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As planned my contribution to this GB is the 1/72 Hasegawa F-1 fighter.

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I'd like to keep this as an OOB project if possible. I did an initial test fitting today. I also put the decals into my room's window. The white pigments have yellowed while in storage all these years. Some sun-bleaching is in order. I'll check back on them in a few days time.

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Some questions. I would like to enter this as a OOB build for an up and coming model show in addition to this GB; I noticed the gun port needs to be blocked off as one can clearly look right on through into the fuselage cavity. Am I allowed to accomplish that task and still meet OOB criteria? Secondly one of the colors; identified as #319 light green, makes up the lighter green used in camouflage. It is not available where I live and there seems to be no corresponding color in the either Model Master, Humbrol, or Tamiya. Thus what would be an acceptable substitute for that particular color? Finally I would assume correctly that weathering would be minimal on a plane detailed in the manner as one shown on the box art?

Edited by Fellow Hobbyist
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Hi Fellow Hobbyist

I have a few of these Hasegawa kits in my stash, so I will be following your build with interest. Great subject! In regards to the yellow tinted decals that you have with the kit, going the route of exposing them to sunlight might not work. For many years, Hasegawa was notorious for printing all of their white decals using an off color, cream type ink. This is not a factor of aging or weathering exposure but actually the color of the ink used. I suspect that the decals you have are printed using cream colored ink. While I don't recall that I have never used any of the older Hasegawa decals with the off color white ink, I have read somewhere that Hasegawa did this intentionally as they would look more realistic when on a model. Fortunately, they changed their strategy a few years ago and now usually print a mre "white" white on their decals.

While the rules for out of the box can vary from contest to contest, you are very likely ok to blank of the see through gun port. If this would be an IPMS contest, you are definitely OK if the contest judges are following official IPMS judging rules.

Have fun modeling!

Mike

:cheers:/>

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Thank you the warning regarding the decals Mike. I was not aware that was how they were made.

It turns out all of the three camouflage colors need substitution. Fortunately I remembered a website that would help find suitable substitutes.

http://www.paint4models.com/ has a link to an online conversion data base. Users can select from several different brand lines to cross reference through. It even has the appropriate FS call out.

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So I first searched the light brown (#321 on the instructions). Using GIMP I entered the hex code of the color and drew a swatch. I figured a tan or sand color would be the best match so looked through the database until I saw a color that came close to Mr. Color's light brown and painted a swatch next to the original color. The closest match to my eye using this technique is Testor's Sand and Radome Tan. As I have a jar of Sand on hand that is the color I will use.

The database also suggested Testor's Panzer Olivegrun `43 is a match for Mr. Color's Dark Green. RAF Dark Green was the next best color to use if I couldn't get that Panzer Olivegrun.

There was no alternative for the Mr. Color Light Green. Fortunately, a search through the ARC jet galleries for past F-1 builds turned up a substitute; Testor's Pale Green.

Thus I only have to buy two jars to be able to complete the camouflage when I get to that point.

I will grant these may not completely match the shades of the Mr. Color call out. However approximation is good enough for me.

Edited by Fellow Hobbyist
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Firstly a lead anchor is fixed into the nose. I don't want a tail sitter.

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Due to the location of the gun port I did not have to build any special fixture to block off the fuselage cavity. This is because the cockpit/ nose gear bay sub-assembly is right next to it. All I needed to do was add a small section of plastic card aft at the end of that sub-assembly. Afterward the surrounding parts received a coat of flat black paint.

Yesterday I had completed initial painting and assembling of the items depicted in steps 1 and 2. I'm curious why Hasegawa made the instrument panel piece from clear plastic. I painted it to match the cockpit tub. The pilot figure also received initial coating of paint. The instructions called for international orange for the pilot flight suit. As of today the instrument panel has the decal applied to it and was attached to the cockpit tub. I also completed painting the pilot. To paint his face, suit harnesses and oxygen mask, a toothpick was dipped into each respective color and drawn across each detail.

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The pilot and ejection seat hasn't been glue into the cockpit tub. That installation; along with the application of the side panel decals, will come after the gap between the cockpit tub ans the inner fuselage is filled.

I have also painted the landing gear struts, air brake jacks, various inner door panels, and the tires. I masked the tire hubs. To prevent the tape from tenting over where the tire mates with the gear strut I cut an "X" in the center of the tape and pushed the protrusion through the "X". That allowed me to burnish the tape with no problems.

F-1WIPtireswithmasking_zps9544a12d.jpg

Edited by Fellow Hobbyist
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  • 2 weeks later...

So one of the annoying things I need to deal with are the ugly voids within the cockpit. To deal with them I have used stretched sprue and CA to fill most of the gaps. Here is one example.

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Where you see the gray line above the cockpit tub there used to be an open void. Cutting the stretched sprue to length and inserting the piece into the void I used runny CA to wick into the remaining gap and fix the sprue fast to the model. Scraping with a knife and sanding helps to make the sprue as flush as possible.

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Smaller lengths of sprue were added to each side and glued in much the same way as the longer piece before. A curved hobby blade made easy work to make these lengths as flat as possible on the curved surface of the cockpit walls. There were still a few holes that would be difficult to completely fill in with putty alone. The answer? More sprue wedged into the voids (Look above the left control panel. You can see the srpue wedged into the remaining void)! Rather than use CA, I instead applied Testors cement to get the best bond possible.

And some filler to blend everything together.

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Now for some reason, the left side of the cockpit tub does not mesh with the interior surface of the left side fuselage. As such that leaves another void. However that gap is thin enough to get away with using white glue to fill and blend away the void.

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Edited by Fellow Hobbyist
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  • 2 months later...

Quite a hiatus.

Here is what I have done so far.

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Well the cockpit is pretty much assembled (save for gluing the pilot/ seat assembly into place). Serious gap filling has been done and work on the intakes were started earlier this week

After the gaps in the cockpit were filled and repainted I applied the side console decals. Not an easy feat. The tub obviously has very room to move around so placing the decal where it needed to go first time around was absolutely critical! Here is the left side of the cockpit.

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And the right (with better lighting that time around).

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After that was completed I turned to filling in the gaps. The wings and part of the dorsal side of the fuselage are molded into a single piece that mates atop the model. However there are steps at the forward and aft join. The forward seam was relatively easy to deal with.

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The aft seam was more difficult. The steps were larger and a vent fairing was located on the wing piece that abutted on the aft seam line. I think I have finally killed that flaw but only priming will let me know definitively.

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And now the ugly side of this kit so far. The bottom of the fuselage required heavy filling and many places on the perimeter of the gear bays, engine openings, and the area forward of the tail hook had many steps, gaps, and other asymmetries that needed to be dealt with. I'm still trying to eliminate some of the stubborn flaws!

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Recently I assembled the intake ducts and filled the gaps with wood putty. Lastly I blended the join where the avionics hatch meets the fuselage so there contours match up. The hatch lines need reworking so guide lines were drawn to help etch them again after filling.

GuideLinesforEtchingHatchLines_zpsf3b78efe.jpg

Edited by Fellow Hobbyist
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  • 4 months later...

So the trouble with this model was the raised panel detail. I had known that the body work would obliterate much of the detail; especially the details on the bottom of the fuselage. And to be honest I took time off from the project just to figure out what I was going to do about that. The fear of ruining the model really kept me from tackling the problem. So I just decided around Christmas time to sand off all the raised detail. Once that was done began the long and tedious process of etching the lines.

Fortunately sanding off the lines still left a residual "ghost" on the plastic. I draw guides on these ghost lines and traced darker guidelines using masking tape. Here is one example of the results of that process.

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This took weeks to complete. And that was just drawing the guide lines!

After the lines were drawn I broke out the Dymo Tape and set to work etching...oh the tedium. Some of the panel details where too small for the Dymo technique to work or oddly shaped. Thus custom templates needed to be made. I used the thinnest plastic card I have. Carefully I traced the design I needed and cut, filed or drilled out the shapes I needed.

Here is one of the templates I needed to make. It was for a panel that was angular on one side and rounded on the other.

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The round hatches on the nose were probably the easiest to make; take a 1/16" drill bit in a vise and bore out the hole. Sanded the rough edges away and I was ready to scribe.

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Here is one of the more complicated templates. To the right and forward of the nose gear bay were four small doors; I presume countermeasure dispensers, and aft of that were six square vents about the same size as the door. I taped a bit of card to the cutting mat and used the smallest square pattern on drafters stencil and scored the four shapes with a scriber and cut them out with a knife.

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Right now I am working on fixing mistakes with CA and sanding them away. I have to etch replacement lines but these are small and I only have perhaps half a dozen to repair. The tail planes and intake parts will need to be etched in the same manner but that shouldn't be as long a task as the fuselage took to do. I can finally look forward to painting the F-1 soon.

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  • 1 month later...

Update. The fuselage has been completely etched! :woot.gif:

But of course there is still much to do. All the manipulating lead to some of the vanes molded under the nose to snap off. Likewise did about half the molded pitot tube. So those needed to be replaced.

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Replacing the vanes was easy. I cut thin strips of .015" plasticard and simply glued them right onto where to original vanes broke. I let the glue work it's magic overnight to ensure the strongest bond possible for the replaced vanes. A quick snipping with diagonals and the results...

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They are holding nicely. Would you believe the glue was the limonene Testors cement?

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Replacing the pitot tube required trimming away what remained of the original detail from the nose and sanding the tip flat as possible. I then drilled out a hole and inserted a brass rod. To replicate the outer shroud detail I wrapped the brass rod with two or three windings of copy paper and soaked the paper with as much CA it would absorb. Once cured I sanded away the seam.

Much like the fuselage the horizontal stabilizers needed to have all raised detail removed and re-etched.

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On the left is a tailplane with the guides drawn on in pencil. On the right shows thin strips of Dymo tape being used to guide my dental pick scribing tool along the pencil line. I finished by dry sanding with 600 grit sandpaper followed by 800 grit crocus paper using just enough pressure to knock off plastic that was pushed to the sides of the line by the scriber. I cleaned out the plastic gunk with a sharpened toothpick.

With these tasks accomplished I am moving on to the intake duct. It too has raised detail; in the form of vent doors, that need to be removed and replaced.

Like before I made a transfer by penciling over the raise detail and pick up the lead with a piece of clear tape.

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With this tape transfer I draw a refined template onto paper and used that to make a transfer onto plasticard.

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With the plastic template I have a tool to replace lines of the various vent doors.

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  • 1 month later...

The overpressure door panel templates were abandoned and strips of Dymo were laid out to etch the panels one at a time. Oh more tedium but I finished that step and attached the inlets and blended them into the fuselage.

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As you can see in addition to doing that I installed some shims to improve the fit of the canopy onto the cockpit. The strips were blended and painted to match the the cockpit interior. When it comes time to attach the canopy any remaining gaps will simply be filled with white glue.

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Ventral strakes attached and filled with wood filler. Not much to remark about except alignment achieved with masking tape holding the fins to the fuselage and careful canting the fins to the right angles.

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The gear wells have been painted and the fuselage washed down in preparation for priming.

On that note I experimented with Vajello's gray surface primer with polyurethane hand brushed onto the horizontal stabilizers.

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I was hoping for it to hold tightly to the plastic as advertised. However it scrapped off with little effort using a sharp tooth pick. But that was no worse than flat enamel paint; which did the same when I scrapped the excess white paint of the edges of the gear wells using the same toothpick.

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I've applied the initial coat of primer on the model. I sanded the model and washed the residue away. I'm letting the cleaned model dry for at least a day before applying the next coat.

In the meantime I set to work on attaching the wing tanks and rocket pods to their pylons. I figured building a jig would help me towards that end. I was going to glue pieces of balsa wood together but why waste time and wood on a jig that would only be useful for this particular model and then only for a few uses?

Thus I simply taped pieces of balsa together to make my jig.

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In this example the jigs function is to simply hold the rocket pod steady. This frees up my hands so I can both hold the pylon onto the rocket pod and manipulate the pieces to ensure proper alignment. And since it's held together by tape I can dismantle and refit the jig to accommodate the drop tanks later on. No wood is wasted on a fixture that would only be used at most four times.

Test fitting has reveal there will be gaps; particularly on the drop tank/ pylon joins. Very thin plastic sheet wedged into the gaps and careful knife work should eliminate these problems.

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  • 2 months later...

For those who might be still following I had to put the project on hold. It had nothing to do with the model itself but things at home that had to be dealt with that left little time to work on models up till a few weeks ago. After the Komet build the f-1 came out of storage and work has resumed. (Unfortunately no photos at this time)

The nose needed to be replaced due to cat damage. The fuselage has been completely primed and I hope to set to work adding the pilot/ seat assembly and closing up the cockpit before the weekend closes out. Masking the canopy will be tricky as there seems to be no raised frame detail on the clear part at all. I can see a faintly engraved line but I can't tell if that is on the outer surface or inner surface of the piece.

I also need to make a correct to one of the rocket pods. One pod had the rocket tubes in the correct position. For the other one that was not the case. Whether it was a manufacture error or one of my own doing, the front piece wound up rotated 90 degrees from where it should have been. So I decided to fill in the face of the pod and bore holes arranged in the correct position. I marked of where I wanted the holes to go in pencil. I used a dental pick to start the holes reamed them out with the tip of the more chisel-like #16 blade; spinning the blade around five to six times to get the tube holes the approximate size. It took 3 tries to get it right, trying to get the rows as close to proper alignment by hand is not easy. While it is crude compared to the stock part I can live with the results (It's not a show plane so I can get away with that).

Edited by Fellow Hobbyist
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With priming done the pilot/ ejection seat sub-assembly was permanently installed within the cockpit tub.

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I spent an hour last night masking the canopy. Even with the very shallow frame details laying tape along those raised edges was accomplished. I burnished each subsequent layer of tape to ensure bleed-proof mask.

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I used Testors clear part cement to bond the canopy to the fuselage. It boasts a faster dry time compared to the canopy cement I was previously using. During the process I accidentally dropped the model to the floor. My reaction was :jaw-dropping:/> . NO!!!

Fortunately the only damage was the canopy popped off and the newly repaired pitot mast detached but in a way that it remained within the mounting hole. :woot.gif:/>

Having reattached the canopy and wicking some thin CA into the join where the pitot meets the fuselage I left the model alone to allow both adhesives to set.

20150913_122119_zpskzrwurda.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally painting has commenced.

I started painting the underside Gull Gray and masked the boundaries off prior to moving onto the next color.

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Presently the Sand paint layer is being applied to the model. It looks crude for the moment. At least another layer or two is needed. After that I will be masking the boundaries off for the lighter shade of green.

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  • 1 month later...

The fuselage is nearly painted. It is very pleasing for me to see the project final get to this point.

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To accomplish demarcating the boundary of each color I used long strands of poster tack as shown below.

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Unfortunately. Lifting off the strands reveal raised paint that formed under small gap of the tack. I will need to sand and polish these raised edges away before proceeding. Touch ups will need to be done where to correct painting mistakes.

I have painting the drop tanks, nose, tail cone, canopy frame and tail planes to look forward to prior to gloss coating and decal laying.

Edited by Fellow Hobbyist
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  • 2 months later...

Progress.

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I have to say the F-1 pleases me more and more as work progresses. It has really been great practice on masking techniques. Painting the nose, canopy framing, inlets, and the "steel" parts like the paneling around the engines and gun port has transformed my build.

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Note the work on the horizontal stabilizers have begun. The upper surfaces were completely hand painted. The camouflage pattern did not require masking to achieve. The border was masked off as was a chevron-shaped panel forward of the camo-areas. I did not like the quality of the masking over that panel. So a little while ago I removed it and applied new masking tape and dabs of masking fluid that have cleaner boundaries. That area around the chevrons and ahead of the camo-areas will be initial painted flat black and than with steel enamel paint.

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Paneling around the engine nozzles painted with steel enamel. This put my masking skills to the test. The edge was contoured so I had to careful bend the tape along the boundary making sure it stayed aligned with the etched panel lines. The gun port has also been painted steel. However I could not get a good photo of that.

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Closer look at engine area paneling.

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