NZEOD

Had a mishap last night dissolving a VF-1D canopy in thinners... will work on the decals tonight

Want this design on one of the Valkyries

Experimenting with gold tinting canopies last night and I made a mistake...

...kind of funny, kind of stupid, kind of moronic even... yeah a mistake.

I wanted to remove the tint to redo and as I was using ALCLAD II Laquers it dried fast and hard. So after trying to get it off with testors thinners and airbrush cleaner I had an idea... a stupid one looking back.

I dropped the canopy into some Tamiya Thinners...

Came back later to get it and...

...its gone. More accurately its no longer a solid and has 100% dissolved into solution!

SO... is it possible to source replacement VF-1D canopies? Yeah... thats the worse part... its a rare 2 seater!

You'd think a qualified Bomb Tech would know better... you'd think...

works out at $70NZD = $46USD. The guy is legit as I've bought a couple of his 1/72 items

About to find out tonight. Have a few different papers to try and also my Hydrographics media for doing Gun wraps. Will try them all.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/toys-models/action-figures/other/auction-990944505.htm

You can get a brilliant printer for Decal printing cheap from Canon. Most Inkjets for home are between 600 x 2400 dpi and 4800 x 1200... the Canon PIXMA MX922 we just picked up for $95NZD has a 5 colour cartridge print resolution of 9600 x 2400 dpi!! So thats crispy tiny writing without visible dots, blurring and fading.

More Yukikaze/Stealth/Top Gun, less Gundam/Power Rangers please

Knifing a tank like they do in Heavy Gear is one thing... Dancing duelists with Power Ranger swords is just too far into the Lameside of the force.

Where do you get your decals made?

I want to make a team of Heavy hitters out of some VF-1Ds and need to gauge opinions on some of the mad planes.

VE-1G is a Growler style EW plane. Lots of extra aerials and pods along with 2 Dual mount HARM Missiles (or ALARM British ones) and a pair of 3 pack AMMs or 3 pack IRIS-T missiles (just cause they can engage a plane behind the Growler with a 60G, 60°/sec turn rate!)

VF-1F is a Gun fighter in the literal sense with two short barrel 55mm carbine cannons instead of the single long rifle cannon and AMM or UMM packs.

VF-1P is a Gun fighter with a single rifle backed up by 2 hip mounted 30mm gun pods - GEPOD-30 Pod mounted Warthog cannons (Engine mounted in fighter mode) and the usual Missile packs or 3 Packs of Brimstone AGMs.

Switching out all VF-1D twin head laser cannons for quad head cannons

Too much? Not enough?

The Super pack versions will mount dual Twin Beam cannons instead of the single Twin Beams

you use those coloured chalk bars to weather things with I take it?

....and a courier has just walked into my office with a package for me... its my super rare Two Bobs Decal pack for Casper and his Bandit Ghosts! These things are insanely detailed too!!!

They are the USN/Marines F/A-18 Aggressor Squadron with the unique paint jobs.

I know have 3 of the models wired up and in major assemblies. The last one was the VF-1D and I wish I hadn't picked this one up. I really like it and now want to build a pile of them as UN Navy and UN Marine Growler and Multirole units. Just picked up on one of each of the Hasegawa Weapons Packs so will mess arouns with Targetting and ECM pods for a VF-1G 2 Seater Growler variant and also try out the SUU-23a and GEPOD-30 cannon pods to add some more firepower to one of the 1Ds as a gunship

PM sent

Hello,

long time I haven't been there.

Here is the kit lying on my workbench: a 1/48 two seat Rafale. She will be painted with "UN Spacy" markings.

The painted cockpit:

resin CFT from Wolfpack in place:

Cutting the wings in order to create "winglets" with 1/72 tomcat fins:

Wings nearly completed:

I don't know if I can create a dedicated post in the area "The Workshop"...

Regards,

Just be aware the Rafale has the wing control surfaces in the upward position on takeoff, and not down like flaps on a non Delta wing plane...

Will do. Have Paypal account from spending on Motox

Just working out how to slide this one past the wife as thats $182NZD for that VF-4. Also how would you want to be paid?

Then there is the Catseye... Does it have landing gear and a Catapult hook on the front gear?

Where did you get the decals done?

Been raining here and we cant be bothered going Motocrossing so been spending the free time this weekend working on the next one, a VF-11B.

Engines are drilled out and fitted with lenses and a Neopixel unit each.

Instrument panel has been machined out to just leave the frame only, then the space refilled with clear resin, the dash decal applied and an RGB LED fitted behind the panel to light through it.

The Wing Landing lights have been carved out and fitted with a pair of sanded down RGB LEDs in each side.

Landing gear has the lacquered wire fitting and a strand running down each leg like a brake line. These will slide into a socket hidden under the Carrier deck and will be how the lighting and effects on the plane are powered and controlled. Nose leg is the Adruino Data In line, left leg is the +5V feed and right leg is the Ground.

Lessons learnt...

Watch the chuck on a Dremel... if it touched the model it will chew it in the blink of an eye...

Watch the amount of heat you apply to a mounted LED... too much and it was deform the models plastic...

Watch the damn Soldering Iron tip! It will carve up the models plastic like a Lightsaber!!!

All easily fixed luckily.

So I was slicing up wings on VF-11s to seperate the control surfaces when I thought I'd check out Carrier launch vids while I did it - to get the control surfaces set up right on the displays.

Thats when I noticed 2 weird things...

No.1... the Rudders on the F/A-18s are set up to go full deflection in and I couldn't work out why this would be.

http://theaviationist.com/2009/10/25/f-18-rudders-during-take-off/

The above provides the answer... and if you want to do some accurate modelling of VFs it's semi relevant as they also use angled tail fins.

"That position of the rudders is common to all the Hornets, not only those departing from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier: the rudders are deflected to help the nose raising as the aircraft leaves the ship. Since the vertical fins are angled outwards, deflecting both rudders inwards gives a downward component of lift, which acts behind the center of gravity generating a momentum that assists the elevators."

Wierd thing no.2... I went looking for Canard fighters on carriers to see if anything was done with the forward planes on launch and found a video of Rafales taking off on the USS Harry S Truman...

Most planes go full flaps down to get off a carrier, the Delta wings appear to go full wing controls up (due to no tail so no tail elevator), with leading edges full down and canards fairly neutral.

The VF-0D I'm modelling is a Delta... Lesson learnt.

One other thing thats a bit of a sticking point for modelling a catapult launch is that they preload the front leg on the catapult. So the plane appears to crouch and is lower at the nose than on a runway takeoff. Its an issue with VFs because of the underslung cannon and the electronics on the Elint model. They are already super low to the ground... But without the preloaded stance they just dont look right...

Nice... sold!

Any more?

Dont forget even alot of Modern fighters arent flyable without computer control assistance. So making a scale model version to fly without that assistance in flight, liberties have to be taken.

WOW... the guy that did the SV51 project is on to upgrading it and ALSO.... building a Yukikaze FRX-99 RAFE!

The 19s cheat alittle in that the canards are enlarged and on a horizontal plane now instead of the smaller 45deg ones on the lineup and kitsets

So... Tie Fighters now have turrets? Nice! Latest trailer shows a Tie being tailed by an X-Wing pulling out from the island base fight and firing the to rear on the chasing X-Wing

only speculation while you dont build it.... summer projects?