Donald Dickson II So, I got back around to it this evening. Got the nose cone in, exhausts on and tail and canopy black. Next up, decals and weathering!

Lost_Erik Good looking lightning.

Michael Hickey Nice, can't wait to see her with decals and some weathering.

Donald Dickson II Erik, thank you sir.

Michael, working on those now. How many stencil decals can you have on a 1/72 kit of a plane that wasnt all that big? Too damn many.

Michael Hickey Yeah there is quite a few on the Lightning if I remember correctly, oh and placing the black lines on the wings is really fun.

Donald Dickson II Michael, I believe you mean those lines? They were not as bad as the belly lines. I hate lining up stuff on curved surfaces.

Michael Hickey I found the belly lines not that bad, but I was glad when all the decals were finally on.

Donald Dickson II So the sides and top are decaled. Just the bottom to go. busy this weekend, so will not get to it until next week. Couldnt get the damn phone to focus for the side shots for some reason.

Łukasz Gliński Looks phabulous Sir, I like it

Konrad Limmer Very nice result Sir! Well done

perry w h leu Great job. I love it.

Donald Dickson II Thank you gentlemen!

Mike Daniels Looking good Donald. Always makes me think of 'Thuderball' the Bond Movie.

Ekki Beautiful! My favourite fixed-wing aircraft! Well done!

Donald Dickson II Mike, a number of people have said that on FB! LOL I need to re watch it because damned if I remember that.

And thank you both.

Clifford Keesler Very nice well done.

Donald Dickson II I did?????? Gotta check that....

Donald Dickson II Hmmmm, dont see it Martin

Timothy Heimer in the search enter skyraider and click on the pic. Earlier it was on the front page.

Patrick Hagelstein I saw it too! It was there!

Donald Dickson II Wow! I submitted it, but they never got back to me to tell me they were going to publish it. Thanks guys!

Timothy Heimer No problem! Keep up the good work and have fun!

Gareth Windsor Great build and well done

Donald Dickson II Thank you sir!

Donald Dickson II OK, so I started this on May first as part of a group build on the site International Scale Modeller. I have the Wolfpack decal set and seamless intakes.

This is an old and simple kit. It has its seam issues as you can see, but thats to be expected from a 30+ year old kit. The cockpit is non existent, but then you wont be able to see squat, so it would be wasted detail. I did a quick paint job on the pilots, not worrying too much about them as they will barely be seen.

As you can see, the exhausts are just holes. I used some brass tubing to make some rudimentary exhausts guts. Not fancy, but makes a world of difference IMO. Gotta do a little work with the bomb bay door areas and then on to painting. I have the colors in Tamiya acrylics and AK acrylics. I think I will use the AK as I have never used them before. Give them a go.

Łukasz Gliński Phabulous idea, have to watch it

Donald Dickson II Thank you sir.

Stefan Fraundorfer The Vulcan - yes! I'm in. I saw her flying at RIAT 2011 in Fairford. What a great plane.

Ekki Watching (my fav plane)!

Roland Sachsenhofer Wonderful! Yeah, I will watch and follow with interest!

Donald Dickson II Welcome gentlemen!

I got the underside painted last night. Have some more seam stuff to go back and do. And let me tell you, that is a LOT af area to paint with an airbrush. My finger was cramping by the time I was done. LOL

Donald Dickson II Alrighty! She is all done! Crappy decals and all, I think it turned out fairly well. as always, I think it could be better, but I am certainly not embarrassed by it.

Patrick Hagelstein You shouldn't be! Considering all the troubles you went through, this looks splendid! Nice weathering!

Donald Dickson II Thank you Patrick!

David Thor Looking great! Shame about the decals though. Always a bummer when you are hyped for a kit and then it turns out you can't build it like you want because of a failure of the company.

Donald Dickson II David, I cant agree more! And thank you.

Timothy Heimer Yea I think we've all had that feeling when that happens! Don I have seen you shine up some pretty bad turds! I don't know how you do it but they come out looking NICE!

Clifford Keesler She turned out really nice Donald, I am impressed. Good job.

Donald Dickson II Timothy and Clifford, thank you kindly sirs.

I dont know how well she will do at the show Sat, but hopefully at least pull a third. We shall see.

Donald Dickson II So, with my Goodwill grab of a cabinet for 5 bucks this weekend, I got places for all my completed models. They had shelves, but that does nothing to help them with dust. Now they are all snug.

Spanjaard 5 buck sfor this cabinet???

Donald Dickson II 5 bucks for the white one. The one with the F-15s and F-86s was actually free. The nice curio cabinet was a lot more. LOL

Konrad Limmer Ver nice collection

Paul Stubbs Nice work

nikolaos kouzinis Nice collection Donald

Donald Dickson II Thank you gentlemen.

Stephan Ryll Very nice collection Donald

Spanjaard sweet

Donald Dickson II I took that pic before they completely dried and set. You could clearly see the camo pattern a d colors through the white.

Stephan Ryll Oh what a pitty Donald , may you can try to repaint the white areas

Patrick Hagelstein Bummer....

Donald Dickson II Stephen, I tried that. Then reapplied the red stripes. They would not smooth out. This just is one of those that I need to set aside and come back to. I have markings for another F-4 left over from the Good Evening Da Nang boxing. I will just do those.

Stephan Ryll Keep calm, take your time it will turn out good Donald, I'm shure

Peter Hardy Don, you say they are black stripes, I say they are white stripes. All a matter of perspective. I have enjoyed going back over this build this Saturday morning, waiting for Mrs Hardy to wake up. Might even spend a bit of time on your wall too. Thanks for displaying the build. Very enjoyable!

Donald Dickson II Peter, good point! LOL Regardless, the white portion, be they stripes or no, is not much more than gauze when it comes to opacity. And feel free to peruse away!

Clifford Keesler Bummer.

Stephan Ryll looking really good Donald

Donald Dickson II Thank you guys!

Dutch, they came with the intakes. Since you have to cut away part of the kit nacelle, you can not use the intake trunking from the kit. So they nicely provide a really good set of FOD covers. Otherwise you would just see the inside of the nacelles with nothing else there.

Dutch Ah so! I just checked my 1:72 Barracuda set and it includes the complete forward half of the nacelle with trunking and engine turbine faces, but no intake plugs! So, I guess I will build it that way. But I like, scratch that! I love your intake plugs. They look really authentic!

Donald Dickson II Yeah, they did the 1/72 set a bit different. If you end up breaking the actuator arms too much, I have an extra sprue of them that were packed in my 1/48 set for some reason. They really did a great job on everything looks wise. And they fit perfectly in the intakes. Probably could have put them in with no glue. But with my luck one would fall out and disappear.

Scott Hastings Intake plugs look amazing, so realistic. If I may toss in a pitch..I am hosting a bomber build on ISM if anyone interested May1-Aug31 lots of prizes!!!
https://intscalemodeller.com/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=24016 come join us

Clifford Keesler Donald, yes the F-104G is posted. First W>I>P> pictures should be up tomorrow.

Clifford Keesler By the way the "Bone is looking awesome.

Donald Dickson II After messing with the bombs for a while, I am highly not happy with them. They really are NOT good representations of anything I can find reference for. So I decided to do it with the bomb bays closed. I am putting this on hold in order to concentrate on my 1/32 F-18 for a show coming up on 21st April.

Donald Dickson II OK, I started this for a group build on a FaceBook. Its an OOB build. I used Vallejo gloss primer. First time using a Vallejo product. I like how this stuff spayed! We shall see how the Alclad looks on it.

Donald Dickson II Some of the main decals on. I should have thought of this. The Vallejo primer is acrylic. It does NOT bond to the plastic. The Alclad went on it just fine. BUT, you can NOT mask it. The primer doesnt hold. Just pulls right up. *sigh* I pretty much fixed it, but as I am doing this for a group build that ends in 10 days, I really didnt have the time to strip it completely down.

Lost_Erik I love the bold colours on this classic. Good progress.

Donald Dickson II Same here. Main reason I bought this kit. Great scheme

Stephan Ryll looking very good Donald I like the colours

Donald Dickson II Thank you Stephen.

All the decals are on now. Just have to do wheels and gears and touch ups and that sort of stuff and it will be done.

A note about the decals. They are great! The full wing stuff went on great. They are a bit thick, but not extremely so. They set down with liberal use of solva set. I was owrried how well they would settle into the great details on this kit. They did so wonderfully.

Donald Dickson II OK, so got it wrapped up tonight.

Lost_Erik Nice and shiny. Well done.

Clifford Keesler Very nice Donald. I wipe my models down with alacohol before I prime them with the black Vallejo primer. I use the Vallejo Acrylic metal colors, I have not had any problems with paint lifting after masking. I actually prefer the Vallejo metal colors over Alcads.

Stephan Ryll Very nice colorful build Donald
I agree with Clifford about that Vallejo stuff - a little bit of light sanding 800 - 1000 - wipe with alcohol - black glossy primer - let it dry for 24 hours - apply the metal color - let it dry for 24 hours - add a clear coat - let it dry for 24 hours - apply the mask - will end up with no problem when removing the mask

Donald Dickson II Thank you gentlemen! Both for your kind words AND the advice. I will give that a go next time around.