Treehugger Q: I guess there might perhaps be a metal barrel included, but I might as well ask: Anybody know what kind of flak system was on it, other than it being 88mm?
Treehugger The build guide is weird in places. One has to look very carefully to notice that this part is supposed to be glued on, on the inside of two larger parts:
I made the mistake of simply gluing two big parts together. One has to be careful, when fixing this, to avoid have the part being lost inside the big part (so hold the big part upside down while gluing on the smaller part).
Treehugger So the kit comes with a large base, and also a smaller part: I took the smaller part, removed some plastic, and build a stand for it using sheet/strip styrene. Unsure how realistic this custom base is, but I was inspired by what other's have done in a similar fashion.
Best to keep the gray plastic part unglued and separated from the white styrene until after you have airbrushed all the inside areas. Then one can glue on the gray part, such that each pair of bolt ends up on the "outside" of the white styrene parts all around. I did NOT use a circle cutter (else I would have ruined the blade I think), just snipped off plastic all around the big white part, and sanded round using a metal file.
The gray plastic base, had its outer ring removed, so that it now looks like two base plates (top&bottom) are connecting, held together with bolts. I used a saw and did NOT cut styrene with a blade, because using a blade to cut styrene into parts looks too ugly/uneven.
Treehugger I want to add that the barrel opening is rifled. 🙂 The barrel opening is about 10mm or so deep with a rifling pattern, before hitting plain aluminium. So best make sure to paint some matte black at the deep end inside the barrels, so it doesn't stay shiny there. The Eduard photo etch has parts for adding rifling, but this whole metal barrels is much nicer not having to fiddle with the photo etch inside the barrel openings for the plastic parts.
Btw, the Takom kit comes with 1 rubber cap (and 1 spare cap), that slows down the rotation of the barrels, which I guess won't cause any issue with the metal barrels adding weight, though they might be balanced already on their own the way they fit onto the whole thing, haven't gotten that far yet. Anyway the plastic cap will probably guarantee a prevention of any sagging of the two metal barrels I think.
I wonder, like their UH-1N, KH sort of rushed it, and got their lengths confused from reading a side-view drawing. The difference in length for canopy seems imo suspiciously like the difference in length, like the difference between the one and two seater model. The two seater model have a gap between the first movable canopy and the start of the air intake, unlike the one seater where the air intake is right up against the backside of the one movable canopy.
Best be careful when gluing things together, because the moulds are weird. Not just flash here and there, but misalinged moulding in places. Not entirely terrible, but an unexected annoyance in some places like the breech block.
Btw, the aftermarket metal barrels fits the plastic nicely. No idea if some counter weight is ideally needed or not, haven't gotten that far yet.
Tip, for adding styrene bolts, without fiddling to much, best just glue on a piece of rod (then let the plastic harden), then snip it, and very gently sand flat so it looks like a bolt. Having said that, there are aftermarket bolt with hex shape in resin that would be nice, if you can get the precise size needed, not too small, nor, too large.
I found this nice plastic tray that works nicely for storying work-in-progress kits. 🙂 An all round nice shape. I already bought one in the store and will get some more ones. Too short/small for larger kits though.
This is the worst Trumpeter ship kit ever, re. the bottom part. This is bizarre, how bad the mold is, the bottom part (red) not being wide enough to match the top part (gray).
The fix was to use a power tool and cut a slit along the center of the bottom part, then jam some strip styrene inside and widen the red plastic. Not perfect, but a big improvement.
Knowing how weird the seamline is, I used a lot of cyanoacrylate glue here instead of Tamiya Extra Thin Cement.
Treehugger Fixed. Little by little. Not too difficult either. Really a good idea to split the bottom open with a powertool, and without splitting the whole model into parts. Mostly ok here, just a thing or two at the bottom that might need some putty I think.
The side details was cut off and replaced with styrene to get a smooth surface on the sides.
It is important to scrape the putty flat so one doesn't have to spend an eternity sanding away excess putty, keeping the excess putty to a minimum.
Q: Anybody know where to buy photo etch lettering? Like individual letters for the English alphabet in photo etch.
Reason being, to recreate a nameplate with photo etch, glued onto a plastic stand. I tried using a chrome pen on plastic, but this turned out to be very troublesome. If only the nameplate had been brass, then I would be ok, easy to work with, sadly the nameplate is all plastic.
Treehugger Thanks for the feedback. I can only see some small ones there at 2mm height.
I found some in 4mm, which might work, though ideally I would like to see some 5-6 mm high lettering in all caps. scalelink.co.uk/acat..nents_for__OO__.html
Q: Is it possible to create a piano "laqcuer" gloss finish using Vallejo Acrylic Gloss varnish?
I imagine, it would have to somehow go on wet-in-wet. Anybody know?
Treehugger Nope, A 50/50 mix doesn't look right either.
Edit:
A mix of 20% Pale Blue Gray and 80% USAF Light Gray seems more like it.
Or a 1:4 ratio. Uuh, one drop of the darker one and four drops of the lighter one.
17 April, 10:44
Roy McKay For years on my 1/720 Italeri carriers i went with good old humbrol 64 light grey. Over time I tried alternatives, Colourcoats USN haze grey (too brown tinted and a bit dark); various brands of neutral grey (the actual colour the real ships are supposedly painted) all were way too dark; light ghost grey- way too blue. I went back to Hu 64. It just looks right to my eye, compared to colour photos from the 70s, 80s and 90s at least.
Remember, they are supposed to be painted neutral grey, which as the name suggests is a 50/50 mix of black and white. This looks way too dark on a 1/700 model. Maybe it's the scale effect we hear of certainly looking at photos of the ships the Hull always looks a lighter grey than the aircraft, even those in light ghost grey.
17 April, 15:01
April 18, 2023
Treehugger Phttrrt. The solid bottom hull (below water line) is at least 1mm too narrow, and a mismatch to the top side of the hull, also a solid hull piece. I don't even know how to fix this.
Hrm, maybe I could saw the bottom part in four pieces and add 1mm strip styrene along the center from bow to stern.
Or.. maybe I could create two slits in the bottom part, or just one slit at the center, then insert some styrene to widen the hull. That way I don't have to work with a messy 4 part bottom hull.
Treehugger To be picky, but I think this is worth mentioning. Like with a Panda Hobby's kit, they have track links that are not realistic, the track links are molded with each track so fixed in place and don't rotate freely. This fixed joint is noticeable wherever the track joints lies over the sprockets on the two motorized wheels at the front.
I just realized that I must have spilled some drops of cyanoacrylate on my wood floor paneling and failed to scrape it off. So then in my infinite wisdom, I remembered that I do in fact own a bottle of cyanoacrylate debonder. So that dried superglue could eventually be wiped off the floor.
Treehugger When adding photo etch railings to the rear port side (left), one MUST remove 3mm of plastic on the side of the big carrier deck, otherwise the side part of the big deck will crush the photo etch railing there. An easy fix, but too late if you don't see it in time.
I just learned that 'FSTAR' apparently means 'Five Star'. A photo etch manufacturer. This also matches the logo, which depicts five stars.
3 April, 15:01
March 28, 2023
Treehugger There seems to be an omission in the PE build guide for one of the large clear parts ( P4) and some large piece of PE that goes around the clear part. The PE build guide fail to mention any removal of plastic, so one must be careful and figure out how to make this work.
I think I just learned that the many long antennas along the CVN-68 Nimitz, are "HF antennas" that are kept vertical to work the best, and then lowered to the side during flight operations.
27 March, 06:40
March 24, 2023
Treehugger I want to add that, although I think this jet deflector looks nice, the angle seems wrong. Though one can shorten the arms by a little bit to lower the angle it seems.
Treehugger Oh, wow, this photo etch is lovely to work with. So much better than Eduard photo etch imo. I wonder if all photo etch from FStar is equally nice.
Treehugger Btw I think I will be using Vallejo Model Color 70.907 'Pale Gray Blue' for the main hull color (vertical surfaces), supposed to mimick "Haze Gray". I have Vallejo air 71.046 'Pale Blue Grey', but that second one is more bluish, but similar name (weird).
For the carrier decks, I don't have the 'German Gray', but it looks like I can mix 'Panzer Dk. Grey' and 'Medium Gunship Gray' to get this greenish dark deck color.
I just remembered, I also bought photo etch for the launch ramps FStar FS700162 "USN Aircraft Flame Baffle" & FStar FS700139 "Post WWII USN Radar Set.
So.. I drilled into the plastic into this wing, to create a cavity in the plastic, as if creating a concave reflector disk for a light source. Then I flooded the cavity with silvery paint from this "thin" tip pen. (I have extra-thin, thin, and large, pen tips.)
Result is a smooth shiny bit of reflector material, as if representing a light bulb spot in the wing. 🙂
I made sure to check with this other chrome pen I started using some months ago, worrying it had dried up. I was able to make it work again so that is nice. I grabbed a solid plastic box from the kitchen and hopefully, this box is air tight, unlike a thin plastic bag, and hopefully the pens can stay ok for a longer period of time this way.
If I mess it up, I can always wipe off the chrome paint and use some airbrush cleaner to get the plastic clean, and then just try using the chrome pen again.
Łukasz Gliński They're nice, but my Molotow gets instantly flat silverish when covered with varnish 🙁
Even if it's Gauzy Agent.
10 March, 20:17
John Hughes Lukasz, this seems to be a common issue with chrome paints. Probably the best one is a US product by Spaz Stix. However, it doesn't seem to be available outside the US. It has its own black base and clear coat. I did manage to get some spray cans of the chrome, but can't get the other two. Any varnish tends to dull any chrome finish, but as I said above, I'm of the opinion that this is partly due to the chrome coat not being fully cured & reacting with the solvent of the varnish - they mix a bit at the interface of the paints.
I am wondering, if you add just plain aluminium foil, or mostly one type of foil, how might one want to weather the foil all over the airplane, without just adding other types of foil like chrome foil or dull aluminium?
I am tempted to just add one type of aluminium bare metal foil on a 1:72 cargo plane, but I don't how I would want to create any contrast effect for the panels if I only used one type of bare metal foil.
Btw, I vaguely remember having seen somewhere that the Bare Metal Foil product can be massaged so thin, that the seams blend. I think the context was using the foil on car models where there are lots of curved details. Presumably the foil can be massaged to fit changes in curvatures and maybe mushed flat in places to hide seams.
7 March, 16:29
Augie Oh it can, I used burnishing sticks to get it in and to conform to curvitures etc.
Eric Thornton More and more I'm seeing Academy kits no longer using Cartograf decals which is sad. I was hoping these were Cartograf but printed in Korea 🙁
I think I found a nice paint mixer. The DSPIAE mixer kit comes with a few metal rods that spins around when a current is added. I used a power brick for this. Eventually, I figured that the on / off button, is the blue light in the photo below. A tough button area around the tiny light. The power brick itself has an automatic on /off function, so I have to press the LED charging status button, to re-activate the power brick if I am not using the mixer.
I realize now a little late that having previously used glass balls as paint mixers, makes the glass balls difficult to extract when there is still paint in the bottle, as glass isn't magnetic. I have to make sure that I don't mix glass balls and metal rods, to stay on the safe side I think. Writing descriptive text on the bottles should tell me what type of mixer object I keep inside each bottle of 60 ml and 200 ml Vallejo primer paint bottles.
I do not know if the smallest 17 ml bottles can fit a metal rod inside, anyway I don't have enough metal rods for every 17 ml bottle of paint.
Mixing one metal rod and one metal ball = works but can be a little noisy for a few seconds.
Mixing in one or two metal balls = doesn't work, or works so weakly, it doesn't look like it can mix anything.
gorby I just add a ball bearing and shake.
I've got to get my exercise somehow. 😄
3 February, 12:18
Spanjaard i guess mine are stainless steel... i have some of those tamiya jars with a ball inside for years. the magnets from DSPIAE have not been there that long... i will keep an eye on them.
Treehugger Major accuracy error with a canopy that doesn't slide, and is not shaped to be parallel in width. I thought Airfix knew what their own country's plane looked like. Hrm, this is like new mould kit and all.
Hrm.. The people at Airfix can't even seem to model their 1:72 Hurricane correctly. Canopy glass is supposed to slide in parallel along a line, on this kit the canopy glass is tapered, which explains why the canopy doesn't fit in an open position. This error is so obvious I don't think Airfix knows what they are doing when making their designs. 🙁 This is like taking a 70 year step back in time I would think introducing totally unnecessary errors in accuracy.
14 January, 08:54
January 5, 2023
Treehugger Ooh, these parts looks like a solid upgrade. 🙂 I have this Zvezda StarDestroyer in my stash.
Treehugger This is a weird one.
Poor instruction imo. Easy to make mistakes if you don't read the build guide carefully.
I ended up snipping off the tiny ladder at the wrong place, becauce I couldn't quite see where to snip it off from the sprue, will have to custom build that ladder, easy enough. One engine detail is supposed to be glued onto the inside of the wings, but this part of the build is mixed in with something about an aftermarket display stand, which was unfortunate, because I missed it. There are two parts for the cockpit that has to be positioned differently, depending of whether you want the clear part canopy to be closed, or open.
Treehugger This product (PE with transparent plastic parts for lights) does not come with an instruction manual. I guess I'll figure this out on my own.
Treehugger So.. the kit has workable tracks, but I find the track pins so delicate, they aren't convincingly snapping onto the tracks for all tracks. I have yet to find out how many tracks equate to a loose fit. Kit comes with three bags of 60 track links each, for a total of 180 track links. The build guide states 83 required, presumably on either side, for a total of 166 tracks, leaving 14 tracks as spare tracks. The kit as such looks very nice from the look of things. Wheel nuts looks a little rounded, not hexagonal at all, but hardly something noticeable. Some photo etch in the right places I would think.
Treehugger
bughunter
1+
Roy McKay
Spanjaard
Michael Jonker
Łukasz Gliński
John Hughes
Augie
Murad ÖZER
Eric Thornton
Robert Podkoński
