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Quick ? Tinting Future for a Super Hornet canopy


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Hey everyone

Quick question for the night. I remember reading on here about tinting Future to more correctly match the tint in the canopy on Super Hornets. I want to say that people were using Tamiya Smoke for this, but I wanted to confirm before I drop by the LHS tomorrow. If someone can verify that, I'd appreciate it......and you have pointers, even better!

Thanks all

Brett

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As far as my knowledge goes, I don't think that Rhinos have any tint on their canopies...I built mine without any whatsoever. But I'm not sure...that's just what I know. And if there is any, it would probably be only very slightly tinted. Tamiya smoke is a little too dark for tint...I think you'll have to dilute it before using it.

Jason

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Thanks guys.......here's a quick pic of what I am looking to match

f-18e_vfa-31_11_of_66.jpg

Let me know I need to change that to a link only.

Based on that, do you think smoke is the color to use, diluted in Future?

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Brett, that is indeed what I've used and it turned out perfect! The benefit of doing it with Tamiya Smoke and Future is that is anything goes wrong you can just soak it in Windex and the canopy will return to original state and you can re-do it until it is satisfactory to you. I ended up dipping my Super Bug canopy like 3 times before I had a satisfactory tint. This method also works with other Tamiya "clear colors", such as green for helos etc! HTH,

Rick

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Brett, that is indeed what I've used and it turned out perfect! The benefit of doing it with Tamiya Smoke and Future is that is anything goes wrong you can just soak it in Windex and the canopy will return to original state and you can re-do it until it is satisfactory to you. I ended up dipping my Super Bug canopy like 3 times before I had a satisfactory tint. This method also works with other Tamiya "clear colors", such as green for helos etc! HTH,

Rick

Awesome, thanks Rick! That's what I wanted to hear. Off to the LHS and to work. I'll try it out tonight :worship:

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How do you keep the smoke from separating from the future? When I mixed the two, I got large black particles in the mixture and I had to filter them out with coffee filters. Other than that, this method worked well for me too.

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How do you keep the smoke from separating from the future? When I mixed the two, I got large black particles in the mixture and I had to filter them out with coffee filters. Other than that, this method worked well for me too.

I had that happen as well. Then I used some 'fresh' Future and it was fine.

Steve

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How do you keep the smoke from separating from the future? When I mixed the two, I got large black particles in the mixture and I had to filter them out with coffee filters. Other than that, this method worked well for me too.

You must have had a bad batch of one or the other, as I've had a Future/Smoke mixture in an airtight jar for months now and it's still as fresh as the day I mixed it (in fact I just checked before I typed this).

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I have found the following to work well:

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/lofive...hp?t163220.html

I just tried this yesterday on my F-18 and I got satisfactory results. Here are my steps:

- Clean the canopy, dip it in Future and let it dry well (~ 1 day)

- Create a mix of Tamiya Smoke (4 or 5parts) and Tamiya Clear Yellow (1 part) and thin this slightly with Tamiya acrylic thinner.

- Airbrush this to the inner side of the canopy. Go easy, you can build up the coats. At the end, you will get a somewhat blurry/cloudy finish.

- Wait for it to dry (~1 hour)

- Dip the canopy again in Future and let it dry. It should be all clear again.

I will try to post pictures of this sometime soon.

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Hi Brett,

Just to let you know the hornet canopies and windshields have a translucent gold coating over them, and at certain angles they look like they're a smoke tint.

hth

Brendon

The gold tint is much more subtle than an EA-6 or F-16, but it is certainly there. That closeup of the -31 E canopy may exaggerate the effect a little. Here's a side view from a little bit of a distance to exemplify the tint. The E and F have the same degree of tint despite having different-sized canopies.

IMG_0643.jpg

EDIT: Found a better picture.

Edited by Nick Kessel
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