Hi

Basic question, but what order do you assemble a kit and paint it ? Is it as in the instructions, building everything then paint, or does colour get applied before the assembly is complete?

Still learning but getting there...

Dave

Hi Dave,

Usually I study the instructions to look for interior sub assemblies which will be built and painted before they are integrated into the kit. These usually consist of the cockpit interior and wheelwells. Also such things as the propeller and external ordnance are assembled and painted as and when it is convenient.

It is a little of both:

1. Clean sprues with mild antibacterial detergent. This helps especially if you live in a humid enviroment and or especially if you are working with resins. Plastic kitchen vegetable brush is ideal.

2. Cut the sprue trees apart. Leave the parts numbers and the tree limbs they are attached to as one unit. This facilitates yopu being able to paint needed colours to all pertinent pieces in one session.

3. Clean up the parts. At least an hour of my build time on any project usually goes into cleaning up parts. Mold seams and etc. Then paint as much as you can.

4. Separate the parts from the limb stubs as needed being able to use the parts number remaining on the stub to identify them.

5. Some parts are located at stress points on the trees. (Connected by two or more locations to the sprue.) You must strategically cut the sprue away without breaking smaller or fragile kit parts.

6. Paint and finish each sub assemby as if it were a model unto itself.

7. Work from the inside out, cockpit first, engine then the exterior.

8. Have fun and Model on!

That is such big question and you'll get as many different answers as you'll get people to answer it.

Take just one person. Me. I almost always build single engined fighters the same way. The same order everytime, but I may try something new I've read about here or there.
But I build fighters differently than I do multi-engined planes. And I build armor diferently than anything else.
I'm currently "engaged" in a ship build and have really struggled to find an order to do things in to keep the process going as smoothly as possible.
I guess on average I just open the box, clip the instructions to the clip board and start with step one and go with what makes sense from there. And it is rarely following the kit instructions.

My point is that if you are looking for advice to follow to make your own builing experiance better, your question would be better answered if you were a little more specific as to what you are doing or building. Everyone has their own way or order of building that they have learned works for them by just doing it over and over again. Trial an error.

Hi

Thanks for all your responses.

Jack Flash: Thanks for the tips, i had never thought about washing the sprues before, i will try that.




I make aviation models, been off for a while, and am hust getting back into the hobby. I was looking for some general tips and experience from the chaps on here which i can try out and see what works for me.

Hi Dave

My approach comes from a mixture of experience and healthy disregard of instructions! :-) Don't get me wrong - I always read them, but I then work out my own plan of assembly - which usually just means leaving off easily damaged exterior details until fairly late on.

What I DON'T do is build Armour-style - i.e. finish pretty much everything before painting. I've never figured out how they get tha to work - all I know is that I have to get down to painting rather earlier than our ground-hogger colleagues.

So.. yes... for me it's a bit of paint as you go - working with sub-assemblies and a degree of pre-planning for where the same colour will be needed on different areas.

That may not be the greatest of help - but every model is different it's often experience that dictates what you can get away with. And - take heart - no matter how long you've been building, a kit will still turn 'round and bite you once in a while... proving how much we've all still got to learn - but that's half the fun of modelling and really why we're all here!

All the best

Rowan

For aircraft I usually start where most do, in the cockpit. Painting as I go along, sometimes I get to a point where I need to let things set or dry before I can continue. This is where the order of the instructions goes out the window. While that cockpit dries I'll be cleaning up the wheels and landing gear, making various bits and pieces to add to them and then adding them if I still need to kill more time. After the cockpit goes in and the fuse halves are together I'll apply putty or Mr Surfacer 500 as needed. While this dries I move to what is usually the next step, the wings. Test fitting and cleaning up as needed. Inserting guns and/or gun barrels and any other things that can be done now. Paint interiors of wheel bays, etc. As someone mentioned before, I look for anything that can be built as a subassembly then added to the model as I go along. And the kit instructions go out the window again. I discovered (due to someone elses experiment) that glueing the tops of the wings on first instead of mating the upper and lower and then installing them as a unit yields a much better wing root to fuse joint. I rarely use anything more than primer here for any gaps. Just another example of what works for me but maybe not someone else. Obviously the joint alignment is critical to avoid huge putty issues everwhere BUT the wing root.
Then back to putty work. Once putty is ok'd I prime and let it set, moving on to other things. Is the plane a radial? Now would be a good time to assemble, detail and paint that R2800. Engine cowls too. Add color to the inside and weather accordingly while you can get to it. Sometimes I'll start the canopy masking here, depending on the complexity of the canopy. A bubble top just takes a second but and SBD-3 or a Kate takes a couple of hours. I like to get a head start so it will be ready to paint when the fuse color goes on.
After prime or base color dries I look around and find the putty spots that need more attention and give it. More prime and let dry. Back to other things. Repeat until the bulk of the painting is done.
I add parts to the kit in an order that puts on the strongest parts first and the weakest last. Now that the bulk of the kit is together I put on the gear, let set. Start paying attention to ordinance if there is any. Around the end of the paint dry time I'll give it the Future if my finish requires and usually after I have the gear on. That way it has something to set on while the Future dries. After that, decals. Again with Future. Then weathering. Then flat coat. Finally the canopy and weakest of parts like pitot tubes, antennae gear doors, whatever is left.

That's a single engined fighter in a nutshell. If I add resin or PE it all changes depending on the comlexity of what I'm adding.
Like the fellow before mentioned, I think it's wise to read the instructions. But then, like him, I kinda ignore them. Until I need to paint a part I don't recognize and need a color call out.

Just to throw another wrench into my attempt to answer your question, all the above goes out the window if I'm building something as complex as the previously mentioned SBD-3 from Accurate Miniatures. The kit makers warn the builder to follow the instructions and then oddly enough tell you where to ignore/amend/disregard them. Or they give you an option to follow or change the order of the instructions. From what I've seen so far following the instructions just about to the letter will produce the less painfull build of the kit.

So there you have it.
What I do. And sometimes what I don't do.