factacnapalm Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Hi Erik You say "colour facist" like its a bad thing ;) Asia minor scheme is made by these FS colours: Green : 34079 Dark tan : 30140 Light Tan : 30400 Light gray: 36622 36622 is easy, you can use Tamiya XF 19, Xtracolour 140, Modelmaster 1733, Hunbrol 28, Gunze 311 and WEM's ACUS 17 34079 is also easy, you can use Tamiya XF 27, Xtracolour 110, Modelmaster 1710, Humbrol 116, Gunze 309 and WEM's ACUS 20 30400 is a bit more trouble, you can use xtracolour 145 or mix it with humbrol paints (3 parts63 + 3 parts118 + 3 parts 34 + 2 parts 121) 30140 is even more trouble pollyscale P:500829 will do, Compucolour also made one (if you can find it) or again you can mix it from humbrol (4 parts 110 + 2 parts 62 + 1 part:113), I have mixed a tin of this and find that it come close to the colour chip in the federal standart chart Given that the F-14 Tomcats where recived several years before the war, you can of course have some change in colour, my picture collection show that the green 34079 are most prone to fading, the darker tan also fades some Today's Iranian air force aircraft look very well maintained and the colours look fresh, but since you are building a war aircraft I think you will be ok in allowing some change in the colour. Hope this help, you can send me your email in a PM and I will email you some Iranian F-14 pics Bo I will go for Asia Minor, the sand, brown and green scheme. I think I´ll raid the nearest Tamiya paint retailer and see if I can find something that fits reasonably well. I´m not a colour fascist, so if it looks right it probably is right. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 Used any Latex products yet? And yes, talking about paint here... Sure you are.. you dirty b*****d ;-) I tried some, but it was messy as.. well.. it was messy.. The groundwork wasn´t good enough either, so while it did smooth out some wrinkles, it was no wonder cure. Also, I am probably not doing it right.. Hi Erik You say "colour facist" like its a bad thing ;) Well, colour fascism, and AMS are extremely good things, as long as it affect others :-) Thanks for the tips on colours. I have noted that at least the dark brown seems prone to fading. Some pics in the osprey book on Iranian tomcats shows a very distinct fading. I would like to replicate that. I sent you a PM, thanks in advance! /E Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Anders_Isaksson Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 Sure you are.. you dirty b*****d ;-) Who, me? :lol: ;) Seriously though, I hope you get past the intake assemblies soon. They are indeed a pain but things will get better after that step. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 I tried some, but it was messy as.. well.. it was messy.. The groundwork wasn´t good enough either, so while it did smooth out some wrinkles, it was no wonder cure. Also, I am probably not doing it right.. It doesn´t have to be messy youn know :P This is how you do it without getting dirty.... about halfway down on the page http://s362974870.onlinehome.us/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=233871&st=60 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted February 6, 2012 Author Share Posted February 6, 2012 Thanks Janne, I obviously did it the wrong way the first time, but it didn´t turn out better the second time. I just think these intakes don´t fit well with this technique - or I have the wrong kind of paint. It´s obviously not me :-D Anyway. Progress has been slow but steady. I´ve so far attached one intake, finished both main gears and main gear bays. started on the armament, on the exhausts, continued on the front fuselage and so on. Not much to show, but I´ll show you what I have: This is the front fuselage (duh!).. the nose cone is thoroughly glued in place with a lot of super glue, which doubled as a filler. In most places it looks good. Need some work in other. On the left side there are a lot of separate panels for the gun, avionics bays and the crew ladder. If done carefully, the fit is good, and the seam lines mostly disappear under a layer of primer. There are some lines that need fixing. The two part ladder door left a huge gap that I plugged with some plasticard. There is a gap in the bottom of the fuselage in need of fixing too. The panels on the side looks better in real life, so I don´t think I will need to fix them much. I have added plasticard to the inner side of the intake ducts. This is because HB left a gap on the inner side, that the intake ramps don´t quite manage to hide. As you can see, not much is really needed, but I wanted to cover an ugly seam inside the duct also, so I built a complete inner wall. The inner ramp must be thinned down some to fit. The intake fit nicely to the fuselage. The outer seam and the rear seam are looking fine underneath a coat of primer. Note the dry fitted wheel bay. The surrounding area will be painted before the bay is glued in place. Makes masking simpler. The inside however.. but this is probably all my fault. The plasticard added to the intake is just a fraction of a millimetre to tall I think. It fitted nicely when I placed the intake and applied force, but after a while the seam expanded. I tried to clamp the parts together, but there are no good places to put the clamp, so I will adress this seam with some stretched styrene in the future - or not.. I´m not placing this on a mirror, so it will not be visible. Both main gear legs and main gear bays are finished. The legs had not yet received a wash when I took this picture - but they have now. Before finishing up the nose gear leg I wanted to attach the "missing landing light". I thought that there was a transparent part for the light, that should go on to that "nub" that is placed at the location of the light. Turns out the "nub" IS the light. There is no call-out for any transparent part on the instructions, nor is there any suitable part on the transparent sprue. But I spiced up the landing light by removing the nub, drilling out a reflector. I used a small piece of wire as "light bulb", and a punched disc of transparent plasticard as a glass pane. Looks OK I think. A more thorough modeller would work on the reflector some more to get that chrome shine. Finally a friendly wink to one of my favourite model building story tellers on this forum.. :-) /E Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Sweet! Great attention to details as usual,Erik! Impressive artistic skills as well, you should really consider a career change :D Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JesniF-16 Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Great work so far! I am following this build with interest cuz i'm building the same kit. What do you advanced modellers use for pipe fasteners? The gear bays are unbelievable, they look great, perfect amount of detail added IMO. As for the nose gear light and the HUD lense (think thats what it's called) why so many clear parts, but nothing useful ? Oh well. Keep up the great work. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted February 6, 2012 Author Share Posted February 6, 2012 Thanks JesniF-16. My pipe-fasteners are nothing more fancy than a bit of black paint as the rubber gasket and a smaller bit of silver as the fastener. But I've seen modellers using tamiya tape, lead foil or aluminium foil as fasteners. I think the paint trick worked reasonably well in this case. Janne, a career change AWAY from being an illustrator you mean? :-D /E Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Thanks JesniF-16. My pipe-fasteners are nothing more fancy than a bit of black paint as the rubber gasket and a smaller bit of silver as the fastener. But I've seen modellers using tamiya tape, lead foil or aluminium foil as fasteners. I think the paint trick worked reasonably well in this case. Janne, a career change AWAY from being an illustrator you mean? :-D /E LOL To be honest, I didn´t really know what you did for a living :D Thought you were in the line of collecting empty cans in a shopping trolly. :P Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Well now? where´ve you gone off to then? You´ve got work to do! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted February 22, 2012 Author Share Posted February 22, 2012 Yeah, well.. Actually I am at work, but I think I'll go home now and have a sitting in the basement this evening.. Today I'll prep the wings and fins for painting, and maybe continue on the burner cans.. We'll see :-) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Anders_Isaksson Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Yeah, well.. Actually I am at work, but I think I'll go home now and have a sitting in the basement this evening.. Today I'll prep the wings and fins for painting, and maybe continue on the burner cans.. We'll see :-) That's more like it! Also waiting for more progress on this one... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted May 27, 2012 Share Posted May 27, 2012 Something to consider for your Ali cat :D http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/MA-48001 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted June 6, 2012 Author Share Posted June 6, 2012 Woah! Progress!! I've been sidetracked by a few project, a few of them actually being tracked.. This one, an Lvkv 90, is finally finished.. (Academy CV 90 scratch-converted to a AAV 90) I was also sent a few sets of decals to be reviewed. So I had to build me a P51D Mustang just to try them. Tamiya 1/48 P-51D Mustang as a Swedish Airforce J26 fighter. (more pics here: http://www.plasticwarfare.se/2012/04/decal-review-j26-swedish-mustangs-from-rbd-decals/ ) Anyway, enough with the old horse, on to the Cat. I added the older type of strengthening plates on top of the fins, and rescribed some panel lines that went missing when the fins were assembled. I did fail to reinstate the gazillion rivets, I´ll have to fix that. I did however try a bit of camouflage painting. It will have to be adjusted also, since there are a few blemishes that need fixing. I think I found a set of OK looking colours. I wanted to use something right out of the bottle, preferably Tamiya paints since they are the kind of acrylics that is easiest to get my hands on where I live. I used Deck Tan, Flat Earth and J.A Green. I plan on doing some weathering later on, so an exact match will be overkill. The wings got some paint on them as well. I plan on having them as finished as possible before sandwiching them between the fuselage halves. The second intake was finally fixed to the fuselage. I painted the outer parts with Vallejo primer I bought recently. Since my "man cave" is also the room where our laundry hands to dry, my boss don´t want me to use stuff that smells bad, so I thought using an acrylic primer would be a good idea, instead of smelly alclad primer. Unfortunately it didn't react too well to sanding. It behaves like it´s a thin rubber coat and tears off when sanded. Maybe it needs a few days to harden? I'll see how it behaves tomorrow. The inside of the intake looks smooth, courtesy of short depth of field. Some day, all this will become an aeroplane.. well, a REPLICA of an aeroplane anyway. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this update, and I hope it won't be long until the next one. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JesniF-16 Posted June 7, 2012 Share Posted June 7, 2012 Coming along nicely Erik. Camo is nice looking man and so are your other builds. Keep the pics coming now... /Jesse Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted June 7, 2012 Share Posted June 7, 2012 Looking almost good there, Erik.....I´m not sure about that sand color tho, it should be a darker yellow, more like mustard yellow. You can actually find the exact match in Lifecolor acrylics.... FS30400 is UA084. Cheers mate :D Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted June 7, 2012 Author Share Posted June 7, 2012 You're probably right, Janne. I used an old photo (of a spanking new airframe) in an old book as a reference, and the colours match that photo fairly good. However, when looking at all the other colour photos I have, on the computer or in books I find all sorts of variations (as expected), from the sand being spot on, to it being too light. Also, I expect the colours to darken a bit when I add gloss and weathering. Anyway, Hobbycenter doesn´t have the Lifecolor range, and Alfa Hobby (which I belive has them?) isn't open at lunch time :-/ I have the urgent need for some masking tape to continue this project. I need it for masking the exhaust nozzles and I also plan on painting the area around the main landing gear bays before fuselage assembly, to make masking the MLG bays easier. Thanks for your comments guys! /E PS Whaddaya mean "Looking ALMOST good"? It IS looking good, you basterd! ;-) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted June 7, 2012 Share Posted June 7, 2012 LOL :) Ministuff sells them and he´s darn quick with the parcels for the needy.... http://www.ministuff.se Or you could borrow some from me :D Quote Link to post Share on other sites
catfan Posted June 9, 2012 Share Posted June 9, 2012 like your tomcat build what size wire are you useing for the landing gear and the landing ear bays and what is the big silver wire in the first pictures of the front landing gear bay? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Major Walt Posted June 9, 2012 Share Posted June 9, 2012 I'm impressed! Your detail painting is fantastic! Great job! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted June 17, 2012 Author Share Posted June 17, 2012 Catfan, the plumbing in the nose gear bay is solder, two sizes. The thick pipe is 1.5mm and the thinner cables are 0.8mm. The landing gear wires and the wires in the main gear wells are regular steel wire, about 0.4-0.5mm. I seem to have misplaced my callipers, so I can´t get you an exact measurement for the time being. Major Walt, thank you! Ok, some progress have been made during the week and a half since the last post. Now it suddenly look like an aeroplane! The fuselage parts have been assembled, and some other components have been dry fitted. I also worked on the burner cans, which, if I may say so, turned out quite all right. The front wind shield was also fitted. Although not without some struggle. First I decided to paint the green front glass using Tamiya clear green rather than using a coloured piece of acetate, like some other builders have done. But getting an even layer was not easy. Getting an even layer without some minuscule speck of dust destroying everything was even harder. I had to do and re-do it about 5-6 times I think. When I was satisfied it turned out I think I over did it slightly. But I decided against another retry. I then masked the windows, added the small handle and painted the main frame black. I cheated and let the inside of the framing around the front glass remain unpainted from the inside. I hope it´s not going to show, unless you really look for it. So please don´t tell anyone, ok? The part did not fit well, then the resin front intrument panel was in place. I hade to remove a little bit of resin on the I/P and on the inside of the wind shield framing to get a better fit. It is not perfect, but I hope the fact that I had to use mild force to press it in to place while gluing it down (using tamiya cement, I do not dare using super glue!) will not end with a shattered wind shield later. While working on the wind shield, I was also working on the canopy. I did some addition in the form of the AC-plumbing found on the inside of the coaming. I shamelessly stole the idea from JesniF-16's build here. The rest is kit parts and Aires PE rear view mirrors. I couldn't resist playing around a bit with my "American Swingers" collection.. all two of them.. While the F-111 is longer, the F-14 does have a more muscular look. Like it had a bit more steroids.. I had hopes of starting the final paint job this weekend, but it´ll have to wait. Maybe for a few weeks even since time will be limited for a few weeks :-( /E Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JesniF-16 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 (edited) Wow excellent progress Erik it won't be long now. I really like how your nozzles turned out, they really look sweet. I had the same issue with the windscreen and the AM coaming. Hopefully the windscreen isn't cracked under the masking tape... <_< It's OK that you stole the AC plumbing from me since I too stole it from a fellow ARC member (JohnS) You will definitely beat me to the finish line with all of this great progress /Jesse Edited June 18, 2012 by JesniF-16 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 Looking mighty fine there, erik :D Ya shouldn´t worry about using CA glue for the wind shield as long as it´s got a nice little future bath.....it would be fine anyways too since it wouldn´t start misting over unless you covered the open part of the wind shield, as long as the fumes has a way out they won´t mist the clear parts. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted June 18, 2012 Author Share Posted June 18, 2012 I didn´t use Future on these parts. I think they are clear enough, and I did not want the extra risk of using Future.. heard nasty stories of crackling future on canopies. Anyway the wind shield have a lot of plastic to plastic area, so using ordinary cement was the most practical solution. I used Gators Glue for all the details on the canopy, and that small handle (that undoubtedly will break away later in the build) on the wind shield. Jesse, I don´t think I´ll beat you to the finish. You´re putting a lot of effort in to your Cat, but surely, you must be finished any second now, right? /E Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JFVicente Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 Excelent work Erik! Your Tomcat will look superb! Only a pointing, and I am sorry to have to say this, but looks to me that you have transposed the exhaust nozzles... Closed nozzle should be on port side: http://www.sharpshooter-maj.com/Images/bv06/f14ns11.jpg Hope you could correct it without damaging them. RGDS Juan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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