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MQ-1 Predator 1/72 Italeri


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Hello everybody!

After the Komet I started, or rather, resumed this build of the MQ- 1.

For those not familiar with the Italeri offering, let me show you what you get.

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As far as I know the Italeri Kit is the same as the earlier Platz kit. Maybe somebody can confirm this.

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Sprues are essentially the same as the RQ-1 with some additional parts for the weaponry (this I can confirm as I do have the other box too).

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Decals sheet gives one 3 possible schemes.

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A nice, straightforward little kit. There is a downside though, an orange peel texture to the styrene that has to be got rid of.   :o/>

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A quick dry-fit to see how the bird will look like.

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So there. A simple little kit of a 'aircraft' that’s become so ubiquitous that it even features in Hollywood productions. ;)/>

M

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Yes, RotorheadTX, that's the idea: a quick and simple build! ;)/>

The sensors turret has to be done before assembling the fuse. (There is an alternative, which is to cut off the flange that keeps the turret inside the hole in the fuse lower half so it can be attached from the outside but I decided to not go that route. I’ll simply mask off the turret during painting.)

First some sculpting of the ball with #11 blade and micro drill bits.

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Placards are bits of decals.

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The dark glass of the main lens is a piece of photo film.

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The smaller lens is an acetate disc colored with yellow clear paint.

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The smallest lens was simply painted with successive coats of silver, clear blue and gloss varnish.

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That’s it for the detailing of the turret and most probably for detailing of this kit altogether.   ;)/>

M

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  • 2 weeks later...

It’s been a while since I posted last so here's what I've been up to, namely improving some detail and especially correcting the one fault of this kit: the warped V-tail.

You can see the curved lines of the V-tail here:

q2vo.jpg

After a dip in boiling water and a night clamped to a straightedge things came back to normal.

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However, the hot water dunking caused all the attachment points to shrink, resulting in awful sink marks. Even part of the trailing edge was gone. Fortunately, I have just what I need for such a situation: my home-made filler! What do you use when you need to add styrene back on? Styrene, of course.

I always keep on hand a jar of melted styrene.

4cwq.jpg

Easy to make. After you're done eating the delicious German marmalade, just throw bits of sprue into the jar, soak with lacquer thinner for a day or two and there you have it! Semi-liquid plastic. Daub some onto the area that needs it and let it cure for 24H.

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After some trimming/sanding you can't even tell the difference between the original plastic and the filler.

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BTW, the kit's ruddervators balances were gotten rid of from the start. I'll make new, better ones.

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Next I tackled the bad fit at the rear, using the engineer blue method: daub some blue (black in this case) -- a felt pen works well -- onto one of the parts, press the two parts together, notice the now black areas on the non-blacked part, say "Ah-ha!" and then proceed to remove the black area with a sharp blade. Repeat. Many times. Until you have a perfect fit. Lengthy, I know, but you spare time not using any filler later on.

69y.JPG

In terms of improvements, I opened up the vents and air-scoops:

vyuk.jpg

The scoop on the starboard side was drilled out.

9m67.jpg

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The lens on the nose was done by a simple groove by the kit-maker.

ecba.jpg

I improved this with a small disc punched out of a piece of photo film (from the old times before it all got digital, some of you might remember... lol)

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The exhaust was made form a piece of hypo needle filed obliquely.

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Dorsal antennas (lumps of plastic, yak!) were removed and replaced by new ones fashioned out of soda can. Very useful, soda can. Beer can works to. Or any other beverage provided it comes in a can. lol

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The pitot and pitch instrumentation was scratched out of foil and bits of wire.

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The fiddly bits will be set aside until after painting, of course. Here's another one of those: dorsal nav light made out of a piece of stretched clear sprue colored with clear red paint.

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The wing-tips nav lights were done with pieces of stretched sprue as well. I took a manageable piece that I could hold easily, rounded off the front end, cut it to length and glued it immediately to the wing tip (the carpet monster in always lurking, lol).

4kka.jpg

Then, once it was in place, I trimmed the rear end to shape.

al4g.jpg

That's all folks for the moment. Back to work to get this thing together before the w/e. :)/>

M

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tests with the landing gear in place showed that it would not be a tail-sitter. But only just. Other modelers advise to use a weight. To be on the safe side I inserted a sinker into the nose, fixed with candle wax. If are wondering why candle wax, the answer is why not? :coolio:/>

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Then it was time to button this thing up. Some filler was needed in the rear section due to the way the kit is engineered. I used Tamiya light-curing putty. Daub the stuff on, leave it in the sun for 1 minute and it gets as hard as stone.

30zr.jpg

Whoever said that good weather is the modeler's worst enemy? I just put the lie to that, didn't I? LOL In case it rains where you are or you leave near the North Pole and nights tend to be long, just hold the filler close to a fluo light and you're good in about 2 minutes.

Next I scratched new ruddervator counter-weights with some wire and more of the liquid plastic stuff.

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As there is quite some bits of metal on the kit by now and as I won't prime the model I used metal primer from Gunze on the metal bits, applied with a brush.

7ajp.jpg

Ready for painting!

8cmm.jpg

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Thanks for watching!

M

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OK, time to add some color to this bird, if gray can be called a color.

First some pre-shading with dark gray (Tam NATO Black was on hand).

wwtb.jpg

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You know the post-it trick for shading control surfaces, right?

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As the closest approximation to the gray that can be seen on Predators and not to stray from my trusted Gunze paints I used their light gray H308. I sprayed it straight from the bottle onto the underside. Careful not to cover entirely the pre-shading (not much of the pre-shading effect can be seen on the pix but the effect is there, although subtle).

8ohj.jpg

Now, for the upper side I used a lighter shade, lightening the gray with white at 30%. No masking needed, the demarcation line between upper and lower fuselage parts being so sharp that all you have to do it spray from the top down and be careful not to overspray while doing the sides. Piece of cake.

xl11.jpg

Color modulation is an armor modeler trick but it applies well here, because of this sharp separation of the fuse upper and lower halves. Every pic of the Predator I have seen shows this sharp demarcation between light upper and dark lower fuse halves although its the same color, just lighted differently.

The result:

tvqm.jpg

Some pre-shading and color modulation are all I'm gonna do with the paint job. Quite enough for such a small model. Plus all pics show the drones to be extremely well maintained with almost no weathering effect apparent anywhere. As gray as they come. So there.

M

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry people for not updating earlier but I'd fallen prey to 'home stretch fever.' lol I'm finishing this one the same time I'm finishing my figurine. Now, that doesn't happen every week!

OK, let's try to pick this one up where I left off. Last painting step: I sprayed a darker shade of gray (same was for the underside) onto the engine access panel, as can be seen on reference pics.

e0wc.JPG

Two coats of Future and decals were applied. These responded well to Micro Set & Sol.

dly8.jpg

I always trim the carrier film off as close to the design as possible.

56c9.jpg

Much better without the unsightly film sticking out around the edges but one word of caution: be careful not to have bits of film slide under the decal unseen. They'll show once the decal dries and then it'll be too late. Don't ask how I know. lol

13fj.jpg

Another coat of Future over the decals and then time for a nice lil' wash.

eat3.jpg

I used oils for the wash, starting with a light gray and darkening it gradually till I got the shade I was looking for: one that shows the detail well without contrasting too much with the overall finish. I added some Payne's Gray to give the wash a bluish tint that suits the cold tones of bird.

o6fr.jpg

The wash was thinned with lighter fluid. This stuff evaporates instantly, doing away with the waiting time you have with other solvents.

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I'v mentioned this before: where the engraving is too shallow for the wash to get a hold, wipe with a piece of latex from your glove (a latexed glove work perfect) and the stuff will stay in the groove.

rlud.jpg

Wash is one of the most fun part of the build!

i4qq.jpg

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Next I detailed the landing gear. The front gear is amazingly well detailed. I only added a brake line and redid the oleo.

w54x.jpg

In contrast to the nicely detailed front gear, the main gear is rather bare with only the disc of the disc brake and nothing else. I added detail to the brakes...

hdez.JPG

...and scratched the retraction system.

2c3b.JPG

The front oleo was redone with a piece of hypo needle and wire.

lxkb.jpg

I primed it with Mr. Metal Primer. Love this stuff. You can just daub it on and it'll be invisible. But it really gives something to the paint to grip and painting the spring black was a piece of cake by touching the brush side-on to the wire.

89k9.jpg

The gear was painted with different shades of gray and the tires (not on the pic) with Gunze Tire Gray. The lower part of the gear received a brown wash.

77a8.jpg

The end of this build is coming very soon!

M

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Hello,

Thanks for providing some very useful tips. I always thought of making some of that liquid plastic, but always wanted to use modeling glue for that. Never thought of thinner. I will try it sometime!

And about fixing the nose weight with candle wax: I'd say the answer to 'why not' would be: 'because it's hot', but obviously it did not cause any plastic melting issues on your model. Did the plastic become soft for a while, even on the outside? Or not at all? And how well does it fix itself to the plastic? It might be a good alternative for CA so I'm very interested in your experiences before I try it myself :thumbsup:

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  • 1 month later...

Hello,

Thanks for providing some very useful tips. I always thought of making some of that liquid plastic, but always wanted to use modeling glue for that. Never thought of thinner. I will try it sometime!

And about fixing the nose weight with candle wax: I'd say the answer to 'why not' would be: 'because it's hot', but obviously it did not cause any plastic melting issues on your model. Did the plastic become soft for a while, even on the outside? Or not at all? And how well does it fix itself to the plastic? It might be a good alternative for CA so I'm very interested in your experiences before I try it myself :thumbsup:/>

Hi there,

Liquid cement definitely works too but is a lot more expensive than lacquer thinner.

The candle wax, aside from the 'why not' quip, is a good alternative for CA or putty, which can have a tendency to react with the plastic due to the chemical reaction while they cure. No such danger with simple candle wax. As to the heat, it's not an issue. You can make a simple test by lighting a candle and letting some drops of liquid wax drop onto a piece of sprue. You'll see that wax is just not hot enough to harm the styrene. As to how solid the bond is, it's more than enough. There's no way the weight will shake loose.

Hope this answers your question.

M

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The beast is on its last legs. Well, not exactly but at least it’s on its legs. And that was no easy task, believe me! In spite of the test-fit I did earlier there were serious alignment issues. The aspect ratio of the MQ-1 and its V-tail really make things hard for the modeler. Any error with the tail shows right away due to the fact that the ruddervators are just a couple mm off the ground. I decided to get those right and let the error end on the wings. As a result one wing tip is 2.5mm higher off the ground than the other one. It’s not that bad and can be seen only in a front view, which explains why you won’t get any such piccie from me! To hide the fault I’ll cheat and pose the model on a round base that’s smaller than the wingspan. lol

I did what I could. Anyway, who am I to take on the Predator? My name ain’t Arnold… lol

Here’re the pics.

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1c2p.jpg

ggb5.jpg

wo0c.jpg

edl.JPG

Just the antennas and the Hellfire missiles are left and it’s a done.

M

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Thanks Ruud, glad you like it.

OK folks, let’s take this adventure to the finish line!

Hellfire missiles. They have a transparent nose where the evil eyes sits and stares straight at you before it blows you to bits.

A piece of transparent sprue was glued with cyano glue to the sawed off front end of the missile body.

vb9i.jpg

This was then ground, sanded and polished while the exhaust was drilled out.

wfob.jpg

Some sessions of painting, decaling, etc. later:

w41r.jpg

Lastly, attaching the antennas.

sdep.jpg

The big one is not problem. For the tiny ones (made of pieces of soda can, I remind you) here is my method, for what it’s worth:

1. Daub a micro-bead of white glue onto the bottom of the antenna.

2. Put the antenna in place. The slow curing time of white glue affords plenty of time to position the part and you can mess up as many times as you want, just wipe away the white glue and start anew.

3. Once you’re satisfied that with how the part sits right bond with liquid cyano. The more liquid the better. I dip the end of a length of copper wire (the very thin kind that makes up multi-strand electric wire) in the glue, touch it to the joint and let capillarity do the rest.

4. Handle any shiny spots from cyano residue, if any, by applying some Vallejo matt varnish with a brush.

This method has a more than satisfactory end result and doesn’t drive you nuts.

5u5s.jpg

That’s it, the last bit is attached!

Time for making a display base.

I used a round Gunze display base and sandpaper for the tarmac.

01sd.jpg

This is 240 grit sandpaper, which is about right to replicate the rough concrete surface.

The disc is cut into square parts and glued to the base with white glue.

rwnz.jpg

It was then shot with enamels (a good way to dispose of my old stock of Humbrol paints). Some pre/post-shading was done to add depth.

lkk.JPG

The joint was filled with acrylic paint thickened with “Modeler’s paste”. The paste was applied with a paintbrush, which is kind of a lengthy process but you don’t have to be overly careful when you do it: the guys who do it in real life aren’t either. lol

After final weathering with pigments, pastels and oils:

xw7j.jpg

And voila! It’s all done!

fmrj.jpg

I’ll post more final pics shortly.  ;)/>/>

M

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