Pete's Matchbox/Revell Skyraider

[stillp]

Made a start on the Navy Blue:

Going to need another coat.
Pete

[stillp]

Moving on...

I'm still not happy with the paintwork, but I'm fed up with recoating it!
The engine cowling fitted perfectly before painting, but somehow didn't fit even after I scraped the paint off, so I had to scrape quite a bit of plastic off. That'll need a touch-up. The main gear legs are on, and the guns fitted since the photo. Foolhardy, I'm bound to break something during the decalling.
Pete

[stillp]

Most of the decals are on:

There are decals for a white edging to the canopy glass, but they'll have to go on after the final clear coat as they fit on the glazing inside the canopy frames, so on the outer edge of the masking. I'm worried that if I take the masking off now, the glazing will go cloudy if I use a satin clear coat.
The plan is to let the decals dry, then fit the drop tanks and napalm canister, then give the decals a clear coat, then fit the bombs (which are matt). Any thoughts anyone?
Pete

[adt70hk]

Most of the decals are on:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1134592[/ATTACH]
There are decals for a white edging to the canopy glass, but they'll have to go on after the final clear coat as they fit on the glazing inside the canopy frames, so on the outer edge of the masking. I'm worried that if I take the masking off now, the glazing will go cloudy if I use a satin clear coat.
The plan is to let the decals dry, then fit the drop tanks and napalm canister, then give the decals a clear coat, then fit the bombs (which are matt). Any thoughts anyone?
Pete

Hi Pete

Looking very nice. Sorry can't help. Very much stop getting to grips with planes. When it comes to canopies the limit of my knowledge is they don't mix with poly glue.

Good luck with them.

Andrew

[stillp]

Well, I fitted most of the decals, the drop tanks, the bombs and the napalm canister, and removed the canopy masks.

Now there are decals supplied for edging the canopy, which looked as if they were going to be tricky, so I left them until I had a clear couple of hours - today seemed a good day. The instructions aren't very precise about where these go, on the glass or on the frame.

There are two decals for each pane of the canopy, so I thought I'd start with the upper ones, and let those dry before trying the lower ones, which will overlap the uppers slightly. The first couple went OK:

They seem to fit with half their width on the glass, half on the framing. They're obviously a bit floppy, but strong enough to be teased into place with a toothpick.
Then disaster struck - I found Revell have made a serious mistake with these decals. You can see from the pic above that the windows over the pilots' seats are wider than the ones behind, but decals 55/56 are exactly the same size as 53/54, so when I fitted 55 to the window it was clear of the frame on both sides! Tried to photograph the difference here, you can see that 54 is a couple of mm too narrow for the window beneath it

I fitted 53 to the other window and it matched the width perfectly, so it clearly was never going to fit in the right place. How on earth can Revell make such an error when these edging decals are even shown on their box art?
I considered fitting the decals that are the right size and leaving the others off, but that would look strange. Someone cleverer might paint these white edges, but not me. White tape might be a solution, but I don't have any that narrow, so I chickened out and removed all of the frame decals before they set. There are plenty of photos online of VMA332 aircraft without those white edges.
So, I think this one is done:

I'll put a thread in 'Completed' a bit later. Edit: completed pics here: https://www.scale-models.co.uk/threa...yraider.36252/
Thanks for watching,
Pete

[Mini Me]

That came out nice Peter, I prefer it without the edge decals. And the Napalm bomb looks right also, well done sir.
Rick H. :thumb2:

[boatman]

Pete thats lookin fanstatic an a pity about the canopy white framein was'nt it possible to gently lift the decal with your toothpick an usein a very sharp pair of small scissors cut the decal in the centre an then line it up an press down gently so it overlaps it as thats how ive got away with it on some of my builds but i suppoce each to his own but a lovely build all the same as i think if i remember rightly i had this trouble on my lightning on the yellow strip on the canopy on both sides but after a bit of :cold-sweat: an a bit of hand shakes i managed to get it so it dint look to bad an acceptable to me anyway but brill model an one id be pleased to own
chris

[Guest]

White tape might be a solution, but I don't have any that narrow

Stick it down lightly on a (clean!) piece of glass and cut it to width with a sharp knife and a steel ruler

[stillp]

Pete thats lookin fanstatic an a pity about the canopy white framein was'nt it possible to gently lift the decal with your toothpick an usein a very sharp pair of small scissors cut the decal in the centre an then line it up an press down gently so it overlaps it as thats how ive got away with it on some of my builds but i suppoce each to his own but a lovely build all the same as i think if i remember rightly i had this trouble on my lightning on the yellow strip on the canopy on both sides but after a bit of :cold-sweat: an a bit of hand shakes i managed to get it so it dint look to bad an acceptable to me anyway but brill model an one id be pleased to own
chris

Chris, the frame decals are too small - the forward window is a few mm wider than the decals. They seem to have supplied 2 sets of frame decals for the 'middle' window, the window over the pilots' seats is wider.

Stick it down lightly on a (clean!) piece of glass and cut it to width with a sharp knife and a steel ruler :smiling3:

Yes, I could have, but Tamiya tape for curves is too thick, and there are other things more deserving of my time! I might have added yellow stripes to the bombs for example... but I didn't! As I said, not all the aircraft had these white edges anyway.
Pete

[flyjoe180]

Looks great Pete, I wouldn't have worried too much about the white strips either given the complexity and doubt whether it would've had them. White decal paper could be a solution, but it's looking fantastic without them anyway.