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Beautiful work Alf. Your doing an awesome job on the old girl. And thiose pics of Baden and area sure bring back memories. Looking forward to your fiished Tiger.

Oh and its hard to tell but I think the tank on the bunker is a Firefly 1c or a Sherman Mk V. The gate guard is a Chaffee. The Sherman wasnt there when I was in Germany and most of the bunkers on our side of the river where blown up. Ohh and the Alt Schloss also brings back memories. Did you go to the pink palace also?

James

James

Thanks for your comments, dude!

Pink palace? Do you mean Tiffany's? This was a family trip! And the Defence Minister wasn't along for the ride... :doh:

Or are you talking about Schloss Favorit? Ran out of time, but should have included that in the trip.

Thanks for the comments, James, and your contributions to this bird.

ALF

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Small update for tonight.

I got the masking done. Took a long time, and had to redo some of it because I kept getting the colours mixed up. With this many stripes, I had to keep repeating to myself "put the tape on the yellow bits" over and over - and still got it wrong once in a while.

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Did the spraying. This is the stage where it looks terrible, and huge doubts come to the forefront as I anxiously wait for it to dry to see how much retouching it needs.

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Tape stripped off - generally not bad, but needs some retouching.

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A close-up to see some areas where it really needs some yellow touch-ups. Debating whether to do them by brush or airbrush. I think I'll try some brush touch-ups on the underside, and see how bad they look before deciding. I hate masking and remasking.

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Here's where I took some shortcuts on the bottom, making straighter lines and saving time. On the top, I took bits of tape and cut wavy lines down the middle on my bench, then taped them on the edges of the masked areas. On the bottom, I just used straight bits of tape.

P1070964.jpg

This is another area that will need retouching. I did this panel poorly, because I was all ready to go with spraying the black when I noticed I hadn't done this colour first. I hurriedly sprayed it, didn't wait long enough for it to set, and it peeled off like this.

P1070963.jpg

Lots of work to come!

ALF

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Looking good

I like it

for the touch up you could always try to mask with blue tack. Ive never tried it but i hear it does a great job and its much faster than tape

Cheers

Neo

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Hey Alf,

Looks like you're getting back to the Tiger. For the touch-ups....something you can try. If you have some round style tooth-picks, you can dab the ends in solvent and carefully work the black off the yellow. It may help with some of the larger sections rather than trying to coat over the black with yellow touch-up.

Keep up the good work bro. I just got back from a mini-holiday...and if I play my cards right, I may get to do a bit of model building soon. It'll be interesting to find the time though - lol.

Cheers,

Tilt

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ALF,

Looking very good, sir. As for the black bleeding under the tape, I've done what Tilt has suggested with the tooth pick / solvent bit. It can be a little time consuming but it is well worth it in the long run. It's a lot easier to touch up dark over light than it is light over dark, especially yellow or white. As for the fibreglass panel on the top, it should be just as easy to remask that and spray on a couple of light coats of paint for that. I have no doubt that you'll recover with no problems at all.

Keep it up my friend. I look forward to seeing her in all her glory.

Mike

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Thanks for the hints (Neo, Tilt, and Mike).

I was in fact thinking of a variation on the theme by scraping off the black and repainting the yellow if it all came off, but not having to cover the black with yellow.

For the toothpick method, do you use rubbing alcohol as solvent?

Luckily, I have a whole underside to practise on, so by the time I attack the top I will have perfected my technique. Masking will be faster this time, given the ability to do large areas with paper (where I didn't mess up the join line already), and I will try blue tack.

One thing I didn't mention last night (SWMBO was after me to watch Lie to Me with her) was that I regret not installing the tip tanks before painting. Doing them separately did help the masking a bit (no compound curves to seat the tape into where the tanks meet the wings), but the job I did matching the lines is terrible. I will glue the tanks in place, fix the masking, and repaint them.

This is the longest part of the build. I find it a bit tedious, but the end results should be worth it. Already it is looking better than my 1/72 scale efforts (tail number 838) from several years back.

ALF

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Alf, another way to mask (works well I think) is to cut the tape about 1/8 inch wide. Mask like normal but because of the width you can make all sorts of wavy shapes etc. Then use wider tape to fill in the blanks.

James

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Alf, another way to mask (works well I think) is to cut the tape about 1/8 inch wide. Mask like normal but because of the width you can make all sorts of wavy shapes etc. Then use wider tape to fill in the blanks.

James

I actually used a variant of that James - I laid down strips of 6mm wide Tamiya tape, then cut a free-hand squiggle shape in it, ending up with two halves that already had squiggles and one straight edge. I then used the full 6mm width to fill in the gaps between the squiggle sides. In the past, I've used regular masking tape for the big parts, but with acrylic (Tamiya) paint I have managed to pull off paint.

That's why I used obscene amounts of expensive Tamiya tape.

When I applied the squiggly tape, it was thin enough to bend slightly.

I'm looking forward to trying the clean-up tonight, after which I will doubtless do some more masking.

ALF

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I had a frustrating session last night. The rubbing alcohol and toothpick did get most of the black off, but it also takes off the yellow, and brings it down to the primer. I will end up having to remask all of it, and redo the yellow. Some tests with brush retouching on the underside (after removing the black with alcohol) showed that brush painting doesn't cover well enough, and that the tiniest trace of black still shows through.

This is going to be long and tedious!

ALF

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I had a frustrating session last night. The rubbing alcohol and toothpick did get most of the black off, but it also takes off the yellow, and brings it down to the primer. I will end up having to remask all of it, and redo the yellow. Some tests with brush retouching on the underside (after removing the black with alcohol) showed that brush painting doesn't cover well enough, and that the tiniest trace of black still shows through.

This is going to be long and tedious!

ALF

Try this Alf. When you mask, before you spray the black give the area a shot of the yellow. If there is any bleed it will match. After its dry then shoot the black. There should be no bleed at all. Hopefully that helps.

James

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Finally made a bit more progress, after a short hiatus caused by discouragement over masking, plus way too much work and other things getting in the way.

I rubbed off the majority of the black that had bled under the tape or had gone into little cracks where my masking was insufficient. You can see this went down to the primer in most areas. I then masked with Tamiya tape again (didn't have much Blue Tack in my supply stash, so went with the tape).

P1070969.jpg

I only resprayed the areas where the yellow needed redoing, so other areas got covered with larger cheap masking tape. Before sticking it on, I stuck it to my pants and peeled it off a few times to make sure that it wasn't too tacky, and wouldn't peel off the acrylic paint.

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This is what it looked like after painting - not that bad. I left the tape in place in the area forward of the intakes, because I still had to mask off the grey area later.

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Here is the result with the grey painted. It too leaked! It wasn't that bad, though. I plan to touch up the black with a brush, because it doesn't show the brush strokes so much, and of course it covers well.

P1070973.jpg

ALF

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And now back to the historical interest portion of this thread. Those of a certain age who live in Canada will recognize this now-defunct magazine.

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My father wrote an article about the CF-104 that also appeared in another magazine. He certainly had a talent for writing, and clearly he loved his subject. The big pic is not this tail number, but it is another tiger bird that he flew.

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A close-up of another page, with a black and white reference pic of the cockpit as a little bonus.

P1070958.jpg

I am looking around for a soft copy of this article, because it might be fun to either post here, or if I can only find a scanned pdf I could e-mail it to anyone who is interested in reading the article.

ALF

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ALF18, just to let you know that I enjoy your thread very much. thank you for sharing all these memories with us. I posted some motivation photos in another Missile With a Man In It Group Build thread for you (not wanting to hijack this one)

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Why don't you use hose hold kitchen alu foil for masking large areas? tamiya tape on the borders of the camo, and pcs of foil in between ... much easyer to remove and les danger of pulling paint with masking tape up..

Great progres on your Tiger..

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Touch-ups are now mostly done. This is where it is now.

P1070975.jpg

The cockpit got some overspray, which will have to be touched up. Lots of detail work to go still!

P1070976.jpg

ALF

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ALF18, just to let you know that I enjoy your thread very much. thank you for sharing all these memories with us. I posted some motivation photos in another Missile With a Man In It Group Build thread for you (not wanting to hijack this one)

Merci Yves!

I will try to stay motivated, even now that I know the bar you set is higher than I will ever attain. :cheers:

ALF

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Why don't you use hose hold kitchen alu foil for masking large areas? tamiya tape on the borders of the camo, and pcs of foil in between ... much easyer to remove and les danger of pulling paint with masking tape up..

Great progres on your Tiger..

Good suggestion. When I have large areas to mask, I use paper with Tamiya tape to hold it on. When I get lazy (which happens often...) I use masking tape that has had the tack removed by sticking/peeling several times on my pants.

ALF

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She's look'n good Alf. All these 104's lately - as well as your "historical sidetracks" almost have my 1/48 Hasegawa 104 leaping off my shelf!! I just need to find a way to make myself spend time in the "Cave" to finish off my little Canuck Hawk.....then I can crack the seal on my CF-104 project.

Tilt

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Great recovery brother. She's coming together extremely nice. You should have some fantastic results because of the effort and care you've invested. Well done. And like many others have said, I really appreciate the personal and informative aspect you've added to your thread, my friend. I can tell that this build is a labour of love.

Thanks ALF!

Mike

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Great recovery brother. She's coming together extremely nice. You should have some fantastic results because of the effort and care you've invested. Well done. And like many others have said, I really appreciate the personal and informative aspect you've added to your thread, my friend. I can tell that this build is a labour of love.

Thanks ALF!

Mike

Thanks Mike!

I'm glad you're confident - hopefully your confidence in the recovery is not misplaced. I will continue to persevere. Glad you're enjoying the thread - it's fun writing it and exchanging with you and others in this great ARC community.

Here are a couple shots from the golf tournament, while I work hard at trying to get the windscreen to fit with the resin glare shield. It sure doesn't go together very well. Pics on that soon, when my camera battery is recharged...

First of all, here I am practising my putting technique. With a driver. Are we confused yet?

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And here is a pic of three honourary colonels, the current CO of 439 squadron (the Major), our Wing Commander, and a retired LCol who organized this great tournament. The tie-in with this thread is that the tigers represent 439 squadron, which was the unit my father flew with. It is now the base rescue unit here in Bagotville. Hockey fans will instantly recognize the legend in the middle - Guy Lafleur!

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Pics soon of the progress.

ALF

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Who looks like he's standing behind.....Tiger Williams.

:cheers:

Cheers,

Sean

LOL!

He was definitely incognito... but mind you, the Tiger was a hit with the ladies... I should have known it was him!

ALF

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Short update for tonight, after a very tiring week at work. This will be some more pics that I just uploaded from the camera today, taken a couple days ago. You can see more details of the paint job. I have never done a perfect paint job, but this one is nicer than the 1/72 tiger 104 I did several years back (tail number 838).

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Here is another picture of a picture - this one hangs in our CF-104-themed briefing room at work. I took this shot on a different day that same summer of 1976. The squadron sticker is on the glass covering the print.

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Another item we have hanging proudly on our wall at work is this; it comes from the 439 squadron collection from way back, on loan to us indefinitely. It was presented to 439 by a visiting tiger squadron at a tiger meet (not the one in Baden in 1976). Extra points for identifying which aircraft this comes from!

P1070994.jpg

Good night; more tomorrow.

ALF

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Tilt wins! The gun panel hangs beside a print of a Canadian 439 Sabre in a dogfight over Europe - those were the days.

I have been having a bit of trouble with the fit of the resin parts and the windscreen. Here is what the windscreen is supposed to fit like:

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It's a bit hard to tell from the shots of shroud and windscreen after this one, but the windscreen is prevented by the shroud from sitting flush like it does here, especially at the rear.

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When I install the resin instrument shroud, it will not sit right.

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I compared the resin part to the kit part, and here is the difference:

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Looks like there will be some major chopping to do.

ALF

Edited by ALF18
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