Andy's 1/35 Meng K-4386 Typhoon, for Simon

[Deleted member 7181]

Not much to show again today, but then compared to some of the cracking scratch work this GB is producing, there never will be lol But since it's a group build, I'll keep bombarding you with build pictures

Upper and lower halves were married together, then I started adding the plethora of brackets and grab rails, the screen visor and snorkel





Tow poles and aerials have been cleaned up and put together. They should be fitted by now but they'll just get in the way, and aren't body colour anyway, so I'll paint them separately



The autocannon & MG needed a lot of clean up before assembly, and I took the time to drill out the barrels and muzzle break, following the moulded dimples the kit would have you accept.



And test fitted on the turret. The cannon uses a large keyed slot, and the MG a poly cap, so they'll be easy to fit after paint. The turret still needs the smoke launchers and lifting eyes fitting, but I've left them off until I've finished filling the seams & joints.

 

[Mini Me]

Really liking this Andy.......very straight forward approach.
Rick H

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Cheers Rick.

Yes, nothing fancy schmancy about this build I'm afraid, but it's a well made kit for those that like modern vehicles.

 

[Deleted member 7181]

I know many of Simon's builds never made the paint stage, but it's probably my favourite part, so here we are.

After an overall coat of black primer I did some pre-shading. I went quite heavy as in the past I've had a tendency to bury it with the paint.



Then on with the green, which I ended up ordering from John, and handily arrived today. Slightly darker and less yellow than the 4B0 I was going to use.





Thankfully I've not hidden all of the pre-shading work for a change. I'll have a look at it in daylight tomorrow and decide if it needs another coat, but for now I'm happy. Then I need to decide whether to brave the camo

 

[JR]

Hey thats looking good Andy.
Like the methods used, painting the interior like that is the way, when you said you weren't happy with the dashboard wash on one side I though use that paret in the shadows !
Paint work re the shading is good, I'd leave it alone, you know what happens when we play with finishes.
Go straight for the camo, you can do it.

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Thanks John. I still wasn't really happy with the interior, hence gluing the doors shut lol.

Masking those sharp lines around all the seams and rivets will be the biggest problem. Any creep under the tape will blow my mind. I have a trick for that, but I won't get too cocky until I've seen the result. Doing it on a small scale is a different kettle of fish to full size cars

 

[Deleted member 7181]

So I took the plunge and went for camo scheme. The masking took 7 hours altogether, but I had to do it in several sittings as my stool is no good for the old back!



I've been trying hard to keep my bench tidy, but it was a bit of a write off afterwards...



I sprayed it over in the green first, in an effort to seal any gaps in the masking, then a few light coats of the not-quite-black



Then after another hour or so masking, the lighter colour went on. I used Mr Color #45 "Sail", as it looked pretty close to what I needed, and saved me buying / mixing something specific.

I'd lost one of the flexible side step extensions here, but only noticed after seeing this picture. It took some finding as I'd got no idea when or where I'd knocked it off, but thankfully it turned up.



Then after some very careful peeling, the final result. There were only a couple of (noticeable) issues where paint had crept through. I blew in one on the bonnet straight away, and will touch up the other on the rear wheel arch.







I'll give it some time to harden up then give it a coat of varnish. I know many say there's no need and one can weather straight over lacquer paints, but I've had plenty of issues in the past so I'll play it safe.

 

[therapy]

The thought of seven hours of masking ....

I'm amazed that some of you guys manage to turn round your builds so quickly!

Turned out lovely though.

Nick

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Thanks Nick.

Lots of days off work, locked down, and bad weather meaning I cant really do much else = plenty of bench time.

 

[Jakko]

That has come out really well. Can’t have been easy to mask, but worth the effort, if you ask me.

 

[Mini Me]

Cheers Andy.......that's looking top notch.
Rick H.

 

[scottie3158]

Andy,
That is an excellent paint job, from the preshading to the cammo very nicely done.

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Thanks chaps.

Yes, it was a lot of work Jakko and I'm sure I'd have taken the much easier route of brushing the camo if my skills with them were better!

Glad I've done it though, and praying I don't muck it up at the weathering stage like usual

 

[Steven000]

Very nice progress Andy, I like the camo colors
Steven

 

[Jakko]

I'm sure I'd have taken the much easier route of brushing the camo if my skills with them were better!

It wouldn’t have looked as good, though. Straight-line camouflage is almost impossible to brush-paint correctly, is my experience — unless it was also painted that way on the real thing, of course

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Thanks Steven

It wouldn’t have looked as good, though.

Agreed. Quicker though lol.

But I chose the longer approach as, after all, this is a group build in honour of Simon. In the short time I knew him he didn't appear to take shortcuts. Things took as long as they took, to get the best result he could. Since my build skills aren't really up to that yet I'm aiming to adopt his approach in the painting and weathering stages instead, rather than my usual rush-to-the-finish.

 

[Steve Jones]

Wow! Its all happening on this build Andy. Very tidy build and great work on the camo. Looking forward to seeing this one weathered up. Keep up the great work

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Cheers Steve. I keep rewatching some of your videos for tips

I'm going to have a good bash with oils on this, in fact I've already started. I'm working in front of my makeshift spray booth so the smell isn't affecting me too much. Weird how I can spray lacquers all day without a problem, but oils/enamels make me heave

 

[Deleted member 7181]

So I've come to a bit of a temporary halt with this. Long story short, don't try out a new varnish on a current build

After getting the decals on I thought I'd give it a coat of satin varnish to seal everything in, ready for the oil work. Since I've found the 3rd generation AK paints so good, I thought I'd have a go with their varnish too, as I'd run out of my usual W&N matt stuff.

In the absence of any decent instructions (as with all of the 3rd gen range) I tried it neat first (terrible), then with some of their own thinner (better). However, I'm now left with a surface that is glossy and sticky in places, grainy in others. That sounds immediately like a lack of mixing, but it got my usual shake, stir, shake again method which has always worked in the past, so I'm not sure.

I tried some of the matt version on the turret. I had to really thin this down with their thinner and water to get it to spray but it went on much better. It has dried ok, but it definitely isn't matt, more of a satin, maybe due to the over-thinning.

Looks like have to brave a real shop for the first time since March and get some more W&N, but in the meantime this is sat in the house, waiting for the stickiness to eventually dry out.

 

[adt70hk]

Andy

Apologies for very behind on this. It's coming on a treat but sorry to hear about the varnish problems you've had.

ATB

Andrew