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J&L 1/72 Vac J-29 Tunnan


LSP_Kevin

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First coat of primer on:

 

BfKIYd.jpg

 

anJWC8.jpg

 

As you can see, the wing joins have come up OK, though all the areas I filled still need some work. I've added some token surface detail to the wings and tail planes, and will do the fuselage once all the sanding is finished. So far it's looking much better than I thought it would! I'll need to sort out the canopy soon though.

 

Thanks as always for looking.

 

Kev

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Thanks fellas. I've only just realised that I started this build only 4 days ago! Wow, I wish all my builds went like this (I'd have to stop caring about the outcome of each though...).

What primer are you using?

 

Dan, what you see on the model started out as Mr Surfacer 500 out of the rattle can, but I only got a couple of squirts in before the can went from nearly-empty to empty. So it's mostly Tamiya Surface Primer (the grey stuff, not the white). This seems to be a nice equivalent for Mr Surfacer 500, and I consider them to be interchangeable. Once I've got all the remedial work out of the way, I'll finish it off with some Mr Surfacer 1200 (again, out of the rattle can) before the final colour goes down. I was originally intending to use this build as a test for Alclad, which I've never used before, but I suspect the finish won't really be good enough, so we'll see. I've got plenty of options for spray-able silver/NM finishes, so it's no biggie if I don't use it.

 

Kev

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A couple more spins of the fill-sand-prime cycle and here we are:

 

AXDIXx.jpg

 

As you can see, I've cut out the canopy and plonked it on to check out the fit. The 'fairing' at the front the windscreen is supposed to butt up against is way undersized. But I also suspect that the windscreen itself is too large, exacerbating the problem:

 

vXiTw5.jpg

 

I'll just have to fair it in with some Milliupt I guess and hope it doesn't look too strange. The whole model looks a little anaemic to me for a Flying Barrel; it just seems to lack that portly feel that is so characteristic of the Tunnan.

 

Anyway, this model isn't about that!

 

Kev

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Guest Peterpools

Kev

Nice progress on the J-29 Vac. Isn't that always the case ... we never seem to run out of paint or primer until right in the middle of using it!

Keep 'em coming

Peter

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Looks really cool K1!

 

I am a BIG fan of the Tamiya primers in the rattle cans........Other than their exorbitant price that is. I use the airbrush on the regular, and generally do not use any rattle cans, but as you pointed out, they are SUPER handy as you dont have any clean up.

 

The Tamiya gray comes in both regular and fine.

Since i cant get any Mr Surfacer 500 to save my soul around here any more, the Tamiya regular is a perfect substitute and matches very well to the 500

The Tamiya fine gray primers are in the Mr. Surfacer 1200-ish range, and it works really well.

 

However, I am the biggest fan of the Tamiya white. It goes on SO smooth, as smooth as any primer ive ever used, that sometimes it makes models covered in it look like they were molded in white plastic...............

 

The only thing (s) I can say is a drawback to them is

 

A - the smell. Typical lacquer but same with all of that kind of primer

B - The amount of particulate. The rattlecans put out a tremendous amount of particulate, and it can be hard to control how much goes down if your not careful

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B - The amount of particulate. The rattlecans put out a tremendous amount of particulate, and it can be hard to control how much goes down if your not careful

 

What I do in these situation Brian is look for another similar aerosol can that has a finer spray head hole that will still fit/be usable on the tin of primer that you want to use (I keep a few used spray head buttons/caps from various aerosol cans exactly for this purpose)...might be worth a try as a solution to your problem, as it certainly gives me the control that I need? (just keep 'em clean after you use them).

 

HTH

 

Derek

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Another micro-update folks. Canopy has been masked, sprayed RLM66 on the inside, and then affixed to the model using PVA glue:

 

bbXf34.jpg

 

Just going to break out the Milliput now and see if I can deal with that windscreen fairing. It's the only part of the build so far that's grated on my enthusiasm.

 

Kev

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OK, Milliput applied, cured and sanded back:

 

jgxqRX.jpg

 

m3IRUa.jpg

 

I'm pretty happy with that. It makes the nose look much better too. My attempt here is much more slab-sided than the real thing, so I'll try to round the edges a little more. I'm just a little anxious about the interface between the Milliput fairing and the vac canopy, as the canopy is slightly pinched at the front, so I suspect there's still a bit of a mismatch there. I won't know for sure until I apply some more primer. I've tried to blend everything in a bit better, and seal the canopy, with some white glue, so I'm just waiting for that to go off before I re-coat.

 

Kev

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I'm skipping ahead slightly here fellas, as I've got the base coat of silver paint on now. I used Tamiya TS-30 Silver Leaf straight out of the rattle can:

 

4OHNiM.jpg

 

f2d8Ae.jpg

 

It's come out OK I think! It actually looks better in the flesh, as the camera's flash hasn't been kind to the finish. I gave up rescribing the fuselage after adding a few lines, as I was too impatient about getting some paint on it! I plan to add some panel differentiation with different shades of silver.

 

I've finally decided on the markings for this one too. I toyed with the idea of leaving it generic and just adding the national insignia, but I felt it needed more than that. I pulled out my copy of SAMI Vol. 10 No. 9 (September 2004), which has an extensive feature on the Tunnan. Lo and behold, the first profile in the feature is of the unarmed first prototype:

 

NAM9Vs.jpg

 

Bingo! This will save me having to reinstate the cannon fairings. I scratched around in my decal spares for the red "U", but couldn't find one, let alone four. I knew I'd have to mask and spray them so I reduced the profile to roughly 1/72 scale on my computer and then printed it out. I overlaid some clear packing tape on the forward U, and then some Tamiya masking tape on top of that. The underlying letter was still visible through the Tamiya tape, so I traced around with a (nearly) fresh #11 blade:

 

vIsjnv.jpg

 

As you can see, I've taken it for a test drive already. My shape isn't perfectly smooth or symmetrical, but doesn't look too bad. Besides, I could spend hours cutting dozens of them out before I achieved that, and as you've already worked out, this is not that kind of build!

 

I'm just waiting for the TS-30 to go rock hard before masking it up and introducing some contrasting shades. Then I'll paint the letters, and finally add the decals. I may even add the dorsal antenna at the end if I get keen!

 

Thanks as always for looking in.

 

Kev

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Damn Kev you've built this quick, It's taken me 6+ months to do my Sea Wolf over on Britmodeller! Wish I had more time on my hands

 

Great though, the 'U' looks alright too! :)

 

 

So, what's next on the vac list? :popcorn:

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Damn Kev you've built this quick, It's taken me 6+ months to do my Sea Wolf over on Britmodeller! Wish I had more time on my hands

 

Great though, the 'U' looks alright too! :)

 

 

So, what's next on the vac list? :popcorn:

 

Well mate, as I said at the top, I decided to follow some sage advice about building your first vacform: build it in-flight with a painted-out canopy and no extra detailing or fuss. Not having to worry about building a cockpit, wheel bays or undercarriage has really made things speed along, and has allowed me to focus on the process of building a vac kit. It helps that I'm still on leave from work (go back next Thursday), so I can chip away at things all day long (sort of).

 

As for the next one, I pulled out the Ta 152 from Falcon and gave it a bit of a look. As a kit it's higher up the food chain than this one (wouldn't be hard), but looks to have its own challenges. I've got a lot of extra bits for it though, so it's probably the best candidate in my vac stash at the moment for a build that actually features a cockpit and landing gear!

 

Your Sea Wolf is coming along fine though, and at least with that one you'll have a reasonably unique subject. Most of the kits in my vac stash have been superseded by a more conventional kit at some point, and building them probably seems a bit redundant to some folks.

 

Kev

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OK fellas, all painting has been done:

hNRVsO.jpg

The painted U shpes didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but they'll do for the purposes of the exercise. The canopy frames are also a bit rough, which is a shame, but there's no stopping me now. Most of the subtle panel shading I did can't be seen in the photo. I'm about to seal everything with a gloss coat, so that might kill a lot of it anyway.

The nose on this model has bugged me since the beginning, but I couldn't put my finger on exactly why. At first I thought it was the anaemic windscreen fairing, but after fixing that it still looked wrong (though better). Then I realised that the nose appeared to be a little short; it's only now that I've got everything painted and de-masked that I can see the full extent of the problem. Compare it to the profile I put up in a previous post, and you can see that the wing is too far forward, the canopy is too flat and the entire nose section (not just the end) is too short by at least 2-3 mm (a fair bit in 1/72). In the end it looks more like an FJ-4 Fury than a Tunnan!

Bah, who cares! Decals next...

Kev

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Kev

Not important. What is important is you're going to finish.

Keep 'em coming

Thanks Peter, and quite right too! I haven't been this excited about a build for a very long time. It might be a bit crappy by objective standards, but I've waited a very long time to get up the courage to build a vac kit, and am really delighted that I took this particular approach for my first. It's been so much fun! Obviously my subsequent vac builds will be more serious and less cavalier, but hopefully still as much fun.

 

Kev

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