Revel 1/48 F-15E Strike Eagle

[SolventSolution]

Hi all

So I decided to create my first build thread. Unfortunately I built the cockpit before deciding to create this thread and don't have any pics of that part of the build.

If you see anything that can be done differently or better please let me know. I'm trying to develop my skills and techniques and reading this forum has been a big help so far.

I don't have an airbrush yet so I'm making due with rattle cans and hand painting.

Anyways, here we go;

This seems to be a pretty popular kit, I've read a few other build threads on this exact kit.


I sprayed the tub with Testors Dark Aircraft Grey. Sprayed the ejector seats with Testors flat black. Then hand painted the details with various Testors paints. The screens for the displays were first painted flat black with the rest and then painted with Tamiya clear green. Can't see the green too well but with the right light and angle they are shiny...was thinking about lightly painting some gridlines and detials in white prior to the clear green but decided to go with a power off configuration.




did some drybrushing of the seats and cowling with Testors steel. Did a light wash of the grey areas with Vallejo wash, it didn't show up too well but that's okay.


Front landing gear bay. Parts were sprayed with Testors flat white. I got a lot of ideas from a different build thread here (http://www.intscalemodeller.com/viewtop ... 35&t=10069) and clipped off the door and will add later after painting the fuselage. Also weathered the bay with Vallejo black wash and added some different colored details as seen in (patrickroos) thread. I really liked the way it his looked and went for a similar look.




I sprayed the intakes before assembly, as others have mentioned the intakes are a pain.


There were a bunch of big ejector pin marks and deformed plastic surfaces. I filed and sanded away and got them into pretty clean shape. Unfortunately the seams show pretty poorly. I did what I could.


Dark aircraft grey and black wash for the cockpit walls.




Saw several other builds adding weight to the nose so I figured it would be a good idea...my glue choice was not such a good idea.


Nooooooooooooooooooooo!
I used the testors plastic cement in the odd shaped black bottle...any suggestions on a better option for next time? CA glue, hot glue gun?


Well, I guess I have some filling and sanding to do. Any suggestions on a good filler? I've also never done any rescribing, would I just use a straight edge and a hobby knife?


Well, besides the deformed nose cone things are going pretty well


again, thanks for any feedback and suggestions. Have a good one

[SolventSolution]

Okay, so picked up some Squadron Green Putty. Used it to fill the mess I made of the nose cone.


Still need to do some more sanding but it's getting pretty smooth and seamless.


Got the fuselage and wings glued together too.


moving along...

[ElCapitan]

Good save! CA would do the trick next time, or even PVA glue if given plenty time to dry.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Nice project so far
I would put a bit of tape over the detail areas adjacent to where you will be filling and sanding
That way you don't get filler in the lines/rivets or lose the details when you sand

[AdamLuscombe]

Great Work so far

[Paul]

PVA glue every time, nice job so far

[SolventSolution]

Thanks everyone!

So PVA it is. Next time Gadget, next time.

Great advice on the tape to protect details when sanding Twokidsnosleep. Will do.

[Chelsea]

It's looking really good I love your detailing in the cockpit

But
May I ask (apologies for the silly question) why did you put extra weight in the nose?

[SolventSolution]

It's looking really good I love your detailing in the cockpit

But
May I ask (apologies for the silly question) why did you put extra weight in the nose?

Thank you.

So, I've never put weight in the nose before...now wishing i hadn't

my understanding is that some models can be a bit tail heavy due to more stuff being back there (vert and horizontal stabilizers, exhaust nozzles, tail hook, etc.) and all with glue holding it together. The nose is mostly hollow space and minimal glue. Sometimes between that and where the landing gear is located the plane wont sit flat, it will pitch up. To avoid this people put weights in the nose.

A F-18E I just built was pretty close. It was just barely tail heavy until I added the canopy and front gear bay doors. Fortunately it is now balanced.

When researching my F-15E build I read several other build threads on the same model and they all had put some sort of weight in the nose. I figured I'd better add some as it would be lame to figure I needed nose weight after it was all assembled.

That's my understanding anyways, hopefully someone with more experience will chime in if I'm wrong.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Ya, weight is put in the nose so it doesn't want to "tail sit" that is where the nose rises off the surface because more weight in rear than front.
By weighing it down, you basically shift its centre of mass forward so the front wheel stays firmly on the ground.
You will be surprised how much better the model feels with a little weight in the front like that. Don't let the Ca glue incident spoil you for it...Ca glue does heat up and can light paper towel on fire by spontaneous combustion so be careful with it!!

I have used white glue (PVA)or even clear bathroom silicone caulking to glue in lead weight into the nosepieces.
Just plan ahead so you don't have to try and fish stuff through the front wheel opening...that I have never ever ever ever done, well since my last Phantom I get to cheat as I have lead foil from dental x Ray packets I can use to stuff in there and then inject cement with a syringe.

Here is current build, a Phantom, with tape in place for detail protection before I take a sandpaper disk after those door covers.

[Chelsea]

Oh I see, I hope I didn't need to do that to the plane I'm building.
I never knew that they unbalance

[jmatt]

Having recently finished this kit, I'm eager to watch somebody else build it. The cockpit looks pretty good!

And yeah, PVA white for the nose weights. Shame about that but it looks like you're recovering nicely.

Leave the landing gear and doors off till the end. It's be a pain to work around them. I attached the nosegear door and it was in the way seemingly forever... until I accidentally snapped it off. We all have to recover from our mistakes. But don't worry, it'll all go on easily enough at the end.

Let's see, other things I wish I had done differently. Decide now if the canopy will be open or not. I closed mine and wish I hadn't. Also, before attaching the canopy to the canopy frame, run a black marker around the underside of it, where it will attach to the frame. This will eliminate reflections. And use 'clear parts' glue to attach it.

Be advised, when I joined the halves of the front fuselage around the cockpit, there was a gap behind the cockpit that I thought nothing of... until it became a big problem. Not sure what I did wrong there, just watch for it.

Please feel free to ask any questions you might have, PM me if you want to converse that way.

[SolventSolution]

Thank you all for the kind words and advice. It really does help a lot.

Okay, a little update.

Filling the damage to the nose cone was a bigger pain than I though it would be. I kept getting low spots and the line from styrene to putty wasn't as clean as I wanted. I knew as soon as I primed it would be very obvious. You can kind of see the issue here, the green is just a bit lower then it needs to be resulting in a slight bump where the putty meets the styrene.



So I filled and sanded, filled and sanded, filled and sanded. I used the tape trick to protect the panel lines as twokidsnosleep mentioned



I used some 200 grit lightly to get the bulk off, some 800 grit to get the line right, and some 2000 grit to smooth everything out. After all of that I still had small defects, pits, and low spots. I picked up some Vallejo plastic putty as I read great reviews on here about that stuff. I used it to fill in the small issues, sand, sand, sand...





The final result is something that I can finally accept. From a profile view the lines look pretty clean. Once primed I will touch up any other issues.

[SolventSolution]

Leave the landing gear and doors off till the end. It's be a pain to work around them. I attached the nosegear door and it was in the way seemingly forever... until I accidentally snapped it off. We all have to recover from our mistakes. But don't worry, it'll all go on easily enough at the end.

Yes, I cut the door off to be attached later. Bad design

Let's see, other things I wish I had done differently. Decide now if the canopy will be open or not. I closed mine and wish I hadn't. Also, before attaching the canopy to the canopy frame, run a black marker around the underside of it, where it will attach to the frame. This will eliminate reflections. And use 'clear parts' glue to attach it.

Thanks for the tip. I will have canopy open but now am deciding how to paint the bird. I've read that you can glue the canopy on with PVA and mask. then paint the bird, remove mask, remove canopy and reattach in the open position.

Be advised, when I joined the halves of the front fuselage around the cockpit, there was a gap behind the cockpit that I thought nothing of... until it became a big problem. Not sure what I did wrong there, just watch for it.

Yes, I was fully prepared to face this issue from reading your thread and many others. This seems to be a defect in the Revell kit as everyone is running into it. I used CA glue to glue the seam together but once dry fit the arc of the join did not match the arc of fuselage. I did a bunch of filing and sanding to mold the arc to the proper shape. I'm happy with the result. (unfortunately I didn't take any pics of the issue to post, only the fixed result. Need to get better at taking WIP pics)



shape fixed

[SolventSolution]

as mentioned earlier I picked up some Vallejo plastic putty. This stuff IS awesome. I've done some filling and sanding of the fuselage and wing seams.



Glued the nose on...she's starting to look like a F-15





next up conformal tanks and finishing the intakes. Thanks for the help all, keep it coming.

[Chelsea]

Wow you done an amazing job of the nose, you would never knew there was even an issue.. c:

[Twokidsnosleep]

I agree, great nose job
and good progress

[SolventSolution]

Wow you done an amazing job of the nose, you would never knew there was even an issue.. c:

Thank you

I agree, great nose job
and good progress

Thank you

[jmatt]

Good job on the nose cone. And that gap behind the cockpit look fine, mine was three times the size. What a mess that was.

[SolventSolution]

Good job on the nose cone. And that gap behind the cockpit look fine, mine was three times the size. What a mess that was.

Thanks! We'll see how it turns out.

[SolventSolution]

Okay, made a bunch of progress over the long weekend. Here it goes...


Did a bunch of gap filling, the vallejo plastic putty is amazing. I may be going a bit overboard with the filling but this stuff goes on and wipes off so easy it's hard keeping the OCD at bay. Every little gap I see gets filled Looking at real pics I know there are small gaps between the pylons and the fuselage, conformal tanks and fuselage, etc. but at this scale I feel any gap would need to be minuscule. We'll see how it looks painted.




on go the intake ramps, looking at pics of the real thing I didn't realize that these move depending on the planes speed. Are they up or down while the plane is parked? I'm not changing anything, just curious.




conformal tanks


vertical stabs, air brake (closed) and lots of gap filling


hardpoint time


so these guys were a pain. Wish the little bumps were more pronounced pins as they were difficult to line up in the holes once I had everything glued up.


They look okay, we'll see if any of the bombs are crooked


more sub assembly stuff


coming along



Next up...figuring out how I'm going to mask the landing gear bay and cockpit, then prime. Building and painting the cans which I know is going to take some time

[SolventSolution]

Okay, been working on the exhaust nozzles for most of the week. Little bit at a time. I'm trying out some new stuff (new to me) like pre shading and weathering pastels. We'll see how it all ends up.

There were pretty annoying pin marks on the inside of the turkey feathers.


I didn't want to mess up the details with a lot of sanding or filing so I cut off the flash with a knife and filled the pin mark with putty. Then filed it down with a small file.


Primed everything with testors spray enamel


Pin marks still needed a bit more fill n file. I then wanted to preshade as I see that a lot on this site and it looks really good. I don't have an airbrush yet so I just did a pre wash


Then I sprayed testors matte white.


I'm going to give these tamiya pastels a try. Looking at A LOT of photos online of F-15 exhausts there are varying degrees of blue metal, tan metal, and black soot. I'm looking for a nice middle ground emphasizing the blacks. First I put down a bit of tan, then blue.


Then added the black trying to do my best to reproduce the right streak look in the right locations. Still want to fine tune it a bit more...


Dry fit, still need to paint and weather the cans more.


I'll maybe do some dry brushing to further highlight the details, then do a matte clear coat to seal it. Stay tuned

[SolventSolution]

Moving along. I painted the inside of the cans flat black, then dry brushed steel and silver. Streaked the soot char marks with the Tamiya makeup stuff.



Glued the turkey feathers on


Now spending the day with tweezers and a bottle of CA glue...


...next up prime, paint, and weather the outside of the cans.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Hey nice cans!!!!"......That line usually get my face slapped

Great work on those painting details.
Unreal where they put pin marks sometimes..makes you think they don't build what they make

[SolventSolution]

Hey nice cans!!!!"......That line usually get my face slapped

Thanks

[SolventSolution]

Okay, have the cans pretty much done.

Sprayed them with tamiya grey primer


Then masked the collars and sprayed the nozzles with tamiya light gun metal.


The light gun metal was too light so I tried several things, dusting with black pastel didn't work, so I did several washes with Vallejo black wash. This is the result after 6 wash coats and no wipe down...still too light.


I then mixed a brush head full of testors black acrylic to the Vallejo wash and applied one coat.


I then masked the nozzles and sprayed the collars with Model Master Buffing metalizer aluminum plate. Buffed it and then added Tamiya burnt blue pastel to weather it a bit.


Added a bit of tamiya burnt orange pastel for additional weathering. Here's a dry fit.


I'm super stoked on how these turned out. I may wash the collars to darken them a bit, also debating on a silver dry brush of the nozzles.

Anyways, got to get the bird primed now.

[Twokidsnosleep]

WOW, you should be stoked, those are gorgeous!!
Your CANS are the finest in the land...that still sounds dirty, no???
Great paintwork

[SolventSolution]

WOW, you should be stoked, those are gorgeous!!
Your CANS are the finest in the land...that still sounds dirty, no???
Great paintwork

Thank you so much. Without the help of this forum they would just be plain steel colored or whatever the Revell paint guide says in the instructions.

[jmatt]

Looks great! I like the exhaust nozzles. When I did the interior of mine, the Tamiya powders didn't quite go on as straight and orderly as yours. They tended to clump up along the ridges. I fixed with a soft toothbrush somewhat but they came out less than optimal. Keep up the good work.

[SolventSolution]

Looks great! I like the exhaust nozzles. When I did the interior of mine, the Tamiya powders didn't quite go on as straight and orderly as yours. They tended to clump up along the ridges. I fixed with a soft toothbrush somewhat but they came out less than optimal. Keep up the good work.

Thank you

Yea, I had to smooth each layer with a q-tip. And blow the excess off...glad it worked.

...aaannnd I've made no progress since been super busy with a new job and kids little league starting. Gotta get back in the garage and prime her. Maybe this weekend

[jmatt]

...aaannnd I've made no progress since been super busy with a new job and kids little league starting. Gotta get back in the garage and prime her. Maybe this weekend

Mine took seven months. By about the time you ready to put the decals on, you think you're almost done. Ha ha.

And because its your first, you decide to 'do it right' and use all of those tiny 'No Step' decals and all of the others. I think there is realistically like 120 decals. Then you realize that all of the extra weapons you purchased for it each have their own sets of decals. That's about the point I was ready to heave the thing at the wall.

I honestly think that whole end stretch was like six weeks. Maybe more.

Once I drove from New York to West Palm Beach, Florida. It's a long trip, and after like 18 hours you're celebrating reaching the Florida border. "Wahoo! Almost there!"

What you don't realize is that you still have another eight hours in front of you; Florida is a looong state. This model felt like that trip.

[IanG]

Great progress, love those exhausts.

[Avgas]

Those exhausts are the bizz, great job. The intake ramps move down during flight. Basically a jet engine can't take supersonic intake air so ramps are designed to get the air subsonic before it hits the first stage engine blades. The ones on the F4 for example are on the side of the intake and fan outwards as the jet gets to high Mach.

[Zen]

That Eagle is looking great, very nice work on the nozzles.

[jmatt]

C'mon, buddy! Up and at 'em! Don't go dark on me now. : )

[SolventSolution]

C'mon, buddy! Up and at 'em! Don't go dark on me now. : )

Thanks for checking up on me. Just started a new job and haven't had much time for myself. I will get it going soon, it's been nagging at me. I started a 1:48 F-4U with my son and that's got the juices flowing again.

Be back soon

[SolventSolution]

Okay, one small piece for this F-15E, one giant leap for this guy getting the bird underway again...



the hud was basically a big chunck of flash had to file it into as close to shape as possible. I also wanted to get a bit of green tint on the 'glass' as well. I diluted Tamiya clear green acrylic with water, about 2 drops paint to 5 mL water. Kinda ended up with a coke bottle green...not exactly what I wanted but it works. Sorry for the crappy pic.



Painted (sloppy, I know ) the front of the cockpit, added some metal pastel to give it depth, and glued the hud on.



more to come soon...

[SolventSolution]

Okay, I've been getting a lot of work done on my strike eagle over the past week. A lot of frustration too
Let's get into it...

Got the window frames painted


removed the seam line from the canopy with some 800grit


then 2000 grit


Then some brasso


then some Crest plain white toothpaste


the front part of the canopy didn't have a seam line so skipped the sanding and just did brasso and toothpaste


The canopy plastic was very brittle and cracked a little...kinda bummed about that. Oh well.

Dry fits




Glued the front part on and canopy to the frame with plastic cement. Glued the canopy subassembly to the cockpit with PVA for masking and later removal.

Masking




I read on some thread on here about using high density foam to fill the intakes instead of trying to mask them...I gave it a shot


cut out little rectangular strips like this


used a bamboo skewer to push them down into the intakes




We'll see how it turns out...

I have primed and painted already, that's where the is occurring. I'll save it for the next post.

[SolventSolution]

okay, time to prime and paint...

I used the same primer I used earlier on the tub and exhausts. Tamiya grey surface primer "L".

Bottom went fine...


This primer is sort of odd, it sprays very dry and dusty. Not sure if it was just a bad can or what the issue was but instead of cleanly covering the surface it started to build up a fuzz
can't really tell by this pic but it's a very rough surface.


I figured it would even out eventually but it never did, it just got worse. I was freaking out, didn't know what to do . I decided to sand it all down with some 800.


Here are some zoomed in pics to show the issue. This is after sanding, but basically the nooks and crannies here are what the entire top side of the plane looked like.




panic setting in I had to smooth things out but didn't want to loose panel lines and detail from sanding


sigh, just have to live with it, so on to paint. Model Masters Gunship Grey spray cans...


still have the panel lines somewhat, still some rough patches...




on the bright side my nose repair turned out pretty clean






...live and learn. moving on.

[arilo76]

Nice progress and the details are really nice, looking forward to see it completed.

[SolventSolution]

Nice progress and the details are really nice, looking forward to see it completed.

Thank you

Hope to make more progress this weekend.

[jmatt]

Egads, too bad about the primer. I normally swear by the Tamiya Fine. I wonder what could have caused it to lay down like that.

But you recovered pretty well; glad to see you're soldiering on.

[SolventSolution]

Egads, too bad about the primer. I normally swear by the Tamiya Fine. I wonder what could have caused it to lay down like that.

But you recovered pretty well; glad to see you're soldiering on.

Yea I don't know. Strangest thing. I used the same can for the bottom as well as a bunch of other parts with no issue.

I did notice once the can ran out of propellant there was still a bunch of paint in the can. I normally run out of paint before propellant.

Need an airbrush

[jmatt]

Need an airbrush

The grass is always greener. I started off using the Tamiya spray can and it worked great. But for my F-15, I decided to "graduate" to airbrushing a Vallejo primer... and it came out a little grainy in spots (but not nearly like your experience). And like you, I figured it will just settle in and work itself out. It did not.

I think he lesson is that when things start to go awry... STOP. Fix the problem or try something different. But don't assume it will fix itself. This is harder than it seems because in that moment you are prepared to just do the thing and want to believe that it will just work out.

Now, before airbrushing anything, I test on the backdrop before moving over to the subject. If something is not quite right, I will dump the cup, break down the brush and clean it thoroughly. I think dumping the cup is the mental roadblock. You don't want to waste good paint... but it's a million times cheaper than losing all of the hard work you've already invested.

[SolventSolution]

I think he lesson is that when things start to go awry... STOP. Fix the problem or try something different. But don't assume it will fix itself. This is harder than it seems because in that moment you are prepared to just do the thing and want to believe that it will just work out.

Oh yea, learned the hard way with this one

Thanks for the advice.

We'll here's some next steps...

Pulled the foam out of the intakes, it did a pretty good job masking off. Good technique for future use.




Got to masking off the exhaust, looked at a bunch of photos to get the right stuff masked...






Time to spray some light gun metal, Tamiya don't let me down


Now for the fun part, unmasking




and a little dry fit with the exhaust nozzles




whew... a little sigh of relief. Not perfect, little rough, but it's recoverable. I'm hoping some weathering and clear coats bring things together.

Anyways, thanks for the comments and advice. It's a huge help.

[jmatt]

It looks great! I remember doing the masking on mine for the engine areas... what a chore.

[mickszym]

You're doing great, mate! I remember my struggles with this kit last year. Great job on the nozzles - I totally messed up mine;/