To celebrate the Centenary of the Royal Air Force, welcome to our first year-long Group Build. With the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service on 1 April 1918, the RAF is the oldest air force on the planet, so there is plenty of scope in the Build. Anything RAF-related goes … aircraft, vehicles, boats, personnel, you name it.
Runs from 1 January to 31 December 2018.
BigReg wrote:A little bit of progress on the F4 front. On the stocks we have an F4J Tiger in landing configuration, an early FGR2 in green and grey armed with rocket pods and another to be in air defence greys, either 56 or 92. The J started of as an S and so I had to remove the slat fairings. The nose flaps have been cut off and re-positioned and await some filler. The early FGR2 has the printed full wing but no cockpit detail so scratch building will be the order of the day here. The later grey version will have the radar exposed and the refuelling probe extended as a rather rude salute!
David
Hi David,
can you help me with identification of the kit's producers please? I think the left one might be the 3D printed but not sure of the others.
The two on the left are click2detail prints and on the right is the F4k from, if I remembered right is by Platz, backdated with a knife and sander to a J.
David
Oh Dear! The famous modelling dance "The Phantom Two Step" 1 forward and two back!
The F4j is coming along OK, The painting is almost complete and I could resist putting the decals on the tail. The pilot now has a yellow brain bucket which will have tiger stripes on it.
The FGR2 was doing fine till I removed the masking and the primer and top coat came off too! Its now masked again with liquid mask rather than tape. I did prep the surface with a fine sanding and cleaning with alcohol but primer doesn't seem to bite as well on the print material like it does plastic.
RATS!
Bad luck. I’ve had that problem too. Is there a solution, does anyone who does more 3D printing know? I can never get the primer to bite (as you say) no matter how much surface prep and cleaning I seem to do. I’m clearly doing something wrong...
Anyway - issues aside that’s looking like a very handsome Phantom.
Cheers Angus, as they say after every disaster, "lessons learned" so I masked the F4m with liquid masking and gave it a quick spray last evening. Better now.
David
3D printed materials are still new, in the world of modelling, and so we don't have any spares parts or hangar queens to practice on yet. It is either a case of trial and error with the expensive kit, as David is doing, or leave it in the stash until someone finds a solution, as I am doing with my Phantom.
I have bought a lesser expensive Skyraider AEW and might do some experimenting on that.
Thanks Mike, I'll keep you in the picture. It is strange, if you look at my Tucano from Shapeways, no such issues. I washed it thoroughly then coated that with Kleer first of all before priming. I did the same with the C2D Phantom but the material seems more 'waxy'. I now know liquid masking is the order of the day but masking straight lines will remain an issue.
David
True. I have used an etch primer on both white metal and plastics with success. However, I am not sure it would address the problem here which would seem to be the waxy material used during 3D printing to fill all the areas not being printed. If detergent washes aren't working, I would go for a solvent like isopropyl alcohol. Not sure whether it will be strong enough but worth a try IMHO. Acetone would work but would also dissolve your model!
