32nd Cheetah E (ScaleWorx resin conversion set)

[Mistral]

Thanks LandrottenH. Changed to what they suggested but doesn't work. Ho hum 

[Landrotten Highlander]

you can see the pictures if you click on the link.  Nice work, by the way.

[LSP_Kevin]

1 hour ago, Mistral said:

OK so for some reason, Flickr images are now not showing. I see the LSP webpage seems to have changed ? Is there an issue linking images ?

 

In your case, pasting the image link in directly doesn't seem to work for Flickr images. I have no idea why, but there is a workaround: in the bottom right corner of the post edit window, there is a little drop-down menu labelled "Other Media". Click on that, select "Insert image from URL", and paste your direct image link into the field that pops up. I've done the first image in your recent post to test that it does seem to work fine.

 

Kev

[Mistral]

Thanks Kevin. Will do updates tonight 

[red Dog]

what changed also is that you cannot embed images from a http server, it has to be a https now

I have the same issue in my KFIR topic and can't embed images anymore unfortunately

 

[MikeMaben]

Yep, I can see the first one so do what Kevin said. Things looking nice M   

[LSP_Kevin]

28 minutes ago, red Dog said:

what changed also is that you cannot embed images from a http server, it has to be a https now

I have the same issue in my KFIR topic and can't embed images anymore unfortunately

 

Turns out that this is a setting we can toggle, so I've turned it off for now, and insecure http-only links should work now. I do encourage you to find a secure server to host your images on, though, as eventually browsers themselves will stop displaying insecure content.

 

Kev

[red Dog]

https are not always secure and http are not always insecure -  it should be more related to the source rather than that S trend. 

but that's another debate

 

Thanks Kev & sorry for OT Mistral.

[SinuheH]

Malcolm - great to see you've taken the plunge and decide to share your work with us on LSP!

 

Great to see some excellent SAAF builds in progress - thanks guys.

 

Now if somebody could tackle a KH Harvard.....

[Mistral]

9 hours ago, red Dog said:

https are not always secure and http are not always insecure -  it should be more related to the source rather than that S trend. 

but that's another debate

 

Thanks Kev & sorry for OT Mistral.

No worries Red Dog. All this http stuff leaves my simple mechanical mind spinning.

 

Kevin, happily it works now - thanks for the guidance on what to do 

[Mistral]

10 hours ago, MikeMaben said:

Yep, I can see the first one so do what Kevin said. Things looking nice M   

Thanks Mike 

[Mistral]

4 hours ago, SinuheH said:

Malcolm - great to see you've taken the plunge and decide to share your work with us on LSP!

 

Great to see some excellent SAAF builds in progress - thanks guys.

 

Now if somebody could tackle a KH Harvard.....

Howzit Sinuhe ! Long time no hear. Are you still in Switzerland ?

 

I have tackled the KH Harvard but did it up as a Portuguese one - all part of the African colonial war history, so it sort of counts....it's not a bad kit but the undercarriage legs look a bit short...

[Mistral]

A brief departure form the Cheetah - for Sinuhe - one Portuguese T-6 : 

[Mistral]

Anyway, back to regular programming - as noted earlier, the decals are rather bright against the dull grey base. The markings on Cheetah Es were toned down quite significantly and also tended to fade as time passed. Photos show some aircraft with barely discernible castles on the wings and intakes. So I treated my E to a diluted filter of the base grey to tone the decals down. This worked nicely but resulted in plain grey patches. So out came the Uschi vd Rosten masks again and a random darker grey applied to provide variation. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I then applied another coat of Tamiya X-22 acrylic gloss varnish to seal everything in ready for an enamel wash :

 

 

I then took a different approach to my normal weathering. I mostly use pastel but decided to highlight the very nice riveting and panel line detail on the bottom surface. I used Tamiya black enamel panel line wash for this. Like all Tamiya products, this worked great. Excess wash was removed with a cloth and some turpentine using a genie rubbing action. Wash which collected in hard to reach areas was blended in with a soft brush dipped in turpentine. What results is a nice oily and very patchy finish so typical of modern grey camouflage jets - again, very happy how this turned out. I was careful to not have the panel lines show too stark a wash effect. Here's the wash going on :

 

 

A random patchy weathered effect results :

 

 

 

Will wait for wash to dry properly and then treat to some final localised weathering and stains and final satin varnish :

 

 

 

 

[Mistral]

Some work on the Kentron V3B infra red air to air missiles. V3B was a local development using what I suspect was a body similar in dimensions to the AIM-9B Sidewinder. The V3B had a unique forward canard surface arrangement. Sometimes the V3B is mistaken to be the same as the Matra R550. However, the R550 is shorter and has shorter chord rear fins and a different canard surface arrangement. The V3B was also not mounted on the cranked pylon like the R550 was. I've seen photos of V3Bs variably in white, light blue-grey and light beige yellow colouring. According to Daan and Nick, the light blue-grey are inert training rounds with the beige ones being live rounds. So I'll go for a beige colour. The launch rail for the V3B was also different to that used for the R550.

 

Kit R550 launch rails modified for V3B :

 

 

I used the kit AIM-9B missiles as the base for my V3B with new fins and canards cut from 0.5mm plastic card with leading edges chamfered using a stiff sanding stick. The yellow tape was added to replicate the forward rail strap :

 

 

Playing around - this is what it'll look like on the wing :