Jeroen's Viggen - launched into KUTA

[JeroenS]

Well, it's starting to look like a Viggen for sure. But there's light in places where there shouldn't be 🙂 

 

 

One locating hole on the left side (for the landing gear door I think) has been punched all the way through. And I think I'll have to use some strip to close the wing gaps from the underside or else the putty will just drop through!

[JeroenS]

Round one of patiently filling gaps completed. It is looking better. 

 

 

 

No doubt primer will reveal a heap of blemishes.

 

Still, it's time to add the remaining flying surfaces. Yay, more putty!

 

 

Must see about the nose cone as well. 

[JeroenS]

Right, that nose cone. The 2 halves fitted, but barely. I needed to put it on the aircraft so I could get a more or less correct shape while holding it until the glue set. Being a novice but enthusiastic aircraft builder I forgot about nose weight until after that had happened... I hope that doesn't come back to bite me... 

 

 

Huge seams down the sides and that pitot tube (that's what it's called, right?) was already drooping out of the box.... That cone needed a lot of sanding. 

 

But it got done and I fitted a new brass pitot tube while I was at it. It may still be a bit long but that's easily taken care of. 

 

 

You can see that I masked the canopies.

 

 

But they're still only dry fitted now as I take care of those last bits of filler. 

 

 

I hope it will not be too bad with primer on but... I fear the worst. The grey on the inside of the cockpit is Vallejo Light Grey, I hope it's sort of a match for the darker grey that will be the top colour. I have the Sky Grey (which is very light) for the underside but I don't have the required Tamiya paints for the topside mix. I think I'll just darken the Sky Grey a little bit at a time until I'm happy with it.

 

It's now time for the last bits and pieces to go on and then get some primer on it hopefully tomorrow!

[JeroenS]

I thought I'd take a good look at the decals this morning. I should have done that earlier, probably!

 

 

The roundels look awful.... 

 

 

Oh boy... And I just found out that AM decal sheets are quite expensive! Besides it's nearing deadline, these will just have to do I guess!

 

I will definitely do another Viggen some time, with a better kit!

 

[Marlin]

What a fight your having Jeroen beating that old kit into submission. 

But you're doing a great job with it.

 

/Bosse

[exdraken]

oh bugger.. some miss alignment here...  

for a future Viggen, I would suggest Tarangus/ Special Hobby.... but it will not get cheap and easy either!maybe you have any spare Swedish roundels? A Draken kit maybe?

or you try to cut/ punch the blue part and paint a yellow circle first?

[JeroenS]

2 hours ago, exdraken said:

oh bugger.. some miss alignment here...  

for a future Viggen, I would suggest Tarangus/ Special Hobby.... but it will not get cheap and easy either!maybe you have any spare Swedish roundels? A Draken kit maybe?

or you try to cut/ punch the blue part and paint a yellow circle first?

Indeed, the decals are not entirely what they're supposed to be. Shame! I have no spare roundels as I have exactly zero other aircraft in the stash 🙂 

 

I may look for a kit which has the roundels, probably a cheaper option than AM decals. I've had a Silhouette cutter for a week now but I haven't been able to do anything with it yet, and it's a bit late in the game for the Viggen to start figuring it out now 🙂 .... The cut and spray option you mentioned is probably a last resort, maybe even more so than just using the awful decals. 

 

[exdraken]

41 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

I have exactly zero other aircraft in the stash 🙂

With all the pity involved in this post, And me being sorry for the already bad Viggen model... this of course has totally disqualified you  sorry...

I have way, but way too many, and probably even some blue yellow Crown roundels to spare. ( not Viggen though...I need to check sizes) if you are interested.... but won't make it in time I fear... let me know and I will start searching...

 

[JeroenS]

Thanks, that's really very nice of you! However, I fear the only option would be to teleport them as I'm sure the snail mail option will not make it here before Sunday. That being said, I have no idea yet whether I could actually finish this build before then, and a correct set of roundels would probably cheer this kit up a lot. In that case I'd wait for the postman and move this build straight into KUTA on Sunday. 

 

So, yes please, if you'd have some to spare I'd like that. Would you PM me in case you have something to send? 

[trickyrich]

... and yes Happy New Year from me as well....and I know I'm late....as usual, been busy playing with resin!  

 

Eeeek the fit and some of those gaps look pretty nasty!  But with your usual engineer skills they have been nicely sorted out.

 

Don't worry too much about forgetting the nose weights, that main gear layout helps keep the nose wheel earth bound, even with 1/48th beasties.

 

Hopefully you'll make the finish line, not too much to go, though those decals are quite bad!

 

Don't believe anything you hear about the Special Hobby/Tarangus Viggen it is scary and will give you nightmares!

[JeroenS]

5 hours ago, trickyrich said:

Don't believe anything you hear about the Special Hobby/Tarangus Viggen it is scary and will give you nightmares!

I don't want nightmares!

 

I was thinking about the 1/72 Hasegawa, is that any good?

 

By the way, @exdraken has kindly offered to send me some (way) better roundels, so unless they show up on Saturday (which would be an absolute miracle) this one will not make it into the gallery, but I'll be continuing the build of course. 

[PattheCat]

16 hours ago, trickyrich said:

Don't believe anything you hear about the Special Hobby/Tarangus Viggen it is scary and will give you nightmares!

 

Ooch! I've got one in the piles (SF-37). That bad?

[JeroenS]

50 minutes ago, PattheCat said:

 

Ooch! I've got one in the piles (SF-37). That bad?

Nah, you know Rich has nightmares all the time, he lives in Sidney's Suburbia in an overpriced house 

[JeroenS]

OK we're just about ready for primer. 

 

 

I decided to leave the larger landing gear doors closed, I've seen it on other builds as well. I think the "belly pack" is one of the underside's nicest features (all relative, of course) and the open doors hide them for a large part. As usual, poor fit, but I've noticed I'm almost past caring. It's not that bad and it will not be positioned like this in the cabinet anyway.

 

 

I'm expecting more filling and sanding after primer but we'll see. If it's anywhere near acceptable I'll probably leave it. 

 

Just have to wait a little longer for my fix of the locating hole, which had gone all the way through the wing, to cure. 

 

 

I took a small piece of thin card, doused it in extra thin cement and pushed it into the hole. I'm waiting for it to set so I can sand it flat. Must remember to stick some tape around the area so I don't lose even more panel lines. Then primer, first black so I can see where I've been with the next layer which will be grey. I use lacquer primer so it cures fast, maybe I can even do some repairs tonight or who knows, a top coat. 

 

[JeroenS]

Well, the end result is a lot better than what I'd hoped for, I must say I'm actually very happy with it. In fact, apart from a slight micromeshing here and there I'm not going to do anything more. 

 

 

It's nice and smooth, and the area around the intakes, while not perfect, is quite acceptable (to me at least, and I have the final say 🙂).

 

 

 

The only area I may want to do something about is the right front corner of the canopy. 

 

 

But I'll decide tomorrow. Somehow when you look at it in the morning you always find some bad spots. We'll see.

 

 

 

[trickyrich]

she looks pretty good, all those joins cleaned up very nicely.

 

5 hours ago, PattheCat said:

 

Ooch! I've got one in the piles (SF-37). That bad?

 

They're not an easy kit to build by any means, fit and joins are the worst issue I found, plus other than drop tanks no stores either.

[PattheCat]

5 hours ago, JeroenS said:

Nah, you know Rich has nightmares all the time, he lives in Sidney's Suburbia in an overpriced house 

 

The one with the barbed wire, the armed guards and the huge black dogs? I thought it was an outbuilding of RAAF Richmond.

Sorry, @trickyrich ... couldn't resist. Any build thread of your SH Viggen? And thanks for your insight.

[trickyrich]

 

 I'm only about 20mins from Richmond Air Base actually, have Herc's and Globemaster's  flying overhead often which is cool! 

[JeroenS]

Fun fact, today I found out that Mr Surfacer 1500 Grey and Tamiya Sky Grey are (to the naked eye) exactly the same colour. I painted the underside today, and I could show you a picture, but nothing would have changed compared to the last batch of pictures!

 

I think I will lighten the Sky Grey a little and respray the underside, then darken it some and use that as the top colour. 

[JeroenS]

So... I lightened the Sky Grey and resprayed the underside. 

 

 

You'll have to take my word for it... 

 

Then I darkened the Skey Grey with Medium Grey and a little bit of Nato Black. 

 

 

Finally, some contrast. I was up for a challenge and freehanded the darker camo. My civilian trucks usually don't have camo schemes 🙂 

 

I think it came out ok. It was just the bit around the nose and on the intakes under the canard wings.

 

 

I also lightened the darker top panels a little bit but it's almost invisible on the pictures. 

 

 

At least there's some discolouration. It still looks awfully grey. 

 

 

[PattheCat]

44 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

At least there's some discolouration. It still looks awfully grey. 

 

 

Nice result. Don't bother further with the greys. It seems all Air Forces now apply something similar to Henry Ford motto for the T model "a customer can have a car painted any color he wants as long as it's black". Else, you can do some pre or post shading to help break the uniformity.

[trickyrich]

Very nice!  I can see the differences though as you can see they are very light,

 

These solid colours are very hard to get right, pre-shading and per-panel shading are quite important least you get a very flat finish. But all is not lost!

 

There are actually 2 ways you can do this sort of stuff, the more normal "pre-shading" stuff which we all do, or the later post-shading, which is a bit harder but just as effective! Now you have a nice completed finish, you start to mask off areas and re-paint them with slightly different shades of the original colours.

 

I do this a lot with solid overall colours, do all the pre-shading stuff, then once the main colours are done then re-work some of the panel colours. Is a bit time consuming (though not if you're using lacquer paints) but will give you an amazing effects!

 

At this stage I'd say forget about making the deadline and work on getting the finish right, for a (amazing) non-aircraft builder you're doing a fantastic job, keep at it and you'll have a stunning build! 

[JeroenS]

26 minutes ago, trickyrich said:

At this stage I'd say forget about making the deadline and work on getting the finish right

Thanks Rich, I'm waiting for the roundels which are on their way from Austria anyway, they will not make it before tomorrow so that deadline was already out of reach. Thanks for the tips, I guess I could still do some preshading now (totally forgot about that) and lightly respray the main colours, as I always mix way too much I still have plenty left 😄

 

And then do the panel masking thingy. 

[Orso]

 

I think that you did the right choice having the inner landing doors closed.  There is one thing you could do before painting it. The "flaps" on the canard wings folds when the landing gear is down.

 

I just scribe the panel lines on top and lower side of the canard's and bend the flaps down a bit. Looking forward to see it painted.

 

[JeroenS]

Thanks @Orso that is a really good reference shot! I'll see what I can do about those flaps, that shouldn't be too much of a problem and it's visually interesting. Looks like the main wing flaps are also drooping a little but less so. But I'm not going to touch those. 

 

So following @trickyrich's lead I went back and did some ... eehm... post-pre-shading 🙂 

 

I used the top color for the underside. 

 

 

And Nato Black for the top. 

 

 

Then lightly resprayed using the original colours. 

 

 

 

The top colour is actually darker in natural light. Following Björns reference shot I think I'll leave it at this and work on emphasizing some of the raises panel lines.