My 'personal' CMC Leopard - FINISHED

[PR19_Kit]

The cockpit painting's done now, all in gloss enamel and then a quick blast of matt varnish. Squishing comes next...




And just to show how STUPIDLY small this thing is, here it is alongside the Atlas!

[kitnut617]

And just to show how STUPIDLY small this thing is, here it is alongside the Atlas!

As I'm finding out with my Airbus A410 build (un-prepared airfield airliner), the A400 is almost as big as an A310

[PR19_Kit]

The trouble with the 'squishing' technique is you can't afford to let your fingers come in contact with the glue, or you risk the dreaded 'fingerprint on the canopy' syndrome. To that end I decided to glue the front and rear of the canopy in place before I started any 'squishing' only to find that the front of the canopy doesn't fit all that well. 

I've done a bit of scraping and filing to try and fix it and it's sort of OK, but it'll need a tiny amount of PSR on the canopy afterward and I DETEST that.

[PR19_Kit]

The canopy's glued on now, and the 'squishing' worked quite well. I did it one side at a time, running MekPak along the joint, holding the canopy side in place with my fingers and then adding a restraining band of Tamiya tape to hold it in place while the glue dried. It worked pretty well so I did the other side exactly similarly.

I think it'll need a small amount of trimming on each side to ensure it fits flush, plus the PSR at the front.

[TheChronicOne]

Very good!!  Glad for the success of the squishing. Hopefully trimming and PSR work as well without too much fuss.

And yeah, lookin at that size difference.. I'm reminded of a DC-130....  The Leapord could dang near fit onto a pylon under the wing!!! 

[Weaver]

Hmm - I've got a Whirlykits Miles M.100 Student that would sit well alongside one of these....

[PR19_Kit]

Despite my valiant 'squishing' efforts the edges of the canopy still sat proud of the sides of the fuselage by a small amount, so I filed and sanded it as well as I could, Luckily there's a fair amount of tumble-home on both parts so the target area sits proud of the rest of the model, see diagram below. Equally luckily the lower canopy frames of the Leopard are quite deep so they're naturally some distance laterally from the filing and sanding.

When I'd done all that it was apparent that it would need some PSR to smooth off the edges, as well as more PSR on the canopy front end so somewhat reluctantly I got out the Presto and VERY carefully applied some. Of course it's vital not to get any on the clear parts that are actually windows as it'll be impossible to sand it off without scratching, so I was VERY careful, both in the application of the putty and sanding it later.

It wasn't easy and I had a couple of scary moments thinking I'd scratched the windows. To help ensure I didn't scrape them I used the technique in the diagram below, using a scalpel blade sideways, and scraping it along the length of the canopy, toward and away from you in the diagram. Some work with a small flat file was also needed but in the end it seems to have come out OK.

It'll need some more primer to see if the PSR has gone far enough, which will require the windows to be masked and I'm going to give Humbrol Maskol a try. It's been years since I've used it but I think it'll be better for these tiny windows than masking tape.

[PR19_Kit]

Anyone want a hardly used bottle of Maskol?

NOT something I'd use again frankly, it's the devil to put on and equally difficult to get off. It looks as if it's purple, which it is when it's dried, but when you brush it on it's almost transparent, so trying to see where it's going isn't easy. And the Humbrol video makes you think that you '....just peel it off...'. No you can't, as it comes off in small bits, and takes some of the surrounding paint with it too sometimes. 

It would have been easier with Tamiya tape I think, as it is it's going to need some small brush painting to trim up the window edges, but at least the overall white looks reasonable so far.

[Weaver]

Anyone want a hardly used bottle of Maskol?

NOT something I'd use again frankly, it's the devil to put on and equally difficult to get off. It looks as if it's purple, which it is when it's dried, but when you brush it on it's almost transparent, so trying to see where it's going isn't easy. And the Humbrol video makes you think that you '....just peel it off...'. No you can't, as it comes off in small bits, and takes some of the surrounding paint with it too sometimes. 

It would have been easier with Tamiya tape I think, as it is it's going to need some small brush painting to trim up the window edges, but at least the overall white looks reasonable so far.

Free tip - don't assume the Microscale Micromask is any better. That was the stuff that screwed up the windows on my BAS Skyvan by letting thinned paint creep under the edges of it

[PR19_Kit]

Free tip - don't assume the Microscale Micromask is any better. That was the stuff that screwed up the windows on my BAS Skyvan by letting thinned paint creep under the edges of it

I've heard similar tales about it too H. Some people swear by Winsor & Newton's masking fluid apparently, but I'll be going back to Tamiya tape.

[JayBee]

MASKOL, God's gift to the gifted modeller.

I would not use any other masking liquid.
First tip. If the canopy has a well defined edge to the glazed areas, and the Leopard is a good example, do not paint the stuff on.
Use a cocktail stick and gradually work it up to the edge.
If the edge of the glazing is not so well defined, use thin strips of Tamiya tape to outline the shape and then fill in the enclosed area.
Next, if you are going to leave it for any length of time, say longer than a week, paint over it to stop it drying out too much. Enamels are great for this, Acrylics not so good. If you do not do this it will dry out too hard and become an absolute b,,,,,d to get off. Possibly even requiring fine sanding and polishing to recover the canopy. I know, I've been there.
Painted over with enamels, I have had one that was a year old that still came off OK.

When painting over the masking, use the interior colour, this makes the finished model look really well done!

Jim

[PR19_Kit]

All too late for me now Jim I'm afraid.

See below for the result, but at least it's white now.

[Tophe]

Cute little one

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Very nice wee project, Kit.


Ian.

[chrisonord]

I need to stop keep looking at yours and Jim's builds, as the you need one of those because demon keeps whispering in my ear. Yet another work of modelling miracles has been done here as I am cursed to b****r up canopies on just about all my builds at the moment, I was wondering if it is possible to polish out dulling caused by sanding the canopy, where I shouldn't be , as I have done said feat to the new canopy for my 2 seat Ouragan, thus halting its construction, and continuing ruining a 2 seat Mirage F-1 canopy also..no, really
Chris