Originally Posted by ravill

Hi Jimbar!

Welcome to the Hog builds! I remember reading the thread on the 5.5 and wondered what happened to everyone building?!

I can help you with a few of those pieces. Buuuutttt, if you are having problems with paint sticking, then THAT might be where you need to start.

To recap what I had to do:

1. Strip the WHOLE airplane with paint gun cleaner. (messy, but VERY effective at taking paint off without loosing small scale details)

2. Sand the WHOLE airplane with 600 grit sand paper.

3. Apply EPOXY PRIMER as a sealer. Using it as a sealer, lessens how much primer is sprayed on the jet, which can obscure some of the small scale details.

A few notes on EPOXY PRIMER. A: Its an epoxy, it WILL harden, so wash your gun after using it. Your gun will turn into a paper weight if not. B: Because it's an EPOXY, it will stick to almost anything. So this is THE property you are trying to maximize.

Don't forget you will need to use this epoxy primer on all the little parts too. I had to redo my landing gear because I forgot to use my EPOXY primer, I used a regular primer which was a mistake.

The other "tips" I can think of for painting:

Only start painting parts which you can finish (primer, paint, clear) all in one sitting. If you take longer than 24 hours between any of those steps, you have to "scratch" your primer or paint (depending on where you stopped) with a scotchbrite pad (or equivalent) so that the next paint step will stick. If you paint all 3 steps back to back to back, you increase the adhesion.

Where nitrile gloves when handling the airplane until you apply clear.

I didn't get convinced that I NEEDED to do a gloss clear before applying decals (wet transfer) or paint masks, but that's what I did.

Runs where the most likely for me with clear, so I had to practice alot and still got a few runs.

Matte clear is AMAZING!

Regarding the scale 3D printed pieces:

The small white piece towards the bottom of your pic next to the two long grey pieces with rivet detail, fits on the front gear strut.

The oval looking swept back pipe thingy, goes on the bottom rear of the jet and is a fuel dump pipe.

What looks like a fuel filler, if you have two, I'd say they go on the wing, if you only have one, it may go either on the Right front of the jet (just above the gun) or on the top of the get, just behind the hatch.

The other parts, I am not sure about.

I'll try to post some pics in a bit for you.