wm cheng

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

DAMN YOU JOHN!! It just looks so good...

Wow... I was a bit worried about that. In no way is this any criticism of John's excellent sculpting abilities and all the great effort Rob & Jesse are contributing to this very worthwhile project - but the price is a bit steep for me. So I would assume that the vehicle is a fair hunk of resin (sheer size wise) too, and would probably be in the $100+ range right? $300+ dollars (total before the Hasegawa kit) for the whole booster/launch vehicle is a bit hard to swallow and justify for me right now. Thats too bad, I love what you guys are doing (truely excellent work John), and that this is one of my favourite mechs of all time that has yet to be done. I'd gladly take donations on this Are there any producers on these boards that need an art director for their upcomming film?? I'm so sad... there are lotteries though

Fantastic job John!! You come though again! Great interpretation - any chance that it can swivel so that we can adjust the "angle of launch" after construction. I'm sure the Valk with booster would be removeable after construction as well - right? You've got me a little worried, by splitting the cost (good idea) how much more could the vehicle itself be - I may not be able to afford both parts - so I would like to get an idea now if possible. The outlook for the film business in T.O. isn't all that hot - on the bright side, I am hoping to start on your excellent booster as soon as I finish my current job. Hoping to start in November. Keep it up - and thanks for the progress pics - it makes my day! Wm

Fantastic work Kurt!! It looks great, how is the post shading holding up? I've been thinking about doing a little bit of weathering/post shading on my Yamato too, but I've been worried that through handling and transformations, the very light post-shading might scrape off at where the parts rub - even with a clear coat. What do you do to protect it against these scrapes? Does it hold up well? Keep up the great work. Wm

Hey THAT'S FANTASTIC Dobber!! I'm no Dobber when it comes to hand painting! I can't believe you brush painted all those - the finish is so smooth, and you didn't seem to fill in any of the extremely light Hasegawa engraving. Great job! Especially the digital flanker scheme - did you mask for that? I'm not a big fan of the SV-51 design, but you make it look almost good enough for me to buy one. I love that scheme - everything, the white tanks and armament is just perfect (how did you paint those so white with a red plastic base??!). Keep it up!

I use ModelMaster laquer clear coats, and they have been perfectly stable on top of my oil washed Tamiya acrylics (they are designed not to yellow over time). Future will give you an extremely glossy/shiny finish to the model - I'm not sure if that's the intended final finish you want for a military aircraft - a brand new car maybe. People often use future to give a clear, glossy smooth surface to decal on, then clear coat with something else that will give a flatter sheen. Also just a tip, very glossy surfaces tend to look more toyish, - flatter finishes tend to look more like scaled down machines. Even if the actual object is quite glossy in real life, the scaled down model miniature will look more proper if it is flatter/matte than its real life counterpart. (Do not clear coat the canopy unless its with future though...)

Good Job VF-19!! Keep it up - please encourage all around to keep building. You've done a good job of hiding the seams if you didn't paint it - it means you couldn't fill them either (otherwise the filler will show). It goes to show how thoughtful the Hasegawa decals are - even if you don't really paint it, it still comes out great. I would suggest the next time you do a wash, don't do it in black. Maybe only do the flaps and airbrake holes in black, but keep all the other panel lines in a light grey so they don't show up so strongly. You could vary the wash with varying degrees of grey to make some panels stand out more than others - generally the revits should be the lightest grey (it will add a bit more life to the overall panelling). Keep up the great work! (by the way, NICE EX-girlfriend to buy you that D-SLR - what did you do to become an EX? ) I wish I could get my wife to by me anything electronic!

Is it too late to ask for a highly detailed launch arm for 1/72 Hasegawa models? (under the others catagory)