CANicoll

Beautifully done Peter! The washes really work well to highlight the details and the stencils do bring the bird to life.

John, Thanks! Big help and appreciate the effort to show what magic you perform!

I'm understanding the process, if not the actual work. I think the part I most am comfortable with is the cuss factor part. Lots of practice there! Definitely keeping notes of the hints, much appreciated John!

John, Wow, I wish you would do a tutorial on how you cleaned up those seams!!! Really!

WTH!!! I miss looking at posts for a week and all hell breaks loose! Glad to hear Diane is doing much better and on the road to recovery but SOOO sorry to hear of her fall. Please ignore Mike - he knows not what he asks. I don't think I would be able to get the vision of you in a nurse's outfit out of my tiny mind....

Peter, thanks for your comments - Funny you mention Reskit. I had barely heard of them but did a bit of online research so ordered the Reskit missiles (Sidewinders and Sparrows) and the inboard pylons as well (why not if I'm going this far!) from BNA and they shipped in a matter of hours!! Wow. Got a few other bits I'll add on here when they arrive. Still looking for bulged tyres, however. Here are the Speed Hunter stencils. WTH did I get myself into? These pages are just the relevant pages for MY build. There are other pages I omitted but will put into a review write-up I'll do. The good news is the instruction pages are incredibly well broken down into sections. I guess you could say that it also breaks down a HUGE task into more manageable bites? Yeah, wishful thinking!! The sheet has both white and black markings, indicating which to use over the various camo colors on the aircraft. I may need a month just to get the stencils onto the aircraft - especially considering the gloss coat, letting it fully cure, then the sealing coat, and the washes... Oh my... This will be the most-stenciled aircraft I've ever done.....(Astute observation of the obvious...)

Fran, Cheers, mate! Nicely written and I appreciate the commentary you provided. Looks good. Now if I could only swap all of my B-17 reference materials for B-26!!

Quick view of the cockpit temporarily fitted into the fuselage. Got the side panel pieces in place and just wanted to see how it all fit together. Did finally remember to put the navy refueling door panel on which will take some putty to fill in the slight gap at the back. Working on the rest of the landing gear, wings, tail.... Putting the missiles aside for a bit. Looking at some 3D Printed/resin options especially for the Sparrows since I did such a miserable job putting those halves together.

Thanks Peter! In this pic, all of the gray belts are Quinta - I laid them over the resin belts on the seat back, but for the seat bottom, I cut off the resin belts, used the Quinta seat cushion to cover, then added the Quinta belts. Then added the various placards and the ejection seat handles.

Love this aircraft!! Beautiful job on your build.

The Reid Air Stencils showed up today. OMG, what did I do? I'll post some pictures tomorrow of the instructions, which are incredibly detailed. It may take longer to apply the stencils than to actually build the plane... Worked on some seams for the Sparrow missiles but almost afraid to do Primer 2.0 as I'm sure there are still seams to work. But did assemble the main landing gear (white metal core) and then went to work on the seats, seeing how the Quinta 3D belts might work on the resin seats. Here are the two seats, with the Quinta belts and seat pad installed on the seat to the right. To be fair, I had not really painted the other belts yet but I do like the detail and the contrast. Using the seat pad required cutting/shaving the seat belts, losing that 3D effect of the resin belts. But the Quinta pad and belts Look pretty good. The resin belts are of a very different configuration than the Quinta set but to the eye, still looks pretty good. I can still shave off the part of the resin belts that shows below the Quinta belts. Still some detail painting and need to install the Quinta ejection handles but fairly happy with the look. Especially to the eye. More to come!

Huge, help, thanks! I have both....

Looking SB to replace the vinyl tires which NEVER seem to age well, and came across the intake covers, which are made for the Revell and the Tamiya kits, respectively. Neither will likely fit the GT Resin intakes, correct?

Ok, I'm in... Agree with Carl on the AM decals.

Carl, Excellent comment, thanks. My plan is to mask the raised sections and then spray a darker metallic color in-between, and then go with some heat-stressing effects if I can work that up.

I love this aircraft but the old Monogram kit is, well, old. This is "New Tool" but has anyone put hands-on yet? Flory did a review and they like it but have not built it yet. 335 pieces? But looks like it could use some engine work as well as a new IP and resin tyres but holy cow that is a lot of pieces, including framing inside that likely will never see the light of day. Of course, when has THAT ever stopped us??

Thanks Peter! I have had some really good luck with the Vallejo Metal paints, but just had the itch to try the MRP on this tail. Definitely will be doing some masking and I'm sure this will hold up very well. Mark, thanks!! If I can get ahead of the seams on the missiles and drop tanks I'll be in heaven. Most of that was my own doing, I'm sure - not being careful enough with lining up the halves.

Beautiful job!! Putting your build thread away for future reference. Thanks!

Peter, that is beautiful! The markings are incredible and the plane looks amazing. 370??? Wow...But the plane looks terrific. Love the panel washes as they really make the plane pop. I have that set of the AK Enamel Paneliner washes which I want to try out on this build and write a review on. I hope it comes out half as nice as your work.

After looking at a pile of seams I need address, I thought I'd work on some other pieces. A little disappointed in some of Tamiya's engineering of this older kit, for example, there is a huge sprue attachment point on one of the landing gear parts. They definitely have gotten a LOT better. The kit came with a white metal nose gear strut. Interesting!! Here is the nose gear strut with some of the styrene parts attached. What I was really happy with is the MRP Fine Silver I applied over the Vallejo Gloss Black primer base. Sprayed in several (6-8) light coats with a couple of slightly heavier coats at the end. MRP sprays so beautifully - this time at about 14 psi using my Iwata HP-CS and a .3 needle. Now to work on some masking and shading.

Does someone have a good paint reference for the metal tail? I thought I had found someone who had done a really nice job on their F-4, and detailed the masking and paints they used, but now I can't find it. Thanks in advance!!

Thanks Peter. I started using a pair of side-cutters to clip off the numb flush with the part, but once in a while this still happens. I guess that is why we have putty, right? Definitely the primer shows the warts and all but is useful to showing exactly where work is needed. I do like that Vallejo gloss primer. Not as one-step as the MRP primer, but probably a bit less costly. I used the MRP Fine White Primer on some pieces and went through about half a large bottle of that. Thanks for the warning about the Quinta seatbelts. I may then look at doing just the shoulder belts as the lap belts are pretty folded up on the seats.

Making progress but not a lot to show. However, I'm disappointed at my lack of skill in dealing with seams. Ugh. I thought I put pieces together better than what I'm seeing on the Sparrow missiles and on the fuel tanks. Bummer. But Primer doesn't lie! Primed 31 pieces tonight after assembling the Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles. Not a pretty picture... This is AFTER I thought I sanded the seam. And this happened on a sidewinder: So a lot of work left to do on some of these seams. But did make a bit of progress on some other bits. Primed the tail with Vallejo Gloss Black primer which arrived not too long ago. I really like this gloss primer. I put it on very lightly, taking up to 8-10 passes to get the final result. But it is VERY smooth and metallics over the basecoat seem to come out nicely. This was ONE mold line that I did a reasonable job on. Also started on the resin seats, first with a mix of Olive Drab (40%) and Green Drab (60%) on the seat cushion, The frame is Vallejo Gloss Black Primer. Somehow, the paint looks more complete to my eye - not so much in the picture. Will start picking out details tomorrow and see about merging some of the Quinta 3D decals for some seat details. Will see how the Quinta seatbelts work over the resin belts. More tomorrow (I hope).

Yeah, that is what I am thinking too, especially since the masks are mostly the bands around the missiles. I would think that would be MUCH easier to just decal. Different if they were fuselage bands like on the nose of your F-14, but even then, a high-quality decal is hard to beat. Yours looks fantastic.

Peter, looking terrific! One trick I've tried on small print things is to take a picture of it, then enlarge it and either print it or display it on the computer screen. I plan on doing that with the stencils for the F-4. Good luck! Chris