F-15N Sea Eagle, United States Navy

[zenrat]

S'gonna be close...

Can I suggest that you take some beauty pics after putting on the main decals but before you do the stencils?  That way if, <insert name of deity of choice> forbid, you realise you are not going to finish them you still have some pics to post at the last minute.

[TheChronicOne]

That's sort of the plan. I'll wait 'til there's no time left and take pictures of the thing regardless of it being done or not. I even have a contingency plan to stop putting on transfers and go ahead and glue on the fiddly bit if it starts to look sketchy.  By that point all the large stuff will be on and if I miss the 15 billion "no steps" then oh well.    I'll have something to show for it by the end of the 7th. As it sits, I have two full days of build time and an alternate last catch-up day. I'd normally not mess with anything on my "off" day but by then I'd only have a tiny bit of stuff left to do anyway so it won't matter too much. I just need to not have any disasters happen and things will go just fine.

[zenrat]

Break a leg mate.

[TheChronicOne]

No disasters at least!

Just......  50 million little things. There's always more than meets the eye! Things like little panels and the gun.... hole.. thing... even.

I think I'm done, though. There's probably some little touch up here and there that I need to do and I'll take care of that in the morning before I go to work on Wednesday.

I'm also going to have to take my sanding stick and file down some edges where the paint built up along the tape before I gloss. I need to figure out how to keep that from happening. I try to brush it out and not leave build up along the edge of masking. I also apply the paint in thin coats, which I saw someone earlier today elsewhere say is a way to avoid this problem. HA!!!  YEAH RIGHT. Anyway... I'll do that and then gloss this thing before I head to work. I have ONE lawn. MY lawn is done.. so.. I should be home no later that 10 AM then I have allllllllllllllllllllll day to get the transfers on then the fiddly bits. I think this is going to work out!

Here's how it looks now that the paint is all finished:










Cuttin' it pretty damn close but once I'm home from work Wednesday I'll have the rest of the morning and all afternoon long to get all the transfers on. The fiddly bits... even being fiddly.... won't take more than an hour even being the pain that they are so this will be done, barring disaster, by the deadline. 

[TheChronicOne]

How nice it was to wake up this morning and not have to worry about paint ever again on this! There's probanly a couple bolt heads or something I missed but it's mainly there and I could find a million things all day long if I really wanted to. The point is, there has to be a line. 

So today I think I'll start getting all the transfers in order. I'm not going to get back to building until tomorrow. I'm just too tired and worn out from work yesterday. Right now just typing is making my hands hurt. Numbing pain and all that mess from carpal tunnel syndrome. I haven't had problems with it in 10 years or more but recently it's started to come back simply because of the heavy work load. Pretty much EVERYTHING I do inolves using my hands as a main functions so go figure.       

I'm bloviating again though...... back on track... I want to get my transfers trimmed out and organized. Using these two different sheets means crossing them over. I keep the common markinds and stencils from the original kit and toss the unit markings. Then, on the other sheet for the F-14A I have to localize and cut out all the common markings and stencils and toss them and keep the unit markings. Flip-Flop and I need to keep things straight and organized so it's going to take awhile.

Having this out of the way means I just need to do about 15 minutes worth of sanding, max, then gloss it. I'll do that tomorrow. It won't do me any good to do it now because I'm not going to be slapping transfers on at 4 in the morning whereas I don't mind doing the other.

I should easily be able to put on the transfers and glue on the gear and missiles in under 12 hours, yeah?! 

[TheChronicOne]

Damnit!!! I woke up nearly two and a half hours late. Oh well... I guess I needed the rest and that's more important. After the epic 13 hour day mowing, I need it!  But, now I'm off my schedule. I've already been up an hour and haven't even touched the things. It's 5:20 AM now and I normally would have left for work about 30 minutes ago.    Luckily I only have one lawn scheduled after I pick up garbage and it's a small-ish one so I should still be home by 11 at the latest if I leave from here around 7.

I had plans to go ahead and start gluing things on but I might not get there, now. I can at least go ahead and get done what I planned to do and get back on schedule which is to simply sand down some ridges then gloss it.    SO... that's about to happen here in a few minutes. I have my can of clear heating up on the HI-FI so it should be at operating temp in about half and hour or less. Should work out fine!!  Once I get this glossed I can turn around and head to work then all I need to do is stop by the bank and one quick trip to the convenience store then I'm home. This is the easiest work day I've had in MONTHS..       I need it that way, too, if any other day so that I can get this Eagle finished!!!!!!!

[TheChronicOne]

Yeeeeee-haw!!! A couple of last minute things to paint.      Never fails!! I had one little circle thingy and then some stripes to go on the tail hook then a couple places on the body where I went wide doing the striping on the side of the intakes. It's all done, though, and got the sanding done as well. I'll gloss this sucker here in a few minutes then it can sit around and dry up for 3 or more hours then when I get home I can immediately start doing the transfers and gluing on fiddly bits. I'm going to try to kind-of do them at the same time. Things like missiles will be alright and probably the gear then I'll leave the gear door and other fragile ones until the very end but if I can multi-task at any point I'm going to do it. I should have PLENTY of time to get all this done today so here's hoping for the best. 

[TheChronicOne]

Change of plans....    the gloss coat didn't cover evenly. Somehow. I don't get it.. I was very thorough and made sure not to miss anything but still, somehow, I have a patchy gloss coat.    The hell, man?  I'm using a different brand of gloss this time. Maybe that has something to do with it... I dunno..   

So, now that I have some somewhat glossy surfaces to glue to ( I don't glue on top of flat acrylic, it comes off every time.... but, CA on gloss works well  )  I'm going to go ahead and glue on all the missiles and landing gear then gloss it again and that way all that stuff can dry up at the same time and I'm still moving the project forward. Good things it's only just past 10 AM so I figure even if I don't start the transfers for a couple more hours that still leaves me plenty of time and I also will have half the fiddly things out of the way. 

[TheChronicOne]

All the fiddly bits aside from the AMRAAMs and the gear doors are on. Oh, the IRST(s) (I might put TWO on here) things aren't on yet, either.

Otherwise this thing is built and even looks like a whole plane now.     








I'm going to gloss this, AGAIN, and let it dry while I eat lunch. Hopefully the stupid stuff will cover this time and I can get going on the transfers. Despite these hangups, I'm still making pretty good time. It's 11:50am now and even if I let the thing dry all the way to 2PM that still leaves me with about 8 hours before bedtime. 



8 hours to put on transfers and about 8 doors and 1 or 2 IRST??   Should be doable!!!!      We'll see....

[TheChronicOne]

Oh thank God the transfers are working!   This is about the only thing left, now, that could go catastrophically bad and bring this thing to a halt. Now I'm all but guaranteed to have this finished by this evening.



2 down.... like..... a hundred to go. 

[TheChronicOne]

These are all I have left. Everything larger is already on. Some of these definitely will go on but if I get the lazy bone I can call an end to the affair before I get to the itty bitty ones. BUT, I'd like to get them ALL on and I have time to do it. There's about 30 hours left in the GB here in CST so I'm going for the gusto. The more transfers I cram on this thing, the better it looks.



Bed time is about 4-5 hours away, however, so I may not get totally finished tonight but I'll definitely only have a smidgen of things left to do tomorrow in the worse case scenario. 

[TheChronicOne]

I did all the transfers aside from the 30+  "No step" and 6 "no push."  Believe it or not, I can read the little things! One thing that hasn't gone all to hell on me is my eyesight.   


But anyway....   

The further I went, the more crap I kept finding that I still needed to do. Even after the transfers I had to go back and paint red on all the gear door edges. I also hadn't done anything with the IRST(s). I decided to go with the double and went ahead and filed and sanded them so they would fit then glued them on. Now I'm painting them. I need another coat of the light color then I'll paint the tips black.

Lastly... I need to glue on the nozzles. That's all that's left to glue on. All the fiddly bits are on so this is it. Once I have the nozzles on and the IRSTs painted I can do the last clear coat and it's a finished built!     

OHHH... wait.... I still need to peel all the masking off the canopy!       My God, I hope nothing winds up trashed after that. All I need is some disaster on the glass. ... 

Here's the bottom of it... this is how it is sitting right now, waiting on the paint to dry on the sensors so I can do one more coat. . ..   

[TheChronicOne]

DONE!!!

Wooo!!

This thing was intense!!


Anyway.... no pictures for now.

Well, just crappy ones. I need good light to take better pictures but here's proof that I am, indeed, finished with this:









I feel the need, the need for speed!

[zenrat]

This my friend is fantastico.  As I said, looks like a bought one.  If it was at a show I wouldn't look closely as, not being up on modern jets i'd assume it was RW.

[Old Wombat]

That, young Brad, is EPIC!