Thought you might like to take a look at the latest and greatest (well…for me anyway). I’ve always loved the F-89 and all the variants. Heck, I love all Northrop planes. This one was extra special for me though. I love hearing all the stories my dad tells me of his life growing up on Hamilton AFB during the 1950s and '60s. His dad (my grampa) worked as a machinist on base.
When my dad was in his teens, he and one of his really good friends used to work on the base doing little maintenance jobs. My dad used to tell me about seeing F-89s all over the place. As luck would have it, I was able to find a set of aftermarket decals for F-89Cs from the 84th FIS based at Hamilton. So this one is for my dad. When he comes to visit next month for my oldest daughter’s birthday, I’m going to give him this model. Next up on the block with be an F-101B also with 84th FIS markings on it. He has great stories to tell about that plane, too.
So here it is. This was the first model I ever used Floquil on and I’m sold on it! It’s a combination of Old Silver and Platinum Mist. On a side note, I learned on this model NEVER to use MM metalizer lacquers over MM enamels. I ended up stripping all the paint off which took me forever. I shelved the kit for about a year before I felt the motivation to repaint it.
Thanks for the kind words guys! Mike, I’ve never been one to rescribe so no, I didn’t do that on this kit. I actually did an extremely light sanding of the lines before I painted. I didn’t want to eliminate them, just tone them down a tiny amount. Otherwise, the panels were simply highlighted thanks to the help of low tack blue painter’s tape to help me pick out individual panels. Not a single bit of paint lifted off with the tape!
I’m not sure about the rest of you but sometimes, for me anyway, I’m more lucky than I am good. On this kit, I think there was a bit of luck at play and I really surprised myself on how it turned out.
The Monogram F-89 was a great kit to build. I’ve got some more aftermarket decals leftover so if I ever see this kit again on the shelves, I’m going to snap up another one or two. The kit pulls no surprises and makes for an extremely pleasant building experience. It’ll take up a bit of room on your shelf seeing as how the real plane is quite large. I had it sitting next to my 1/48 Monogram F-80 and the Scorpion looks like a giant compared to it.
Great job with the NMF. [B] The Floquil paints are very easy to apply and have excellent adhesion qualities. I picked up this kit on Ebay a while back and was impressed by the level of detail. I have seen an F-89 at the museum at Robins AFB and its huge.
You mean besides the crying and the cursing? LOL! It was then that I discovered that the lacquer will attack the underlying enamel. (I learned that you can apply an enamel over lacquer but NOT the other way around.) In my case, the MM metalizing lacuer I applied ended up wrinkling and flaking within about of minute of application. I was immediately disheartened when I saw it to the point where I shelved the kit for about a year. I finally worked up the courage to get me some good paint stripper and with that, and an old toothbrush, I finally got all the year old paint off.
I had heard lots of praise about the Floquil line. The part I liked the best was when I read that you didn’t have to thin it to run it through your airbrush. That meant it was one less step for me to do. The pictures I had seen of finished models also convinced me as well. I tried it out first on a scrap wing from my junk pile and it went on BEAUTIFULLY! As I had mentioned before, this model was going to my dad so I really wanted it to turn out well. After seeing how good the paint looked on the scrap piece, I was convinced that this was the way to go.
Great job and “way to go” on the panels… Proof-positive that raised lines don’t mean a thing… Think I’ll have to add this kit to my list of “Monogram kits to Buy”(I don’t do many jets, but Korean War-era jets are in the “OK” zone, lol…)…
Thank you Hans! Often I think you and I must have worked for Monogram in a past life. LOL! Panel lines don’t mean a darned thing and it bugs me when people are so adamant about rescribing panel lines. I was about to get on my soap box but that’s another topic for another time. I wanted to tone down the panel lines without getting rid of them entirely. I wanted to use the different paint tones to highlight the panel lines. As I mentioned before, I used Old Silver and Platinum Mist. I also added a couple of drops of gloss black to the airbrush cut to add even a couple more tones.
I, too, am not a big jet fan BUT I really do love the early jets of the '40s, '50s and, to some degree, the '60s. To me, the early jets were still designed by the hand of Man whereas today’s jets seem so sterile and anticeptic and computer generated that their artistic beauty is now gone. There are some nice modern jets but the character has been designed right out of them. But that is strictly my opinion only. On a side note, the best part about working on a jet model is that it’s a welcome break from painting so many propeller blades! [:(((]
Great looking Stuka, Hans! Raised lines can really be used to their potential! I did a Monogram F-4 Phantom in the exact same way. I preshaded the raised lines, painted the model like normal, then lightly went over the whole works with a medium polishing cloth to make the panel lines pop out. My heart was literally pounding when I did it because I was so happy with the paint job that I was afraid of buggering up the whole works. But I was so happy when I saw how well the process started to work.
P38, I really gotta join a club! Getting any kit for $2 would be so worth it!!! [t$t]
I have in 1/48 the F-89C, F-4C/D, F-20, and soon will have the the ESCI Fiat G.91. all raised panel lines.
I also do not have the patience to re-scribe panel lines. I plan to sand them down a tad, but is there other techniques when weathering aircraft with raised panel lines?
Great job, Eric!! Very nice build. I also built that model a couple of years ago and found it to be a nice build. I had experience with that one in the service. It is a quite large airplane and looks kinda clumsy along side some of the subsequent century series aircraft, but the pilots seemed to get along ok with it at the time. It looked really big parked alongside the T-33s. [:|]
Also, some dry-brushing of flat light tan enamel to grab some panel lines on the darker camo…
Charcoal dry-brushing on B-17G WIP:
It’s tedious at times, but I thonk the result is worth, especially the amount of control I have with pastels… Don’t like the way it looks or made a mistake? Wipe it off and do it again…
