CrowTRobot

Thanks. If I ever build another F-84F it would most likely be the Kinetic kit. The plastic in that kit has a rough surface texture that you have to sand & polish smooth in order to achieve a nice natural metal finish, but I'd rather do that than polish another Hobby Boss turd.

I finished a Hobby Boss F-84F in September, and my answer is "nope". Here's a list of problems I found with the kit: The machine guns and shell ejector ports located at the wing roots are missing. The recessed area on the vertical stabilizer where the horizontal stabilator attaches is missing. Various cooling air scoops on the fuselage are missing. The suck-in doors on the lower front fuselage are poorly rendered. I cut them out and substituted doors from a Kinetic donor. The landing gear is over-simplified and generally awful, I substituted the landing gear fro

I have the Dream Model Viper, but I haven't built it yet. It looks pretty good in the box. I normally don't build models of modern stuff or helicopters, but my son works on these birds at Camp Pendleton, and I'd like to build the pair of them for him.

Looks great! What paint did you use, and where did you get the model? I want to build one for my son in the Marines, but I can’t find them anywhere.

Thank you. If I built one of these kits again I'd skip the Aires cockpit and just install a nice resin ejection seat in the kit cockpit. The Aires fit was lousy, and you really can't see much it once the kit is assembled. While dry fitting the leading and trailing control surfaces on the wing I noticed that if I posed them in the drooped position there were very few gaps, but when I posed them in the raised position there were lots of tiny gaps that had to be filled. It was worse on the right wing because it was a bit warped. I straightened it by dunking in hot water and bending against the wa

Doh! Sorry about that. Perhaps a moderator will boot this into the display case forum.

This was a pretty tough build for a Hasegawa kit. I opted to build it with the wing down and droops & ailerons up since the whopping majority of photos of parked F-8s show it in that configuration, but it wasn't easy getting rid of all the gaps that presented. Then there was the infamous problem of posing the canopy open. It's clear Hasegawa intended for the wing to be up and the canopy to be down, but I just had to be contrary. To make matter worse, the kit decals shattered when they hit the water. I managed to salvage them by spraying the sheet with Future, but that made them tend to cur

I was planning to use the kit-supplied decals with my Hasegawa F-8J, but they shattered like glass when they hit the water. I ordered a replacement sheet from Hobbico nearly 3 months ago, but I've received nothing and I really don't expect to given their financial situation. I'm looking for one of the following sheets so I can finish my model (listed in order of preference): Aeromaster Colourful Crusaders III 48-445 Hasegawa decals from kit HSGS0226 Aeromaster Colourful Crusaders I 48-403 Aeromaster Colourful Crusaders IV 48-450

I just finished this Encore/Monogram 1/48 F-102 Delta Dagger. I started it way back in 2014, but I shelved it while working on my U.S.S. Enterprise Refit. I picked it up again last October, and boy am I glad to be done with it. The fit was poor, and there were nasty seams to be filled on the underside of the wing and the starboard side of the vertical stabilizer. There were also some rough molding artifacts where Encore had grafted the Case XX wingtips onto the molds resulting in ridges that had to be sanded and pits that had to be filled. Some of the Encore "enhancements" & details seem

Kitsworld has a good selection of racy decals for P-51 and P-47 subjects.

That was a fascinating story. Thanks for posting it.

I normally spray a coat of Future over Alclad with no ill effects. I've never tried Aqua Gloss, but when in doubt it's best to experiment on some scrap plastic so you can tell exactly what the effect would be without jeopardizing the finish on your model.

If you end up going with a Sandy loadout try to find a 150gal resin fuel tank for the starboard stub. The Tamiya kit provides a 300gal tank for this station, but 150gal tanks were more commonly used there. Two Mikes made a 150gal tank for the A-4, but the same tank was used on the A-1. I used it on this build:

Thanks! I didn't post anything in-progress- only the finished model.

I finished one of these kits early last year. Take a look at this posting to see my comments.

They're nice decals- which is especially good considering the lack of options for the FJ-1.

I don't think that would work in this case because the wire I have isn't bare copper: it's enamel-coated. It's the kind of wire used in coil/transformer windings, and the enamel coating provides electrical insulation, and it's tough to remove.

That's a nice find! I have spools of enameled copper wire in various gauges, but the colors range from red to green. I HATE painting this stuff because it flakes off so easily during handling. The pre-colored black and silver wire would make short work of adding brake lines. Do you know if they had this in 30 gauge?

It does indeed. I used this technique on my Tamiya A-1J. I put drips 'n drabs of thinned Burnt Umber oil paint on the centerline drop tank and belly and blew them back with my airbrush. This was done over a cured coat of Future, so mistakes were easy to cleanup.

I normally spray flat white (either Tamiya White Primer or Floquil Reefer White) and polish it with MicroMesh to the desired sheen. You can get super-glossy finishes this way without using a single drop of glossy clear coat.

In addition to the other good advice here I'd recommend polishing your GSB paint job with MicroMesh. I usually start with 6000 grit and work my way up to 12000. This'll take care of any imperfections/bits of dust stuck in the finish.

Thanks! I used BluTac, and it was the first time I ever tried it. It worked very well and it was so easy.

Thanks! I painted the tires Floquil Grimy Black (really a very dark grey), and when it was dry I painted the treads with very, very thin Light Ghost Gray built up in layers. The drop tank was more fun. First, I coated it with Future to protect the base coat of Camo Gray paint. Then, I took an old paint brush with short, stiff bristles and dipped it in thinned mixes of Burnt Umber and Payne's Gray artist oils. I then flicked the bristles of the brush with my finger near the surface of the tank to produce oil spatters. Some of these I'd leave alone, others I'd wipe in the direction of airflow/gr

Here are a few more pictures:

I just finshed the fantastic Tamyia A-1J kit, and it's easily one of the best kits I've ever built. The engineering and detail are just superb. I was inspired to build this after reading several Vietnam-era air combat diaries written by veteran jet pilots. These pilots went out of their way to praise the "Sandy" and "Jolly" crews that rescued so many downed aircrews under extremely hostile conditions. My model is finished in the markings of Capt. George Marrett who flew such missions out of Nakhon Phanom, Thailand. It's configured with a typical Sandy SAR mission loadout. I used Model Master