1/48 Airfix Hawker Sea Fury FB.11

Started by George R Blair Jr · 102 · 1 year ago · 1/48, Aeromaster, Airfix, Eduard, Hawker, Sea Fury FB.11
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    George R Blair Jr said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    I was playing with some of my Christmas toys, but I got a chance to paint the plane. I used Royal Blue from Tamiya which I thinned by about 30% using Tamiya Lacquer Thinner. I tend to get better results when using gloss paints if I thin them with lacquer thinner. I put on several light layers to be sure I got a dense color on all the surfaces. I plan to give it at least 24 hours to harden before I start pulling the last parts together.

    4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    Blue came out really great, my friend @gblair!
    Great Christmas presents, your first print looks absolutely cool!

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    John vd Biggelaar said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    Santa was really generous with you, George @gblair
    Great Christmas gifts.
    The blue painting on the Fury looks really nice as well.

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    George R Blair Jr said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). The blue gloss looks pretty good, but I am glad the plane is only one color. I suspect I put a fairly thick layer on the plane which would be really obvious if I had masked another color. 3D printer is pretty awesome, but it has a steep learning curve. The piece I did was a sample file included with the printer. Removing all of the supports will be lengthy. I have found out that you can remove most of them before you cure the piece, while the supports are still soft and will just snap off using your fingers. Cheers.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    Pretty sure you will find your way into 3D printing, George @gblair
    Looking forward to your first own design.

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    Eric Berg said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    Wow. A 3D printer for Christmas! Now that’s getting serious, George @gblair. Looking forward to what you do with it. By the way, your build here has inspired me to finally order one of these Airfix Fury kits and it’s now on its way.

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    George R Blair Jr said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    You will really like the Sea Fury, Eric (@eb801). Good detail, good engineering, good decals...you can't lose. The only downside is the really soft plastic, but with a little care it works fine. I have enjoyed this kit. Looking forward to yours.

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    George R Blair Jr said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    You and me both, John (@johnb). The gap between what I know how to do on the 3D printer and designing and printing my own stuff is very wide, but I plan to start chipping away at the gap. :o)

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    Stephen W Towle said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    George @gblair,
    This what is know as winning the Trifecta, in horse racing you bet on the 1st,2nd and 3rd placed horse and win. But, building a Airfix Sea Fury, getting a great paint job, getting a printer and washer for a modeler that is hard to beat. Looking forward to more progress on the kit and seeing what a creative mind can print.

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    George R Blair Jr said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    You are right, Stephen (@stephen-w-towle). I have hit the modeling jackpot. My wife is very creative thinking of very cool gifts. Ultimately I want to be able to build an old Monogram or Revell kit, and design and print parts that are more detailed and more accurate than the kit parts. Or print some conversion parts for kits. That sort of stuff is still a long way from now. The 3D printer will have a steep learning curve, especially designing my own parts, but the journey should be fun. The Sea Fury is getting a day off so I can mess around with the printer. Tomorrow I need to paint the wheel wells and landing gear, and then decals.

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    John Healy said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    Slick paint job, George! I really prefer gloss paints because they spray smoother then grainy flats. Have fun with the printer.

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    George R Blair Jr said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    Thanks, John (@j-healy). I have never had much luck with gloss paints. They always seem to go on much thicker than the flats, but they seem to have worked well on this kit. The learning curve is steep on the printer, but I have started up the path with my first print. Yeah!

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    George R Blair Jr said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    I am taking my time with the decals. Luckily there are some really easy-to-see landmarks for locating where the decals go on the plane. The model has some fairly tall rivets that I probably should have sanded down a little. The decals have had trouble laying down over them, but it looks like repeated application of MicroSol is doing the trick.

    3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    Seems like you're getting those decals applied nicely, George @gblair
    The orientation of those roundles can be easily done wrong indeed.
    Looking forward to see the results of MicroSol, never used that before myself but bought a set of MicroSet and MicroSol yesterday. Previously I always used Decal Softener from Revell.

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    George R Blair Jr said 1 year, 11 months ago:

    Thanks, John (@johnb). I have never seen Revell decal fluid, perhaps it is only available in Europe. I imagine they are similar. You might try the new stuff on a trial decal before you use it on something important.