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1/32 Kitty Hawk F-5E Kicked Up A Notch. Oct 3/19. Finished!


chuck540z3

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Thank you Paulo for this tip and also for pushing me.  The ailerons would still look wrong without your kind input a few weeks ago, so I appreciate any input you can offer.  Anything else?  This model is now at its long run for completion.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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12 hours ago, chuck540z3 said:

Thank you Paulo for this tip and also for pushing me.  The ailerons would still look wrong without your kind input a few weeks ago, so I appreciate any input you can offer.  Anything else?  This model is now at its long run for completion.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Chuck, i'm doing two of these planes at the same time, in the Multi engine's Goup build. My work is a little behind yours, so your comments in your post have helped me a lot, especially in the case of the missing air intakes in the kit, which I did the way you suggested in yours.
Our way of facing the problems of the kit is similar, so being your kit one step ahead of mine has helped me a lot.
And for admiring your work a long time, I am always following you. You make a point of explaining and teaching your techniques to everyone. I find this very interesting.
So when I notice something I can help with, I write some comment.
So far, your work is perfect, as always.
Rest assured, that I notice something I can contribute to, I will.

Thanks, Paulo.

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14 hours ago, tchwrma said:

Chuck, i'm doing two of these planes at the same time, in the Multi engine's Goup build. My work is a little behind yours, so your comments in your post have helped me a lot, especially in the case of the missing air intakes in the kit, which I did the way you suggested in yours.
Our way of facing the problems of the kit is similar, so being your kit one step ahead of mine has helped me a lot.
And for admiring your work a long time, I am always following you. You make a point of explaining and teaching your techniques to everyone. I find this very interesting.
So when I notice something I can help with, I write some comment.
So far, your work is perfect, as always.
Rest assured, that I notice something I can contribute to, I will.

Thanks, Paulo.

 

 

Thanks Paulo,

 

One problem with following my work is that summer is here and that's when my modeling mojo is lukewarm to nonexistent, so it could still be months before this jet is finished.  Still, I usually do peck away at this and that, so it might be sooner than that.  We'll see.

 

As shown above and one more time after a second good coat of X-22, the Archer decal rivets are the ticket to achieve a fairly realistic raised rivet look.  After paint and Alclad, this area should look terrific and maybe a focal point of the model.  These rivets are just about bullet proof now, so handling is no longer a significant risk to knocking a few of them off.  Again, the engine nozzles are only dry fit...

 

tBuFhP.jpg

 

eLYXmo.jpg

 

owTVfE.jpg

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

 

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11 hours ago, Finn said:

Nice work as always Chuck but sometimes the panel lines do not line up on the real thing, check below the 8 and to the right:

 

fuselage_20060221_098_of_162.jpg

 

Jari

 

Thanks Jari.  I have lots of pics of F-5's and some of those panel lines are all over the map.  Also, the unpainted titanium line usually goes to the front of the vertical double rivets like this Swiss jet.

 

rOUBcb.jpg

 

This brings up a good point that I discovered a few months ago when gluing the top to the bottom of the fuselage.  The purple panel lines should be deleted, while the blue ones added.  Most of the horizontal purple line is the join of the two halves, which is correct aft of the stabilator spindle, but too high towards the front to the diagonal panel line.  There's a few other small vertical lines that I can't find on references, so they should be removed as well.  Unfortunately, I placed a dark wash in most of them before I filled them with CA glue, so they still show up on my pics above.

 

eOlP7g.jpg

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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Chuck, about the color of the rear and nozzles, I made some tests and concluded that the most near color is to paint with Alclad Stainless steel and not polishing the paint. Then you apply a semi matte varnish over it. Looks exactly as your picture. I recomend that you do a test about this.

Cheers, Paulo

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15 minutes ago, tchwrma said:

Chuck, about the color of the rear and nozzles, I made some tests and concluded that the most near color is to paint with Alclad Stainless steel and not polishing the paint. Then you apply a semi matte varnish over it. Looks exactly as your picture. I recomend that you do a test about this.

Cheers, Paulo

 

Thanks Paulo.  I was going to go with Stainless Steel anyway, but sometimes the rear can look shinier than in the pic above.  Here's the general look I'm going to try to replicate, which goes with the very glossy paint finish.  I can't wait to start spraying!

 

SRdWbs.jpg

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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June 8/19

 

 

A good modeling day, as you will soon see.  As I hit the backstretch of this build, there’s lots of picky small parts to deal with, so it’s time to get them out of the way.  In almost all of the pics I have of my subject, the landing gear doors and air brakes are in the closed position, so it’s very tempting to leave them that way, creating less work.  Other references, however, show these doors open when on the ground, other than the front gear door which is almost always closed.  I decided to let the kit parts tell me what to do, which turned out to be fairly easy.  Despite all the shortcoming of this kit, the landing gear, gear wells and gear doors are excellent with a lot of interesting fine detail, so I’m leaving them open.

 

 

Unfortunately, there are a lot of pin marks to deal with, which are fairly easy to fix most of the time, but when they are in a tight recessed area and raised, they can be a real paint to fix.  Case in point, the air brakes.  How the heck do you get rid of that!?  Even the outside of the brake on the right has sink marks that need to be smoothed out.

 

 

ZoJJ5X.jpg

 

 

Using a Dremel tool with dental burr, I ground the raised pin mark down, then filled the recesses with putty and tried to sand them down the best I could in such a small space.  This is never smooth, so I used an old trick I’ve been using for years, by filling the recess with Future/Pledge as a micro-filler that you don’t need to sand later, to smooth things out.  The outside of the brake was sanded down to remove the sink marks, then the rivets were re-punched.

 

 

HqtaFY.jpg

 

 

After painting, it looks much better.  The top pin mark is not as sharp due to all the commotion in that small area, but you will likely not see it on the finished model.

 

 

gZ4ZbE.jpg

 

 

Now a bit of a screw-up.  Reviewing some tips given in the SIG on LSP, I was certain that my subject didn’t have chaff/flare dispensers, so I removed the panel detail on the belly earlier.  Gear door B21 has more of this same detail to accommodate the dispenser fairing B37 on the left in the pic below, so I removed it as well.  As luck would have it, my subject DOES have this chaff/flare dispenser, so I should have left everything alone!  Not a big deal I guess, but getting detailed pics of F-5’s from underneath is hard, especially for my particular jet.  In any case, we have 3 deep pin marks on the inside part of the door on the right to remove.

 

 

gpCcDU.jpg

 

 

After.  Much better after filling and paint.

 

 

FtPE8I.jpg

 

 

The main landing gear doors are quite nice, with not much clean-up required.  Note that I glued the arms to the landing gear now, to create a stronger bond with less chance of glue marks later.

 

 

uTAp0R.jpg

 

 

I used the Black Box cockpit canopy rails rather than the kit parts, because they are much more detailed and they have the hinges that connect to the recesses in the cockpit sill.  They were painted on the outside first, to ensure sufficient paint on the top of each rail which can be seen through the canopy glass from above.  The rear canopy assembly that was assembled earlier is only dry fitted to make sure clearances were OK.

 

 

FRa6rF.jpg

 

 

The front canopy frame which is brass photo-etch has nothing solid to attach to, so I glued on a thin styrene strip to the canopy, then glued the frame to the inside of the strip with CA glue, trimming the bottom of the PE to accommodate the canopy rails.  Both gluing operations are very risky to avoid ruining the clear plastic, so be careful!  Note:  The mirrors, which are not even on the kit instructions, should be folded twice in a recessed position as shown.  Many builds of this kit have them hanging down in a straight line with no bends.

 

 

pKEJFD.jpg

 

 

There is a large vent on the port side of the canopy that bends inward, which is too small on the Black Box part, so I used the kit version instead.  Much better- and that join is real and covered by a junction cover I will add later.  Note that I'm using Eduard pre-cut paint masks (JX-221) which fit perfectly.  The remainder of the canopy glass will covered later.

 

 

x60Hkj.jpg

 

 

All this work was done over the last few days, but today I attended the Western Canadian Regional Model Contest, where I entered my 1/32 Spitfire and F-15C Eagle Aggressor.  Over 500 models were entered in all sorts of categories, but about 35% or more were aircraft.  For some reason that I don’t understand, the Eagle came in second, with a Silver in its Advanced Jet Category, but I learned a long ago that model contests are fickle and outcomes are not always predictable.  My Spitfire fared much better among more competition in the Advanced Prop Category, winning Gold and a special award for best Canadian aircraft.  Pretty cool and my thanks to the organizers and volunteers who put on this bi-annual event.  It’s very rewarding to be recognized by your peers, who understand the challenges of our hobby.

 

 

O13ZfL.jpg

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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