Project: Kalashnikov

[Father Ennis]

Sorry Steven, I guess I misunderstood what you were doing. To me ,it looked like your templates could have been made into new better fitting doors which would have fixed it.  Plastic bits are my preferred filler !!!  I hate messing with putty !!!   Looking good !!! Can't wait to see you finished this bird.  I don't often build planes but I do enjoy watching a good build such as this ...         

[PR19_Kit]

Wouldn't the external tanks rather destroy the 'stealthiness' of the aeroplane? Or is the pilot meant to drop them before he gets into the enemy's radar range?

[FAR148]

Wouldn't the external tanks rather destroy the 'stealthiness' of the aeroplane? Or is the pilot meant to drop them before he gets into the enemy's radar range?

Yes, it does. Don't forget, she's an Aggressor(No weapons). But in real life, the Raptor uses drop tanks for ferrying flights(US to Japan, US to middle east, Crossing the pond....)



Steven L 

[FAR148]

So, I want to be able to display my Raptor with or without her drop tanks. I'm going use aluminum tubing to mount my new tanks. Here's how I did it. First I made a mounting template from clear plastic. I scribed a center line, marked front and back of the pylon location on the wing as well as marked and drilled the mounting holes. On the wing, I sanded down and rescribe the raised pylon mounting locations.



Using some tape to hold the template into place, I then drilled two hole for the aluminum tubes.



Next I cut the tubes long put them into place and with a fine tip sharpie, I marked where I needed to cut.



After cutting the tubes, I filed and sanded them flush to the wing.



Using the same mounting template for the wing, I marked two crosshairs on the new pylon. The two holes in the pylon has to share the same centers of the tubes in the wing to fit properly.



With the holes marked, I drilled and fitted the tube so that the pylon can now be mounted to the wing. I also scribed a few lines and added some rivets here and there.



I then used the same steps to mark, drill and place the tubes in the drop tank so the it could be mounted to the pylon.





Here you can both tanks mounted. You can also see where I cut the rear of one tank off and shaped it like the Academy tank. I managed to get her flaps in place along with the tail hook housing.



Until Later,
Steven L    

[PR19_Kit]

Model 'engineering' at its best. 

[NARSES2]

Model 'engineering' at its best. 

Couldn't agree more

[jsport]

Masterful work.. 

[FAR148]

Thanks guys 
Here's some more "Model engineering". Time to add the missile rails and mission equipment. Like most USAF Aggressors, they fly around with an AN/APX-95 pod and a training round of some sort. I'm going to add the APX-95 and an inert AIM-9X to my Raptor(both Hasegawa). Since the rails, AIM-9X and the APX pod are solid, I will attach them just with brass rod. Here you can see where I drilled the holes in the APX pod so it can be mounted to the rail. To make sure the rods fit tight, I drilled ths holes one size smaller than the rods.



I then did the same for the rail to be mounted to the weapon pylon.



Did some puttying and sanding to the tanks and pylons getting them one step closer to paint.





Well here she is as of today. Will be preshading soon.



Back to my RNZAF Scooter,
Steven L 

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

It's just my opinion, OK (let's not flame the Kiwi Herder just yet), in that 10 or 2 o'clock high position the F-23 looks just about perfect.... from just about every other perspective it simply doesn't 'do-it-for-me'.... Looks superb, Steven. You really have the whole brass pin-and-tube discipline nailed. Keep it coming friend.

Ian

[Daryl J.]

I'm guessing Steven's workbench has a few more goodies beyond sprue cutters, sanding sticks, stirring sticks, and pouring cups for resin.     

[NARSES2]

It's just my opinion, OK (let's not flame the Kiwi Herder just yet), in that 10 or 2 o'clock high position the F-23 looks just about perfect.... from just about every other perspective it simply doesn't 'do-it-for-me'.... Looks superb, Steven. You really have the whole brass pin-and-tube discipline nailed. Keep it coming friend.

Ian

I know what you mean Ian. It does look right from some perspectives but not others to my eye.

And yes watching the workmanship on these models is inspirational 

[FAR148]

Thanks guys

I've been hanging out in the paintshop today. I did a color test on a pair of wing tips from a F-15E(revell). The first one I did, I was not too happy with. The one on the right. I felt the green was too drab looking and the brown was not dark enough. Remixed some colors then did the second one which I like alot more and will be the colors I'm going to use.



I also started preshading her  





Until Later,
Steven L  

[Daryl J.]

Nice! 

Once under paint, it would not surprise to see the raised panels not looking too bad at all.   

[FAR148]

Been playing around in Photoshop this morning mapping out her paint scheme. Had to chance the pattern so it would work with twin rudders. Been going back and forth about how I was going to paint the gray areas. My first idea was to preshade, paint gray areas, mask and then do the main camo pattern. I know it's going to take me at less two to three days to paint her and I don't like the idea of leaving tape on her that long. So I'm going to paint the main camo pattern. Let it dry for 24 hours then mask and paint the gray areas. It may seem like more work but it should produce the results I'm looking for. And I don't have to worry about two to three day old masking lifting paint off. Probably start painting her tomorrow. She almost looks Israeli Photoshop colors and paint colors not matching



Until later,
Steven L  

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Pattern: simple, perfect. 

Ian