Started building the Kinetic 1/48 MQ-9 Reaper drone for my son who works on them.
This a fast build and it will take me longer to fill & sand than any thing else.
I had to fill the pylon mounting holes with rod stock I had and now need to wait for the glue to dry before cutting them flush.
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Interesting project. Good to know about the holes that need filling. I have this kit as well but haven’t started it yet
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Watching. I too have this one in the stash. Two tone paint right?
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Yes, because I use MRP Lacquers the colors are MRP-93 dark mod grey FS36176 for the underside and MRP-38 Medium grey FS36375 for the upper surfaces.
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Kinetic’s MQ-9 is a rebox of a rebox… Still it’s a pretty nice kit. A good kit to get your mojo back with. Kinetic’s instructions aren’t very good - particularly about decal placement. When I built mine a few years back, I downloaded Revell’s instructions from their website. The Revell instructions show where the servicing markings are placed. (Revell’s kit number is 04865 - you’ll need that to find the instructions).
The MQ-9 is surprisingly large!
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I downloaded the Revell kit and it will help a lot, having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Kinetic BOUGHT the molds and didn’t use the information provided by Revell for assembly…
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1st sanding complete, had to retouch the pylon holes.
I wet sanded the entire kit with 1000 grit wet to lose the slippery feeling from the plastic.
The paint arrived today so I’ll spray a primer coat in the next few days.
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Sanded the epinage prior to install and …yep installed it.
Added gear struts in the down position.
Read the Revell instructions and added the 20 grams of nose weight NOT mentioned in the Kinetic instructions.
Painted the prop tips yellow in preparation of taping off the yellow stripes & tips and painted the prop spinner gloss black lacquer bas
e coat for the bright chrome top coat.
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Thank you for the heads up about the instructions, BIG help!.
Painted the spinner bright aluminum, the prop w/yellow tips & stripe.
Painted the underside dark mod grey and I’ll need to let it dry before taping it off for the lighter upper surface color.
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Pulled tape from the prop tips and taped & sprayed the light ghost grey on the upper surfaces.
Have a couple small off color antennae panels and then decals.
The last bit will be replacing the pitot tube and HF antenna tube that broke off trying to cut them from the sprue.
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All glossed up for decals.
I really thinned out the gloss coat to get an even shine for the really thin decals to grip and conform well.
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Some decals are applied but the stars & bars are relocated to the forward fusalage and I had to buy a letters & numbers sheet of decals that may or may not be the right style.
I’ll know in about two weeks.
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This is looking great! Making me want to build mine.
Annnnnnd…now I have a bad cold so I’m not even making Baklava for the next church dinner, gonna catch a lot of flak for that.
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Ohtay…My son sent me a couple photos (finally) of the drones he works with so I could build an accurate model and have been on a meandering quest to find the right type of lettering.
Upon looking at the photo I knew non-standard lettering & numbers are in use and it has been a real trial but, lo & behold I have them.
Luckily for me I had my hair cut short so I couldn’t get a good grip on it before this.
I had to scan through tonnes of decal sheets of different manufacturers letters and numbers and finally found what I needed on the Microscale website…now I have several sheets of extra letters and numbers of various sizes.
Funny how the looked right but the sheet there were on was 1/2 the size of a standard sheet.
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