RAAF 20th anniversary hornet - the perils of polishing 23/12

[ClumsyDude]

Thanks Brian and Spyros, glad you like it. I'm a little daunted by the thought of just how much clear coat and tamiya compound I'll go through on the body of the model ... still, we'll get there!

 

Cheers

Jim

[ClumsyDude]

Ok y'all time for another update. Nothing spectacular, just grinding away!

 

First up, the wheel wells. I went with what is by now my standard practice - a coat of Gunze off white lacquer, then details picked out in Vallejo acrylics.

 

 

I went with some aluminium insulation tape for highlights ... it is only sticky enough to work on the big pipes.

 

 

 

Mask off the rest, add a black-brown enamel wash and some Airscale decals, and a semi-matte clear coat:

 

 

Finally some alclad chrome over gloss black on the oleos and we're done with the gear bays.

 

 

Next up, some masking.

[ClumsyDude]

First up, I covered the model with a gloss white coat over everywhere that will have stripes on it. I cut out paper printouts of the masks and laid them on the model to see where they went, then marked the outlines faintly with a pencil before spraying.

 

The trickiest masks to do here will be those that go in the intake lips. I've been dreading them for months, but in the end they turned out to be not so bad (which is to say, I only used three on each side, so far). First up, I laid down some masking tape as a guide - alignment on the pitch axis is crucial to ensuring that the stripes line up fore and aft of the intakes, and I also wanted to be sure of a straight edge.

 

Here's the mask, cut out and weeded.

 

 

Now with the transfer mask to hold it in place, and most of the backing paper peeled away. I left the bottom bit on so I could align the stripe with the tape, without getting the rest sticking to the intake. In the end it was probably unnecessary.

 

 

I don't have any good photos of how the mask laid down on the intake but I got it ok after a few goes. Here we are with the guide tape laid down over the nose - you can see the mask on the intake in place.

 

 

 

Mask down and tape off:

 

 

 

I took endless photos to look at offline, to ensure that the mask is square on the nose ... I won't bore you with those, but suffice to say that lots of adjustment was made!

 

With these on it was time to address the strikes (I wanted to get the masks down first, to make them easier to lay down ... time will tell if it was the right decision). First up, spraying the blue underneath:

 

 

then on with the strakes ... for some reason I can't find the photo, but you'll see in the next post anyway.

 

 

 

More in a minute.

Edited August 15, 2017 by ClumsyDude

[ClumsyDude]

Then it was (gulp) time to attach the glossy, glossy tails. I didn't want to risk messing around with glue and stuff, so I made a jig:

 

 

With tails on

 

 

Starting to look like a hornet!

 

Edited August 15, 2017 by ClumsyDude

[F`s are my favs]

Harmony and excellence...

[ClumsyDude]

Then time for some colour on the petals near the afterburner

 

 

 

And ready for the rest of the masking (after a couple of sessions of filling and sanding the strakes and tails):

 

 

Thanks all for following!

 

Cheers

Jim

[ClumsyDude]

Harmony and excellence...

Thanks Milan ... you're a gentleman as always.

 

Jim

[Out2gtcha]

Wow, terrific stuff Jim! 

[LSP_Kevin]

Wow, terrific stuff Jim! 

 

Agreed!

 

Kev

[Squizzy 78]

It's going to be great to see this paint job finished if the stabilisers are anything to go by.

[ClumsyDude]

Thanks guys! Squizzy, I agree, I can't wait to get some colour down!

 

Jim

[Nicholas R Larson]

I'd sure like to get a set of masks/decals for that bird.

[ClumsyDude]

Hi Nicholas, I'll have some spares when I'm done - I got Randy to do up 9 sets of masks, because I'm clumsy and I mess stuff up. For some areas (like the vertical tails, where you'll really need lots of tries) there'll only be a couple of sheets left. For others, ie the easy ones, an embarrassment of riches. So I suspect it won't really be enough.

 

More to the point, Randy (LSP member "sluggo") put a heap of time into designing the masks, and he did an amazing job. So I wouldn't feel right sending you my spares, as Randy deserves the business for the time he put into the design. The good news is, he's a terrific and really honourable guy, and if you decide on masks you'll find it a pleasure to deal with him.

 

Also, you'll need a few decals for things like intake warnings, squadron crests, and other stuff that's too fiddly to mask. The good news is, although I'll be using the leading edge decals for these, I have a spare Model Alliance set that I'll send you for postage cost if you source the masks yourself - I won't do another one of this bird, and the decals ought to go to a good home. The stripes aren't quite right on the Model Alliance set, and I am not at all sure about whether underlying colour will bleed through the white, so I didn't want to use those for the "glamour" markings. But they'll be fine for the little stuff.

 

Let me know, and good luck!

 

Cheers

Jim

[spyrosjzmichos]

Nice idea on the pipes Jim!

I'll be stealing that idea from you!   

[Hubert Boillot]

Beautiful (and quite persistent ) job on this one, Jim.

 

A generic question, not specific to this build, about white wheel wells. My understanding is they are white in order to make it easier for the maintenance crews to spot any leaks. Therefore, whils a degree of grime is understandable, if only because the wheels and the braking of them when retracting the gear will generate dust and grime, but shouldn't therefore the wheel wells be basically "clean white" ? I started to have this interrogation a long time ago, in errand times when I was working on a 1/48 (aaaargh !) Tamiya (re-aaaaargh - not resin !) F-16 (re-re- aaaargh !, a jet !) back in the 90s ...

 

Hubert

Edited August 21, 2017 by MostlyRacers