Vidar_710

Paint. decaling, and washes complete... All that's left is to add fins to the missiles, sway brackets, and paint the bright aluminum binding straps on the GBU's and they'll be done.

GBU's are from VideoAviation dot com Tracy

Stepping away from the jet for a bit to do the tedious stuff. Shifting to weapons work. Layering in the colors. Resin GBU 54's and 3D printed AIM-120C AMRAM's and AIM-9X's... Plus the metal landing gear... Primers Yellow stripe that peaks through the GPS head gear pre-shading and marbling Olive drab on and masked to spray the Lt Ghost Gray fin groups and GPS gear. Still a lot of work left... Missile fin (not shown have been sprayed a mix of stainless steel and Jet exhaust.

Peeled it off the shelf after more than a year. Made some strides. Taping the cockpit up really put a block on me with this project for some reason. When I finally made myself do it, things moved along pretty well. Cockpit masking stigma finally overcome... Primer. I used Stynylrez. NEVER AGAIN! That sh!t sux! Paint comes off in sheets down to bare plastic with masking tape use. First layer of pre-shading with PINK. Then BLUE The white highlighted panel lines The Black streaking f

Well, took a little time to get the rest of it into primer... Thoroughly happy that there's no ghost seems or gluing sink marks anywhere to be found.

I've delayed this long enough... I managed it on the very first try. 😉 Cutting the top deck of the secondary hull out of clear acrylic. Here the pilot holes for the warp pylon assembly with its wiring opening have been pre-cut. The three holes for the styrene tubing that run through the dorsal assembly have been drilled through at the correct angle which will properly align the neck onto the secondary hull during assembly. The excess acrylic was cut from a safe distance with a jig saw and acrylic cutting blade to reduce the chance of mistakes and/or accidents. The openin

Is anyone still seeing Photo Bucket Watermarks on some of these images? Thanks, Tracy

A completely new rebuild of the dorsal/neck section was needed. I was not happy with how the spacer plates did nit align, particularly at the rear corners where they are most noticed. I came up with a more restrictive 3-tube jig to ensure everything aligned during the stacking of the plates. Here all the cut plates are stacked on the new jig. The center section is where the torp launcher recesses are as depicted by the penciled markings. All three sections loosely stacked on the jig. All the plates finally cemented together.

I have finished the rebuild of the dorsal assembly and have a series of photos of the In-work progress, but for some reason, I cannot upload photos to my Photobucket account. A query is in to Support, and I hope to have it resolved soon.

Sorry for being away. Lots of work, then my entire household went down with viral bronchitis/pneumonia. Just now getting over it after almost a month! If you go back to pages 2 and 3, I've been working on a complete re-build of the neck/dorsal assembly. While it looked "OK" from a distance and at the right angle, I have never been happy with how the spacers aligned between the larger plates. They look like bad dental work. In addition, I failed to get the proper 30 deg angle to the assembly. I've remedied that and will be posting my progress soon. Regards,

Small update... The template that positions all the cut and drill points into the top deck plating of the secondary hull have been established on the paper lining of 3/8" thick clear acrylic. Carefully trying to determine how to cut into to this material without making a molten mess. Three sheets, three tries... Scenes n film to come!

WAAAY back in the day when I was doing this to the original shape of the secondary hull, I did this - which is wrong. This is what I did to fix it... It's not 90deg. Had to grind out the proper angle in the 3D part and alter the vertical stanchions of the scratch-built cradle to meet the corrected step angle. Whew! Glad I found this before I cast the secondary hull buck in plaster for vacuum forming the secondary hull shell.

First panels made from the new templates are the two big, raised panels on the top surface of the secondary hull forward of the nacelle pylon assembly up to the base of the neck. Even though I drafted out both plates, I decided to choose the best between the two to make a single template for both plates. That way they are exactly the same shape and maintain symmetry.

This is where I make several templates on both card stock drawing paper and translucent tracing paper for the secondary hull. There are recessed details, raised panels, and junctions to other sections of the ship that need to be plotted so they can be cleanly transferred to the vacuum formed secondary hull part during assembly. The traced shape for the top of the secondary hull will be used as a template to create the upper deck/surface of the secondary hull. It will be cut from 3/8" thick clear acrylic. This upper deck will be re-enforced with two clear acrylic stripes to act as a

Fitting the Tamiya canopies to this turd of a kit... The rear canopy will not fully follow the contours of the rear deck, so I sculpted in a new shape with the Epoxy Sculpting dough I used now. The new gun port has been fully blended into the hull. Looks MUCH better than what was molded into the kit. After a lot of sanding and grinding away to get this kit's nose cone to fit the fuselage properly, the front ended needed some help as well. The Master Miniatures Alpha Probe has been blended into the nose cone. Tracy