Vf-1s Build Up - Here We Go.

[Spatula]

VF-1S Strike Valkyrie Build Up

By Spatula

This is basically a copy pasta on the gamingforce journal that I regularly post on. Much of this is simplified for the non-modeler and I don't bother going into much detail. The purpose is just to well, document the processes that I go to and really isn't a very detailed guide. It's just more less just for quick references.

Before I begin. I'm still an amatuer at building models, so go easy on me. I'm no WM cheng or whomever is God of Model Building, so constructive criticism is welcome. Often at times, I'll be shouting out questions too, so this is a two way flow of communication.

I normally don’t do write ups since they are very time consuming and add another item of things to do on my to do list, but after a few internet buddies seemed very interested and begged me to do it, so I thought I might as well try to do a step by step of the major phrases of building this Valkyrie. I don’t know how many updates there will be nor the interval of each update. Without further adieu, let’s begin.

I started working on the basic gluing and sanding of the cockpit. Nothing terribly exciting here.

The nail clippers are to show the scale. We’re working with 1/72 scale here, so some parts are going to be tiny.

Finished up with painting Roy Focker. Painting him wasn’t too terribly hard. The decals for his shoulder pads go down okay if you use Solvaset. They help the decals curve around uneven surfaces. Pen is for scale.

Finished up with the sanding and painting of the cockpit; make sure you glue Focker in nice and tight, as if he’s not completely flush with the ejection seat, his helmet will meet with the canopy and block the canopy from being flush with the cockpit. Also, as the arms come detached, don’t glue them raised up too much, as this will also pose a problem when his arms may block the canopy.

Make sure all of the bottom of the cockpit fits nicely into the fuselage. You can check this at the back where the bottom of the cockpit should fit snug into the fuselage.

I used Squadron white putty, which is not recommended by professional moddlers, since, from what I hear, this product is inferior to Japanese made putty like Tamiya putty. I bought this bottle before knowing anything better. At any rate, apply the putty thinly to seal the flash and cracks of the two halves of the cockpit/fuselage. Let the putty dry for 20 to 30 minutes then sand. I used 1600 grit sandpaper. This may take a while, like 15 minutes of sanding, but you should be able to not feel the bumps from the transition of the plastic to the putty.

Apply the same putty techniques to the body. Make sure you fill in all the plastic injection spots so they don’t interfere with the final product.

And that’s a wrap for today.

Edited August 9, 2006 by Spatula

[jardann]

Cool! Looks like a good start.

Your descriptions seem short and to the point without leaving out anything important.

I'll be watching. Thanks for going through the trouble of this write up!

[MechTech]

Sounds to me that you know what you're doin' . Keep it up. Maybe I'll build mine someday. - MT

[big F]

You headed in the right direction.

[Spatula]

You headed in the right direction.

423768[/snapback]

I sure hope so!

::glues fast packs to the nose of the cockpit. Everyone LOLs::

[big F]

::glues fast packs to the nose of the cockpit. Everyone LOLs::

423885[/snapback]

Yells "It`s a custom"

[HWR MKII]

I use squadron putty almost exclusively and have never had a problem. Your work looks really good so far. Keep it going.

[Ignacio Ocamica]

Looking forward to new updates.

Great work so far!!!

[Gabe Q]

I'll be checking in for regular updates. I love these build-up threads!

[Spatula]

STRIKE VALKYRIE – Build-up update August 12, 2006

I had a little bit more time this weekend, and I didn't want to study for my stupid accounting exam this Wednesday, so why not do some more of this.

Now to fill up the rest of that gap in the main fuselage. I bought some styrene. I used the Evergreen 2080 V-Groove styrene which has 080" spacing (2.0 mm) and is 020" (0.5 mm) thick. This stuff was a bit tougher than I thought to cut out into desired shapes, but in the end it works all right if you have a new blade on a hobby knife.

I measure out, as best as I can, the shape of the triangular part to be filled. I remember one time filling this out with putty with a previous Valkyrie - BAD IDEA. Trace out the shape and given measurements with a ruler. For the curved parts, I just had to estimate the curvature as best as I could. I tried to cut more than neccessary, so then it'd be easier to shape with sand paper rather than having to cut a whole new piece if the gap filler wasn't big enough.

Now this took quite a bit of time, probably 2 or so hours to get both sides flush to the surface. I used some bits of styrene underneath and glued them for support so they don't cave in. Be sure to leave a gap equal to the thickness of the styrene so when you lay it down flat, it will be flush.

BEFORE Styrene to fill front end gap:

AFTER Styrene is used to fill up gap:

Now for some putty to cover up the edges of the gaps. Don’t overdo it, I personally think. I’d rather go over it with more putty rather than have excess, but that’s just me.

Sand it down and it should all be smooth.

The Arms are done as usual . Nothing too special or different from the manual. Make sure the part K10 is flush to the forearm K1 and K2 – don’t let it inadvertently tip upward or it will bend and won’t go well with it’s twin set.

Here’s the tail engine pylon thing. You might see that I covered up the gap here. This is because I actually was stupid enough to try to cut out styrene and do the same thing as the photoetch set. What a failure. I drenched it all in tamiya cement and the whole thing basically melted. Good thing I was only using part A19 for this and didn’t glue it to the sub assembly. Part A19 is now okay, just that the inside cavity is all melted and messed up. After yelling “Fuddleduddle†a few times, I prompty traced it over some more styrene to mask that area up. Mission accomplished. It doesn’t look so pretty anymore, but actually I don’t mind seeing that styrene bar instead of a bare cavity. The photoetch set would still look the best, but it’s a pain in the @$$ to do that as well.

Notice I didn’t glue part A21 yet. The reason is U10 is going to be black, while A21 is supposed to be painted white. I don’t want A21 to be blocking U10 while I’m doing my black coloring, so I’ll paint them separately and glue them later. I did test fit them. If you want to do it this way, MAKE SURE YOU GLUE part A19 to the top and not the bottom where A21 slides in.

Sore ja.

[MechTech]

The cool part about building 1/200 valks. no one will ever see in there!

[Spatula]

1/72 is small enough for me. Any smaller and I will go blind. I think this is why I will choose 1/100 MG Gundams to work with anytime over anything else, even Perfect Grade. I don't have the time for something that huge, at least not at the moment.

[Spatula]

STRIKE VALKYRIE – Build-up update August 14, 2006

Well we’re back. Accounting final in 2 days, oh hell with it. We all know plastic modeling is MUCH more important than a final exam worth 60%.

Without further adieu:

I’ve gotten up to the part to FINISH THE SANDWICH for the main fuselage. As you can see, there’s quite a few intricate parts to the body which includes the wing gears. These gears allow the wings to expand or retract to increase the aerodynamics, much like the F-111, Panavia Tornado or famous F-14 Tomcat.

These next few steps show how I want to close up the gap between the top and bottom half of the body and at the same time block off that unsightly gap when the top and bottom meet.

See this ugly ass gap?

Again I’m using the same styrene sheets as last time.

What I did here was to put a pencil mark of where the bottom and top meet and the angle of the read of the body. I measured out 8 mm for the sides and just shy of 20 mm for the middle portion of the rear body. Measure accordingly a strip that has the dimensions of about 36 mm by 2.95 mm. If you have the height at 3 mm, this will block the top half from being completely flush with the bottom.

Here’s the portion of the gate before it’s attached, just to let you have an idea of the scale for this.

Make sure you at least have the wings attached but NOT glued at this point. Don’t glue the wing pieces themselves if you want to attach the weapons and missiles at this point. Just use some cheap tape to get them together. The reason for this is you want to know how much clearance you’ll need for the wings when they swing back.

Here’s a better shot with the pencil mark:

Make sure you test fit first the rear gate to make sure it’s happy with it’s place. This is after it’s glued down. Don’t over use your cement or the styrene won’t like it and melt too much.

Here’s the body SANDWICH with the wings attached:

At this point, there really wasn’t much else I wanted to work on the main body, so I decided to pay a visit to the VALKYRIE WEAPONS SET!

TA-DA!

It’s not bad, it only has two runners since it only has:

4 x UUM-7 Missile Pods

6 x RMS-1 Rockets

4 x AMM-1 Air to Air Missiles

I decided on the default configuration of 2 UUM-7 and 4 of the RMS rockets. I think the AAM missiles are reserved for atmospheric combat, so those wouldn’t be used in outerspace.

I decided not to completely attach the front since those are different colors than the rest of the body. If I put those on, it’d mean extra masking and therefore extra work.

That’s a wrap.

Edited August 15, 2006 by Spatula

[Spatula]

STRIKE VALKYRIE – Build-up update August 20, 2006

I had some time this weekend to work on some Valkyrie modeling.

I’ve moved onto a pretty interesting piece of the weaponry – the beam cannon. Woooo.

So here’s the two halves of the main portion of the beam cannon.

Since this is a model kit, OF COURSE you’re going to have to assemble the cannon – every part of it. So here’s the bottom part of the barrels:

It doesn’t really look like much for now.

The next step I did was a bit risky, since this would involve some steps in scratch building – a field I really had no experience in. Why not start now? I got this idea from Cody’s Coop’s Valk, so I thought it was a neat addition. Normally the instruction book tells you to paint the exhaust ports black or something, but I thought that was boring, I wanted something more striking.

We start by cutting off the three little vent ports on the backs of parts S2 and S1. This takes quite a bit of time with a #11 blade. I used that and a metal prick to push it through once the joints were weak enough. This takes probably 15 to 20 minutes just for a single vent. There are six vents in total, so you would be spending one whole evening just to cut out some vents. >_>

Now those little suckers are cut.

Do some good quality sanding and give a small coat of Tamiya Primer to get those rough edges down a bit. Sand as best as you can here, but it's tight, so the primer should take care of the rest.

The next part I used some metal mesh I picked up from the hobby shop. I wanted this model to have some texture as well, and thought this would be a pretty neat space to fill this out with some metal mesh. This mesh is basically the stuff used for mini-train model building for those train fans. It’s very easy to flex, but you have to be careful because it’s also easy to break.

I got these meshes to stay in place with a generous dose of super glue. The glue itself isn’t very effective for bonding these metal to plastic, but after holding on the mesh for about 2-3 minutes, it settled in. Make sure to tuck the meshes in nicely with the handle of a brush or something – just make sure not to puncture the mesh itself.

The next part was to at least cover up one side with some styrene. The reason for this is you can see right through the beam cannon exhaust if it’s not covered properly. I only did this for one side. I didn’t bother painting the styrene since it would be well hidden in the darkness – sandwiched between S1 and S2.

Just cut a small little jog on the styrene so the peg can still fit through.

So that’s enough with the beam cannon. I’ll get back to that when I’m ready to prime it.

The next part was to start working on the legs portion.

Here’s the main part you’ll be seeing of the leg stowage. It looks just about as plain and white an Amish man’s wife. This is unacceptable. Accompanying them are Enamel Thinner and Model Master #2006 Raw Umber Enamel paint. It’s time to do a wash. But first give them a nice coat of flat white, of course.

I mixed probably three eyedropper size full of thinner to one small slop of paint brush of the paint. Basically I tried to get this as diluted as possible but still have the paint show it’s colors. I mixed these together on an old white Frisbee. The whole point of this is to weather the leg stowage to make it not so “factory cleanâ€. Hell, probably even when fighter jets roll off the factory, there’s some lubricant grease and oil for the hydraulics of the landing gear.

Left is the panel before the wash. Right is the panel after the wash. Looks a tad more realistic now right? Now it looks like it’s been through some usage.

Next time I’ll start with just some minor dry brushing stuff to highlight some of the details. Too bad you won’t really see this unless you turn the finished Valkyrie to it’s back.

Edited August 20, 2006 by Spatula

[nightmareB4macross]

Nice build up...keep 'em coming.

[wm cheng]

Nice build up so far Spatula...

A few suggestions, great idea about the gun vents, a faster way maybe to drill out the vents with a pinvise which is much smaller than the rectangular opening. Then, use a fine needle flat file to work the sides flat and sharpen the inside corners of the vents. You can pick up a set of fine needle flat files at a hobby store or hardware store for cheap (especially the made in china stuff) - you don't need the expensive ones since its only soft plastic that is being filed.

Secondly, you could paint the wheel well in a few different shades of grey or metals, picking out some details of the pipes or tubes in a different colour. You don't have to be really neat to stay within the lines, since the dark oil wash will fill in the transitions between all the colours. Finally, do a white colour dry brush on it to lighten it back up and pick out all the raised details - this is a great part for it, lots of raised details to catch the dry brushing.

Good luck.

[big F]

The master has spoken.

He makes sense, about the vents.

I wish i'd done that to the vents instead of spendin hours trying to get them all even.

Edited August 21, 2006 by big F

[Spatula]

Thanks for you input Cheng. Yeah the gun vents were a pain, and I didn't know about tiny files. I'll remember this the next time. It looks real ugly for this one because it's magnified like lots, but when you're looking at a distance it's not so apparent. Of course it'd be nice to get them down nicely, since this is all in scale. The wheel well shot there was still when it was drying so it still looks wet. I did some more dry brushing with a silver color enamel to give it that chipped look, and will probably put some white in it to get it back up to a more cleaner look.

Edited August 21, 2006 by Spatula