chuck540z3

John, If I might chime in, the dull aluminum look will be very easy to do. Too often modelers are trying to get the polished aluminum look and the finish comes out too dull, so your "problem" is easier to fix. Here's what I would do, based upon your first pic. 1) Base coat of Gloss Black Lacquer. This gives the Alclad something to stick to. 2) Pre-shade the black with gloss white in a mottled pattern that is random. Some panel lines would be pre-shaded as well, but keep these to a minimum, based upon reference pics. You don't want the plaid look at all. You want gloss finishes in both cases to keep the paint smooth. 3) Paint with Alclad Aluminum (not Duraluminum or Polished Aluminum). This lacquer is naturally dull, so shine is not a problem. 4) Selective weathering with Tamiya Pastels, especially my favorite, "Oil Stain". 5) Dull coat. I like Tamiya Flat Coat the best. BTW, Great introduction on the differences between a P-51 and F-51. HTH, Chuck

Thanks a lot guys! It's very clear that these holes should be closed with small doors most of the time, so that's what I'll do. Cheers, Chuck

Thanks. Me either until I found these. It looks like they are indeed vent holes of some kind, but there should be a flap that closes.. Vent Holes 1 Vent Holes 2 They also look to be oval and not circular. I think I'll fill mine with something, but keep the circular feature intact. Cheers, Chuck

Gents, What are these holes on the bottom (left) of the nose of the Kitty Hawk F-5E kit? Now that I've got final paint on everything, I'm wondering if they should even be there as vent holes or maybe even light receptacles? I cannot find one pic on the net of this area, just forward of the nose landing gear compartment and while I'm at it, what are those oval holes for on the right? Thank you, Chuck

Peter, How in heck did you create that raised lettering and logo on those metal pedals? How the heck do you create all these tiny and accurate metal parts? Do you have a workshop full of high precision metal working tools and equipment? Again, I'm having trouble figuring out which pics are your model and which ones are of the real deal and THAT, my friend, is the pinnacle of all modeling, no matter what the subject is. Crazy Good Awesome! One other thing I've noticed is that you are now creating parts fairly routinely, while you seemed to struggle a bit with the parts in your Spitfire before they came out perfect. Like all modeling skills, I'm guessing that practice on your Spit is paying off now. Cheers, Chuck

Great looking pods, especially the CUBIC one. After paint and some Two Bobs decals, it will look like the real deal! Cheers Chuck

Tamiya X-1 is an acrylic and TS-14 is a lacquer. While some swear by acrylics, I prefer lacquers for durability, hardness and smoothness of application. The decanting process is super easy, so no real hassle for me. I understand that there is a new line of Tamiya lacquers in a bottle that might be just as good, but until my stash of rattle cans are gone, I’ll be using them instead. Cheers Chuck

Several reasons: 1) Through a "rattle can", you are stuck with the viscosity of the paint as it comes out of the can. Decanted through an airbrush, I can thin the paint to make it finer. 2) I can control the air volume and pressure to get what I need for the application at hand, which allows me to spray closer to the model. 3) I can control the air/paint mixture, making the surface wet without running. 4) A good airbrush nozzle atomizes paint much finer than a plastic nozzle on a can. It's all about control. The most common painting flaw is "orange peel" or a rough surface. With the ability to control the above, this flaw is minimized, so that you can get results like this. The only drawback is that a smooth glossy finish reveals every tiny flaw, like the sink marks near the aileron that were not visible before paint. With further coats of paint and a dull finish, these flaws disappear completely. On this glossy black F-5E build, however, I'm stuck with them and therefore need to repair them as they are encountered. Cheers, Chuck

Minor Update. I've been told that Tamiya lacquers might attack the decals, so I'll seal them with X-22 first, followed by the semi-gloss lacquer, which is what I usually do anyway. That is all, Chuck

July 26/19 Inching along towards the finish line. One major addition is the big center line fuel tank, which my subject usually has strapped on. In many pics of modern F-5E/N’s, the vertical fin has been removed, leaving the base attachment, so I cut mine off. Something missing is a fuel cap, because you’ve got to get the fuel in there somehow! I used another spare PE brass disk that I also used on the top of the fuselage when I moved the fuel caps from the starboard side to the port side. Painting circular objects can be tricky, so this wire contraption worked out quite well to keep the tank suspended without touching anything. The other side. I will put a red circular decal on that fuel cap later. Now some real fun and before somebody alerts me to the fact that the titanium panels at the rear of the jet are often dull, I will be adding some semi-gloss lacquer to knock down the shine a bit later. For now, it looks pretty cool with all that raised rivet detail. Next up are likely decals and here’s my plan. As cool as the gloss black finish looks, it’s too shiny for scale and I still need something to seal the decals in so that decal film edges will be minimized. To do this, I’m going to be spraying the entire model with Tamiya Semi-Gloss Lacquer right after decals, which will also tone down the shine of the titanium panels and exhausts. Fingers crossed that I don’t regret this! Cheers, Chuck

Awesome- and so well weathered like the real deal. Congrat's William. Cheers, Chuck

Sure, here’s quickie in sort of chronological order. As with all good paint jobs, the most important thing is to have a smooth and clean surface to begin with. You can’t spend too much time sanding and smoothing the plastic. I bet many of you guys thought I was nuts with all the fairly deep and prominent rivets that I re-punched and scribed all over the place, because it was sort of looking like an overdone Trumpeter kit. I overdid this detail on purpose, because after a few coats of paint it gets filled by at least 50%, so you need a bit of overkill to still see it after painting. I used decanted Tamiya Gloss Black Lacquer in the TS-14 rattle can line of paints. After decanting the paint and letting it sit overnight with a loose cover, I add about 40% Tamiya lacquer thinner, because I know it is very compatible. This paint sprays very smoothly and it dries to the touch very quickly. I usually use my ultra-fine Iwata airbrush with a tiny 0.18 mm needle for most of my painting of small parts or any Alclad, but for broad spraying of the entire aircraft, the more commonly used 0.3 mm needle works much better, so I use another Iwata airbrush for that. The smaller needle will work OK for a minute or two, but then it will start to sputter, while the bigger needle rarely does. Before you start to paint, remove as much dust as possible and then use compressed air from a rattle can to get the remainder off. I set the shut-in pressure on my compressor to a bit higher than normal at 23-24 psi, which sprays at about half that pressure in the 12-16 psi range. Experiment with the pressure on your setup, because a pressure too high will cause air turbulence and “dust balls”, while a pressure too low will sputter over time. This spraying pressure is also influenced by a host of other variables, like humidity, air temperature and how much the paint is thinned. Fill the paint cup of the airbrush with a pipette at all times, because you don’t want any crap from the lid to get into the cup. Have really good light and also directional light, so that you can see reflections to see if the paint is wet vs dull. After blowing a clearing shot of paint elsewhere, start spraying near your body and move away from it in one direction. Get the paint WET, but continue to move on once it is. If the paint isn’t wet enough it will orange peel and if it’s too wet it will run. You will find the sweet spot with practice. Every few minutes or so, blow another clearing shot away from the model to keep the nozzle clean. Paint in a continuous motion and always near where you just were. It might be tempting to stop and paint other areas, but if you do, you could leave ridges of dry paint behind. Paint just one horizontal surface at a time so that gravity is working for you and not against you. This allows you to get the surface nice and wet without any fear of runs. If you’re painting the top (or bottom), don’t paint the sides until the top is dry enough to handle. When doing the sides, hold the surface horizontal, or 90 degrees to normal. The first coat should be quite thin and just enough to cover the model to check for flaws. When the paint is dry for about 24 hours, fix the flaws, then re-punch rivets or re-scribe surface detail lost in sanding. Apply a second coat of paint after removing all dust, but this time thicker and wetter than the first. When dry, spot check and lightly sand out any crap that always manages to find its way onto the surface. Spot paint the repaired areas, but not the whole model, to reduce paint build-up in the details. Let dry for about 48 hours before handling it with your hands for any length of time. While seemingly dry to the touch, oil on your hands can create fingerprints that need to be sanded out and repaired. That’s about it and like all painting, practice, practice, practice to come up with a routine that works for you. HTH, Chuck

Thanks Frederick, but I already did some months ago and they are no longer doing custom decals. Chuck

I hope so. For those who might have missed it, this is the template, although nobody makes decals for this VFC-13 jet, so I'll have to compromise with a bit of a "what if" and use VFC-111 decals instead. Note how clean and shiny it is- and I don't care that it's likely that way just for the air show. If it looked that way for even 5 minutes, that's what I'm going to try and replicate. Cheers, Chuck

Thanks Guys! Hi Michael. I was initially going to build the Hasegawa kit I have in my stash, but after checking the sprues with raised panel lines and almost no detail, I was very happy to hear about this new KItty Hawk kit, so I bought it. It's a real mixed bag of some nice detail and horrible fit issues, but overall, it's way better than the Hasegawa kit. Using my last Tamiya Spitfire kit as a 10/10 for kit quality, I would place the KH kit at a 6 and the Hasegawa one at a 4 at best. No, mostly because many of the stencils and placards on a real jet are stickers and not painted due to their fine features. Large "NAVY" signs could be painted, but there are many small placards that will have to be decals, so I may as well do them all the same way to ensure a good color match. Although I'm a bit apprehensive about how this will turn out on this gloss black finish, I do have experience with decals on a BMF as shown below. If you have good decals to begin with, you can spray a local sealing coat of X-22 to make the decal margins blend in and disappear. eg. The serial number on this P-38L is a decal. Cheers, Chuck