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SapperSix

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Everything posted by SapperSix

  1. Amazing, absolutely one of the best builds I have seen in all my years. I learned much from your techniques. I also learned about the plane. The salt technique and chipping was is perfect to my eye. Beautifully done. I will be using your build as the master to my future Corsair builds. Thanks for taking the time to put it to digits.
  2. Lots of work has been done on this Phantom since the last time I checked in. It's really close to a wrap. Last of many goals with this model is to give my photography a leg up. Once I get the right step ladder built and other adjustments, I will put up some proper photographs. This model has been a real learning experience to say the least. So many things that need changed now that I know better. Another Phantom build on another day to implement all that I have learned with this build. The modification of including/creating the canopy deck on this Revell kit, means the crew ladder is not going to be close to a proper fit. A good friend from Germany has sent me a Tamiya ladder to fix this issue.
  3. I have made the mistake of putting to much squadron in one place and have it melt and or deform part of my model. I haven't had Tamiya do that yet, maybe I am not trying hard enough? Tamiya has been fantastic in terms of conforming to the model and remaining. Depending on the contrast of the plastic and the Tamiya putty, an additional light coat of primer may be needed to rid yourself of the seam. I have been using a diluted Mr Primer Surfacer. Your mileage may vary......
  4. Fantastic reference. Beautiful work and plane. The wiring is very well done. Clean build, I could see a huge amount of patience and effort in this build. Thanks!
  5. Started decals on the nose when I realized that the reference photos show the decals I have already put on in black text, rather than the white you see. I have found no replacement. While the plane will look nice it will not be the historical match I was aiming for. Further research is required before I continue. They also seem to be holding air bubbles despite my attempts otherwise...I refrained from any gloss coat prior to decals. Maybe a touch will be required. The good news is the Jameson is very tasty tonight.
  6. Thank you Ron. Its been a real test. The input I have received from others has been very helpful. Thank you for the kind words. I appreciate the motivation as some of this has been a bit of a fight.
  7. Adding the panel lines to the tail, this is such a rivet counter moment for me. The more I learned and observe this tail section, the more I realized it needed to be 100% rebuilt. I am short panel lines per section.....but that is just another issue with the lack and incorrect detail in this section of the plane. I learned a lot about creating consistent cuts of tape and large amounts of patience. I sprayed MM Steel a number of times just to get a slight raised effect. Had I noticed the lack of panel lines before I had done the base coating I would scribe it. Noted for my next phantom build. If you look closely at this image you will also see some horizontal panel lines right above the vertical ones.
  8. Progress has been slow but productive. I finally figured out a path to the weathering for the war weary tail. Using Oils (burnt sienna, burnt umber, cadmium red, ivory black) a black and red brown wash, and Tamiya smoke. I re drilled the rivets and plugged them with a small piece of lead as noted in prior postings. After I sealed the base, post initial weathering, I went back with a bead tool to shape the lead plug. While I am sure there is a better way to do this, my initial push in to this lead down this path. In the end the initial shaping with the bead tool doesn't look too bad. My only complaint would be that the newly created rivet looks a little big compared to the washer. This picture shows the first lead plugs being shaped compared to the others that have yet to be shaped. Once shaped it will expose the lead color of the rivet making it easier to detail after a little clean up. Right side complete prior to detail and clean up. left side complete prior to detail and clean up. There is much still to do here. lots of clean up and detail. The aft section, past the tail hook, needs to be done up with rivets. Maybe I can figure a way to make the rivet smaller compared to the washer. In the end it will be blended with pastels to make sure its blended and given a much more flat look. Aft Section....The pressure of the beading tool spit the seem again...(sigh)
  9. The exhaust and the cans have been a learning curve for me. I can not emphasize enough how much I have learned while making this model. My tool and product purchases have also been undergoing a considerable increase. All equaling a joy for the hobby as never before. I do want very much to make clear that I appreciate the many people, all over the world, that have have offered advice and knowledge both publicly and through PM's. Below is an example of the general reference I have been using for inside exhaust coloring. My book from Reid Air, The Modern Phantom Guide, has been providing and enormous amount of detail. Below is the Phantom GT Resin kit that I have spent the last week detailing, messing up, starting over and having another go. In the references the green goes from a darker green to lighter as the distance from the burner increases. This picture tries to capture that variation. It was lots of patience during the dry brush process. The detail in this resin product is very well done. A light black/green wash will fill in the secondary air holes. I did it a small section with black only and the contrast didn't appeal to the eye. A bit of dry brushing to the cans and some pastels will finalize this effort.
  10. Thank you. Its been a real learning curve.
  11. Man'o'man am I getting a bit of a butt kicking. I have never worked with Alclad despite having it in my possession of many years. Just didn't have the guts to do any NMF work. Well, I have to say I love the product as it really works well, very well in fact. What I didn't count on is the primer showing every little tiny bit of CA glue that is in, on or around the custom made rivets on the tail....Sooooooo many little specs or CA that oozed out from under the rivet to make it look horrible. So.......Off it goes. I was planning on complete removal and starting all over again. I didn't want to get a punch set just yet, but I did. (I have caught the disease. Just have to wait for it o be shipped.) As I was using the CA de bonder I noticed it may be removing the wild glue specs and maybe complete removal may not be necessary. Jury is still out. A complete repainting of the NMF tail will be required and it looks like the de bonder may be roughing up the plastic a little. I will know more tonight. Off to cook dinner for my wonderful wife and family. I spent two days on the feathers. Lots of experimentation. The left is finalized with a soap based sludge wash. I love the sludge wash as its easy to take off its not right.
  12. I was getting ready to put some primer on the NMF tail of the Phantom. That's when I noticed that the rivets are all wrong, far too small. The reference picture verses what Revell did.......big difference. What to do? So looked at some other builds. The examples I found were few. Enlarging the rivets in the tail section would be a multi part process. I did choose to use the diameter of 2MM for the new rivets, not to scale, but I already had the 2MM drill and some wire or plastic round tube at the same diameter. I wasn't willing to place another order for a punch or more stuff. So I will have get rid of the small Revell rivets and replace with a large diameter washer and rivet. I am using the 2mm hand drill to get a MM deep or so. Then cutting some lead wire, putting it in the hole to be lightly sanded later to replicate the washer. I cant decide how I am going to recreate the actual rivet (If thats what it is). Making the new holes, and looking as to how I am going to plug the old small ones. All the rows of larger rivets are now drilled. Two of them with the first lead large rivet attempts. If someone else has any ideas on this I am open to learning.....
  13. I am amazed how deep the hole can be when one is tracking down information when striving for a painfully accurate build. I have began to understand the pain of those we call bolt counters. The below work took a good bit longer than I had expected. Just to put a few placards on I kept finding different or incomplete information. The main wheel well cover had a multitude of varying examples. By the time I said "Screw it, get it done!" about 4 hours had passed as I tracked various references and online sources. The Eduard placards had incorrect colors for the afore mentioned placard for the RF-4C. Which led to a little looking around. The speed breaks are very much straight forward. The ALQ-71 has completely false numbers and decals on it. I couldn't find many period examples. I was going to have to make some decals but instead opted to us some remainders to achieve an effect. Now I feel like I have cheated on a test....I will probably have to go back and make actual decals to assuage my mind. Still I have learned so very much. Having said that, my next build will probably OOB.
  14. Ray, Thank you for the kind words. Still working out the kinks on this one. I am getting excited to see it all coming together after so many months. Thank you very much. It has been a challenge and I have learned much.
  15. Lots of ground covered over the last couple days. I have found myself with a bit more free time than usual and have spent some of it on the work bench. Lots of paint shading and detail on the fuselage. Many hues of of the camouflage were experimented with. In the end I am very happy and eager to see the final harmony of it all. In some areas I did get a little loose with maintenance wear and tear. More on that later. I spent some time looking at the flare dispensers for fit and finish. I noticed that after all the re scribing and riveting alterations and modifications I made on the plane, I failed to make the changes in this area. I dont think I am going to re do the work. I will at least sleep on it. I turned the paint being taken off from the tape in to chipping. And did some real chipping. . The center line tank and some experimentation. More to follow. For the tires I had to make custom masks from Parafilm. The center of the main landing gear is actually painted in the old testors rubber color and not flat black. Its going to end up with a much more rusted look and the testors rubber paint already leans that direction. A little chipping was also applied. Dry brushing and pastels to come. I will come back tomorrow and give more detail. Time for bed after a good day on the bench. Thanks for looking and all the fine advice.
  16. I have been doing a lot of studying on the Phantom as it was around 1970 when at Udorn Thailand. I found a great web site, Picciani Aircraft Photos, to look at the many faces of the Phantom at service. If you go to the website and look you will find Phantoms in many states of up keep. As an example, some Phantoms have two, even three types of tan or light green on them. You will also see varied colors, olive drab used in some cases and large areas that have been repaired using varied colors. Many are very weathered and many are looking as though they are pretty fresh. I have also looked at various other builds, sources and books. And what I found is the possibilities are many (Imagine that....). I dont know if certain paint schemes, such as how the wing fuel tanks were painted, were phased in over time or was it a free for all? The rabbit hole of how things came to be, when or why became very deep. So finding a path in the near term was to topographically scan the options and deciding on a plan of action. I also noticed the Phantom doesn't seem to lend itself to very defined panel lines. I dont know if this is an outcome of how its built, paint scheme, lighting and or photo effects. Testing my capability and learning new things have been very much the them of this model. For Christmas my wife bought me a new Iwata HP-CS. My my beloved Passache had seen many faithful years and I had ruined the fine needle ages ago and had to go to the medium tip. So the addition of the Iwata was a god send, and to be honest I was excited about the possibilities. The Iwata has not failed to please. What a great brush. So I began to learn about black basing. And of course tried a few versions on my trusty test plane, a P3 Orion. In the many possibilities theme....On the above mentioned web site there are many examples of both the "straight edge" paint job, "wavy" paint job and completely colored wing fuel tank for the phantom. Also examples of the pylon remaining white, partially white or painted the same color of the tank. I chose white pylon, straight edge tank based on what I had found on the 14th. I will likely go back and soften the edge by free handing it. I was disappointed to have the white paint come off in a few places even using Tamiya tape, this has never happened to me. The pylon will be properly covered during the repair of the tank. I also need to bring down the dark shades a bit. This begins my experimentation with varied types of and black basing in general. I am sure many are wondering if I have any sanity. My wife will tell you there is little and what remains is clustered by high priced whiskey, prolonged field operations and bouncing off the ground from high altitude during airborne operations. What you are seeing in this picture is the phantom that has been "black based" by spryaing paint through a Scotch Brite cleaning pad that has been cut along its horizontal axis and further thinned by using scissors to thin areas for better paint penetration (Yes I said penetration, you can stop laughing......) I learned this technique here and have been experimenting ever since. Mind you the originator did it far better than I as I have been far more cave man like. I have further this by using lighter and darker colors and integrating standard black basing, marbling techniques. Creating what I see as a truly random color adjustment, integrating what I can best determine to be true weathered effects. On the right intake you can see where I started to fill in some of the less busy places with standard black basing. I didn't want to go overkill on the panel lines as the phantom doesn't really lend it self to highly defined panel lines to the best I can determine. And I plan on doing a panel line pin wash with a undetermined color. You can see here where I started to apply a slightly modified dark tan (Testors MM Dark Tan with a little dark sand and minute flat black.) using the black basing technique,marbling and filled in as appropriate. Various shades of the above techniques with a lightened formula on the top parts (horizontal) of the fuselage to recreate sun bleaching. I was working on using very fine sand paper (1500 and greater) to work out additional fading or sheen creation of weathered panels. Here along the in the transition between the dark and light green. I darkened up the light green with olive drab and a little flat black. I also began to ready the base layer for vertical weathering "stripes". The overall paint job was done free hand. While I started off horrible, I ended better than what I started. so I will have to go back and tighten up color boarders. I forgot to be very mindful of the direction of my spray gun as it relates to the target. I was quickly reminded when the green paint road the vortex of air in to the seam of the dark yellow. A general look at the uncorrected first pass and a long day.... The white under fuselage was also black based using the same method as above. I will be adding grease smears, panel lines and a million decals so my thinking was it was going to be very crowded. So in the end I smoothed it out more than I had originally intended. I will come back later with a very light coat of light grey, or wash...TBD. The landing gear wells were given a nice even coat of white as I will go back and give them special attention. Lots of learning and lots of experimentation. I often got tired during painting with all the new attention to detail and had to stop a few times to let my arm muscles relax and eyes re adjust. All in all a great time.Any input is greatly appreciated.
  17. Gaz, I washed mine in the sink with soap and water. Then made a few passes with compressed air at about 25 PSI. No problems yet. I have tried both the Scotch Brite Industrial pad (larger holes) and the Heavy Duty. I also used scissors to "shave" off and thin the pad as to get the right thickness for this technique. What I have come up with appears to be madness but is working wonderfully.
  18. Much of that is the lighting. I have three lights over my work space as time has conspired to make me old.........
  19. She now has legs. The brass landing gear is absolutely fantastic. The hydraulic actuators for the main landing gear need a little work as to their attachment to the main wing. Now that I have proper reference books and new found confidence, I would like to rip out the landing gear bays and start over. The next model of choice will surely get the full treatment. Upon putting on a good even primer coat (Mr Surfacer 1200 diluted 50/50 with lacquer thinner) I realized that I had to pay more attention to some body work. I will spend the remainder of tonight touching her up. Its the first time I have ever used a primer for the whole of the airplane. I am hoping to make it easier for the white under fuselage coat to adhere using less paint. And to spot body work imperfections, so far on target for this one. The primer eased some of the sharp panels lines I had scribed prior. And made them look better than what I had originally produced. She will have the SEA camouflage scheme when done. I am thinking of black basing the tan and lighter green camouflage areas. And then use a wash to pull the panel lines out, ever so. What and how much weathering is being looked at in detail. I have some thinking to do on how this is going to happen.
  20. This kit was traded for as mention prior. This kit has had at least three missing parts. And with that comes some challenges. Such as it is, I have been making the missing pieces. It was time to learn and so far my initial attempts have been ok. One of the missing pieces was the right side avionics intake scoop. I cut it out of stock plastic and shaped as need. The inlet hole for the scoop was cut with with an exacto blade and is very shallow. I am still working on a method to get a deep cut in the tin plastic without messing up the part. I also need to take a mm off the bottom to straighten out the lower edge. The left stab was missing so again I took a stab at making the stab...see what I did there? initially just a flat sheet that I cut to shape and bent to replicate the shallow downward angle of the stab. The joining tab was just some excess that I doubled up and super glued so I can recreate the standoff of the stab to the fuselage with some realism. I added a second sheet and blended to recreate the thickness of the stab nearest the fuselage. I cut the arrow shaped reinforcement plate, for top and bottom, out of the thinnest sheet I had and will give a light sanding to thin it a touch. Pictured here it is just placed for reference. Now to scribe and prime.
  21. Lots of big parts glued together with still more prep work. I have started on the exhaust base coats and color experimentation on a test plane. Gluing the body parts together has been brutal. I haven't seen such huge gaps in a long time. Basically where light and grey plastic meet there will be lots of body work. Low score on the fit and finish on this model. There will be another week or more making this right. And its just not gaps, its elevation as well. The little triangular NACA intake forward of the right side auxiliary air door has been filled (white triangle). And still more body work. The nose is fitting pretty well. Some minor sanding and maybe a bit of checking the panel line depth and it will be good. Its starting to look like a Phantom. Seeing it like this after many months feels pretty good. Fuel tank re-enforcement made from left over brass. It wasn't very straight and required a bit of work. Still not perfect but well on the way. Last of the rear deck wiring was completed. Now just to add some details, clamps, rivets and retainers. My first attempt at scribbing was less than desirable. I will have to do it again.......and probably again still..
  22. Lots of busy work, correction and receipt of a great reference. The reference being "The Modern Phantom Guide". I wish I would have had it to begin with. Pretty awesome book! The tail was identified as being too sharp, thank you Ron. I almost overlooked it and had to make a correction despite having already painted it. Ended up pretty happy with the change. I traded for this kit. I think it might be the same kit run two different times or from another version. Different colored plastic and some misaligned body lines are the clues, maybe I am wrong. There is going to be a fair amount of re scribbing. If I pushed it all the way back to line up the intakes would have had a pretty good gap. So I chose to re-scribe. There was some decent gaps between the fuselage and the wings. I used some plastic stock to cut some gap filling strips and make sure it had strength to secure the wings properly. I have since filled both sides as it worked out pretty well. I began detailing the landing gear. References in this case have been very helpful. Many modifications learned for the next Phantom. The ALQ-71 F-4 Short Tail is all put together awaiting a good coat of primer. And lastly the Vertical portion of the back deck is smoothed out. Ready to have wiring drilled through it....
  23. Thank you very kindly! Ron, No need to apologize. Apparently my attention to detail has left to do other things. Thank you for informing me of that issue. I hadn't noticed, my new guy eye is showing. http://www.flickriver.com/photos/88160313@N03/8242532589/ I see what it should look like. Off to make the change. Thank you VERY much for the save!!! -Frank
  24. Lots of work over the course of the last couple days. I was away for a bit and missed my workbench dearly. Clearly I am addicted. Lots of attention to the forward fuselage and cockpit. The cockpit is secured with the side instrumentation fitted and glued. I will take some close ups when I am done with all the extra wiring. I glued and filled the lower section, front landing gear bay, of the forward fuselage. It was a bit of challenge and required a fair amount gap filling. I am finally to the finer points of smoothing and re scribing. When the lower was fitted it was clear that the upper cockpit section wasn't going to align well with the lower. While there wasn't much of a gap, the plastic couldn't be affixed so that both sides were level. So there was much more putty and sanding than I had hoped. The front landing gear bay itself fit very well to the lower fuselage section and required little attention after gluing. The auxiliary air intakes had a lot of metallic experimentation done on them and came out well. The camera isn't doing them justice, rather my inability to take proper photo's. The aux air intakes were fitted with the red "boarders" cut from bulk plastic, edges filled and painted red. Out of shear luck, the doors that came with the aux air intakes match up to the modifications wonderfully. I did a ton of wiring to the bay of the main landing gear after I did the aux intake work. Pictures upon completion. Lots of parts painted red. A second coat awaits some parts. The red tail of the 14TRS and the photo flare box received their first coat of red. I also started the detailing of the landing gear, pylons and the ECM pods. She is starting to take shape.
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