[factacnapalm]

Hi Erik

Great work, looks great

Have you given any thoughts to what paint brand you will use?

and have you decided on what paint scheme?

Bo

This post has been edited by factacnapalm: 30 January 2012 - 10:43 AM

[erik_g]

I will go for Asia Minor, the sand, brown and green scheme. I think I´ll raid the nearest Tamiya paint retailer and see if I can find something that fits reasonably well. I´m not a colour fascist, so if it looks right it probably is right. I only got old colour photographs printed in rather poor quality in old books, scanned at low quality then shown on a hand held telephone screen (with "retina display"..)to guide me - so I am sure I´ll find something that will look all right.

Speaking of colours..
I have not found any good pictures showing the colour of the intakes. My guess it that the outer parts, with the ramps, are grey, and the inner parts are white. But it would be nice if someone could confirm this.

/E

PS I´m NOT a spammer, even id I DO say jehova.. or isomething.. Stupid forum engine

This post has been edited by erik_g: 30 January 2012 - 11:08 AM

[Aigore]

Now, I like that plumbing!

Think you´re doing a terrific job superdetailing the Alicat

If you want to dampen the yellowish tint in the wheel bays you simply drybrush them with white.

[erik_g]

Thanks for the tip, Janne. I´ll try that!

/E

[Anders_Isaksson]

erik_g, on 30 January 2012 - 09:52 AM, said:

...
Have also been working on the air intakes, starting to grow tired of them now.
...

Used any Latex products yet?
And yes, talking about paint here...

[factacnapalm]

Hi Erik

You say "colour facist" like its a bad thing

Asia minor scheme is made by these FS colours:
Green : 34079
Dark tan : 30140
Light Tan : 30400
Light gray: 36622

36622 is easy, you can use Tamiya XF 19, Xtracolour 140, Modelmaster 1733, Hunbrol 28, Gunze 311 and WEM's ACUS 17
34079 is also easy, you can use Tamiya XF 27, Xtracolour 110, Modelmaster 1710, Humbrol 116, Gunze 309 and WEM's ACUS 20
30400 is a bit more trouble, you can use xtracolour 145 or mix it with humbrol paints (3 parts63 + 3 parts118 + 3 parts 34 + 2 parts 121)
30140 is even more trouble pollyscale P:500829 will do, Compucolour also made one (if you can find it) or again you can mix it from humbrol (4 parts 110 + 2 parts 62 + 1 part:113), I have mixed a tin of this and find that it come close to the colour chip in the federal standart chart

Given that the F-14 Tomcats where recived several years before the war, you can of course have some change in colour, my picture collection show that the green 34079 are most prone to fading, the darker tan also fades some
Today's Iranian air force aircraft look very well maintained and the colours look fresh, but since you are building a war aircraft I think you will be ok in allowing some change in the colour.

Hope this help, you can send me your email in a PM and I will email you some Iranian F-14 pics

Bo

erik_g, on 30 January 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

I will go for Asia Minor, the sand, brown and green scheme. I think I´ll raid the nearest Tamiya paint retailer and see if I can find something that fits reasonably well. I´m not a colour fascist, so if it looks right it probably is right.

[erik_g]

Anders_Isaksson, on 31 January 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

Used any Latex products yet?
And yes, talking about paint here...

Sure you are.. you dirty b*****d ;-)

I tried some, but it was messy as.. well.. it was messy..
The groundwork wasn´t good enough either, so while it did smooth out some wrinkles, it was no wonder cure. Also, I am probably not doing it right..

factacnapalm, on 31 January 2012 - 07:41 PM, said:

Hi Erik

You say "colour facist" like its a bad thing

Well, colour fascism, and AMS are extremely good things, as long as it affect others :-)

Thanks for the tips on colours. I have noted that at least the dark brown seems prone to fading. Some pics in the osprey book on Iranian tomcats shows a very distinct fading. I would like to replicate that.

I sent you a PM, thanks in advance!

/E

[Anders_Isaksson]

erik_g, on 31 January 2012 - 08:09 PM, said:

Sure you are.. you dirty b*****d ;-)

Who, me?

Seriously though, I hope you get past the intake assemblies soon.
They are indeed a pain but things will get better after that step.

[Aigore]

erik_g, on 31 January 2012 - 08:09 PM, said:

I tried some, but it was messy as.. well.. it was messy..
The groundwork wasn´t good enough either, so while it did smooth out some wrinkles, it was no wonder cure. Also, I am probably not doing it right..

It doesn´t have to be messy youn know

This is how you do it without getting dirty.... about halfway down on the page

http://s362974870.on...ic=233871&st=60

[erik_g]

Thanks Janne, I obviously did it the wrong way the first time, but it didn´t turn out better the second time. I just think these intakes don´t fit well with this technique - or I have the wrong kind of paint. It´s obviously not me :-D

Anyway. Progress has been slow but steady. I´ve so far attached one intake, finished both main gears and main gear bays. started on the armament, on the exhausts, continued on the front fuselage and so on. Not much to show, but I´ll show you what I have:


This is the front fuselage (duh!).. the nose cone is thoroughly glued in place with a lot of super glue, which doubled as a filler. In most places it looks good. Need some work in other. On the left side there are a lot of separate panels for the gun, avionics bays and the crew ladder. If done carefully, the fit is good, and the seam lines mostly disappear under a layer of primer.


There are some lines that need fixing. The two part ladder door left a huge gap that I plugged with some plasticard. There is a gap in the bottom of the fuselage in need of fixing too. The panels on the side looks better in real life, so I don´t think I will need to fix them much.


I have added plasticard to the inner side of the intake ducts. This is because HB left a gap on the inner side, that the intake ramps don´t quite manage to hide. As you can see, not much is really needed, but I wanted to cover an ugly seam inside the duct also, so I built a complete inner wall. The inner ramp must be thinned down some to fit.


The intake fit nicely to the fuselage. The outer seam and the rear seam are looking fine underneath a coat of primer. Note the dry fitted wheel bay. The surrounding area will be painted before the bay is glued in place. Makes masking simpler.


The inside however.. but this is probably all my fault. The plasticard added to the intake is just a fraction of a millimetre to tall I think. It fitted nicely when I placed the intake and applied force, but after a while the seam expanded. I tried to clamp the parts together, but there are no good places to put the clamp, so I will adress this seam with some stretched styrene in the future - or not.. I´m not placing this on a mirror, so it will not be visible.


Both main gear legs and main gear bays are finished. The legs had not yet received a wash when I took this picture - but they have now.


Before finishing up the nose gear leg I wanted to attach the "missing landing light". I thought that there was a transparent part for the light, that should go on to that "nub" that is placed at the location of the light. Turns out the "nub" IS the light. There is no call-out for any transparent part on the instructions, nor is there any suitable part on the transparent sprue. But I spiced up the landing light by removing the nub, drilling out a reflector. I used a small piece of wire as "light bulb", and a punched disc of transparent plasticard as a glass pane. Looks OK I think. A more thorough modeller would work on the reflector some more to get that chrome shine.

Finally a friendly wink to one of my favourite model building story tellers on this forum..


:-)

/E

[Aigore]

Sweet! Great attention to details as usual,Erik!

Impressive artistic skills as well, you should really consider a career change

[JesniF-16]

Great work so far! I am following this build with interest cuz i'm building the same kit. What do you advanced modellers use for pipe fasteners? The gear bays are unbelievable, they look great, perfect amount of detail added IMO. As for the nose gear light and the HUD lense (think thats what it's called) why so many clear parts, but nothing useful ? Oh well. Keep up the great work.

[erik_g]

Thanks JesniF-16. My pipe-fasteners are nothing more fancy than a bit of black paint as the rubber gasket and a smaller bit of silver as the fastener. But I've seen modellers using tamiya tape, lead foil or aluminium foil as fasteners. I think the paint trick worked reasonably well in this case.

Janne, a career change AWAY from being an illustrator you mean? :-D

/E

[Aigore]

erik_g, on 06 February 2012 - 11:14 PM, said:

Thanks JesniF-16. My pipe-fasteners are nothing more fancy than a bit of black paint as the rubber gasket and a smaller bit of silver as the fastener. But I've seen modellers using tamiya tape, lead foil or aluminium foil as fasteners. I think the paint trick worked reasonably well in this case.

Janne, a career change AWAY from being an illustrator you mean? :-D

/E

LOL
To be honest, I didn´t really know what you did for a living
Thought you were in the line of collecting empty cans in a shopping trolly.

[Aigore]

Well now? where´ve you gone off to then? You´ve got work to do!

[erik_g]

Yeah, well.. Actually I am at work, but I think I'll go home now and have a sitting in the basement this evening.. Today I'll prep the wings and fins for painting, and maybe continue on the burner cans.. We'll see :-)

[Anders_Isaksson]

erik_g, on 22 February 2012 - 02:59 PM, said:

Yeah, well.. Actually I am at work, but I think I'll go home now and have a sitting in the basement this evening.. Today I'll prep the wings and fins for painting, and maybe continue on the burner cans.. We'll see :-)

That's more like it!
Also waiting for more progress on this one...

[Aigore]

Something to consider for your Ali cat

http://www.hannants....roduct/MA-48001

[erik_g]

Woah! Progress!!

I've been sidetracked by a few project, a few of them actually being tracked..

This one, an Lvkv 90, is finally finished.. (Academy CV 90 scratch-converted to a AAV 90)

I was also sent a few sets of decals to be reviewed. So I had to build me a P51D Mustang just to try them.

Tamiya 1/48 P-51D Mustang as a Swedish Airforce J26 fighter. (more pics here: http://www.plasticwa...rom-rbd-decals/ )

Anyway, enough with the old horse, on to the Cat.


I added the older type of strengthening plates on top of the fins, and rescribed some panel lines that went missing when the fins were assembled. I did fail to reinstate the gazillion rivets, I´ll have to fix that. I did however try a bit of camouflage painting. It will have to be adjusted also, since there are a few blemishes that need fixing. I think I found a set of OK looking colours. I wanted to use something right out of the bottle, preferably Tamiya paints since they are the kind of acrylics that is easiest to get my hands on where I live. I used Deck Tan, Flat Earth and J.A Green. I plan on doing some weathering later on, so an exact match will be overkill.



The wings got some paint on them as well. I plan on having them as finished as possible before sandwiching them between the fuselage halves.


The second intake was finally fixed to the fuselage. I painted the outer parts with Vallejo primer I bought recently. Since my "man cave" is also the room where our laundry hands to dry, my boss don´t want me to use stuff that smells bad, so I thought using an acrylic primer would be a good idea, instead of smelly alclad primer. Unfortunately it didn't react too well to sanding. It behaves like it´s a thin rubber coat and tears off when sanded. Maybe it needs a few days to harden? I'll see how it behaves tomorrow.


The inside of the intake looks smooth, courtesy of short depth of field.


Some day, all this will become an aeroplane.. well, a REPLICA of an aeroplane anyway.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this update, and I hope it won't be long until the next one.

[JesniF-16]

Coming along nicely Erik. Camo is nice looking man and so are your other builds. Keep the pics coming now...

/Jesse