Golden Hawks Canadair Sabre

[81-er]

Big progress since the last update. All of the seams are dealt with (well, until the primer shows up what I’ve missed), and the tail feathers are on:

 

 

I’ve also fitted the frame behind the pilot, which for some reason I’d originally interpreted as being fixed to the canopy. The small clear part that sits on top was given a dab of clear red on the inside, then dipped in Aqua Gloss and then fixed to the brace when dry. I gave it all a wash of Nuln Oil to bring out the detail and add some grime:

 

 

A close up shot of the tail end:

 

 

The horizontal stabilisers were a loose fit in the fuselage, but some 10thou plasticard shims sorted that.

 

The rear of the landing light panel was given a coat of Molotow chrome, which looks rather effective from the other side:

 

 

 

The canopy parts were masked on the inside using the Eduard set, my first time painting the inside of a canopy:

 

 

Those and the gunsight got a coat first thing this morning, I’ll unmask later to see what I’ve really got, but it’s looking good at the moment:

 

 

James

[Tony Edmundson]

That rear canopy part, IS fixed to the canopy !

 

Tony

 

ps, for an Orenda powered Sabre, fill in that hole on the starboard aft section, the LH fuselage fuel filler was moved to the RH side, approx same relative location.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Tony Edmundson

[81-er]

Thanks Tony, I'll get that filled in. I think perhaps I could have been clearer in my explanation, I meant that it appeared I needed to attach it to the canopy first, but realised that wasn't the case. She's being built with a closed canopy anyway

 

James

[81-er]

I left off last time having just sprayed the inside of the canopies. Unmasking them revealed excellent results:

 

 

 

The apparent misalignment on the screen framing is just the angle of the photo, and the muck on the main canopy thankfully buffed off.

 

The gunsight looks pretty good in place:

 

 

After procrastinating for quite a while (with no good reason), I got the Eduard belts out:

 

 

Reading the instructions, I realised I should have opened up two slots in the sides of the set for the lap belts, but I didn’t fancy doing that now and messing up the paintwork, so I cheated and posed them sort-of like the were attached to the back corners of the seat. I set them folded back on themselves a bit to both take up the extra length and look like the pilot had just shoved them back after getting out. The whole lot was then given a coat a Nuln Oil:

 

 

It looks pretty good in place:

 

 

 

After that, I masked up the exterior of the canopy parts with the intention of giving them an external coat of the interior colour, followed by the exterior colours when they were attached to the fuselage. All went well with the main canopy, but I had a bit of a mishap with the screen. After getting it masked, I tried to use some Blu Tack to fix it to the painting clip. Well, I popped the Blu Tack on the back, then felt it needed some assistance in grabbing on, so I pushed it down onto the screen with it face down on the cutting mat. Which is when I heard the crack. I took the masking off, and I now have two front screens 🤦‍♂️ :

 

 

Annoying, as I was hoping to have the main airframe painted this weekend. Never mind, I’m sure the nice people at Airfix can get me a spare quickly. We’ve still got 2 months left after all, so still on track. I also filled the hole on the starboard fuselage @Tony Edmundson mentioned. For now, any further progress will be cleaning up the landing gear, tanks, misc. small parts etc.

 

James

[arfa1983]

Oh man that really sucks espe after such a crisp masking job!

[RaceAddict]

Ouch! I felt that... 😬

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

So sorry to see that.

[PhantomBigStu]

The worst sound in modelling is a canopy cracking….the person at airfix is very helpful particularly when you make it clear you are willing to pay a few quid for the part so fingers crossed 

[81-er]

Thanks folks. Email sent to Airfix support, admitting that it's my error and enquiring about the cost of a replacement. May be some time from the automated reply, but it's not like we're days away from the deadline on this one, so it should all be good  Besides, it's given me an excuse to try and get some of those long-running projects a bit more of a push towards the finish line. I may even manage to post my first RFI, just 15months after signing up 🤣

 

James

[zebra]

Oh no! I felt a bit sick when I scrolled down and saw the photo, you must have felt ten times worse when it happened. You'd done such a great job painting the frames as well. Fingers crossed that Airfix will send you a replacement quickly.

[Viking]

Oh no! After all that hard work and such a good result with the windshield. I'm sure Airfix will sort you out, I've found their replacement service very good.

Looking forward to you getting back on track and completing this,

 

Cheers

 

John

[81-er]

Thanks guys. I usually have at least one "oh you <expletive> idiot" moment on each build, but I think this one takes the biscuit. I've turned my attentions to finishing my Hellcat build (updates still to come on that), which should have a pretty good chance of making it over the line just a year after the Hellcat GB ended 🤣

 

James

[PlaStix]

Well. It was looking absolutely superb up until the 'incident'! I've done exactly the same in the past with an airfix Spitfire canopy. So easy to do. Airfix were great at sorting out a replacement. Can't remember how much it cost though.

Hope you get sorted soon, because it should look superb eventually.

Kind regards,

Stix

[81-er]

Airfix customer service has been excellent. Even though I made it clear that the damage was my fault and enquired about a replacement cost in my original message, they've very kindly stuck a replacement in the post free of charge for me. On top of that, while their auto response to my original message said they were very busy at this time that spare part was in the post less than 48hr after I contacted them, and one of those days was Sunday. Very impressed at that.

 

James

[81-er]

My replacement windscreen arrived from Airfix today, or more specifically, the entire clear sprue! Now all I need is the time to get it painted and fitted...

 

James

[zebra]

18 hours ago, 81-er said:

My replacement windscreen arrived from Airfix today, or more specifically, the entire clear sprue! Now all I need is the time to get it painted and fitted...

 

James

That's quick! Superb service from Airfix.

[81-er]

It’s been a while since I updated this. Work and a bought of Covid have kept my bench time down, but I’m on the mend now.

 

As mentioned previously, Airfix very kindly sent me the whole clear sprue. I’ve used the front canopy part from that and stashed the rest. Unfortunately, I’d previously binned the inner paint masks as I wasn’t expecting to need them again, so the replacement has only been painted from the outside. Getting it and the main canopy fitted was an absolute nightmare. The front part was slightly better, just hard to clamp in place, but getting the main canopy to fit was the biggest trial. It was a case of glue where I can and use filler to cover the gaps. I had a couple of gaps between the two bits of canopy, so I used a clear UV glue to seal that.

 

Having said all of that, it’s not looking too bad now with the canopy on and the wing tips/ailerons fitted as well:

 

 

 

I’ve also painted the wheel wells in interior green:

 

 

That was another awful job that was entirely my fault. For anyone else thinking of building this, paint all the parts of the gear bays before assembly, then do any touch-ups needed after that. Otherwise, you’ll have an awful lot of bits you just can’t get paint into with an airbrush.

 

The eagle-eyed may have noticed I’ve changed the landing light panel ahead of the nose gear; I’ve changed my mind and decided to display it with the landing lights down.

 

I’ve cleaned up and mounted the majority of the landing gear components, ready for painting:

 

 

The main doors are also cleaned up, they just need mounting:

 

 

And the drop tanks are underway. A little more filling and sanding required, but they’re close:

 

 

Shouldn’t be much longer now until paint time.

 

James

[81-er]

I got the main airframe primed last night. A few small areas to attend to, but much less than I was expecting:

 

 

 

As this is my first time using Alclad paints, I figured some tests were in order. So the landing gear legs got a coat of aluminium, and the gear doors got a coat of the pale gold that I’d earmarked as the external colour:

 

 

 

I must say, I’m impressed! It went on really easily and with a nice flat finish. The colours are good as well.

 

I’ll attend to the flaws the primer showed up, and then I think a bit of a colour test is in order to decide which of the three shades of aluminium I’ll actually be using in each location.

 

James

[81-er]

It’s been a while since I last updated this, but work has been continuing. All of the landing gear doors now have Alclad pale gold applied to the outside face, and dark aluminium applied to the other faces. For some reason this photo has come out very dark, the darkest bits are actually more like the colour of the lightest areas in this shot:

 

 

I did a somewhat less than stellar job of cleaning up the kit wheels while I had Covid, So I ordered some Eduard Brassin replacements. These were spayed with Tamiya rubber black and the dark aluminium Alclad:

 

 

In preparation for the gold, I sprayed the leading edges of the wings, tail, and tailplanes in Alclad aluminium, and the outside of the exhaust and the intake in duraluminium. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of that until I was almost done with the masking for the gold:

 

 

In hindsight, I think it would have been far easier to spray the gold first, then mask the silver areas and paint them after! The observant may have noticed I haven’t entirely masked the full extent of the silver to the face of the fin, as trying to get it to run down to nothing over the curve was a challenge beyond my abilities. After the gold is on and cured, I’ll remask that area and spray the aluminium again as masking off the areas to stay gold is a far easier task!

 

I did manage to finish the masking last night:

 

 

And got the first coat of the gold over the fuselage and upper surfaces:

 

 

I’ll aim to get the underside painted this evening, after which I imagine there’ll be a few areas that will need additional coats (as I’ve already spotted a few). The photos of the actual machines used seem to show very little discolouration or variance in the gold paint (which would make sense for display aircraft repainted each season), so I’ll be aiming for as uniform a finish as I can get.

 

I grabbed a couple of daylight shots in the slightly dull daylight before I left for work this morning. Overall pretty happy, but the starboard side is definitely not as even as the port side:

 

 

 

My plan is to leave the anti-glare panel and the radome until after the main decals and clear coat are on, as the overall airframes were gloss and only the radome, anti-glare panel and front screen surround were matt black. The theory is that I’ll only have to mask those areas once this way.

 

James

[zebra]

Coming along nicely, the gold has worked out really well. Looking forward to seeing this with decals on.

[81-er]

Thanks Julien. There's still a few more coats of the gold to go to get it even, particularly as it's shown up that not all of the primer was as smooth as I thought! Lesson learnt, Alclad really shows up the underlying texture if the primer isn't super smooth. It's a relatively minor issue though.

 

I don't want to jinx it, but this might actually be the first GB model that I finish within the timeframe...

 

James

[Viking]

Steady progress! The gold looks nice and building it up in a few layers is the way to go. Good work on replacing the canopy too,!

[81-er]

Only a small update today, as not much got done over the weekend. I still wasn’t happy with some of the rough areas, so I gave the whole model a go over with a 2500 grit Meng sanding pad, which made everything much, much smoother. Lesson learnt for the future, get the primer really smooth before starting the Alclad!

 

After that, I managed to get a coat of gold over everything between a couple of airbrushing sessions:

 

 

 

There’s a couple of areas I’d still like to give another go with the sanding pad before the next coat, but overall I’m really happy with how it’s coming out. Noticeably on the areas that I’d painted previously, particularly the fuselage sides. Unfortunately the underside seam has made itself known again, but I’m just going to live with it. I figure that I’d got rid of it twice previously, so if it’s back for a 3rd time it’s just going to keep coming back. Besides, who looks at the bottom of models?

 

James

[zebra]

11 hours ago, 81-er said:

Besides, who looks at the bottom of models?

That’s often my philosophy!

[RC Boater Bill]

On 8/22/2022 at 4:16 PM, zebra said:

That’s often my philosophy!

Me too- “ I don’t display my models upside down” is my mantra.