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Coincidentally Brad I jumped back into this yesterday. I ve been staring at it for 2 weeks now trying to figure out the best way forward. So most people probably won't have this assembly order issue. I am building the model in flight so I decided it would be easiest to install the bay doors and wheel well doors before putting the fuselage halves together. I had access from both sides and could center them up. BUT when i went to assemble the fuselage halves they no longer lined up from front to back! Near as i can tell since the lower fuselage has so much open space and is rather flimsy once the center sprue is removed it ended up with a slight arc to it. resulting in it being shorter when layed out flat on a table. It's not much, maybe 1/32â€, but enough that the pins don't line up anymore. I decided to put the misalignment in the back since it appears easier to patch it up near the rear stabs the way it goes together. I ll post some pics of this later today. Here's my current progress...

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Edited by themongoose
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Time to start filling seems. Photo 1 is my new favorite tool...it came with a screen protector for my cell phone. Small and really flexible for spreading that squadron putty. At the back side, last photo you'll see the plasticard I used to make up for my assembly shortfall.

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Here's one of the intakes. It's also part of the fuselage side which was almost as hard to make flat as it was to slide inside and smooth out these seems

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These next 2 are examples of all the putty

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The left card is probably 030 and the right one 010. Obviously the body twisted just a little too. All fixable though. Hopefully this helps someone else doing this plane in the future.

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Well sine it was still a little warm out i decided to set up outside and put a little primer on the putty and see how much work i have left. Mostly just hitting it with the 1500 grit it looks like. I'll patch a few holes with mr surfacer 1000 first. Missed a nasty mold sink on the outside of the intakes. Will have to putty those for sure.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Seems every time i look at this at a different angle i find something else to putty! The lower wings were so bad i ended up sanding off one of the panels on each side in order to blend it all together. I made new ones from 010 styrene strip. I also found somethng I didn't know existed, mr surfacer 1000 in a spray can. I was looking all over for the celulose thinner to spray it from my air brush. I used it on the wings and am really happy with how it sprays and lays down smooth. Once the wing tips are done I'll put a coat over all the putty and move onto primer! Won't be able to get back to her till Saturday though as I'm traveling for a few days.

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Ok I'm 10 days into this and I think I'm finally happy with the putty  :mental: Do you ever get that feeling of impending doom when building a model? I think it comes on just before I'm ready to start painting! Here's a top and bottom view for your pleasure. If I don't get to my primer coat tonight it will be Saturday before I'm back on it. back to that feeling of impending doom, I think I'll slow down and wait for Saturday  :ph34r:

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Do you ever get that feeling of impending doom when building a model? I think it comes on just before I'm ready to start painting!

On pretty well everything I build - yes! :)

 

Looking forward to seeing her in paint - great progress for 10 days!

 

Iain

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Success, the primer is on! I'm using MCW paints for the first time on this one. Boy does the lacquer lay down really nice! My son said it looks more like powder coating than paint. My favorite part of these paints is that if you get a run, just spray more paint in that area and it almost always goes away. The paint just flows really well, which is great for a beginner at painting models. The biggest thing I've learned with primer now is that I still need to work on my glue control. I can see spots were it has come up through the seems and messes up the lines. 

 

My 1st photo op is my expanded paint booth...it got cold out before I got time to put together all the parts I have for a booth that I can vent outside so I did the next best thing. You can't see him but my son is behind me with his jacket on  :)

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Man, that's a lot of work on those seams and sink marks!! Doesn't look that bad in the box, but looks are decieving!! How did the weapons bay doors fit?

 

Don

 

This plane is made for every opening to be OPEN! Honestly, I think I trimmed about every other piece to get the fit right. And I learned don't glue them on until the fuselage halves are together. I thought I'd help myself out and do it while I could reach both sides since I was closing them. Unfortunately that ended up putting a twist in the bottom fuselage that resulted in, wait for it, more putty  :doh:

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This plane is made for every opening to be OPEN! Honestly, I think I trimmed about every other piece to get the fit right. And I learned don't glue them on until the fuselage halves are together. I thought I'd help myself out and do it while I could reach both sides since I was closing them. Unfortunately that ended up putting a twist in the bottom fuselage that resulted in, wait for it, more putty  :doh:

 

Good to know!! Thanks for the heads up!!

 

Don

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So I'm putting the extra effort into this one, I've wet sanded the whole plane with 1500 grit foam pads. I've done this on cars and know to avoid the corners. The thing i learned though is that this MCW paint is really tough, no issues sanding around corners or all those raised panels. Did the whole plane and didn't take any primer off at all, though i went super slow inside the raised panels and just used the tip of the sponge.

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Edited by themongoose
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Well it's still looking pretty good. Had the typical alarm bells go off when i start painting. I had all the individual parts done except the last stabilizer...when i hit it with paint it fisheyed horribly! Cleaned it up and everything went ok. Just a little extra lacquer thinner to take the paint off and respray. Then when i started on the fuselage the very same thing happened. I stopped, cleaned it all again, still had problems. Washed it all with dawn then cleaned with rubbing alcohol again. Almost all the problem was gone at this stage but it was obvious something had the primer contaminated. My test piece that i was using took the paint fine. I decided to try just misting the surface from a distance since nothing else was working. That seemed to do the trick. ( Edit: i misted it, let it dry a minute, then went over it like i normally would with the airbrush. It almost sounded like i misted the whole coat the way i wrote it) It's looking better and better as it dries. The paint is leveling nicely and is really smooth. I'll have a few places to sand and respray but fortunately 2 of them are where the red and blue have to go so they will be easy to redo. Here's the latest for your viewing pleasure...and if you've encountered the fisheyes before and can offer some advice please throw it my way 😃👨ðŸ¼â€ðŸŽ¨

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Edited by themongoose
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