SPA Modeler

Thomas_M wrote:I edited the Youtube link for you, Monty.

Great video, thanks for sharing! Doesn´t the acetone eat into the plastic?

Thanks Thomas!. base on several attempts in the past.. the acetone doesn't eat the plastic as long as you keep doing light swipes…. keeping the swab moving quickly… so that the acetone doesn't pool in one area too long.

its extremely useful cleaning up fillers that are in very hard-to-reach locations. The Sufa was the first that I experimented with. the surface detail was just amazing…. I hate to loosing it to sanding… Acetone helped a lot.

Another thing about nail polish remover acetone is they are "tone down" version of the acetone with a lot of impurities. I have tried three different local nail polish removers. the strength and weakness of each remover depends on the impurities contained in them such as isopropyl alcohol, colouring, and scent additives.

more progress …. I have made the MiG-29 in 1/72 scale and Su-27 Flankers and F-15 Strike Eagles… they are all the same… I got to do the exhaust pipes NMF finish first before installing the twin vertical fins.

the shape of the exhaust is awful.. undersized… I know… its pops up like a sore thumb of this kit
So here are the steps that I managed to document.

Hard to see if they are undersized, at least for me. Any cheap after market available?

Thomas_M wrote:Hard to see if they are undersized, at least for me. Any cheap after market available?

here is one from Zactomodels. yikes pricy $45. not much option out there… I guess that is why i just left it as is… and continue the build. will make it something nice, despite the slight flaw

So here is where I start painting the exhaust nozzles. will have to do with what we have LoL

the idea is to get the nozzle with a base coat of Alclad and work my way through that. I am experimenting and not sure whether the whole alclad base actually goes through.

1. This is the base coat of Gloss Black Tamiya.



2. The then next layer is the Alclad ALC101 basic



3. followed up by thin layers of Model Master burnt steel



4. then I added some soot 'blackening' with radome spray of flat black



5. spraying thin overlays of Tamiya Titanium Gold , Clear Blue, Clear yellow to get a blue and yellow tint effect. There are some reference photos where each exhaust nozzle blades had some sort of blue and yellow tint.



This is the final stand before i wrapped it under masking tape and paper. I will colour it, maybe oils, or water colour and put some more effect as the project nears the end.

WOW!! The exhausts look incredible!!!!

I'm exhausted from reading this!

That is some spot-on work, Monty.

Looking good!
Makes me want to build my Tamiya 1/32 scale F-15E

Thanks.. I will play around with more weathering and effects when the project is almost done. I am going to make sure that I will document it and share it with you all.

There was a question on my FB page on why did I installed the exhaust nozzles early on the build.. where I could easily just paint it separately and have it fixed later on as the project progresses…

incase curious.. well the reason is the fit of the exhaust and the body was a bit poor… it required some filling and sanding to make it look right. and If I had to do it later on… then I would have ruined some of the NMF work. That would cost me time dearly…. BUT if I know the fit was good…. then I would have done the whole work above later on…

That is quite impressive, Monty. I do enjoy looking in on your builds and if I am not careful I may learn something.