I have assembled the entire fuselage along with the tails elevators and wings and forward section of a 1/72 Tomcat. And now i’m wondering since I’m doing it as the last flight bird (dressed in 1970s colors) on Sept 06 should i put on a primer of white to see how well the puttying is, and should I put on the hardpoints and gear or do those last?So that the hard angles to putty are easier? I’ve never done a primer coat so from the way things look after glueing and masking the cockpit I believe I’m ready,but that’s 1 mans opinion.
Ok it’s a little hard to tell without a pic but if i were building a Tomcat i’d put the hardpoints on before any painting but leave off the external stores and undercarriage until the decaling and wash was done…As far as wanting to check your seams i’ve always found that a coat of silver or aluminum just on the seams shows any imperfections quite well…After that if your happy with the seams go ahead and prime…
Jules…
So Jules, you’d reccomend a coat of silver or aluminum instead of white since the underside is going to be white ( I thought I get at least 1 coat of white on to start with just an idea)? I put alittle white on and it gave me a good indication of where to putty again.
Mate if you can see what needs more work and if you’ve found a method that works for you then go for it…[Y]
BTW I hope you post up some pics of your finished build for us to look at[:P]
I normally use flat white as a primer for areas that will be finished in a bright color, particularly gloss white or yellow. Fpr most other colors I use a flat gray primer.
I have tried using silver as a primer under white, but found that the white paint would tend to pull up if I used any masking tape over it.
On Tomcats I always leave the landing gear and shoulder pylons off for painting.
Mark
Thanks for the help guys. I not as good as you pros are, & I’ve been doing this for about 7 years. So thanks for the tips
Heck, I’ve been doing this stuff for 60 years now and I learn something new every time I check into this site. I add my thanks, for all the helpful tips from you pros out there. I have never failed to get good, helpful answers to any question I’ve asked! [t$t]
some other things that I consider when at this stage too…
one thing I never liked personally was when people weather a model by applying “chips” of silver paint on top of the finished paint. On the real aircraft, when chips of metal show through, they show through because paint chipped away from that spot, not because the metal color is on top of that spot. So I always found it effective to use metal colors as primers. This can take a little checking and research on a bird like the Tomcat, to ensure that you are using the correct shades of metals for the different parts of the airframe. For example, on F-8 Crusaders, the aft section of the aircraft is titanium, so I wouldnt paint it with an aluminum primer coat. I’m sure you get what I mean.
Anyways, on many older planes like WWII aircraft, I typically just use aluminum as a primer. Then, you can paint your color coats over it, and chip away the colors where you want the bare metal to show through. Just be careful to choose metal colors that will take paint over them well, as I have heard that some do not. I think the non-buffing metalizers should be ok for this.
In your case here, chances are good that the last Tomcat was recently painted over, so you probably wont have that much in the way of paint chipping, but when building most models it would fit the bill. Some planes, like WWII Japanese fighters, sometimes had more bare metal showing than paint.