1/48 Tamiya F-15

by Jimmy Tai Tang

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By the time I received the Tamiya 1/48 scale F-15 Eagle in 1976, my family was struggling with all kinds of difficulties with the communist regime in Vietnam.  Modeling tools were limited by our expense.  Therefore, the kit was built basically out-of-the-box with some minor scratchbuilding. It was totally hand-painted with a Testors white paint-brush and Pactra Enamel Camouflage Gray and Sea-Gull Gray.  Afterburners were finished with Testors Silver + 10% Flat Black (outside) + 20% Pactra Brick Red (inside).  Radar disc was a tone-down of Pactra Tan + 2% Red + 1% Black.  Pactra Flat White was used for all wheel wells and landing gears.  The separation waves of the two-tone Gray were all free hand painted (no pencil or paper patterns involved).  I brushed Dark Gray onto Sea-Gull Gray before the latter got dried.  This created  the blended waves between the two colors.  Only one layer of paint finished the kit (neither primer nor overcoat).  While the paint was still 20% wet, all (Tamiya kit) decals were finished onto a thin layer of "pasta-glue" (similar to white glue, but made of flour and hot water, softer after cooling off and sticks like crazy).  After the paint was completely dried, the decal film would be invisible (except for the yellowish decals)... 

I used the chess desktop velvet cover as the tarmac, a crewman and a drum from Monogram 1/48 Black Widow kit.  My friend took the photos with his Canon SR camera filtered with an amber lens. This kit was not built professionally, but it was one of the best I have ever finished (and completed) at the time.  The others were Black Widow, UH-1D, Stuka, DC-10, Harrier.  Unfortunately, all those kits were left behind in Vietnam.

Cheers,

Jimmy 

Click on images below to see larger images

Photos and text © by Jimmy Tai Tang