GWH F-15I Ra'am IAF

[thug626]

Good evening Tojo72. Thank you kindly my good man.

A good bit of progress was made today. Landing gear and wheels mounted. Canopy assembled, masked and, painted. The first of three top colors is down.

I've got paws for hands and this beastie is huge in my paw.

The canopy is a three part assembly. It will be evident when I unmask it...which will wait until everything is done. That way I can make sure the colors and sheen match. The base coat was LifeColor Deep Cockpit, to represent the painting on the inside of the canopy frame.

All of the wheel wells got an oil wash with a custom mix of Abteilung 502 Faded Grey and Black.

The lights for the nose wheel are separate clear parts. I painted the backsides of the lights with Vallejo Chrome prior to priming. After the Vallejo Stencil base coat was laid down and dried, I gave it a satin clear coat for the decals. Once every thing dried I gave it the same wash as mentioned above. After removing the masks on the lights, I coated the front of the lights with MIG Smokey Clear. This tones down the reflectiveness of the chrome undercoat and, gives the impression of a light that is off.


The base coats of the winged beastie will be weathered prior to any decals. After I get the camo done then I'll mask off the back end and go to work on the metallic paints.

[wbill76]

Coming along nicely Dave!

[mnrun]

Nice work! Looking forward to seeing this one finished.

[thug626]

Good evening gentlemen.
Bill Thank you kindly my good man.
Mnrun Thank you. It'll get there. The bench has been a bit slow this last week.

The starboard AOA probe got sheared off at some point. The port one is intact. I was trying to find a brass replacement, when it occurred to me...."Hey ya big doofus! Chuck a piece of 0.022" brass wire, place a piece of 800 grit on a sanding bar and make one". Which is what I did and, in a few minutes had a replacement part.

Both pods got a coating of Vallejo Neutral Grey.


More later....gotta tend to the cedar plank salmon on the grill right now.

[Leon]

Top coat is looking good Dave!

[thug626]

Thank you kindly buddy. The instructions for the LANTIRN pod calls for decals for the lenses. Oh heck no! I'm painting those bad boys.

[Leon]

LOL I like your thinking Dave!

[wing_nut]

Mmmm paint!

[thug626]

Aug 30, 2016 10:40:47 GMT -5 wing_nut said:

Mmmm paint!

Yup! I was wanting to jump right into the remaining colors for the camo yesterday. The voice of reason prevailed...other things to get done first...then the camo. Like getting the step on the nose taken care of.

[thug626]

The step on the nose has been dealt with. The radome is painted.

Camo painting has started. I am going to do the colors in steps as this is such a big beastie to paint. So far so good.

[Leon]

Nice fix on the nose Dave! The camo is looking good.

[wing_nut]

Mmmm MORE paint

[thug626]

Good afternoon gentlemen.
Leon Thank you buddy. If the first pass doesn't cover it, the second surly will
Marc Sorry I missed your post earlier. I am hoping to get more color laid down today.

[mnrun]

Very cool. Nice to see something besides gray (grey?) on an F-15; it looks awesome!

[thug626]

Good morning and thank you. I've nothing against the grey Eagles but, it certainly is a welcome change. Wife is at work, kids are headed over to their moms.....
IT'S BENCH DAY!!!

[wing_nut]

Sept 4, 2016 11:01:58 GMT -5 thug626 said:

Wife is at work, kids are headed over to their moms.....
IT'S BENCH DAY!!!

Living the dream.

[thug626]

Good evening Marc. Oh yes I was. I shot so much paint through the Iwata that I've got the tip of it marinating in airbrush cleaner.

Today was a most productive day on the Ra'am. The camo is, for the most part, done. The weathering of it will happen after the metallics are laid down for the aft end.




The remnants of the masks I cut from the photocopies.....I kept them. My little voice said "You're gonna need them"....read on to find out what c*** up I did.

The aft underside primed with the gloss black for the coming metallics.

Last but, not least the aft upper end primed for the metallics and, the scene of my c*** up. After two light passes of the gloss primer, I realized that I did not mask far back enough. Hence, why my little voice said to keep the masks.

[wbill76]

Got to listen to that voice. It's usually right!

[mnrun]

Doh! The camo looks great, though.

[Wes]

That cammo paint is just beautiful. Hope you have the problem sorted.

[thug626]

Good morning gentlemen.
I laid down the metallics afterwork last night. I am happy with the effects applied to the metallic base coat but, I feel the base coat is too dark. Back to the drawing board.

You can see where the boo boo happened here.

[Leon]

Camo and metallics look great Dave!

[thug626]

Good evening Leon,
Thank you kindly my friend. The metallics have been redone and, the camo is now fixed.

I fixed the colors today. Everything I could find in terms of reference pics showed the bare metal much lighter than what I had painted. So, I re-masked everything and gave a couple of light coats of Dark Aluminum. All of the other colors were to give some depth and character to the BMF. As you can see, the camo is now fixed.

The underside is where the other colors really worked well.

Here's everything I used.

[mnrun]

Great work with that.

[thug626]

Thank you kindly mnrun. I'm happy with out it turned out

[wbill76]

Some nice tone variation there for sure Dave!

[thug626]

Good evening Bill. Sorry for the delay. There has been progress on the beastie but I wanted to have the airframe fully decaled before posting anything else.

Decals are all done on the airframe, hard points, rails. All that remains is the ordinance.

The insignias are dead flat straight off the decal sheet. They and the tail graphics when on without a hitch.


There are "NO STEP" and "NO PUSH" decals all over this beastie.

The launcher rails decals are one piece.

The ordinance got its gloss coat and, I will wait for it to dry.

[Leon]

Nice work on the decals Dave!

[Wes]

Decals look top notch Dave. Keen to see the ordinance fitted.

[Tojo72]

Ahh,decaling,my favorite part of A/C modeling,really brings it alive.