Flight Metal 99% Done!!

Flight metal applied finally. I started in October and last weekend I completed the application of the flight metal except for a small piece around the canopy. I am going to cut the canopy to make it open as per the

real plane so I will complete the flight metal after. I still have weathering and nomenclature to do. I have one of the wings on just to show it more like a plane but the wing needs to be painted yet. Also have paint masks to put on the wings and fuse to put on the roundel and the main lettering. Sorry for the messy shop!

It is hard to take a good picture of an 11 foot lawn dart with an iPhone. What do you think?

If you recall earlier I had mentioned not liking the way the cones looked with the rivets instead of proper bolts. I have completed putting in the 70 or so screws to simulate the bolts into each of the cones. 

Before

After

Time Consuming Little Details

Similar to the ventral fin IFF radio there is are two radio systems on the top of the plane just behind the canopy. This area is fiberglass and is not painted. Again to simulate this I have laid up a layer of fiberglass cloth and with the resin it gives it a bit of a tan or beige colour. I will air brush it a bit to make it a little darker.

In the top of this area there is a strobe light. I have cut out the fiberglass in this area and made a mold for the lens of the strobe. The lens as you see it is just out of the mold and not polished yet so it does not look very clear. The little ring around the opening on the fuse will be flight metal once the area is painted.

OK, I know this is going to seem a bit anal but the two suppression cones just do not look right without proper screws as you can see in this picture. The bottom one is how they look from Sky Master but the top one I have experimented with putting some scale screws in place of the rivet like depressions. I will repaint the cones before I add all the screws and then I may put a witness line on each screw as I have seen in photos. I must check with Steve at the Canadian Starfighter Museum first to see if the RCAF maintenance guys did that or not.

Here is another area that just is not right. There are somewhere around 75 louvers or vents in the belly of the 104 near the nose gear door. These are not cut through from the mold and for that reason just do not look real so I decided to cut each one out. I will not flight metal this area but instead will air brush it aluminum in colour. This area was not highly polished on the full scale either apparently and it would not come out very good with the flight metal I feel.