C. Alan Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 (edited) So this is my First WIP posting on ARC, and I thought I would post what has been one of my personally most challenging builds I have ever under taken: The Sword T-38 Talon in 1/48th Scale. I have nick-named the model the 'filler queen' because I have never had to use so much filler on a model in the years I have taken gap filling seriously. I have to say that my favorite feature in this model is the cockpit. The pre-painted belts were a paint to deal with, and I ended up re-painting them, but I love the effect of them hanging in the seat. The one glaring omission in the cockpit is the lack of a shade cover over the front instrument panel. The Museum at Edwards recently took delivery of a T-38, so I was able to get a good close look at the cockpit, and I am going to scratch build a small offset shade cover that will go over the front instrument panel. The white pieces of styrene over the instrument panel will support the offset cover. The worst fitting parts are the intakes and the joint at the bottom of the aircraft where a resin piece that houses the speed brakes meets in the intakes. These took alot of work. However, all the parts have taken quite a bit more finesse than usual to get everything to line up, and be more-or-less gap free. She is almost ready to prime, but I still have some work still to do on the rear of the aircraft on some of the joints. I also have to wait for Santa to bring me a spray booth for Christmas before I get heavily into painting this one. I am going to do is as one of Edwards AFB TPS birds courtesy of the Two Bob's "Press to Test" decals that came out a few years ago. So with no further discussion, here she is: Edited February 23, 2010 by C. Alan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AnthonyWan Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 Great start on it. Can't wait to see the next progress. -Awan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tilt Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 Looks like a nice project so far. I can totally relate to the "filler Queen" title. Seen my share of those. Keep up the great work. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
C. Alan Posted January 19, 2010 Author Share Posted January 19, 2010 Well my T-38 is now in the paint shop. I got lucky, and only had to primer her twice. I did learn a hard lesson about painting airplanes white. It takes a lot of paint to cover gray primer. I used floquil reefer white, and man I like that paint. It went down very smoothly. There are a few spots I will have to hit with some 1500 wet dry, but over all the coverage is good. So here she is all nice and white. My next step will be to mask off the black section on the nose, and to paint the bare metal section on the tail. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
agelos2005 Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 looking good mate! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
HOLMES Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 Good work...Nice! :lol: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GreyGhost Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 Beautiful Work ! :lol: I'm loving all of these T-38 builds ... The Talon has such elegant lines ... Gregg Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 Awesome! looks like t busted your filler budget tho Cheers! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
C. Alan Posted January 20, 2010 Author Share Posted January 20, 2010 Awesome! looks like t busted your filler budget tho :DCheers! Ive also had to learn to do some scribing on this one. Ive never been very good at that. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
C. Alan Posted January 28, 2010 Author Share Posted January 28, 2010 Well the paint is finally on, and then I went to try to put a coat of Future on it. I normally use testor MM Gloss coat, but I through I would try Future for the first time through my airbrush. It turned out ok, but it didn't take all the bumps out of my flat finish. In hind sight, I should have done a little we try sanding on it before going for the future. I still think the final product will look OK, but it won't be a show winner. I then started in on the decals. I am using Two Bobs set number 48-066 T-38A Press to Test Talons. I started on the wings, and those went on fine. However I did run into some trouble on the tail. Im not sure what happened to the decal across the top, but I think I may have inadvertently touched it after applying the Micro Sol. Oh well, this will give me a chance to try to make some of my own replacement decals! Also I think I should have painted the tail light red before I put the decals on :) Its a good think I ordered some decal paper for the tail, because tonight I discovered that two of the decal on the side of the aircraft are pretty badly oversized. The decal mess you see in the foreground is the "U.S. AIR FORCE" decal that goes on the side of the fuselage. It was too big by about 20% From my reference photos, it is supposed to go between the seam on the bottom 1/3 of the fuselage to just under the yellow 'rescue' decal. The decal in the Two Bobs set had to over lap the rescue decal to fit. So I decided to remove it before it fully set so I can print up a new one that is smaller. In the process I am also going to re-do the national insignia that is on the intake, It too was about 20% too big. Here you can see the remaining "U.S. AIR FORCE" Decal that I am going to discard, now compare that to the photo of this particular T-38 I found on the web. Man I hope my printer does alright making decals. I know if my home printer does not work very well, I have access to a nice laser printer at work. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
C. Alan Posted January 30, 2010 Author Share Posted January 30, 2010 Woo Hoo! My decal paper came today in the mail today. and I have almost finished the art work for the replacement decals. I shrunk the insigia by about 20 percent, and the text by about the same amount. Now I just need to find the time this weekend to print out the decals, and spray them down with decal film. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Boman Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 Veery nice! ;) Will the cockpit be open or closed? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Gary West Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 One of my favourite 2 seaters, the F-5. Try brushing the Future on using a broad brush if spraying it on isn't giving you the desired effect. A good coating of future will also allow you to mask over the decals and paint those tail lights without damaging the decals. Keep the good work up (and you are right, discard those USAF decals ;) ) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
C. Alan Posted January 30, 2010 Author Share Posted January 30, 2010 Veery nice! :D Will the cockpit be open or closed? The cockpit will be open. The kit came with some nice resin canopy hydraulics (I think that is the right word for it) that can be used to show it open. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
C. Alan Posted February 23, 2010 Author Share Posted February 23, 2010 Well I finished it tonight. In the end, I think this model is a best a '5 footer' for the simple reason that this model was the first time I have tried to make some of my own decals, and also used future on a canopy. Unfortunatly, the canopy didn't get dipped until after it was painted, and some of the scratches and flaws got sealed in with the paint. I also elected not to try to do the panel lines on the model for two reasons: 1. I think my future coat went on too thick, and I could not get paint to hold in the panel lines, and 2. Most T-38s I have seen are well washed and taken care of. For the most part, you don't see many panel lines on the photos I have seen. So here she is, ready for a tour of duty on my desk at work: I do admit I learned alot building this kit. I learned that limited run kits sometimes don't fit very well. Rescribing is harder that it looks. Never NEVER apply alclad over a flat finish. When doing an all white aircraft, use gloss rather than flats if you can help it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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