1/72 F-5A Norwegian Tiger

[Planebuilder62]

Hi there

As I am on a bit of a roll painting yellow and black I thought this model might fit into this GB. Here is the box, sprue and decal shots. During its life 134 went though a number of tiger stripe changes, later in life they were consigned to the nose only. BTW I am open to suggestions how to get the black tiger stripes right. On to the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regards Toby

 

 

 

[Vingtor]

Unfortunately, some of the items on this decal sheet seems to be wrongly sized.

[modelling minion]

Welcome to the GB Toby and with a superb choice, I love the F-5 family and think that the scheme you have chosen is one of the most striking worn by them. The kit is a good one as its the old ESCI one which I have built and enjoyed so I am keen to see how you get on. 

[Planebuilder62]

Thanks about the tip @Vingtor, I will find  a workaround somehow.

 

Thankyou @modelling minion for the welcome. Yes, this is a nice kit. I built one before, this time it will be the colour scheme that takes the time.

 

Regards Toby

Edited August 29 by Planebuilder62
typo

[81-er]

Welcome to the GB Toby  You've chosen a subject and scheme that's guaranteed to stand out here

 

James

[Planebuilder62]

Here is question to the BM hive mind.

 

To assemble the fuselage on this kit, is it best to follow the instructions or to glue each nose side to the fuselage side first?

 

Regards Toby

[Planebuilder62]

Well, after studying some of the Esci F-5 builds in the earlier F-5 STGB I found the answer to my own question so I have deviated from the instructions about the fuselage. Great stuff here on Britmodeller. 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

 

Coming soon will be some spreaders to help the rear fuselage match the bottom part.

 

Pictures to follow in a day or two.

 

Regards Toby

[modelling minion]

I would join each nose to fuselage Toby, sorry for the slow reply.

[Vingtor]

Join the fuselage sides first. Otherwise you might get a join that is not very smooth.

 

Nils

[Planebuilder62]

Hi there

Fuselage fronts glued to rears done, thanks for the tips on that @Vingtor and @modelling minion. Spacers fitted to avoid a step glueing the bottom on.

 

Some filling as needed and this is where the model is now ready for primer.

 

 

 

Regards Toby

 

 

 

 

[modelling minion]

That worked very well Toby and shows what a great looking aircraft the F-5 is. 

[81-er]

That's looking good, Toby. I've built this kit myself and know full well that the fit is far from perfect, but you appear to have that under control

James

[Planebuilder62]

Well painting has started, and its been a trial error exercise to find the right shade of yellow. The first attempt was to use Mr Color RLM 04 which looked a bit dirty of all things. Trial no 2 was Tamiya yellow from their lacqeur range. Nice and bright, but a bit too yellow like this :

 

 

Then I tried what I think was best, Tamiya Chrome yellow misted over in thin layers after being decanted into a very small jam jar. I did not want to re-create the same solid chrome yellow as my recent B24 Assembly ship. Here it is:

 

 

Next up is to mask and paint the rest of the easy bits. For the Tiger stripes I will try 2 solutions. At the front with the wider strips, I will use thin strips of masking tape cut with wiggly edges followed by the black. For the rear, the black stripes are much shorter and thinner. Here I plan to paint the back end of the model black and then use very small Blu tack sausages for the black areas, followed by the grey.

 

Regards Toby

 

[modelling minion]

Good choice on the yellow Toby, I look forward to seeing how you get on with the stripes.

[81-er]

Nice job with painting the yellow, Toby, I like the colour too

 

James

[Planebuilder62]

Well the stripes on the front part of the plane have been masked.The back of the plane will have blu tack sausages for the tiger stripes as they have a slightly different style than the stripes over the yellow. Make sense ? , maybe. Any way here is the black paint on and the masking removed. Some fine oversray on the edges of the stripes is whats needed next I think.

 

 

 

Regards Toby

[modelling minion]

Well I think that the stripes have worked very well Toby. 

[81-er]

That is very striking!

 

James

[Vingtor]

I checked the yellow colour on the other RNoAF F-5A tiger (208) at the Gardermoen museum today. It seems that RAL 1033 was used. A less bright yellow than what you have used. Assumedly the same colour/paint was used on 134.

[Planebuilder62]

Thanks Nils for the info, I think I will stay with the yellow used.

 

Since posting yesterday I misted over a thin coat of clear orange as the yellow did not quite look right. Like most planes, the exact shade of the original colour depends on the weather when the photo was taken and the film/camera settings. I also softened down the edges of the black stripes by spraying a very thin freehand soft edge to the stripes to more closely replicate the original plane.

 

Here is the state of play today.

 

 

Regards Toby

[modelling minion]

Thats softened the edges nicely Toby. 

[Planebuilder62]

Well I went a bit overboard on softening the black stripe edges and now there is not enough yellow left. Had I used black enamel I could have easily removed it but the laquer dries to fast for that and would have taken off the yellow as well. Hey ho, re-learning something I already knew. Next step is a new layer of grey primer followd by pink and yellow again. Then its plan B for the black stripes.

 

 

Regards Toby

[modelling minion]

Sorry to hear that you are having to redo the yellow and then the stripes Toby, I hope that it goes well. 

[Planebuilder62]

Here we again with nice yellow model plane. Only Tamiya TS Chrome yellow used this time.

 

 

My friend Dag Roger in my local IPMS branch who knows there is to know about F-5 kindly pointed out that the RWR receivers are missing from the nose and the fin. The nose sensors will need a bit of trial and error plastic surgery. In parallel I will be trying out blu tack masked stripes on my paint mule this time.

 

Regards Toby

[modelling minion]

Thats a nice smooth coat of yellow, I hope that the blu-tak masks get the results you want. Interested to see how you tackle the sensors.