1 72 Hasegawa Macross VF-0S Step by Step Modeling Guide by WM Cheng

Hasegawa VF-0S Step by Step Modeling Guide By WMCheng February 28, 2004 – May 8, 2004 (Compiled from the www.MacrossWorld.com forum thread)

Hi all, Well, I just couldn't wait - this new VF-0 kit looks too good to pass up. This will not be my usual 2 week progress - fortunately I am working now, so it will be probably one weekend day and a few hours in the evening if I can sneak it in here and there. This build up is dedicated to Myersjessee. It was through his generosity that I received this kit. He kindly donated this kit for me to build here at MacrossWorld to share with you all. I would just like to say thanks again, and that I appreciate all the kind words and feedback I get from this great site. Now on to the kit... Thanks to Valkyrie, I won't have to do a kit analysis - I think he thoroughly described the kit very well. Don't be discouraged though, it doesn't seem to be quite as tough as it may seem (or so I say before I actually start – let’s

see what the verdict will be when I finish) The molding is as beautiful as Hasegawa ever is, however, I feel its slightly "soft" and there are a few minor panel lines which either terminate at nothing or run pass some other lines. It feels a bit rushed for Hasegawa's standards - but still miles ahead of any Revel or Monogram type kit. I can't wait to get into the paint and weathering of this baby - I think I can finally go to town on her - Macross Zero seems so much dirtier and the CGI texture maps shows all sorts of worn edges and streaks. By the way, I would love any and all reference for the finish of the aircraft or pilot - I was going to go over the 3 OVAs this weekend to see if I can get some decent captures - but if you guys have anything, it would help. I think this one will be with the gears down, I'll try Valkyrie magnet idea on the fast packs and hopefully devise some way of either hinging the canopy or allowing it to be displayed in either the open and closed positions when I am done. I would like to open the airbrake on this baby. Here's two questions for David Hingtgen (our resident aircraft guru) - the circular impressions on the airbrake, are they supposed to be "holes" (like the old Dauntless flaps?) that go right through - if I display the airbrakes out, should I drill those out? Secondly, does the VF-0 have those sliding folder flaps like the VF-1? The flap area seems so large on the VF-0 that it doesn't seem to make sense for them to be fowlers - so are they just regular flaps. I'd love to do something with them, but I don't want them to interfere with the swing of the wings. I'll start with the nose/cockpit area. Here are the seats, not much as to be done here except scrap the delicate mold seam from the sides of the chair, I just use the exacto knife and scrap across it gently a few times to take the excess seam off.

Sorry for the fuzzy picture – here is another seam to be scraped on the pilot.

I think it’s important to not follow the steps to the letter, you should pre-build assemblies in your mind first - trying to identify any problems like hard to reach areas before you actually go ahead following the instructions. Always test fit as much as you can. I decided to glue the cockpit tub down first and do a dry fit of the fuselage halves. This helps me to identify how much of the inside grey one needs to paint which is visible from outside the cockpit.

This close-up shows that the back of the cockpit tub doesn't fit snuggly with the top of the fuselage halves. It’s not a bad thing here - I don't think they were meant to attach - having a layered look with a dark reveal in the middle might be nice. However, the thicknesses of the top half the fuselage isn't consistent - so some sanding will have to occur to provide an even opening all around the curve of the bulkhead.

Here is a test fit of the pilot, weird that the pilot isn't properly contoured to "sit" into the seat, the legs seem a bit high - I don't think you will notice it once he's inside the fuselage and pushed back against the back rest. I tried to glue the arms so that they are asymmetrical - it gives a bit of life to the pilot - same later on when I glue the head on at a slight tilt turning sideways slightly. I always try to put a little movement into the pilot. It cut the left controls down while leaving the right ones they way they are. I'll have to look for some small wires to bend into those rectangular emergency pulls above the pilots head.

Pretty roomy cockpit eh?? Look at all that space behind him - I guess I've got to break out my spares parts box and start filling it with "gak". I've got a bunch of landing gear parts and actuators from other VF kits where I retracted the gears that I can throw in there. What have some of you done with this space?

Tough shot... trying to hold it in one hand and holding the camera in the other Here's a shot with these rubber thingies used to help hold sand paper (like flexible sanding blocks) I got a while ago from a woodworking shop (for those of you in the Toronto area – it’s called Lee Valley Tools - great place, they have the tiny rare earth magnets there too) They come a package of 6 or 8 with different profiles to them, some sharp wedge-like to get the sandpaper into tight spaces, and others round like this one allowing me to shape the opening to follow the curve of the rear bulkhead of the cockpit tub.

I just hand brush painted these parts - the paint is still wet. I used Tamiya olive drab for the initial coat on the pilot and dark grey for the cockpit interior. The detail on the forward control housing is really great - it even comes with a HUD glass and decal for the HUD. I plan of painting the HUD projector silver, then green transparent colour with a layer of Tamiya smoke over it - it provides a convincing lens effect under the HUD. I'm not sure what to do with the side panels yet - I put photo-etched parts on my previous VF-1, until someone pointed out to me (and correctly so) that they were just green armrest - so I would assume the VF-0 to be the same if not simpler. That's all for now folks, spent most of the day admiring the parts and pouring over the instructions - trying to form a plan of attack Good night for now.

Here's the pilot with a few more colours hand brushed on after looking through the OVAs again. You can see I chose to go with the arm rest for now. I am leaving the area behind the seat blank for now until I can find a way of hinging the canopy - I don't want to put anything in the way of that for now.

Here's a trick I use to get a good chrome silver going. I have yet to find any paint that is a reflective as this. I use a Tamiya paint marker (it’s a lacquer I believe, because it cleans up with Mr. Color solvent) and I shake the marker with the cap on, and I use the brush to dab at the tip to get some silver.

I'm using it for the pilots visor, I will put a clear green transparent colour over top of this - the silver undercoat and layering makes it look more reflective.

Here's the green transparent colour on... I was a bit anxious, so I am just using the white of the kit as the white of the helmet.

Here's the same trick done to the HUD projection lens, I'll put a drop of white glue or Microscale Krystal Keeler over top when its dry to simulate the glass lens.

A little test fit before a dark oil wash to pick out the crevasses. I need to see where the helmet sits so I can plan for the overhead yellow & black ejection seat handles. I am planning to make them out of wire.

I'd thought I get the canopy out for now to see how it will sit over the cockpit to start planning for the "hinge". Note the clear plastic is much more brittle than the opaque stuff, be careful when you are removing it. Try to trim/cut as far away from the piece as possible. I would also suggest that you trim along the flat side of the sprue with the length of the canopy (notice that the cutters are parallel with the canopy frame) this will minimize any "crushing" that might occur with the plastic.

Here is my first trial attempt at a sort of "hinge" I thought that with that space between the rear bulkhead and the fuselage, I might be able to epoxy a metal rod (paperclip) to the rear of the canopy, then this extends down into the body being sandwiched by these two plastic sheets which should provide some friction to hold the canopy up. (Wish me luck)

Here is the underneath; I kept testing it with various sizes so that these sheets wouldn't interfere with any other parts later on in the construction process.

I skipped a few steps to see if these sheets will interfere with the body attachments later on and trim them down accordingly. I am going to have to let the glue dry tonight before I can proceed any further. I have also put a black artist oil paint wash (thinned down with low odour varsol) in the cockpit and pilot. I will also let it sit overnight before I wipe it down tomorrow. I think I will sand and polish the canopy next to get rid of that seam before I try to epoxy the metal rod.

A few updates today - I thought I'd outline the canopy seam removal that so many people seem to be worried about on most of the Hasegawa kits – it’s not a big deal. As most of you know, there is a longitudinal seam down the canopy as a result of a 3 part mold to achieve the "bubble" effect of the canopy. This bubble effect results in an undercut condition which makes it difficult to remove the piece after molding in a traditional 2 part situation. Most of the previous kits (20 yrs ago) gave us an incorrect canopy profile - so I'm not at all put off by this new process since it gives us a much more accurate to line art canopy and plus, it looks more like real modern day aircraft. Here are the items I use, a small container of water (essential as a lubricant for the sandpaper), the Tamiya fine sandpaper pack (you can see there are 3 grades in this pack, 1200, 1500 and 2000 grit) and lastly, Tamiya polishing compound (it’s like a toothpaste whereby a fine abrasive particle is suspended in a paste).

Here's a close up of the seam.

Here's a close up of the rubber pad again with lots of water I gently sand the seam away. (Okay, I've been caught, the red sandpaper is not from the Tamiya pack, it’s actually a much coarser one around 600 girt - I was lazy and started out really coarse (this lessens the time required to eliminate the seam)) but if you're not careful you can put some deep scratches into the clear canopy.

I've been doing this so often I kind of have a feel for how gentle to go - so I do not recommend using this coarse of grit unless you know what you are doing. I would recommend starting out with the Tamiya stuff at 1200 grit. It just means you sand a bit longer and lots of water. You want the fine particles of plastic to be constantly flushed away by the water.

This is what it looks like after the 600 grit sanding, no seam, but a foggy fuzzy patch - don't worry, as you work up the grade of sandpaper the fogginess will start to become more translucent. Work your way up through the grades to 2000 grit. Remember the key here is gentle and keep the paper wet/moist.

Here's what it should look like after 2000 grit paper - you should not be able to make out any lines or strokes.

This is a good test; I would take the canopy and turn it upside down, and dunk it into some water. Here you see the fogginess of the sanding (only on the outside luckily there is no seam on the inside of the canopy)

Here you can see where the water hits the canopy, it completely fills in all the microscopic scratches that the 2000 grit paper made and it becomes completely clear again. Now at this point, if you still see any scratches underwater, then you should go back and go through the sandpaper grades again and work your way up to the 2000 grit paper to remove those scratches. If you can see something underwater, then even the coat of future later will not be able to hide such a deep scratch in the surface of the plastic.

This next step is often skipped by some of the more experienced modelers out there - but I always follow this one step further and would recommend it to anyone who asks my opinion. If the water test shows a clear canopy, one can just take it out, dry it and dunk it into future floor polish and let it dry - it should dry perfectly (the way it looks underwater). But skipping this step relies on the future filling in all those microscopic scratches that result in the fogginess. What I do, is use Tamiya rubbing/polishing compound. It looks like toothpaste, and I just squirt some onto the canopy and take a paper towel and rub/polish it down with this compound.

Here's a shot with the paper towel while I'm polishing it, you can see that if gives the overall piece a nice shine, it can take out some minor scuffing of the part while it was in the box shifting around.

Here is the piece perfect before the future floor polish dunk. You can see that some compound got trapped in the recessed line of the canopy frame, just take some water and a gentle toothbrush and you can get that out. I like this extra step because it allows you to check (in a dry state) that you did indeed take all the scratches out. This is not a long process, it took me 5-10 minutes from beginning to end (but I've been doing this for a while now but I wouldn't spend more than 30min on it - then you're just being too precious) This is a great way to remove any scratches, paint, and spilt glue (as long as the damage isn't too deep) or solvent fingerprints on clear canopies. It’s restored canopies that have fogged due to excess crazy glue as well. Argh! I just noticed that the forward windscreen also has a seam - oh, well just rinse and repeat!

I then drilled a small pilot hole and epoxy the metal rod (paper clip) in place. My biggest worry is that there isn't enough surface area for the epoxy to make a strong bond with the metal rod, there will be a lot of torque at this little point. We'll see in 5 minutes Meanwhile, I'll decal up the pilot and control panels.

I don't know much about that spray system - but like most things, you get what you paid! I'd just hold off and save up for a real airbrush - you won't be sorry. Here's a shot of the cockpit pieced together for now, I brushed on a flat coat on the pilot and clear gloss coat on his helmet.

I love the decals that Hasegawa provides, they fit really well, I had to use a bit of MicroSOL decal solvent to get the helmet piece to conform to the curved helmet.

I used a lot of MicroSOL decal solvent for the forward control panel so that it would lie tight against the raised details. I might dab a bit of Tamiya smoke over the CRT displays, they are a bit bright. I love the fact that Hasegawa even provided a HUD display decal!! I brushed on future over top of the decal after it was dried.

Well on to the seats, I looked around for a suitable diameter wire for the overhead emergency pull handles. This was the closest I could find. It’s some spare electrical wiring I had lying around, which I'll strip and use just the inside solid core.

I drilled two little pilot holes to locate the wire with a small pin vise. This is my first attempt at it – it’s too big. Unfortunately the diameter of the wire is a bit big also, but my next gauge down was too fine - and I don't want to go out to just buy a new diameter wire for this - I'll play with bending the wires smaller.

I got took a screen capture of this shot - it shows that the handles are not circular like the F-14s, they are angular.

Here's a shot with the pilot in - just to make sure that it doesn't hit his helmet

Here's a shot with the canopy in place - notice that I bent it into a tighter radius and into an angular triangle shape. I had to make sure that I could still close the canopy.

Here's a shot with it painted yellow. A usually use a black gundam marker or a fine pigment type pen to draw the black stripes on. On such a small scale 1/72, its best to just draw vertical lines (or as straight of a vertical line as your steady hands will allow). I don't bother with the spiral pattern unless it’s at least 1/48 scale.

Now, I wanted to do something about those circular discs near the head rest. The molding didn't come out too sharp - and they seem to be fairly prominent in most of the anime shots and are definitely unique to this plane. Plus the supplied red dot decal by Hasegawa just isn’t right - its orange in most of the anime. I decided to use one of these discs that came in a wave option parts that I got from HLJ a long time ago (you can see its the mini U-vernier kit). These guys are great, they are cheap (200 yens or something) and really adds extra detail to the model.

I thought I'd use these tiny little puppies...

here they are on a piece of masking tape (so that I don't lose them, they are so small after all) and I painted them with orange.

I'd thought I start to put some "gak" in the back behind the seat to make it look more technical. Thanks David for the heads up - I will try to restrain myself These parts are left over bits from an old 1/48 scale Apache helicopter (monogram I believe) that was being mined for spare parts anyways. (FYI the pilot for the 1/48 Apache makes a really good rebel pilot for the AMT X-Wing with minimal modifications) I tried to keep it to the edges.

Here's a shot with one side of the handles done with the black stripes.

I brush painted them grey to blend into the cockpit - I don't want them to stand out - just a little texture when you're looking directly in. I brushed a little metallic grey over top to pick out some highlights.

A shot with the pilot in place.

At least the space behind the seat now doesn't look so empty.

Don't know what it is - but it looks like it could belong...

A shot from behind...

Just checking to make sure everything closes up tight.

Hmm, it looks like it should work - it makes sense... but unfortunately it doesn't really work. When I try to pivot the canopy down, the metal rod just gets ripped out of the canopy. There isn't enough of a surface for the epoxy to hold onto, and there is just too much torque when the canopy is pivoting. The rod and ball of epoxy just comes off - luckily without damage to the canopy. It can't hinge, but it may be able to be stuck in at an angle for ether open or closed. I am going to try to cut the rod shorter and glue in a piece behind the two sheets that will allow the rod to ether go in straight (closed) or at an angle (open position).

Okay, I've re-epoxy the canopy rod and we'll have to wait till tomorrow to see if this will hold. I've glued those two orange thingies on now, they look pretty cool.

Here's a view down into the cockpit.

Here we go, I've glued the top and bottom fuselage halves with tube cement, because I need this to be strong and the tube thicker glue with help with the seam - in fact, that seam/gap at the rear bulkhead of the cockpit closes up nicely when you glue the top and bottom down tightly (I guess Hasegawa did know a thing or two, and weren't just being lazy).

I've painted a thick stripe of Mr. Surfacer500 (the grey line) along this horizontal seam so that it will help fill in some gaps when I sand the seam down tomorrow. That’s it for tonight...

You're right stamen, the orange minus molds do look a bit out of place - damn, I wished I hadn't glued everything together yet. Oh, well here goes - wish me luck. I am going to try to drill out a larger hole to sink the orange minus mold into. I used the largest drill bit I had for my hand pin-vise, but it was still too small, so I used it to drill a pilot hole, now I am using a 7/64" bit on a dremel with a really steady hand at the slowest setting.

Here's the other side, I painted the shallow hole dark grey as well.

I'd thought that while I was waiting for that little hole to dry, I'd start sanding the side seams - the Mr. Surfacer from last night had dried. I put some masking tape on either side of the seam to help protect some of the really fine engraved details from accidentally being sanded off.

Okay, bad idea... wait till you temporarily glue on the canopy and seal it in with a liquid mask before you start sanding away. Man I got all sorts of little fillings, particles and water inside the cockpit. In fact I almost lost that HUD display glass since it came off sometime while I was handling the fuselage while I was sanding. Valkyrie was right, it is a bit thick, I was going to fashion a new one from some clear styrene, but it had the cool hud display decal on it already. Luckily I managed to find it in my mess. The sanding of the side seams was done with 600 grit paper/film using the wet method, whereby you use a lot of water to help prevent the sandpaper from clogging. This shot shows the orange minus mold properly seated within the larger hole. Stamen is absolutely right, it looks so much better this way - I just wished I did it with the seat out before it was glued in.

I didn't inset it totally, just left it sticking out just a tad. You know what, the circular impressions on either side of the seats are not symmetrical - oh well, not a biggie.

Here's the other side. These will probably be some of the last shots of the cockpit for a while. I plan to seal it up inside the canopy till I'm done with painting. It took me half an hour trying to clean all that sanding gunk out of the finished cockpit! Remember, sand after the cockpit is protected (duh!)

My camera is having a hard time focusing on a white object with little detail excuse the photos. The nose cone should look pretty smooth - the hints of grey are the Mr. Surfacer doing its job filling in the hairline cracks - remember to be careful not to make the nosecone round, it is somewhat squashed with a bit of an edge like the YF-19 - over sanding can dull this lateral edge.

Here's a shot of the side seam - the other side has a larger gap, so I'd have to use some more Mr. Surfacer to fill it in and let it dry.

I've glued the forward windscreen on, and attached the rear portion of the canopy. The paper clip idea seems to hold for now, I re-enforced it with a piece of plastic in the back cut to resemble a bulkhead. As long as I don't try to pivot the rod, pull it out and stick it straight in for the open position or take it out and stick it in for the closed position the canopy works fine. I'd love to see someone attempt to actually make a hinge for this baby - I'd buy a few. But at least, this option allows us to display the plane with the canopy open or closed - I always hate being forced to choose one or the other.

Cockpit bye, bye (for the time being...)

I'd thought I would skip ahead a few steps to fit everything together to see just what injector pin holes or crevasses need to be filled and in what order. I don't get why Hasegawa chose to make the wing in these pieces - I'd just like the old method where they were in two halves, nice easy edge seam that can be sanded away. Now with these panels – it’s just more work. I noticed that this wing root panel is a bit thick, I would sand down the thickness of it a bit to lay flat/ in plane with the surrounding surface.

I've temporarily pieced together the wing and swing mechanism to see what portion of the interior slots is exposed when the wing goes through its sweep. As you can see it’s not a lot. Valkyrie was right; this time Hasegawa did not provide the plastic inserts to fill in that negative space so we would have to make one up. But as you can see from the pencil lines, it’s not a big area to cover. I'd also fill in those two injector pin depressions - you can see a dab of Mr. Surfacer in each.

I've cut some styrene triangles and fitted them in as well as the little portion just ahead of the pins that pivot the swing gears (they can be seen just a little bit with the wings fully swept. I'd thought that with these little pieces of plastic in place, I'd only have to fill in the cracks around them and sand them smoother (the laziness in me talking)

Here's a clearer shot with the Mr. Surfacer500 on.

Odd, that the intakes on the chest plates are a different piece. e very careful to align them properly when you are glue these parts, they need to line up from the outside, if you let them seat tightly from underneath, they are a tad too high from the outside. This is a poor fit area for Hasegawa - I'm a bit surprised.

I ran out of my old Microscale liquid masking film, so I am trying this new stuff from Japan (if its Japanese it must be better? ) made by the same Mr. Surfacer people. It’s a bit thick - anyone knows of a thinner for this stuff?

I've sanded down the areas I filled in with the styrene sheets and the little injection pin depressions. All I have used so far is Mr. Surfacer 500, there was nothing significant yet that required putty.

Another test fit with the wings in place, you can see how little sanding and filling was really required, there isn't a lot that is exposed (and this is the worst case when the wings are fully swept forward)

This area always bugged me - those really "thick" squared off edges don't look very realistic or "aircraft-like". Plus this gap seems rather large considering that the wings are fully swept back.

Here's the forward section in the worst case with the wings fully swept back - you can see the little styrene card and the Mr. Surfacer around the edges that is now sanded smooth.

When its fully swept forward - you hardly see anything at all.

I've decided to sand these areas down, to give an airfoil profile to them so that they would appear thinner in the end. (Here is the before shot)

Here's the after shot, after I sanded down the edges and smoothed out the contours (sorry for the fuzzy photo - the camera had a hard time focusing so close)

Of course I had to re-scribe the panel line details that were lost when I rounded over the edges (I used the Hasegawa Tri-tool microsaws for this job - they are tiny photo-etched saws - you can buy them from HLJ) they are invaluable in recovering lost panel lines especially around seams and filled joints.

Here's that "dreaded" intake area on the chest plate. Hmm... not so bad (I think Valkyrie's exaggerating just a bit ) don't be scared off, it not really that bad. I didn't build any of it up or perform any type of modification, I just dabbed a few coats of Mr. Surfacer 500 at the two ends - I could of used a bit of putty, but the areas are so small that needs filling.

Come ON (don’t fear monger)!! That was the worst side, this side is even better. This is nothing, you should build some old Revel or AMT/ERTL kits, and they’ve got seams that you could launch missiles through! This kit really is up to Hasegawa standards so far, this portion is the worst fit of the kit thus far, but I haven't even had to break out the putty yet, all I've been using is Mr. Surfacer 500 so far. Mind you, on the bigger seams I've put a few coats on (after each coat dries).

Since there is so much of a gap when the wings are fully swept back - you really can see right into the cavity of the fuselage. Again, I broke out my ribbed styrene sheet and cut little "fences" and glued then in place - being careful not to obstruct the swing extent and gear mechanism of the wings. Ah, the ribbed sheet makes it look like some kind of retracting baffle system.

Here you can see the rounded over edges and the bit of baffling I added in the opening with the wing fully swept back.

Ah! Look, when you glue those little cranked arrow bits or mini-forward canards (correct my nomenclature if you will David) they hide even more (if any sins) of those dreaded intake connections.

Onto the next steps, I've decided to fill in these injector pin depressions now, since it would be difficult to sand them later when the halves are glued together.

Here is the arm halves glued together - the grey is Mr. Surfacer 500 again - well we will see whether this will be enough to smooth over both sides, be careful to try to align them so the heights match - this will save lots of sanding later on to even both halves out. Notice that there are a few areas where I have run the Mr. Surfacer across the direction of the seam - I've noticed a few slight sink depressions in those areas and should be filled in. You really only have to concentrate on this lower surface, the other side will be mostly obscured by the top of the fuselage (lazy tip #2) Well, that’s it for tonight, I will let everything dry overnight. A lot of sanding awaits me for the next few steps - the most boring and tedious part for me But it has to be done - if you skimp on this stage - you'll pay for it when you start painting believe you me, I have had many disappointments when I try to take short cuts during the sanding stage.

Yes, Mr. Surfacer is like a very thin putty or filler. It has the consistency of really thick paint - I would guess it’s really fine particles of filler suspended in some solution. It’s great for filling in really tiny hairline seams. I have two types (I think there are more grades out there) there is a 500 for the coarse (gap filling) stuff and a much finer 1000 for the hairline cracks ad seams. I brush it on with a thin paint brush which is then cleaned with Mr. Color thinner. For small jobs, it better than putty since you can control exactly where it goes, and can run into the really fine seams.

I am attempting to redefine or re-scribe the panel lines which run through the seams. When you use Mr. Surfacer and sand off - I occasionally sand too much off including the fine lines.

This nose area was tricky to re-scribe because of how small the first ring was - you can see a little bit of the Mr. Surfacer left in the seams doing its job in filling in fine seams.

I sanded away the circular injection pin depressions and have decided to paint this intake area in a sky grey. What I will do later is airbrush the white/off-white grey overcoat and gently feathers it back revealing this grey inside the intake fans - this gives the illusion of more depth and shadow as you look into the intakes. I wished that the fans were placed further back in the intakes - they seemed a little too close to the front.

The chrome on the intake fans is done with the Tamiya chrome silver marker - its the best silver I've ever used. You have to let everything dry for a bit before some further sanding. You can't glue the leg halves together till I get some of those rare earth magnets.

I have a pin-vise which is a little hand drill with ultra fine bits and was going to go around the plane re-defining any lost rivets.

(David Hingtgen : “I use microSET, but I always make sure to put some on the model itself, where the decal is to be applied. That way, you have some under the decal, not just brushed on top. For me, I believe a key thing about decal application is letting the solution WORK, then blotting out the excess water. The decal isn't "on" until it has taken on the same texture as the paint it's laying on. THEN you get to start blotting out that last bit of water trapped under the decal. Getting the decal to conform, getting the water out, preventing silvering, and decal solution, are all parts of the same step, really. It all goes together, and there isn't truly a set order. I myself tend to use massive amounts of microSET, and brush and squeegee away until the decal has conformed to the surface (and if it's conformed TIGHTLY to the surface, that means there can't be any water under it, can there? They go together). It takes time---the solution won't soften the decal enough to conform in 10 secs. Decal needs to be soft, to be able to really get tight against the surface. I've never liked microSOL, as I really, really fiddle with my decals to get them perfect--but no touching when you've microSOL'd a decal! Yes, my method takes time, and goes against what most people say (I like to apply over rough flat finishes, hate gloss, and never use strong solutions) but I do get amazing results, I can decal with the very best.) MicroSET is much more flexible in use and acts like a much weaker version of MicroSOL. However, I have experienced that too much MicroSET also eats up the decals too - while yes, generally you have much more latitude with the SET, it still must be used with care. I only use MicroSOL for the really tough stuff (maybe 5% of all my decaling). However, I do suggest decaling onto a glossy surface (decaling onto flat finishes will always give way to silvering - it just depends on how dark the surface is, the darker it is the more silvering appears, the lighter it is, you just can't see it as clearly - but trust me, it’s there), then clear-coat the decal and finish with flat/matte coat if that is the desired finish in the end. Anyways, the sheen of the decals will never match the sheen of your paint, so you should always clear-coat over top of the decals. Not much interesting to report - basically I am at the sanding stage - a lot of boring sanding, washing, inspecting, re-applying Mr. Surfacer in spots that need more filling and then more sanding and washing and inspecting... repeat and rise This is the part I hate about modeling, but if you don't do it properly, you'd be sorry when you start painting.

Here is a few shots of where we left off last, after sanding down the major ridges, I applied Mr. Surfacer 1000 (since it was very minor seams).

Here's an important seam to get perfect, it’s really visible when you are finished, and remember to scribe back those panel lines that run across the seam. Had to be careful especially around that vernier (circle with the handle through it) to not lose it, since the engraving is quite light - luckily, a decal is provided for this so we don't have to rely on the wash to pick it out.

Another good area to check, since it’s so flat, any imperfections will show up easily.

You see, when you're done, there's really very little visible left of the Mr. Surfacer noticed the panel lines re-scribed through the seam (that's with the photo-etched saws from Hasegawa mentioned earlier)

But if you see any of the fine lines filled in with the grey of the Mr. Surfacer, it means that it did its work!!

I also sanded the wing edges, since it’s molded this way (top and bottom one piece - except for that stupid insert), there will be a separation seam in the mold process that we need to get rid of. Additionally, we need to continue the panel lines around the leading edges to join up with the panels on the underside. Luckily Hasegawa was dead on in lining them up.

Well, here are those rare earth magnets. I got them from Lee Valley Tools here in Toronto - as you can see they come in various tiny sizes to choose from. Here's is their website; they deliver right to your door. http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?pag...ID=&ccurrency=1 http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?pag...currency=1&SID= I ended up using the middle ones I think they were 3/8" but it’s always good to get a few varieties. I glued in all the pieces that connect/bridge the two leg halves to make sure that the magnet would clear any plastic. I decided to be lazy and use a metal washer for the fast pack side. These little magnets are so strong; I don't think I need two magnets, one on either side. I will just put the magnet inside the leg and attached the washer to the inside of the fast-packs. I wasn't really planning on detailing the inside of them anyhow, so I will just surface mount them.

Here's a dry run to get the approximate location on the fast packs. You could put two in to be more secure, but I only chose one. Luckily, the insides of the packs never touch the surface of the legs, only the perimeter of the packs are touching the legs, so there is no need to counter sink the metal washer. Additionally, this also prevents the surface of the leg from marring (I was afraid of this before I began). To make sure the metal is no way near the actual surface of the leg, I also very slightly bent it with a pair of pliers so that it more closely resembles in inside curvature of the fast packs.

Here's the 5-min epoxy "goop" I laid in. Inside the leg can be messy, it just has to prevent the magnet from falling around. You should be neater on the packs, since we don't want the epoxy to be scratching our finish off our legs when we are done. When I test fit them, the washers are actually always at least 1/8" from the surface of the plastic, plus the thickness of the plastic, its magnetic field was strong enough to get pass 1/4"! Two might be more secure if you are zooming it around, but for me, I think one will suffice for my needs.

I glued the two halves together, here you see the pack on - the magnets work really well.

More sanding - one finished, one just begun... sigh... sanding sanding sanding

Ok, a few more hours - just sanding. Here's a tough spot, I scraped away at the plastic to get both sides level (inside the intakes - lower lip) and I will fill it with Tamiya Putty – it’s a bit more of a gap than Mr. Surfacer can handle.

The leg halves didn't go together quite as smoothly - there was a bit of height difference between the two halves. I think it’s my fault for not properly aligning them while the glue was still setting. But since this is a major seam and highly visible, I am going to use Tamiya Putty to build up both sides to match exactly while filling the seam. Additionally it will eliminate that weird scribed panel lines which don't meet at the bottom surface of the intakes (on the outside) and allow me a blank slate to rescribe that line in afterwards.

Remember to scribe back any lines lost due to sanding...

I added this scribed line in since it should look like the arm can separate from the shoulder piece - and made it quite deep.

You can see a sink hole (actually on a little depression) towards the top above the seam you see a little round smudge of Mr. Surfacer, doing its job filling it out. Funny I haven't really come across sink holes on Hasegawa kits before...

Here are another two below the seam that should be filled in - however, when the arm is in place, it will mostly be obscured by the back pack anyways. So it’s not as vital to fill these as the ones on the shoulders - but hey depends on your mood on sanding (I'm still debating on whether to fill the injection pin holes in the landing gear doors - that's how lazy I am these days!)

Here's a shot of a pin vise - you can get these at most local hardware stores for cheap. They usually come with a small assortment of tiny bits stored in the shaft. I like these since they are hand-powered and can be extremely precise and careful with them. You should hold them in your thumb and index finger with your "peterpointer" finger on the top of the shaft - and just roll your thumb to twist the shaft allowing your "peter-pointer" finger on top to apply the downward pressure. But let most of the bit does the work since the plastic is extremely soft. In the background I got a case of smaller drill bits of varying sizes - this is just the cheap one (made in China) for around $10cdn. The very fine bits can snap quite easily if you're not careful and allow it to bend - but for $10 for such a variety pack - they are almost disposable. Let me know if any of you have had better luck with the expensive ones not breaking (I would guess you get what you paid for - but that's not always the case)

I am using the pin vise to drill out the depressions that Hasegawa tried to make in the side of the afterburning cans. It’s really easy since they already marked them just not deep enough. The hardest part is not going through the plastic and creating a hole.

Here's a shot when they are done. I did them before sanding the edges and the sprue attachment points since I didn't want to accidentally sand away the very faint depressions away marking where I should drill.

These are the little styrene strips that you can buy at most model train stores - I'm too lazy to cut even strips from a sheet of styrene so I bought the ones already cut. Isn't civilization great! I plan on gluing these to the insides of the nozzles to create that ribbed look. I'm sure Hasegawa will come out with a photo-etched part for this shortly after we make these ourselves

A few more hours today - just a ton of sanding and re-sanding. David, man, those AMT/Ertl Star Trek kits sure bring back nightmares!! They must be one of the worst kits in history - did you ever build the "Airwolf" kit of the Bell 222 by AMT/Ertl - just about made me swore off models all together! It’s easier to leave the styrene strips long so you can hold on to them while you're gluing them in place. Then snip them a tad long (we'll sand them down later) I've decided to only do the strips to the top and bottom.

I've trimmed them down a bit after the glue had dried.

On wet coarse (100grit) sanding film, I dragged the tail cone with the slightly long strips along the surface. I always drag in one direction (right to left - in this picture) so that the strips will always be pressed against the tail cone - I didn't drag against the glue (you don't want to accidentally pull the strips away from the tail cone).

Here's the assembly together - I'm glad I took the time to add the strips, it make the end profile a bit more interesting. You can see a dab of Mr. Surfacer1000 at the sprue connection points yet to be sanded off. I want to make sure these babies are completely blemish-free - since that Alclad metalizer stuff will transmit the slightest imperfections through.

The arms glued together and sanded down.

Again I am making sure that the seam on the gun pod is totally gone, I am almost polishing it since that Alcad metalizer isn't too forgiving.

I thought I add a little detail to the end of the gun pod, the original just butte ends, I glued on a little tiny minus mold vent from those wave option parts (same ones I used earlier on in the thread for the pilot's seat) I think this nice caps off the end of the gun.

Here's the leg with most of the putty sanded off – it’s really important to get rid of the seams along these halves. You can see the panel lines are re-scribed back in.

Here's a close-up of the front edge of the intakes on the lower surface. I filled in and sanded away the old panel lines that do not match up. I have re-scribed a new line that matches up across the seam. It’s not really parallel with the front edge of the intakes since I thought it be more important to match up to the panel lines on the sides of the intakes (and they are not symmetrical in width). You can see a smudge of putty on the left side - I guess that was a minor sink hole that he putty did its job in filling. It is curious though, there seems to be a bunch of tiny little pits (the small grey dots) around the seam. I finally got a new tube of Tamiya putty (my previous one lasted me 5 years! - it actually dried up when the tube developed cracks) and the new tube was very liquid - I think the solvent and the putty didn't mix or separated. I am guessing that this liquid pitted the plastic while it was drying (kind of like plastic cement) I am hoping that the grey dots mean that they are filled. I guess I will find out when I do a light coat of flat white as primer soon.

Here's the top - there was a bit of a height difference here, so I hope the putty will even this out.

Here's the inside of the intakes, that crevice filled – it’s pretty hard to get your sand paper in there.

Here's a parting shot for tonight – it’s getting there (to the point where I can zoom it around the room) Just some more fine sanding and I think I'll tackle the airbrakes next. I will drill out the holes, but I want to find some way of thinning the plastic so that it looks more to scale around each of the holes where you'd see the cross-section of the metal. Sanding and more sanding....

Here's a shot of the legs sprayed with some flat white as primer along the filled seams. This helps me see where there still needs to be filled and sanded. Also it helps blend in the grey putty and Mr. Surfacer to the white surrounding parts so that I don't have to use as much paint later on to hide the filled areas.

You guys are right those top pieces for the legs fit really poorly. (Come on, Hasegawa - this isn't up to your usual snuff! - What's going on here?) It'd even say the gaps are around the order of old AMT/ERTL stuff. Well, I decided to push it to the rear of the leg, leaving the front edge with the big gap - since it would be eventually covered with the grey decal. I lathered on the Mr. Surfacer, then sanded - and here you see a coat of flat white to see where we are. Still not great, but I'll brush on a very thick layer of flat white paint to sand down afterwards to minimize the seam - however, I don't want it smooth, I still want to read a seam here.

The arms turned out okay - but also major putty here to make the surfaces flat. I also rushed the sanding of this baby - since I was building it in the small bits of free time I had while working. I think I may have to go back and re-sand quite a few pieces - the seams are still slightly present.

Here's the critical seam that I was absolutely nuts about - while the rear portion after the clear sensor domes worked out, there is a slight blemish in the front radome portion. However, I'm glad that I was able to keep the slightly ridged profile - too much sanding could turn the radome into a cone. I will paint a strip of flat white paint and sand that off to seal in the faint seam (not really visible in this photo) but apparent to the naked eye upon really close inspection.

Here is another critical seam that turned out okay. The dark line is the Mr. Surfacer underneath.

Here is another spot to inspect carefully. Remember to continue the scribed panel line across the seam to join the underside (I might have scribed too deeply).

Argh... You can see the slight bump where the sprue originally joined to the forward fuselage halves - damn, I was too impatient and need to sand again to smooth that out. These errors are hard to see before you prime since they are not holes or depressions, they are just the opposite.

Another critical seam to get right (there seems to be more of them on this model than any other so far). The two little tabs even though they have been sanded smooth, don't seem to mate up with the lower portion of the rudders too well. I will paint a thick coat of flat white across this seam are re-sand.

That's what the thick coat of flat white looks like - I will do this in all the problem areas (which are most of all the critical joints) and attempt to re-sand again... boring, but necessary to achieve a flawless finish. This is often the step I don't spend enough time on - and I always regret it afterwards.

Hey all, I've been sanding, sanding... sanding anytime I get on the bugger. Just when I think I'm done, I prime it in a flat white paint, and some imperfection shows through - so I have to sand it down carefully, using the white paint as fine filler. After so many tries, I'm pretty much down to the bare plastic. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time this time around - I guess every once in a while you get a model like this – it’s not that it’s a bad kit. Just bad luck

Finally after 3-4 tries, I get a satisfactory profile from round/circular at the tip feathering out to a point near the clear sensor area. I find the nose cone has to be perfect; it’s the most prominent part of the model.

Here's the other side, with any paint and primer sanded off again. The area where the sprue joins the nose cone has kept giving me problems, is just the opposite of a chunk taken away, it's a very minor lump, that can hardly be seen until you paint it. Hopefully its finally gone now. Looks like I need to re-drill some of those bolt holes around the sensor array.

Again, another crucial joint, finally in the right profile, it’s too easy to sand it flat but I think it looks better angular but not sharp.

ARRGH!! I'm having bad luck with this bird! I don't know if it’s me or the kit, but I was hoping that this VF-0 would be like the previous VF-1 where the nose section fits almost seamlessly to the fuselage. Unfortunately, when I slide the nose on, it tends to droop down creating a rather large crack here (it may be that I glued those forward leading edges at a slightly downward angle). So I guess I would have to glue this piece on now so I can do any sanding or repair work before I give the bird a first coat. Unfortunately, to close up the gap, I needed much more glue than I applied (I applied very little at first - wanting to leave the seam as a panel line) but it wasn't enough to hold close the seam. As a result, I had to pry it apart again, and drop in a bit more liquid cement in the seam - unfortunately I think I added too much, because when I closed up the seam, it all oozed out the sides and gave me this mess. I'll let it dry and sand it flat I hope - I may re-scribe that line in after, but I must have the patience to let it dry completely. Nothing worse than trying to sand away liquid cement excess when it’s not completely dry - what a mess!

This rudder seam turned out okay after more sanding and filling.

The leg turned out okay as well after I re-sanded several times, the panel lines continue across the seam to my satisfaction, and the re-scribed intake lip turned out okay too. I should of thinned the forward leading edge of the walls of the rear intake by the feet - here's a tip for others The thick plastic walls always make the model look toy-like.

The top also turned out okay now (after several tries)- unfortunately I sanded so much that I sort of lost the faint small rectangular panels on the top surface. I would recommend that you glue this top piece onto the legs right away and start filling and sanding with the seams of the legs, that way it's easier to maintain the same slightly ridged profile of the leg.

I took a little time out to paint the metallic steel parts. Man its been a while, I forgot to prime first - and with this Alcad metallizer stuff, you really need to use their excellent primer. It’s weird especially with metallic paints all the imperfections in the molding of the plastic that comes through. I had to prime over top of the painted surfaces and re-spray the metallic steel colour. However, this finish is so much more satisfying that the Tamiya metallic grey or steel. Just make sure you wear a mask when spraying, this lacquer stuff especially with metallic particles suspended in it can't be healthy for you!

The gun achieved an almost mirror like metallic finish without buffing or sealing.

Some more metallic parts...

I've been look forward to this for weeks. The airbrake, I would suggest thinning the sides by sanding the edges at a 45 degree to make the edges look thinner - more in scale with the sheet metal of the plane. I had thought about thinning the entire brake down since I'd be drilling holes through it so you would catch the edges in every hole and the thick plastic would be a dead giveaway - but I was worried that would serious weaken the plastic. Its six or 1/2 dozen or another... so I chose the safe and easy route and just thinned the outside visible edges. For the truly insane out there, I suppose you could manufacture this item with a thin bent sheet of metal to get the right thickness I’m not there yet. (yuck! I think I need a manicure)

Here I started with a smaller bit first – it’s important that you don't try and force it, just gently ease the pin-vise bit through. The more holes you drill, the more fragile the piece becomes. I always try to drill directly perpendicular to the hole.

Here it is with the holes finished, I used a slightly larger bit to finish them off more as a reamer to finish the sides. I am glad that I did not thin the piece down in the beginning - it would be too fragile. The holes are small enough that the edges showing do not bother me as much. Please take care at the two last corners, as the holes are really close to the end corners of the brake.

Here's the back side - you can see the bevel at the rear to make the brake appear thinner - I did the same thing with the VF-1 brake if you choose to display it open.

Here it is from the rear - a prime candidate for a photo-etched part later on (are you listening Hasegawa?) That's it for the time being - more sanding on that glue oozed seam - then its painting - yipeee!

The metalizers I use are Alclad - you can get them at most hobby stores, they are lacquer based so Mr. Colour thinner or ModelMaster Acryl thinners and solvents work on them. They are great, found them on the Yukikaze model thread, and I will never look back. The great thing is that they do not need a sealer nor buffing although it does say that buffing will improve the look - I haven't had the need yet. Most metalizers require a sealer, and the sealer often dulls the shine down - which in my opinion kind of goes against the effect you want to achieve with a metalizer. They are pre-thinned to be airbrushed (so its a bit expensive for what you get, those little bottles are around $12cdn - maybe $6-8usd) and must be airbrushed. The gray primer is also pre-thinned and is excellent - they are sprayed at a lower pressure around 12-15psi is recommended on the bottle. With these and all metalizers, the surface preparation is essential. The smoother the underlying surface it is, the more mirror/glass like you finish will be. I would spend extra care in filling or sanding any pieces that are to be metallic, since the sheen will often catch the light at odd angles and exaggerate any flaws in the model. I do prime the parts first with the primer before using the metalizer - te primer tends to smooth things out a bit. With the polished aluminum or chrome, they even suggest a coat of gloss black after the primer before the metalizer. I've tried it both ways, and you really need the gloss black underneath, I think it acts as a mirror with a backing the shine achieved is well worth the extra step. I'm ready to give it the first coat of light white/grey - so wish me luck, I'll post as soon as I can.

Here's a shot of those sanding sticks. They came in real handy when trying to sand the filled in injector pin depressions inside the landing gear doors. I'm lazy so I just bought a pack of these - but I suppose anyone can make them, just glue your favourite grade of sandpaper to little wooden sticks.

This makes it easier to sand away the holes that were filled in earlier with Mr. Surfacer while still keeping the surrounding details.

Here they are after they have been sanded - it will probably take a few coats of white to truly get the grey spots to be white - why don't they make white Mr. Surfacer?

A shot of a dry fit assembly - I like the airbrake a lot with the hole drilled out, I think it’s worth doing even if you are gluing it down fold back. It lets you see into the brake well with some details inside.

I thought it’s about time to drill out the head laser tips, it will add a lot more realism to have the lasers hollowed out.

Here's what they look like when they are done. I didn't do it to the nose pilots tube, it was just a bit too small - maybe someone would try it out and let me know, I'm just not that anal yet

The two dorsal antennas had their leading edges sanded down at 45 degree angles to reduce their apparent thickness. The square edges just didn't contribute to the aerodynamic look of the aircraft.

Again, there are injector pin holes/depressions on the wheels which needs to be filled in with a few coats of Mr. Surfacer (they were deep) and sanded down. Its weird that there are so many pin depressions in this kit. I am going to give the bird its first coat of light grey paint today. Its a mix of 50:50 flat white with gloss white with 2-3 drops of sky grey. I'll let you know how it goes.

Hmm, I'm not too sure of the spray can - I have used the Tamiya white primer spray, and it goes on great for large areas, but I find the spray cans lay on too much paint and it’s too hard to control for fine details and small parts. Good to know though.

I've been itching to try some of the different glues out there. I've just stuck to my old favourites over the years - for anything that requires strength, I use the Testors regular orange tube stuff. Smaller stuff I use the liquid cement - I've used the same bottle of testors for 6 years now, and finally I had to go out to get a new one - they had a sale on Tamiya (which puts in the same price as the testors) and I got that, don't notice a real difference though. Saw a neat glass tube for precise liquid cement placement, but it was too expensive ($25-30cdn) for now. I'd love to try that MicroWeld or MEK stuff - man, I didn't have so many choices in glues in my day – it’s really weird to be using the same stuff all the time and then suddenly look up and see all this stuff around you - it makes me feel old Can anyone let me know what their experiences are with these other glues - I'd like to know what to try. Like David, I'd like a little bit of time to precisely place a part (5sec) then have it hold the part or set soon (10sec) - preferably something that doesn't ooze out the sides and can be very thin/viscous that can be precisely placed. Do they "melt" the plastic, or is it a chemical bond?

Hey I'll start a chart with what I use:

Name: Type: Play Time: Set Time: Cure Time: Testors Orange Tube Solvent (Thick) 15-20sec 30-60sec 4-8hrs Testors Liquid Cemet Solvent (Thin) 5-10sec 20-40sec 2-6hrs Crazy Glue (regular) CyanoAcrylate 0-5sec 5-10sec 30mins (-this stuff comes in all flavours, thin to thick, fast and slow, with accelerators) 5min Epoxy Epoxy resin 2mins 5mins 6hrs

Did a dry fit today - I'm pretty happy with the light grey/white colour.

I really like the design more and more...

I've decided to mask the areas that I will spray gloss white.

I'd decided it might be nice to spray the radome and flaps in gloss white too like the old Tomcats, plus it will differentiates the greys on the aircraft. Anywhere where I can liven up the straight white/grey paint scheme would be nice without going against canon art.

Here's a shot after the white spray on all the parts. Must leave to dry - DO NOT FIDDLE WITH IT! This is my most vulnerable time - when I start to paint the different colours, and I lose patience and start to mask and handle the plane before the last coat is completely dry. I can't count how many scratches or finger prints I've had to sand off and re-paint over the years! I always try to do this late at night, so I have to go to sleep to let the paint cure. Or find something to do on another part of the model while the paint cures.

Here's a shot of the white interior which looks good against the light grey exterior of the intakes. You can see the original coat of sky grey inside feathered out to the gloss white - this exaggerates the apparent depth of the intake - kind of like painting a shadow. When the top is glued on, and the actual intake falls into shadow - the effect looks better.

Here's a shot of the masking I did around the edges to separate the gloss white interior from the light grey exterior.

A shot of the white nose cone against the light grey body.

You can see the gloss white landing gear bay behind. Quite a bit easier than painting the white onto the dark blue YF-21 body!

Here's a overall shot - kind of looks a bit retro eh? (Or cannon fodderish) Once the panels are lined and the post-shading applied, the contrast will be less noticeable.

I hand painted the rear interior of the legs black. Then I applied a wash of pure black to the metallic objects. I love the head sculpt – it’s too bad that you will see almost nothing of it when it’s buried into the fuselage. It’s too bad that there was no clear piece for the top of the head which is supposed to have a red light at the front.

I just love the detail on these after-burners!! I hope you can still see them once the feet are on the legs - a black wash really brings out the effort Hasegawa puts into them. Ok, must leave the model to dry for the time being. I might assemble the landing gears to prep them for a spray of gloss white too.

Don't do a black artist oil wash over anything painted with the silver chrome Tamiya Markers. I just did that to the intake fans, and the Varsol in the thinned down oil paints ate away at the Tamiya silver and I got a mucky mess. Luckily I cleaned it up and plan on sealing it first next time. I should wear gloves - rubber latex should be fine, but I don't. I did get one small spot of slight finger prints (easy on really glossy surfaces – that’s why I usually go semi-gloss) but luckily a coat of clear-coat eliminated that. I am doing a little burning on the feet/afterburner nozzles. I airbrush shade these with flat black, later to be sealed in with a clear coat of semi-gloss.

Here's the gun pod with a bit of shading.

Here's the intake vanes, I've tried to bend the ends up slightly, and I am going to glue them in at a slight downward angle like the F-14 excess bleed ramps in the intakes, plus it will partially obscure the fans and the interior of the intakes. The back of the knees are shaded now, but you really don't see much of them once the legs are glued in place. I've given the entire thing a coat of ModelMaster Clear-coat of semi-gloss mixed with gloss finish to seal in the paint so far (letting it dry overnight), so I can do an oil wash tomorrow and hopefully some post-shading.

AARRGHH! Wha, what happened, it looks like the clear-coat shrank and peeled away from the gloss white undercoat leaving this crack I don't know exactly what happened, I'd guess I laid the clear-coat on too thick and maybe the undercoat wasn't completely dried yet? Man I hate it when this happens, I am going to try to very gently sand the clear coat down with 2000 grit sanding film (I hope the crack doesn't extend down to the plastic) to eliminate the crack and will have to put the white gloss over it again and a careful light clear coat.

In the meanwhile, I am masking all the steel parts on the fuselage.

Again, I am using this Alclad steel metalizer stuff - the tape protects the light grey/white on the exterior. Doing it in this order, exterior paint first, then interior metallic will bring the steel colour up to the light grey creating the illusion that the metal is thinner.

The top parts masked and sprayed. I should of painted the interior intakes on the top chest pieces black first before gluing it into the fuselage, it’s hard to get the airbrush and paint into such a deep crevasse. I had no problem with the YF-19 or the VF-1, but this model is deeper.

The masking removed - I try to remove it as soon as possible, just to minimize the possibility that some tape residue might remain behind. Noticed that I didn't even paint or glue the three thrusters in there, on a dry fit, I noticed that they will not be seen at all, the arms and legs completely hides this whole area. Thank god, I don't know how to paint that bulkhead anyways, you couldn't paint it afterwards and place it in (like the grill in the rear) - it had to be glued in place when the backpack was glued to the fuselage, so painting this bulkhead in place afterwards in situ would be a bitch!

Ahh, my favourite part... the oil wash, what a pleasure on such an amazingly detailed model. I must admit, I'm a real fan of hasegawa's interpretation of the line art by adding all these panels and bolts, I find the new Macross Plus planes a bit scale-less (even if they are accurate). I tried to vary the washes a bit like my shading now. I use a light grey wash for all the overall panel lines, a black for any vent openings or moveable surfaces and a brown for any hydraulic leakages. This is just the panel line pass - I will clean it all up and do a separate weathering streaking pass later on (finally now is the fun part!!)

There's the legs

The interior of the landing gears, I think they turned out ok, the pins aren't totally gone, but when they are mounted into the aircraft, I think they will all but disappear.

Here's a close up, I don't know if you can see the different shades of wash - I try to do it while they are all wet, so that they will dilute each other and not create any harsh colour transitional changes.

I use low odour varsol - this stuff doesn't stink and it seems less strong, but yes sometimes when it’s too thin, the paint pigments have a tendency to separate into fine particles in the thinned solution – it’s a problem. I think enamel washes don't have this problem, but I'm chicken, I'm afraid the enamel washes might eat away at the acrylic undercoat since enamel solvents are usually harsher. Ah... David you caught me, your right (wrong colour choice - artistic license), but I like the idea of the brake opening and revealing some guts of the aircraft - it makes a better contrast to the white/grey - plus my other Valkyrie (VF-1) have a metal airbrake compartment. What do you think about lining the landing gear doors with red? Is it too garish on a 1/72? Or too old fashioned? I haven't really seen any references to the VF-0 - but I doubt that the landing gear door edges are red-lined. The crack is now nicely sanded down and awaits another coat of white then clearcoat - I'll do it after I wipe down the oil wash, I'll post some pictures soon.

I got the panel lines down to a respectable subtlety - I always have it dark when I first start (I love the details) but always end up rubbing a lot off or lightening them - because they are just too obvious. I think this is a good compromise - it might be still a bit strong, but with the high-contrast black stripes it should be ok, I can always lay a wash of white oil paint in there afterwards if it’s still too dark.

Just have to fit the legs on - too bad they don't slip on and stay on allowing them to be removed like the VF-1. You really need to leave gluing them on till the very end since you need to decal the "inner" calves before they get glued in.

I love being able to see some glint of metal in between the holes of the airbrake!! I also love those slotted vents on the back. I've sprayed another coat of semi-gloss clear coat (allowing overnight to dry without me picking it up) to protect this stage in preparation for tomorrow's post shading. If I overdo it tomorrow, I can always take a little windex and "erase" any extra post-shading to this point without disturbing the paint underneath.

I focus on all areas, there are no real specifics, but I do omit the really small details that I know I can't get my airbrush in tight enough. Generally I try to hit all the contours of the aircraft - concentrating in the valleys with a darker colour, and hitting the highpoints with a flat white later on to simulate wearing. I think of it in terms of shading a drawing, where the painted color represents the mid-tones and any recesses get shadowed with a darker shade and any highpoints gets hit with a lighter color. Also think what gets hit with the blast of airflow that should get a bit lighter worn, where as areas those are recesses tend to collect debris and dirt. Then after all is said and done, I sometimes just spray where ever I think might accentuate something (artistic license)

Here's an overall shot, I tried to trace the panel lines with my airbrush (or as close as I can to them). I used a thinned down sky grey for the post-shading. I thin it down 70:30 thinner: paint ratio, much more diluted than I am used to painting with - so it flows easily out of the airbrush and prevents clogging. I really need control for this stage and I try to get the finest lines I can. I often go over lines quite a few time because so little paint comes out - this way I can: A) See where the paint is going to make sure I hit the lines B) Vary the darkness of the shading C) After a few strokes I can get an more steady and even stroke D) Because I chicken$h@! So I like to build up my colour in multiple passes I hold the airbrush quite close, maybe 1-2" from the model to get a fine line. Periodically spray full open onto a piece a paper to clear out the airbrush and prevent splatter - then go back to the model. This is much heavier post shading than I usually do, but hey I think this bird is more weathered than most - finally not a new demonstration scheme (Macross Plus birds) and I noticed a lot more weathering on the CGI shots. Plus when I apply the stark black stripes that will make such a contrast to the eyes that these post shading will fade into the background more. I don't want to overdo it at this stage,

I still want to do another pass after the decals are on to tie them into the paint scheme more - so treat this as 75% of the desired effect.

Here's a close up, I shaded those (conformal fuel tanks? what are they David/Graham?) to bring out their roundness, and concentrated on the valley at their connection to the airframe. I also shaded where I think the black stripes will meet light grey paint, so the black separation has a bit of a transition and won't be so jarring. Remember you want to avoid masking after the decals (that VE-1 Radome incident) Now I want to do the streaking next - but I'm not sure how - any suggestions? I thought I'd do the majority of weathering now before the decals since certain decals such as the warning and no-step labels will have a tiny bit of carrier film attached to them (more in between the letters) even if I trim them very closely and if I wash or streak, it might catch the edges of these decals and produce a dark halo effect around each graphic (bad experience I don't wish to repeat). I tried wiping the oil wash in a single direction, but the streaking isn't what I wanted to achieve, it streaks, but the darkest portion is towards the tail - I want the darkest portion to be at the source - then fading away. An effect is best achieved by airbrushing the fade, but I can't get my airbrush fine enough - I want to streak away from some of the rivet holes. I have some sketching charcoal sticks and conte pastels, which I might try - I was thinking of rubbing them onto a piece a paper and using a fine tipped brush with a little water and using the shavings as ink painting the streaks - what do you think?

Some more areas where I concentrated some shading.

Ah, one of the best things Hasegawa did was design the tail cone/feet to be assembled after painting, this saves so much masking the interior black headaches. This one of the things I've been looking forward to assembling.

Yah!! You can still see the afterburners rather well, just like the anime!

The front intake turbines, I cut to two little pins off, it’s too difficult to align them properly. It’s too bad they didn't set it back further into the intake.

I masked that hip separation and painted that sky grey to give it a little more definition than just a oil wash.

Unfortunately during all the handling, I tore off that nose pilot tube. I knew it was going to happen when I glued them on in a much earlier step, but I had to do it early on since I wanted a good bond between the plastic (before it was painted) and I wanted an oil wash and post-shading to occur at the valley where the probe meets the radome. It was a hard decision back then, normally I always leave the fragile things till the very end, but they always looked tacked on, and often fell off since it wasn't properly glued in the first place (worst, often it would ruin the painted surface or take some paint with it when it fell off). I don't think I have a single model that has a pilot's tube intact.

Here it is drying after another clear-coat to protect the very fragile and thin postshading work. I highly recommend a clear-coat after the post-shading, since often it’s just a light dusting of paint, it can scratch off.

A close up of the intakes with the grey painted separation at the hip.

Man I love the tail cones, thanks for the idea to do the ribs - I love them. I also drew in some pencil lines on the top part of the leg to restore that ridge that kind of gotten lost in all that sanding and defined some very light panel lines. The pencil lines are sealed in under the clear coat to prevent them from being rubbed away.

A profile shot...

A black wash on the landing gears to pick out some detail, I'll do a brown rust/hydraulic leak wash afterwards. Another great Hasegawa innovation, the rear main gear hubs are molded separately from the tires, hallelujah!! Too bad the front gear wheels aren't like that too. By the way, that can on the front gears, is that the brake fluid reservoir? What colour should it be? I still need to apply the Tamyia chrome maker to the bare metal actuator struts.

Here's the doors edged in red, I love this Sharpie marker (you can get them at most Staples or Business Depots) it has two ends, a fine and broad tip. The hardest part was continuing the red edge pass the hinges, I had to scrape some of the paint off to eliminate some excess red on the hinge tabs.

I sprayed the front wheels white and applied the dark wash on them to pick out the details. Actually, I applied the wash first thinking I'd be lazy and use the white plastic of the wheels as is - but it looked plastic translucent. So I painted over it, and it was good since the original wash was a bit too dark. The trick to doing these wheels and getting a good separation between the white hubs and the black rubber is doing this black wash, the wash gets into the crevice between the hub and plastic, then when I hand brush the flat black on the tires, I don't have to go right up to the edge of the hub, I let the black oil wash do that for me.

You are asking if you can still do the oil wash in the panel lines to show up. Well, that depends on how much of the engraved lines are still a recess after they have been filled with your old paint. If you stripped the paint with a solvent (one that doesn't eat at plastic) and a toothbrush, you could get all the paint out of the crevices and that would leave deep enough engraved troughs to hold the oil wash details. If the paint in the panels have filled the tiny lines then no - the oil wash would be useless since there is really nothing for the oil to sit in.

Hey here's another reference on the weathering - look, the streaking is definitely not in the direction of the airflow - pretty dirty bird if you ask me How would I attempt to get that surface mottling - I see a lot of recent tomcats like that, its more than just paint patches?

Hey LTSO, my brakes came out fine, I use Tamiya masking tape, which helps - I also don't leave it on too long or press too hard. What is your white undercoat - I find that really glossy finishes tend to mar slightly with the masking tape, or anything else for that matter. That’s why I like working with semi-gloss finishes - it seems to be more resistant to abuse. Funny you should mention being based in a coal mine David I thought I'd try sketching charcoal, I used an exacto knife to scrape away some filings to dab onto the plane

.

Argh! It didn't really work - the chalkiness of it wiped off too easily You hardly see it, and with any further handling (even just to get a clear-coat on to protect it) it just about disappears. Oh well, please bear with me as I experiment on this phase. I think it’s off to an art store for some supplies...

Ok, shortly thereafter... and $32 poorer, we get our supplies. Man it’s been a while since I bought sketching supplies. I didn't want to make the trip back so I bought a little of everything that might work. Starting from the left working our way right: 3 sticks of conte, a rectangular knead able eraser, pencil sharpener, oil pastels, 3 pastel/chalk in pencil form, and a thin and fat shaders. I'm kind of excited about the pencil pastel/chalks, it allows precise control (literally we can draw the oil streaks on) and can be smeared with the shaders/smudge sticks (essentially paper compressed and wrapped into a tube with a sharpened end). Well, the oil pastels were totally useless; they were too oily to be shaved into any type of fine particles to be used. But my gut feeling on these pencil pastel/chalks worked. I included white in purchases since I need to weather down the black tail fins and markings after I apply the decals.

I just lightly drew some oil streaks in the direction of airflow.

Then I used a paper towel to wipe in the direction of airflow which blends it in and creates the faded tail. I also wiped some in the vertical direction top to bottom on the service hatches to simulate leakage during flight operations on the ground. I experimented on this inside part of the leg first - since you don't really see much of it when it’s glued in tucked beside the arms.

How's this – it’s actually a bit heavier in real life, the camera misses some of the finer details – it’s a bit odd every takes on a warmer tone.

I use an exacto knife to scrape away at the pencil to create shavings/dust in a plastic container (battery packaging bubble) that I can brush on for general darkening not specific leaks.

Specific leaks I drew on lightly - I took David's suggestion and made the leaks in the direction of airflow when the wings are fully extended. This is a compromise, since the CGI model (believe me I've looked carefully) wings streak at a nearly perpendicular angle to the trailing edge of the wings (not even fully extended would the airflow be in this direction!)

I then used the smudge stick / shader to smudge the drawn oil streaks in the desired direction - then I use a paper towel to also wipe in the same direction. If I had too much, I would rub it with a damp paper towel or use the knead able eraser.

I noticed that on the CGI model, there are darker spots in the paneling especially around certain junctions where a few panel lines meet. I use the shavings and dab a dry brush into it and work the dust into the areas lightly where I want it to be darker.

Well there it is - I just repeated the above process all over the aircraft, trying to duplicate the CGI reference where I could. Actually, the photos looks light, it’s actually more heavily weathered than this. I post the reference I used below this image.

Close up of the back.

The whole plane looks a little grey now – it’s not what I really wanted. I wanted a weathered white plane (well slightly off-white, very light grey) It’s has to eventually go next to my VF-1 on the flight line.

I just remembered that excellent article that David pointed us to about Naval weathering, it suggested another coat of the base colour to tie everything together. I thought this might be my chance to lighten the whole bird up again. So I mixed a very viscous (lots of thinner 60:40) gloss white and lightly dusted the entire model with it, concentrating to hit the highpoints and areas where I wanted to tone down the post-shading and weathering. I like it a lot more now - everything ties together much more nicely. Although it’s still really dirty (a little too weathered for my taste) - but I think it’s pretty close to the animation now. I think I'm ready for decaling soon - woohoo! There will be another dusting to tie the decals in as well as weathering on top of them - but that’s another story for later. I just want to glue those damn legs onto the fuselage - I guess I've got to decal the inner calf black stripes and the grey portion on top of the legs before I can make this bird whole again.

Wooohoo! The decaling stage - my next favourite step These decals are quite thin, compared to the other Hasegawa stuff. They are very good, but I was kind of used to the other stuff and lathered on the MicroSET liberally and was a bit rough with them, as a result, I ripped a few here and there before I got the hang of the new thinness of these decals. They are great; don't get me wrong, just a little thinner than I was used to from Hasegawa. They are also a bit over sized - I'm not sure whether they are actually oversized or that in combination with the MicroSET softening them and being thinner, that they stretched a little bit. As you can see here at the legs, the black stripe is supposed to end at the knees but there should be some white showing on the lower bulkhead the black is only supposed to be on the part that bulges out. I already had too much MicroSET on them to neatly trim off the excess length, so I just kept them as clean as I could; luckily the profile of the black stripe matches the knee portion perfectly so to the "undiscerning" eye it looks intentional. Unfortunately the photo doesn't show all the little details that must telegraph through these black stripes. I used a bit of MicroSOL on the panel lines and those triangular recesses near the knees to get them to show through the decals properly. I think the next time I do this, I might just mask and paint the black stripes on the legs - it’s a pretty easy shape and all the details will show through.

I chose to decal this first since I want to glue the legs onto the fuselage as soon as possible (just anxious). I will probably omit the numerous warning stencils on the inside of these legs (keep them as spares for my decal box) since they are totally obscured when the legs are attached. The ones that do show are still accessible after the legs are glued in.

I thought I'd do all the big black areas first.

I love the fact that Hasegawa has thoughtfully provided so much of the black markings that otherwise would be another few days of masking. I finally glued the legs in!! I love how this plane looks! It’s a shame I have to put landing gears on it and ruin the sleekness - oh well, I just might have to build another one with the gears up.

Here's a parting shot - maybe some more decaling tonight...

So did you guys hear my screams through cyberspace! Well, it didn't work out very well at first, man that SET and SOL combination really "fused" the decal like "paint" - no amount of tape was pulling it off - just little bits and chunks, really made a mess of the whole situation. To pour salt onto wounds, I was pressing down with the tape to lift some more of the decals up, and SNAP! One of the lower ventral fins (black & grey) snapped off - DAMN! I knew it was a weak joint, so little surface area to connect the fins to the legs - I thought of re-enforcing this area with pins like with a resin kit, but I was anxious and wanted to get on to the next stages, so I coped out and used liquid cement thinking it would be less sanding later on. Well... now I know, I would suggest re-enforcing this joint next time - or at least use tube solvent glue liberally, and then sanding the seam down before painting. I hate these repairs. Well, a few hours later, the fin is back in place, the joint is not ideal, but less noticeable than I thought it was going to be, the black decal hides a host of sins And as with all repairs, it will be weak, so I have to watch out for it. The decal mess being too long was then solved by soaking a bit of MicroSOL on it for a bit and using a stiff bristle brush, carefully scrubbing the extended portion of the decal away without going too far into the paint finish. Thank God for the clear-coat underneath. Anyways as you can see, it looks okay - I didn't bother with the one on the inside of the legs, you can hardly see it anyways.

I wanted to glue all those loose parts lying around on to the bird as soon as possible - I just know they'd be lost soon - plus I'm impatient I thought it might be cool to angle the intakes like the F-14 intake ramps a bit and partially obscure the intake spinners. What I didn't really like on the YF-19 was how flat these intake covers look when glued right up against the top of the intakes. So I bent the last segment of the cover up a bit (careful, you don't want to snap it off, just a bit) and I glued a cut-off piece of sprue underneath it to wedge it up a bit.

So now they look like a moveable piece. I wasn't anal enough to extend the width of the intake covers to both ends to meet the walls of the intake - but it just looks like something that moves in the intakes (artistic license)

Here's a 3/4 angle close up.

Not huge difference, but I like it.

Here's a close up of the airbrake, it’s easier to weather with it in place and decal it so that they all receive the proper placement. I just decaled right over the holes then when its semi-dry, I dabbed some MicroSOL right over the holes, and the perimeter decal just kind of "melted" right into the holes. Just the center hold remained, but a few more drops of MicroSOL, and a little encouragement from a small brush and the center hole gave way.

Now here's a dilemma, and I still don't know which way to go if I were to do it again. These side stripes on the forward fuselage have two very fine black line tails that goes back towards the intakes - a shorter one above the black and yellow LEX/canards and a longer one under. Man were they a bitch to get on straight. The thin decals kept curling and going all over the place. It took 20mins each to get them in place properly (DO NOT USE ANY MicroSET or SOL on this) use tons of water to allow yourself plenty of play time to get these suckers in place. Now if the fuselage was not glued in, and was a separate piece, then it would be a piece of cake to get them positioned correctly without the intakes, chest piece or LEX/canards in the way. But if the forward fuselage section did not mate with the main fuselage perfectly - then there would be really no real way to fill and sand this joint - since it would already be painted and decaled. The VF-1s mated perfectly this kit doesn't, I may have glued my LEX/canards in at a slightly wrong angle, but I can't see a way to get the perfect angle.

Anyways, I don't know which is the proper order of construction for this piece again its six or one half dozen - but it worked out this way for me, just 40 minutes of holding my breath.

Well... here we are tonight before I go to sleep. Nighty-night VF-0, dry well without my meddlesome hands and fingerprints all over you. Till tomorrow...

Just more decaling... man are there ever a lot. Here's the head. I brushed the Tamiya chrome marker silver on the head light piece first, then brushed Tamiya clear red over it, it makes it catch the light a bit better than just clear red - it would of been nice if there was a clear part made for this. The black and yellow decal doesn't fit quite right - luckily this is the only piece that doesn't fit well, as I have mentioned before some of the other pieces are a bit oversized, but this piece is a bit undersized. Well it’s in the belly of the aircraft anyways, so I made sure the top of the head was aligned, which left a little white gap near the visor. I used a lot of MicroSET to get it to conform to all the irregular surfaces. Unfortunately, a excess piece of carrier film that I trimmed away made it under the decal in this one spot, and I didn't notice it until it dried. When it catches the light in a certain way, you can just see it in the photo - oh well... no biggie.

Here's a progress shot with a few more decals on. I really love the yellow V.Stab tips, they fit like a glove. I recommend painting the nav lights silver first, then a clear red and blue. Then decal the yellow tips one side per fin first. The decal cleans up any mess painting the nav lights would of done - since the yellow will hide and make the red/blue areas perfectly straight. Doing one side of each fin, allows you to properly fold over the excess yellow to the other side. I used a lot of MicroSET first to soften up the decal and allow it to fold over properly. Then when most of the SET is semi-evaporated, but the decal is still soft and moist, I brush on MicroSOL along the edges (fold-over) panel lines/rivets and the rear little antenna protrusion. Let it wrinkle up (DO NOT TOUCH AT THIS

POINT) the wrinkles will disappear when the SOL sets. Once one side is completely dry, then do the other side allowing the decal to fold-over the fin to connect up with the previous side. I find this is the best way to decal these two side conditions where the colour must wrap around to the other side. I love it, my only comment is the night formation lights on the tips do not line up exactly to the decals (no biggie) and the black fins are a little large, so if you line them up to the lower panel line on the V.stab, then they fall past the upper panel line by a smidge (which is what I did) but the yellow decal placed afterwards do straighten up this misalignment, however if you look very closely, you can make out the black underneath the yellow.

Here's a shot of the tail decals in place – be careful to make sure you press the decals into the light engraved details, since those details has to read through at least two layers of decal.

Man! Finally done all those data stencil decals - boy was it worth it - I love all that tiny writing all over the plane, it really gives it a sense of scale. It was probably 20 hours of decaling spread over a week!

I cut the decal along the panel separation lines once they were dried, and redabbed some more MicroSOL onto the cut edges, I find that in simple cases like these, to actually cut the decal makes them look so much more realistic.

Here's a black oil wash on the fast packs after the decals.

Here's a white oil wash over top of the black decals to pick out the rivets and panel lines. This breaks up the decal and ties it into the overall aircraft a bit more.

A white oil wash on the black areas as mentioned before, and a grey oil wash on the lighter areas. I tried to highlight the rudder control surface with white on the black background, and where it meets the white cross bones, I place a dab of dark grey so you can always read the separation. I kind of like the little splats around the rivet holes, if this was a dirtier bird in 1/32 scale, it would look pretty good as it is without wiping it off later

Here's the finished rudder - I didn't wipe the white off too much - unfortunately you can't see it in the photo, but I left some of the white around the rivets - it makes it look a bit sun faded - but it’s too subtle to be seen in the photograph, but you can see it in person

With these high-contrast decals, I feel the weathering ties in better. Although still overly weathered for a 1/72 scale aircraft - it does look like the CGI model though.

Here's a shot showing the leg decal integrated into all that nice panel details with the various white and grey/black wash process completed. Funny, the instructions call for several of the small red data stencil decals to be placed right in the black stripe - but the red is not backed with white. So the red stenciling disappears against the black stripe. So I took a bit of artistic license and put some of the stenciling above or below the stripe. The "Beware of Blast" should be below the stripe - it will look better next to our other Valks.

After "talking" with David - he convinced me to create sweep marks on the wings just like the F-14 Tomcat. He sent some amazing photos that show what these sweep marks look like - so I thought I might experiment here on this bird before I do it on my future F-14. Since I have already decaled this section and clear-coated. I would have to be very careful when masking, I used post-it notes to try and trace out the contour of the fuselage when the wing is fully swept.

Then I took some of my conte/pastel chalk and created some shavings which I used the blending stick and dipped a little into the filings. Using the blending stick, I "drew" some arcing lines from the post-it note edges towards the fuselage.

Then I smudge it a bit more with the stick and some paper towels, always trying to work with the curve of the arc from the post-it side towards the fuselage.

This looked pretty cool - but I decided it was a little too dark, so I lightened it a bit more with an eraser.

Here's one of the shots of a real F-14 (thanks David H.) showing the wing sweep areas, it’s a little too pronounced here in my opinion, but I like the tail insignia

This shot shows both sides of the wear. I will spray a thicker coat of clear-coat to protect these sweep wear areas once I am satisfied with them.

I am pretty happy with them - it does make the bird look dirtier though. Note, I haven't pushed the wings all the way in yet (I want to make sure I don't need them out again – it’s pretty hard to take them out afterwards – it’s a really tight fit)

Ahh, I just can't wait, I pushed the wings right in (I hope I don't have to remove them again)

In the swept back position - they are completely hidden. Hmm, I might change my mind on doing my future F-14 with the wings swept forward...

I've given the black areas a very light dusting or shot of the light grey body colour to lighten it up just a tad and all the leading edges of the black gets another shot of this light grey. It just blends in the decals a bit more so they look a bit worn and not so "black" against the body of the aircraft. I also took a few shots of thinned black and hit the white skull and lettering on the black so that they were toned down a bit too and tied into the weathered nature of the overall paint scheme. The light grey shots also toned down the red UN Spacy kite symbol so it doesn’t jump out at you too much. This is a very important step to tie the overall decals into the paint finish. Once I was satisfied, I clear-coated the entire thing again to protect this light dusting, since its very fragile and this light dusting scratches off easily if not protected.

Overall shot from above.

Yaay! I finally glued the head on - I waited till I was finished with all the clear-coats and dustings until I put the head on, since I did the red nav light in an ultra gloss clear red, I didn't want anything that might dull it down. I also airbrushed a thinned black on the gun pod's lettering to tie it into the paneling and blend it in more. I still have the silver and clear red to do on the gun pod, but I will wait until the landing gear is in place to protect it - right now the plane rests on this gun pod. And any red I do would be damaged. I love the arresting hook - god bless, Hasegawa's hearts to even include the white and black striping for this piece!

This is the part where I always wished I decided to do the plane with the landing gears up!! I hate having to make this decision every time - it looks so much better and sleeker in-flight mode, but the gears allow it to sit and be displayed with the cockpit canopy open. Oh, well... I guess that’s why I need at least two.

Hmm, the black still looks pretty black in this photo. Well take my word for it, it ties in better - I'm not just a sucker for pointless work (really I'm not)!

Here's a shot where you can just see into the intakes and the spinners with the grey intake contours fading to the white near the front opening - this effect gives it a more sense of depth. You can see the drilled out head lasers too.

Here's the fast packs after some light streaking of the light grey to hit/highlight all the forward surfaces, and some darker thinned black to tie the UN Spacy lettering and missile exhaust stains. I clear-coated the entire thing in Flat finish in keeping with all my other Valkyrie where the plane is semi-gloss with a sheen and all the fast packs are flat finish - the contrast is quite nice (if I do say so myself)

Glad I used those magnets!! Hmm, in flight mode looks better all the time - excuse me while I zoom it around the room a bit

It’s funny the packs don't have the perfect contour to fit onto the legs – it’s notched out for the ventral fins, but doesn't quite make contact properly. It’s hardly noticeable though. Maybe I get to peel back the canopy tomorrow or the landing gears and doors, I don't know which yet.

I used around 75:25 (Dark Grey: Neutral Grey) - just eyed it. Knowing that I will lighten it up at the end after the decals with a thin coat of the light grey/white I used for the fuselage. The final effect should be closer to the decal grey of the forward part of the ventral fins and the grey patch where the swing wings sweep. I just hold the gears straight until they set. I usually wait till the gears set before I glue the tires on - that way I glue the tires and set the plane on them - it kind of self levels. I put something up against the front double wheels against each wheel on both sides so that they don't splay out due to the weight. Here's a shot of the landing gear doors crazy glued in. The forward doors fit really well - almost snaps into the indents Hasegawa provides. The rear doors don't really fit that well. The big square holes are nice, if only there were equally big square

pegs to go into them! Unfortunately, the gluing surface is only at the edges of the body panels, so not too much holding them on there. We'll see if the crazy glue is any better than normal glue at these doors – it’s faster though, but I doubt that they would hold up better.

I also glued the gears in, paying careful attention that the forward gear is perpendicular, and that the rear gear hubs are perpendicular (the rear gears should splay out a bit).

I added a drop of white glue to the landing lights - it should dry clear, and I would dab it with a bit of future once dried.

I also positioned the airbrake - I glued it in with this WeldBond white glue, it’s somewhat elastic when it dries, and it dries clear. It gives some work time unlike crazy glue, so I can properly position the brake to make contact with the two actuators.

Funny, when I removed the brake, there was all this dust and debris that had blown in through the holes. I had to give that area a good scrub with an old toothbrush before I glued the actuators in. I just love that Tamiya marker on the bare metal portion of the actuators, I just wished it came in paint form.

Okay the wheels. I needed to give the edges of the wheels a good sanding, there is a seam running right down the tire portion of all of them.

Everyone always ask how to paint the tires with a good separation between the hub and rubber. Well, a lot depends on the molding of the kit and whether they molded a strong line separating the hub and rubber. I usually paint the hub first, and do a light grey oil wash to pick out the details. Then I use a black gundam marker and trace the line separating the hub and rubber - usually if the seam is deep enough, the pen (or you can use a Micron 005 pigment fine liner) tip just falls into the groove. Now when you paint the flat black, you don't have to paint right up to the hub, just paint up to the black. All the blacks blend together anyways.

Here's the shot done with the flat black paint. Once its dried, I rub it a bit with my fingers to get some of my natural oils on it, it gives the flat black a bit of a sheen that really looks like rubber - plus it blends where the marker and flat black separates - the marker is a bit glossier.

I also hand painted the lighted areas silver first, then after that was dried, I painted over that with clear red - the silver makes it reflect better.

I dipped the canopies in future floor polish and let it dried. I then painted the edges and inside rim in flat black. Since I was going to display this bird with the canopy up sometimes, it’s pretty important to paint the interior flat black; only the exterior frame is provided in decals. This is one of my last steps tomorrow, along with gluing that lower pilot’s tube back on (arggh!)

A parting shot till tomorrow.

Argh! My brush painting skills suck! The black on the tires didn't turn out as smooth as I thought it would - so I stripped it and plan on redoing it. While its naked again, I thought I'd try my hand at flattening the bottom of the tires. My biggest worry before is that the flattened bottoms won't sit perfectly to the ground.

I don't think that running the entire model on a flat piece of sandpaper with the wheels on will do it either, since I think the landing gear struts will just snap off due to the lateral shear forces. T he best way I can think of is to sand the tires while they are off (pictured here in my vise), with a hard/rigid sanding block (to get it perfectly flat) then put the tires on and rotate them to land flat once they are on the gears. This assumes the rear tires don't have much of a camber (unlike F-16s). If there's a better way to do this than I would really like to know.

And of course - re-paint

The canopy is done! I'd suggest not using any MicroSET or SOL or any decal setting solution - and getting the entire area really wet - since you need a fair bit of play time to get these intricate shapes into place. Luckily for us and thanks to Hasegawa - they fit perfectly. I'd wish they do it for all their kits - I've been spoiled - I've never been very good at painting these canopy frames. The way they broke down the pieces is perfect - otherwise it would be too difficult to get one big piece to lie down properly. I just can't get over how happy I am with these canopy decals.

Okay, here's a shot with the canopy open. Just ignore the first part of this thread about making that damned canopy hinge - ahh, it just doesn't really work. The metal pin just doesn't have enough of a contact area to the canopy so the joint is just too delicate to take any serious force. As a result, the two pressure plates hidden behind the cockpit bulkhead needs to be pried apart so that it doesn't exert too much pressure on the metal rod to cause it to snap off the canopy. But since there is little or no pressure, the canopy doesn't stay up on its own. It looks like you should just decide early on whether to build this bird with the canopy up or down (Man I hate this!!) If anyone knows of any way around this - I'd really like to know. Does anyone make any really small hinges? This and doing the plane with the gears up or down is always a problem for me every time I approach a model!

Here's a close-up shot. I ended up needing to build a "prop" to hold the canopy up in position. Luckily there was so much "gak" in behind the pilot’s seat that I could just jam a piece of wrapped wire (you know those twisties that hold a toy in its packaging) and it stays wedged in. I stripped the top portion of the wire, so it looked like a hydraulic actuator. It looks kind of cool, but I'd need tweezers to remove it whenever I decide to have the canopy down.

Man, I must work in a really dusty environment (my basement) - I am starting to notice a few little tiny fibres or dust that got trapped under my clear-coats (current count is 3 small fibres about 1/16-1/8" long). Luckily it’s not in the obvious places. Better not look too closely I hate it when I am almost finished, when I start to really inspect the hell out of it - and you start noticing little flaws.

Hey everybody finally finished!! Woohoo That's a rather long explanation tetsujin - thanks, but some diagrams or pictures would be more helpful Actually, what would be better is if you can make a few tiny double hinges - I would be glad to buy them off you (seriously though). I think it will be a while before I can graduate to building small canopy hinges - I think metal is the way to go for such a small scale, but I don't have a proper machine shop yet. I am just looking for a double jointed hinge 1/16" wide by 1/8" long - is that so hard?! Thanks for the tips on the wheels, I did sand them down a bit and it looks good (at least I am happy with them). As I feared, the sanded down surface isn't perfectly flat, but close enough. I don't tend to use the melting method on jet aircraft, like David has said before, the low PSI tires may bulge on older WWII prop aircraft (that may land on fields), but newer jets are high PSI tires and do not bulge appreciably when the plane sits on them. They do flatten out a bit though - see how you guys like my interpretation of it on the VF-0. Here's a series of shot I took on the work bench for now to close off this thread. I will post better pictures to the Model thread (higher traffic) as before when I get a nice sunny day around here.

Walk around.

Detail shot of the back weathering which I am most proud of.

A shot of the underside.

Cockpit closeup!

Ground crew view with the packs on.

Let's see... parting tips: don't glue the front pilots tube till the very end (you will snap it off otherwise ), Decal the lower ventral fins (grey & black) at the end, since the plane rests on these fins most of the time - before the gears are glued on - the grey tips will rub off and you need to touch them up. Can't wait for the VF-0D or a low-viz fodder to come out - will do that one with the gears up. It’s so much bigger than the VF-1, they look out of scale when placed next to each other - hmm, kind of like a 1/72 next to a 1/100. I'll post some shots of the flight line up soon. I would like to say again a big thank you to Myersjessee for sending me this kit - It was an unexpected surprise and I really appreciate it. Also I am most grateful for David H.'s expertise in aircraft - thanks for all the ideas and reference materials. Also thank you all for following along and providing input and feedback - it really made this model better than I could have done by myself (thanks Shawn & Graham for making this possible). I know... I can hear the music start up... - just 30 more seconds... Hasegawa really out done themselves this time - I think it’s their most detailed best kit yet. Come on, let’s see everyone's VF-0 soon!

Addendum: The light grey is really white with a few drops of sky grey maybe 90:10 ratio – it’s amazing how little you need to ruin a pure white The extra "rivet" details are actually already on the kit, just really faintly (I guess the way its released from the molds) all I did was use a pin-vise with a very small bit and drilled out the faint impressions. I only made an indent; I didn't drill all the way through. Very easy, because it’s very soft plastic. The shading is done after I did a black oil wash on the parts to pick out the detail. Then I airbrushed really thinned flat black and just airbrushed where I wanted the shading to be. I immediately protected this very thin delicate layer with a semigloss clear-coat when I was happy with the finish. The little "fence" after the wing sweep is a piece of corrugated styrene that you could pick up at most hobby/train supply stores - there are quite a variety of textures to choose from. The magnets (rare-earth magnets to be exact - very strong, its needed since there's a bit of plastic to work through) are in the leg portion, and the steel washers are on the back of the fast pack portion so that they will become removable after the model is built.

Happy Modeling! (And wear a safety mask.)