AFV F-CK-1C WIP

Here comes the first painted camoflage part, the canopy. I simply masked the fiber glasses and then sprayed Mr. Surfacer 1200 as the primer. I also applied flat black in the inside of the frame as to make it not transparent at all. The AFV canopy has mould line in the middle of it, one has to sand it out and then polish it. I also dip the canopy into a bowl of Pledge Floor Future in order to make it shiny.

The top coat of canopy contains two tones of gray, I used Mr. Color C306 for FS36270 and C11 for FS36440 and I followed a 'light to dark' sequence 

As for the question from Daniel, my airplanes does spin. It does not matter if it is shown in confined space such as 40 centimeter deep cupboard, where the models don't take viberation. I took my MiG-31BS and Tamiya F-14D to the first Guangzhou IPMS model show and found that they really need something to limit their travels. Especially for the F-14D, with a tilted supporting tube. Aircraft with vertical support tubes (such as AMK F-14D, Kinetic EF-18AM, Hasegawa VX-23 F/A-18F and MiG-31BS) doesn't spin very much.

If you don't want the airplanes to spin, you may glue a square plastic tube to the top of supporting metal tube. Of course, the holding tube inside the airframe should be square too. The inner dimension of holding tube should match the outer dimension of supporting square tube

Regards 

This is the start of painting. There are five different tones on the airframe and I followed a light to dark sequence. This picture shows the first color: FS18175 (Mr. Color C316) 

My airbrush is old and not clean enough and make it not easy to draw fine lines by freehand. So I rely on masking tapes as I make solid lines at first, followed by supplement painting by freehand.  

The pre-shading shows I do not master fine lines at the time being 

masking of the third color: FS36270 (Mr. Color C306) underneath the starboard wing and starboard horizontal tail 

When viewed from top, there are four colors. FS36118 over the tip of port wing and horizontal stabilizer, FS36270 for most of the mid and aft fuselage, FS36622 for the tip of starboard wing and horizontal stabilizer, FS36440 for the nose section 

Preliminary result of mask and airbrushing. As you can see, the patterns over the starboard wing and horizontal tail is a little too rigid. I am going to smooth this by a little bit with a little touch of free hand airbrushing 

The F-CK-1 aircraft features unique camoflage pattern. For the underside of the airframe: FS36270 on tip of the starbord wing (also with external fuel tanks), FS36440 for the most of both wings and fuselage, FS17875 for the tip of port wing 

Here comes the updating on TFE1042-70 afterburner cans and exhaust nozzles. It really took some time masking. Here is the sequence: 

1, paint the interiors matt white
2, mask and airbrush the interior petals. I chose the engraved ones to airbrush a thin layer of matt black
3, black petals
4, airbrush the outside of exhaust petals. Mr. Color SM204 Super Stainless and then a thin layer of clear orange (Mr. Color C49) 

5 to 6, time to bring out the overlap among the exterior plates. Masking and airbrushing Gunship Gray with a little flat black
7, masking work to airbrush the uncovered part of inner tube. Steel (Mr. Color C28) + Flat Black
8. Finished exhaust cone, but not weathered yet 

Mock up with stabilizers, flaps, canopy, fuel tanks and painted landing gears.  

The fitting of canopy is not so good. I will have to use some instant glue once I finished the interior of cockpit 

The main gear legs are canted approximately 9 degrees forward in order to bring the supporting point forward. so as to make it easier to rotate when taking off 

the nose gear is double forked, I did not glue the starboard half during the dry fitting 

As for main gear struts. The unloaded shock absorber tube is depicted with stainless steel tubes. 2mm in diameter and 5mm long each. The actuator piston should be silver chrome like and I will paint it later. The wheels are matt black, as black as the tyres🙂 

Gear doors with camouflage applied 

Gear doors with camouflage applied 

Painting of nose gear doors. I airbrushed the inside semi-gloss white, and outside airframe camouflages. The actuator rod and taxi lights are hand brushed with SM206 

And I also painted the landing gear doors. The inside of them are semi-gloss white. Door actuator rods and landing lights are painted with SM206 

Main gear legs with wheel brake lines painted 

Mask and airbrush: IFF bird slicer antenna. I stick masking tape to the cutting mat, and then slice it into small pieces. as to mask various delicate parts 

It is time to move back to the cockpit and I attached the photo-etched rear view mirrors to the canopy frame. The metal parts are made by Voyager Model in mainland China, who collaborates with AFV model with the F-CK-1C kit. Four mirrors are provided, of which only two are needed 

Hello, I am back here with some news of my updates.



First of all: Sealing the cockpit

For an in-flight aircraft, the cabin should be sealed, air conditioned and (if) pressurized. One important thing is sealing the cockpit. The fitting of AFV Club F-CK-1C canopy is not really good. I tried pressing the canopy to make it conform to nose section (with CA glues) but it did not work well. So, I went for Tamiya's basic putty, and did minimum amount of sanding. (I remembered that AFV CLub F-CK-1 canopies were fragile and some modelers did break them by pressing it too hard when sanding.)



Here comes the photos with closed cabin. 

The aircraft model did look better when I sealed the cabin. Here comes the mock up with drop tanks 

There is no obvious gaps under the canopy when looking from a 'ground observer view' now 

Second of all: Align all the wheels to make them parallel. Note the unloaded landing gear legs 

Note the mirrors inside the canopy frame 

Painted: airbrakes, adaptators of external fuel tanks, wingtip pylons, under wing outer pylons, Tien Chien-1 and 2 AAMs. Also, various antenna and air data probes are on the way. When everything gets it's color, I will airbrush a thin layer of clear coat and then apply decals. A little dye work of oil paint color will be in the second last step before final assembly
 

There are two pairs of position lights I painted on this model. One pair is beside the intake trunk, the other being on the wing tip missile launch rails. The intake pairs are not really easy to deal with since the parts are quite small. Although the lights are moulded in clear parts, I applied Mr.Surfacer (primer) and camouflage colors on the whole part. I masked and painted clear red(port) and clear green(starboard) after a thin layer of silver. For the wingtip pair, I simply freehand painted them with a hand brush 

AFV Club weapon pylon. There are two metal brackets each to hold the wing tank in place. My opinion is that plug the brackets in the tanks first, align them and then... add a drop or two of instant glue to the top of those brackets before glueing the tanks to pylons. 

I tried to eliminate the mould lines which is parallel to their longitudinal axes. While sanding laterally make the cross sections non-circular, I tried sanding in longitudinal way. HALF SUCCESS🙁 

I painted the antennas and air data probes and glued them on the airframe, after which I applied a thin layer of gloss coat in preparation for decals 

Note the gloss shine on the fuselage. From nose to tail, there are several air data probes and antennas. Cone pitot tubes, angle of attack probes, IFF antennas, another pair of pitot tubes, radar warning receiver probes, air traffic control antennas, GPS antenna, VHF antenna 

Beginning of decaling. AFV Club kit decals were made in Italy but react to water very slowly. I applied the insignias first to check if the decals worked properly  

Bare airframe with gloss coat, before decaling 

a possible in flight view of the model 

More decals. I was more familiar with the behaviour of the decals then, the large decals on vertical fins worked well. I applied Mr. Mark Setter (with adhesive liquids) on the airframe where I place the decals. And then, apply one Mr. Mark Softener after I applied the decals 

More 

Decals on the airframe complete. I took the model to the balcony. It is a typical shiny day in south China and the color looked good under sunlight 

I am afraid that AFV Club forgot to provide enough cradle mark decals for auxiliary fuel tanks. There should be four for each tank, yet I found only four on my decal sheet....so I applied them to the outboard side only 

The Sky Sword TC-2 medium range AAMs also got their decals 

Slight weathering being done, with extremely thinned Winsor Newton oil color (the thinner was Zippo lighter liquid). I used a brush to apply the paints along the panel lines and rivets 

Upper fuselage and wings, finished 

Almost finished, except for four short range air-to-air missiles 

the external tanks received a slight brushing laterally and vertically with thinned Winsor Newton oil (black mixed with brown) 

nose gear bay, nose gear strut and gear door washed. And then ... installed 

Main gear bay, main gear strut(along with main wheels and wheel brake assemblies) and doors washed and installed 

In cabinet. This aircraft is really tiny when compared with Mikoyan MiG-31BS 

Painting short range air to air missiles. The fins and warhead sections of AIM-9P4 are white, while the body of missile is gray. It took me some time to mask and airbrush. The TC-1 Sky Sword missile is easier to paint. 

Missiles loaded to airframe. The work on airframe is complete.