Rb-57 f

[Guest]

I am currently in the final stages of building a RB-57 F in 1/72 scale from the Mach 2 Kit. I figured I would share some of my experiences with you guys to give a little insight, and hopefully learn a lot myself. THis should be especially helpful to newbs, since i am one myself. THis is my first model that I've done since futzing around as a kid, and also my first use of an airbrush as i just got one for christmas.

I began this model about 5 months ago, assembled it, and took a break while studying in germany. I am now back, and have joined this forum. I done have any assembly pics, but I can tell you that is wasn't easy. Apparently this is common for Mach 2 kits since they are limited run (and very spendy). I had quite a list of problems. The engine halves didnt line up, the nose cone didn't fit (at all!!!), very poor instructions, the clear plastic isn't very clear, a flap was missing from the one wing so i made one out of a toothpick, etc. The list goes on.

I do fortunately have some of the prep pictures. I had to do a TON of filling to fix poorly formed plastic parts with pock and pull marks, pieces that didn't align, and that blasted nose cone. And with the filling came major sanding, which took forever, and lost some of the details such as panel lines. So, i had to scribe those in again, and sand some more.

Alot of my problems came from my own mistakes though. I didn't know to put the cockpit in before puting the fuselage together. I used too much glue in many parts, and even the wrong type, which made things difficult and made even more sanding necessary. Mostly newb issues.

After finishing the prep stage, I moved on to painting with my new aztec airbrush. I love it. I am planning to do a NMF with Alclad 2 Aluminum, and am following the directions from this article, somone else on the forum found. The Secret Life of Alclad 2. So far, I have just primed in black, but I am getting the hang of the airbrush and am happy with the final prime coat. I did learn a lot about my airbrush. Never start airflow while aiming at you model as you can get spatter, so always atart off the model and move on to it. don't spill paint on your model (that sucks, more sanding...) slow and steady wins the race, dust on your first coat, it will help the rest of the coats stick. Only paint in a well ventilated area. I am using a fume hood i made (will post again on how that was done) and respirator (the best investment so far, great for glueing, filling, and my dreaded sanding i did too much of). The fume hood is currently internal only and uses a filter, but i need to upgrade the filter, and maybe put in a hood sash. Dual action is lovely and not difficult to get the hang of, took only two coats to stop my spatter issue entirely.

Next, I am going to paint the details in the cockpit and the white parts of the wing tips, and engines, then mask it off. One question to those that acutally read this far, where do i get 1/72 pilots or even better, astronauts, since astronauts flew this plane.

Soon i will be apllying the alclad, and see if this stuff is newb proof. ENjoy the pictures. Don't laugh too hard, this newb is trying.

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[wonwinglo]

Zack you have a good job here on this headache of assembly jobs,I wonder why the manufacturers insist on sending out kits with parts so obviously undersized etc ? they must build a test model to sort things out like this?

[Guest]

It is confounding. I would guess that Mach 2 has limited resources since they deal in limited production and limited demand models. It probably isn't cost effective to do all the extra work when the people who want these models are willing to pay $100+ for them anyways. The intensive filling and sanding was actually quite rewarding, but the most rewarding part will be the model itself. This plane is very interesting, and will be given to a Nuclear Physicist that used to work with them.

So, all the so far work was worth it. I painted the cockpit, which would have been much easier if i did that before assembling it (note to self for next model). It is impossible to make look as good as I would like since i have no acess to a good portion of the cockpit, but i'll live. After test fitting the clear top thingy (what is that called?) over the cockpit, i realized it DIDN'T fit. So I had to shave down the top of the rear seat. Finally got it to fit, but I will attatch that later. I did mask of the cockpit, and am ready for the alclad II. Hopefully all goes well there.

[Guest]

Hi

Nice pics of the bird. Hard to believe the humble Canberra led to such a radical design as the RB-57.

I like your nifty painting booth, very handy. Mine is made out of old cardboard and a bit of wood I found in a skip. Still, it works better than my ropey old Revell airbrush!

Keep up the good work, and neer give up!

Saul

[Guest]

Thanks Saul, I am now nearing completion. Alclad applied, decals on, wheels and tiny details attatched. I will be applying future next, and then minor shading and maybe some weathering. I don't have any pictures now, but they wont be much changed from the final product, so i don't think it really matters.

The Alclad went on perfect, it was increadibly easy to spray, dried quickly, and cleaned up nicely. That isn't to say I didn't have problems, just that they were not the fault of the alclad product, just my errors. My primer was black, and aparently some small fibers, probably from paper towels that i was using in the vicinity, had fallen onto it that I could not see. I did blow some air onto my model before applying the alclad, but I really should have used a tack cloth to remove any dust and other things like that. After applying the first coat of Alclad, all the dust lit up like a christmas tree. Subsequent coats did help, but not enough for my liking. Darn it.

The decals went on fine, aside from my clumsiness, but they suck pretty bad. These decals are quite thick and just not very high quality. One might want to think aftermarket for these.

I skiped trying to do the walkway lines and some red stripes, since I probably would have just messed it up worse, but I've heard that using decals is the best way to do that. How? Unfortunately I did try to paint the canopy. I wasn't pleased with it, so I figured, what the heck, i'll just take it off with laquer thinner. Wrong, it turned the canopy into glue. So I will be going aftermarket for that. A company called falcon makes one, but it only comes in a set (#43) and is 20 bucks. That's the only one I can find though.

My other problem was with the model being so difficult to assemble. It looked great in the black primer, but the light color and shine of the alclad shows every minor mistake. Not the fault of Alclad, any bright paint probably would do that. Any place where I had to scribe in panel lines, didn't get paint, I think the opening was too narrow and deep to get paint in it, so those show up pretty well. I will be aplyying a dark grey wash on top of future to try and get in there and hide those parts.

Overall, it seems that Mach 2+inexperienced modeler don't mix, but i'm acutally happy with the way its turned out so far, not great, but good enough for a first try, and a difficult one at that. Also, it did force me try a lot of new things, and buy a lot of supplies needed for fine detail work. So, I will have everything i need for the next model =).

Anyways, I should be done by the end of today, and have pictures up.

Zack

[Guest]

Sorry for the delay, I took the pictures of my plane without a memory card in so it took me a while to figure out how to acess them... I did however finish the plane, and I'm pretty happy with it. Take a look.

They show the paint with the white tips painted, and then final color with future and oil wash applied. In the pictures it is hard to see some of the flaws (thank goodness), but i can tell you some of the additional problems.

After applying the future, the larger decals bubbled up terribly. I'm not sure why, and think it could be because the surface was a rough after the alclad due to dust. I removed the future, reapplied some microset or sol (the red one that softens them, I forget which is which) and then reapplied future. It helped a lot, but one of them didn't turn out too great (uderside USAF decal). You can kind of see it in the picture.

The dark grey wash went on beautifully, and did help hide the scribed panel lines, but not really enough. I can still tell which ones I scribed and ones i didn't.

Dust didn't really show up in the pics, but is a problem.

Shaping of the front side of one of the wings wasn't great, but i'll deal.

The plane does lack color, but I mostly because i opted not to include the walkway and red striping, simply because it would be too hard to do.

Of course, the pics are missing the canopy, but the replacement one is on order, so these pics will have to do.

Overall, this plane was a lot of fun to build and paint, and I have learned a ton. The next one will be infinitely better.

Moving on to a B-17 next. Any recomendations for the kit to get. I really don't want to have to work so hard fixing this model as I did for the RB-57.

Thanks,

Zack

Zack

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[Guest]

Hi Zack,

Nice work on this model and it certainly does look good in the pics too. Just one comment about the decal bubbling up after the Future was applied - I can only suggest that there was probably some moisture still trapped under the decal when you applied the Future. Moisture does cause this reaction with Future so you have to make sure the decals are fully dried out before applying this stuff.

It's easy to see where the design inspiration for the Lockheed U2 came from as this aircraft has all the same characteristics but was designed before the U2.

Apart from that - an excellent looking model !!

Regards.......Mark.

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip. I had figured 24hrs would be enough for the decals to dry, but that would explain why it was only the large decals that had this problem. Next time I will be more careful.