RAAF Lockheed F-4 Lightning Photo Recon

Started by Carl Smoot · 59 · 8 months ago
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    John vd Biggelaar said 9 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Looks good, Carl @clipper
    Good idea to prime first.

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    Carl Smoot said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Painting has started. First up, before doing that, I needed to get a few sub assemblies ready, notably, the propellers. Because of the way the diorama will be presented, one prop will be spinning and the other will be just striking the ground so, it will be stationary. The Academy props have separate blades so I devised some guides for the blade placement as well as laying out the clear spinning blades.

    This is showing what I have in mind.

    Priming the model is the first order of business so I can deal with any defects in the surface. Preliminary looking over indicates one or two areas that will need some attention. I love how primer unifies the appearance of the model, but because I previously did a P-38M Night Lightning, it sort of reminds me of that model. Once I get the actual colors on, it will start looking different.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Excellent job so far and I love your approach to the props, my friend @clipper!

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    Carl Smoot said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    A little later in the evening. I will touch up the primer then move on to the next color.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Excellent progress, my friend @clipper!

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    John vd Biggelaar said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Great progress, Carl @clipper
    This is going to be a wonderful display.

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    George R Blair Jr said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Looking really good, Carl (@clipper). I think the pilot will look cool with this model.

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    Carl Smoot said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Thanks Spiros (@fiveten), John (@johnb), and George (@gblair). This build has gone quite quickly (for me) mainly because I had already done much of the work last year. I have to touch up the primer today and perhaps a coat of Alclad Aluminum later tonight. I plan on doing a first for me, using chipping fluid, so the Alclad will be needed before I move on to the regular paint colors.

    Nothing new today so far as yesterday was quite busy with non modeling tasks.

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    Carl Smoot said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    I was going to continue with painting today after yesterday when I sprayed Alclad over the model. This will be for underneath the regular camo paint and used in chipping which will be a first time for me.

    I got the Alclad done yesterday and today started to spray the chipping fluid onto the model. However, it looked odd to me, beading up on the surface somewhat. I decided to wait and see what happens after it dries, figuring I could wipe it off if necessary. In the meantime, I decide to work some on the diorama base.

    Like my previous Hudson build, I am using foam blocks to make the base from and will cover the sides with painted balsa sheet. But this time around, I had to consider how well the foam would support the model on a single pole. I decided to embed a block of wood into the foam. This will be covered over later when I do the groundwork.

    I still needed to figure out how I wanted to mount the plane on the board (the attitude of the a/c). The embedded wooden block will provide more surface area and be sturdier. I also wanted to cut down the size of the base. So this layout work was done first.

    As I have mentioned before, this is going to represent an aircraft about to do a wheels up landing with the starboard side prop blades just beginning to strike the ground. I was originally going to use a clear acrylic rod, but the smallest I had was 1/4" in diameter which I felt was too big for the fuselage opening in the Lightning. I've elected to use 1/8" brass rod instead. This will be painted a muted color to make it less noticeable. Since the plane is going to be close to the base anyway, I felt this would not be an issue.

    The brass rod was measured over long to start and I gradually reduced the length until it was where I wanted it to be. It was then epoxied into the bottom of the fuselage. This has an added advantage of giving me a way to support the model when I get it painted without having to rest the model on its painted surfaces on a model building jig. The model is supported in the desired attitude while the epoxy cures. Later, I will glue it to the base.

    By the way, after the chipping fluid dried, it appears to be okay, so I will continue painting that over the remainder of the model.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Some great progress made, Carl @clipper

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Great progress, my friend @clipper! Looking forward to the painting/chipping results!

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    Carl Smoot said 9 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Thanks JOhn (@johnb) and Spiros (@fiveten). Unfortunately, I didn't realize until yesterday that I did not have the underside blue needed for this paint scheme. I tried mixing the colors to get there but was generally unhappy with the results. So I've ordered the blue I need and hope to have it fairly soon. I want to do the underside blue first before doing the camouflage, so painting will be delayed for a bit.

    In the meantime, I am working on the diorama base and will also probably start back up on my FJ-4B Fury build.

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    Carl Smoot said 9 months ago:

    After having received the paints I have chosen for the RAAF camouflage colors, I started back with painting. I first painted the bottom surfaces using SMS Premium RAAF Sky Blue. This paint sprays beautifully and dries quickly. It appears to be fairly tough.

    I had heard that when doing chipping (which I am doing for the first time on this model), that it is advisable to do the chipping within a few hours of spraying lacquer based paints as they become increasingly difficult to chip after they are fully cured. So I tried the chipping on the bottom and had fair results. Using water and a short stippling brush, I tried to do the chipping.

    However, either because I had waited too long or because I had not put down enough chipping fluid, or perhaps because lacquer paint is less permeable to water, I had difficulties getting the paint to start chipping. I found the only way I could get the process started was by lightly poking areas with a needle and then returning to the process with more water and the stippling brush.

    I neglected to take a picture of this before I masked the bottom, so I will have to show this later, however after chipping the bottom, I masked it off for the topside colors using a combination of blu tack worms and masking tape. These topside colors will start getting applied today.

    I did have one experience I have seen others mention about chipping fluid and masking. Namely, lifting of paint when pulling tape up. I had to reposition a piece of the masking tape and it lifted a bit of the Sky Blue paint in the areas I had done chipping. So it would seem, that once the chipping layer is activated, the bond between the paint layers is permanently reduced in strength. In this case, I will have to go back and touch up the sky blue when I remove the masking.

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    Carl Smoot said 9 months ago:

    As I was afraid of what would happen, did. When removing the masking from the bottom side, large sections of the Sky Blue lifted away because of the chipping fluid. Live and learn. From now on, chipping will be confined to small areas and nowhere where I have to do extensive masking.

    I did get the model painted the two camouflage colors. That turned out good. It was only when I unmasked that I had issues. This particular plane will have one of the leading edges in O.D. green as this was replaced from US stock after some damage occurred. That means I have to mask a portion of the upper and lower port wing. To avoid further issues, I am going to use wet tissue paper to do the masking.

    This model is going to be an experiment in the weathering from my previous approach. I typically would spray lighter shades of the base colors to highlight centers of panels to give that multi-toned look. On this model, I am only spraying the base colors and all lightening, fading, etc will be done with oil paints. Of course I still need to repair the sky blue and paint the OD green leading edge.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 9 months ago:

    Pity about the paint lift, my friend @clipper. Really interesting how chipping fluid interfered. Top camo looks superb!
    Looking forward to your next steps!