fantacmet

Than I regret I have nothing I could contribute here.  No $$ for another kit.

aww, sorry to hear that!

Than I regret I have nothing I could contribute here.  No $$ for another kit.

Finally got some pics uploaded of my 72nd Thunderbolt. Im building this one straight OOB, and its going together rather well. I forgot to get pix of the office, but its just the kit included details. It was only a few hours before I had this:

The next day I finished the main assemblies and masked. I used Testors rattle can silver metallic to the NMF. It went down well, but I found some areas that needed more sanding. After I retouched the paint, here is what I got:

And detail painting. Once cured, the rattle can paint holds up well under masking

gloss coat and decals next!

professordeath

CallSignOWL

fantacmet

How about an F22?  It has two names one is obviously the Raptor, but it is also known as the Lightning II.  If that counts I'll join in with Academy's 48th scale one.  I need a good excuse to finish it.  It's not very far along, gluedin weapons bays, main bay doors, couple of interior parts, that's about it.

"lightning ii" was actually given to the F-35.

That's true. I was unclear about the GB rules because I was thinking animals (Raptor) were included. 

I had another GB that was animal themed. Maybe you were thinking of that one?

fantacmet

How about an F22?  It has two names one is obviously the Raptor, but it is also known as the Lightning II.  If that counts I'll join in with Academy's 48th scale one.  I need a good excuse to finish it.  It's not very far along, gluedin weapons bays, main bay doors, couple of interior parts, that's about it.

"lightning ii" was actually given to the F-35.

T-bolt...your Raiden's looking good.  Nice weathered look on the leading edge.

Thanks, Gamera, I must agree, so have resprayed the AGP to neaten it up, and treated it to the same finish as the rest of the plane. Now it has some depth to it.

All masking is now away, including the canopy, so here's a first look at the overall scheme and decals:

Tomorrow I'll tackle the landing gear and see if I can carve that antenna mast.

M/TB379

How about an F22?  It has two names one is obviously the Raptor, but it is also known as the Lightning II.  If that counts I'll join in with Academy's 48th scale one.  I need a good excuse to finish it.  It's not very far along, gluedin weapons bays, main bay doors, couple of interior parts, that's about it.

Another great build TREY. I have never seen a P-38 NF before.

Thanks guys, but I'll admit the Warthog looks much better in photos than close up. Maybe not a three feet model but at least a two foot one!

Looking good Mike, to be honest on aircraft straight matte looks well 'dull' to me too, I like to put at least a touch of semigloss in it.

Gamera, LOVE the looks of that hog!

Okay, a little progress today. I put a final coat over the decals to lock down the bit of panel work I was able to do, then I unmasked the antiglare panel. I'm not at all happy with the Tamiya XF-1's performance under tape, it looks very patchy indeed, and the absolute flat finish, while it may be technically correct, just does not jive with the rest of the airframe. I'll remask and respray, and bring up a low lustre -- probably using Micro Flat which is notorious for being anything but.

On the positive side, I oil washed the main gear bays so they look suitably dirty for a plane that's been up the runway a few times:

There'll be more over the weekend, I'm keen to get this one done. There's the tires to spray, the radio mast to scratchbuild (the instructions have disappeared and I can't find anything on the sprue that looks like the mast on the box or in other people's builds, hey ho, I'll carve it from some .060" plastic. I'll need to respray the gear covers, they got contaminated when I did the bare metal work.

I'll mount the landing gear before the centreline tank, and the fan and prop may be the last items to go on. Oh, and the radio wires... And pigment work...

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Trey: She looks great to me! I can see a little of the shading in the black in the photos- would show up a lot more in RL. Only thing missing is some cheesecake nose art! 

Jimmy: Great kit there, built one a few years ago. The ordinance you get is almost worth the price of the kit itself. Only issue I had was there are a couple of sunken places in the upper wing over where the wheel wells were molded on the other side. I couldn't figure out any way to fill them without destroying the surface detail so I left them. 

Trey, your Lightning is absolutely stunning!  Great job.

Owl thanks much appreciated!

Jimmy D thanks no its the academy,looking forward to seeing the T-bolt build that kit looks really sweet!

Looks good ta me TREY! Ill get it posted on the front page for ya! :)

I'm calling this one finished,not a terrible kit but nothing to rave about either. My biggest complaint would be the gear bays and doors.Very poor fit and lack of positive location for the doors. I did scratch in a last minute landing light on the nose gear and decided to leave off the rockets and just have the bare rails. The variations in the black do'nt show well in the pics but it is there. Warts and all I'm actually pretty pleased with it,  cheers Trey

professordeath

Great looking builds going down here. I'd love to jump in with my A-10A Thunderbolt II (1/48 Hobby Boss kit). I see crossovers are allowed; I've committed it to the Ground Attack GB too. I'll be starting it tonight or tomorrow.

build added!

Wayne: Nice looking tank there. Good change of pace from the usual WW2 subjects- looking forward to following your build.

Guys, haven't tried brushing the Future on, may have to give that a whirl. I pretty much always dip my canopies and clear parts in it, makes small surface scratches vanish and leaves the part much more resistant to any more scratching.

I brush it on and use windex for cleaning my brushes. Working fine for me

I havent heard anything good about airbrushing future. Its self leveling for the most part, so brushing it on seems to work fine. I use soap and water for cleanup.

Interesting, everyone seems to have a slightly different experience. I have some Future here but haven't tried it through the airbrush yet. May I ask what you guys use for clean up? I've heard you need something with ammonia, such as Windex. Do you spray Windex through the AB to clean it? I'm building up my collection of MM Acryls so I can add their glosscoat to the set and give that a go. The Micro Gloss sprayed pebbly, so did Tamiya X-22 -- in frustration I threw up my hands and went with the low gloss which was the only one I've found so far that has been universally reliable.

M/TB379

Hm, Ive never had problems with Future. Normally 2 coats gets things super duper glossy. I normally buff the paint job with 0000 steel wool before I gloss coat to help with the roughness of the gloss finish

Funny, I've had similar problems with gloss coats too. I stopped using Future since it always gives me a nasty orange peel, so pebbly it looks like a non-slip surface. Others give the same problem but not nearly as bad so I've been using MM acrylic gloss.

And I'd used Micro/Super Scale decal setting solutions for over twenty years now but on the last few models I've had really bad silvering then recently while washing a model for the final protective coat had the decals simply wash off the model. I'm wondering if Microscale has changed their formula. I switched over the Tamiya decal solution on the last few models and haven't had any of the same problems.  

Owl -- I've not had great luck with glosscoats so far, they seem to come our pebbly, while the satin is reliable and mostly bright enough to make decals behave -- but there's decals and there's decals, and no two are alike. I had some custom decals made by JBot in Canada for a project I finished at the weekend and they pulled tight into detail like you wouldn't believe, with all the same chemistry and paints...

M/TB379

Gamera -- I'm still kinda experimenting, in the past I've felt the decals needed stabilising with clear before working the wash over them, this time I thought , what the heck, do the wash as a single operation, then come back to the decals -- especially to try out a new brand for the first time. I'll do what wash I can over the decals and reseal it with clear. If I could get Solvaset it might have pulled these guys down tight into the detail... I'm thinking of trying Eduard's hinomaru masks and painting them on some future projects.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

I think you satin-finished it too. Most decals go down best over a gloss coat. At least, that has been my experience. Gloss, decals, wash, finish

Mike: Look great! Though I normally apply the decals and then add the wash over it. Have you had better luck going wash first?

T-bolt...looks great!

Scorpiomikey -- yes indeed, that was the filler zone and I wasn't game to scribe into it... What I have done is add a pencil mark which hopefully under satincoat will allow the eye to see the shape, rather than the third dimension...

Decals are on now. Here's the Aztec generic sheets I used:

The process underway:

A last look at the rivet work before the hinomaru goes onto the right wing:

The Aztec decals don't respond terribly strongly to Microscale chemistry (I mean a dozen applications!), so they did not pull into the surface the way I had hoped they would. There's some detail to rewash, but not all by any means. Today I satincoated the decals, then masked and put the gear wells and gear components into aluminum:

She's looking good, I think. That last bit of panel work, then I can unmask the antiglare panel and canopy, do some chipping work in the high traffic areas (but not too much, this is obvioussly a fairly factor-fresh paintjob), and mount the gear and prop; then it's onto canon barrels, pitot tube, radio mast and antenna wires, plus exhaust stains and gun carbon to be done in pigments...

M/TB379