Treehugger's 1:32 Viggen (JET MADS second batch run), resin/3d printed parts, slow build.

[Treehugger]

I will be picking up the kit box in an hour. Hopefully all parts will still be intact when I get it.

 

I expect to be spending a fair amount of time looking over the parts and doing my best to smoothen them out in various ways, given the 3d-printed nature of this resin build with obviously uneven surfaces here and there.

 

It was tempting to maybe try use metal foil on the model parts, but I sort of don't think I can make the model smooth enough, but I have yet to look at the parts myself, only having other people's photos on this subject matter. Hopefully I can get most the parts smooth enought to get to airbrush on metallic colors.

 

I wrote "slow build" in the title, as I have some other builds going on as well, but I typically start working on new kits as I get them to evaluate them for myself and just try get things going.

 

Paint scheme for this build (ideally): metalic paint (Vallejo metalic range of paints)

 

Other remarks:

I finally fixed my leaking air compressor, and so it turns out I had just a faulty air hose all along for the last few years occasionally using the compressor. The crack in the nice looking braided hose grew larger and larger by time, I couldn't find the source of the leak and it was all mysterious to me. How could the nice looking braided air hose fail me?   Obviosuly the rubber part inside started to crack at some point, I had no idea. I found the leak by adding soap bubbles/soapy water around the compressor. Also in other news, I also finally think I figured out how to best airbrush on Vallejo primer paint. I typically dilute the Vallejo primer with thinner (for no good reason), however I always had issue with the paint drying inside my airbrush, presumably because having added thinner. Vallejo 'flow enhancer' acts as a retarder, and I should rely on a little of that instead of thinner I think, Also, in other news, for the first time I fully cleaned my airbrush, including bits of paint stuck in the needle canal, possibly contributing to the airbrush acting up from time to time, with reduced paint flow as if something was blocking the flow somewhere around the nozzle (unsure).

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Treehugger

[Treehugger]

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Initial overview:

• I am happily surprised to see that there are no parts that has been terribly damaged.

• The resin parts look smooth enough, I think expected it to look bad. The 3d printed parts looks better than I had hoped for I think. I can work with this.

• Some large resin parts, look abit rough in places imo, but presumably fixable, somewhat messy in places with excess resin on the parts.

• The two air intakes looks nice enough. Some work will be needed between the main hull and each air intake where they connect at the two places around each air intake.

• Clear parts look mostly ok, but will require sanding, one part also has some crap on the outer surface, it looks like the clear parts should be nice and transparent after cleaning them up a little.

• I don't have much to complain about here I think. Though I think they should have re-done the small decal sheet, the one that wasn't made by Cartograph. It looks like you can at least cut the decals along the edges to clean up the contour, and hide an instance of two obviously not-in-register smaller round unit decals. Cutting off the yellow outer ring should help.

• Looking closely at the 3d printed wheels I thought they looked very nice, much nicer than I had expected, they looked fairly smooth imo.

• I am happy to see that the two larger clear parts fit nicely into each other, the front shield and the movable part.

 

• The small bag with the delicate 3d printed thruster part, has two outer ribs knocked off, perhaps my fault, the two parts are still in the bag.
• The small bag with less deliate 3d printed thruster part, has a trivially shaped detail that was knocked off. No part seen inside bag, so apparently knocked off before shipping I think.

• The small bag with a solid resin plate, is mostly well formed, except a tiny area at the edge, I don't think this matters at all, to be honest, not even for me who like things to look nicely formed.

• One of the two 3d printed parts for the wheel well, has some excess resin in them, which will require some clean up. Presumably fixable.

 

 

The yellowish resin is much smoother than I expected and look mostly smooth I think, with slight traces of 3d printed stepping or imperfections here and there.

 

The printed build guide looks really nice I think. Also 44 pages from front page and onwards including the back page.

 

I haven't looked at every part in detail, but this all looks very well I think, and got me excited to start working with this scale model kit.  I am ofc used to improving on the scale model kits I have, but I thought this all did not look bad. I can work with this.

I am using BBupload for image upload. Their payment plan is too expensive, or, they don't seem to have a cheaper payment plan, but I will investigate. In the meanwhile, I will number each photo so that, should there come a day BBupload removes or locks the free-upload photos, I can replace them in order as I will of course keep a copy of the uploaded photos myself for safe keeping.

 

I will show nicer photos of the parts as I get around to work with them.
 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Treehugger

[Treehugger]

I thought I'd show what the smaller decal sheet looks like. I can use this, but please JET MADS just heh ask Cargotraf do the decals. 

 

04


Some edges are fuzzy, and it would help to cut them straight with a sharp blade. The P95 decal could be reduced to a black circle to look better I think, cutting of the not-in-register yellow ring on the outside. I wonder though, I suppose it might be possibe to touch up the decals here and there, with a tiny, tiny brush to sharpen them in places, after having applied the decals to the model. I think the white moose is a little fuzzy, though I don't yet know what decals would go on my ideally silvery JA-37 Viggen, presumably an early production model. Not to be confused with any AJ-37 jet.

Btw, I had a look at the main part for the ejection seat and I am happily surprised how nice it looks. Using thin metal files w. thin self-adhesive sanding paper on them, I can really get to sand various details flat. I think the ejection seat will look really nice in the end, so that's a nice start.

I started adding diluted Vallejo putty on the rear 3d printed part, as the stepping pattern is most noticeable there I think. I have to avoid filling in the rivet holes, but I can probably re-create them if there is a hint of their position I think should I make the mistake of adding any putty into them. 

I plan to add some Vallejo primer paint on various parts, to better get an idea if the surfaces are then adequately smooth. I will try wipe the resin with alcohol, very gently before airbrushing on primer.

How the whole thing should come together that I really have not a good idea of yet.

 

Edit: Looking at one of the photos I collected of a Viggen with metal skin (lengthened fuselage, presumably an JA-37 and not an AJ-37)), this one with "39" on its tail, doesn't seem to have any of the larger decals seen in this small decal sheet I show above, so I might not "need" to use these decals for my build I think now.

Edit2: The manual shows a painting guide option for this one silvery jet with "39" on the tail, so it looks I am on the right track here.  In that case, it looks like none of the decals from the small sheet, will be required. Nice. This have me wondering though, I would guess that the wheel wells on the silvery jet would be metal color, and not "olive drab" as indicated in the build guide.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Treehugger

[LSP_Kevin]

Nice to see another Viggen on here. Will be following along with interest!

 

Kev

[Zola25]

Oh I remember that day very well...  Carefully unpacking everything.  I could hardly believe I actually held it in my hands finally

 

Enjoy building it..  It is a real pleasure..  Mostly

 

/Niels 

[dustiepal]

I got mine yesterday as well and everything looked great. This guy does a replacement instrument panel https://www.facebook.com/groups/848474938507986/user/100001125218500/ . I may order one, enjoy the build.

 

Dave

[flarpen]

8 hours ago, dustiepal said:

I got mine yesterday as well and everything looked great. This guy does a replacement instrument panel https://www.facebook.com/groups/848474938507986/user/100001125218500/ . I may order one, enjoy the build.

 

Dave

I got that replacement IP
It's pretty much flawless and a vast improvement over the Jetmads offering.

 

/Johan

[Landrotten Highlander]

8 hours ago, dustiepal said:

I got mine yesterday as well and everything looked great. This guy does a replacement instrument panel https://www.facebook.com/groups/848474938507986/user/100001125218500/ . I may order one, enjoy the build.

 

Dave

anyway of contactng hm without farcebook?

[Treehugger]

Q: Some of the parts (just a few), have some kind of high gloss look to it and making the detail a little fuzzy. I am wondering, do any of you people know if this goo might be just resin, or, maybe some material used in the 3d printing process that can be cleaned off? I think they use wax or something for 3d printing, but I don't know enough about that stuff.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Treehugger

[Treehugger]

I've started to look at the various parts and added diluted Vallejo putty, in liquid form onto the 3d printed parts, to get to better see the stepped surface and try fill it inn, to make them more smooth before sanding.

 

05

It is important to not flood the corners as the putty will pool there and might be hard to get rid of nicely. Also a good idea to avoid filing in holes with liquidfied putty, even if the fill power isn't that good.

Having looked at the ejection seat parts, it looks like I can remove most of the stepped surfaced and make it look nice and smooth. I think I will either airbrush on dull aluminium, or, perhaps even mix in Uschi paste and/or polishing powder on the seat as well for the aluminium parts.

So with the Vallejo 17m bottle of putty, I just place a dab of putty on a small platter and mix at the side, with a pool of water on the other side, to avoid the little amount of putty being entirely liquified. Then I soak up the liquified putty with a brush and carefully apply it to the 3d printed parts.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Treehugger

[Treehugger]

06

Above: I thought at first the chair would have to connect to the floor, but it seems perhaps the proper placement might be like this, hung up. The lower part will likely be hidden from view I suspect. The top side of the chair do look like that in a photo of the cockpit, as the top side is seen around the curved parts on the main fuselage.

07

 

Above: It isn't shown here, but the back side rack, is moulded to be not parallel to the backside wall of the cockpit, the angle is clearly a little different. The chair part, seem to be paralel to the main "rack" part. In order to make the chair fit into the other main part at the back, it was necessary to sand the insides of the two "hinges" on the chair part (circled).

I am happy to see that I think it should be easy to make the uneven surfaces of the "rack" smooth, but I will have to do some more work, and ofc, add a layer of primer to get to better see if the result is ok.

The backside wall of the cockpip has to be scraped I think, as I don't think I can even get to sand the surfaces inside this cockpit cavity, but I do have scraping tools (Trumpeter chisel tools).

Edited August 21, 2022 by Treehugger

[Treehugger]

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Edit: It looks like, the center part of the real tank might simply be cylindrical, I'll have to check that with photos, this might help sanding the seam easier if the whole center part is just a cylinder shape.

 

I thought this was a little weird looking at the two tank pieces, so I checked with how they fit with the large pylon piece, and then I saw there was a gap. I sanded the right tank half level and realized I had to insert some sheet styrene. Imo, a better solution than using the kit part that goes in between the two tank halves.

 

I try to not make a mess when sanding resin. Probably not healthy contaminating your room with resin dust.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Treehugger

[Treehugger]

09

Hrm, suddenly, BBupload resized my image. Not sure why. 

 

Below: I found a photo. The size of the perforations looks about right I think. Or.. I could make them just a little larger perhaps.

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Edited August 21, 2022 by Treehugger

[Smokey]

excellent work.  Will be following your build closely.  Mine just shipped so should be here in a week or so.  

[scvrobeson]

21 hours ago, Treehugger said:

Below: I found a photo. The size of the perforations looks about right I think. Or.. I could make them just a little larger perhaps.

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If it was me, I'd enlarge the holes just a bit, maybe to 1.1mm. But it's your build, and the .9mm holes do look good.

 

 

Matt