Starfighter

The cracks kept on re-appearing, so out came the heavy artillery. The grooves were filled with superglue and Microballs. After some additional puttying and sanding, I fitted the tail fin. I used aluminium profiles from Albion Alloys to ensure perfect fit and stability. Finally some visible progress!

In my case, one of the problems certainly is the material mix. (Very brittle) UV sensitive resin, plastic sheet, automotive body filler... Everything was glued with superglue. I should maybe have used 2K epoxy, but that's too late now. I think I may have to choose the "heavy" solution - I will mill deep grooves into the cracks and fill them with superglue and Microballs. That should help to stop the cracks from re-appearing. A bigger problem is the body filler kind of de-laminating from the plastic sheet below. The filler has become very thin after sanding and is rock hard whilst the sheet below remained slightly flexible. in the worst case, I may have to remove the whole area covering the bomb bay, add stiffeners or reinforcements and start all over. On Sunday, I have spent three hours sanding and filling and the model looks just like before.The joy of this kind of scale modelling...

Automotive body filler!

There isn't much to see at the moment. Filling, sanding, more sanding, filling again, priming, more sanding... I have some problem with (re-)appearing cracks. As you can see on the previously posted pics, the fuselage is made of many small printed parts, so there are many sources for cracks. Anyway, I will persevere and hope to finally succeed... Luckily, that's not a crack behind the cockpit - this is where the rear cockpit bulkhead will be inserted later on.

Extrèmement impressionant!

It's always a huge pleasure to see an update of one of your ongoing projects, Anthony!

As I have no idea what colours "C" or "D" are, I can't tell you; but then, it's simply not true that the thermal protection on Navy GBUs is always grey. As you can see on the first photo I have posted, there are grey and olive bodies combined with every kind of seeker colour combinations on the very same skit... By the way, the center section of the seeker head between the fins always seems to be brown. Maybe you can still add that. So you are really thinking of building another one after that experience? Man, some people are definitely much tougher than I am - you are certainly among them!

Sanding, sanding and sanding. The fuselage ist straight now and the belly was closed. Surface quality is not too good at this point, which means there will be even more puttying and sanding and priming before I can start scribing the surface detail. On a side note, I have received aluminium foil for the MH-53E... I hop to start some trials soon.

Good job! There is no single correct colour for US Navy GBUs - pretty much everything is possible:

Here are some photos of the 1/32nd scale Trumpeter kit I finished two years ago. The surface details were completely redone, lots of rivet detail was eliminated, all groove lines rescribed and corrected, underwing pylons detailed & modified. The kit was a PITA to assemble, but I'd do it again - the Revell kit is no alternative. At least, this one looks more or less correct... Decals from Fightertown, Eduard PE parts, seat from Legend, nozzles from Aires, ECS vents & control stick from Aerobonus, wheels / seamless intakes from Rhino models IIRC, AIM-9X from Zactomodels, GBU-38 from Videoaviation, modified figurine from Reedoak. The cockpit is a modified Academy Hornet cockpit. As usual, comments and critique are welcome and appreciated!

Excellent! Which printer did you buy?

Absolutely stunning to say the least! I'd love to build this one as well one day and yours definitely is a huge inspiration.

Wow, wow and wow! C'est extrêmement impressionnant ce que tu fais!

Another great project - I am following with huge interest, as usual!

3D printing is a great tool, but you still have to properly assemble the parts... which I sadly didn't do, which resulted in a slightly warped rear fuselage. So, out came the saw... ... Super Glue, files and sand paper. I'll show you the result within the next few days.