Vipers are white, which poses a special problem in that white is one of the absolute worst colors to have to work with. Some will say it’s replicating a bare metal finish that’s the most difficult, but I’d rather paint a dozen aluminum and tin and steel clad aircraft than just one in white.

I started off the process by covering the already painted engine intakes with Silly Putty. Then it was time to mix up the paint. Here I’m using the lacquer based Mr. Color gloss white. I prefer acrylics for most everything except priming, but since white is so troublesome, I wanted something that would dry fast and stick like glue immediately; acrylics dry fast but can sometimes take days until they’re ready to sand/feather or mask over. The obvious issue with lacquer as opposed to acrylics is that they are about as toxic as standing water in an abandoned Jersey City lot, but they do spray and work beautifully.

I did an initial coat of the stuff that I’d thinned a bit too much. It went on translucent, so I made the best of it and got as much coverage as I could. There were a few imperfections that I’d missed, and the ever-present dust particles that stick in the paint no matter how well I clean the area, that I had to take care of. Fortunately the paint was dry enough to sand in a couple of hours.

The next painting session went better, and I’ve got a good overall coat of white now. There are a few places where dust needs to be polished out, and a spot of rough paint below the canopy where the surface is grainy — from not getting a wet enough application — but I’m hoping that I can work these areas and not get back down to primer and need to spray them again. If that’s the case then the next stop is either masking and spraying the red stripes, or making the engines and other bays for dark gray paint. I haven’t decided which to do next.

The end is (almost!) in sight.

Starting to get close to paint time!  One of the last major components to go on was the canopy (the guns are all that are left to go on, but they will be the last thing done, after final painting and weathering are finished).  The canopy had some fit issues.  The instrument panel sat a bit proud of the cockpit sill in the front, keeping the canopy from sitting level.  After several sessions with a super fine file and attention to the top of the panel, I was able to get the canopy flush.  Just to make sure it was all snugged up, while the glue set up, I clamped it from the top, but very carefully.  Clear styrene is much more brittle than the other varieties, and the last thing I wanted to do was crack this transparency.

The black vinyl masks are from Aztek Dummy and specifically for this kit; the set also includes masks for painting the red stripes and markings, which I’ll do instead of using the kit decals.  They pulled from the backing fine and laid down pretty well.  I had to do some burnishing around the inner canopy frames to get them to completely adhere.

The final photo is of the Viper in overall primer gray.  There are a few spots that need touched-up and polished out, and once that’s done it’s time for a little pre-shading and then the overall white coat.

I’m reasonably sure that the fuselage is now ready for final primer and paint.  That means that I have to get the canopy on and smoothed into the fuselage (it has gaps, of course), and to do that our pilot has to go in first.  The kit instructions say if using the pilot, you are to cut off the top of the control stick and glue that to the bottom of the control stick already molded into the pilot’s hand.  As you can see from the first photo, they don’t even come close to meeting up.  Had I known of this issue before putting the cockpit into the fuselage, I would have built up the center console so that it looked right, but at this stage all I could do was drill out the base of the stick and put in a piece of wire to make up the difference.

The pilot didn’t quite want to fit.  Wide hips, narrow seat.  With a little pressure, though, it worked.   I broke out the super glue, a bar clamp, and repeated over and over as I tightened the clamp “please don’t snap his neck, please don’t snap his neck…”

The final piece is a custom tool I made for the build.  1mm square styrene stock with strips of 200 grit sandpaper glued to it.  For the small recesses at the top of the engines and around the seat of the thrusters, this is all that would fit in there.

Next up: put on the canopy and start masking for primer and paint.

After several weeks of on and off again sanding and filling, I’ve got the wing and stabilizer roots blended into the fuselage.  It was a long and arduous process.  Let us never speak of it again.

With that done I felt that I could add the thruster assembly.  As with everything else on this kit, there were gaps, but by using the clamps as shown, I was able to pull it all in tight.  A healthy slathering of liquid cement assures that they’re never going anywhere.

Once these dry a full day, at least, then I need to drill the mounting hole in the bottom of the fuselage, and also decide if the canopy will go on before or after the painting process.  Before would make it a lot easier, but it depends on how well it fist.  I haven’t had the heart to try it yet.

Only one photo for this update.  I’m at that stage where a lot of work gets done and very little of it is visible to anyone but the one doing it: paint prep.  I was pleasantly surprised that the wings went on and the alignment was perfect.  The problem I ran into, though, is that there was a substantial gap between the wings and the fuselage on both sides, and between the vertical stabilizer and the fuselage.  Now I’m going through the ritual of filling with putty, shaping, sanding, priming, finding what didn’t turn out perfect, and then repeating the entire process until everything is smooth and ready for paint.  I figure with this kit it’ll take me the better part of a week.  I hope to have a full base-coat of primer on by next weekend.

After weeks of fitting, refitting, and fitting yet again, I finally got up the courage to glue the aft fuselage together.  The instructions and the kit layout call for the wings and tail to be included in this step, but with the gaps I have, I opted to leave them off for now and deal with the seams first.  I’ve read of some having problems with gaps in this area of the kit, and others saying that it snapped together like Legos.  I’m obviously in the former camp.  I have no idea if this is something I did wrong, or if it’s a problem with the kit.  Regardless, I have some filling to do.  The major gap I have actually been able to close up a bit by clamping the starboard engine front to back and slathering it with liquid cement.  We’ll see if that holds.  Everything else will get healthy doses of Apoxie Sculpt to fill.

Two other things in this update: I’ve got the upper engine painted (in this photo it has only been base coated in black and then sprayed in dark gray) and drilled for extra piping.  Also, as the photo shows, the thrusters have cut-outs in them.  Unfortunately that would allow you to look into a hollow cockpit.  I punched out some styrene disks and inserted them, blocking the view and any stray light (they have yet to be painted in this photo).