VF-0S Build-up

[Valkyrie]

Well, I meant to do it from the beginning, but I didn't do much about it. Most of the stuff I did at the beginning didn't seem very noteworthy, so I didn't bother taking pics. But then I neglected to take pics of some parts of the build that are certianly worth mentioning.

But hopefully, that'll end now. I started taking progress pics yesterday, and from here on, I'll do my best to get all the highlights on film (or rather, SmartMedia card).

Thanks go out to WM Cheng for helping me get off my ass and start this (he asked me to. How could I say no to him after all he's done? )

Anyway, there'll be some rather large gaps leading up to my current progress, but I'll try and get you all up to speed as I go along.

And I must apologise in advance for the poor pics. My camera isn't all that great

First and foremost, I should mention that I started taking these pictures are a rather significant turning point. Until then, I had been priming with Mr Surfacer 1000 and Alclad primer (both of which are gray). They gave me the nice, thin, smooth finish I was after. And I was happy. Until it came time to spray on the primary body color.

Hasegawa calls for Gunze Sangyo's Mr Color #311 for the VF-0S's primary color (though I'm actually using Gunze's acrylic version of the same color). It's a very pale gray. It's almost white. It'll look white in most of these pics. This posed a problem I had only partly foreseen.

I realised that it would take a lot of coats of paint to cover the gray primer with a lighter color. Just like how it's hard to paint white over gray primer. What I had NOT foreseen was exactly how much of the paint it would take to cover the primer completely. I emptied half a bottle of the stuff into the fuselage halves and the arms before I thought I was done. But I couldn't tell if the color I had gotten was the true color of the paint.

So I tried a little experiment. I took a can of Mr Surfacer White spray primer (I have about 1/4 can of the stuff left) and sprayed a little on a scrap piece of sheet styrene. Then I sprayed the #311 gray onto it. I got the true color of the paint on the styrene in just a couple light coats. And sure enough, it was much lighter then what I had on the VF-0 parts.

It was taking waaaay too much paint to cover the gray. Something had to be done.

I consulted with WM Cheng, and being the wealth of knowledge that he is, he gave me the idea that I needed to overcome the problem. He mentioned that sometimes when he's building a mostly white model, he won't use primer. And that gave me an idea that I should have thought of from the beginning.

Most flat paints can make decent primers on thier own. As long as you start out with a few REAL thin coats, they'll adhere to the plastic well enough to be both the basecoat AND the topcoat. I'm sure real primer would probably stick better than just a flat acrylic, but it works in a pinch. And I was definitely in a pinch.

And so, after a few successful experiments, I started stripping the primer off the parts I intended to work on first. I used Mr. Thinner and ELO to strip them.

Mr. Thinner is a laquer thinner made for Mr. Color paints, and it's good stuff, in that it won't eat plastic (unless maybe if you leave it on for way too long). ELO works good too, but you don't want to soak parts in it either. It can make plastics brittle if they soak in it for too long. Also don't use ELO on assembled parts that might have seems it can seep inside. ELO, for all intents and purposes, never evaporates. And so if some ELO is lying dormant insode a part, and some manages to seep out after you've re-painted, it'll ruin your paint job.

Ok, here's one of the wings after being stripped. You can see the rectangular 'plug' in the middle of it.

The fit of the plug was fairly poor. It didn't sit flush with the surface of the wing, and there was a gap all around it. I used some epoxy putty, thinned down with alcohol to shim it up, bring it as flush as possible, and also to fill in the gaps. I pushed the plug up to one corner, so two of the seam lines are as small as possible, leaving the larger gap on the other two lines. I filled those gaps with epoxy putty.

I wet down the surface with alcohol and rubbed the seams down with my finger to make it as flush as possible. But then a lot of the panel lines and rivet holes were filled with putty (which I expected). So I used the tools pictures to dig it all out.

They're Hasegawa's Tritool 'Scribing Tool' and 'Line Engraver'. Two excelent tools. Go buy em.

http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?HSGTT-1

http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?HSGTT-11

Those worked well for the panel lines, but not as well as I had hoped on the rivets. So I machined a quick tool on my bench lathe out of aluminum to do the job.

It worked pretty well, i think. I hope.

But it was small and unweildy, and the point wasn't as good as I had hoped. So a couple hour later, I machined Rivet Maker Mk. 2

Better point, longer handle, feels almost like a pencil. I like it

Some experimenting is in order, but I may just have to use them on the feet...

Here's two of the four parts I've finished so far that have semi-final painting done to them. But if you look close, you can see that the rivet holes, which were initially very light on the sides, are VERY light in some spots. The little bit of sanding I did on them was too much

So I may see if I can emboss some better rivets in them, so I can bring them out with a wash. But that will mean destroying my nice paint job

Alclad works its magic once again.

The manual calls for steel on the outside, and burnt iron on the inside. I had steel Alclad, and I figured Alclad's Jet Exhaust would be a perfect choice for the inside. I rather like the results.

Here's a part that's not coming out as well as I had hoped... It's the lower part of the fuselage.

Like the VF-1, this part originall had those big 'trenches' on the sides. The VF-1 came with a cover for part of them. The VF-0 does not. So I filled them up with MoriMori putty.

But that presents a painting problem now that the gray primer is gone. It has to be made white before I can spray on the topcoat. So I need white primer...

I still had that 1/4 can of white mr surfacer spray primer, but I wanted to airbrush with it. So I just sprayed it into a bottle. I had to add a little thinner, but after that, I was good to go.

But it's not working quite as well as I had hoped. It's taking a lot of it to cover up the yellow putty. Plus, I forgot that I also used some brushed on mr surfacer as filler. And now that it's stripped, those gaps are back. So I may have to strip it down again.

Same with these parts. The landing gear bays and doors. Both had ejector pin impressions in them that I filled with MoriMori then sanded smooth. But I also used mr surfacer at the end to fill in some gaps that remained. And now that I have to strip them, that'll be gone.

I've gotta paint all of them pure white, by the way.

Here's my progress on the nose. I painted the cockpit walls gray (the final color) along with the cockpit tub and seat (forgot to get a pic of them). I'm planning on finishing the cockpit and inside of the fuselage soon, so I can paint the nose and fusealage after they're assembled. It should make it easier to elimate seams.

This is planning ahead a lot (the legs will probably be the last things I build), but it's a feature I wanted to include from the beginning. I've fitted some small rare earth magnets in the legs and FAST packs so they'll be removable when the kit's complete. The magnets are small, and there's a gap between them, so the attraction is rather weak. It's just enough to hold them in place, which is what I wanted.

And here's the fast pack attached to the leg.

Well, that's about all I got for now. I'll be back with more tomorrow.

I'll leave you now with one last pic I took, of my workshop. It's messy, but it's been a lot worse. There's a lot of my resin casting stuff in there too. And yes, (almost) everything in there serves a purpose. Even the toaster oven

Big-ass workshop pic

[dyowelb]

valkyrie keep us posted..

thanks

d

[Less than Super Ostrich]

nice! thanks for the tips with the magnets.

[wm cheng]

Nice build up so far Valkyrie (I am vicariouly living through you until this kit comes to Canada!) I am actually off from work for the time being, so I can start one of these babies - but I lack the kit for the time being.

Great work, keep it up!

What is ELO? or Mori mori?

[Angel's Fury]

Thanks. Keep us posted.

[Valkyrie]

Easy Lift-Off (ELO) is a domesticly available model paint and decal stripper, made by Poly S Scale

http://www.ehobbies.com/1001-9421.html

And MoriMori is a japanese polyester putty. It's a lot like Bondo, except it doesn't suck. Bondo is a very course putty, and MoriMori is much finer.

MoroMori @ Hobby Search

You mix in a small amount (about 2% or so) of the hardener, and it cures in about 4 hours. Less if you apply a little heat. It cures yellow in color.

The same company that makes MoriMori also makes SubeSube, which is even higher quality. It cures pure white in color (I should have used that instead ). But the hardener is a clear gel, so it's hard to tell how much you have to mix in. With MoriMori, you just add hardener until you get a good yellow color going. But with SubeSube, you kinda need some MoriMori experience so you have a feel for how much hardener to use.

[Gerwalker]

Valkyrie,

thanks for posting. I'm still waiting for my VF-0.

The magnets idea is really good. Have you finally applied them in the launch arm?

[robokochan]

Hey Valkyrie,

Where did you get those little steel magnets? I have been looking for something like that forever.

Rob Mn

[Valkyrie]

I got them at a semi-local shop called American Science and surplus. They have a web site and do mail orders though.

http://www.sciplus.com/

http://www.sciplus.com/category.cfm?subsec...11&category=117

[Hikuro]

It almost seems like the VF-0 is a big pain in the butt, maybe Hasegawa didn't make the kit as well as it should of been? I was thinking of getting one today since I got paid yesterday, but now I'm starting to think maybe this kit would be too difficult for me.

[Lodizah]

It;'s not hard. More time goes into decal work then the actual modelling.

[Valkyrie]

Alright, finally got enough progress done that it's worthwhile to add to the thread

First of all, like I said in WMcheng's thread, that fuselage intake has been kicking my ass for the past few days. But I've ALMOST got it licked. Here's what I've been through.

It was clear from the start that the bottom panels for the intaked don't fit anywhere near as well as they should. They don't line up flush in the front, and there's small gaps on the sides. So I sought to kill two birds with one stone by making them a tad wider by using some 0.01" sheet styrene to shin them up.

Here is the plastic piece cut to fit the contour of the end of the panel. You can see that I've already painted the panel. That was the first of many times I painted them, for one reason or another. I stopped counting after the 4th time

Here's the plastic piece glued in place. Once dry, I cut it to match the shape of the panel.

The joint between them wasn't as clean as I would have liked, so I filled it with SubeSube putty. I also puttied up the bad panel line on the legs while I was at it.

so then, once again, I painted the off-white base coat, masked, then painted the gray intake interior.

I also painted the inside of the intake on the fuselage.

Then, after spraying the panels with clear coat to protect the paint, I masked over the gray paint.

The plan is to glue the panels in place with the interior painted. Then I'll have to putty up the front seams where the panel meets the fuselage, then eventually paint the topcoat over the assembled fuselage. And when all that is done, I can just remove the tape from the intakes, and I won't have to jump through all kinds of hoops to paint the inside gray after assembly.

Here the painted and masked panels are, test-fit in the fuselage. Much to my frustration, I couldn't get the front edges flush in the front, so I ended up cutting out my sheet styrene shims and cutting the hell out of the notches that align it, letting me position it more freely.

[Valkyrie]

It seems I'm only allowed to post 10 images per post max, so I'm spliting this post in half.

Next, onto the HUD.

Like I also said in WM's thread, I wanted to make one thinner than the stock HUD.

First, I got out my machinist's calipers and measured the thickness of the original. Just a hair over 25 thousandths of an inch. At full scale, that'd be 1.8" thick. No wonder it looked too thick

I opted to make mine out of 0.01" clear plastic stock. The thinnest stuff I've got (it's the same stuff I make VF-4 canopies out of). At full scale, it calculates out to 0.72" thick. Probably still a little too thick, but I can live with it.

To copy the shape, I took a piece of the sheet stock and put a dab of canopy cement on it.

Then I set the HUD on top of it, cleaned off the excess, and let it dry overnight. Then, it was a simple matter of using an xacto knife to cut off the excess. I just put the knife up to edges of the original and pressed down, chopping off a section of the sheet. Once that was done on all 8 sides, I had a perfect copy of the part, after I seperated the two.

I have a bad track record for losing small, clear parts. I was determined to not let it happen to this part

Speaking of small parts... time to move on to the seat modifications!

I wanted to make my own ejection handles, only (hopefully) more accurate that WM's. I started by making the brackets that they atatch to, which mount horizontally on top of the seat. I made them out of 0.01" sheet styrene. They're not entirely accurate, but they're so goddamn small, I had to simplify them.

Then I glued them on and started on the handles. I used 30 guage wire with the insulation removed (which is 0.01" in diameter, the same as the brackets' thickness). Shaping the first one was a HUGE pain in the ass.

And then making another one identical to it was even more so!

I just pray they're not too big... and they I'll be able to attatch them...

Here they are stuck on a piece of masking tape, after getting a coat of white primer. They accept paint better than I anticipated

And here's my progress on the seat. Not quite there, but it's close.

Next I'll start on the pilot figure. I want to get him in there before I try and atatch the handles.

That's it for now. More soon, I hope!

[J A Dare]

I have a bad track record for losing small, clear parts.  I was determined to not let it happen to this part

Great buildup!

[jbxman]

Nice progression so far, can't wait to see the final product.

[VF19]

Man, I wish I had all the stuff to do something like that, but I have no freaking clue where to get it from. Nor canI panel line or really even paint well, for that matter. anyways, nice work valk. *sigh* I have to go get one now.

[godfather]

Yo Valkyrie! How's yer VF-0 coming along?

[trueblueeyes]

I'm not Valkyrie, but I am pretty sure his VF-0S is probably on the back burner for now! I would imagine the VB-6 re-cast is taking up a *lot* of his time. ...not to mention those nice VF-11 armor re-casts...I've really got to get a couple of those.. Never fear, I am sure Ken will eventually get back around to finishing the VF-0!

[godfather]

I'm not Valkyrie, but I am pretty sure his VF-0S is probably on the back burner for now! I would imagine the VB-6 re-cast is taking up a *lot* of his time. ...not to mention those nice VF-11 armor re-casts...I've really got to get a couple of those.. Never fear, I am sure Ken will eventually get back around to finishing the VF-0!

Ah yes... priorities and stuff.