F-15C ANG 75th Anniversary

Donald Dickson II
So I broke this one out because I need to do a 15. Gotta make room on that shelf. LOL Got started on it. Got the cock pit done but forgot to get pics before I put it in the nose. Ah well.

Tim Heimer
I was tempted to buy this 3x and each time was short on money! I'll be watching this!

Martin Oostrom
Love the markings on the wings. The one on the nose, not so much. But hey, you gotta be true to the original, right?

Donald Dickson II
Mostly together and sprayed black.

The molds for this are from the 70s, and you can tell. The fit isnt actually too bad. Just the plastic is thick and there are not a lot of parts. I was relatively happy with it until I got to the intakes. Now, the rest of it has been decent. Whoever was in charge of designing the intakes was clearly on acid. These things suck. Making these things look decent is gonna be a task.

Donald Dickson II
OK, so I puttied up the gaps. Again, considering the age of the molds they were not too awful. Easily handled with perfect plastic putty. The little bit of haze left after removing the excess does not show at all once more black is sprayed. Got it where I want it with no sanding. Love this stuff.

Donald Dickson II
Oh, and I love that the plane in the background is the C I did a while ago. LOL

Clifford Keesler
How did I miss this one? watching with interest, as I have 2 in the stash. I will re-scribe mine as usual. LOL.

Clifford Keesler
What colors are you using Donald.

Donald Dickson II
You have fun with that rescribing crap. I am fine with raised lines. LOL

I dont have the correct FS colors on hand. And can not find both in bottled form. At least not in model master, my preferred brand. I may wing it with some of the stuff I have. The darker gray looks a little blue in the pics of the real plane, so I may mix something up. We shall see.

Donald Dickson II
And Ill be damned if I can remember what I used on my other C.

Clifford Keesler
Model Master does make the new darker grey for the F-15, I have 2 bottles of it. It even says F-15 on the bottle. I used Light Ghost Gray and Dark Ghost Gray on my Tamiya "C" model. So I guess my delema is going to be which to use as the base color, as I am pretty sure the New Grey(F-15) is the darker gray. Check out Scalehobbyist.com, I think that is where I got mine. I also have 4 bottles of Vajello aggressor grey, but do not think it is the right color. I think it is lighter and used for the F-5 and other Aggressor color schemes.

Donald Dickson II
These are the colors as called out in the kit and every reference I have seen.

[img1]

When I search the FS36251 it comes up as aggressor gray. I wonder if the FS number was re-designated? I am thinking that perhaps I did what you are talking about and went with the Ghost grays. Which I am thinking is what I will do on this one.

Clifford Keesler
Yea I looked at the Vallejo bottles and that is what it says.

Donald Dickson II
Did a lot of little stuff including the exhausts. I was highly tempted to leave them looking all chromed shiney (it was actually stainless steel), but I didnt .

Clifford Keesler
Yes they sure were shiny. That's the thing with jets, it's always a roll of the dice on getting the exhausht right. I have tried many times to re-produce the finish I got on My FB-111A cans that I did for the group build. But have not been able to.

Donald Dickson II
The inside of the exhausts had ZERO detail. Just went with painting them white and trying to give kind of a hint of the texture. Not much to do as I am doing it totally OOB.

Went with light ghost gray and dark gray. It looks good to me. I need to do some serious touch ups and stuff. Absolutely NOT my best work. *sigh*

Clifford Keesler
Dose not look that bad to me. Guess I will look at my F-15E cans and see if I can copy the interior detail, or I will rob my F-15E of it's cans for the "C" and get a resin set of cans for the "E". LOL.

Donald Dickson II
Clifford, thats because that is not a close up pic. Trust me, it needs work. LOL BUT, you can see the colors work. At least to my eye they do. The dark gray isnt as blue as the real thing, but I am pretty sure thats what I used on my other C, so they will match.

Donald Dickson II
Oh, I have at least one set of resin cans, if not two. I am just determined to do this one OOB.

Clifford Keesler
I can agree with that. It's nice sometimes just to do one OOB.

Donald Dickson II
The decal fun has begun

Donald Dickson II
So all the big stuff on top is done. These decals are thick. Which is a good thing because you have to manhandle the eagles on the sides. And the stuff on the wings needs a lot of fiddling with. The drawback is you can just put the Micro sol and set away. Aint gonna do a damn thing on these. You are gonna need solva set. And even that you can slather on and not worry.

Tim Heimer
I've found that the Walthers train stuff is great for thick decals. Just saying....

Donald Dickson II
Solva Set IS Walthers stuff. LOL

Tim Heimer
I did not know that!

Tim Heimer
Obviously! LOL

Clifford Keesler
When all else fails, Tamiya Extra thin. LOL.

Clifford Keesler
Really they don't look that bad so far.

Donald Dickson II
Clifford, they look great IMO. They just are rather thick. Not like Cartograph or some such. It just means some extra.effort needs to be taken to get them settle down snug.

Clifford Keesler
Revell decals are usually pretty good, I have never had any real problems with them. I guess that set is a little thicker. I will see how it goes with mine when I get around to them, I think the bird is looking good. I was just teasing about the Tamiya extra thin, although I have seen Bobby Waldron from Genesis models actually use it on decals.

Dutch
Donald, Looking very nice! I like it. Keep a goin' please! R/ Dutch

Donald Dickson II
Thank you gentlemen! As you can see by the last pic, I have a new addition to the household that has been keeping me busy. Her name is Sadie Blue and is another cocker. Just so happens she was born the day after I had to put my Lexi down.

But I did manage to get the decals wrapped up tonight. I also found my new go to dull coat. Micro Flat. It thins with water or alcohol, so it will not bubble up the decals. And it works well! I thinned it a bit with water and cleaned the airbrush with alcohol. I can pretty much chuck everything else I have tried. LOL

Anyway, this is the first kit in a while where I have placed EVERY stencil provided. I have touch ups to do, clean up the canopy, gears, weapons and a couple fiddly bits. Only thing truly lacking is any kind of markings at all for the weapons. Just have to paint stripes and leave it at that I guess.

Tim Heimer
Too cool you got another Butt sniffer! , and such a cute one at that, Sadie blue, nice name. My mom is trying to save hers right now and just spent 5G she doesn't have. Lets hope the surgery was worth it! Your kind of making me glad I didn't get this kit, but this is still looking good!

Donald Dickson II
Tim, I hope her pup does well! I can understand why she spent that money.

No reason not to get this kit. The fit has been OK, especially for the age of the molds. The decals are very nice, just thick. But, like I said, that's a good thing for these IMO. The amount of fiddling with them to get the big ones aligned would likely damage thinner ones.

Tim Heimer
Good point on the decals! and thank you!

Slavo Hazucha
Hey, I almost missed this valiant effort! It's always a pleasure to watch Mr. Dickson bravely take on a kit whose molds first saw the light of the day in the same decade as I did... 😄 Looking all good & you seriously made some effort with all the filling, polishing & bringing to shape. Decals look all crisp too 👍 Looking forward to the dash through the finish line!

Donald Dickson II
Slavo, as always you are too kind. 🙂 But hey, if I can get one of these oldies to look good, then when I do a new tool it should come out fantastic. And you are a child!😉 LOL I've done a couple from my decade in the past. I think they actually got a little sloppier in the 70s. The stuff from the 60s has been fairly decent. Lacking detail, but decent. The Huskie build I just did the molds are from like 62. Only a couple years older than me.

Chris Greathouse
Your pupper is cute! [img1]

Donald Dickson II
Thank you Chris! I think she is too. 🙂

Clifford Keesler
You all are a bunch of young wiper snappers, LOL. It looks good Donald. I can remember buying Airfix kits in the PX for .29 cents apiece, and you could get an excellent Monogram kit for less than a buck.

Donald Dickson II
Dear God you are ancient!😉 LOL Just messing with ya. One of my neighbors growing up had a basement full of kits like that. With the price sticker still on them. I always loved the smell of those old kits. I think the cheapest kit I bough off the shelf was a couple bucks.

Donald Dickson II
Oh for the love of Christ! ITS A *)&%$*^)(*)^&*%$#%$ TAIL SITTER!!!!!!! My dumb ass didnt test it with the %&😢^%$%# tail fins on it. So my only option is to check my FOD covers and see if they will work, put some lead in the intakes and use the FODs. The intakes are awful anyway (one of the two reall faults of this kit) so I dont mind too much.

Tim Heimer
What do you mean Donald? In the real pictures of them, they seem to stand just fine! LOL! I know.....fk u Tim!

Donald Dickson II
Mah butt, kiss it!!!! LMAO

Slavo Hazucha
Put it on a stick & make the sitter fly?😉

Donald Dickson II
Slavo, LOL. I may do that. I am also considering closing the wheel wells up and putting the pilot in and doing it in flight. Hang it from the ceiling. LOL

Clifford Keesler
There ya go.

Donald Dickson II
Done. On to the next one.

Tim Heimer
Cool looking bird! Would look better on the ceiling! LOL! Nice work Don.

Donald Dickson II
LOL Thank you Tim. 🙂

Slavo Hazucha
So you taught the tailsitter some table manners in the end! 🙂 A cool looking wild eagle 👍

Dutch
Don, you nailed it! HaHa😉 No really, it looks great! Way to wrestle the devil to the mat on this one and still come out on top! R/ Dutch

Michael Phillips
That really turned out awesome Don! Such a cool looking scheme.

Daniel
Very nice 👍 this livery is sure to draw attention

Donald Dickson II
Thank you gentlemen.

Slavo, yeah, you can not see the FOD covers from the angles I took the pics. I took them out of my Revell E kit I havent built yet. I checked all my other 15 kits. NOt a single one aside from the Revell comes with FOD covers. So much for the "high end" guys being so much better. *eye roll* A couple ounces of lead in the intakes and poof!

Slavo Hazucha
So the screaming eagle swallowed a bowl of lead? Glad the LG did not break down with all that new weight!😉

Donald Dickson II
LOL I was careful about setting it down, trust me.

Clifford Keesler
I agree it really turned out nice. Well done. Did you use Light and Dark Ghost gray?

Martin Oostrom
Lead gives you a severe tummy ache. Eagles are a protected species, not nice to feed them lead 😉
Bird looks great Donald

Donald Dickson II
Martin, we will keep that our secret.😉

Clifford, light ghost and regular dark gray.

Clifford Keesler
Got it, thanks.