ALF18 Posted May 5, 2012 Author Share Posted May 5, 2012 OK, I think I'm in love with Alclad! After the advice I got about using a suitable primer, masking is no longer a scary prospect. I am experimenting with different shades of Alclad here. I did the wings in matte aluminum. I was able to mask almost immediately - this stuff dries really fast. Within 15 minutes or so, I had masked 3 times and sprayed 3 different colours. The fuselage was done with polished aluminum. I redid the aft fuselage in polished aluminum, and I did the exhaust areas in steel (Alclad steel that is). Is it ever dark! I think I will lighten it up a bit - maybe with a stainless steel colour instead. I think steel will be a good colour for an F-104 tail section, though... I think there are lots of NMF aircraft in my future now. Tomorrow I will spray the green anti-glare panel, and the red nose area. And Neo, I did some crack filling with putty, and resprayed the Tamiya primer before the Alclad. ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AX 365 Posted May 6, 2012 Share Posted May 6, 2012 Great looking results, ALF. Keep it up. Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 10, 2012 Author Share Posted May 10, 2012 I have done the major painting now. Alclad is still my friend. It masks nicely, and it looks great. First, here is the area that was too dark. I've tried some semi dry-brushing with Tamiya silver, but it just looks terrible. I was hoping to get a heated and stressed metal look, but that's not the result. So my solution was to simply brush paint the aluminum colour, leaving a duller panel around the engine exhausts. I also masked and painted the green anti-glare panel, and the red of the nose. Note that there is some bleeding due to poor masking (the tape lifted off, because I left it masked for a few days before painting, and did a poor job of rubbing it down everywhere in my usual hasty manner). Some good news: -I was able to take an exacto blade and lightly scrape the red, to make it into a sharp line, without damaging the Alclad underneath. Score! -I used regular masking tape, and absolutely nothing lifted off - not the Alclad, not the green Tamiya acrylic anti-glare panel. Very nice! ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 10, 2012 Author Share Posted May 10, 2012 Here's a shot of the fixed-up red line, plus some of the light weathering I did around the exhausts and the machine guns. After experimenting with watered-down acrylic paint (and finding the result horrible), I went back to my old standard: a pencil, and a wet finger to spread and smudge it a bit. I have tried to make some gunsmoke residue, and some engine exhaust in the typical wingflow ARC from the exhaust back toward the cockpit. ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Charlie Cheetah Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Liking this build more and more! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 11, 2012 Author Share Posted May 11, 2012 Liking this build more and more! Thx Charlie! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Neo Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Love the weathering!! never tough of the pencil trick neat Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 11, 2012 Author Share Posted May 11, 2012 Love the weathering!! never tough of the pencil trick neat Neo Thanks for the comment. I use pencils for CF-18s a lot - tracing panel lines, making grease/oil stains, and even to represent the LEX walkways. It leaves your fingertip black, but I'm sure your GF is as used to seeing odd stains on your hands as my wife is to seeing mine... ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 Getting close to the finish line now. I have been making steady progress, but not posting, for quite a while... the weather has finally gotten a bit nicer lately, meaning yard work, cycling, and "honey-do" stuff has been taking over my modeling time. Good thing the teaching term is done - I finally have time for the rest! Taking the great advice from a fellow ARCer who sent me info about Alclad, I applied the decals without needing to add Future over the Alclad. Here you can see an in-progress shot of the large tail decals. I used Microsol to make them mould to the plastic, and the final results were pretty good. Big decals, and tough to get them just right. The Microsol did a great job, and as long as I didn't move the decals too far, they sucked in to the plastic nicely without ripping. The wingtip yellow strips turned out pretty well. ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 I love it when the decals start to bring the aircraft to life. Here you can see the weathering of the gun smoke on the wings, and the exhaust stains - very subtle in this case. The cockpit, as usual, is not too visible. This is not going to be a contest bird (I never enter them - too far to go, and not interested), so I think I might close up the canopy to limit fragility of the finished product. I like the look of Mustangs with the bubble canopy closed. Given that the engine was off centre, I chopped off the prop shaft. The spinner will still sit in place with the outer ring, which is nicely centred. Some more views of the almost-finished aircraft. Here is one of the reasons I didn't post for a while - the weather was gorgeous this past weekend. Max found the concrete a bit too warm... ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 I'm calling this done. Thanks for looking! ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Emvar Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Coming along great there Dan, been a lurker for a bit! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 Coming along great there Dan, been a lurker for a bit! Good job lurking, Emil... it sure took you a long time to reply to my last post! ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Emvar Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Don't get too much of a chance to go beyond the "General Threads" once in a while I do dig deeper to see what you guys are up to. Besides We won't tell anyone that we hit enter at the same time eh. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AX 365 Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Nice work, ALF. Great results. I like the subtle weathering. Sometimes less is more. And as usual, Max appears to be the king of all he surveys. Glad to hear the weather has picked up for you folks. Hotter than Hades here and the central air crapped out over the weekend. Oh well. What's next on your build list? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Neo Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Shes a beauty Dan great job Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 23, 2012 Author Share Posted May 23, 2012 Nice work, ALF. Great results. I like the subtle weathering. Sometimes less is more. And as usual, Max appears to be the king of all he surveys. Glad to hear the weather has picked up for you folks. Hotter than Hades here and the central air crapped out over the weekend. Oh well. What's next on your build list? Thanks Mike! Less is more - hopefully you're not refering to these "natural" medicines, where there is no actual medicinal content - just the "memory" of the compounds... :D Yup, I'm happy with the way it turned out. It must have been unbearable around Eastern Ontario with no central air the last few days. We had 30 on Sunday, and 32 Monday (humidex 34); luckily our wall-mounted aplit air conditioner was working fine. Next are some repairs. When I changed jobs last year, and lost my huge display cases in the office, some models got stored in a basement room here at home. A few were victims of someone walking by and knocking them off shelves... my 1/32 CF-18, my 1/32 T-33, and a couple others. Sigh. Despite all this, we remain married. At least it earned me some sympathy points! So I'll fix up the big Hornet and T-bird first, then figure out what to do next. This GB will be over quickly (and we leave for 2 weeks in June), so can't do another here. Other GBs seem to be all finishing up around the same time too... so I'm at a loss. What's next for you? ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AX 365 Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 Thanks Mike! Less is more - hopefully you're not refering to these "natural" medicines, where there is no actual medicinal content - just the "memory" of the compounds... :D Yup, I'm happy with the way it turned out. It must have been unbearable around Eastern Ontario with no central air the last few days. We had 30 on Sunday, and 32 Monday (humidex 34); luckily our wall-mounted aplit air conditioner was working fine. Next are some repairs. When I changed jobs last year, and lost my huge display cases in the office, some models got stored in a basement room here at home. A few were victims of someone walking by and knocking them off shelves... my 1/32 CF-18, my 1/32 T-33, and a couple others. Sigh. Despite all this, we remain married. At least it earned me some sympathy points! So I'll fix up the big Hornet and T-bird first, then figure out what to do next. This GB will be over quickly (and we leave for 2 weeks in June), so can't do another here. Other GBs seem to be all finishing up around the same time too... so I'm at a loss. What's next for you? ALF It was a bear but things have cooled off for the moment and it's nice right now. It's supposed to get warm and wet for the weekend. Swell! Sweltering in a sweatlodge. At least I can shed a few more lbs by sitting around doing nothing. Or I can add to the ozone layer depletion and drive around all day in the air conditioned voiture. Sorry to hear about the casualties of war. Things like that will happen. At least Max hasn't made his mark on any of them. When one of our monsters was a puppy, she decided she liked the taste of styrene, MM Flat Black and Alclad Aluminum. She got to the front gear assembly of my B-26 Invader. Had to write to Revell to get replacement parts. She also liked the glue on a set of decals that had inadvertently fallen onto the floor that I didn't know about. Rotten little dog! Glad to hear that the school year is done and that things - most things, anyway - worked out well. Hopefully the government and the anarchi...I mean student associations...get their act together for the start of next year. I hope the kids were able to successfully complete the year's studies. As for my next build, I hope it will be a nice rye and cola but I have to attend court this afternoon so that build might have to wait until this evening. As for styrene, I haven't decided yet. I have a 1/48th Monogram Blue Angels F-18A - with aftermarket CF-18 decals - that has been on hold for a bit. I might try to resurrect that but after this testing P-38 build, I might revert to something simple and make another dent in my '12 Sabre Squadrons of the Air Division' project. We'll see. Enjoy the holiday. Recharge the batteries. Have a laugh or two. Find a hobby shop if you can and cash in some of your sympathy points. Come back rested for the next GB. Take care chum. p.s. - and no I wasn't referring to those meds...at least not intentionally! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Charlie Cheetah Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 Beauty, Nice work Dan! Gonna crack the seal on on of my 1/32 Mustangs soon I think. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 24, 2012 Author Share Posted May 24, 2012 It was a bear but things have cooled off for the moment and it's nice right now. It's supposed to get warm and wet for the weekend. Swell! Sweltering in a sweatlodge. At least I can shed a few more lbs by sitting around doing nothing. Or I can add to the ozone layer depletion and drive around all day in the air conditioned voiture. Sorry to hear about the casualties of war. Things like that will happen. At least Max hasn't made his mark on any of them. When one of our monsters was a puppy, she decided she liked the taste of styrene, MM Flat Black and Alclad Aluminum. She got to the front gear assembly of my B-26 Invader. Had to write to Revell to get replacement parts. She also liked the glue on a set of decals that had inadvertently fallen onto the floor that I didn't know about. Rotten little dog! Glad to hear that the school year is done and that things - most things, anyway - worked out well. Hopefully the government and the anarchi...I mean student associations...get their act together for the start of next year. I hope the kids were able to successfully complete the year's studies. As for my next build, I hope it will be a nice rye and cola but I have to attend court this afternoon so that build might have to wait until this evening. As for styrene, I haven't decided yet. I have a 1/48th Monogram Blue Angels F-18A - with aftermarket CF-18 decals - that has been on hold for a bit. I might try to resurrect that but after this testing P-38 build, I might revert to something simple and make another dent in my '12 Sabre Squadrons of the Air Division' project. We'll see. Enjoy the holiday. Recharge the batteries. Have a laugh or two. Find a hobby shop if you can and cash in some of your sympathy points. Come back rested for the next GB. Take care chum. p.s. - and no I wasn't referring to those meds...at least not intentionally! Thanks Mike! Our kids managed to finish up on time. The "regions", even including Quebec City, have been largely spared the brunt of the nonsense. Despite the student associations' best attempts to whip everyone into a frenzy (including a visit from our favourite anarchist, Gabriel Nadeau Dubois), their CEGEP voted not to boycott classes. I was worried that it might affect our holiday plans - non-refundable tickets, etc... Luckily that didn't happen. Thanks for asking. My vote is you should do a Sabre. Resurrecting the big Hornet is fun - when I work with an aircraft that's in my comfort zone, I find it super easy. Now back to SWMBO, and the dog... ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ALF18 Posted May 24, 2012 Author Share Posted May 24, 2012 Beauty, Nice work Dan! Gonna crack the seal on on of my 1/32 Mustangs soon I think. Thanks Charlie! The Mustang is such a classic - don't wait to start one! ALF Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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