BAe Mantis - Album WIP - Finished

The box. Thank you Combat Kits for this UAV.

Only one paint scheme offered. In fact, there were two.

The model is entirely in resin, with some white metal parts. Rather not badly molded but a little grainy.

On the other hand, a lot of parts Big work of "coring" in sight.

The assembly, on the other hand, should be reduced. But there will be work to improve the engraving and probably also to fix the parts. The wing/fuselage connection will probably have to be reinforced.

I began to clean all pieces. But a lot of work. There's work finishing the parts (it's a bit grainy), all the engraving has to be redone (it's barely sketched), and a lot of assembly work. A good base but we are very very far from Tamiya.
Tomorrow I will still have to clean all the small parts: antennas, scoops, various pods. Hard work, I tell you!!

The present engraving is really too light. It is therefore necessary to redo it, to dig it a bit. All what I dislike !!
I start by passing a first black wash to identify all the lines, known and those which should be there!

And then, line by line, I start by resuming the engraving using the Tamiya tool and the Squadron tip.
We continue the work of redesigning the lines of structure. And to finish, a new black wash in the lines to see if it's better, the gaps, etc...

After cleaning the surface, we identify everything that is going good (or not so badly), and all the little slippages to be resumed.

It's time to watch documentation. Well, a lot of work in front of me !! First operation: the nose. It's lighthouse (or something else), in any case, it's transparent, like a lighthouse. So, I cut and we'll redo it in transparent plastic.
I will probably also redo the two probes on the nose.

Other work needed ; correcting the bits of engraving where I had slipped. A shot of Tamiya putty last night. Let it dry, sand it tonight. And I re-engrave and check with a new wash. Not so bad, except for the wing where it's not perfect. But I'll leave it that way.

Two small operations: passing super fine steel wool of all the main parts (fuselage, wings, fin, engine nacelles, etc.) and I put some fishing weights in the cockpit area, for fear that he ends up on his back at the end....

We then glue the bubble of the "cockpit", we wait and we finalize the seal with Magic Putty. This will give it its characteristic shape.

The real photos show that the fuselage panels, at least on the front, are heavily riveted. Like the cockpit bubble, by the way.
I had fun trying that. It is however a technique that I have very rarely used. So I released the magic roulette "Rosie the riveter".
After a few tries, the 0.7mm one works quite well.

And the idea is to redo the two protrusions in front which are orthoptic sensors. For this, I bought a Master set for a Spitfire (we are far from it!!) which offers a form of these two probes.

And after a lot of work, a broken forest, and a bit of sweat and fear..., we get this:

Well, there we still see a lot of faults but in real life, it's going well.
Afterwards, I finalize a few lines of rivets on the sides. On the photos, we only see it on the front of the fuselage, and not on the rear or on the wings.

And in the end it will look like this:

the black surface of the noise is chromed.

And we hollow out with a ball cutter the end of the transparent cluster that we use to redo the fire and we also paint it in chrome (Molotov marker).

Very small step: we stick the end of the transparent cluster on the nose.

A step that I don't really like: inevitably you have to sand hard to shape the bubble. Not easy and I don't have the best experience in this exercise.

The fact that I don't like sanding obviously explains that!! I masked the pitots on top to avoid scratching them too much.

The bubble is not very transparent but by sanding finer and finer, and eventually polishing, it will do. You have to have confidence.

But, it wee weed me off, the finesse wasn't there. I had grayed the whole thing and there were a lot of imperfections. So, I puttyed all the small areas of the nose with Tamiya Gray and especially the fuselage/bubble connection, and also a little around the two pitots. We let it dry. And we re-sand over it, finely. In the end, here is the result. Not so bad. It's far from perfect but let's not forget that we are in macro which does not forgive anything. In fact, it's starting to look like a decent thing. The bubble has a shape that suits me, the connection with the fuselage is correct. And the bubble is almost transparent (not very obvious on the photos, I agree).

I also puttied and sanded the tail. Basically, it had a small concern for symmetry, but above all there were some bubbles in the resin (yet of very good quality elsewhere).

Ditto on the underside of the fuselage, there was an imperfection in the join of the fuselages.

A lot of preparation in the last few days. I concentrated on the engine nacelles. I started with the engine air intakes.
There are four, two per nacelle.

I had fun trying to drill them. I hope something can be seen at the end !

To position them correctly, I drilled them slightly to put a small tenon.

Then I also prepared the 4 exhausts. That I also dug with the ball cutter. Then the same, adding a small tenon in each. And finally, also drilling the axis of the propeller (supplied in white metal). With a family photo of all the engine nacelle parts: four air intakes, four exhausts, two propellers, two nacelles.

Small work on the trains with drilling holes to fix the trains in the train bays (which are minimalist). No need to tweak them any further. Finally, it assembles rather well once the drilled trains. A little photo on his paws, just for fun.

We also had to redo a tenon for the left wing. A little work with drilling then adding plastic card.

And we start putting it all together. First the wings.

Then the centreboard and its stabilizers. Then second crosswise with the plane that fixes the engine nacelles.

The engine nacelles are not glued but it's for fun!

Big job of puttying the various joints. Using Perfect Putty Acrylic Putty.
On the nacelles.

And on the different assemblies.

I pass a first coat of paint to check the various seals.
From a distance, it's not bad at all.

But up close, there are several imperfections. First on the back, the surface condition is far from being at the top. Weird, I hadn't noticed that before.

Using Tamiya Gray putty to rework it all. After two nights of drying, delicate sanding work. The back first.

The wing/fuselage joints on the trailing edge are rather well repaired.

In the end, it is almost ready for a first coat of paint. I'll tell you about the right shade next time.

Transition to painting. My benchmark is about the only photo that is not backlit by the camera.
And so after a lot of procrastination, I went on a Gunze 72 "Dark Earth". And I veiled it slightly with a copper metallic color, the Vallejo Metal Color Copper 77.710.

Good in the end, it's not bad but it is a bit too "golden".
So I took it all back and applied a new veil of brown, a bit darker, Gunze H37 Wood Brown.

Painting of the cockpit bubble. First, we mask this bubble from the cockpit.

Then, use of a Gunze H81 Khaki. That's what I wanted. A slightly more grey/green shade that doesn't contrast too much with the brown. The result is not so bad.

And then, I take the opportunity to paint the tip of the tail which also seems to be the same shade. Given the few photos, we are not sure of anything.

Result of work on the undercarriage legs.
Front leg: Alu (PA) + Juice (MiG Dark Wash) + chrome cylinder (Green Stuff) + recovery with a point pen
Main gear: white in GW, + Juice (MiG Dark Wash), very light + cylinder in chrome (Green Stuff) + recovery with a pen of the points
Wheels: Hubs in white (Tamiya) + Tires in black (GW) + Juice (MiG Dark Wash). I have to take the tires again because the first layer has cracked.
Radar ball: gray
Optoptric ball: Tamiya white + shiny black windows (at the end, a coat of Green Stuff holographic paint).