Dazzled's Late -17 **READY TO INTERCEPT**

[Stuart]

God that's putting up a fight - great work Darryl!

[Dazzled]

Work has been getting in the way for the last 4 days but I'm just beginning a few days off with little planned so I'm hoping for a significant bit of progress soon. In the meantime, and despite the demands of 12-hour shifts, I have been pottering about with the seams.




I've been using rattle can car primer to indicate areas where attention is needed. This is after round 3. The seams are giving up piecemeal but there's still work to be done. Still, there're always other bits to get on with.

[Dazzled]

I'm much happier with the seams now.




Although there may be another contributor to the happiness factor


And the Eduard set contained some nice exterior detailing parts.




There are 4 of these little bezels around the aircraft and they do look a lot nicer than the plain kit parts. I've also been doing a bit more work on the ordnance. It's been quite a delicate and fiddly job sanding back the cyano I used as filler on the missiles and drop tanks. Still, it's all good

At the moment I'm masking up ready for a coat of primer. With luck I might get it laid on before bedtime.

[Kitaholic]

Looking real nice there, the Eduard set is setting it off nicely

[Old_Tonto]

Keep up the good work Daz, she is looking sharp.

[Dazzled]

You know if you paint that black and stick some Batman decals on it would make a great BatPlane After all the effort you know you'll have a model to be proud of though.

Regards

Tom

You know what....




Just lacking the batman decals


Seriously though, the -17 has had a coat of matt black ready for a silver overcoat. The tanks and missiles are finally sorted too.

[Old_Tonto]

Oh I like that.

[TomW]

I want one!

Regards

Tom

[Dazzled]

I want one!

Regards

Tom

My initial reaction, Tom, was "no you don't" but, all in all, it's not such a bad kit. The fit and location issues are down to bad engineering but careful assembly and a bit of patience will sort this out in much the same way as you'd approach an old classic or a limited run kit. In it's favour this kit is dimensionally accurate and features some superb detail straight out of the box. The potential for a great model is definitely there and the opportunity to add detail is well supported by the aftermarket fraternity.

Given a bit of pre-knowledge, I think I'd happily build another .

[Stuart]

Holy black migs Batman...

Very very nice Darryl!

[Old_Tonto]

careful assembly and a bit of patience will sort this out

No good for me then.

[TobyC]

Looking good. A black base always gives more depth to silver or aluminium I find.

[Dazzled]

Black has definitely been the order of the day, the last 2 days in fact.

Although I'm still fiddling with a couple of seams (never satisfied me!) I've added some other bits in preparation for the paint job. The windscreen, not surprisingly, needed a little encouragement to go on nicely.



But when it did go on it sanded flush easily. Then the screen framing, and that of the canopy, got a coat of the interior colour (Tamiya XF-23). Also fitted were the pitots, one at each wingtip, and the blade aerial, which would have been much easier to fit if the hole was the same size as the plate that fitted into it After this I tackled the mysterious part D17. It's mysterious because HBs instruction sheet shows it disappearing vaguely onto the opposite side of the nose than that of the drawing's perspective. A quick scout on Google soon cleared up it's location and got the model to this state.




Now, with everything fitted, masked and mounted I moved the spray kit out to my garage workshop, clearing a space on the bench and setting up to spray Alclad. This meant setting up cleaning kit too as I normally only spray acrylics these days. It also meant more black.




Glossy black this time. Alclad's own brand black undercoat. Three coats were applied. And I only knocked the one pitot off once....so far


After a prolonged bout of blackification that took most of today, I just went out and hit it with some polished aluminium.




And it all went shiny

Actually, this is just the result of the first coat. Another coat should be enough so long as I don't run out of lacquer. One surprising thing I did find was that, despite the thinness of the lacquer, a higher pressure was needed to push it through the airbrush. Maybe it's a metallic thing?

Elsewhere, I've been getting serious with the landing gear. This should start to come together very soon. I have, however, noticed that the 4 Alkali missiles are missing a couple of important features, namely the engine exhausts one either side of each unit. It makes them look a little incomplete so I'm scouting about for some narrow diameter tube to replicate these.

More progress in a couple of days I hope

[TomW]

Now that is a seriously impressive shiny finish I hope I get to see this in the flesh in November?

Regards

Tom

[Dazzled]

Now that is a seriously impressive shiny finish I hope I get to see this in the flesh in November?

Regards

Tom

It's certainly part of the plan Tom