1/72 Hasegawa VF-1 + Booster step-by-step...

[wm cheng]

I thought I'd add a little extra detail to this top portion - it looked a little bare...

I just cut some thin styrene sheets into these shapes and glued them down. I then took my pinvise and drilled some small holes in it for detail.

[wm cheng]

I wanted to bulk up the rear valley between the two top boosters a little - I thought it might look better a little beefier when we got closer to those massive engine bells.

For those of you who have the VE-1 Elintseeker Hasegawa kits - you're in for a treat of spare parts after you've finished the kit. These arm armour parts are extras from that kit - since it has a modified piece for that drop down sensor/antenna array. I thought that these pieces were nicely molded, and had a slightly sloped profile that might fit nicely to the boosters with minimal alterations.

I wanted as much surface detail on these boosters to tie them togther with the Hasegawa fast packs, since I wanted them to look part of the same language. I intend to decal them and paint them like the fast packs later on. It seems more consistent in the Macross universe than the white boosters shown in the episode

[wm cheng]

Oh, gawd! what have I done!! I really opened a whole can of worms now...

Under the catagory; "WTF was I thinking..."

I decided to drill out the holes for the Valk's feet on the lower portion of the resin boosters I guess I wasn't paying attention to the instructions of the resin booster kit, but I built the entire feet assembly, all three pieces and painted them. I was thinking that I wanted to have the Valk pretty intact so I may be able to detach them later on... hmm I'm now not so sure it was such a great idea. According to the instructions, you only really need the "shin" of the lower portion of the feet, and I assume everything else is hidden - then you don't need to hollow out the feet holes. Well, I tried to hollow out the feet holes, I didn't realize that there is actually a fair amout of resin that has settled into this area, and I am tring to route out 2-3" thick of resin! I started by drilling smaller pilot holes with a dremel at the four corners. Then I took a larger drill bit and drilled out the centre. Did I say its a lot of resin... to dig out?! I was almost choking with all the dust in the air - then I remembered my mask... hmm, I'm sure fine resin particles isn't great for the lungs either I felt like a dentist, switching to more of a grinding stone bit to try and hollow out the hole - I slipped a few times, so I need to re-build out the opening. But this was much more work than I thought it was going to be (I'd do it as per instructions and leave the resin in and just modify the feet construction to not include the last two pieces next time...) but I'm in for the job now, since I've damaged the opening and I've started and opened this can of worms.

I found it easier later on to also work from the inside hollowing out material - just becareful you don't do too far and create a hole into the body of the lower boosters. The really long and tedious process of finishing the holes with a flat file is what I have to look forward too tonight. The resin is still pretty tough, and my files are pretty fine - so it may take a while, but hopefully when I'm done, the Valkyrie will be removeable .

[Grayson72]

Hmm I was with ya on the styrene sheet detail but the extra arm armor may have been too much.

Sucks about the slipage, I'm sure you can fix it back to perfection though.

[wm cheng]

I added some styrene to reinforce this area so that I can re-sculpt some of the opening profile that I lost when my dremel slipped

I was going to file it down smooth, but I think I'll leave it raised like an attached panel for some interest, maybe add a few revit details to the ends.

Another shot below shows a test fit with the Valkyrie legs.

[wm cheng]

Just couldn't resist fitting everything together to zoom it around the room for a bit!

[wm cheng]

There's this gap here thats been bothering me, its supposed to be there, but it just seems a bit big with nothing inside.

I'm not sure yet, but either I'd fill it with machinery gak or close it up, or maybe I'll just leave it alone. I want to get to the painting stage first...

When the Valk is removeable, I think I can always come back to address this portion later on. Plus with the entire thing finished it might not be so bad.

You can see the clear tip at the end of the resin piece where it meets the Valkyrie - I started hunting for all these little broken bits or bits with bubbles in it and started filling them in to sand them prepping the boosters for priming today.

[Ido]

I was going to file it down smooth, but I think I'll leave it raised like an attached panel for some interest, maybe add a few revit details to the ends.

Looks like a good Idea, the whole thing has a nice look.

[wm cheng]

I then went over the boosters with Mr. Surfacer 1000 looking for any small imperfections, bubbles or details I didn't want. To the Captn's credit, he included some fine details on the boosters that will match nicely to the Hasegawa kit, but there were two details that I am choosing to omit, the "refueling hatches" on one underside of the booster and some diagonal ladder designs which did not cast well.

I also decided to make something of that main lateral line separating the two halves, instead of trying to sand it smooth to mate both the top and bottom halves, I thought I give these edges a bit of a chamfer (sanded the edges at a 45 degree in) so when they mate, it will form a V-groove - hiding the slight mis-match of the top and bottom curvatures and creating an additional detail line latterally across (which will form the top part of the black line on the lineart).

[wm cheng]

Thanks to the Captn' so much - I just recieved his replacement for my "squishy" engine bell!! Yay! Boy, this one is fantastic, there's only one seam!! and its really minor, the resin is easy to sand, and all of the little four fins are intact and flawless!! Wow, as you can see, it only took a little sanding, and its done! I'd painted a stripe of Mr. Surfacer 1000 to be sanded away just to be sure. I will prime this along with the boosters this afternoon.

[wm cheng]

I'm gluing in the fine metal mesh from the inside, be very careful that the crazy glue you use is fairly thick, otherwise, the thin stuff tends to run into the fine mesh and clogs up the holes.

Once the mesh is in, I also crazy glued the completed bulkheads with the engine detail - I must admit, I went a little overboard here with the details, you see the details (more so in person than these photos show) but not as much as the effort I put into them ) Oh, well - maybe a more transparent mesh, but then the scale might be too big, if the openings are larger.

I also painted the interior of the bottom portion of the booster, just so that when you look into the feet holes, it appears black and dark, and just incase you see through the mesh, I don't want any resin peeking through.

[wm cheng]

I crazy glued the halves together. You need to file down a bit of the mating surfaces to get a nice flush fit. The main lateral seem worked out well as a detail line. I just couldn't resist piecing it all together.

[wm cheng]

I added a few strips of styrene to represent some of the lines on the lineart of the boosters.

I also gave the overall booster a bit of final sanding. I drew in pencil the size of the Macross Kite (from a 1/48 decal set that Anasazi made for the Yamato Fast packs - which I think is pretty perfect in terms of size) which came out to 15/16" (0.9375") or 23.812mm to get an approx. idea

[wm cheng]

I drew this circle so I can place putty to eliminate the main lateral seam at where the Macross Kite symbol will be.

I put tape at the two ends, and filled it with Tamiya putty, we'll see if this holds onto the resin - if not, I'll resort back to crazy glue again.

[wm cheng]

I then cut little strips of Tamiya masking tape and filled in the meshed portions. I will paint liquid masking fluid around the tape to get a nice seal between the mesh and the resin struts. The masking tape just allows the masking fluid to be removed easily afterwards and prevents the fluid from "soaking" through the mesh to the other side too much. Since I also want the black sides to the resin struts, I thought this was the only way to preserve it while I painted the rest of the booster.

[wm cheng]

Ok, I think I need some help here with the liquid mask...

This booster just doesn't want to be primed... I let the liquid mask dry overnight so that I could get a fresh start to the priming today, but I found the liquid mask to have all dried, cracked and peeled. I don't get it. I usually use Microscale MicroMask liquid masking, but my bottle is like 8yrs old, and the medium has turned to jelly-like consistency - I couldn't get it to thin with water, it just broke up into little chunks, so went out and bought Mr. Hobby Mr. Masking SOL (thinking if its from Japan, it must be better! ) - this was last year, and I've haven't used this new stuff since (but how different can it be?). Well, its also a thick goopy mess, so I thinned it down with water (is that right?) to a paintable consistency (at least the Mr. Masking seems to thin down - but a lot of bubbles formed).

Should I have not thinned it down with water? But it was too thick to apply. What should I use to thin down masking liquid? What masking liquid do you guys use or recommend? Have you seen this happen to liquid mask before?

[wm cheng]

I gooped some into the rear engine ports since I want the crazy glue to actually adhere to the resin instead of paint on the resin after I've painted the booster - I'm a little wary of this small connection point since the engine bells are a little on the heavy side. I may have to pin it later on, but I hope not, since I might want to play with the placement of the engine bells, maybe splay them out a bit more.

I just mixed up another batch of the Mr. Masking SOL and gooped it onto the pre-existing cracking surface, hoping that this batch would tie all the previous batch together so they pull out in one losenge shaped chunk after painting. Wish me luck. I'll have to sand those puttied areas down when the masking liquid dries, I just don't want to get a bunch of sanding/putty dust into the wet liquid. Cross your fingers and wish me luck...

Off to finish the seam on the Valkyrie's canopy...

[Grayson72]

I gooped some into the rear engine ports since I want the crazy glue to actually adhere to the resin instead of paint on the resin after I've painted the booster - I'm a little wary of this small connection point since the engine bells are a little on the heavy side.  I may have to pin it later on, but I hope not, since I might want to play with the placement of the engine bells, maybe splay them out a bit more.

I just mixed up another batch of the Mr. Masking SOL and gooped it onto the pre-existing cracking surface, hoping that this batch would tie all the previous batch together so they pull out in one losenge shaped chunk after painting.  Wish me luck.  I'll have to sand those puttied areas down when the masking liquid dries, I just don't want to get a bunch of sanding/putty dust into the wet liquid.  Cross your fingers and wish me luck...

Off to finish the seam on the Valkyrie's canopy...

334527[/snapback]

Are you gonna be able to get that stuff oughta there? That's one of the reasons on don't like liquid mask at all.

[wm cheng]

A final test fitting before priming...

Hmm, the liquid mask cracked again, but I thought, there was so much in there, that the chance of the several layers of crack being on top of each other allowing the paint down through to the mesh to be highly improbable. I want to chance it and prime the sucker

Starting to get excited about the upcomming steps...

[Berttt]

Nice work so far WM.

I am hoping to get mine primed this weekend now that I have most of the mods that I wanted done.

Man I haven't been this motivated to finish model in a long time! Thanks man.

Cheers,

Berttt

[wm cheng]

I hope I can get all the liquid mask outta there - its mostly sitting on those thin strips I cut out of Tamiya masking tape anyways.

You can see the crackling more with the primer on it. I'm thinking I will go out to get more liquid mask tomorrow and re-apply over this just to be sure. In the meantime, any recommendations of types of liquid mask? Is there a way to thin Microscale Mask?

[wm cheng]

It's been so long since I airbrushed (over a year! ) And I made a real stupid mistake - I airbrushed at too high a pressure.

Sometimes you get a really rough surface with flat paints or primer - its because the pressure is too high, and the particles are drying before they hit the surface, and starts to build up a finish like sandpaper or fine hairs. It takes a bit of practice getting back into the flow of airbrushing, and pressure is a finess thing. I forgot that the primer required a much lower spray pressure. I am using the pre-mixed AlcladII primer - I love this stuff. But it uses 12-15psi, and I left my compressor on 20-25psi for Tamiya acrylics.

Oh, well, nasty lesson - but its not too bad, it forces me to perform a step I usually am too lazy to do anyways. You should polish the primer with 800grit sandpaper anyways regardless of finish, it creates a much smoother base for the paint. Now I have to sand down the roughness on the areas where I sprayed the primer at too high of a pressure - luckily and sands down easily, and creates a really nice surface without having to re-prime it.

[wm cheng]

Hey Brett, lets see your stuff... what mods?

The rest of the priming went really well, and the sanding/polishing worked well to save the rough areas.

Luckily a quarter of each of the engine bells is mostly hidden (portion which faces each other towards the center) so I can mark off which side of the bells are not perfect and face those inwards.

I'm going to let it sit until I can get some masking fluid tomorrow. I have to work on getting rid of the seam on the canopy next, and start priming and painting the Valkyrie legs next.

However, since its the long Thanksgiving weekend up here in Canada, I don't think I'll get much more done till next Tuesday (or my wife will kill me )

I want to see what Brett's done...

[IIymij]

just wanna say awesome work as usual!!! GO WM~! I can't wait til you finish this one, I think your YF-21 that you made looks so dang good!~

[Ido]

Oh, well, nasty lesson - but its not too bad, dry.gif it forces me to perform a step I usually am too lazy to do anyways. You should polish the primer with 800grit sandpaper anyways regardless of finish, it creates a much smoother base for the paint. Now I have to sand down the roughness on the areas where I sprayed the primer at too high of a pressure - luckily and sands down easily, and creates a really nice surface without having to re-prime it.

OMG!

From the look of surface I suppose mr. retarder mild (or any other lacquer retarder like floquil) should help a lot in leaving a smooth surface, I had that grainy look when I airbrushed mr. surfacer 1000 with normal mr.color thinner.

I suggest to always use mr. retarder thinner or normal thinner with retarder for lacquers as they dry too fast generally, in fact I use mr.surfacer 1000 and 1200 only with mr. retarder thinner and the surface is always perfectly smooth.

Hope this help

Edited October 7, 2005 by Ido

[Berttt]

I had a chance to finish up some prep and prime the main parts on the weekend, although a couple of areas still need attention.

I added some ribbing between the two engine humps, and now that the primer is on I'll scibe some rivets and such on there. Same with the ngine bells wehre I made some collars to hide the join to the engine mount, as my mounts were full of holes and I got lazy.

[Mule]

I like the ribbing. Subtle, but very effective.

Dualing boosters... this thread is getting good

Edited October 10, 2005 by Mule

[wm cheng]

Thanks for the kudos everybody - I like the feedback... Sorry for the delay... I've been sick the past week with a cough - hopefully I'll get better...

Great to see your stuff Brett! I really like your details.

I was going to weather and detail both the booster and Valkyrie at the same time using the same materials - so I have to get my Valkyrie now up to the same primed state as the boosters.

I realized I hadn't sealed the cockpit in yet, so I have to work on getting rid of the seam on the canopy. As most of you know by now, there is a seam running up the middle on the outside (thank god!) of the canopy which was a process of a 3 part mold which allows the canopy profile to bubble out realistcally like modern fighters. I'll briefly outline the steps involved...

Always be gentle here, the clear plastic is much more brittle than the styrene and won't stand up to too much pressure (I always try to hold it from behind with my fingers supporting the underside of the bubbled canopy). Its always better to undersand (you can keep going if need be) than to sand too deeply and scratch the canopy too much (just more finishing/polishing work later on).

1. Clear canopy with seam

2. Lightly sand with 800 grit (careful to just sand the seam portion)

3. It looks horrible now... but its gotta get worst before it gets better - now move up to 1200 grit and sand a little bit more (in a larger area)

4. Finally, I move up to 2000 grit and sand in an even larger area (careful to always overlap the sanding areas with a finer grit film)

It should look uniformly foggy at this point with no visible swirls or lines. I usually double check the work by dipping it into water from the underside, the part where the water touches should appear absolutely clear (if not, even future won't hide the scratches).

Edited October 14, 2005 by wm cheng

[wm cheng]

5. Some people skip the next step and jump right to coating it with future floor polish at this point - but I add another step here. I use Tamiya rubbing compound (kind of like toothpaste) and polish out the fogginess in the canopy. I usually use a piece of cloth (preferably lint-free) or paper towel and polish the entire canopy. I do this even on canopies that have no seam (or requires no work), it gives a shinier more polycarbonate like appearance and makes the canopy appear "brighter"

6. Lastly, I dip the entire thing into future floor polish. Make sure that you are in a relatively clean and lint-free room (which is near impossible for my basement work area - but I do this before I sand or airbrush for the day). Make sure there are no air bubbles trapped - keep dipping it back in if there are imperfections on the surface (worst case - you can strip it with windex and try again - I think its the amonia that strips it off).

I usually hang it to dry at an angle so that the excess Future builds up in one corner and I would occassionally dab that corner with a paper towel to soak up the excess. You don't want a bubble of excess future to gather at the corners, they turn milky over time.

I usually put my work lights on it to help speed up the future curing. And no sanding or airbrushing while the canopy is drying (in fact I leave the room all together to stop debris from being kicked up into the air)

Edited October 14, 2005 by wm cheng

[Spatula]

Wm cheng, I am thoroughly impressed by your skill in making these valkyries.

I'm just starting out myself and your latest posts about the canopy relieved my fears that I scratched it with my 1500+ sandpaper. Well it does have quite a few scratch marks along the seem but I want to get that foggy look at first, do you just keep scrubbing away with the 1500+ then build up?

I hope the stuff I'm using is actaully 1500 because I'm not really sure, the paper doesn't say anything of what grit it is.

Also, is future floor absolutely required? I've never seen that in any of my stores like wal mart etc.

So to get the foggyness off you just use some paste? Can regular toothpaste work to get the foggyness off? I'm not quite too sure here. Thanks for your reply in advance, !

Edited October 17, 2005 by Spatula

[Stamen0083]

You might want to verify that the sandpaper you're using is indeed 1500 grit. 1500 grit feels almost like a piece of paper's surface. There should be no grain.

Toothpaste is much too fine to be used as a polishing compound. It's non abrasive. Polishing compound is essentially really fine sandpaper grit suspended in a paste. You should be able to find it at any hardware or car parts store. Look for polishing compound or polishing paste. I personally recommend hunting down Tamiya's paste since it was specifically designed for plastic models.

William, stunning work as always. Love the mesh details.

[Spatula]

Cheng, I totally don't mean to steal this thread, but since you're on canopy polishing and such:

Egad, so I tried your way of working up to 1500 and 2000. I hope I sanded it correctly...

I am 100%sure I'm using 1500 plus since it has this giant 1500 on the back of the paper, and I think that's what it said on the package before I threw it out. >_>

The problem is, I don't have any future, and I've never seen any in my life. Are there any other alternatives that I could use? When I did your step five, it seemed to work as the toothpaste (yes I used toothpaste because that's all I had at the moment), seemed to get some of the scratch marks away, but made it more foggier.

So I tried to rinse with water perhaps to rid of the paste and then applied some simple green and windex. No go, the scratch marks still show up, but it looks better than before with all the major scratch marks from sanding without toothpaste.

What should I do now?

Also, is there a possibility that I could over sand and actually break through it? That's what I'm afraid of the most if I do have to resand it. How common is this to occur?

[David Hingtgen]

I almost never go through the whole polishing/Futuring steps for canopies. I also don't use like 10 different grits. Simply sanding and buffing with a few grits will result in a quite shiny canopy in a few minutes. Yes, doing every step will result in a better canopy, but IMHO few canopies are worth the effort, especially in 1/72 scale. I'd only polish for like 1/32 scale.

Anyways, the Squadron 3-grit polishing sanding stick is what I use, from start to finish. Removing canopy seams, cleaning up sprue attachment points, etc. Start with black, then go to white, then buff with the tan side.

http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=SQ30505

If nothing else, it'll do a "quite good job" quickly, and then you can move on to very fine polishing compounds and Future.

Alternatives to Future? Check here: http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html

Edited October 18, 2005 by David Hingtgen

[Grayson72]

I almost never go through the whole polishing/Futuring steps for canopies. I also don't use like 10 different grits.  Simply sanding and buffing with a few grits will result in a quite shiny canopy in a few minutes.  Yes, doing every step will result in a better canopy, but IMHO few canopies are worth the effort, especially in 1/72 scale.  I'd only polish for like 1/32 scale. 

337480[/snapback]

Yup agree with ya, I use like two grits, actually polish with a T-shirt (takes awhile) and then a dunk in Future and I'm done.

[Lo-pan]

I'll use Novus Plastic Polish #3 and #2 before I hit a canopy with Future.