1/48 Revellogram F-15E

[Adam Baker]

Finally getting a chance to start this one. Here's to hoping I can pull it off in 5 weeks, we'll see.

Revell 1/48 F-15E Strike Eagle. At this point not sure if its going to be OOB or not. I dont have any specific a/c in mind or decals in mind, that will probably be decided down the line.

I have a few load out ideas in mind, that I found on F-15e.info

Wish I could find this loadout w/ a GBU-12 or similar in the centerline hardpoint. I think that would look really awesome.

Im also liking this loadout.

I really like symmetrical loadouts, but these all stike my fancy, so we'll see. It may come down to what ordnance I have at my disposal. I have 2 of the Hasegawa A weapons sets, so that may help make the decision for me.

For the kit, a lot less has been done than I thought.

All Ive gotten done is glue in the airbrake, get the intakes, fuel tanks, and exhaust cans glued together. So I guess I mean the minimum completion limit, haha.

Edited May 24, 2010 by Adam Baker

[strikeeagle801]

I personally like the OIF #1, but good luck finding 9 GBU-12's! There is no reason why you could not put a GBU-10 or -12 on the centerline of the first loadout, although it would be unsual/unlikely to see a Strike with 12 dumb bombs and one GBU. If you have any questions, let me know, and I'll do what I can to help. Also, if you need any spare parts, let me know, as I have a lot of extras. I can pretty much guarentee you are going to loose at least one of the control rods for the AB's...happens to me every time...and they don't give you any extras either.

Looking forward to seeing progress.

Aaron

[Adam Baker]

Yea, at this point Im leaning towards the OIF1 or the DS Scud Hunter. Just depends on what I find for ordnance I guess.

[Adam Baker]

A little bit of progress made tonight, but not enough for pictures. I happened to find a pair of True Details Aces II ejection seats that I forgot I had, and didnt realize would work for this build. So for grins & giggles Im going to go ahead and used those. Got them cleaned up, and hopefully tomorrow I'll get them primed so I can start painting them. Worked on the intakes, I pulled out a bottle of Mr Surfacer 500, hopefully that will be enough to take care of the gaps and then I'll use some white latex paint to fill the intakes.

Ive decided to go w/ the OIF1 loadout, but I was wondering, would it have ever run 8 GBU-12's on the CFTs and then 1 GBU-10 on the center line station? I think thats what I'd like to do if its accurate.

Does anyone have any GBU-12's or GBU-10's that I could buy or trade for? I have 2 Hasegawa A weapon sets, and I could trade ordnance for ordnance. I also have several older decal sheets that I'd be willing to trade. Here is a link to a sale thread I have showing what decals I have for sale/trade.

And one more thing, does the F-15E have a logo? Im thinking about putting this one on a round display base w/ the F-15E logo on the base, if there is one. Ive found a couple things on the net that say they are the F-15E logo, but Im not sure about them.

And does anyone have any decal suggestions for an accurate decal sheet for OIF? Ive not looked for F-15E sheets before so Im not overly sure whats available. I looked at the Afterburner selection last night, but I havent looked to see if TwoBobs has anything, or of anyone else has anything that would be accurate.

Edited May 25, 2010 by Adam Baker

[strikeeagle801]

Adam

Again, it's up to you on the GBU-10. If you want to do it that way, go for it. It would be a legal load, but maybe not really an accurate one. I've never seen them loaded like that, but there is no reason why it could not be loaded that way.

As for decals, Twobobs has a couple of sheets that I would recommend. My favorite squadron is the 391st from Mountain Home, and Twobobs makes a sheet called the Mountain Home Avengers (it's on sale in the $3.00 discount section too) that covers the jets from the first OEF deployment after 9/11. When they came home, they switched jets with the 90th and got -229 engined birds, but if you cobble together the right S/N, the other markings can still be used as they did not change. Twobobs also makes a sheet that covers LN birds, which have deployed to OEF/OIF many, many times. Afterburner has a really good sheet for LN too (more options than the TB sheet, and in my opinion only, better than the TB sheet because of it and the refs it comes with).

There are sheets (which are all out of production now) from both Twobobs and Cutting Edge that covered jets from Shady J (Seymour Johnson) featuring nose art and mission markings from OEF/OIF. The best one out of these (for me) is the Anaconda Squeeze Play decals from Twobobs, which cover the jets used in Operation Anaconda and the Battle for Roberts Ridge. During this mission F-15E's from the 335th flew the longest combat missions recorded of 15.5 hours and carried the loadout which you are considering with the 9 GBU-12's. You can find these sheets popping up on E-bay from time to time, usually for slightly inflated prices, but some times you can get lucky...I just sold one of the Anaconda decal sheets on E-bay a couple of weeks ago, and it *only* went for 17 dollars or so. Just so you know, the 389th sheet put out by both Twobobs and Afterburner can not be used, as they have not deployed to OEF/OIF yet. They have flown "in support of" OEF/OIF to S. Korea a couple of times, but have not flown any combat missions in theater.

I have to check and decide what I am doing with what, but I'm pretty sure I've got some GBU-10's and -12's for you. I'll look tonight and get back to you.

The logo I have seen most associated with the Strike is a round patch with an Eagle (as in the bird kind) with wings spread, and it is devided diagonally into a black and a silver side with F-15E written below the Eagle. There are many variations of this patch for different units, for pilots and WSO's, certain flight hours that have been achieved, etc.

This should help you a little. I hope.

Aaron

Here's some I found on E-bay for you:

Anaconda Squeeze Play

The Gipper (leave the nose art off and you can use it for an OEF/OIF bird

Super Scale sheet Don't know anything about this one.

Three Cutting Edge sheets Look towards the bottom of his list. All three CE 4th but 1st sheets.

Edited May 25, 2010 by strikeeagle801

[Adam Baker]

Thanks a ton for your help Aaron.

The Anaconda Squeeze sheet you linked above ends this afternoon, and Im going to try going for it.

For the logo, I believe this is the one you are referring to, right?

[strikeeagle801]

Yep. That's the logo I was talking about.

Aaron

[Adam Baker]

A little bit more progress. Pulled out my new Iwata HP-CS and got the cockpit painted. Was going to paint the ejection seats, but found out that my bottle of superglue was toast when I went to glue the photoetch bits to the resin seats. So painting those will have to wait till after I go to the hobby shop tomorrow to get a new bottle of superglue. I really want to have the fuselage closed up this weekend so I can paint it. Probably going to work on getting the landing gear and wheel bays painted up tomorrow.

[Adam Baker]

Finally some progress made where I took pictures, haha.

Working on the intakes. Using the Latex Paint method, and holy crap this is awesome, hahaha. Whoever came up w/ this method needs to be nominated for sainthood, haha.

Im sure most people are familiar w/ this method, so I wont go through it all, but here's how my intakes sit right now. How many times do people normally have to do this? Is it just a one & done kind of thing, or does it take more than 1 application? I noticed a few bubbles inside that I blew on to pop, hopefully it will smooth out from there.

Now I just wait & see how they come out once its all dry. Going to let them hang over the cna of paint for a couple of hours, and then go from there. I have a dehydrator that I use for drying painted models. I may put them in there to help decrease the drying time, and see what happens. Has anyone ever had issues w/ the paint shrinking as it dries?

Edited May 30, 2010 by Adam Baker

[Brett M]

For my B-1 intakes, I did the latex paint twice, which seemed to cover them pretty well. Once more probably would have been better, but I was being impatient. I haven't had any paint shrinkage that I've noticed on the Lancer so far.

Keep up the work, thanks for sharing

[Adam Baker]

Looking at the insides of mine, I can see where the seams are at, so Im contemplating doing it a second time. Im also thinking about doing a second coat b/c I have a few areas that didnt get complete coverage, where the paint kinda looks like it just slid off, as it was drying, so I can still see some of the plastic.

[big fatty]

Finally some progress made where I took pictures, haha.

Working on the intakes. Using the Latex Paint method, and holy crap this is awesome, hahaha. Whoever came up w/ this method needs to be nominated for sainthood, haha.

Im sure most people are familiar w/ this method, so I wont go through it all, but here's how my intakes sit right now. How many times do people normally have to do this? Is it just a one & done kind of thing, or does it take more than 1 application? I noticed a few bubbles inside that I blew on to pop, hopefully it will smooth out from there.

Now I just wait & see how they come out once its all dry. Going to let them hang over the cna of paint for a couple of hours, and then go from there. I have a dehydrator that I use for drying painted models. I may put them in there to help decrease the drying time, and see what happens. Has anyone ever had issues w/ the paint shrinking as it dries?

This is new to me, do you dunk the whole intake or pour it inside the intake?

[Adam Baker]

You plug off one end, I just taped over the end w/ painters tape, and then fill the intake w/ paint. The first time I did it, I just dripped paint into the intake using the paint stirrer thats visible in the above picture. During later attempts (I had to do it 4 times before I as happy w/ the outcome), I used dixie cups to pour the paint into the intakes. Once the paint has had a chance to sit for a couple of minutes, I pulled the tape off the end, and just let it run out on its own.

One tip I got in another thread I started, asking about this method, was to make sure the intakes hang as close to vertical as possible so that the paint drains smoothly & evenly. Also, every few minutes, go in and wipe the end off where the paint is draining, or it will form a ring at the bottom.

[big fatty]

Thanks for the info!

[Adam Baker]

Little bit of progress made. Last night I was able to get all the landing gear and the nose wheel bay painted Floquil Reefer White. Let it dry for a couple days, adn then going to hit it w/ gloss clear. Possibly use Future, not sure yet.

Also got the exhaust cans painted up using Model Masters Metallizers Titanium. This actually came out a little bit darker than I expected. How dark is the bare metal portion of the fuselage supposed to be? Im thinking it should be a more silver-ish tint, compared to the parts painted in the picture below? Also, does anyone have any suggestions on how to pull off the burnt interiors of the engines?

Then tonight I worked on getting the actuator rods glued in place. So far Ive managed to keep from loosing a single one. Hopefully I can get the remaining 12 rods glued into place tomorrow w/o loosing any of them. Once all of the rods are glued on, I will go back and paint the exhaust again. I wanted to get the base and the outer portions painted, prior to gluing the actuator rods on.

Edited June 9, 2010 by Adam Baker

[strikeeagle801]

Adam

If it is metallic colored, you are good to go. Simple as that. I've seen them from almost chrome silver in color, to just about gunmetal black (maybe a little bit of a stretch there, but you get the point) it really depends on age, weathering, heat exposure, and just about everything else. So, the bare metal area on an F-15 is really like the radome of an F-16. It's gray. Any color of gray under the sun will do, because you can probably find a picture to match the color.

Aaron

[Adam Baker]

Ok, cool deal. Then I'll just use the color I already have then.

[Adam Baker]

Well, Im not entirely sure that Im gonna get this thing done in time. I keep having problems w/ the intakes. I thought that I'd finally gotten the intakes almost perfect, and accidentally messed up the paint in one, again. So now I have to wait a couple days for it to dry, and then see what I can do to salvage it. Hopefully it wont take another coat of paint, b/c its starting to get kinda thick in some places, and Im worried about putting too much more paint in them. And of course the intakes have to be done, before I can get the fuselage together.

[MarkW]

Trust me, this was a much worse day.

It will be hard to overpaint the intakes. What's driving the deadline? Can you post a pic or two?

[Adam Baker]

Its not real bad, its just a matter of taking the few days to let the latex paint dry. I think I might be able to smooth the paint out w/ a sanding stick, and then try putting down a light coat of latex paint on it. And it would be really hard to take a pic of how the paint is goofed, as its about an inch into the intake, and since its a really bright gloss white, Ive yet to get a single picture to come out b/c its either too light b/c of the flash going off, or too dark b/c there isnt enough ambient light to light the inside of the intake.

The deadline is just trying to have it done by the end of the GB. I know its not required, but I was hoping it would happen. But Im not willing to rush or push things to get it done, in turn sacrificing the overall build.

*edit*

And awesome job on your build! I really like how yours came out. Hopefully mine will be half that good.

*edit 2*

Great job on your exhaust!! If you dont mind my asking, how did you pull off the interior oxidizing of the metal? I'd love to do that on mine, but not sure the best method to do it.

Edited June 11, 2010 by Adam Baker

[Adam Baker]

Progress!

I said screw it last night, and glue the intake fans into the intakes, and glued the intakes into the lower fuselage. I knew this wasnt going to be a perfect model, its more of a learning experience than anything I think. Overall Im happy w/ how the intakes have come out. I wish they were better, there are a few issues, but for a very first attempt, I think they came out good. Next time hopefully they will come out even better.

Im not sure if its a common issue w/ this kit or not, but either the upper or lower fuselage is warped. Had an interesting time getting the 2 halves glued together, but I was able to get it together w/o a huge gap anywhere. Most of seams came out pretty even w/ only a slight overhang one way or the other. After letting the glue dry on each seam for about 30 minutes, I started sanding, and now most of the seams are gone. A little bit more sanding, and it'll be good to go.

Im also working on filling in the punch marks on the intake walls. Im using a punch set to cut out round styrene disks that Im gluing into the punch marks. Tomorrow when the glue is good & dry, I'll sand them smooth, and then hopefully you'll never notice the disks.

Still dont think this one is going to be done in time. I still havent ordered decals for this build, and I dont have any ordnance to hang from it, but I htink I can at least have the model itself pretty close to finished. Although I have to hope the weather might cooperate. Its hitting upper 90's now w/ the typical southeastern US 90% humidity during the day, so its getting harder & harder to find days conducive to painting.

[strikeeagle801]

It's interesting you had problems with the light gray plastic warping. They are usually okay. I don't mean to sound negative, politcal, racist, etc, but the kits molded in South Korean are a lot better than those molded in China. Especially now as the molds are getting older. One hint for you before you put the outer wing panels on. You are going to have problems with one or the other (or both of them) not lining up right. If you do it the way the instructions say, you'll end up with a gap on the upper wing. What I have found to get around this problem is to glue the upper parts together first, then the lower parts onto that assembly. It may leave a little gap under the wing at either the root or toward the tip, but it'll be a lot less noticable that way, and eaiser to fix without loosing the rivet detail where the upper surfaces join.

Aaron

[Adam Baker]

Cool, thanks for the warning & the advice. I had planned on doing it like the instructions say, but I can see where your method has a lot of benefit. Hopefully I'll get to that stage tomorrow evening when I work on it again.

[Adam Baker]

Thanks for the tip on the wings Aaron. I got the upper outer panels glued on last night. I think it came out pretty good. One side is almost completely flush, should take very little to clean it up and be good to go. Unfortunately on the other side, there's a slight step from my not making 100% sure it was flush, but I dont think it will be overly difficult to fix. Tonight I should get the underside panels glued on, and be good to go. Hopefully tonight I can get the rest of the cockpit tub painted up, and get the forward fuselage halves together. Unfortunately the weather isnt cooperating, w/ really high temps and very high humidity to go w/ it, so painting is going to be difficult at best to work in. Hopefully some time this weekend I can find a time when the weather will be good enough to get it painted.

[jetmodeler]

Nice job so far. :D I've never heard of the Latex paint technique. I might try it next time.

I built this kit about a year ago. The only thing I didn't like was the fit of the front section and the only load was two fuel tanks and 4 missles.