Joel_W Posted January 22, 2015 Author Share Posted January 22, 2015 (edited) I took Ken's advice about my incorrectly not extending the NM areas to each of the twin tails, as I followed essentially the kit instructions, and I had more then enough documentation to prove otherwise. I even posted a few pictures of the tail area that showed the exhaust areas, but for other reasons. The issue I now faced was trying to mask as close to the twin tails as I could, which proved to be harder then I thought. I masked and re-masked till I got it as close as I could without having the tape ride up the tail since the areas aren't a flat straight line, and the space is quite confined. I got it close, but I wish I got it closer. Still it's a lot better then it was. I'll just have to live with it on this build. Here's a few before and after pictures. [/url] You can also see some of the dozens of stencils I've been applying using the kit decals till the Caracal sheet arrives. Joel Edited January 22, 2015 by Joel_W Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Sweet! :D Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 22, 2015 Author Share Posted January 22, 2015 Sweet! :D/> Janne, Thanks so much for your most positive comment. Joel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 Well, it's decal time for the fuselage. I used a combination of GWH kit decals for stencils, and Caracal decals for the rest. I must say that the Caracal decals are awesome. They should be as they're printed by Cartograf. There is also a special mention of thanks to Ken Middleton for his contribution to the design of this sheet: CD 48021Air National Guard F-15C part 1. Ken has also been contributing to my build with advice and direction as I've needed. Here's a few quick grab pictures to bring you up to date. Joel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
nicholassagan Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Looking really nice Joel. Can't wait to see the finish!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 Looking really nice Joel. Can't wait to see the finish!! Nicholassagan, Thanks for those most kind words. I'm so far from the finish, it's not even funny. Just starting the stations and loads. Joel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
denstore Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Looks great! I have a couple of these kits in the stash, and I will be happy if I get even close to your results. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aurora Mark Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Wow! Impressive work there Joel! Can't wait to see more of it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Looking good there! colorful :D Ooooh all those stencils.....enjoy! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 Looks great! I have a couple of these kits in the stash, and I will be happy if I get even close to your results. Denstore, Thanks for stopping by and having a look. I'm quite sure that your build will be the equal to, or better then mine. It's just basically OOB with a little tweaking here and there. Joel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 (edited) Wow! Impressive work there Joel! Can't wait to see more of it. Mark, That's some compliment coming from you. Sure glad that you like what you see. My pace is basically old and slow, so the updates don't exactly happen every few days. Joel Edited January 27, 2015 by Joel_W Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 Looking good there! colorful :D/> Ooooh all those stencils.....enjoy! Janne, Just knew that you would love all those stencils (although no where near the number as my F-4B build) :whistle:/> As for the colorful markings, I have to thank Ken Middleton for pointing me in the right direction. A little color just makes a dull paint scheme really pop. I could have gone with the same exact marking but in shades of Gray. Once I applied the decals, I knew I decided on the right ones. Joel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
denstore Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Mark, That's some compliment coming from you. Sure glad that you like what you see. My pace is basically old and slow, so the updated don't exactly happen every few days. Joel Old and slow? You are a well oiled machine, progressing in great stride, compared to me. :) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Old and slow? You are a well oiled machine, progressing in great stride, compared to me. :)/> Yeah, but you're lazy and dine way more than you build! :P Go on and show the good people what you did during your last build session with your friends! :P Quote Link to post Share on other sites
denstore Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Yeah, but you're lazy and dine way more than you build! :P/>/> Go on and show the good people what you did during your last build session with your friends! :P/>/> They are welcome to look in the thread, where Peter put up the photos: http://www.ipmsstockholm.se/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6401 Must say that I was surprised about how nice the KittyHawk Gripen is. And even if I'm holding the Tarangus Viggen box in the pictures, I havn't started it. Still waiting for the right amount of aftermarket stuff to appear. It will probably be invited to our build-dinners a couple of times this year. And then there's the F-15DJ I bought almost only because of what I have seen in this thread. It is also a serious contender to the Tarangus Viggen. ;) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 Yeah, but you're lazy and dine way more than you build! :P/> Go on and show the good people what you did during your last build session with your friends! :P/> But I am old and slow. Almost 68 and I build at a snail's pace. I just keep on going little bit each day. Ok, you guys have me really curious now. Just what did you do during your last build session? I'm assuming that's a club meeting. Joel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
denstore Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 (edited) Me and a couple of good friends have a standing bet. The one that actually finish an agreed upon kit in time for the C4-open contest here in Sweden gets a free dinner from the losers. Peter, the guy with the glasses has won the bet several years in a row. I never manage to finish anything in time for any contest. :)/> And the bet this year is of course the Tarangus Viggen. Which I of course havn't started..... :D Edited January 27, 2015 by denstore Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 (edited) Me and a couple of good friends have a standing bet. The one that actually finish an agreed upon kit in time for the C4-open contest here in Sweden gets a free dinner from the losers. Peter, the guy with the glasses has won the bet several years in a row. I never manage to finish anything in time for any contest. :)/>/>/> And the bet this year is of course the Tarangus Viggen. Which I of course havn't started..... :D/>/> I've gotta admit that the meal looks like it's fit for a King. How can anyone concentrate on modeling with food and drink of that magnitude. I gather that the losers pay for and cook the meal. I don't know when the C4-Open is, but start your build so that this year you'll actually finish in time. Joel Edited January 27, 2015 by Joel_W Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Helidriver Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 Just found this thread...and wow. Love it. I have the old Academy F-15D kit waiting in the wings, so this has been really inspiring. And if you think you are slow....I started my Academy Mig-29 back in July, decaled it this last week. Great build!! Ken Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 28, 2015 Author Share Posted January 28, 2015 Just found this thread...and wow. Love it. I have the old Academy F-15D kit waiting in the wings, so this has been really inspiring. And if you think you are slow....I started my Academy Mig-29 back in July, decaled it this last week. Great build!! Ken Ken, Thanks so much for stopping by and liking what I've accomplished to date. For me it's slowness measured by the amount of time I actually have to model, which is quite a lot. I'm semi retired and only work 4 days per week. I find time to model 4 maybe 5 days per week for a few to several hours per shift at the bench. The average modeler in that time frame would certainly get done a heck of a lot more then I seem to. I'm always getting bogged down in side excursions, and jumping online as my computer is at a right angle to my workbench. Of course my loving wife keeps on telling me that I promised to fix that, paint, this, etc., which doesn't seem to get done in any kind of timely manner. Looking forward to your Mig-29. BTW, I hope that your Academy F-15D has the updated parts. Joel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BJ Blazkowicz Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 Ken, Thanks so much for stopping by and liking what I've accomplished to date. For me it's slowness measured by the amount of time I actually have to model, which is quite a lot. I'm semi retired and only work 4 days per week. I find time to model 4 maybe 5 days per week for a few to several hours per shift at the bench. The average modeler in that time frame would certainly get done a heck of a lot more then I seem to. I'm always getting bogged down in side excursions, and jumping online as my computer is at a right angle to my workbench. Of course my loving wife keeps on telling me that I promised to fix that, paint, this, etc., which doesn't seem to get done in any kind of timely manner. Looking forward to your Mig-29. BTW, I hope that your Academy F-15D has the updated parts. Joel Hi Joel I honestly think you should stop worrying about your pace. First of all this is our hobby and we do it for fun. I consider myself slow builder, I usually spend only a couple of hours during week days, and a little bit more during weekend. But I'm OK with that. I enjoy modelling and don't care about time or how much I have achieved in a certain amount of time... If you jump online while you modelling, that's totally normal. I do exactly the same thing to do research. The bottom line is that if you want to build a quality model, it always takes a lot of time. When I look at the pictures of this beautiful F-15 you are building, I can certainly see top quality here. And trust me, I'm a quality engineer Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 28, 2015 Author Share Posted January 28, 2015 Hi Joel I honestly think you should stop worrying about your pace. First of all this is our hobby and we do it for fun. I consider myself slow builder, I usually spend only a couple of hours during week days, and a little bit more during weekend. But I'm OK with that. I enjoy modelling and don't care about time or how much I have achieved in a certain amount of time... If you jump online while you modelling, that's totally normal. I do exactly the same thing to do research. The bottom line is that if you want to build a quality model, it always takes a lot of time. When I look at the pictures of this beautiful F-15 you are building, I can certainly see top quality here. And trust me, I'm a quality engineer :thumbsup:/> BJ, Thanks so much for stopping by, and seeing some quality in my build. I guess the bottom line is that I've always set time goals on builds which goes back to the 70's when I was building for IPMS contests. And now it just seems to always be in the back of my mind that I take forever to do things. I do enjoy my builds, but I'm always thinking about the next one and what I want to do with it. Joel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 29, 2015 Author Share Posted January 29, 2015 Work has started in earnest on the stations, loads out, and the drop tanks. GWH has done a excellent job of molding raised wielded seam lines on the drop tanks. Unfortunately, after I glued the tank halves together, some sanding was necessary to remove the Extra Thin glue/plastic seam lines. Now I'm not exactly the most careful modeler when it comes to sanding, so I ended up removing four sections of the wield lines, 2 from the front wield and 2 from the rear wield on all 3 drop tanks. So now came the question on how to repair my screw up. At 1st I thought that some stretched sprue would do nicely, but after several attempts, I just didn't like the overall look, so I removed all the pieces of stretched sprue, resanded, and polished. Next came the old standby of tape and putty, so I tried Green Stuff. I just couldn't get it to lay down a nice consistent bead, so I thought about thinning it with Lacquer Thinner or Extra Thin. Neither option really appealed to me as I didn't want a smooth finish, and that's what I usually get with thinned out Green Stuff. My last option was Vallejo's white acrylic putty. I use it all the time to fill small scratches and seams, and this repair falls into that category if you stretch the concept enough. So I cut small strips of blue painters tape and carefully laid them along each side of the wield seam where the repair was needed. Then I applied a rough bead of Vallejo white putty Then removed the tape before it had set up the repaired seams looked pretty good to me So I went ahead and repaired the other two drop tanks. I gave it a day to dry, then primed the tanks with Mr.Primer Surfacer 1,000, gave that over night to dry and cure, then airbrushed on Model Master FS 36375 Light Ghost Gray. The final results looks pretty decent to me. Joel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
falcon20driver Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 Joel those tanks look awesome! I wasn't sure how they'd look before paint, but with paint they look just like weld lines. I'm stashing this in my memory bank for future issues. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Joel_W Posted January 29, 2015 Author Share Posted January 29, 2015 Joel those tanks look awesome! I wasn't sure how they'd look before paint, but with paint they look just like weld lines. I'm stashing this in my memory bank for future issues. Falcon20driver, Thanks. I had the same thoughts the 1st time I tried this. If it works for me, it will work for anyone. Joel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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