before gluing the flaps, but I don't think it's that hard to fix anyway. See below, and rest assured you didn't steal any joy - I like challenges, and I do this for fun, so ...  

6 hours ago, Gondor44 said:

A number of years ago I wrote an article for a small SIG magazine about the NACA intake. You can see it here

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vfh9tgfvb49xfs1/NACA Ducts 2a.docx?dl=0

 

No idea if it will be of any help but your welcome to look at it

 

Gondor

Thank you Gondor, that was actually very interesting!  

 

Here's what Stever referred to: the gap between the inboard edge of the flaps and the fuselage

 

 

Much more evident on starboard flap, as you can see  - and I really don't know how I missed this so far . BTW, some nice pictures of that area at this link: https://www.xs420.com/diary.html

 

Anyway, as Stever suggested, Plasticard at the rescue here. Port side gap is pretty thin, so I tried with a cutout of 0.1mm styrene (guess what? from a yogurt pot  )

 

 

For the other side I used a regular Plasticard sheet, 0.25mm thick

 

I marked the flap edge shape on it with a fine marker

 

and roughly cut the shape out before gluing it to the flap. On the port gap I just pressed in the plastic cutout and glued with TET. I tried to keep the bottom edges aligned

 

while the top was like this

 

Being quite thin, it wasn't too difficult to cut the exces away with a sharp blade

 

Starboard flap

 

 

bottom

 

After much cutting, sanding, polishing and adding swipes of TET to clean things up, here's were we are

 

and underneath

 

 

I think that the top starboard side can be improved a little more, but this time working on the fuselage rather than the flap. Looking at the pics in the link I posted above, it looks like the fairing on the fuselage should end right at the flap trailing edge (both sides on the model are incorrect, in that respect). I'll see what I can come up with. In the meantime, have a great Sunday and all comments are welcome

 

Ciao

 

[Terry1954]

Nice work on the flap gap!

 

Terry

[Biggles87]

+1

 

John

[CedB]

+2!

 

Ced  

[phantom61]

10 hours ago, giemme said:

Am I?   Did anybody tell Steve, BTW?    Thanks for the praise, Cookie  

Is that so??   Thanks Ced!  

Definitely so, then     Glad you like them, Simon  

Stever, no need to be sorry. Thank you for pointing that out, I don't know how I missed this; I like to think to be quite careful as regards details, but this time I was going to screw up badly!

In fact, it would have been a lot easier to address this issue before gluing the flaps, but I don't think it's that hard to fix anyway. See below, and rest assured you didn't steal any joy - I like challenges, and I do this for fun, so ...  

Thank you Gondor, that was actually very interesting!  

 

Here's what Stever referred to: the gap between the inboard edge of the flaps and the fuselage

 

Much more evident on starboard flap, as you can see  - and I really don't know how I missed this so far . BTW, some nice pictures of that area at this link: https://www.xs420.com/diary.html

 

Anyway, as Stever suggested, Plasticard at the rescue here. Port side gap is pretty thin, so I tried with a cutout of 0.1mm styrene (guess what? from a yogurt pot  )

 

For the other side I used a regular Plasticard sheet, 0.25mm thick

 

I marked the flap edge shape on it with a fine marker

 

and roughly cut the shape out before gluing it to the flap. On the port gap I just pressed in the plastic cutout and glued with TET. I tried to keep the bottom edges aligned

 

while the top was like this

 

Being quite thin, it wasn't too difficult to cut the exces away with a sharp blade

 

Starboard flap

 

bottom

 

After much cutting, sanding, polishing and adding swipes of TET to clean things up, here's were we are

 

and underneath

 

 

I think that the top starboard side can be improved a little more, but this time working on the fuselage rather than the flap. Looking at the pics in the link I posted above, it looks like the fairing on the fuselage should end right at the flap trailing edge (both sides on the model are incorrect, in that respect). I'll see what I can come up with. In the meantime, have a great Sunday and all comments are welcome

 

Ciao

 

not a problem ... easy

🤔

Edited May 3, 2020 by phantom61

[Massimo]

Great idea that punck for naca air intakes!!!

I'll have to use it some times!!!

Well done Giorgio!!!

[Spookytooth]

Nice bit of remedial work there G.

 

have a great Sunday.

 

Simon.

[giemme]

23 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Nice work on the flap gap!

 

Terry

14 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

+1

 

John

14 hours ago, CedB said:

+2!

 

Ced  

Terry, John and Ced  - thank you guys, glad you liked it  Not over yet though, see below  

 

12 hours ago, phantom61 said:

not a problem ... easy

🤔

Yeah, kind of ....   

8 hours ago, Massimo said:

Great idea that punck for naca air intakes!!!

I'll have to use it some times!!!

Well done Giorgio!!!

Thanks Massimo  @Fritag's idea as I said, worth the try for sure! 

8 hours ago, Spookytooth said:

Nice bit of remedial work there G.

 

have a great Sunday.

 

Simon.

Thanks Simon  Remedial completed today see below

 

As I mentioned in my last post, there was stil a bit of a gap both sides, but more to do with the fuselage than the flaps. Starboard side fixed with PPP, faired in and shaped up using the tools you see in the pic

 

 

Port side is a tighter area, so I went for a plastic cutout glued in with TET

 

Once set, I filed and sanded away and filled in with PPP

 

Sorry for the blurry pic, and I realized I didn't take one from above to show the end result  I'll post it in next report  

 

I also completed the work on the front wheel strut, adding cabling and carving out a few details to make it look more like the real thing

 

 

 

The top brass ring was glued in with CA; as said previously in the thread, it's there just as a spacer, to have the front leg at the correct height; it's gonna be almost invisible once the front leg is in place, so I won't do much more in terms of refining it.

 

That's it for the WE, all comments welcome

 

Ciao

 

[The Spadgent]

Whowa what a catch up. The nose wheel the punch detail the paint (gloss black for me by the way) and the ultimate save on the wings. Bit of a rollercoaster ride. Love it!!! 
 

Johnny.