Icaerodesign Extra 330-SC

[Out2gtcha]

 

Thanks loads for all the kind comments fellas. Nice to hear, as its been tough getting back in the swing of things at the bench after holiday/vacation. I was wanting to jump right back into my F7F, however, finally...................FINALLY Ive been making some real progress on a project of mine, and it happens that its the little Extra. Im finally at point now where Im making some headway, and some real progress, so I think Im going to press forward with the Extra 330 until completed, as I now am seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

 

 

 

I have been deciding the best way forward toward completion, and figured the best way was to balance all the aspects of this build so everything comes together at the end. I really wanted to put this model on a base, to display with the really neat extra engine I got from Icaerodesign, so that meant finding a base, and getting moving on that too.

 

 

 

Before I set out on the hunt for a suitable base, I finished up the overall white on the airframe. I know, I know, more "white plane" pictures.................boring I know! But in this case the MRP white went down super duper smoothly, and I now have the entire airframe, including all the flying surfaces and spinner, in an overall base coat of MRP white, so that everything will have the same tint or tone to it from color to color.

 

I wasnt sure If I would even be able to tell the white paint was on over the white primer, but its definitely noticeable. MRP paint lays down with a beautiful semi-gloss sheen to it, and with a bit of polishing from a 6000 then 8000 grit sand paper, things turned out very smoothly indeed, and now after years of languishing in white primer, the little Extra is now in white paint, and is ready for some paint masks to be applied for the red white and blue Boerboon scheme.

 

 

 

Its really hard to tell with white as my cell camera doesnt pick up how smooth it is, but it turned out nice:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After getting the airframe also coated in its final semi-gloss white coat, I took a trip to Home Depot to find a suitable round base. I wanted something simple, round and classy looking that I could paint with a similarly eye catching scheme. I found they had nothing of use, so I ended up at Michaels craft store. I found a very nice round base with a routered edge that I was looking for, in a raw wood form, unsealed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After spraying the final white color and prior to any final color sanding, I fit the airframe and engine stand on the base to see what I had. This gives a general idea of what things will look like in the end.

 

Final placement yet to be determined, but this is sort of how the layout will be:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All for now, but I let the last and final coat of white to harden off last night, and tonight with time permitting I will finally start the paint mask process! Yay! More pics as soon as I have some progress to show.

 

 

 

Cheers to all!

[Cap'n Wannabe]

Looking forward to seeing her finished!

[Out2gtcha]

Looking forward to seeing her finished!

 

 

Thanks for the kind words.........................so am I!   

 

Well, back at it over the weekend, and have finally, FINALLY made some actual honest progress to show. Its been a long time coming, as the little Extra has sat on the SOD for a few years, needing to be finished, and for the first time since I started this kit, Im feeling that is going to actually be possible soon (finishing that is) 

 

Ive got the white and red down now, so its onward and upward!

 

Give me a few to organize some pics and Ill be back with pics...............

[Shawn M]

tease

[Out2gtcha]

First up, I started the painting process by busting out the new replacement mask set that Icaerodesign was nice enough to send me. The previous set had succumbed to a known issue with Oramask 810, and that is that sometimes some rolls of it are more "pre-shrunk" on the roll than others, and if the masks are cut but then not actually used for an extended time period (say some odd weeks or more likely months) then the positive parts of the paint masks can occasionally shrink away from the negative parts, leading to misshapen and unusable masks.

This is the major reason that a lot of the major paint mask makers went away from Oramask 810.

 

Having said that, to me its still the perfect material for the home user/mask cutter, as one can design the masks, then cut them right before use and usually there are no issues to be had. The replacement mask set Icaerodesign sent me was in perfect register and no shrinking evident, so I set about the arduous task of applying the complicated Boerboon scheme.

 

Masking and application of the paint masks now underway, as the red (MRP "Signal Red") will be up first for application. The paint masks are designed in such a way to have the airframe painted overall white first, and the masks cover the white for the red and blue applications.

Masking well underway now:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This area at the back was particularly troublesome, as the two side fuselage masks for the white stripes are supposed to come together in a nice smooth circle curve at the top middle of the fuselage, meeting a bit ahead of the empennage. The paint masks for the side stripes simply ended in straight lines, and the curve apparently is left up to the modeler to make. I solved this by punching out an appropriately sized circle, then utilizing the negative parts for the forward transition, and the circle/positive part for the rear transition, more near the vertical stab:

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is seen above took the better part of two days, with about 3 - 6 hours each at the bench. It seems like a lot of time to devote to masking, but the masks are very complex, and have to be applied in a certain manor in order to come together in the right way to join each color where it should be.

 

There are also a lot of very VERY pointed parts to the paint masks for the red parts, and this can lead to distortion of the masks if handled in any manor other than extraordinarily gingerly, so I took a TON of time to get things as aligned and straight as I possibly could.

 

After a second day at the bench of some amount of hours, I added all the supplemental masking needed for the red to keep the white areas destined to be metallic blue from being covered in red.

Well on my way now to adding the actual color. Only needed a few minor pieces of extra tape to add before shooting color:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once that was done, I once again cleaned the masked airframe, and then de-tacked it in prep for actual paint.......................

 

 

MORE

[Vandy 1 VX 4]

Looking good so far

[Out2gtcha]

We have some color OTHER than white on the airframe!!!! YAY!!!

Its been years in the making, but I finally have managed to get some color on the little Extra. In this case, I used MRP "Signal Red" for the red color, which BTW, when down like a dream.

We now officially have red!

 

The MRP paint shot beautifully, and the red went down really nice and glossy right from the brush, with no hint of orange-peel even without any finish sanding:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wheel-pants were also especially problematic, as their masks were extra small, and were very easily distorted:

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, the red went down as good as I could have hoped for, and I didnt even get a single instance of pooling or blotching. I ended up putting down about 4 or 5 very light coats built up over 20 or 30 min.

 

Overall, Im very happy with how the red shot, even though I have not unmasked anything yet. Ive let the red harden off for a couple of days before I start the arduous task of unmasking only the parts that cover the blue, then re-masking over the red parts I just shot on Sunday.

 

With a scheme this complex, I have NO illusions that the scheme will be perfect with no bleeding or mishaps, but I figured I best get the complex scheme down first, then I can unmask things, and correct any mistakes, then do some finish sanding before a clearcoat, decals, then more clear.

 

Until next time fellas!

Cheers

[TorbenD]

Way to go Brian! Going to look super sexy once its all peeled off.

 

Torben

[F`s are my favs]

Almost there. She's looking strikingly beautiful!

[Troy Molitor]

Oh wow. That looks sharp.

 

Troy

[Mark M]

 

[Martinnfb]

Truly an epic build, Brian!

 

[Gazzas]

Nice masking! 

 

Now...the results?

[kensar]

One trick I have heard of to deal with paint bleeding under masks is after masking, paint the same color that is being masked over.  Then paint the second color over it.  If bleeding occurs, it is the same paint color as what was under the mask.

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks gents!

 

One trick I have heard of to deal with paint bleeding under masks is after masking, paint the same color that is being masked over. Then paint the second color over it. If bleeding occurs, it is the same paint color as what was under the mask.

 

Yep, that trick does work well. Ive also shot clear in the same manor before spraying the main color you want, and the clear does the same type job. All good theories, but I didnt put either of them into practice this time unfortunately!

 

 

 

 

 

Well, some good news and some bad............or as my normal modeling goes, two steps forward and one back. Now because I had to shoot the metallic blue next, I couldn't fully unmask the airframe, since the paint masks themselves needed to stay in place for the blue, and the rest of the white parts also needed to stay masked.

I took all the masking tape off except the paint masks themselves and whatever was covering the initial white parts.

 

The good news is that there is very little over-spray (just a scant couple of areas that weren't covered properly) and as far as I can tell, zero bleeding. Im sure part of that is due to the excellent way that the MRP paint lays down, and in this case, many fine coats that never had a chance to run or pool, which is kinda tough to do with MRP paint anyway.

 

Now the "one step back".........

 

I was super excited when removing all that masking....................until I got to the upper cowl. I found somehow, I had managed to set it down quite hard on the upper surface, and put a big ol dent in the pristine surface, right on top. Bummer, but I just had to suck it up and hold off on spraying the blue until I sand, smooth and repaint that area white.

 

Not too bad overall, but really am disappointed that I have to do more filling and now sanding and smoothing at this point, but Im happy there is not as much to fix color wise as I thought:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uhhhh, and the problem area. It doesnt look that big, but its in a problematic area, and Im hoping it wont be that hard to fix:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ill let this Mr Surfacer 1500 harden off for a couple days, then will sand, and smooth the surface, then hit it up again with some white for a base for the blue. Hopefully I can shoot some blue at some point this week or weekend, depending on how the fix goes.

 

Cheers!