"Century series Jets" GB 2014-2015 * CLOSED *

Kitty Hawk 1:48 Voodoo F-101 A/C

Here are a few tips for anyone thinking of building the Kitty Hawk kit for this group build.

Besides the crappy, brittle plastic there are several gotcha's that should be mentioned.

1. They do give you parts to model the radar in the nose cone of the Voodoo; however, there are no instructions on how to open the nose to display the radar.  Without outside reference photos there is no point to installing the radar.

2. They give you parts and painting instructions for 4 AIM-4, 4 AIM-4C and an AIR-2 but there are no instructions on where/how to mount them. So without external photos, the Voodoo will not have ordinance.

3. There are 2 very colorful decals schemes for the tail of the Voodoo; however, the instructions fail to mention that you can't use them if you had already installed the horizontal stabilizers. Sadly I did, so I have to go with one of the other 2 schemes. Technically, I suppose you could cut the decals to install them.

Theuns,

How are you planning on finishing your 104?

Mach71..Thanks!

Alan

Thanks for the kind words about my Voodoo. Your effort looks very good and that Flory wash will add to the overall effect.

I suggest in doing your cans and exhaust area, to shoot the cans a dark metallic grey alternating tones in circular motion and to incorporate Tamiya clear blue rings around the cans. The exhaust area I would use the same combo of colors followed by Clear blue streaks to accentuate heat discoloration.

So you get this effect

The blue tint is very light and is more apparent to the human eye than in a picture.

I am thinking of doing a slightly worn 104 with the minimal of markings on it. Certainly not as bold as on the box top.

It will be alclad though.

That Voodoo looks soooooooo cool!

Theuns

Thanks Theuns!

Just a word of caution about the Alclad products for those not familiar with them:

I usually do not use a mask because I spray in the garage with the large doors open and a fan blowing out and circulating the air. I do this near the garage edge almost on the driveway. However, I do use a good mask when spraying Alclad due to the metallic particles it contains. Just to be safe.

My buddy recently sprayed Alclad black gloss primer and it never cured, even after a week. It also gummed up his air brush. He had to sand the sticky primer off. This is a well seasoned veteran of the hobby and an excellent modeler. I have read about problems with the Alclad gloss primer and even having a bottle on hand, I will not use it until I experiment on a plastic water bottle. So far the Testors gloss black enamel works like a charm. Just a heads up.

I have binned my bottle of gloss black alclad.....it simply does NOT work!!

I instead use tamiya gloss black enamel with great results.

Theuns

I haven't posted any progress in a while, because I kind of hit a wall.

One of the reasons I picked the 102 in NASA paint (other than its a NASA) was to challenge

myself. I've never done well with masking. I thought it would not be too bad, but it was harder

than I expected. The curves more complex than at first sight.

Anyway I have tried a few different methods with no luck so today I went old school. I made a few

paper templates, used Tamiya tape for the gentle cures and cut blue tape for the complex curves.

I think it worked ok.

I think it turned out good. I have some clean up to do, but overall I'm pleased.

Now maybe I can get moving on this again!

Thanks plastic for that!! I will always use either Testors or Tamiya for the gloss black. I haven't the kit yet to try alcad on, but, I will definitely try it soon.

Mach..your masking job turned out great!! Looking forward to the big finish on this NASA bird!!

Thanks Rob,

It's a relief to have the black done. I have some clean up to do tomorrow, but I can start moving forward again.

Guess what. Even though Revell said they didn't have the clear tree for my old F100 kit, to my surprise, it just showed up today anyway.

Wow, now I have too many F100 canopies.

Anybody need a 1/48 F100 canopy?

modelcrazy

I suggest holding on to the spare canopy. You never know when it will be needed again. A while back I finished a Trumpy kit and damaged the completed canopy. I had to get a vac canopy from Squadron cause Trumpeter ignores parts requests.

Modelcrazy,

Parts is parts. like PJ I would keep them. You never know when you might need it.

I just saw that Sprue Brothers has listed today a 1:48 Trumpeter F-106A Delta Dart (store.spruebrothers.com/.../trp02891.htm). Does anyone have any info on it?  I haven't been able to find a detailed review, just some prototype shots and comments. Based on those it looks like a really nice redo of the Monogram kit which I have built in the past. However, it is pricey.

Too bad it's not a 1/72....too big for my collection unfortunately...It's the only plane I'm missing to complete the entire Century Series!!

It's re tooled and new. Look here for a quick overview:

www.sprueview.com/.../trumpeter-148-f-106a-delta-dart

modelcrazy

Guess what. Even though Revell said they didn't have the clear tree for my old F100 kit, to my surprise, it just showed up today anyway.

Wow, now I have too many F100 canopies.

Anybody need a 1/48 F100 canopy?

There ain't no such animal as having too many spare parts!!!  Hang on to the extras....you never know when you'll run across another kit that might be missing one....if the price is right, why not??

Dave

Here's my 104 update. Its ready for paint, although I probably wont get to it until this weekend.

Right on MC...what paint scheme are you going for? Spoiler, LOL?

I'm going to try the Alclad Polished Aluminium,  with different shades.  I've never sprayed Alclad before so we'll see how it goes.

It works really easy to work with. just a few tips.

Prep the surface very well , I usually sand with 8000 wet paper.]

Spray at a low PIS, round 15-20 and keep the AB at a low angle to the model.This way it has a wider fan area.

I use black gloss enamel as a basecoat.

I spray on about 3 light coats of alclad to get a dark allu look, mask off some panels and spray 3-4 more  coats. This gives a nice tone difference without the cost of multiple paints.

I would hovever be aprehensive to do a big tone difference if going pollished allu, the action of pollishing the plane has the effect of giving a more "mono tone" look to the actual alclad sheets.

Usually plases like the jet exhaust and orher areas maybe made from titanium or other metals like magnesuim will look different, but allu pannels look the same

These are just my own observations :-)

Theuns

Thanks Theuns,

Downloading multiple pictures of the 104, if not painted,  they are polished all around. The exhaust area has some variation but not much. I almost feel I should go with Chrome.

I started decals today. The Fundekals decals are outstanding! The Meng decals are very nice also

The decals were still wet in the photo. I'm off to work so nothing will get done for a few days.

I personally think that polished aluminum is perfect and chrome is a bit too much but that's up to you. I was extremely happy at the polished alum. tone on my Voodoo. The aqua gloss did reduce the polished look just a tad but it looks like foil.

MC...you should certainly do the Alcad method. I'm going to get on that soon with my next NM plane. I\ve seen too many good reasons to not do it now on this site. If you do...give us a blow by blow account of how it goes.

Mach..that NASA scheme is just wicked!! Totally jealous that i played it safe with my 102!! Very fine work.

Thanks Rob,

I'm very happy with how this is working out so far. I've made plenty of goof's, the camera hides a lot, but

it seems to be coming together.

I can't say enough about the Fundekals decals. I was afraid that the black would show, but they block the black excellent. They went on nice, didn't shatter, and reacted with Micro-sol/Micro-set very well. The Meng decals were a pleasure to use also.

I had planed on hitting the 102 with a light coat of dull coat but she looks so nice all shiny I might forgo that.

I love what you did with your 102, It's very sharp with the red wing tips.

One thing I forgot, looking at yours again reminded me, I did not paint the canopy frame yellow.

Mach...painting that canopy was a challenge...get ready for it!!

The photo's I have for the NASA 102 show only the back canopy as yellow, mine is not attached yet but the masks are off.  It would have been so much easier if I had left them on. Any tips?

Also any tips on painting the pitot tube. I would have thought Meng would have supplied a decal for it.

Dog gone it!

I sprayed the nose cone light grey on my F104, and since I had some extra in my color cup, I went ahead a sprayed some seams to see how they looked. Well to my exasperation, the seams to  my intakes and rear tail section look treble, It seems I sanded them a little too much with my sanding stick (first time to use sticks) and made slight dips at the seams. Now I have to apply more putty and try again. This time I'll do the old fashioned wet sanding with paper.

Rats!

Pollished allu over glossblack gives a VERY shiny mirror look.

Theuns

mach71

The photo's I have for the NASA 102 show only the back canopy as yellow, mine is not attached yet but the masks are off.  It would have been so much easier if I had left them on. Any tips?

Also any tips on painting the pitot tube. I would have thought Meng would have supplied a decal for it.

For the canopy, I masked the clear surface with foil, so, it was already in place when I painted the canopy (which was not mounted at the time of painting). I painted the canopy first with the model's colour: Aircraft gray. After that, because the foil mask was in place, I meticulously laid Tamiya tape as a frame around the 'window' area approx 1mm from the foil. Describing this is difficult! Here's a reminder pic:

My pitot tube was an AM one: aluminum. Very nice to work with. I painted the middle portion white. Now, because it was aluminum, the paint was difficult to adhere, at first. I had to sand the tube after the first masking went bad. Anyway, painted it white, then 'spiraled' a 1mm wide strip of Tamiya tape on the white. The front part of the tube I left it's natural aluminum. The base, I hand painted black to match the nose cone. The pic below shows the aluminum tip, red/white and black: