SPA Modeler

Okay, after a long absence from this review, I finally buckled down to try and get these done. Most of this involves the masking and painting of these aircraft and does not reflect any of the kits' issues for the most part. Any issues with the paint are purely the fault of the reviewer in this post.

On my two Tomcats, I shot a coat of white underneath both of them:



I also shot white on many of the other parts that need it as shown here:



Once that was done, I realized that I only needed white on the underside of the -A bird. the -B has a wrap around grey scheme. So, I masked off the white under the Alpha and then shot the black on the tails and canopy areas:



After that; starting with the Bravo bird, I masked off the black where it was supposed to stay black and I shot the first coat of grey on it. This was a dark gull grey I believe. I know it's tough to see in these pics but here is the first grey:





Still on the Bravo bird, I masked off the nose and the bottom to shoot the medium grey on the top of this bird:





Here she is after the medium grey went on:



Afterward, she was looking pretty sharp in her new colors:



Overall be careful with the masking and removal of all tape since the tail surfaces in particular can break off. Fortunately, this did not happen to me this time.


Moving on to the Alpha bird, I also masked her off, starting with the white underside. This time I added the waves to the edge since the previous masking was simply to keep the black overspray off the bottom:





You can see I used an ungodly amount of masking tape on this; mostly because I masked off the missile rails. Normally I would have left those off till last, but they help me differentiate between the two birds at a glance. My suggestion is to leave these off to make this part of the painting easier.

Her grey color; a flat gull grey went on next:



After I painted the wings, I realized I had forgotten to mask off the flaps to keep them white:



In a case like that, before you paint; always refer back to the instructions to be sure you don't miss an important step like this. It'll save you a headache in the long run.

So I masked them off and shot the white:





Once I pulled the tape off these to shoot the clear gloss coat on, I noticed some of the paint lifted, so this has to be re-shot:



That's where I left this. Hopefully I'll get that fixed this weekend...


Okay, that's as far as I got on this so far. After seeing that paint pulled off, all the steam left me on this build. Stay tuned, once this gets fixed I should be able to gloss these and start applying the dizzying amount of stencils and decals to these birds.

Thanks for looking in. Comments are welcome.

That’s unusual engineering for a Tomcat kit. Usually the wings are added when the upper and lower fuselage rear is assembled. Do these wings pivot?
What paint are you using that pulled up? That is a very bothersome occurance!!! I’m sure you’ll get that corrected soon.

Stikpusher wrote:That’s unusual engineering for a Tomcat kit. Usually the wings are added when the upper and lower fuselage rear is assembled. Do these wings pivot?
What paint are you using that pulled up? That is a very bothersome occurrence!!! I’m sure you’ll get that corrected soon.

I agree, and I was quite upset at Hasegawa for the way they did these wings. No, they do not pivot; you have a choice of fastening them in the extended or retracted position. I'm not sure yet whether I mentioned that in this review. I will definitely add it to the summary at the end.

The paint I used was Testor's Model Master enamels. I did shoot it over a clear gloss that I'd laid down before when I mixed up the wings, so that may have been the cause. No big deal, I'll get it fixed.

Stay tuned, more to come.

I agree, it does seem a bit of an odd assembly.

Those cats are looking great though Mark!

Thanks Stuart! Except for the wings, I am impressed with these birds so far.

The fixed position options may be less “toy like”... but that’s the fun appeal of building a swing wing aircraft, moving the wings!!!! Unless they are offering positionalble flaps, slats, and spoilers, there is no real appeal to these wings with this engineering.

Agreed. However, they are offering positional flaps and leading edges so that is probably why they did it. If you look back on the review, I think I have pics showing the wings when they were assembled. If you look closely, you can see where they flaps and leading edges were attached. Still, with a bit of extra engineering, there's no reason those flaps and leading edges couldn't be made to be movable as well.

Anyway, it is what it is.....

Man I hate it when paint lifts and I've certainly seen a lot of it when using the MM acrylic stuff. Never seen it out of the enamel though. Progress/ review seems to be going well at this point Mark.

Man.....you guys and the 1/72nd scale stuff. You are to be admired. There aint no way............no way I'll be picking up that scale. As a matter of fact I've got a 1/24 scale Fw190 D-9 for later on down the road if you know what I mean. lololol

Duke Maddog wrote:Agreed. However, they are offering positional flaps and leading edges so that is probably why they did it. If you look back on the review, I think I have pics showing the wings when they were assembled. If you look closely, you can see where they flaps and leading edges were attached. Still, with a bit of extra engineering, there's no reason those flaps and leading edges couldn't be made to be movable as well.

Anyway, it is what it is.....

I think the reasoning for non workable flight control surfaces is because that would be a “toylike” feature. Like raised rivets, sliding canopies, or other surface detailing, that is all passé.

Thanks Joe, I appreciate the commendations and admiration. I guess I'm so used to it that I just don't see any issues.

Carlos, I guess, but I have seen in the past how this feature of movable surfaces can be done without being toylike. I'm a little sad that it's considered passé as I have had great fun building models like those. Oh well. I guess if one truly wants these features, they can modify the models themselves to make them.

Anyway, back to the models. I did get the grey paid back down and the wing glossed; so very soon I'll be applying decals. Then I have to look up a Bombcat so I can see how they mounted the ordinance underneath...

Stay tuned, more to come.