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


chuck540z3

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23 minutes ago, Christoffer Lindelav said:

Nice work Chuck. When you go back and refill those seam lines and other flaws you discover, are you using CA or something else as a filler?

/Stoffe

 

Thanks and good question.  CA glue, mostly because I need to rescribe panel lines, which can look very rough with putty and I also like the quick drying time.  The offending seam is shown below, which is where the two fuselage halves come together.  Although some modellers leave this as a panel line, it doesn't exist on the real deal, so it must go.  I found sanding CA glue at this junction very hard to do, which is why it still exists I guess.  There is very fine detail like the access doors and rivets nearby which will be harmed by sanding, so I need to tread lightly while covering the detail with masking tape to protect it.  With CA glue you really need to dig to remove it, so hopefully with care I can eliminate this seam while retaining this detail.

 

X4JHt4.jpg

 

 

Stay tuned,

Chuck

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Props on such a great build.  Your attention to surface details is amazing and I love your dedication to the removal of all of the surface irregularities, even when it is difficult to do so. I've been using rubberized CA for my surface fills and find it a little easier to sand than regular CA.

Edited by Thunnus
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22 minutes ago, BlackCanopy said:

You'll have to dust off this model every five minutes or so, as every single flake that settles on this perfect black surface will be tantamount to a fist in the eye.

A high pressure laboratory environment seems to be required... :hmmm:

 

Tell me about it!  Just trying to paint it dust free is impossible, so I am always doing touch-ups.  When I'm done, I plan on creating a home for it just like my A-10C Warthog, which keeps the crap off of it.

 

Now a small painting tip.  After I sand and create dust, I clean it off the usual way, then use compressed air to get it all off.  At my paint booth in my garage, I give it another blast of compressed air to get rid of new dust picked up en route, just prior to painting.  When I paint, I start near myself and move my airbrush away from me, trying to keep the air flow moving at all times in one direction.  This lacquer paint dries very quickly and within 1 minute, any new dust that settles on the surface won't stick, although I leave everything alone for about 24 hours before touching it.

 

2iFLos.jpg

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

Edited by chuck540z3
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July 19/19

 

 

Well that didn’t take long.  That seam flaw, among other small items was driving me crazy all day at work so as soon as I came home, I got right on it and had them fixed in about 1 ½ hours.

 

 

First, here is the offending seam and why it’s such a pain to fill and create a smooth finish.  This is probably the worst fit on the entire kit, and there are many!

 

 

Iy83sn.jpg

 

 

And after paint.  Still there and since I’m doing surgery anyway, I may as well fix that sink mark in the LEX that I was going to leave alone since it’s on the bottom anyway.

 

 

ve8OUA.jpg

 

 

Fixing it after paint is not so easy, but after too much experience with this situation, here is what I did.  First, I masked off the small detailed areas so that I could sand the seam without eroding them off.  Note that the paint is attracting dust already!

 

 

iILUBy.jpg

 

 

Since the CA glue is tough, especially after drying so long, I used fairly coarse 400# sandpaper until I had the black lines of the seam and sink hole revealed.  I then added CA glue to these black marks, let it dry, then sanded it down again.

 

 

DabZ2R.jpg

 

 

I then used 1,000# sandpaper and smoothed out the sanded area and the paint on the fringe to eliminate any sharp edges.  Once that was done, I masked off another area near the intakes for further repairs.

 

 

tnOsbu.jpg

 

 

This area was just sanded, along with other small flaws that I found later.  Finally, everything was smoothed out with Mr. Laplos polishing cloths in 4,000# and I used compressed air to remove most of the dust.

 

 

CZKSUi.jpg

 

 

I am happy to report that the seam is now gone, along with the sink marks and other small flaws.  There is still a small step at the junction of the intakes and the old seam, but that would take a huge effort that just isn’t worth it underneath a model that will never be seen.

 

 

BQjYQZ.jpg

 

 

The funny thing is, almost all of this will be covered with the big fuel tank anyway, but I’m glad this annoyance is behind me.  Next up when this dries, the top paint!

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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16 hours ago, fishermanivan said:

Chuck, I know you've probably mentioned this before, but do you prime with that black paint, like go right on the plastic with that, or do you put a primer underneath it?  The black really reveals any flaws and I'm wondering what your process is.

 

Right to the plastic, because after I've added so much fine rivet and panel line detail, I don't want anything filling it like a primer.  With enamels and lacquers I can do that, but it requires extensive surface prep and sanding, which sometimes is not enough as shown below.

 

July 20/19

 

 

When I’m in the modeling zone, I am possessed, so another quick update on painting 3 days in a row.  After finishing the bottom of the jet and getting a procedure and rhythm of what I should do, I got after the upper part of the model and low and behold, that bloody fuselage seam was worse up top!  Back to the drawing board all over again.

 

 

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And this is why.  Nothing really fits front to back…

 

 

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fjSUVT.jpg

 

 

So after a few hours of careful sanding this evening and re-painting, it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.  I took a little heat earlier for painting a “plain black jet”, but I think this baby will look awesome with big red Soviet stars and bright red placards and other markings.  I’ll just let the pics do the talking now….

 

 

ZvJh1B.jpg

 

 

PUQsh7.jpg

 

 

With poor fitting gun doors, this area turned out great as well….

 

 

MM7tNd.jpg

 

 

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I still have a few small flaws, but I’ll let this dry for a few days before I try to repair them and get my sticky fingerprints on the nice shiny surface.

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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Chuck with all the work you have done on this kit so far it has turned out amazing!

 

But, to be totally honest with you after seeing all the “flaws” that are in this kit, personally I will stick with my old Hasegawa kit and do my best with that one.

 

It will never be in the same caliber as yours but you sure have taken a cows ear and turned it into a silk purse!

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3 hours ago, chuck540z3 said:

but I think this baby will look awesome with big red Soviet stars and bright red placards and other markings.

Are you going to paint them? I cannot imagine that you'll have to bury that polished-concert-piano-black-surface under any kind of seal for the purpose of blending in stickers? Also: no panel line washes and generally no weathering, is it?

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Thanks Guys!

 

9 hours ago, Michael931080 said:

Chuck with all the work you have done on this kit so far it has turned out amazing!

But, to be totally honest with you after seeing all the “flaws” that are in this kit, personally I will stick with my old Hasegawa kit and do my best with that one.

It will never be in the same caliber as yours but you sure have taken a cows ear and turned it into a silk purse!

 

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.

 

6 hours ago, BlackCanopy said:

Are you going to paint them? I cannot imagine that you'll have to bury that polished-concert-piano-black-surface under any kind of seal for the purpose of blending in stickers? Also: no panel line washes and generally no weathering, is it?

 

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.

 

 

rms6HG.jpg

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

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51 minutes ago, Shawn M said:

damn, thats sexy in high gloss black

 

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.

 

SRdWbs.jpg

 

KUj1ea.jpg

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

Edited by chuck540z3
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