Decaling begins with a gloss coat. I’ve had very good results with AK Interactive Intermediate Gauzy Agent. With a 1:1 thinning with water, it gives a very shiny and smooth gloss without as many problems as other gloss coats I’ve used.
The markings comes from Cutting Edge Modelworks’ EF-111 Sparkvark sheet (CED72048). The sheet provides for 3 options with noseart and usually, modelers have gone for the squadron leader’s EF-111 which has a skunk riding a bolt of lightning. The other option is Tasmanian Devil from the Warner Bros cartoons while the last is a black crow (?) with ‘No Fear No Gear’ text in red over it. I decided to go with the last option. It’s the least colorful option but it has an interesting backstory to how this particular EF-111 got its name.
The decals were very easy to use: they slid off the backing very fast, reacted very well to Mark Softer and I was done in no time at all. On a sidenote: it’s a pity Cutting Edge is no more. These are seriously good decals. I decided to add the stars and bars on the bottom of the right wing although the instructions don’t indicate that it exists. After the decals have dried a bit, I went ahead and cut any parts that go over panel lines with a sharp X-Acto knife and flooded the area with more Mark Softer to get them to conform into the panel lines.
The wingtip slimelights pretty much refused to curve around the wingtips so I ended up cutting each in half, stuck the decal on each side and then painted the resultant gap in the middle with a (estimated) mix of yellow and white paint.
After a day to cure, I wiped the kit down with a wet towel and sprayed the decals over with more gloss coat to seal them in. After this new layer has cured, it was time for weathering. Looking at pictures online, a majority of them shows mildly weathered EF-111s and this includes the operational ones. So weathering on this kit will be kept to a minimal.
The wash is done with Raw Umber oil paint. As you can see, I’m not particularly neat about it. More important is that I get every panel line.
After giving it about 10 minutes to dry, I then carefully wiped the paint away with a damp tissue paper, leaving behind the wash that’s still in the panel lines.
I varied the amount I wipe away to add some filtering on random panels but nothing too drastic.
I hid some paint chipping by adding my own chipping using the oil paint neat and blending with a damp brush. I also made sure to wipe based on the direction of airflow across the aircraft. With that done it was again another day of curing for the kit.
Final assembly is now next. First up I attached the main landing gear. This proved a bit of a challenge and I had to add some shims to the joint area to get the angle correct. Everything was attached with superglue gel which gave me a bit of time to adjust each part.
The nose gear would be an easier fit. I also strengthened the nose gear by adding a pin to the attachment point. The landing gear were all then given a wash of very thinned PVA glue at their connections to (hopefully) reinforce the joints.
After the pitot tube was attached, I then sprayed a flat coat with AK Interactive Matt Varnish. This was also thinned about 1:1 with water with the resulting finish being more satin than flat. Then it was finally time to add the engine exhausts which I wanted to remain glossy. Unfortunately I wasn’t careful with trimming them: one still has a bit of sprue connector while the other I ended up trimming too much.
The photo below also clearly shows the tailfin not aligning straight on the tail. Oh there’s a seamline in the protrusion on the tail too. Chalk it up to carelessness.
After this is removing the canopy masking. I usually will have to do some cleanup on this and brush on more Future to bring back the shine on the canopy. The absolute last would be adding the formation lights on the wingtips and the wing gloves and I can call this one done.
Build Log
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4