First Build... Back To Basics!

[yak face]

Thanks for the encouragement guys, some aspects of the kit are a little challenging due to the age of it, but I'll soldier on and see what I can achieve from it.I'm not after perfect results at this early stage, especially from such an old tooled model, I just want to see what I'm capable of after all these years and if I have any chance of being able to get some spray out of my airbrush, lol.

I think you'll surprise yourself Andy , the challenges you face will only make the build sweeter when you overcome them and look back when its finished. Let battle commence! cheers tony

[Dave W]

I'm another one who built this in their youth.Should be fun and quick to put together.Personally I like building old kits.Filling,sanding and rescribing detail is all part of the hobby for me.

[aaron]

Cute.

[Guest]

I gave the interior a coat of Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black, although there is no detail, not even any form of instrument panel. I thought about having a go at scratching something up, but with the canopy the way it is it won't get seen anyway.

With the seats being glued to the wings, the fuselage is glued together.

Next the wing tops are mated to the lower halves.

[Guest]

Good progress so far, and nice clean cutting mat.

[Guest]

and nice clean cutting mat.

Lol, yeah, give it time though....

[The Migrant]

I built this kit a couple of years ago and found it reasonably straightforward, but like you Andy I was disappointed with the canopy – very thick and distorted. In the end I just Future'd it and left it at that but next time I'll have a go at plunge-moulding a new one. At least I didn't feel obligated to super-detail the cockpit since I was pretty confident nothing of it would be visible through the canopy! Looking forward to your progress, Andy.

[flyjoe180]

Nice progress Andy, looks like you are enjoying yourself.

[monica]

nice start Andy , must be nice to get to use your new paints and tool, hope you are enjoying yourshelf, and we all

must start some were again , keep up the good work

Moni

[Guest]

A bit more progress...

I've filled in a few gaps, just the usual suspects.

And I decided to open up the air intake at the front of the cowl as it's closed off in the kit, I didn't really have suitable tools for this and made a bit of a pigs ear of it, but it'll have to

do for now.

All masked up and ready for some primer...

After a few coats of Vallejo 73.615 Surface Primer...

The primer went on easy enough, so started misting on the Vallejo 71.057 Black.

And after a few light coats things are looking a little, well, black!

At this point I realised that after the grey primer the plan was to mask off and spray the white bands on the wings and fuselage, but I've forgotten, DOH!

Well, I'll have to mask it off now and see if I can get the white bands to go over the black, perhaps if I go to the grey primer first, should be interesting...

[geegad]

looking real nice for your return to this great hobby look forward to seeing more of this build

[flyjoe180]

Nice job Andy. Good luck with the white bands. As for that intake, I have opened up these on old kits before. I use a small drill bit to open up the area one little bit at a time, then smooth around the edges with a modeller's round file. Finish off by wrapping some wet and dry paper around the file and rubbing down the surfaces. You can easily adjust the shape if you need to. Best done prior to painting though.

[monica]

nice going Andy, just tape up were you wont your bands to be, maybe use gray 1st to lighten it down then a couple off coats off white

look forward to see how she turns out

you are a brave man, to be useing your AB, well done , i have had my for 2 mths and only taken it out off ,the box and looked at it ops:

[yak face]

Looking great Andy, glad to see youve managed to preserve those lovely rivets! In the case of this aircraft , sanding them off and re-scribing would be far more inaccurate , the actual aircraft was covered in em!! , cheers tony

[Guest]

Thanks guys.

And Moni, I spent the best part of 4 months waiting to use my airbrush (mainly because I didn't have anywhere to do any modelling, lol), it's best to just go for it, I spent 5 mins practicing on a bit of card to see what happened if the airbrush was too close or too far away, set my compressor for 20 psi and went for it, and to be honest I'm very pleased with the results so far. I thinned the Vallejo Primer 50/50 with thinners, and added about 10% thinners to the Vallejo Model Air Black, and they went on just fine in thin coats.

I've read that White can be tricky to spray and get a decent covering, but I can't find the thread where I read it.

Being new to airbrushing (this is my first attempt) I want to try and get a half decent effort.

I have "Vallejo Model Air 71.001 White" and "Xtracrylix XA1141 White" in my armoury, but what do you guys find is the most satisfactory White to airbrush?

I don't mind buying another brand of white if it's worth it to get a good finish.