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In the meanwhile, I am masking all the steel parts on the fuselage.

AARRGHH! Wha, what happened, it looks like the clear-coat shrank and peeled away from the gloss white undercoat leaving this crack I don't know exactly what happened, I'd guess I laid the clear-coat on too thick and maybe the undercoat wasn't completely dried yet? Man I hate it when this happens, I am going to try to very gently sand the clear coat down with 2000 grit sanding film (I hope the crack doesn't extend down to the plastic) to eliminate the crack and will have to put the white gloss over it again and a careful light clear coat.

Here's the intake vanes, I've tried to bend the ends up slightly, and I am going to glue them in at a slight downward angle like the F-14 excess bleed ramps in the intakes, plus it will partially obscure the fans and the interior of the intakes. The back of the knees are shaded now, but you really don't see much of them once the legs are glued in place. I've given the entire thing a coat of ModelMaster Clear-coat of semi-gloss mixed with gloss finish to seal in the paint so far (letting it dry overnight), so I can do an oil wash tomorrow and hopefully some post-shading.

Here's the gun pod with a bit of shading.

Nice cans David I should wear gloves - those rubber latex should be fine, but I don't. I did get one small spot of slight finger prints (easy on really glossy surfaces - thats why I usually go semi-gloss) but luckily a coat of clear-coat eliminated that. I am doing a little burning on the feet/afterburner nozzles. I airbrush shade these with flat black, later to be sealed in with a clear coat of semi-gloss.

Hey thanks Solscud007! I just ordered one - I'll post to let you know how the service is when I recieve it. For those who are curious, it was $21usd in total shipped to Toronto Canada. A far cry from Toys Square here that has it for $60cdn!!

Very cool metallic red idea! Can't wait to see more, you did a great job at sanding away the seams - if I remember correctly, those old kits are a bitch.

Would you believe I used sissors up until 2 years ago!! I've got myself a pair of cheapies, which are fine. But I never cut that close to the actual object to care about how straight or sharp the blades are. I always cut as far away from the piece as I can, then with the piece separated, I carefully use a very sharp X-acto knife from the exterior side (good side) of the piece cut parallel to the surface leaving a bit of plastic behind. Then I sand down the sprue nub - I find that this way, by sanding excess down its easier than filling any nicks or chunks missing.

Great job so far - sorry to hear that the post shading didn't work out for you, I'll be interested in seeing how the pre-shading will be (I've never done it this way before). You might need a fair bit of the light colour to cover up all that black though. Don't go building too much, you were my "See darling... look how much they have compared to what they've built! - I just need a few more boxes..." The gun barrels look great!

Hey a tip, Don't do a black artist oil wash over anything painted with the silver chrome Tamiya Markers. I just did that to the intake fans, and the Varsol in the thinned down oil paints ate away at the Tamiya silver and I got a mucky mess. Luckily I cleaned it up and plan on sealing it first next time. Hey any takes on different glues - what about you David? Cool pic of that old SU-24 - you're right, you don't really realize its grey until you get a pure white next to it. Hey I didn't know the tailcones on the SR-71 are ceramic and are white, cool, lets see some pictures.

I just love the detail on these afterburners !! I hope you can still see them once the feet are on the legs - a black wash really brings out the effort Hasegawa puts into them. Ok, must leave the model to dry for the time being. I might assemble the landing gears to prep them for a spray of gloss white too. (in case you're wondering why I have time to work on this during the week - my film production went down and I got laid off again so its time to hunt for work again - at least I can devote more time to this baby and update more regularly)

I hand painted the rear interior of the legs black. Then I applied a wash of pure black to the metallic objects. I love the head sculpt - its too bad that you will see almost nothing of it when its buried into the fuselage. Its too bad that there was no clear piece for the top of the head which is supposed to have a red light at the front.

Here's a overall shot - kind of looks a bit retro eh? or cannon fodderish Once the panels are lined and the post-shading applied, the contrast will be less noticeable.

You can see the gloss white landing gear bay behind. Quite a bit easier than painting the white onto the dark blue YF-21 body!

A shot of the white nose cone against the light grey body.

Here's a shot of the masking I did around the edges to separate the gloss white interior from the light grey exterior.

Here's a shot of the white interior which looks good against the light grey exterior of the intakes. You can see the original coat of sky grey inside feathered out to the gloss white - this exaggerates the apparent depth of the intake - kind of like painting a shadow. When the top is glued on, and the actual intake falls into shadow - the effect looks better.

Here's a shot after the white spray on all the parts. Must leave to dry - DO NOT FIDDLE WITH IT! This is my most vunerable time - when I start to paint the different colours, and I loose patience and start to mask and handle the plane before the last coat is completely dry. I can't count how many scratches or finger prints I've had to sand off and re-paint over the years! I always try to do this late at night, so I have to go to sleep to let the paint cure. Or find something to do on another part of the model while the paint cures.

I'd decided it might be nice to spray the radome and flaps in gloss white too like the old Tomcats, plus it will differentiates the greys on the aircraft. Anywhere where I can liven up the straight white/grey paint scheme would be nice without going against canon art.

I've decided to mask the areas that I will spray gloss white.

I'm really liking the design more and more...

Did a dry fit today - I'm pretty happy with the light grey/white colour.

Hmm, I'm not to sure of the spray can - I have used the Tamiya white primer spray, and it goes on great for large areas, but I find the spray cans lay on too much paint and its too hard to control for fine details and small parts. Good to know though. I've been itching to try some of the different glues out there. I've just stuck to my old favourites over the years - for anything that requires strength, I use the Testors regular orange tube stuff. Smaller stuff I use the liquid cement - I've used the same bottle of testors for 6 years now, and finally I had to go out to get a new one - they had a sale on Tamiya (which puts in the same price as the testors) and I got that, don't notice a real difference though. Saw a neat glass tube for precise liquid cement placement, but it was too expensive ($25-30cdn) for now. I'd love to try that MicroWeld or MEK stuff - man, I didn't have so many choices in glues in my day - its really weird to be using the same stuff all the time and then suddenly look up and see all this stuff around you - it makes me feel old Can anyone let me know what their experiences are with these other glues - I'd like to know what to try. Like David, I'd like a little bit of time to precisely place a part (5sec) then have it hold the part or set soon (10sec) - prefereably something that doesn't ooze out the sides and can be very thin/vicous that can be precisely placed. Do they "melt" the plastic, or is it a chemical bond? Hey I'll start a chart with what I use: Name: Type: Play Time: Set Time: Cure Time: Testors Orange Tube Solvent (Thick) 15-20sec 30-60sec 4-8hrs Testors Liquid Cemet Solvent (Thin) 5-10sec 20-40sec 2-6hrs Crazy Glue (regular) CyanoAcrylate 0-5sec 5-10sec 30mins (-this stuff comes in all flavours, thin to thick, fast and slow, with accelerators) 5min Epoxy Epoxy resin 2mins 5mins 6hrs Hey can anyone fill in the rest - participation encouraged Good questions, I'd like to try some new glues next time around. Sorry, noticed that all my careful spacing to make the chart readable is ignored when I post - oh well - I hope you can make heads or tails out of it

Again, there are injector pin holes/depressions on the wheels which needs to be filled in with a few coats of Mr. Surfacer (they were deep) and sanded down. Its wierd that there are so many pin depressions in this kit. I am going to give the bird its first coat of light grey paint today. Its a mix of 50:50 flat white with gloss white with 2-3 drops of sky grey. I'll let you know how it goes.