1/72 Hasegawa YF-21 Step-by-step...

[Less than Super Ostrich]

I know this guy who did the model... his name is Terry and he is a really nice guy. I really liked his tips for using Epoxy instead of the clear parts. Good recommendation on the decals too! But you are right... probably needs a semi-gloss to make it come alive. Or like WMCheng likes to do... mix the semi-gloss and flats on different parts of the aircraft.

Go Cats. Beat OSU.

[Grayson72]

,...the starship one looks very...hmmm...flat? Maybe a semigloss instead....or more panel shading...I dont know...it's clean...but "flat"...

I like the flat, in real life if you were standing far enough away that the plane looked that size, you probably wouldn't see any shine. Looks more real to me.

[wm cheng]

Yes, that step by step is very interesting - thanks for bringing that up - I always like to be warned. It is true that this kit is definitely not engineered like the other Hasegawa kits - the fit is indeed poorer. THere are more places to putty, and all those areas that he had pointed out are areas I have to fill. I won't get to it till Monday - the weekends are off limits for now

I plan on doing a paint scheme like the one in the magazine scan below with differing shades of blue and finishes. I'll let you know how the fit goes later on - I'll only know after my first coats of primer.

[recon]

Woah, Wmcheng, that paint scheme is going to involve alot of masking work, from what i can see there are 3 to 4 different shades of tones and colors. For you im sure it aint a problem.

Cheers

Edited September 27, 2003 by recon

[jbxman]

I hope the YF-21 kit is close to the VF-22.

[Capt Hungry]

Since this seems timely to me, what with Master Cheng's build up, here is another take on building the YF-21:

YF-21 Buildup at Starship Modeler

The fellow who built the model has some good and bad to say about Hasegawa's model.

I think Master Cheng should send some of his completed photos to Starship Modeler to share with that community.

William's YF-21 should look way better than that one hands down!

I have no doubts that Master Cheng's will eclipse the other. But I agree that the paint

scheme seemed a little flat. I look forward to Master Cheng's finished product!

B)

[wm cheng]

Okay, that article has me all nervous now. So I've really scrutinized a lot of joints and decided to go safe and fill everything you see here. Sometimes I don't think a joint is necessarily a bad thing, it shows how the aircraft was put together and especially in transforming mecha, it shows that certain parts to move around. As long as the joint is purposeful, according to line art, and rendered correctly, with no unsightly or uneven gaps. So I decided to heed the other articles advice, you can only improve the model, the only loss is that there might be extra sanding involved - hey these might be problem areas anyways that will show up after a priming coat.

[wm cheng]

Here I have sanded away most of the excess Mr. Surfacer. These Hasegawa kits fits generally good enough with just the Mr. Surfacer, I hardly ever have to use putty (none on this kit yet). Becareful since the plastic is quite soft and the engraved details are very fine, I find that I did lose some after sanding. But as you can see what is left of the Mr. Surfacer, there aren't really too many gaps.

[wm cheng]

Another shot of some minor filling. Obviously that guy never built an ERTL/AMT kit Gawd they are awful!! I scrubbed this baby (old toothbrush) with dish detergent after the sanding to get all the loose grit away and its drying now awaiting its first coat of primer. After reading that article, I did take a closer look at the wing tip lights, and they appear a bit small - at least smaller than the scribed outlines on the wing. So I decide to error on the safe side and cut them smaller than the scribed lines on the wings. I was thinking that after I paint this sucker, and when I am ready to mount the lights, I can file down the wing tips to match perfectly the size of the supplied clear pieces.

[wm cheng]

As mentioned this was the only major touble spot that I could be worried with. I don't know whether its designed poorly, or I just glued it down a little too low (I personally think its probably my fault ) but there is a bit of a transition problem from the fuselage section to the bulge flaring. I've built up this area with Mr. Surfacer, so only the primer will tell if this works. IF it works out fine, I will drill out the "gun" ports with a pin vise - I don't want to drill them out if there is any further sanding to be done in this area - since once hollowed out, they will be more delicate. Becareful, you can see the stress marks on the tabs that hold the rear rudder/stabilizers on already.

[wm cheng]

You see, this side seems okay.

[Gerwalker]

William,

I think that the different blue shades and diff. glossiness (sp?) is the way to go with this plane. It has big flat surfaces that need some life on them (the starshipmodeler's YF-21 is a proof of that, nice model but has no life: all the fine details are lost in that blue and clean desert.... ) It would be a hell to paint it that way but you already did an awsome work with the Mave and this time the sucker is bigger, so gooooood luck (my YF-21 is still in it's box waiting for your tips and holy guidance )

BTW: considering that the YF-21 was based on the real life YF-23 the overall dark grey YF-23 would serve as a good guide for paneling details. Look at the clear grey at the panel lines an the different shades of grey!!:

[Less than Super Ostrich]

who made that real-life YF-23? That isn't the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter, is it?

[Mule]

who made that real-life YF-23? That isn't the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter, is it?

That is one of the Northrup-Grumman / McDonnel Douglas YF-23 prototypes. It lost out to the Lockheed-Martin / Boeing YF-22 which went on to become the F-22 Raptor. Here is a link with more info on it.

Edited September 29, 2003 by Mule

[wm cheng]

Thanks Gerwalker, thats an excellent reference! I'll definitely use it, although a little less weathered, it is a demonstrator after all

Well here's the primer coat to see all the missed areas. At first glance its not all that bad.

[wm cheng]

The lines are starting to come together now...

[wm cheng]

You can see here that problem area still has a slight blemish, I'll have to re-paint with Mr. Surfacer and re-sand this one - you also notice on the round portion the primer looks kind of like felt (extremely magnified though). I am not sure what happened, but it sometimes happens to me when I don't have the air pressure set properly for the type of paint I am using. I will generally rub this down with 1200-1500 grit sandpaper. Its annoying though - does anyone know exactly what causes this? I suspect that I am using too high a pressure and the paint is drying before it actually hits the surface - its seems to go away when I lowered the pressure. For this primer, I am spraying at 15-10psi - its that Alclad pre-mixed primer.

[wm cheng]

This wierd joint area seemed to be fine.

[wm cheng]

This wing root area definitely needs more Mr. Surfacer, this should be perfect, since it is close to the front and will be in a high profile area likely to be seen quite a lot. Once again, more Mr. Surfacer and sanding to come

[wm cheng]

This was one of the articles problem areas, which I don't think turned out too bad. I am going to leave those hints of separation and paint it as a panel demarkation line with a little weathering it will liven an otherwise smooth plane.

[Mule]

Thanks Gerwalker, thats an excellent reference!  I'll definitely use it, although a little less weathered, it is a demonstrator after all 

The YF-23 was just a demonstrator too.

Edited September 29, 2003 by Mule

[David Hingtgen]

For shame, confusing the ultra-gorgeous F-23 ATF and the "fugly, but not as fugly as the F-32" F-35 JSF.

This is the 2nd YF-23, The Grey Ghost. Fastest of all ATF's---on its first flight, it outaccelerated (in normal power) an F-16 on afterburner--and the F-16 is the fastest-accelerating plane there is. 2nd YF-23 is at least .2 to .4 Mach faster than the 1st YF-23, which are both faster than any F-22. 2nd YF-23's top speed is still classified, it's SUPERCRUISE is believed to be Mach 1.8. Max speed estimated as high as Mach 3, for it's sleek enough and powerful enough to do it, it's just the intakes couldn't handle it. So it's probably limited to 2.1 or 2.2 purely due to intake reasons.

Edited September 30, 2003 by David Hingtgen

[Lightning]

so what if they redid the intakes??

[Chronocidal]

I still love that design.. I'm holding my breath that they'll pull a "Cobra" maneuver (in a different way) and revamp the F-23 to be a carrier based fighter... they could do it. It's not any bigger than a tomcat, I'm guessing... it's shorter too.. shoot, the tomcat's old, as much as I love it, what better to replace it than the F-23? They'd have to adapt it to work as an interceptor, but it could probably be done...

[David Hingtgen]

1. Redo the intakes, and you're talking AT LEAST 2.5, probably 2.7 to 2.8. 3 is pushing it, but possible. (Those engines are 12 years old now---the newest F120's could probably do even more) Heat is by far the main factor at 2.5+. (It's pretty much a big factor from 2.0+, but really kicks in at 2.2/2.3--you'll see few planes go much past Mach 2.2)

2. YF-23 is very large. It's actually 5 feet longer than a Tomcat. Wingspan is less than a Tomcat's unswept span of course. Only 3 feet shorter, even with the fins canted outwards like that--if they were straight up like a Tomcat's, it'd be several feet taller. Empty weight a lot less than a Tomcat, but mainly due to being newer (lightweight materials). Loaded weights are only a bit less than a Tomcat. It's a big plane (part of the reason given for losing the competition--it wouldn't fit in your standard USAF F-15-designed hangar--but the F-22 was small enough to do so, even if barely)

[Myersjessee]

Great work WM...thanks! Im curious...Mr Surfacer...coudl you take a little time (when you have some) and provde a more detailed description of how you appy it? Im only used putty (till now) so this intrigues me.

Thanks!!!

Jesse

[Gerwalker]

Thanks Gerwalker, thats an excellent reference!  I'll definitely use it, although a little less weathered, it is a demonstrator after all 

The YF-23 was just a demonstrator too.

It was a demonstrator!! But they used a paint that intended for an operational fighter... I Guess that at the time the YF-21 was tested paint technology was much better...

William, there is a bunch of pics from the YF-23 that are very useful as references, just google for YF-23 pics.

It seems like this kit has a lot of seams to fill so I feel like I will wait to star building it.

[Jawjaw]

Nice work as always, cheng. Am I the only one that thinks the yf-21 looks awesome with a clear canopy? I think one of the reasons I did not care for the yf-21 in the past was because of the painted canopy.

[wm cheng]

Mr. Surfacer is essentially a really thick paint. I just paint/dab it on with a fine small brush (one that you don't really care about - since its not kind on your brushes - it will eventualy loose its point) in the problem areas. If its a seam, I try to push the Mr. Surfacer into the crack and fill it. Then I would sand the excess around the crack away usually with a 600 grit and maybe working my way up to 1200 before I paint. I have also put Mr. Surfacer on after I primed in the problem areas as well, here you have to be careful that when you sand, you are trying to only sand away the Mr. Surfacer and leave the surrounding primed plastic if possible (I always sand away some primer near it - so its important to get 1200 grit to feather the primer so that there aren't any ridges or steps where the primer has been sanded away). This is why a very thin coat of primer is best, I use it only to see where the mistakes/problems will be before I paint - and in some cases, bring the colour from a dark blue to a more neutral base before painting.

I mixed a pleasing blue, that I feel is not too screaming blue a bit more military in tone as my base under coat. I can't even begin to tell you what ratios are in it, since I started with a little and kept adding till I got the right shade. However, I did start with a base of X4 Blue, then mixed in XF18 Medium Blue, with XF53 Neutral Grey, XF24 Dark Grey and XF1 Flat Black (but mostly X4 Blue with some flat base mixed in). All colours I use are Tamiya Acrylic Paints except for the clear coats.

[wm cheng]

I am actually really happy with the way all the seams turned out - the fill job was pretty good (if I do say so myself ). Actually, yes there are some seams, maybe more than we would expect from a top notch company like Hasegawa, but certainly less than most model companies out there (anybody ever built "Airwolf" from AMT/ERTL - I think there were more gaps than plastic in that kit, its amazing it held together ). It may seem like I filled a lot of seams, but it wasn't a big deal, I usually spend a day or two sanding all the Valkyries I have built. I was just a bit more careful on this one and outlined some of the seams because I read that other article that was suggested on the Starship modelling site. The leg seam on the VF-1 sucked too or the YF-19 for that matter. I still think that this has been the easiest Valk from Hasegawa to date - lots of big pieces However, I haven't tried to fit the wing tip lights yet nor the canopy decals - so knock on wood

I wish there was more articulation on the lower surfaces.

[wm cheng]

Here are a couple of seams that I think turned out okay after painting. I will separate a different shade at the filled break - I think its fine to have this separation, I suppose some could majorly fill it and feather it back to look like one piece, but I think the YF-21 already looks like too many big pieces IMHO.

[wm cheng]

Here's that crucial joint that didn't turn out so great when I primed it, but after another coat of Mr. Surfacer and sanding, then the layer of blue paint, it is pretty seamless now.

[wm cheng]

This other problem area where the bulge joints the engines is also fixed with another coat of Mr. Surfacer, I used that Tamiya Tritool scribber to restore those panel lines and I drilled out the "laser" ports. Actually I take back what I said about drilling these out after I sanded this area. I can't really reach the front laser port because the fuselage of the YF-21 is in the way or my pin vise is just too fat - so I would recommend drilling them out before hand then installing them into this bulged housing.

Its off to masking for that panelled effect now.

Edited September 30, 2003 by wm cheng

[Capt Hungry]

Okay, that article has me all nervous now. 

My first thought seeing that comment was "Oh great. Now I've messed with Master Cheng's karma!"

Upon further reading of this thread, I guess(?) it was a good thing that you read that article?

Looking good thus far!

[Gerwalker]

William, now that you mentioned the transparent parts fitting issue: I don't really know how well do they fit but the recomendation of the author of the Starshipmodeler's YF-21 to replace them with epoxy resin (he did the same with his VF-1D too) doesn't sounds good to me. It seems to be a good idea but based in my own experience with clear epoxy resins I've found that they tend to yellow with time. I've found yellowing (even turning brown) with both Araldite slow curing epoxy liquid resin (bought at a resin and plastic shop) and with the common two parts 5 min. clear epoxy cement. I have not tested all the clear epoxies in the world but I'm convinced that yellowing is very likely with this type of resins. My two (parts) cents.