1/72 Hasegawa SV-51 Step-by-step

[Jinnai]

I then lightly drybrushed the original grey I used (Tamiya XF-66) over the top after wiping away excess wash. As not much is seen after applying the canopy, I kept it as basic as possible.

[Jinnai]

With the cockpit completed in my opinion, the next natural step was to finally glue Nora into place. The past couple of steps seemed to have taken forever, but then I reminded myself that I still have the main body to be painted.. which will take far longer than just doing the cockpit.

[Jinnai]

And here are the decals used to put over the instrument panel. Something that scares me about this is the fact that the mirrors are small and single parts, and the whole panel is broken up into smaller pieces. It should be ok though.. I hope.

[Jinnai]

And sure enough.. disaster did strike. While I was applying the decal for the lower right hand side near Nora's leg, I put on my decal set (shown in the image) however, the decal wasn't quite attached to the surface of the kit, and stuck to the brush that had my decal solvent on it.

By the time I got it off, it had disintergrated.

No major loss, as I still have 2 SV-51 kits of my own to arrive, so I'll just steal the decal from there.

[Jinnai]

And once again, disaster struck. With the right hand side mirror, I lost that one to the same problem that occured in the previous step.

This 2nd kit of mine will be short some decals. Might have to sell it to my mate to make a Battroid.

Here's the instrument panel decaled, minus the two that.. were KIA.

[Jinnai]

So with the cockpit complete (I can add the decals later), it was time to finally seal her up between the fuselage pieces.

My method of gluing usually involves putting down an excess layer on one half, then I'll put the parts together and squeeze, so excess melted plastic will ooze out. That way, I can sand down to begin with, and if I've done it correctly, I won't need to putty, or reduce the need to putty.

[Jinnai]

Shown in place is Nora, sitting in the cockpit, looking for that elusive VF-0D..

I say give it til October!

[Jinnai]

Another beauty shot, straight into the cockpit, showing the instrument panel and the HUD.

[Jinnai]

So the next step was to start assembling the body of the kit. I already had the nosecone glued together to help keep the nose landing gear flush, however either I did something wrong, or the kit was engineered slightly badly, but there's a rather large size difference between the nose and the fuselage.

It's about 0.5-1mm deep, and either fill it with a lot of putty, or sand it back so the nose is flush. The thing that scares me is the raised panels on either side. If I accidently sand them down, I might be able to remake them using sheet styrene, but that's unnessesary if I'm careful.

More to come.

[Jinnai]

Two more updates, and that'll probably be it for the night.. but then again, I have an itch to keep building, and right now it's not going away, despite how often I'm scratching..

Seriously, this photo doesn't give the size of the kit justice. This is one huge bird. I think I'll have to pull my VF-0S out of the cupboard for one last shot, just for a size comparison. Maybe a VF-1 also..

But here she is again, most of the preassembly for this part of the fuselage is done. Next will be to start sanding down seams, and applying Mr. Surfacer for spot checks. I used to be an avid Tamiya Putty user, but about 8 months ago I realised just how good Mr. Surfacer 500 was for puttying reasons, and easier to use. So now I use that exclusively.

[Jinnai]

Here I've done some pre-painting onto the bare plastic, in areas that'll be harder to reach when I've started more gluing. These are the intakes and the legs.

I've done a lot of dry fitting with this while waiting for parts of the cockpit to dry, and I found that nearly all of the injector marks are covered by other parts, so I didn't need to fill them. Those that do need to be filled I'll do when I cover the inside seams with Mr. Surfacer, and sand back them. Then reapply the paint.

I used Tamiya XF-25 (Light Sea Grey) for this, as it contrasted well with the purple I've pre-mixed for the base coat of the fighter.

[Jinnai]

Last two photos for the night.

I just had to take a photo of this. Seriously, no wonder Nora loves fighting in this thing.

[Jinnai]

I think Claudia told Roy that flying a big VF-0S was overcompensating for a lack of something.. that's why he then moved into the VF-1S.

I'll update more later, as I work on it.

[Jinnai]

Ok, it just wasn't right to not include the Mac Plus 1/72's..

[Aurora-7]

My God! I did not realize how much bigger the VF-0 is to the VF-1. I wonder if it was intentional to illustrate the technology differences between concept and production aircraft.

[Grayson72]

Dude how many uncompleted kits do you have? You got any pics of stuff you've completed

[David Hingtgen]

The average modeler has about a 10:1 ratio of unbuilt and finished kits. Or maybe 50:1 for some people. I currently have 6 F-14 kits, and need to buy 1 or 2 more. And 0 finished ones! I also have small piles of unbuilt F-16 and 18's.

I need to snag a VF-1J and YF-19 though, to add to the pile. Then maybe someday build them and post pics up here.

[Noyhauser]

Personally I build most of my kits as I get them, unless Im making a diorama (1/35 scale). I think its really up to the modeler involved, however a lot of people do seem to stock up.

[David Hingtgen]

Noyhauser--I've gotta say you're weird as modelers go. From all I've seen, people who "stock up" like me make up like 95% of modelers. Many of us technically fall into the "collectors of plastic and decals" category, with an occasional actual BUILDING of a kit.

[Jinnai]

Dude how many uncompleted kits do you have?  You got any pics of stuff you've completed 

http://jinnai.freewebspace.com/toomuch.jpg

And that's about 1/3rd of my total collection.

My job usually keeps me busy to the point where I rarely finish something. I'm actually surprised with the progress I've made sofar. That, and I'm on holidays. Generally I have more in progress than what I have finished, but my main love is miniatures, and I spend more time on them than what I do on my actual kits.

Edited April 12, 2004 by Jinnai

[VF19]

holy crap, i couldnt ever hope to have th at many. and you have a dark and high elf warhammer army. damn. just damn.

[Grayson72]

The average modeler has about a 10:1 ratio of unbuilt and finished kits.  Or maybe 50:1 for some people.  I currently have 6 F-14 kits, and need to buy 1 or 2 more.  And 0 finished ones!  I also have small piles of unbuilt F-16 and 18's. 

I need to snag a VF-1J and YF-19 though, to add to the pile.  Then maybe someday build them and post pics up here. 

Well what I should have said is how many half built models. I've got over 100 models still in the box but once I start one I finish it.

Edited April 12, 2004 by Grayson72

[Grayson72]

As a matter of fact my collection has gotten so big my wife kicked it out of the house. Macross has been relegated to the garage but I went and bought a storage cabinet just for them at the Home Deport

[Grayson72]

And the secondary collection in another cabinet, I definately have a problem.

[cobraleader]

hehehehe, i love the stats we all run by with built:unbuilt ratios. Just told my other half, she tends to agree, based on my collection.

how does the nora compare to an f-14 in size?

[mechaninac]

Those pictures remind me of my attic. Some times I'm afraid to look up there for fear of contemplating the sheer volume of boxes I've accumulated over the years.

TO - MANY - UN-BUILT - MODELS....MUST - NOT - BUY - MORE

But who am I kidding? I tend to suffer from that all too common modeler's disease that causes one to see all the wonderful possibilities of a perfectly finished kit when the sprues are all intact, the excitement, the anticipation, the avarice...only to stop a project due to lack of appropriate skills, intimidation, lack of interest, or just the fact that some new kit caught my eye.

Oh the dilemma!

[mighty gorgon]

Somewere I read that a "real" modeller would need some like five lives to complete all the unbuilt and stored kits...

Well, here is a 60% of my stock, mostly untouched. The newest one is the 1:72 Tu-16... a monster of a kit.

Regds,

Gorgon

(going CG again)

p.d.: Oh! and waiting to see more pics of the SV-51, while waiting mine...

Edited April 13, 2004 by mighty gorgon

[Angel's Fury]

Somewere I read that a "real" modeller would need some like five lives to complete all the unbuilt and stored kits...

Well, here is a 60% of my stock, mostly untouched. The newest one is the 1:72 Tu-16... a monster of a kit.

Regds,

Gorgon

(going CG again)

p.d.: Oh! and waiting to see more pics of the SV-51, while waiting mine...

Those are a lot of unbuilt models!

[Terpfen]

Somewere I read that a "real" modeller would need some like five lives to complete all the unbuilt and stored kits...

IMO... that describes a model collector, not a model builder.

[mighty gorgon]

Somewere I read that a "real" modeller would need some like five lives to complete all the unbuilt and stored kits... 

IMO... that describes a model collector, not a model builder.

No! It is not a collection, but rather a "building queue"!!!! But this is getting too much off topic.

Argh! I want MY SV-51... I just saw one from a colleague, it arrived today! I need it to add it to my collection... err.... BUILDING QUEUE!!!!

Edited April 13, 2004 by mighty gorgon

[Grayson72]

No! It is not a collection, but rather a "building queue"!!!! But this is getting too much off topic.

BUILDING QUEUE!!!!

Building queue, oh I like that, that's perfect! LancerII at bat 150 more on deck

[Akula]

and I thought that I had a probelm with unbuit models... I only have 7on deck, and currently completing my VF-1S, VF-1D and YF-22 (all on the go right now), and most of the unfinished ones are only awaiting me to get off my big-lazy-butt and paint them... jeeze... some of you could be rich if you hadn't spent all that moey on unbuilt kits... LOL... my parents say the boxed i have take up too much room as it it... this is all too funny!

hehe, building que... that is quite clever... I like it!

[Jinnai]

I blame compulsion for half of my kit purchases. And a lot of the time I'm the typical hoarder, or a pack rat. I will save them for a sunny day. A lot of my kits I've literally thrown to one side, to be so disappointed in my work with it that I'll never let it see the light of day. I also own a lot of duplicates, if I screw up something that badly that I can't fix it, the parts go into the drawers, and I buy a new kit and start from scratch.

I have a fair bit to last me a long time.. work doesn't help my production either.

Since my client is watching this thread, I thought I'd update a tiny bit. Presently the SV-51 is in the most annoying stage of assembly: primary gluing and seam filling. I'm getting most parts assembled and sanded back before I break out the Mr. Surfacer, but at times like this I address some problems I've been noticing during dry fitting stages. That's why you don't see the feet much in this picture, I have to do something about them..

More later.

[David Hingtgen]

I'm fond of the "sand and dry fit as much as possible BEFORE gluing together" method. I'd much rather sand plastic than any sort of filler. Of course, there's only so much you can do without filler.

(For the first time in oh, a decade, I glued together some F-14 parts yesterday)

PS--do you plan to paint the lift-fan blades? I know Hase says grey like their surrounding bay and the cockpit, but that just seems so wrong to me, though I haven't seen them in the animation.

[Jinnai]

It's a good thing I did do a lot of dry fitting and seam elimination with glue before using filler, as there were some areas that really, really freaked me out, especially with sanding.

I've just finished sanding back the most annoying area I've noticed sofar (where the nose joins the fuselage) and I started freaking thinking I had removed most of the raise panels around the end of the nose. After sanding back with 1000 grit, they were still very prominant. So I'm happy there, I'm about to do a test prime to see if I missed anywhere on the nose.

As for the VTOL fans.. my client asked me if there was any way I could make the cowling for those fans to be opened and closed, but without fiddling around a lot, I couldn't. So I'm not painting them. Maybe on one of my own I will, but I'm fairly sure there's some scenes with D.D in gerwalk (either OVA 2 or 3) where the cover does go up during Gerwalk mode.

With wings and the fuel/missile pods attached to the wings, she's a really, really big beast.. I just can't get over the size.