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VH-71

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Now we come to the fun part of this build for me. Usually I prefer the building and prep work with painting considered a necessary step. However, in this case I was really excited to try out the new Tamiya lacquer paint and products. I'd heard many good things from modelers in Asia, so when Sunward Hobbies took on the line I was like a kid in a grease monkey costume staring at a mountain of nuts, bolts and new parts. And friends they did not disappoint! But first the primer after the model was wiped with 91% IPA and then clean water. Again, Tamiya Surface Primer G reduced with Tamiya Lacquer Thinner Retarder Type by 50%. Standard procedure was employed with a mist coat followed by, after drying, a wet coat. The adhesion is excellent, the light gray color is terrific for picking out minor flaws to correct and the dry time is perfect at well under 30 minutes. I say 30 to be on the safe side since I'm at 5600 feet above sea level and your results may vary. Now the main colors. The white lacquer paint is very nice needing only 3 coats compared to 4 for their acrylic and went through my Iwata Eclipse like a champ! The olive drab 2 sprayed even better letting me throw down an even thicker 1st coat and then only a second was needed. The beauty of this paint is that it levels really well for something that dries to the touch safely in a couple of hours or less. Needless to say it sped up my build time for decals and because of the semigloss finish there was no need for a paint sealing clear coat. Before this some panels had to be painted black since they were missing from the decal sheet. The flat black lacquer paint sprayed just as the others, splendidly. And with that it was on to decals.

Cartograf are well respected for their product and these were in line with that. Nice and thin, great colors, perfect registry, minimal carrier film and very easy to work with. Italeri though supplied Cartograf with some inaccurate files for the intakes along with not including the main instrument cluster and exhaust area. But what really boiled my bazooka were the short tail rotor caution strips! Toughest group of 2 MM spaces I've had to hand paint in a long time. Another plug for the Tamiya Lacquer paint is that it's durable enough to handle a mild wet scrub to remove the water and fluid marks from the decal adhesive along with the Microscale SET and SOL stains. The decals were then sealed with semi gloss and mat varnishes where needed.

On the home stretch we go with finishing off detail parts and the main rotor assembly. As you can see in the photos four colors went on to give the blade its desired look. Then add the AK Xtreme polished aluminum to the hub and you've got quite the little detailed job. Masking the paint was treat and even though I forgot to de-tac a few strips of tape the paint didn't mind at all. Some places were problematic to mask and had to be hand brushed. This too was not a problem for the paint after adding a few drops of thinner/retarder into the paint cup. No brush strokes at all and while it naturally took longer to dry it was, as was the airbrushed paint, rock hard.

Finally for this build were the bits and bobs here and there. I wanted to give the exhaust ports a special touch so they were sprayed gloss black then AK Xtreme metals. metallic blue and purple went over polished aluminum and a touch of smoke over copper at the very tips. You can barely see it in the photos but in real life looks pretty good. Abteilung 502 gray and smoke made up the minimal panel line wash. The very last thing I did was to use Tamiya's polishing compound "Fine" then "Finish" to remove some over-spray on the upper windows where the Eduard masks had lifted. I'm not certain if this was cause by the curves in the part, my burnishing job, the type of paint or the blue cows of Kentucky just letting loose their "thang". Who knows, but it had to be fix and with some careful scrubbing with a Tamiya pointed cue-tip the problem was resolved.

Final Thoughts and Thanks

Not an ideal kit by any stretch to build, but it was fun with a few challenges thrown in. The paint on the other hand was flawless, a treat to look at when dry and clean up was done in a jiffy. It's like when you discovered a really well designed model for the first time you got that giddy feeling, well that sums it up. The LP line is definitely going to be one of my go to paints from here on. Even if it has to be mixed due to Tamiya's lack of color range it's worth the time.

A Very Special Thanks go out to Sunward Hobbies for supplying the paint and related materials for this build. Please visit them at www.sunwardhobbies.ca in Canada and www.sunward1.com in the U.S.A.. Like I said earlier, support a family owned and run hobby shop.

I'd also like to thank Ms. Apple at www.iwata-airbrush.com for quickly solving several issues with my brush. Most definitely visit them for your airbrush needs.

Lastly, I'd like to thank YOU for stopping by and having a read. If it was entertaining and informative please leave a comment and consider subscribing to the network. Also when shopping at Sunward Hobbies' Canadian or American online stores tell them you read an article on KitMaker Network AeroScale. Best of health everyone!