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Balkan Rat and 439 Tiger meet joint build


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Nice ref pic of your Tiger bird. Looking through the thread quickly, I didn't twig whether or not you are using a blanking plate instead of the ID light on the Hasegawa (Tiger) aircraft. The pic you posted shows a blanking plate from what I can tell.

ALF

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Nice ref pic of your Tiger bird. Looking through the thread quickly, I didn't twig whether or not you are using a blanking plate instead of the ID light on the Hasegawa (Tiger) aircraft. The pic you posted shows a blanking plate from what I can tell.

ALF

Hi ALF,

Ya, I did use a blanking plate. According to the Leading Edge Decals the searchlight is covered over, so I gladly did so, it saved me the extra work of making the backside of the light. The HobbyBoss kit also doesn't come with good pieces to make the interior of the light like the Has. kit does.

I will hopefully be done with the Tiger Meet pilot tomorrow with the cockpit glued in, I keep on finding little things to do to make him more authentic. Plan on having both hornets ready for paint Sunday night. Scribing and sanding while I watch the NFL playoffs. Go Patriots!

cheers

Mark

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Will post pics of the pilot soon, I was almost done and ready to glue the cockpit into the jet when I decided to test fit the canopy. So it ends up that the hasegawa pilot is huge! I couldn't close the canopy, so out came the glued in seat/pilot and hack off a layer from the bottom of the seat. It fits now, but it too a lot of time to fix.

Well better to fix it now than later, when the fuselage is glued together!

cheers

Mark

I always dremil the butt off the pilot so he sits lower in the cockpit. Also the inner legs so the control stick will fit in.

Edited by phantom
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I always dremil the butt off the pilot so he sits lower in the cockpit. Also the inner legs so the control stick will fit in.

Thats what I had to do, but I didn't want to chop off too much, so I ended up cutting off any excess resin on the bottom of the seat. The pilot in real life would probably be 6'4" or something like that, he's huge!

Also cut a bunch off the insides of his legs to fit the instrument panel, but you won't even notice now with arms in place.

cheers

Mark

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Here is the oversize pilot, wearing a Orange Mae West

Jan13CF-18s008.jpg

Added some arms, the colour of blue is too light but it was the darkest blue I had at the time.

Jan13CF-18s021.jpg

I am making the shoulder straps out of thin pieces of plastic, bending them to fit

Jan13CF-18s026.jpg

Now the other problem, the Aires exhaust fits ok on the Has. hornet

Jan13CF-18s029.jpg

Not so good on the Hobby Boss:

Jan13CF-18s028.jpg

I'm thinking Aires probably just used their Has. nozzles and relabeled them for the Hobby Boss kit without fitting them. So I will need to do some sanding to shrink the excess width. A pic of one half sanded down to a more correct size.

Jan13CF-18s027.jpg

cheers

Thanks for looking

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Thats what I had to do, but I didn't want to chop off too much, so I ended up cutting off any excess resin on the bottom of the seat. The pilot in real life would probably be 6'4" or something like that, he's huge!

Also cut a bunch off the insides of his legs to fit the instrument panel, but you won't even notice now with arms in place.

cheers

Mark

6'4" is NOT huge. THAT is the normal height for the guy typing this response.

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Here is the oversize pilot, wearing a Orange Mae West

Added some arms, the colour of blue is too light but it was the darkest blue I had at the time.

I am making the shoulder straps out of thin pieces of plastic, bending them to fit

I would've said that the blue is too dark, for the 90s blue flight suit.

Cheers, Tony

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I would've said that the blue is too dark, for the 90s blue flight suit.

Cheers, Tony

And 'this bear' thought the blue looked just right...

I think it depends on how often they were washed. Here are some examples. On the ramp at Gulfport Mississippi in 1995

mcwilliam32mod.jpg

With the head of the Israeli Air Force in our ancient original CF-18 sim in Bagotville, circa 1992

McWilliams29b.jpg

Looks pretty close to the right colour. Nice paint job on the pilot. And don't listen to Phantom - his 'normal' is like thinking Zdeno Chara is a regular sized guy. I think the model companies must have used old retired guys like me for their dimensions - they are often too fat to fit the cockpits!

ALF

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Its been a long time without an update so here it goes:

So the Aires resin cockpit is in the Hasegawa CF-18, and the fuselage and nose are glued on. With a large "step" between the fuselage side and the nose. Will have to scrape that down. When I was test fitting I noticed the problem so I made sure the step was on the right side to limit the possibility of damaged the searchlight when scraping/puttying.

6JanModelpics008.jpg

The HobbyBoss hornet has less of this step between the pieces but it has a bigger gap.

CF-18Jan24007.jpg

Of course I painted the landing gear bays before assembling the fuselage pieces. I used Mr. Color for the first time and once thinned down enough it works excellent, (thinned with Mr. Color Thinner)

CF-18Jan24005.jpg

The other problem area on both kits are the tail end. The HobbyBoss kit went together better than the Has. kit, which means less time filling and painting, and filling and painting, and filling and painting and......

CF-18Jan24008.jpg

Thats all for now thanks for looking

cheers

Mark

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So to continue comparing the 2 kits, a picture of the intakes, with the Hasegawa on the left and Hobby Boss on the right. This round goes to Hasegawa the shape of their intakes more closely resembles the real Hornet.

CF-18Jan24012.jpg

Tails are now glued on and it is time for some scribing, not so much on the Hobby Boss kit, but the Has. kit. The rivet detail is almost missing in some places, so I packed them up and rescribed the Has. kit while watching some football and movies with the family.

CF-18Jan24022.jpg

I recieved my hold and fold workstation from the Small Shop so I gave the canopy rail of the Aires detail set a try. The Hold and Fold definitely made the job much easier and nicer.

CF-18Jan24006.jpg

Next up is to finish detailing the wheel bays, fit the wing control surfaces, and attach the front pieces of the canopy.

Thanks for looking!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's an update:

Both kits have issues with the intakes, the Hasegawa kit being worse than the HB kit, but both are very managable

CF-18sFeb6012.jpg

You need to fill these spots on the HB kit, the HAS kit already has them done

CF-18sFeb6014.jpg

With the tails on there is a small gap on the HB kit on the one side, the Has kit fits better in this spot

CF-18sFeb6015.jpg

Another big problem with the HB kit is they give you seperate trailing edge flaps but don't give you the pieces to display them in the down position, so its time to improvise

CF-18sFeb6020.jpg

Next up: comparison of landing gear and adding the control surfaces

thanks for looking

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Now the comparison between the landing gear:

The Hasegawa gear are nice metal ones with lots of detail, accurate shocks. The HobbyBoss not so much, on the right, I will have to scratch build some shocks for this one.

CF-18sFeb6021.jpg

And now the addition of some control surfaces, I did the hasegawa kit first as a bench-mark for the position of the flaps on my modified HB kit.

CF-18sFeb6027.jpg

Next the addition of the HUDs and canopies before another coat of paint.

Thanks for looking

cheers

Mark

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So we have trouble in Little Moose Jaw tonight, it seems that I have an early set of Tiger Meet decals, which are extremely thick and resistant to Mr. Softener. But I will get to that later.

First the HUD on the Hasegawa Kit, with Aires cockpit.

cf-18030.jpg

The HB kit all painted up in Medium Gray

cf-18037.jpg

Another View

cf-18039.jpg

And now the problem, I tested one decal to see if the comments about them are true and sure enough it is. Mr. Softer, which usually does an awesome job on Leading Edge decals has no ability on these ones. I ended up cracking the decal in one spot trying to curve it around the leading edge of the stab.

cf-18042.jpg

and the decal does not lay down around some edges. Usually the problem is a decal sticks in the place you don't want it to, in this case the decal doesn't stick at all.

cf-18041.jpg

So any ideas? I am leaning towards buying a new set from Leading Edge as they have reissued them but I will have to figure out if they are the same quality or not. Does anyone know?

Thanks for Looking

Mark

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Ow! Hate it when that happens...

I can't speak for this particular set of decals, but I have found that the newer Leading Edge CF-18 decals are better than the older ones. With older sets I have had this kind of cracking problem (433 porcupine orange/black set, some roundels and number decals for the wings, and most often the leading edge strips that should fold around the front of the leading edge flaps). These cracks were either a total shattering (number decals) or longitudinal cracks (leading edge strips).

I bought some newer ones, and they folded around the wing leading edges far more nicely. They seemed more flexible, and retained their integrity, sitting down quite nicely in place. I don't know if this was due to relative age of decals, or a difference in the way they're made.

ALF

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Ow! Hate it when that happens...

I can't speak for this particular set of decals, but I have found that the newer Leading Edge CF-18 decals are better than the older ones. With older sets I have had this kind of cracking problem (433 porcupine orange/black set, some roundels and number decals for the wings, and most often the leading edge strips that should fold around the front of the leading edge flaps). These cracks were either a total shattering (number decals) or longitudinal cracks (leading edge strips).

I bought some newer ones, and they folded around the wing leading edges far more nicely. They seemed more flexible, and retained their integrity, sitting down quite nicely in place. I don't know if this was due to relative age of decals, or a difference in the way they're made.

ALF

Totally agree with all of the above, so I always have 2 sets of LE decals for those that are scrapped and I also have had better luck with very hot water.

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Looking great so far! It's nice to see the direct comparisons between the two kits.

Just to add to what Alf said about the decals, when I was ordering a couple decal sets from LE I asked about their tendency to crack. I was told the ink used on the older sets tend to get brittle and crack as they age. However, a couple years ago they changed the ink they use, and these sets are much better now. So you might want to send them an email and check when the reissued decals were printed.

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Alright so with the Tiger Meet hornet on hold the attention turns to the Balkan Rat. With the help of an expert (ALF) I nailed down the exact scheme I will be doing: the 776 hornet. A 441 bird, the rat on the tails, black walkways, bomb marking on the left, Inflight refueling door marking on the right and medium gray right down to the nose.

Preshading complete and the final underside look is this:

cf-18003.jpg

Top preshading:

cf-18007.jpg

Color differance between light ghost gray and medium gray (lightened) both MM

cf-18008.jpg

Medium gray going right to the nose

cf-18009.jpg

And the final look

cf-18011.jpg

The paint is look really flat but the coat of future will liven it up before decals are added.

Next up is to paint the tip of the nose radome color, wingtip launchers top color of light ghost gray, and I might paint the probe door a green primer color.

Thanks for the comments and thanks for looking!

cheers

Mark

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Mark

Looking really natural. I think the colour you used for the top is just right. Over time, it tends to fade a bit, and the contrast looks good top to bottom colour. When you add Future, it will darken up a bit anyway. The preshading effects are good as well.

ALF

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Thanks Alf! I also got a hold of Dave from Leading Edge, he is sending me a new set of Tiger Meet decals and I also picked up the 2009 Demo CF-18 decals, the Centennial of flight. Those look fun to do. That might be my next build in this group build.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Time for an update,

While waiting for the new Tiger Meet Decals to arrive I pushed ahead with the Balkan Rat, decals on:

CF-1823FEB005.jpg

Another look:

CF-1823FEB008.jpg

The decals went on really well, I just needed to tone down some of the NO STEP decals because they stood out to me too much. So here is the detoned decals that don't contrast with my paint as much.

CF-18004.jpg

A shot of the tail with the famous Balkan Rat markings. I had to do a lot of rescribing on both kits near the tail as they lacked detail or the lines were very shallow.

CF-18010.jpg

Thanks for looking!

Mark

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