As I’ve mentioned in a few posts of late, I’m building an F-16C.
I intend to load it up with plenty of goodies under the wings.
My last few models have either been ordnance free, or
they have been WW2 warbirds which only carried a single
bomb or drop-tank on each wing. For these warbirds I glued
the ordnance to the pylon BEFORE painting because it was
simple enough to mask and paint around them.
Surely, I will need a new strategy for ordnance on the F-16C,
because each wing sports 4 pylons.
I thought about pre-bonding the pylons, then adding the
ordnance after painting is completed, but I’m worried about
two things:
the integrity of the bond over paint & clear-coat layers
the spoiling of the paint finish by the liquid glue.
So how do you all do it?
-Do you paint before ordinance, then sand the bond area?
-Do you use cement or superglue?
I always add mine after I have painted. I mask off holes where the pylons will be attached to wings and then paint accordingly, let dry, add my future coat and decal model. I build in sub-assemblies so often the pylons and weapons are already assembled, painted, decaled and finished them before I attach them to the wings then I just do a little touching up around where pylons and wing meet. I prefer to use super glue with a 30 second cure time as this allows time to make adjustments before it fully bonds. This method allow me to just do my final finish after pylons are in place with a flat coat and the model is finished. This works pretty well for me.
You might get more replies if people knew what you were talking about. An ordinance is a rule, a regulation, like “No Parking After 8pm.” Weapons are ordnance. Yeah, I looked at the post, admittedly, but only because couldn’t imagine what kind of law a “bonding ordinance” was.
I just completed an F-84 for the Revell-Monogram GB and I did the following. Pictures are posted in that thread.
Assemble, prime, paint and decal the wing.
Assemble, prime, paint the pylons
Assemble, prime, paint the fuel tanks, bombs
Apply Future to all parts
Use an X-Acto knife to carefully scrape away paint, etc down to the bare plastic where the pylon will attach and then glue it in place with styrene glue.
Attach the ordnance to the pylon with styrene glue.
Super glue will let you avoid much of that tedious scraping and other fiddly tomfoolery.
Besides, the pieces we build are usually considered display items, and not for “zooming” the living room or the wifes cat. If you take that stance, it really wont matter how you attach the ordnace. In fact, you might be best off if you impose a “Hands Off” ordinance for your models.
Yard, Your method is simular to mine except for glue. I’ve found styrene glues dont always hold weapons to pylons and there is always the chance of knocking off a bomb or missile part when handling pylon before glueing to wing so I aways use super glue for the stronger bond and less wait time.
What I do is glue the pylons on prior to painting then the ordance is glued on with super glue after the subject is painted, decalled & sealed, and when moving the subject if the bomb, missile, or tank falls off it wont damage the paint or pylon and it’s a breeze to reinstall the part that fell off
Tiny “dots” of superglue, precisely applied with a piece of wire, snipped off sewing needle end, or something similar. You want to keep the dots of superglue small because 1) It doesn’t take much of that stuff to hold a bit of plastic, and 2) Superglue is VERY shiny when it dries. The smaller the dot of glue, the less you have to paint over after it dries.
Over on hyperscale there is a nice little article about attaching ordnance. I more or less try to do something like he does because it makes the bond much stronger and helps prevent the bombs from breaking off.
Youre right, an excellent article. This is really a good idea, adding the wire mounts. It adds another fiddly operation to the process, yet it offers better “survivability,” as he put it, when compared to my “Hands Off” policy.
If you have the gumption to do it, I give it a Dahut Thumbs Up.