F-89 D Scorpion

Maciej Bellos
Watching!

Cuajete
Me 2.

Robert Podkoński
Me 3 (I love this silver coloured polistyrene 😉 )

Maxim Malparte
4th, seated

Skyhiker
My... I didn't expect so much interest in this plane. So far the kit is decent.

Łukasz Gliński
Me 5

Skyhiker
Welcome everyone. I've been having fun with this one, except for both of my airbrushes messing with me. I needed to do a lot of cleaning and adjusting to get them to work properly again.

Guy Rump
Cockpit looks great, following 👍

Skyhiker
I got the wings on after a lot of reshaping of the fuselage around the engines.

Maxim Malparte
Slow and steady, a very good sign I'd say. The surface of a starfighter I built years ago was not processed well enough, and it looked pretty messy. (And it was left dying peacefully in the graveyard since then.)

Skyhiker
It's always a challenge to get the surface correct, especially when you have to reshape things before applying metallic paint. I find it is a lot easier to work these issues out before and during the primer phase than afterwards. That being said I have yet to get it perfect.

Skyhiker
Drop tanks added.

Skyhiker
Still working on the surface areas as prep.

Mirko Römer
Following!

Maxim Malparte
Ditto. Great progress. Looks promising.

Reaper_lead
Love the scorpion, there's just something about it's profile that is so sexy.

Björn Groen
I did one as a kid... 30 years ago... it was one of my favorites,

Skyhiker
Welcome everyone. I'm working slowly but surely, trying to get the surface as perfect as I can. We will see.

Björn Groen
I did the aluminium hull back in the day with aluminium foil.

Björn Groen
It also helps to mask imperfections

Skyhiker
Today I focused on making sure all of the round surfaces were the correct shape, smooth and without seams

Skyhiker
Does anyone have any idea what the correct colors are for this plane? I have seen pure red and orange-red. Are the landing gear wells green or grey?

Maxim Malparte
A question that caught my pure curiosity. cybermodeler.com/aircraft/f-89/f-89_to.shtml Found this on cybermodeler, but I am not sure if it fits the scheme you're going for.

Skyhiker
Max, I saw that too, thanks. I'm not sure if international orange is correct. The f-89J at the Air Force museum in Dayton is red. [img1]
Other photos show f-89D planes having a bleached out red. I find it all confusing.

Clifford Keesler
I think it was Insingina red.

Skyhiker
Is this orange-red or red? [img1]

Skyhiker
Here is the faded color...
[img1]

Skyhiker
So the restoration is red, the live photos are faded red and reference images are orange-red. Any clues?

Reaper_lead
Based on the searching I did when building this, I think the specific color varies both by squadron and batch of paint, especially considering it was the 50s and 60s.
Here's another scorpion with more of a burgundy color
[img1]

Ben M
Interesting research. I always thought they were red.

Clifford Keesler
I think I used red-orange on mine.

Maxim Malparte
mewreckchasers.com/Chapmanf89d.html
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_orange
I am not a Dr. scorpion, but the 'engineering' one looks to match the reddish color on the D variant (also based at presque AFB) salvaged at the crash site I think. I am not certain about the color of the J variant for now, supposedly, the difference is limited to the scheme, again, I am not 100% sure about it.

Skyhiker
Thanks guys for all the input. I think I will just have to eyeball a nice red that is close enough. Now another question. Does anyone know what color the wheel wells are? I think they are silver but I'm not sure.

Łukasz Gliński
I don't think the Int Orange is a good match, on my Agusta it looks much brighter.

Maxim Malparte
Youtube Video
Youtube Video
colorserver.net/showcolor.asp?fs=12197
Just found three of those too. May it help.

P.S. It is always too hard to be sure of colors from recovered footage, neither an image nor a film. The saturation is not enough; the color tone is biased; lighting varies, etc. Even with the same color, it can be different depending on manufacturers, batches, w&t, etc. I think I will do it with a red-orange like said above on my Acadamy J variant in the future, but IMHO. It will be just fine with most unpure red colors on a base that is not too cold (eg. cold white, black, green, blue).

Skyhiker
Underpainting has begun

Clifford Keesler
Looking good. From what I could find the wheel wells appear to be silver.I found one photo where the inner part of the main wheel wells were ZC green and the outer part was silver. Except for maintance the inner main gear doors were usually closed when the gear was down.

Skyhiker
Thank you Clifford. Any chance you could link the photo here with the zc green?

Clifford Keesler
I will try if I can find it again, and figure out how to link it. I'm computer stupid.

Guy Rump
Looking good. 👍

Skyhiker
I got the red on today.

Clifford Keesler
Looks good.

Maxim Malparte
Ditto. 👍

Nathan Dempsey
Nice work. I remember leaving the main doors down on my 1:48 build only because there was so much detail in the wells it would have been a shame to close it all up. 😁

Clifford Keesler
They were down usually during maint. or they would sometimes come down if hydralic pressure bled off. My next one will also have them down, for the same reason the nice detail.

Skyhiker
Note: The instructions for this kit have the landing gear on the wings backwards. They should be curved inward not outward.