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Also its just not the horrible screened colours, its the decal film itself. It doesn't react to the traditional Micro SOL or Micro SET decal setting solutions at all. However, it seems to only work with Mr. Hobby SOL decal setting solution, but it doesn't react to a little, then all of a sudden, it cracks and disintegrates when a little too much is applied. They seem brittle and inflexible as compared to other decals.

I agree with Chronocidal 110% - he basically said what I feel exactly... and I've built waaay too many models (including the Bandai 1/72 VF-25F & S)

ARGH! DISASTER STRUCK... Well, I gotta chalk this one up to a learning experience... so close to the end and I f@$k it up. I don't really get it still though. It looks like my varsol thinned oil paint wash reacted with the Alclad metalizer paint somehow. I'm sure I've done an oil wash over Alclad directly before in the past. However I've never built a silver plane before with so much Alclad showing. But I have done an oil wash over Alclad steel for my VF-25 legs and never had this reaction. Firstly, when I go to wipe off the excess oil wash, it didn't come off, it was etched into the silver, then I used a little more varsol (mineral spirits) on my paper towel and it took the oil wash off, but it also took what was underneath off too, right through the Alclad and even though the lacquer black gloss undercoat too! Some we see bare grey plastic showing and some we see the black undercoat showing through. You can see the nose portion where I sprayed Tamiya clear red over the Alclad was perfectly fine. Curiously, the damage seemed to only affect Polished Aluminum and Stainless Steel (unfortunately the majority of what I chose for the fuselage) - the Dark Aluminum and Magnesium seems unaffected. You can see panels I had masked off in the Dark Aluminum and Magnesium to be fine as well as the missiles and wing tank. Another note though, the missile tips and wing tank tips are friction fitted over top of the body, the fit is really tight. What happens is when you put it on, it all looks great, however if you do an oil wash to pick out the details, it often reveals that there are hairline cracks that form on the missile tips (red) or tank caps (yellow) due to the great pressure which isn't seen until the oil wash gets pulled into it. This occurred with my VF-25S armored reaction missile tips as well. That combined with the lacquers I spray reacts with the Bandai plastics and makes them weaker I find. It looks great when you just use the bare plastics since you can't see the hairline cracks, its only if you paint them or do an oil wash. So what I've learned is that not all Alclad metalizers are the same. It seems that Dark Aluminum, Magnesium, Steel and Jet Exhaust are fine to do an artist oil wash over top of directly. However, Polished Aluminum and Stainless Steel (and I would guess Chrome) seem to be much more delicate and would require a clear coat to protect it before any oil wash. It's funny, I was going to clear coat the whole thing this morning when I got the yellow leading edge bits on, but was worried that with the layering of the gloss black undercoat and metalizer plus this new gloss coat (glossy coats are really thick) that I might lose some of the panel details (ironic as Bandai often has such deep trenches!) so I thought I'd do the oil wash directly and seal it in with the gloss coat before decals. Now I know, always seal in the Alclad with a clear coat first (at least the shinier colours) before an oil wash. I don't think its worth my time stripping it all back to the bare plastic to start again. I'll try to buy another kit to start over - I gotta get the 02 one anyways to do build it with the gears extended and folded up.

I would very much like to see build-up threads on this kit when it arrives. Please, whoever is ordering, please take the time to post a thread on your experiences during building and for a little while after the build to see how it holds up. I for one would be very interested.

I never did build one of those P-51 Mustangs or those beautiful F-104 Starfighters - but now I know the love of bare-metal finished planes! Here's she is with four different Alcad colours ranging from Polished Aluminum for the fuselage, to Stainless Steel, Dark Aluminum and Magnesium. There isn't as much difference as I would have thought (easily blended with any weathering). There's a little post-shading I did with Magnesium over the Polished Aluminum. I'll spray the clear red over the nose sections to give that a metallic sheen. I'll mask a few panels to give it a darker sheen on the fuselage and I'm almost ready for decals. I do like how this particular kit has broken out all the colours as separate pieces, now I have to spray all the leading edges yellow. I even liked how ridiculously deep the panel lines are (typical of Bandai) - it helps because I had to spray a thick glossy black undercoat which would of obscured all Hasegawa panel lines! Nice little kit so far...

Thanks Noyhauser, I loved the Academy F-16 kit! Here's my build a few years ago... I was going to get the Academy F-18C kit when the new Hasegawa F-18F kit came out, so I opted for that instead - always a sucker for the skull squadron. Back to anime for the moment, just a small project to hopefully finish by weeks end (before I start a new job!) Nope, its not stealth... its just the glossy undercoat in preparation for the Alclad Polished Aluminum.

Thanks, I guess HLJ doesn't normally carry this eh?

Where online would one recommend Canadians to order from? NY has been my saviour (at a mark up) but if these are easier to get, where should I go instead?

Hey Noyhauser, I'd like to know how you feel about the Academy vs. the Hasegawa F-18s? The Academy new tool F-16 blows the old Hasegawas out of the water - I was very pleasantly surprised.

I saw it with my wife and we both liked it a lot. Great story, its just too bad the CG elements were so obvious - I wished it just used a little bit of old fashioned camera work instead of the flashy CGI - but it was only 2 or 3 instances. Overall, I highly recommend it (I always love bank heist films).

WOW!!! How could I have missed this... finally saw it posted on facebook which is what led me here. I will follow your amazing thread with baited breath. This is simply too awesome, I can't believe the tiny work you can accomplish. I wish you all the luck and smooth sailing till the end of this fantastic project. I can't wait till you tell us how you solved the paint issue with scraping and transformation! It looks so good so far. Keep up the great work! You my friend are my inspiration.

Oooh, that's great, because I love that rendition. I guess the first to go is all the surface cross-hatching... which I guess we can add back in with a mechanical pencil.

Woohoo!!! I've been waiting for that classic Galactica... couldn't afford the Timeslip resin version (plus its always sold out!).

"nails on a chalkboard to my brain" - I can't believe how succinctly you've managed to put how I feel about Bandai's aircraft design WOW! I can't imagine how these plastic armatures/mechanisms are meant to stand up to being handled and transformed. Those Bandai MF valks are such a b*tch to build!

Let me know if you find an extra set for a decent price Thanks.

Thanks, that's really useful. I've got the v1 VF-25F Tornado and saw the missiles accessories around, but thought you had to get a whole other full set. It's the only v1 I own. What would you say it was worth? Is it worth the $120 on ebay or is that just scalping?

Totally agree! (if the plane looks sleeker, I'd go for that over the right number of rivets!)

Hey, I have a v1 tornado without those missiles... I didn't know they were sold separately by themselves (I thought it was another whole kit). Can they still be obtained?

If you look closely, that Jaeger has 3 arms...

+100,000,000 Is that an old tool Amdromeda?

DEFINITELY!

Haha! My thoughts exactly! I'm sooo looking forward to this!!! I hope they do the whole line including the Armored and Tornado. Now what to do with my other un-built Bandai kits...

Yeah, I just hate the way Bandai deals with panel lines. They obviously don't have any understanding that panel lines are the result of piecing together an airframe with various panels, so they should never just go somewhere and end without ending at another seam. Bandai (like many Robot designers... aka Gundam) treats panel lines as a graphic design, something to break up large areas of colour. That's what really bugged me with their Yukikaze models too. With Bandai, you can always count on bad panel lines that go nowhere and fat overly thick landing gears with no tire proportions! Overall this interpretation seems like a step backwards... just goofy and ill-proportioned. Although it might be worth the spare parts to detail up the internals for a Hasegawa kit.

Wow, MacrossJunkie & Lolicon ARE the masters! I bow down to you! Great work on all the toys, it makes me want the ones I never new I wanted now... argh. It's especially hard weathering the dark coloured planes convincingly, but you've done a great job! Have have that Tamiya B kit too, but I found the consistency of the colours to be too hard-like paste, it doesn't pick up much with a brush, it just stays in the container, I have to use the smudge brush to pick up the colour, then it won't lay on the plastic, it just stays on the brush/smudge sponge. Any tips? Fantasic photography BTW MJ! You should do a step by step thread with a photo-spread section at the end, I'd like to know what you're lighting with and is the background just a dark velvet curtain?

YES! Definitely.