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Eaglecash867

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Eaglecash867 last won the day on May 29 2018

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  1. It was about 2 years ago that I got the kit, and it was probably several months after getting it that I even opened the box. That part is on me, I get that. That being said, I could certainly forgive a defect here and there, but every part in that kit was like that. That doesn't give me a good impression when such a large quality control escape happens like that. . I ended up buying resin burner cans for the Mud Hen from Two Mikes that I absolutely love (unfortunately he doesn't make exhaust tubes). I bought those last summer, and Mike actually delayed production of my set because of the high temperatures in his area. I don't know...I just really liked the extra effort he went through to get it right the first time. Anyway, Nicholas asked for pros and cons, so I was just sharing my personal experience with their product that I bought. Others have had better experience with them. As Gil said, its a toss-up.
  2. I've gotta weigh in on this subject. I purchased some of the GT Resin seamless exhausts for my Mud Hen, and with that money wasted, I think using the two piece kit exhausts is going to look acceptable. The GT Resin ones are horrible quality. Full of all kinds of pits and bubbles, and sections that just didn't seem to conform well to the mold they were poured into. Generally, they look like something I could have made myself on a first attempt...certainly not worth the "professional product" pricetag. Hopefully your experience will be better than mine. I didn't even get around to working to make them fit since the overall quality and appearance is so awful, I didn't think it would be worth my time. You can count me as one of the people who will never buy from them again. Severely disappointing after working with the excellent products of Brassin and Aires.
  3. Not sure what scale you're wanting those in, but Wolfpack makes some 1/72 resin seats for the F-5E/F models. Their products so far have been extremely high quality. I bought one of their F-8 J-57 exhausts for a 1/48 F-102A. It looks fantastic, is seamless, and fit right into my F-102A with minimal modification. I'm thinking their seats are probably also going to be made to the same high standards. http://store.spruebrothers.com/product_p/wpd72082.htm
  4. Thanks Gil! Finally getting some modeling time again, but its gonna be sparse for a while. I had to trim back my ambition a little bit and just focus on the Mud Hen for a while. Still working on putting all of the switches into the side consoles, but the bucket, PE pedals, and pilot and WSO panels are finished. Just ordered my styrene strips from Evergreen for scratch-building the throttle levers. I think that's going to be fairly easy to get right, since I have a HOTAS Warthog right here, and the throttle in the A-10C is the same as the F-15E.
  5. Hi Andrea, The tail caps are FS33538, and the helmets are FS13538.
  6. No paint pulling problems at all. You don't have to push down on it very hard to get it to stay put, and if you roll it off it separates very cleanly. Never tried the UHU stuff though, so I can't be certain that it has the same properties as the BluTack. It made a beautiful Euro I camo pattern on the tail of the CAS F-16 I'm building, with smooth, feathered edges. Damage to the paint came later when I tried applying home-made decals for the first time which had too much varnish on them and made a sticky mess on the nicely painted surface when I hit them with MicroSol. GRRRR!!! Oh well...it was a learning experience...but the BluTack did its job with a minimum of fuss. If it hadn't been for my over-varnished decals, the paint work would have been flawless, even though I had even used that crappy Model Master acrylic paint, which tends to come off really easily.
  7. Beautiful job! Not sure if you've worked with the stuff, but BluTack works really well as a camo pattern mask too. Its easier to shape and I find it stays exactly where you want it better than Silly Putty, without requiring as much pressure to make it stick. When you remove it, you just start at one corner and roll it off.
  8. Finally got all the tiny handles attached to the Mud Hen panel, so it looks like I've got a good build technique to continue with on the other projects. I opted to ditch the Tamiya decals for the MPCDs, since they look a little cheesy, and just went with MPCDs that look like they're turned off. Used a layered approach with Alclad gold on the backs, and layers of red and green transparent paint on the front to give them the kind of gold/metallic/brown look they actually have when off. Also got the grey viper's engine bay bulkhead and ADG painted and ready to attach to the engine bay. Intake tunnel components came out smooth and seamless using the white paint/dipping in future technique.
  9. Hi Mark, As far as I know, most of the newer compressors have a 1/8" BSP male fitting, and the Paasche hose has a 1/4" BSP female. Your airbrush itself, if its like my Paasche H model, should have an 1/8" BSP male fitting on it. What I ended up doing with mine was to put the old Paasche hose in storage and get a Master Airbrush quick disconnect fitting for the airbrush: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001MKGOUM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Then you just get a new airbrush hose with 1/8" BSP female fittings on both ends. Having a quick disconnect mounted directly to the airbrush is pretty awesome...you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. Eagle
  10. Thanks for the comments guys! WHEW...its been a rough couple of months which has curtailed my modeling time quite a bit, but I did manage to get some progress done on my Vipers. It took a lot of experimentation with different techniques for dealing with what is probably the biggest pain for most jet modelers...the intake tunnels. I ended up making my own sanding tools for getting the seams on the insides down to a tolerable level. I took a chunk of a wire coat hanger and wrapped the loop part of some low-profile velcro around it...and then cut strips of micromesh sanding sheets and put the hook part of the velcro on the backs of those. That way I could take the strips on and off of the coat hangar by wrapping them in a spiral. Just chucked it up in a cordless drill and went to work. Then came figuring out how to paint the insides. I ruined one Hasegawa intake tunnel by trying the "latex paint pour" method I read about on-line. Not very good results using that method, since there is nothing, chemically, in the latex paint to form a good bond with the plastic. It was very easy to accidentally make a hole in it when polishing, and then it would start peeling away at that hole. I ended up trying something that I hadn't read about yet on a new intake tunnel...using Plasti-Dip and pouring that into the tunnel. That worked really well. It has Toluene in it, so it bonds like crazy with the plastic. Instead of using tape to cover the bottom of the second tunnel while I poured, I used a MUCH simpler method. I cut the finger off a latex glove and stretched it over the end...then just cut it when it was time to drain the Plasti-Dip...the whole thing was then easily slipped right off and disposed of without getting Plasti-Dip everywhere like with the tape method I used with the first tunnel and latex paint. Its acceptable, but if I had to do it again, I would dip it next time after masking the outside. The pour method was a little too quick and trapped tiny air bubbles in a few spots. Still looks pretty darn good though. Also used the Archer panel line transfers for the first time to put the raised panel lines back on the center portion of the intake tunnel exterior. I had pretty much erased both lines that go back from the sides of the nose gear well while I was removing the seam. They worked GREAT, and were actually really easy to apply. The Tamiya intake I'll post when I get more visible progress on that. That one I airbrushed, and then dipped in 6 coats of Future...that looks just about perfect. Here are a few pics of the progress on the CAS Viper, with a couple of close-ups of the intake tunnel.
  11. Nice work as always Gil! Just one suggestion. If you're ever planning on making a diorama with it, just be sure to put the huge puddle of jet fuel underneath it to give it that final touch of realism. :smiley2: Eagle
  12. Hi Martin, Have Glass 5 Vipers are also stationed with the 148th FW in Minnesota, 169th FW in South Carolina, and 85th TES at Eglin AFB, Florida They're the overall FS36170 color as far as I know. The radome is FS36118, which is the usual radome paint. They can't use the same radar absorbing paint on the radome, or most other conventional paints, due to the metallic components in most paints...it'll make the radar very unhappy. Haven't seen one up close and personal yet, but I'm told the new paint doesn't hold up very well and is constantly flaking off and needing attention. A lot of them look pretty beat up already. Not sure if that's the paint itself, or the new "environmentally friendly" primers being used on aircraft. Eagle
  13. There's some good info in this thread http://forum.ipmsusa3.org/index.php?/topic/18295-re-sizing-images-decals/ The Tactical Air Command shield on the acetate test sheet in my post there was inserted into my drawing of the tail code and serial number using the "insert reference drawing" in the Draftsight program I link there. You can print in different scales once you get the size right. Two great things about that program. 1) Its vector-based, so you don't get jagged, pixelated printouts like you do with low-cost or free photo editors. 2) ITS FREE! :D
  14. Really nice work! Nice to see the old Spectre getting some recognition. :D
  15. Getting more modelling time again, and the time needed for things to cure and so forth was just seeming like a lot of wasted space in a project. So, I've gotten going on 3, all 1/32 scale. I usually start with cockpits first, but I just couldn't resist getting the tails going first on the two Vipers. I was inspired by some pics of the 50 Years of YGBSM Viper scheme on the Shaw AFB web-site, and actually found the full decal set for 1/32 scale from Two Bobs. Couldn't wait to get the tail going, because the decals are just so cool. I had to do some modifcations to make it accurate. Removed the ASPJ air scoop, and used Bare-Metal Foil to fabricate a decent-looking BLOS SATCom antenna cover on the base of the tail. Also added the extra static wick to the tail cap by using one of the extra static wicks that came in the Tamiya Block 50 kit. Started using the thinned oil paint/turpentine technique technique for panel lines on this one...and I think I've found my new wash method, at least for AF aircraft that are MUCH cleaner than Navy aircraft. Not much to report on the green CAS Viper yet. Had to make a few mods to the tail first. The CAS Vipers didn't have the ASPJ scoop during testing, and I accidentally broke the tail cap static wick off, along with the sensor tube near the top of the leading edge. So, I repaired both items with two different diameters of brass rod, primered it, and just finished laying down the Medium Green base color. I'm making custom decals for that, since they don't exist in this scale. Nothing worth showing on that just yet. The Mud Hen is getting its cockpit done first. That's going really slowly, because I'm experimenting with kind of a "hybrid" technique between the kit details and Eduard photo etch. In this case, I'm only removing the kit detail from the areas that will benefit from the photo etch. Generally speaking, photo etch is too bright and too two-dimensional, so I'm only using it where the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Eduard has you remove all 3 MPCDs on the pilot panel, all the way to the base panel itself. That takes all the depth out of it. So I did a lot of surgical detail removal, and cut some tiny grooves in the bottoms of the MPCDs to allow the Eduard photo etch panels underneath to slide up into them. I also cut a small, rectangular hole in the center pedestal for the CCPO vent, so it now looks like air might actually come through it, instead of seeing the grey of the instrument panel through the louvres. Still have a few things to do to it, but its coming along.
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