Hi All!
Landing on the last day, but I am landing it! Mike, really like the Red Arrow, looks nice and colorful. Last time I checked in was an update as the build was about half way done. I had just finished closing the fuselage and the decals in the cockpit looked a bit cartoonish, though now that it’s done, it looks ok.
The wings went on no problem, though, despite my best efforts I still lost an attachment point for the flaperons. I made a new one from stock, and this too went into the black hole that floats in this area. I also played with some Mr. Putty, and Mr. Liquid Plastic, and these too have vanished. For me this build was acting as if it were cursed. Fortunately, it’s not overly complex, and the fit is pretty good.
With everything set, I gave it a coat of Tamiya Gloss Black (X-1), and looked for spots I missed.
It did, so I fixed it and repainted.
Next was to give it a shot of Alclad II aircraft aluminum, I normally have great results with this, though the bottle has been open for a over a year, so I’m not too sure…
So, I lost the polished look I normally get, though looking and pictures it wasn’t too far off. I decided to try a new paint on this one. Mr. Color Aluminum (MC 218), is a newer paint from Mr. Color, which you can buff to a nice shine after application, and no real need for a black base. This worked pretty good.
I gave three coats of my future mix, which dulled the shine a bit, but I was going to do a lot of handling and wasn’t too sure how it would hold up.
I then went to work on the back area where the heat distorts the outside on these birds in a unique way. While originally painting the aluminum, I made varied up and down strokes of the silver, and not giving it full coverage. Next I took the Mr. Color MC 219 Brass (same as their aluminum in application), here I went up and down on the rivet panels. I then filled the gaps in with metallic burnt Iron. After this I took some clear blue and went over in sparse places, and finished the whole thing using clear orange.
I liked how it came out, though it was a bit dark considering this would depict a “Thunderbirds” plane, normally pretty well maintained that was used for PR work, usually giving journalists a fly around town before the show. Still it looks convincing I think.
Next came the decals. Overall the decals go down nice, and react to Mr. Softener well. However, for a Thunderbird, the blue is too dark, and red is too light, and white is not opaque. Having become invested in doing an out of the box build, I moved on, plus my Phantom was causing eye stress with all the stencil decals.
I chose to cut the big decals so that they’d be easier to work with, and it worked well until I discovered that they didn’t quite fit the plane! I wound up cutting up leftover decals to fill the big spots, and used Mr. Color Midnight blue to touch up any chips, the paint was a pretty close match.
Seeing that it matched a photo on the internet, I gave it three more coats of future, and then decided to do wash using diluted oils.
I had a rough go getting the wash to come off, something that hadn’t troubled me before. My guess is the high heat, high humidity here, and I may have let it set too long on the plane before removing it. It took lots of elbow grease, and in some spots I think the outer clear coat started to shed. Needless to say, I did get through it, and gave it a final coat of future.
At this point there wasn’t too much fiddly stuff, landing gear and nav lights. The gear was a lot more fiddly than necessary in my opinion, but with patience it turned out nice. The wheels are not the strong point on the kit, though I did my best and once covered with clear flat my audience won’t notice!
So here it is!
The kit comes with a boarding ladder that is nicely done, so at some point I may do a vignette with some crew members. But there’s a few things that need to get done before then! Back to my Phantom, which I will also admit that doing two large jets at the same time isn’t something I can recommend even with six months to do them! I hope you enjoy, and thanks for a fun and colorful campaign!
Stay safe, happy modeling, and wash your hands!
