wm cheng

Here's a close up of the affected area. That piece in front of the pivot is pretty important and damn near impossible to get to after assembly. THe biggest thing that ruins these types of swing wing aircraft models is looking into the wing cavity and seeing the hollow plastic.

My sanding tools: a tub of water (extremely important as this acts as a lubricant so the tiny plastic particles don't gum up your sandpaper), the red is 600grit and the grey is 200grit wet/dry sandpaper on a plastic sheet backing, a old toothbrush to work away any trapped sanding debris from the fine engraved details, and a few rubber holders (they come in various profiles that help hold the sandpaper to get into tight places - like sanding blocks, I got these at a fine woodworking/hardware store). I start with the 200grit to get rid of most of the putty, and work up to the 600grit as a finishing paper before its ready for paint. The 200grit might be a bit rough for the Hasegawa plastic - its quite soft, and takes scratches easily - you might want to start higher at 400 in light orbital motion to avoid lines.

Yes, the first few items on the links list (the ones with an star beside them) are on the old boards - currently unavailable (however, Shawn may be able to retrieve them at some point). Unfortunately, I have no back up of them - so they are lost to me too. Here's one side sanded down - yes, I might of over done it on the putty, but I rather over do it than find out that I missed some spot. When I am done, you can see there isn't a lot of putty left, just enough to fill the cracks and circular injection pin depression. You don't have to pay too much attention near the pivots as the gear mechanism hides most of this area.

Hey LL, Great to have you on board. I don't usually prime my Hasegawa VF-1 because the engraving is so fine, that I'm afraid that I would obscure it. It also helps that its a white bird on white plastic - but without primer, you have to be extra careful about your seams. I pick out the panel lines with a oil wash after the intial stages of paint. Follow along my thread on the VF-1 + Booster, and I'll walk you though my construction process for the VF-1. Good luck, Wm

Now I guk up the entire area with some Tamiya putty, there are some injector pin circular depressions and seams all around that must be made smooth as this area will be seen when the wings are swept forward. I'll let the putty dry for tomorrow and glue a few of the parts from the next steps together - and call it a night.

I cut some extra styrene sheets to fit into the area in front of the wing pivots.

Now there's that unsightly gap that must be filled - since this area will show when you swing the wings back.

I then use a really sharp x-acto knife to gentlely cut away the excess sprue - go over the piece a few times is better than cutting it in one hard press - it makes a cleaner cut. Place the edge right on the cutting mat so that it can't bend backwards or down and break off - you want a clean cut.

The extra plastic sprue ensures that you don't accidentally nip away at the actual piece itself. Its always easier to trim away excess than to fill in a hole or depression.

As most of you probably know, sprue cutters are pretty invaluable to model building, and is as important to me as my x-acto knife. I keep the flat end of the cutters towards the model side and try to cut with as much excess plastic as I can away from the part.

Again, please, I ask that someone (moderator) please pin this thread.

Hi all, With some free time on my hands, I've decided to start a new project - another VF-1 for the incredible resin Atmospheric Booster that John sculpted and Rob & Jesse has brought to our light of day! I thank them for their efforts - this is one of my favourite mechs of all time. With the launch rail on the way, I thought, I should finish something for the launch rail to support. I will breeze through the VF-1 construction (as its old news now - and won't bore most of you who followed along my initial VF-1 step-by-step that's trapped on the old boards now). I'll just highlight some of the key things to look out for on the kit for reference and hopefully answer some of the questions I've been getting on basic construction techniques and seam filling. OT - who is the moderator for this particular group? I've been trying to ask someone who has the power to pin - to please pin up my "Links to Step-by-step..." post - which I'll update whenever I start a new project. I spend half of my time answering PMs by just pointing to one of my older threads. PLEASE, what do I have to do to get something pinned around here?! (ok, enough rant... onto the model) I have choosen the VF-1S - I intend to do Hikaru after he took over Roy's VF-1S - which I believe is canon. However, I might modify the booster colours, as I don't think white would be all that interesting.

A closeup of the seats and the sharp seatbelt sculpts - you can see the console buttons on the side panels, pretty detailed - although a bit out of scale (too large for 1/72) but with a wash and dry brushing, they should stand up quite nicely. 3D buttons will always beat out decals any day - even if they are a bit big. That's it for this kit for now - I want to get started on a VF-1 for the atmospheric boosters before I get back to the F-14.

I just did a dry fit of the resin cockpit pieces. The darker resin is Verlinden, and the lighter seats are True Details.

Hey GX, After a lot of research and consulting with our resident aircraft expert DH, these are the kits I decided on. The hasegawa kit is outstanding (haven't built it yet - so I'm afraid of the fit and seams - but looking at the detailing molded in - it lives up to the Hasegawa name) This is the tooling with the engraved pieces, in fact, it comes with photo-etched parts - and the proper decal (by Cartograph) squadron for me to display next to Roy's VF-0 and VF-1. I also bought the Verlinden resin cockpit set and TrueDetails seats, I prefer them over the Verlinden seats, but they are still miles ahead of the Hasegawa kit supplied ones.

Hey Mechleader, I wouldn't recommend a gravity feed - they usually only allow avery small reservior of paint and have to be held pretty much right side up and horizontally all the time. I would recommend a siphon feed - I still use my Badger 200 single action - its over 20yrs old and still ticking! Very reliable and easy to use, especially if you want to reach into hard to get at places - I paint with my brush at all kinds of odd angles. Do a search on this topic, there was a really long thread about airbrushes a while back. Good Luck, Wm

Yip, I pin one half, with a really short pin - almost flush with the surface, then magic marker the end of the really short pin, push the parts together, and the short pin should make an indent with a marker mark left behind enough to start a hole on the blind half of the piece. Take out the short pin, and replace it with a longer roughed up piece of paperclip for the actual re-inforcement. I use 5min epoxy to actually affix the pins.

Wow! Amazing John - as always, looks fantastic - can't wait for mine.

Hey there, Sorry, UNN Ghostrider - I never got your e-mail or PM. I would recommend the pinvise idea (since its what I used). But I am curious about David's spiral drill - don't know what it is - can you post a picture of one? Definitely not a dremel - its too fast (even at the slowest setting) - I've chewed up too many kits to remember with mine - I've almost stopped using it all together (unless you're going for battle-damage ) Hmm, I must try the Gunze glue, I've been using the Testors orange tube all my life - and its fine for strong bonds - tried the blue tube stuff once - its really slow acting stuff - takes forever to dry - supposed to allow lots of time to adjust the part, but it takes more than 2 days to sufficiently dry (wouldn't recommend it). The Tamiya liquid is great, its what I use most of the time now. p.s. just finished another grueling stint of work - maybe there's some time for a model now

Wohoo!! I do love the planes in this series - does anyone have a pic of this FFR31? How many OVAs is this series? And when does OVA5 come out?

Welcome to the boards Viperbite!! Fantastic work - very cool colour scheme. Did you mask the different blues - or were they hand done? I love your VF-0B too - man that scheme is sharp - may have to pick up one of those too Keep posting. (p.s. might I suggest next time, instead of using black as your panel line wash, use a light grey so they don't show up so contasty - go with a brown/black for the gears (hydraulic/brake fluid) and a darker grey for the control surfaces). GREAT WORK!

FANTASTIC WORK VF-19!! Wow, I envy your flightline - it will be years before I get anywhere near to that much built. I am so happy you're having fun with it - that is the most important aspect. Keep the modelling hobby alive! (I am afraid it might be dwindling down to a few of us nuts! ) And keep posting! I love them.

Help, when I click on the link I get an: 502 Proxy Error "Proxy Error The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server. The proxy server could not handle the request GET /anbu/index.shtml. Reason: Could not connect to remote machine: Connection refused"

Hey, This has got to be one of my most sought after items - I WOULD LOVE IT IF SOMEONE WERE TO MAKE ONE OF THESE! (hint, hint... capt.) I saw the Wonderfest one, and it isn't really that good - we need a better one, plus one that we can obtain I certain want a few of these babies.

Omigod! approaching the $400 mark You are evil