Adrian's US Airfix Lightning F1.A ** FINISHED ** LATE **

[TimJ]

Looking good so far.

[Sissel]

I think it looks great. Lovely bmf finish!
It would be possible to mix the paint with tiny bits of gloss white, and with gloss back for different shades of silver.

Sissel

[Softscience]

Wow, lovely finish Adrian. I always fear doing CBKs in NMF because of the high potential for surface imperfections, but you got it looking spot on.

[Molly-new]

The ailerons and elevators are looking more and more grey rather than a different metal. Don't suppose you remember which do you?

Sorry for the delay in replying but I decided to pop to London for a few days, but as I cannot remember the colour scheme I would have been of no use anyway.

As the others have mentioned, you have done a great job on the NMF finish.

[ara398]

Wow, lovely finish Adrian. I always fear doing CBKs in NMF because of the high potential for surface imperfections, but you got it looking spot on.

You're not looking close enough...

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments - keeps me motivated! (now, if only those decals would turn up in the post...)

Ta,
Adrian

[ara398]

Evening All!

Apologies to all for my infrequent updates.

Not much to tell. In the home stretch now and as you can see, everything is ready to bring together:



All I need now is for the Xtradecal set to arrive and we're done.

Just in case, I bleached the original set in the window here for a few days then put a coat of Microscale Liquid Decal Film over the top (funny - they don't look as good in real life!), so if the 'fancy' decals don't turn up at least I'll be able to put something on it to finish (if they don't disintegrate when they hit water?).

Thanks for looking and all your kind comments!
Adrian

[ara398]

OK, I think this build might be a bust.

Of course, the Xtradecals set has not arrived... so I'm going with the kit decals (~1963?)

Suprisingly they're coming off the paper in one piece, but insist on curling.

I've spent the last 4 hours getting to this stage...




...and it's driving me to distraction

Amazingly the most compliant have been the lightning bolts on the nose!

Oh well, I'll keep battering away... If I miss the deadline - so be it - the modelling gods will decide.

Thanks for listening to my rant,
Adrian

[Molly-new]

Keep at it Adrian, I know how annoying it is when things start to fall apart at the last hurdle. A coat of varnish may blend the decals in.

[DavidWomby]

Really looking good

David

[Ian]

I'm amazed the decals didn't crumble into a million pieces. Like Chip says, a coat of varnish may help now.
If decals do curl, I've found the best way to deal with that is to apply them onto a wet coat of varnish and then to go over with varnish on top straight away.

[TimJ]

Looking good. The decals don't look too bad considering their age.

[Sissel]

Shame about the decals, but the rest is looking ace!

[ara398]

Hi Everyone!

Firstly a huge thanks to everyone for their encouragement and support, particularly last night!

Even though I started this build halfway through the GB, and finished late, I'm still happy with the result - amazing what a bit of sleep will do for the attitude...

Decals finally settled down this morning. Couldn't wash away the old glue residue, so hit it with several layers of Reckitts (Future) which seems to have solved the problem. After that it was glue on the loose bits and a bit of touch-up paint.





Thanks again to everyone that followed this build

Regards,
Adrian

PS: Just noticed I haven't put the nose probe on yet... just use your imagination in the meantime!

[Dirkpitt289]

What a beautiful looking build. That old kit turned out fantastic

[Nikon Boy]

Very nice build mate

well done , look forward to seeing it next meeting

Cheers