F-15N Sea Eagle, United States Navy

[TheChronicOne]

I'm having a blast on this. It started out so simple but with all the input and rumination this has evolved into a much more interesting build!

I had to sand a bunch on the intakes to the get them smooth then glued them on. Some of the fit was almost perfect, some left a bit of "left over" so I decided to have that fall on the bottom of the aircraft and away from the vent things on top that lay just behind the intakes.

I also put some putty in the holes behind the canopy where the toy-like hinges would have went. I need to put a bit more in there, though...   

I finished the sanding on the main seams. Everything looks fine for now, I'll know more after primer.



The wings are finally situated how I want them. I'll need to sand some on the underside but the top looks good to go until after primer. Nose cone is also on. There are some gaps on the port side, however. I can't put on the stabs and fins until I put the elbow grease on that underneath wing root. Stabs would be in the way and I don't want to break off the fins. Other than that I plan to mask off some of the panel lines before I sand but this brings this build to a halt aside from the Phoenix missiles.



I grabbed two of those (all it had) from the Italeri USAF/NATO 1/72 weapons set.    This was a recent acquisition, and thankfully so, as it keeps me from pillaging other kits. True enough, though, no pylons with these so I went to my box of left over F-4 Phantom and MiG-21 parts and found a couple of rails that will work beautifully!



So that's where I am now. I guess the next thing to do is finish the sanding after the glue dries then finish building. Won't be too long before I can prime it! 

[TheChronicOne]

Uhh!!!! How fast is this year going?! Am I dreaming? I swear we JUST started this group build now there's only 4 days left!!!     


Time to kick this thing into full-gear. I doubt I'll finish on time but there might be an extension or something. We'll see. Truth be told, the damned transfers will probably eat up a couple days and I haven't even finished construction!     I might not make it even WITH an extension! Stupid lawns.     (Mowing my own as we speak as it's about 2 weeks past due... )   

Oh well.. I'll be done working soon and will see what I can do to fast track this thing. I'd like to get into primer so I can see if I can get away with not using filler in a few areas. If not, I guess that's the first thing I need to do: fill in gaps around the intakes and wings.

[TheChronicOne]

Main construction is complete. I even did what I could to preemptively address flaws that will become apparent after priming.



Now I need to prime this and then I can start painting. That is....... if everything (seams) look alright after the primer. If not, that means PSR.


I'm going for the more glorious scheme with the white control surfaces and belly (or light grey, whatever) so this will take a bit but shouldn't take more than a day I hope. The transfers are what're going to take time.

[TheChronicOne]

I'd like to get this painted today. So, I need to prime this and hope to God that I won't need to do a second round of PSR after. If not, I can get right into painting. I'll paint the entire thing the proper grey color then will mask for the white control surfaces. I think I can free-hand the other portions. If I'm lucky I can get this done and get it glossed and ready for transfers.

At some point during all this I need to get the Phoenix missiles painted.



I don't think I'm going to get this one done, though.       Oh well...   work comes first so that takes priority and there's nothing I can do about it. Even today I have 2-3 lawns I need to do and here I am, 2 hours late. I didn't wake up 'til 3:50 this morning so I'll be playing catch-up all day long. I'm going to have to hit some stores after all the mowing, too, so no telling when I'll finally be home. Not too late, I hope, but I was sort of hoping I'd be home by 10 this morning but it's not likely to happen.

So there's the plan for now. 

[NARSES2]

See how far you get mate and then if you'd like it moved to the "normal" build threads I'll do that for you.

Chris

[TheChronicOne]

See how far you get mate and then if you'd like it moved to the "normal" build threads I'll do that for you.

Chris

Wilco, thanks!!!

I've decided NOT to "push the issue" and and cut corners on the build whether I'm short on time or not so there's a good chance I won't make the initial deadline. I'd rather produce a nice looking model than make it to the finish with a pile of malarkey.     

Good news is that I finished up the paying lawns right at 10 O'clock so that means I can't start working on anything else (My lawn) and I started taking inventory and found that I can push going grocery shopping off until Thursday so now I'm home and I have the rest of the day to work on it. 

If I don't need to do any "fixing" after primer I could very well get caught up. 

[TheChronicOne]

It's sketchy. It's 50/50 on whether or not I can get this to work.

So, the primer is on and the gaps are still there on the tops of the wing roots and on the intakes where they glue on. I'm going to go ahead and roll the dice and hope and pray I can fill those in well enough with paint as I go. It's worked before in the past on "borderline" small gaps so if I'm lucky it'll work on these. If not, I'll have to try to fill in and sand AFTER paint and if I'm not careful too much paint could come off and leave a "crater." So.. yeah... flying by the seat of my paints here!   Still, it could be worse! There's no attrocious problems on this thing, just those wee gaps.

Now, on to painting. I'm not moving very fast right now because I'm tired but I imagine it shouldn't take more than a couple hours to get the base color put on here then maybe another to let it dry a bit then mask for painting the control surfaces.

I primed the Phoenixes, as well, so during some point when I'm waiting on things to dry on the main work I can start digging up my reference photos and start getting them in order.

Making decent time so far! 


AIR SUPERIORITY.

[TheChronicOne]

Base grey color is on now.   

These gaps I was worrying about are better now but still don't look that great. They're just barely "out-of-whack" though. What I need to do is sand a bit to decrease the step from the fuselage to the wings. The alignment isn't that great so there is a ridge. Also, I should run some putty through the gaps left over afterward. I'm going to have to sand and re-paint some stuff as well. This is just the wings -- the intakes are worse.

I've been distracted with copious bullcrap (social media has been very intersting today!    ) and am worn out from work so I'm not sure I'll get much more done this evening but I'm going to take a break and see what develops. 

I suppose I can go ahead and mask; that stuff shouldn't be in the way of any work I do on the gaps... but.... I can guarantee that I will eventually clutch this thing in a manner that knocks some out of place so I'm just going to hold off on that until later.

That leaves painting the Phoenix missiles. I can at least get the main colors on even if I leave the finer detail 'til later.

At least I have options! 


Break time. . ..   

[TheChronicOne]

I actually bit the bullet and did a fair amount of filing/sanding on it that night. I went over all areas.

Today I'll get back painting again to put the paint back in these areas. I THINK I'll be able to get by without using any filler. With all the sanding the stuff is less prominent and also sort of filled in with sanding debris so I might be getting out of this problem relatively un-scathed and can move on.

If that goes well, I'll mask and paint the controll surfaces and try to fine any small things I need to paint then I can paint the belly and nose cone and move to gloss.


Rough day at work again made especially so thanks to temps in the 100s. I have scheduled multiple jobs today so, as usual, there' no telling how much gusto I'll have by time I finally make it back home. 

[TheChronicOne]

Got the missiles painted aside from the brown and yellow bands.




Glued the stock and my kit-bashed pylons on and painted the gear bays and bottom of stabalizers.




I finished painting the stuff I had to fix on the gaps then masked and started painting the control surfaces.




A lot more painting to go but at least I'm off to a good start!  Trying to make this F-14 pattern work on this F-15 isn't as simple as it looks but I think I've settled on a plan to have the transitions fall in places that look right.

[TheChronicOne]

Doing what I can to get this painted. As usual, I keep finding more things to paint. I'm going to have to mask and paint NMF on the bottom under the engines where things heat up. There's also some little intake thingies down there that will get a dab of black. Probably some nav lights I need to do and of course I still need to mask and paint the nose. I'll have to mix up some special paint to get the yellow shade just right. Not to mention just doing the white/grey is a lot more tedious than it looks. I'm about 95% done with that I think. So that's good!!! I'll have to go over it real close again and there's some junk back by the exhaust I need to catch.

If that stuff is good, It's time to mask the nose and the aforementioned bottom NMF area. Le sigh.     I'm trying but, damnit, there's just no way to rush through these things. I'm sort of wishing I had went with the overall wrap-around grey. I would have been done with this painting long ago.   

So now I'm up against the deadline and have 3 build days left. I don't build anything on my "off" days because I'm just so tired from real world work. Without going into too much detail, this means I have the rest of today, the 5th, and then the 7th. So I have something akin to 2 days and change to do what I need. So... here's the plan...  I want to get this damned painting done tonight and get this glossed. May not happen, but that's the plan. Then, on Monday, I eithe finish the little painting left then gloss for transfers, OR, just jump right into transfers (if I get the gloss on tonight). Either way could potentially be acceptable because I can devote a large chunk of one day to getting the billions of transfers on the finish that up on the last day then glue on all the fiddly bits then clear it again and it's done.

Oh yeah, still need to paint the bands on the Phoenixes but that's no thang. 

So here it is for now:





EDIT:  Weird!! From this angle and because of the way I painted things so far, this looks like it has conformal fuel tanks on the sides, but it doesn't!

[TheChronicOne]

Well, I give up! For now. 

Got the yellow stripes started on the Phoenixes.

I also have the nose painted and in doing that I now know how far I need to extend the grey to match the early VF-1 pattern for the F-14A.... so now I have to paint that. Also have to paint the anti-glare black in front of the windscreen. I keep forgetting that one!


Here it is at current:



I also need to go pain red around all the edges of the doors and such.    Then there's the NMF below the engines...    the closer I get to being finished... the longer it takes.... 


Anyway! That's it for now. It's getting late and I'm ready to sit back and watch the idiot-tube.    I should be able to wrap the paint work up

[Old Wombat]

Looking good!

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks!!! This project is really fun. I use to not much care for the f-15. Now that it's been around for 40 years, I love it. And here's the thing... this could well be the best looking F-15 ever!! .......             ........(That was in the NAVY . . .. . .. .    )

Won't be long now!! I'm going to strip the tape off the nose and do any touch up on that I need then mask off the NMF box for below the engines. While I'm doing this I'll figure out the nav lights and go ahead and paint the black inlets. Then... gloss... then... transfers! Hell yeah... about time... I need to get into these because I am a feared that despite looking pretty simple for the ones I need to trim to fit (f-14A-F-15D) but something always goes wrong and then there's a ton of little bitty stencils that need to go on from the F-15 kit.

Still. I have a problem. I have a short day out mowing tomorrow so when I get home it won't be too hot to mow my lawn again so I'm going to have to do that before I can get into any fun.      This means a late start so I doubt I'll get everything done in one sitting. I've alotted for this and should have me finishing up the remaining transfers then gluing on the last bits on the last day of the GB then just barely slide in under the deadline.     And to think, --I've only attempted this one build for the GB and it's not like I have a ton of other projects going distracting me because the last one was finished like a month ago and I only have ONE other (BAC-111) that hasn't had anything other than a bit of glue applied in about a week now. 

[TheChronicOne]

4 in the morning and I'm painting on plastic models.        I have to do what I can, when I can! I may not have much time for this today because I need to do about 50 trillion acres of mowing. 

Good news is I peeled the masking from the nose and my little yellow portion looks just fine! I was worried it would be crooked or something because it was late and dark but it's hunky-dory so all I need to do in that area is get the grey extended to where it needs to be then paint on the anti-glare stuff.

The plan for today is to get this glossed and have the transfers started. Whether I finish them or not is another matter... I'd sure LIKE to but I'm not counting on it. I haven't gone through them to separate the ones I need from the ones I don't. But anyway.. once I do... as usual on a project where I'm not entirely sure how things will fall... I'll just have to start with the biggest ones first and fill once I have landmarks and know where I actually have room at for the others. I imagine there shouldn't be too many conflicts but then again F-15s aren't known for big red stripes down the side...