Metal masters GB 2016 (1Feb to 31 July)

Quick update: I got the decals on. Some of them gave me fits (mostly the fuselage ones around what I suppose are speed brakes - sorry, this is my first jet and I am not 100% sure what they are ). I held the panels in place using Blu-Tac, and then put the decals over them, used setting solution, and then gently cut them with my knife. It worked well for the most part, but required some touching up (I've found that Model Master Dark Sea Blue is pretty much a perfect match for the blue in the star-and-bar decals on most kits).

Now for the gear, tanks and other bits. Hopefully I can finish it up this week.

-BD-

Wow, Theuns, that looks simply amazing. Those fuselage stripes are PERFECT, and I don't have the confidence to try those, even if my kit decals weren't a wrinkled mess. Excellent job.

Oortiz - That's a sweet looking P-80. the time and prep work is really paying off. I can't wait to see more. On the subject of masking, I usually use the kit-supplied doors as masking, but on this F-86, I couldn't due to the attachment points, so I traced them onto some Evergreen sheet styrene and cut them out, then press-fit them into the bays. It worked, but your solution seems much better. Does it continue to stick even after it's painted, or is this a one-and-done approach? I like Blu-Tac for the same thing, but I find it's messy to clean up out of the recessed details.

-BD-

Welcome Steve.  Glad to see you.

Nice job so far O.  Quick question, have you used the Alclad White primer in the past?  Is there any real difference between that and the Grey?

Theuns.  That's come out great so far. I'm not generally sold on most Sabres out there.  I think that's a subject that is hard to pin down, but so far you've nailed it pretty well. =]

Hi Steve, you are on the roster mate, welcome ;-)

Theuns

Wow, Steve, that should be a beautiful bird when she's done. Looking forward to seeing this one completed. I'm hoping to get some more done on my Mig-21PF as soon as possible. This will be my first all NMF aircraft. I definitely have some work to do on the seams, especially where the nose joins the fuselage behind the cockpit.

Hey FSM, checking in with a small update.  First...the kudos.

BrandonD & Theuns, great work on your Sabres.  I've always liked the lines of the Sabre, and your builds are coming along nicely.  Great painting and detailing!

Now, what have I gotten done?  Well, honestly, not much.  

Haven't been able to make much progress lately.  Although, I was happy to see that my gap filling strategy worked nicely. 

Before painting, I stuffed some Silly Putty (yeah, the stuff we played with as kids) into the gear and brake wells as masking.

After that, I sprayed sprayed on Alclad's white primer.

I did some wet sanding with fine pads after the primer went down to make sure my surface was butter smooth for the NMF.

After that, I sprayed on Alclad's Aluminum.  I sprayed on an initial light coat then wet sanded some more.  I followed the sanding with some more Alclad primer to smooth out some of the rough spots, then sprayed a second coat of Al.

This is where things are at as of now.  I'll wet sand with a 6000 grit pad and respray any necessary touch ups before I call the base coat done.  Once I'm satisfied, I'll start working on varying panels with different shades of metals.  

Anyway, feel free to share your comments and criticisms.  I'm always interested in what you all have to say.  Thanks for looking, and stay tuned for more updates.

Cheers!

-O

I managed to beat the decals into submition and shoot a satin clearcoat over it so it looks like a well used plane but not loose the alclad effect.

In the bright sunlight in the pix it looks a little darker than it really is.

Theuns

Brandon, I had my AB spluttering some drops on one of my models before so I feel your pain. Nice save though and that finish looks good :-)

Theuns

It looks like it's coming along pretty well.  Tackled those drips pretty well too. =]  Cleaning up the stripes ought to be easy pickings.  Who's the pilot for this bird?

Well, "Metal Masters" does NOT apply to me and my painting skills. I loaded my airbrush too full of Alclad Airframe Aluminum, and I dumped some drops on the port wing. Tried to wipe them off with a paper towel, then tried drowing it in thinner to smooth it out. Nothing worked, so it was back to sandpaper and a new black gloss coat.

Fortunately, it was a small space and nothing too bad was done. Today I was able to use my lunch break to lay down the airframe aluminum and pull off the masking on the stripes. Looks like a little bit of touching up in the black/yellow areas (and a small amount on the red nose), but other than that, I'm happy with it.

Next step is to mask for the different metals on the wings, gun ports and fuselage, and then clears and decals.

-BD-

I gotcha.  That's about what I figured.  It is easier and in a lot of ways better to put down a base coat instead of just one solid opaque color.  So in referencing the nose, I agree, it's the smart way of painting that. You won't see it so much with acrylics, but with oil paints some paints have a bit transparency to them and take more of the color to cover something more completely.  But when you're putting down thin coats...a base coat goes a long way. =]

Thanks.

bvallot

Brandon, that's an interesting start.  Have you done that before? Does it affect the outcome of the color of the stripes.  I might think if the opacity is sufficient it wouldn't make much difference.  I'm guessing maybe you're doing this as a typical method of painting and masking and chronology..?

 

For the stripes or the nose? I usually paint stripes after the base coats are down, but in this case, since I already have black paint on it and I need black borders to the yellow stripes, I decided to paint them first. I just used thin vinyl tape to mask for the black, then filled in with the yellow and masked that. Masking will come off after the Alclad is down. I wanted to eliminate the overspray so it wouldn't affect the shininess of the Alclad.

As for the nose, I put the yellow down as an undercoat so I can build from yellow to orange to red. When I've tried to paint red over black, it has always taken a lot of paint and come out looking awful. I also find it easier to mask the narrower end of a nose or prop spinner than the fatter end, so I just did it this way out of convenience.

-BD-

Brandon, that's an interesting start.  Have you done that before? Does it affect the outcome of the color of the stripes.  I might think if the opacity is sufficient it wouldn't make much difference.  I'm guessing maybe you're doing this as a typical method of painting and masking and chronology..?

I have a quick update for my 1/48 Hasegawa F-86F-30 today. After a lot of working on the seams (some of it due to fitting the resin cockpit, I believe). Keeing everything straight took some doing.

I got the model primered and painted gloss black. I then masked for the black borders on the yellow stripes, and shot the yellow stripes. I also used yellow as an undercoat for the red nose, as it covers much better than red over black.

Here are the stripes painted using Model Master Insignia Yellow (they aren't this bright in real life). I have a decal for the fuselage but decided to just paint them all to make them match, and I don't have great luck with stripe decals anyway.

After this pic, I shot the red on the nose. Later this evening I got the stripes all masked and then gave it another coat of gloss black to get rid of the overspray. I hope to get some Alclad on it on Thursday.

-BD-

Theuns - I can't wait to see the decals on that thing. It's so shiny and gorgeous!

-BD-

I don't know, here we have very high summer temps and in the winter is dips to below freezing regularly.

I did see that the film is very reluctant to come off the paper in anything but hot water.....ah well they are all on without to many further issues.

Pix to follow.

Theuns

I actually haven't ever experienced a bad set of decals yet.  There have been a couple of instances where it was my own fault and I overworked an area or mishandled something. Hell, nowadays I'm painting everything I can lol.  So I'll likely find fewer and fewer instances where I'll get to find out. =]  I can certainly understand age being a factor, but what about weather conditions mess with decal film?

Yea, just a pity as I have used hasa decals before and they were great, maybe these ones got brittle in the heat or something...

Theuns

I started with the decals last night and sofar I am not really having allot of fun with them :-(

I wanted to do the Korea decals, the large central fuselage band (after breaking up) convinced me to do the other supplied decal scheme!

Then the nose decal on that scheme broke up...I got it somewhat inplace but not really 100%, so I will just beat this thing into submition anf complete it.

Theuns

I masked off the outer sides of the wing centre section and put 2 more coats of airframe allu on to lighten that area.

I also masked off the fuselage panel that in all the pix I have seems to be darker aswell as the exhaust and gun pannels.

I will shoot more alclad to laghten the rest , then I usually put 1 coat over everything (unmasked) to make the tone difference a little "softer"

Theuns

Here it is in 3 coats of airframe allu. I usually at this stage mask off the panels I want to look a little darker and shoot more alclad to make the rest lighter.....I now have 2 ways to go with this model

1. the decals are for a nice 1960's plane in the normal "used" NMF

2. I have a pic of the same plane as a super pollished airshow plane, where basically only the gun panel and exhaust looks a little darker, the rest of the metal looks uniform due to the pollishing.

What to do what to do.....

Theuns

Omar, that looks good, you surely got that sorted out.

Theuns

Hey FSM,

Before I share my progress, I want to say to everyone that I'm impressed with the work being shared here.  Great stuff and great motivation.  Keep it up!

OK, so now let's share an update, shall we?  When I left you all last, the fuselage halves were glued together, and I was thinking about how I was going to deal with the seams resulting from the fuse-to-wings assembly.  One wing root was about 2mm and the other was about 1.  On the underside, the rear end of the assembly had another 1mm gap.

The "small" gap:

Because the assemblies are hollow, I couldn't pack it with putty or CA glue.  I needed a different approach.  I decided to use pieces of sheet styrene.

After gluing the front of the assembly, I made a shim to bridge the gap at the back end of the underside of the assembly.  Once it was all glued up, I trimmed the plastic, sanded it flush, and rescribed.

I figured this was the best approach for the wing roots too.

After I sanded the extra plastic flush, I sprayed a heavy coat of Alclad's Fine Grey Primer to fill any residual gaps and gouges from the sanding.

At this point it looks like, once everything's sanded smooth, a final coat of Alclad Fine White Primer will even things out in prep for the metal finish.  I'm feeling pretty confident that these gaps/seams have been beaten.

After the fiasco with the primers on the stabilizers, I stripped 'em back down to bare plastic.  While they soaked, I turned my attention to the tip tanks.  I had sanded off the raised detail and, in a fit of artistic license, replaced it with some tape.  The tanks were sprayed with Future to get a nice smooth surface and to help blend and adhere the tape.  Well, I followed the Future up with some grey primer.  I then "preshaded" the tape "bands" with Alclad Steel before covering the whole tank with Airframe Aluminum.  The NMF was sealed with MM Metalizer Sealer, washed with Flory's, and flat coated.

Here they are dry fitted on the wire hangers I built into the wing.

Anyway, that's where I'm at.  Next is to sand the airframe to even things out before covering it with Alclad's primer.  Feel free to drop your two cents into the bucket.  Your comments and criticisms are always welcome.

Cheers!

-O

Good start there, I really enjoyed building that kit.

Theuns

I've got a start on my Mig-21PF. I'll be doing this in N. Vietnamese markings. On the interior front section I primed using Black Ammo of Mig Primer. I really like the way it goes on super smooth. The metallic color in the nose is matte aluminum acrylic metal colors from Ammo of Mig. The Russian Green is from Ammo as well. The tail end I primed with Stynylrez grey primer and then Ammo Titanium acrylic metal with some Alclad Jet Exhaust. I was nervous about the Stynylrez as it is pretty thick straight out of the bottle; however, I sprayed it through my Paasche Talon at about 22 psi with a .38 needle and had no problems. It layed down nice and smooth and covered up minor imperfections.