YF-23, Testors 1/72

[opus999]

I'm going to break from my usual WWII builds to do something that has been in the stash for quite a long time.

 

 

I got this not long after college and it was in the clearance bin at a local hobby shop.  It's funny, I wasn't really thrilled with the YF-23/YF-22 designs.  I think it's because I thought they were too fantastic to really fly -- they just didn't seem real.  In the last few years I've found I really like a lot of the gen 5 fighter designs I've seen, so its convenient that I've got one in the stash!

 

I remember the main reason I bought this was because I felt that "in the future" no one would remember the competitor to the F-22, so I bought it more for posterity, or as a neat conversation piece someday.  Remember, this is before the internet really took hold.  Turns out, lots of people remember the YF-23, in fact I saw a 1/144 scale YF-23 (from Trumpeter I believe) just in the last couple months at a local hobby store!

 

This kit has very few parts and some dry fitting has shown that it might be a challenge to glue it.  The parts have raised panel lines.  Now, those of you who've followed my builds before know that I like to sand off raised panel lines and then pencil them in at the end.  This time I've elected to scribe them since I plan to make the darker-colored YF-23 and I don't think the penciled-in lines will show.  The fact that they won't show is probably more realistic, but the scalloped panel lines on this fighter is one of its characteristic features, so I will sacrifice a little realism in order to highlight a feature of the jet.

 

 

The scribing was straight forward, but tedious.  I used dymo tape as a straight edge and a razor saw blade to scribe with.  It's the easiest way I know.  Despite the dymo tape a couple lines aren't always straight here and there.  I've forgotten how much I hate scribing so I'm glad it's done!

 

 

 

The weapons bay has some nice detail, but I'm going to have the doors closed so here are some pictures for posterity before I close it up for good.

 

 

 

I was able to apply a little primer to the cockpit, intakes and exhausts, but not much else.  The scribing took 5 nights, so I really feel I haven't gotten much traction on this build. Yet.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Oh I remember the F-23, I think it was a better design but politics killed it. The staff of the USAF didn't think that the company could handle the production of two major types simultaneously. The other being the B-2. However there is a bright side to the story. Northrup-Grumman has offered to help the JASDF develop their 5th/6th Gen. stealth fighter. The company hopes to use the F-23 and bring it up to current specs. 
 

https://youtu.be/fkvFLhX67-Q

 

[billn53]

I’m looking forward to seeing what you do with this build 🙂

[opus999]

2 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Oh I remember the F-23, I think it was a better design but politics killed it. The staff of the USAF didn't think that the company could handle the production of two major types simultaneously. The other being the B-2. However there is a bright side to the story. Northrup-Grumman has offered to help the JASDF develop their 5th/6th Gen. stealth fighter. The company hopes to use the F-23 and bring it up to current specs. 
 

https://youtu.be/fkvFLhX67-Q

 

I know they resurrected it in 2004 (?) for a future light bomber proposal the USAF had, but then cancelled.  It would be cool to see it developed into an operation aircraft!  Many of the things I read said it had a slight edge over the F-22 but, like you say, politics...

 

 

[Planebuilder62]

The intakes need a little work to form the internal ducting. I used a few rounds of Milliput on mine. Do you have a set of Caracal decals for this one?
regards Toby

[opus999]

Progress was slower than I anticipated yesterday.  Despite having the house to myself all day, I wasn't able to get to the bench until late afternoon and then progress was slow.  I painted light ghost gray in the cockpit and intakes.  I didn't take any photos because I'm not done painting the cockpit yet.  A note about the cockpit:  The seat provided in the kit is actually really pretty good by early 1990's standards, however I ordered a resin seat anyway, because the detail will be far better.  I am going to continue ahead without it since I should be able to drop it in the cockpit at any time (possibly with some modifications to make it fit).

 

I had painted the IP gloss black for applying the decal.  Interesting how the decal and the IP raised detail are completely different!

 

 

I could've just painted the IP, but I wanted to try the decals.  When I was in middle school and high school, I built a lot of Testors kits and their decals had this weird gunk on them that turned brown within only a few months.  It was tremendously frustrating.  Sometime in the late 80's or early 90's the decals got changed to fix the issue.  So, yesterday the question was:  were these the old, cruddy decals?

 

Turns out they were. I ended up separating the decal completely from the paper, and then did my best to remove every trace of the milky substance that had come from the decal paper.  That was extremely difficult and I really didn't want to do that with all the decals.  So off to the internet I went to see if there were any aftermarkets.  Talk about luck and timing... Caracal just re-released their Cartograf-made YF-23 decals in late December!  And so...

 

13 hours ago, Planebuilder62 said:

Do you have a set of Caracal decals for this one?

Yes! They are on their way!

 

I then painted the exhausts.  I used Alclad magnesium and steel on the outsides of these pieces and Alclad Jet Exhaust on the insides of the "tubes"

 

 

I only used Jet Exhaust once almost 10 years ago.  I found it makes a very sooty looking finish.  Very nice!

 

I also painted these areas with steel and applied jet exhaust over them

 

 

 

Unfortunately the picture doesn't really show the contrast between the steel and the jet exhaust, which is much more evident in real life.

 

Luckily, these areas look like they will be easy to mask!

 

So today I will finish the cockpit, put the intake and exhaust pieces in, add nose weight and glue the fuselage halves together.

 

Hopefully.

 

The intakes look a little fiddly...

 

13 hours ago, Planebuilder62 said:

The intakes need a little work to form the internal ducting. I used a few rounds of Milliput on mine.

This is good information!  I'd suspected as much.  We'll see how it goes.

[opus999]

Yesterday I started things by determining how much nose weight to add.  The instructions called for 3/4 oz. but when I weighed out 3/4 oz. of lead sinkers, there was no way they'd fit in the nose!  So, I did a test of the center of balance without any nose weight and it looked OK:

 

 

But, to be on the safe side, I put a couple lead sinkers in the nose anyway.

 

 

Next, I finished the cockpit by doing some silver dry brushing and I dry brushed behind the seat with dark gull gray to bring out the detail.

 

 

 

I then put together the intakes and used quite a bit of apoxie sculpt epoxy putty to not only seal the gaps, but to try and hold everything together because the fit was so bad!

 

 

I got the exhausts glued in

 

 

Finally it was time to put the fuselage halves together.  The pieces were warped so it took a lot of clothes pins to make sure everything stayed together.  At the cockpit, one side had no gap, and the other side had a large gap, so I used a clamp to eliminate the gap.  It took some pressure to close it up and I was worried it might come apart when I released the clamp.  I released the clamp this morning and so far so good.

 

 

There's a ton of filling that needs to be done, so I expect a day of work before I can consider painting.  Didn't get to it today because my wife and I were replacing some stair treads.  Maybe tomorrow?

[opus999]

Yesterday I worked on filling the terrible gaps in the seams.  Here's an example:

 

 

I bulk-filled with Tamiya putty, and used some CA on top of that in places.  I sanded everything flush and smooth and then rescribed where necessary.

 

 

Yes, the width of the white filler is really the width of the gaps in the seams.  It really was that bad.

 

Finally, I got the tail surfaces on.  There were tabs that fit into slots in the fuselage, but the slots weren't holes and the tabs were too deep so there was daylight all along the seam except for where the tab was.  I had to trim those down and had a good solid join all along the tail pieces, but there really was no guidance for the angle.  The pieces didn't lock into place, they were just really loosey goosey.  I had a front-on picture of a YF-23 on the tarmac and used that to get the angles right.

 

 

Next up, masking and painting primer.

[AdrianMF]

Gosh that's a difficult kit! But you look to be taming it. I've always thought that the 23 looks much better than the 22.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[opus999]

16 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Gosh that's a difficult kit! But you look to be taming it. I've always thought that the 23 looks much better than the 22.

 

Regards,

Adrian

Yeah, it's coming along.  A lot better than I thought it would actually.  I don't know if it's the kit, the age or the combination of both, but the fit has been less than stellar.  I'm pretty excited to have it looking like a full airplane at this point!

[opus999]

I've been thinking a bit about painting.  When I first bought the kit I wanted to do "grey ghost" (87-0801), which had a two tone gray camo.  Now, I've leaned toward "spider" (87-0800), which is a uniform dark gray, mainly because of the black widow hourglass on the bottom.

 

Although this was a prototype and I wouldn't expect it to be very dirty, picture show interesting variance in the color of the aircraft.

 

Ray Wagner Collection Image YF-23
SDASM Archives, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

 

YF-23 top view
U.S. Air Force, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

What makes this more difficult is that, depending on the lighting, the aircraft can look very dark or very light. In this picture with its sister, it looks very dark and a lot of the color variation disappears.

 

Northrop YF-23 DFRC
NASA/DFRC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Two YF-23 in formation
USAF, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

So, the trick is going to be getting that variation in the paint without over doing it.  I think I will create the pattern over a black base and then lightly apply the top coat. In other words... I'll be winging it.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

44 minutes ago, opus999 said:

Yeah, it's coming along.  A lot better than I thought it would actually.  I don't know if it's the kit, the age or the combination of both, but the fit has been less than stellar.  I'm pretty excited to have it looking like a full airplane at this point!

It’s a Testor’s kit, they were never known for good fit. The up side was they did some interesting subjects. 

[opus999]

13 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

It’s a Testor’s kit, they were never known for good fit. The up side was they did some interesting subjects. 

I loved Testors kits in Middle and High-School.  But then, I wasn't all that concerned with fit! You're right though, I remember they had some interesting subjects, which might be whiy I liked them so much.

[scautomoton]

I really want to do one of these. The issue is a) finding a kit for sale and, b) finishing the myriad others I have on the go..... Plus, I don't think my paint skills are good enough to try that level of weathered mottling of the paint. I'll be watching in earnest to see how you achieve it.

[Navy Bird]

18 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

It’s a Testor’s kit, they were never known for good fit. The up side was they did some interesting subjects. 

 

This is an Italeri kit. I have this same Testors boxing in my stash, and it says made in Italy, both on the box and on the bag that contains the sprues. The Italeri logo is on both ends of the box, plus the sprues are labelled 191A and 191B - the Italeri catalog number is 191.

 

From the now-defunct yf-23.net website:

 

Italeri was the first company in the world to release a scale model of the YF-23. Considering the lack of information at the time, it was not a bad effort. It was not up to the standard of Hasegawa, it did not have recessed panel lines, but nevertheless it was a start. The tooling actually depicted PAV-1 only; no separate parts were included for PAV-2's distinctive trough and shroud. The decals included markings for PAV-2 nevertheless, but they were pretty basic and not comprehensive enough to do a good job. The kit was then picked up by Testors (nos 657 and 0191) as they had an existing relationship with Italeri. Revell then reissued this tooling some years later (no 4326), followed by Tamiya (no 60715). It is dimensionally accurate, but will need some refinement to make an accurate model. The really frustrating thing was that none of the decal sheets that came with any release were accurate nor complete. Each one was either missing something or was printed in the wrong colour or shape. Caracal Models have now remedied that problem with a new decal sheet dedicated to the YF-23.

 

Dragon also released a kit of the YF-23 which was a different tooling, but it had some serious contour inaccuracies and is not worth bothering with. It should be considered as no more than a toy.

 

Of course, it was the Dragon kit that I built back then! In any event, the YF-23 was a cool bird.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Just realised my Dragon YF-23 is still in my display case. I don't recall if the kit was designed this way, or if I hacked it up, but my model has the slats and flaps lowered, plus the vertical fins/tailplanes posed in a non-neutral position. I think the "contour inaccuracy" comment is concerning the spine. I wouldn't call it a toy though. It has recessed panel lines, but the bomb bay is moulded shut.

[opus999]

21 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

This is an Italeri kit. I have this same Testors boxing in my stash, and it says made in Italy, both on the box and on the bag that contains the sprues. The Italeri logo is on both ends of the box, plus the sprues are labelled 191A and 191B - the Italeri catalog number is 191.

 

From the now-defunct yf-23.net website:

 

Italeri was the first company in the world to release a scale model of the YF-23. Considering the lack of information at the time, it was not a bad effort. It was not up to the standard of Hasegawa, it did not have recessed panel lines, but nevertheless it was a start. The tooling actually depicted PAV-1 only; no separate parts were included for PAV-2's distinctive trough and shroud. The decals included markings for PAV-2 nevertheless, but they were pretty basic and not comprehensive enough to do a good job. The kit was then picked up by Testors (nos 657 and 0191) as they had an existing relationship with Italeri. Revell then reissued this tooling some years later (no 4326), followed by Tamiya (no 60715). It is dimensionally accurate, but will need some refinement to make an accurate model. The really frustrating thing was that none of the decal sheets that came with any release were accurate nor complete. Each one was either missing something or was printed in the wrong colour or shape. Caracal Models have now remedied that problem with a new decal sheet dedicated to the YF-23.

 

Dragon also released a kit of the YF-23 which was a different tooling, but it had some serious contour inaccuracies and is not worth bothering with. It should be considered as no more than a toy.

 

Of course, it was the Dragon kit that I built back then! In any event, the YF-23 was a cool bird.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Just realised my Dragon YF-23 is still in my display case. I don't recall if the kit was designed this way, or if I hacked it up, but my model has the slats and flaps lowered, plus the vertical fins/tailplanes posed in a non-neutral position. I think the "contour inaccuracy" comment is concerning the spine. I wouldn't call it a toy though. It has recessed panel lines, but the bomb bay is moulded shut.

 

 

I'm glad I decided to do PAV-1, then!  I have noticed in the pictures at least one difference between PAV-1 and PAV-2:  On the top, just forward of the exhaust openings, the demarcation between the  bare metal and the paint on PAV-1 is a straight line from port to starboard, while on PAV-2 it is a series of radar-reflection triangles.  That could easily be replicated through scribing and paint, though so it isn't a fatal flaw.  With all the studying of photos I've done in the last couple weeks, I feel this kit is really, really close shapewise.

[opus999]

Got some painting done today.  Yesterday, I attached the masked canopy (still waiting for the seat to come though, so it will have to come back off) and masked the exhausts.

 

 

 

This morning I started off with Mr. Surfacer 1500 black

 

 

It's pretty cool in black -- looks like how we all envisioned "stealth fighters" in the late '80s/ early '90s.

 

Then, I sprayed all the white parts white.

 

 

 

and I finally got down to business.  Since the color matched the one in this picture:

 

YF-23 top view
U.S. Air Force, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

That's what I used for a reference.  So, after some marbling and detail painting I had this for a base:

 

 

 

 

I then lightly sprayed the top coat over that until it matched the photo.

 

 

 

The pictures don't quite do it justice.  In real life you can see the subtle variation in the color.  I over did the top coat on the starboard wing though, so I'm going to try to fix that tonight.

[Vultures1]

Very nice marbling and shading effects! That's looking good 

[Thom216]

Nice effect with the paint.

[Navy Bird]

Nicely done.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[opus999]

I was able to fix the paint on the starboard wing so that it matches the port wing.  Now it's just waiting for the seat and the decals.

 

Through the wonders of modern technology I was able to nearly real-time track my decals the 190-ish miles from Austin Texas to Dallas Texas, whcih took 4 whole days, which is an average of 8 miles an hour. 

 

They should be here in 3 or 4 weeks 😜

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

3 hours ago, opus999 said:

I was able to fix the paint on the starboard wing so that it matches the port wing.  Now it's just waiting for the seat and the decals.

 

Through the wonders of modern technology I was able to nearly real-time track my decals the 190-ish miles from Austin Texas to Dallas Texas, whcih took 4 whole days, which is an average of 8 miles an hour. 

 

They should be here in 3 or 4 weeks 😜

Ahhh pony express delivery I see. 

[opus999]

Hooray!

 

 

These actually arrived Thursday evening, but I was busy Thursday night and all day Friday, so I couldn't get to them until today.

 

The instructions said to use the lighter decals on the left for PAV-1.  The decals looked the same on the right and the left, which worried me.  Then, I was afraid they'd be too dark.  When compared to the Testors decals they were a little darker than the Testors decals used for PAV-1 (Testors on the left in the photo).

 

 

I needn't have worried... they know what they're doing!

 

 

Getting things lined up correctly was difficult with all the curves and contours, but I think it looks right.

 

The Caracal decals came with 50 stencils.  They were teeny-tiny... probably half the size of the ones on the Testors sheet.

 

 

So, I have a protective gloss coat to put on tonight, and then I can do some very very light weathering tomorrow.  After that, everything is on hold while waiting for the bang seat.

[bigbadbadge]

Great work so far, looks great, love the surface colour variation you've achieved in the photo above.

Chris

[opus999]

Sunday I applied dull coat to all the parts. I painted a couple of antennas -- there are a couple on PAV 1 that are red and a couple that are a light grey, like a light ghost gray.  I also put some faint exhaust streaking on the bottom coming from the vents, since I observed that in some of the underside pictures.  Somehow, I didn't get pictures of these, but I'll see what I can do.

 

Quiet week at the bench.  I only worked on this one night this week.  It was one of those "mask for 45 minutes, paint for 5" sessions.  It was masking and painting the area around the engine exhuasts.

 

Here it is all masked up

 

 

Here's the finished product:

 

 

I used Mr. Color super stainless, with some Alclad Magnesium dusted over it to cut down the shine.  I like that.

 

My seat is scheduled to arrive tomorrow (we'll see how that turns out...), so I'll paint and install that.  I also need to paint the vents and put the landing gears together.