CANicoll

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

I can't decide if the painting will be faster or slower than decaling....

Peter, I swear, there are more decals for the missiles than for an entire P-51D including stencils!! Also picked up a mask set which provides for painting the stripes on the missiles. That may be a bridge too far for me actually. We will see.

Making Progress... Look what showed up! A HUGE thank you to Tamiya USA for their quick turnaround sending a Free Sprue N for this kit. No clue where the original one went, but certainly not their fault. Been working on the other bits, including the drop tanks and the sidewinders. A fair bit of seam and ejector pin work on the missiles took some time. I still have a bunch of seam work to do on the drop tanks and the nose. Not to mention making the vent that Carl pointed out. A bit more difficult since the halves are put together, but not impossible by any means. The number of parts involved is interesting - each missile is five pieces = 20. The rails have 8 pieces each = 16. Thirty-six on the armament, so far! Mustangs and Spitfires don't really have to deal with that!!

Nice work! Question - the yellow highlighting on the instructions. Is that something you do?

That bombsight is amazing! I've built my fair share of 1/48 B-17s and the detail you packed into that little package is amazing. Impressive.

Martin, exactly!! Who says you have to have the same look on both sides of your car? Thanks! That upgrade over the stock brakes was $6k!

Taking a slightly different approach to new wheels. I really like the Bronze, but could not get a new set at a reasonable price. Gunmetal on the white car looks nice, too. Knew someone who did this exact setup, but an inch larger than my current 18x9.5 wheels. These are 19x9s. People only see one side at a time anyway, right?? Mach V Crucial Wheels - definitely shows off the 6pot Brembos to nice effect.

Not quite perfect as Alclad, but for an acrylic I think they do a pretty good job. You are probably more precise than I am on that. You have a terrific eye for detail and finish.

Ohhh, I LIKE that idea... and I always have a paint mule handy for exactly this kind of thing. Carl, you are FULL of great ideas! (Maybe other stuff too, but I appreciate the great ideas!! )

Carl, Excellent suggestion - I ordered those exact stencils on the 26th (still have not shipped yet). I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the stencil fading.

Thanks Peter, and as I said to DocRob, wow... Here is a conundrum - does a stencil on an aircraft fade like the paint the stencil is painted on? Doing a faded aircraft with picture-perfect stencils doesn't seem right. Or does some poor soul go round refreshing the stencils periodically (doubful?).

Carl, I did remember you had corrected the outer wing angle in one of your builds - I have some sheet styrene ready for that and now this vent you suggested. PERFECT timing as I am working on the seams for the nose cone now. I appreciate your help!!

Doc - I'm either in shock or awe at how many stencils are going on this thing. Especially the bottom!!! I kind of feel like I need to put it on a mirror or something to show off what will be probably days worth of decaling... Ugh!

Peter, Check out the ZM tape from SprueBros... It is a lot less expensive than the Tamiya tape and I can't tell the difference.

Minor construction update at this point. I've set up the new airbrush compressor and did a test spray of some primer coats and all seems good. The tank certainly smooths out the airflow compared to a non-tank temp set up I used briefly. These amazing resin seats just had me realize that those excellent Quinta seatbelts probably are not going to get used. I'll see if I can merge the two but I have a feeling that the excellent detail on these resin seats would be a shame to do away with. MRP White Primer. Assembled the wing tips and flaps, as well as the tail. Very straight forward and the fit is perfect. Used Tamiya Extra Thin starting at the base/thickest point then worked my way around. This will give you an idea of the fading I'm looking to do on the aircraft. Planning on doing white-basing for the fading, as well as doing some pre-shading of panel lines. This spot of paint is really to get behind the intakes (Thanks Mark!!) and the rest will be taken care of when I get to painting the fuselage camo. Test fitted the tail and still have a little bit of fine sanding to do to get it to sit flush, but it is pretty close right now. Closer than the picture indicates. The tail cap actually fits perfectly - it is dry fitted here. And, thanks to @Peterpools I'll be tackling the missile load outs here shortly. I think there are more pieces for the armament than there are for the entire rest of the aircraft. Ok, that is an exaggeration, but only a slight one! That's it for now! Thanks for looking.

Looking good, Peter! I hear you on the weather. I've taken to still painting if I have the heat (gas) on as that tends to dry out the air here.

Carl, Excellent!!! Thank you so much for posting these pictures. The IP that Quinta is missing is the one on the bottom of page 90 in the first set and the bottom picture on page 69. But your pictures show that Quinta really did get the rest of the panels spot on. If you build an F-4, I know someone who has an extra set (or two) of Quinta Interior 3D decals! Chris