ESzczesniak

You’ll get a debate. I can’t write a treatise on all the details, shape, accuracy, etc, but it’ll come down to Hasegawa vs Kinetic. In brief, the Kinetic is more detailed, but a bit finicky with fit and assembly. It also has a couple shape issues, but these may be fixed. The one I recall was the top of the vertical stabilizers needed to be more rounded and I think this was retooled on later boxing’s. The Hasegawa is a bit more straightforward assembly, but not as detailed. It’s missing things like full intake trunks, etc. If I rememver correctly, both have the same assembly pattern for the rear fuselage (seem in the middle of a flat surface) which is the thing that drives me the craziest about building Hornets. Its been yesrs, or even decades, since I’ve had a Hasegawa Hornet. I’ve gone the Kinetic route. I like having the details OOB and the fit/assembly isn’t anything over the top to work with. Primarily an issue around the nose and careful fitting and small adjustments yields pretty good fit. You just have to take your time.

The Vallejo primer is utter garbage. It sticks to nothing. Considering adhesion is one of two or three major reasons to use a primer, complete BS. I had the same experience as above. I use Tamiya spray or AMMO one shot primers.

I have to say that it sounds like you've had a very atypical experience. I can't explain what went wrong, but this has not been my experience. I have not had any issues drying. They brush paint exceptionally well and airbrush ok. I do knock them for durability (similar to MM in my opinion, worse than Tamiya) and color accuracy. I use them for basic colors, but FS whatever is nothing close to the FS whatever chip. With this said, I am not adamantly defending them. There are many other better options for ease of use, durability, and/or color accuracy. But in normal routine use, they do the job well and are readily available. What they do excel at in my experience is brush painting.

I'm building Kinetic's 1/48 F/A-18C using Two Bobs Werewolves of Beaufort. The planned bird is BuNo 164271 in Sept. 2008. How to I figure out if I should follow the instructions for "early" or "late" parts in Kinetics instructions? This primarily seems to affect the antennas under the nose in front of the nose gear bay. Thank you for any help!

I’m planning to make a couple aerial refueling dioramas in larger scale. I’m only going to model the receiver and a portion of the boom or drogue. I am planning for the boom to use a 1/48 F-16 as the receiver. My plan is the 3D print the lower portion of the boom given its some what odd shape, but need to model it on a computer first. Then I’ll add some scratch built details once I have the main foundation set. Does anyone have 2D plan views, cross sectional information, dimensions, or even good orthogonal pictures? All things being equal, I would pick the KC-135 as being more trypical as a tanker for tactical birds, but ultimately would go with whatever I can get better dimensional data for.

Realistically, they’re just being forced to police the tax laws we never followed. Almost all states have laws that obligate you to report total of out of state purchases for the year and pay sales tax. In like manner, many states allow you to file claims to return their sales tax if you’re out of state and paid sales tax on a purchase. No no one ever did any of this and it is impossible to enforce on an individual level, so they’re turning to the businesses to do so. Meanwhile, we were supposed to be laying these taxes all along.

I came across pictures of this bird and would love build a model. I wasn't able to find any decals through a Google search. Anyone know of anything I am missing or if anyone may be working on a set? Certainly seems up there with some of the more popular E-2C schemes in terms of visual appeal.

I should have added the warning about 2k clears as well. They are great glosses, and very durable. But they are toxic while spraying. Good ventilation and a respirator are a must. I have a spray booth vented outside, so I would spray in to the booth with a respirator, then leave and close the door letting the booth run a couple hours to clear the room.

Depends on the quality of the surface to begin with. The 2k clears will work well over a smooth, but flat finish. They will also adhere well to gloss finishes (just not waxed). If there are a lot of surface imperfections, then I’d sand it back until at least 4-600 grit.

Is this 1:1 scale? I think most professional approaches would be a 2k polyurethane clear coat. These are paints that dry more by chemical reaction than being open to air. You mix a hardener with them and then have 20-30 minutes to paint. A good number of model car guys use them on their scale models and they’re a fairly fool proof gorgeous shine. Of course a spray tent to keep dust off while drying would be nice. Autoparts shops often have the stuff by the gallon. I used a “hobby” brand for this F1 car, but it’s just the same stuff in smaller bottles. This is what it looks like just from a good spray. I’d did t polish or buff this one at all: There shouldn’t any any issue with this over carbon fiber as long as the epoxy resin is fully cured. That resin in some cases could be buffable, but if there’s any true structural load (may be negligible for a wing at street car speeds), I would t mess with that I case you burn through the epoxy later and get in to the actual CF.

"Washes" of a sort can be used over a flat coat, but usually will be called something more akin to a "filter". A "sludge" wash where there is thick pigment overlying the panel lines will not wash/wipe well off a flat surface. But a thinner even layer over the whole model can be used. This will still collect in panel lines in part and act a bit like a wash, but would usually be called a filter. They can be good for adding subtle variation to monotone schemes, adding depth to base color, or creating streaking/fading/weathering effects. These filters behave a bit differently on flat vs gloss surfaces, but work on both.

Fair point, I hadn't noticed that. I'll have to check the actual model. In typical Tamiya quality, the locating pins are pretty solid and clear, so I wonder if the rubber sidewalls on the tires have deformed a bit and just need to be reseated on the wheel.

Another one off the bench recently. I usually build aircraft, but got very involved in open wheel racing in college and have remained a fan of Formula 1 and supercars. This car at least still has wings! and is the first F1 model I've done. It is build out-of-the-box and finished using Tamiya paints for the colors and Gravity Paints 2k clear coat. The 2k clear coat involves a fair bit of safety prep with a respirator, spray booth venting outside, and closing the room off from the rest of the house. However, with that said, I'm very glad to have added this tool. It will be fantastic for other race cars and aircraft like the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds. It is an unbeatable clear. As always, any comments or critiques are welcome! Thank you for looking! Eric

Thank you all for the kind comments! And apologies for not posting for a while. Addressing the note about the Aires cockpit, unlike most of their stuff, it fit well. Only removing some sidewall raised details and light sanding. They even had some positive locating references keyed in to make sure it was in the appropriate for/aft position. I had read others experiencing the HUD mount being too tall to fit under the forward canopy. I erred towards shorter when assembly this, but had no problems personally. The wheel wells, as I mentioned, were another story. I am convinced you would have had to actually just cut out a portion of the forward fuselage walls and use the resin pieces as the outer walls. I quickly realized there was no way in hell this was happening and moved on to another plan.

I hadn't noticed that, but now that you mention it, I think you're right. The camera might be playing a little trick as well, but the canopy looks to be a bit off. I double checked the det cord repeatedly because it was a PITA, so I don't think it was that, but the Hasegawa canopy is a problem. It doesn't sit in the right place. There's not enough width between the two heat exchangers over the rear deck/intakes, which pushes the canopy too far forward/closed. To address this, I sanded some canopy frame, some heat exchanger, and left the canopy a mm or so forward from where it should be still. I think this "wedge" fit threw the canopy a bit askew and I didn't notice it.