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1/32 Kitty Hawk F-5E Kicked Up A Notch. Oct 3/19 Finished!


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Great minds think alike Gary!

 

Thanks Guys!

 

January 21/19

 

 

A bit of an update, with a few caveats (excuses).  I have painted the cockpit, but I still need to do a bit of wiring behind the seat and “weather” the rest, so that it doesn’t look as showroom clean as it does below.  Also, as always, what I see with my naked eye is only about ½ of the detail of these macro pics, so all flaws are magnified.  Now the sequence, because painting a resin cockpit can be a real picky and demanding experience.

 

 

As I always do these days, I first paint everything with gloss black lacquer, to expose flaws and provide some shading depth to subsequent coats of paint.  I then sprayed everything with some X-22 clear acrylic gloss coat, to protect the black from subsequent applications of solvent as I removed paint from where I want the color to remain black.

 

 

Before:

 

 

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After masking off areas that I want to remain black, I sprayed FS36231 Dark Gull Gray to the interior and seat.  Here you can see a bit of overspray on the throttle console, which is easily removed with solvent with the protective X-22 coat behind it.  Normally only the headrest of the F-5 seat is black, but for my Aggressor, I found a very cool looking seat with Soviet red stars on the flanks of the headrest on a black background.  There are no specific decals that I can find for this, so I ordered some Russian decals for a 1/72 SU-27 that should do the trick, all the way from Moscow!

 

 

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After several hours of painting tiny details, here’s what it looks like today before weathering.  Not bad….

 

 

After:

 

 

 

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A bit of a “walkaround”.  Too bad most of that detail behind the seat will be covered, like the brass colored ejection seat charge tube.

 

 

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With seat installed.

 

 

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I need a bit more wiring behind that seat.

 

 

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While detailed, the instrument panel is a bit rough.  The idea is to carefully paint the gray areas between the gauges, then dry brush with silver the dials on the gauges.

 

 

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I tried that and didn’t like the look, but thankfully I have a boat load of Airscale instrument decals and placards from our very own Peter Castle who sent me a bunch a few years ago, when I was struggling with same on my P-38L build.  Since then I have bought a few more sets, including the very useful 1/32 Modern Jets Cockpit Dataplate and Warning Decal set, which has lots of that yellow and black striped warning decals that you can cut to size, like around the red ejection button on the dash.  For the other gauges, I used a variety of decals, both 1/32 and 1/48, from decals sets that looked either identical or similar.  From US Navy jets, to Luftwaffe, RAF and even Soviet decal sets, I was able to find an instrument decals and cockpit placards that matched the real deal fairly closely.  Since you can’t actually read any of them at this tiny scale, who cares?!  The decals covered the raised relief behind with no real issues once they were placed in position and Microsol was applied.  For the green radar screen in the middle, I used the kit IP decal and cut out this screen, then applied a mixture of Pledge/Future and clear green MM acrylic paint.  For the other gauges, I used a small drop of clear P/F to form a glass-like surface.

 

 

If you use these decals, here’s one tip:  The decals react very slowly to Microsol, but they do react and settle down eventually.  This allows you to move the decals around for several minutes, even with Microsol, which is critical on these tiny applications.  This is the opposite of Barracuda decals which I love, but you really only get a few seconds to position the decal before it won’t move any more- and that’s with plain water.  If you know this ahead of time, it’s not a big deal, but I prefer the much longer time windows of airscale.

 

 

Here is the website for Airscale.  Highly recommended for everything within a cockpit.

 

 

airscale High Resolution Cockpit Enhancements

 

 

Note that the upper and lower portions are not one unit, which helps with easy installation in the front fuselage.

 

 

n4AJil.jpg

Edited by chuck540z3
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Dry fit in the front fuselage after some trimming, the IP fits perfectly.  I will deal with the HUD later when I’m ready to install the front windscreen, which will protect it.

 

 

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Everything is starting to come together in the front office, including the sidewalls.

 

 

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My next update will have the cockpit finished and permanently installed.  With the fit groundwork already achieved, this should be easy. (Fingers crossed).

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

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Looks terrific Chuck! I really appreciate your photos and explanations - I'm getting ready to use your F-15 build thread on my F-15J. Thanks again for your detailed threads!

Edited by jgrease
Wordy repetition.
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Thanks Guys.  As usual, close-up photography has revealed a couple of flaws, like the gap between the PE brass rail and the cockpit sidewall, as seen on the top of the last 2 pics.  Thinned putty to the rescue. 

 

A mini-update tonight, which I should have posted along with the pics above. 

 

Ever wonder where to get really small wires for model wiring?  Quite by accident when taking a computer apart a few years ago, I discovered that those big wide belt-like electrical cords are full of not only wires, but lots and lots of TINY wires.  This is the exact scale of wire I need for this F-5E build.

 

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When painted and attached to stuff behind the seat that have this wiring, they look almost identical to the wires molded into the BB resin cockpit.  Most of the electrical wires reside on the starboard side, so I think that’s it for wiring, even though I could add a hundred more if I cared.

 

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Something often lost when posting close-up pics is just how small the details are.  This should give you a better idea of scale.  Those IP gauges are miniscule!

 

 

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After wiring, I had a chance to dirty up the cockpit a bit and spray a dull coat, to knock down the shine.  Much better now….

 

 

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That is all!

Chuck

 

 

Edited by chuck540z3
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Thanks guys!

 

3 hours ago, Falconxlvi said:

I like how you left the attitude indicator “tumbled” as is the case on most aircraft once the power is removed.  Great modeling and tutorials Chuck- keep it up 👍🏻

 

 

Ha!  The right gauge in the upper left corner?  Is that what it is?  When looking at reference pics that gauge was all over the place, so I just found a decal that was close.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

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4 hours ago, chuck540z3 said:

Thanks guys!

 

 

 

Ha!  The right gauge in the upper left corner?  Is that what it is?  When looking at reference pics that gauge was all over the place, so I just found a decal that was close.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Yep, that’s the one.  When electric power is removed, the gyro tumbles.   

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Ho hum.  Another masterpiece by Chuck.  Who'd have thought?

 

All kidding aside, it looks like we're in for another stunner.  While it's only my opinion, I'd suggest the monochrome finish of gloss black, a few red stars other simple markings.  You can't hide from perfection with gloss black…or a shiny Alclad finish as on your P-38.

 

As usual, I'll be following along and watching you progress.

 

Thanks for some more master work, Chuck.

 

Mike

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Thank you guys!

 

 

January 24/19

 

As I mentioned above, I wasn’t happy with the cockpit sills, because there was a gap between the kit PE brass and the plastic, which looked crude.  After filling with thinned Tamiya putty, sanding and repainting, everything looks much better now as one unit, rather than glued together parts.  I also painted a little silver detail within the canopy hook slots, which are provided by the Black Box sidewalls.

 

 

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While this stuff dries properly, I turned my attention to the area just in front of the cockpit, which houses the guns and front landing gear.  Decision time:

 

 

1) The front gun doors will be closed.  Although this kit is made specifically to have the doors open with the guns displayed, I don’t want the clean lines of this needle-like jet disrupted.  I will need to deal with poorly fitting doors and raised latches, but it’s very doable.

 

 

2) The landing gear doors will also be closed.  In this pic of my subject and many others I can find, the landing gear doors and speed brakes are closed.  That’s just fine with me, because I hate doing lots of landing gear-well detail, then never see it again.  If I can easily see it, like an engine or cockpit, I like to detail the crap out of it.  If I need a mirror to see it later, forget about it. 

 

 

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3) I don’t want to install the front landing gear until the end of the build, because italways in the way and can get damaged.  Like my F-15C Eagle, this kit forces you to do so early unless you figure out a way around it.  I did for the Eagle and I found a way for this Tiger.

 

 

4) I don’t want to install the tire/wheel until both it and the landing gear is painted.  I had this same issue with the rear wheel on my Spitfire, so I’m doing something similar to the front wheel on this build.

 

 

First, I bought some aftermarket resin wheels/tires from Profimodeller, which are made for the Hasegawa kit.  Fingers crossed that they will fit.

 

 

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A close-up pic shows that the detail is exceptional, especially in the axle area.

 

 

pmfkODnAj

 

 

The front landing gear has many parts.  The main gear leg doesn’t fit together very well, while the other smaller parts are OK, but the thin raised detail is hard to remove from the sprue without destroying some of it.

 

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Here’s the problem.  If you glue the front gear leg together like I have, the axle is closed and you can’t install the wheel later.  Note that I have not done a thing to clean-up the leg yet.

 

 

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However, if you trim back the axle, thin it with a sanding stick and remove the tiny ring from the wheel…

 

 

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You can spread the axle around the wheel and make it fit quite well, without any glue.  Mission 1 accomplished.

 

 

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Here’s the other problem.  The gear leg must be glued within the gear well when it is assembled.  This is just dry fit at this stage, but I did glue the gear door actuator arm, Part C47, as per instructions.  Whether you have the door open or closed, don’t do it.  Again, it’s always in the way and its very fragile, so glue it in at the end of the build if you still need it.

 

 

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So, here’s what I did.  First, I painted the gear well parts gloss black, then Alclad Aluminum.

 

 

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Edited by chuck540z3
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Then installed Parts C9 & C14 and glued the gear well together.

 

 

ShEnTR.jpg

 

 

Next, I cut off the rectangular tabs on the sides of the gear leg and cut a groove in it’s place that would fit a small drill bit, being careful to keep the angle of the groove the same as the tab, which is about 15-20 degrees.

 

 

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I then cut one short drill bit for the bottom and a longer one for the upper pin with a Dremel tool with a cut-off wheel.

 

 

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Then after opening the bottom hole slightly, I slipped the bottom pin in place.  This pin is necessarily shorter than the top pin, because it gets in the way of the bottom fuselage parts, which have a triangular tab at this very location.  By cutting off the tab slightly, everything will fit later.

 

 

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Thankfully with the gun doors closed, the top pin can be any length, so I left it a bit longer for strength.

 

 

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Now the front gear leg can be glued to the pins at the end of the build, just like I plan for the main landing gear, so I can set the gear leg aside until I do the other two.  Mission 2 accomplished.

 

 

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Next up is final installation of the cockpit and IP.  Fingers crossed that this all goes well.

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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13 hours ago, Rocat said:

Great work on the landing gear.

 

p.s. I can't see the last two pics of your post, if I click them, i am redirected to the imageshack home page

 

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Thanks for the feedback.  I have been having issues with ImageShack recently and after posting same on LSP, I’m not alone.  For some reason the “Forum Links” as ImageShack calls them, work sometimes and sometimes they don’t.  I can see the above pics now using my iPad, so maybe they work now?  In any case, if this keeps up I may have to migrate to another hosting site.  I hate paying for stuff that doesn’t work.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

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Nice looking instrument panel. Those airscale decals are the cat's meow! Especially love the attitude indicator in how you turned it. 

Not too many modelers do that. The fact of the matter is, when the A/C power is off, the gyro destabilizes and the attitude indicator "falls". This is the 1st model I've seen that CORRECTLY shows that!

Kudos to you Chuck!!!!

 

Tim

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On 1/22/2019 at 2:27 PM, Falconxlvi said:

The IP comes to life with the Airscale decals.  I like how you left the attitude indicator “tumbled” as is the case on most aircraft once the power is removed.  Great modeling and tutorials Chuck- keep it up 👍🏻

 

2 hours ago, hawkwrench said:

Nice looking instrument panel. Those airscale decals are the cat's meow! Especially love the attitude indicator in how you turned it. 

Not too many modelers do that. The fact of the matter is, when the A/C power is off, the gyro destabilizes and the attitude indicator "falls". This is the 1st model I've seen that CORRECTLY shows that!

Kudos to you Chuck!!!!

 

Tim

 

Ha, like I said earlier, I'm a monkey see, monkey do modeler who just tries to replicate what I see in pics of the real deal.  That gauge was all over the place from pic to pic, so I turned a decal that looked close sideways to replicate one of the pics I have- and now I know what the heck it is: An "Attitude Indicator".  Who knew!?

 

Cheers,

Chuck

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