SPA Modeler

I love that Mr. Surfacer 1500.

KennyX wrote:Here we are. She’s all murdered-out in silky-smooth black primer goodness:

Black silk... you can’t go wrong with that...

Looking forward to seeing your color modulation work on this.

Carlos,

Yeah buddy! It’s pretty much the best. Well, in my opinion, for an application like this.

Floki,

Thanks for stopping in my man! Now, this is going to be a little different than what I’ve done before. The black base here is a foundation for Alclad Duraluminum, which I hope to start on either tomorrow, or this-coming week. I’ll be laying down the Duraluminum, and then painting the custom Ameiro color over top of that. There will still be modulation, but it’ll be different. The Duraluminum I like so much because it gives me good transitions from dark to light depending on illumination. What ends up happening when I paint over it with real thin paint, in the marble coats and blend coats patterns we typically do with black basing, I get a nice finish which looks “newer” and less weathered to my eye, but still keeps just a shade of tonal variation I like so much, and it also allows the Ameiro color to retain its hue-shifting properties much better than the tests I did with spraying it directly over black.

It’ll be like this here:

Got a control surface painted!







The weather sucks today so no spraying Alclad. That’s okay- I can spray acrylics indoors, that’s just fine. So I got started with the gray on the control surfaces, which were fabric and dope and don’t need bare metal under them anyway.

This gray, the formula for which is;

105 parts XF-19 Sky Gray
20 parts XF-49 Khaki
15 parts XF-25 Lt. Sea Gray

... is quite pretty and looks light, almost pale gray under most light, and just a tad khaki right now when not directly illuminated. I like it. It’ll look nice with the Ameiro.

I put down a few marble coats of the base mix, then lightened it 2:1 base mix to white, and marbled that in between the ribs, then blended it with the base mixture. All paint was heavily thinned, roughly 6:3.



This isn’t my exact Zeke, but a fine example of what I’m going for.

Looking sharp so far Kenny. Good idea to have a slightly different shade of gray for the doped linen flying surfaces.

Stikpusher wrote:Looking sharp so far Kenny. Good idea to have a slightly different shade of gray for the doped linen flying surfaces.

Thank you sir!

And shoot- according to the research I’ve been reading, those control surfaces weren’t painted with the Ameiro at all. That color mix I used is the Tamiya equivalent of what the folks at J-Aircraft, and Straggler over at Aviation Of Japan recommend. It’s gonna look lovely once the rest of the airframe is painted.

They’re al done now. And I’ve been having issues, small ones here and there, with the primer coming off with the masking tape. So I need to correct that before proceeding with the Alclad. And that’s a scary thing because I plan on masking the insignias LOL I don’t want to run into any issues down the line with paint peeling off with the masking tape.

I couldn’t remember if I’d cleaned the surface or not before I’d left for vacation. I’m like 99% sure I did but maybe... anyhow, I can deal with this. It isn’t troubling me at all.

It could be the primer hasn't had enough time to cure before masking or like you said may have some thing on the surface that didn't get cleaned off

Those control surfaces look kick ass! Nicely molded fabric stretched over the framing. If it were a later Zeke the paint peeling would be appropriate but hopefully the primer does not peel anywhere else.

Clint and pzl66,

Thank you, fellas.

It’s weird. It’s been over 48 hours. So I don’t think it hadn’t cured all the way. I’m pretty sure I either hadn’t cleaned it well enough in small areas, or just forgot about cleaning it at all. In any event, I’m going to check the areas I’ll be masking off, just sticking tape to it and gently peeling it off, and if any of the primer does peel, I’ll clean it all up and re-prime those areas along with ones that already peeled. And if it’s looking extensive, I’ll reprint anyway, paint, and use the decals instead of painting the insignias and stripes on myself.