mikkod Posted April 6, 2018 Share Posted April 6, 2018 Oh. Very nice work...again! chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chek Posted April 6, 2018 Share Posted April 6, 2018 Thanks for all the info on the strips guys! Brownish felt/ fabric rub strips they are. Cheers, Chuck This appears to be the present day application. https://www.lasaero.com/products/article/X00P87O5H chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martinnfb Posted April 6, 2018 Share Posted April 6, 2018 What a gem!,,, work of art Chuck, work of art Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted April 6, 2018 Author Share Posted April 6, 2018 (edited) This appears to be the present day application. https://www.lasaero.com/products/article/X00P87O5H Thanks. I have seen the same stuff in black, so it must be hit and miss for color. Here's where I am with these strips right now. The kit parts have none of it and the Dzus fastener holes are filled. So I drilled out the holes- which are relatively big on purpose to match the real deal- and then added the rub strips using the Eduard PE exterior kit. Adding these tiny and thin PE parts was very hard to do without making a mess with CA glue, so here's how I did mine after the holes were drilled and cleaned up: 1) Hold each part in place with your finger, trying to ensure proper alignment, then apply Thin CA glue to the sides of the part with a microbrush, allowing capillary action to suck the glue underneath. If you apply glue to one of the parts first and then apply the part to the other, you will never get alignment correct before the glue dries. 2) Push the part down onto the plastic to ensure a good, gap-free bond. 3) Wipe off excess glue, but don't worry about the surface being a little lumpy, because they all will. 4) Add all parts according to instructions as above. 5) With another clean microbrush, apply CA glue debonder to the surface of each PE brass part and rub off any stray glue, cleaning the brush on a rag between applications. NOTE: For some reason my CA Debonder (Great Planes) made the plastic soft, so I could not remove the glue properly from plastic parts using debonder alone. This has never happened to me on other plastic kits before, so it's a first for me. The plastic of this kit must be a bit different than others, like my last Tamiya F-15C, Trumpeter P-38L and Trumpeter A-10A kits, where I used debonder all over the place and had no plastic softening issues. 6) Let the plastic dry for at least 10 minutes, allowing the debonder to evaporate and the plastic re-harden, which thankfully doesn't take too long. 7) With fine sandpaper or a sanding stick (which I used), sand the sides of each part to smooth out the brass edges and remaining glue. 8) There are lots of pin marks on the inside of the cowling parts which won't show against the engine, but there are two big ones that you can see at the rear (behind arrows shown below), so fill them with more CA glue and sand them smooth As you can see I got most of the PE aligned fairly well, but not all of them. If you try to remove them to re-try, the damage to the PE might be worse than existing problem, as I found out with one of them the hard way. Unless the alignment is really bad, you are better off just leaving the part alone and living with it. After all, these are just rub strips anyway. As mentioned above, these extra parts may impact the fit of the cowls like the PE parts added to the main cross brace of the engine cradle, but since I will be displaying this model with the cowls off most of the time, it doesn't really matter. Having said that, I sure hope the cowl parts fit and if they don't, I will try to make modifications to make that happen. This will be tough if they need sanding, because the cowl parts are ultra thin already. As with all the other parts on this kit, I then painted everything with gloss black lacquer. Next steps are to paint the parts interior green, but barely green on the inside, to replicate shadows and hide any tiny flaws. I will then attempt to paint each rub strip in a brownish color with a brush, which should be quite a challenge because I truly suck at brush painting! The good news is that these rub strips are kind of rough to begin with, so a perfectly smooth application of paint is probably not necessary. When all that dries, I'm going to rub the paint off the tiny rivet fasteners to make them pop a bit. At least that's the overall plan and time will tell if I can pull it off reasonably. Cheers, Chuck Edited April 6, 2018 by chuck540z3 Squizzy 78, levier, BloorwestSiR and 12 others 15 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ax365 Posted April 6, 2018 Share Posted April 6, 2018 The engine in the cradle looks fantastic Chuck. In the first picture of the unpainted framing, had you already filled and cleaned up the pin marks? I can't see any marks there. Keep up the fine work sir. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted April 6, 2018 Author Share Posted April 6, 2018 Thank you Gents. The engine in the cradle looks fantastic Chuck. In the first picture of the unpainted framing, had you already filled and cleaned up the pin marks? I can't see any marks there. Keep up the fine work sir. Good question, which I should have made clear. The outside of the kit parts are quite clean to begin with. On the inside (I should have taken a pic of them), they are a mess of pin marks and rough plastic everywhere. For the thin parts against the engine, it will be impossible to see any of it, but at the rear as mentioned, you can see most of it, so it should be cleaned up. I'll bet other modelers of this kit look for this potential flaw with other builds, because I sure will from now on. It's easy to miss if you're not thinking ahead of what will show and what will not. One other thing to mention is that by drilling the 2 holes directly behind the exhaust shroud, you make this portion of the frame quite fragile, so you need to be careful you don't break it. I almost did with the first part, so I had to reinforce the back with a bit more CA glue to make the join stronger. Cheers, Chuck ax365 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloorwestSiR Posted April 6, 2018 Share Posted April 6, 2018 Great work as always Chuck! For those outer engine cradle bits, they're ABS plastic instead of polystyrene. If you check the sprue, it has ABS stamped onto the back of it. I think this was the only way Tamiya could make something so thin strong enough. There's also a note in the instructions to use their Extra Thin cement to attach them as I guess it's hit enough to bond ABS. Carl chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Buddee Posted April 6, 2018 Share Posted April 6, 2018 Photo etch strips! That's a whole lot easier than what I did. I painted thin strips of Tamiya tape and then added the rivet detail with individually placed silver rivet decals. Sheeesh! Your way is much easier........ Cheers, Wolf BloorwestSiR and chuck540z3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted April 6, 2018 Author Share Posted April 6, 2018 Great work as always Chuck! For those outer engine cradle bits, they're ABS plastic instead of polystyrene. If you check the sprue, it has ABS stamped onto the back of it. I think this was the only way Tamiya could make something so thin strong enough. There's also a note in the instructions to use their Extra Thin cement to attach them as I guess it's hit enough to bond ABS. Carl Thanks for that Carl. No friggin' wonder they sort of melted! I'm glad it was a one-off, because I really like slopping CA glue all over plastic with the knowledge I can clean it up later with no issues. Photo etch strips! That's a whole lot easier than what I did. I painted thin strips of Tamiya tape and then added the rivet detail with individually placed silver rivet decals. Sheeesh! Your way is much easier........ Cheers, Wolf Ha! I was thinking of you Wolf when I started installing the little bits of PE, knowing that you used masking tape instead. Still, if I get these looking half as good as yours, I'll be very happy. Cheers, Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Buddee Posted April 7, 2018 Share Posted April 7, 2018 Give over Mate! They already look better than mine as they're more uniform. I'd definitely have gone that route if I'd known they were available. Cheers, Wolf chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robthepom Posted April 7, 2018 Share Posted April 7, 2018 very impressive, makes me want to do another very soon chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crobinsonh Posted April 7, 2018 Share Posted April 7, 2018 Great work and tips on your build chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damouav Posted April 7, 2018 Share Posted April 7, 2018 What can one say about perfection... nothing Till the next post. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodgem37 Posted April 7, 2018 Share Posted April 7, 2018 You guys from Canada are way out of my League. Nicely done, Chuck. Sincerely, Mark chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ax365 Posted April 7, 2018 Share Posted April 7, 2018 Good question, which I should have made clear. The outside of the kit parts are quite clean to begin with. On the inside (I should have taken a pic of them), they are a mess of pin marks and rough plastic everywhere. For the thin parts against the engine, it will be impossible to see any of it, but at the rear as mentioned, you can see most of it, so it should be cleaned up. I'll bet other modelers of this kit look for this potential flaw with other builds, because I sure will from now on. It's easy to miss if you're not thinking ahead of what will show and what will not. One other thing to mention is that by drilling the 2 holes directly behind the exhaust shroud, you make this portion of the frame quite fragile, so you need to be careful you don't break it. I almost did with the first part, so I had to reinforce the back with a bit more CA glue to make the join stronger. Cheers, Chuck Chuck in reviewing your post and the photos, you did make it clear. I just didn't read all the words. You clearly said, "Remove pin marks at rear." Don't I feel stupid. Move along. Nothing to see here. Sorry about that Chuck. Mike chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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