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1/72 Tamiya F4D-1 Skyray


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Just finished this up. Built from the box with kit decals.

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A lesson learned during this build - don't mask the canopy before you glue it on lest you find that glue squished behind the canopy only after pulling the tape off as the very last step of the build:

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My handy dandy quick fix - turn it the other way on the shelf and move on to the next one:

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Cheers, Jack

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Very nice! I just put the primer on mine last night. I don't think I'll be taking macro shots through the canopy though....

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Thanks very much for the compliments guys. The kit decals performed nicely Silverkite. They fit well in the end, but getting them there was a bit tricky in spots. The fuel tanks and intakes in particular. On those areas I had to focus on alignment first and just let it buckle up in some spots. I used very hot water (boling from the microwave), placed the decals paying attention mainly to alignment and used a little bit of Mr. Mark Sofentner at this point on the compound curves of the fuel tanks and intakes as well as the over lapping edges at the fin, spine and wing tips. After they dried enough to show the panel lines, I used a new #11 blade and gently traced along the panels. Given the number of panels on the bottom, I was actually cutting some of these decals into a lot of pieces - you can see where I lost a bit of the star/bar on the underside doing this. I left it off thinking it looked a bit like a replacement panel or something along those lines. I then put a bit of Mr. Mark Softener along the cuts to suck the edges down. After drying over night there were some spots at the tips of the fuel tanks and the lip of the intake that buckled and wrinkled. I scraped away the wrinkles revealing white but smoothing out the surface. For the intakes, I used scraps of red cut from other marking options on the sheet (I think the shade is a bit off and using scrap decals from the same sheet ensured a match) to patch up these spots. I used MM Insignia Blue to touch up the blue areas I scraped away at as well as some touch up where the decals didn't exactly meet such as the wingtips and trailing edge of the fin. I had sprayed some spots on the fin and the recess on the spine behind the canopy with blue before applying the decals to help blend those areas when I cut and fitted the decals as well. Subsequent clear coats helped blend in the touch up spots nicely. If I were to do it again, I would still use the kit decals - they look good when all is said and done. Cheers - Jack

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