Navy Bird

Thanks. Thankfully, all the glass goes on from the outside. Cheers, Bill

The shoes are shod and the chassis has a bod! I nearly had a coronary when I saw the seam between the upper and lower body just behind the rear wheels - I was reaching for my putty when I realised that the bumper covers that up. Whew! Prior to adding the body, Revell have you add the rear view mirror and a decal for the dome light. I painted the mirror frame silver, but left the mirror glass in the kit chrome. No one will notice. I had to spread the sides of the body shell quite a bit in order to fit it over the chassis, due to the inward curving lower doors and rocker panels. I was cringing for sure. Not to worry though, she snapped right into place - the fit is superb. Revell's engineering has certainly shone on this kit so far. All of the remaining chrome bits have been stripped of the kit chrome and the now red bits are in the process of being sprayed gloss black in anticipation of Mr. Color Super Metallic 2 Super Chrome Silver 2. (From now on, I'll just say Gunze Chrome. Er, GSI Creos Chrome.) Once the gloss black is dry, I'll check for any sink holes and stuff like that. I didn't see any when looking at the bare red styrene, but the gloss black will accentuate anything. Stay tuned... Cheers, Bill

Beautiful! I never noticed those funky curves in the sides of the canopies before. Now I want to correct all of my Phantom models - but since I build in 1:72, I can make an excuse that the curves aren't noticeable in that scale. Cheers, Bill

Masking tape is off. Looks pretty shiny - but I think I'll still polish the bits after another day or so. For now, I'll occupy myself getting the grille, headlights, mirrors, bumpers, etc. ready. I plan on saving the windows for last. The bonnet has a chrome trim strip along the top of the fenders, continuing below the headlights. Revell provide decals for the rub rails in the boot, but have you paint these bits up front. Oh well. You also have to paint the chrome trim around all of the glass except for the windscreen. Not looking forward to that... I kinda wish the louvres on top of the bonnet had some openings, but I guess that's a limitation of the tooling/moulding process. I'll have to fake that somehow. Or not. Cheers, Bill

Thanks. I think the "marbling" effect looks nice, but it isn't at all what I was trying to do. Ha! Next time, when I actually need to produce a marbling effect, it will come out as wood grain. No I haven't. Just for giggles though I tried it with an old (OK, very old) bottle of Polly-S. Instant blubber. 🐋 Cool is good. My wife has been trying to cool me down for years... Thanks! My smallest drill is something like 0.008 inches and it's too big. Go figure. Yeah, it's called (oddly enough no Mr.) "Aqueous Hobby Color Thinner." It comes in 110 ml or 400 ml bottles, catalogue nos. T110 and T111 respectively. I've never tried it, but it's in their catalogue. Come to think of it, most of what's in their 40 page catalogue I've never tried. Heck, I've never heard of a lot of this stuff. Mr. Almighty Clips, anyone? One notice I found interesting was the eventual replacement of Mr. Color with Mr. Color GGX - "updated to comply with anticipated future solvent regulations, resulting in reduced odor." Now that will be a good thing! No notice of when though. Have you tried adding a few drops of single malt to that mixture? Just curious. ***** I think the red paint is sufficiently dry to allow me to remove the masking tape that covers the interior black (headliner, etc.) If not, there might be some mutterings of choice Anglo-Saxon. If all looks good, I'll post some pix. Cheers, Bill

RL 201 had the day-glo panels by the end of the test program, as can be seen here during disassembly after the contract was cancelled: I believe RL 202 was the only prototype that didn't get day-glo. Cheers, Bill

I'm still waiting for the red paint to dry on the body and bonnet. I sprayed Gunze H3 Red thinned with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner, and since I plan on polishing this finish I want to make sure the red is good and dry. I will probably leave the parts alone for several days (I sprayed them yesterday). I completely ignored the warning in the GSI Creos catalogue about thinning the Aqueous Hobby Colors only with its own special thinner and used Mr. Color Leveling Thinner instead. It works great. In fact, I have yet to find a paint that it doesn't work well with. I'm sure there is one - maybe latex house paint. I made a lame attempt at 1:24 scale wood grain for the steering wheel rim. I used a base coat of H37 Wood Brown and then dry brushed some random touches of H47 Red Brown. I then gloss coated the rim with H30 Clear Gloss. To me, with my 70-year old eyeballs, it looks like something is going on as I can see the two colours. With a magnifier, the effect I achieved looks more like marbling than wood grain. But once this is all buttoned up and all the glass installed, nobody ain't gonna see nothin'. Actually, you probably can't even see anything in this photo: I may have mentioned it previously, but some of the holes in the steering wheel were flashed over, so I had to drill them out. I didn't have a drill small enough for the tiniest hole, so I'm thinking I will just add a drop of black wash into those. It's too bad that the steering arm/wheel isn't connected to the wheels up front. The way it is now, if I pose the front wheels turned, the steering wheel will still be straight. So don't look too close... Cheers, Bill

That is correct. The third (and last) tooling of the CF-105 by Hobbycraft has no parts in common with the earlier kits. There used to be a nice comparison between the three Hobbycraft kits by David Winter on the ARC forum, but it looks like that forum is having issues at the moment, or perhaps it has been shut down. The ARC website itself hasn't had an update since January of 2023. Looking forward to see how this build progresses. It's always great to see another Arrow! Cheers, Bill

That's correct. The model is a 1961 E-Type, and I think (although I'm not sure) that the 3.8 litre was the only engine choice that year. There are two wings on each wire wheel spinner, and they're already on. ***** I survived a week or so in Delaware at the beach house, and it confirmed my feelings. I hate sand. Plus, waves have a perverse habit of knocking over old men. Geesh. Anyway, I finished the steering wheel (haven't taken a photo yet) and next up is the painting of the body, boot, and bonnet. Can't be long now. Cheers, Bill PS. Famous last words.

Fly Navy! Be sure to pick a colourful old-timey scheme, and not one of those grey on grey jobs with the paint peeling off. Cheers, Bill, living a CAG Gull Gray over White world.

Annoying is my middle name. Just ask the missus. Cheers, Bill PS. Aluminating is looking good!

That's a big monster, but she's looking good. I really like the camo scheme on the Japanese Herky birds - so much more interesting than SEA or overall grey. Cheers, Bill

Thanks for that. Revell definitely have it wrong, and even went so far as to tool two hole drilling locations for mounting it on either side. The pictures that Revell have on their website of a finished model (left hand drive) show the handbrake as I modelled it (following their instruction for right hand drive). They didn't even follow their own instructions... Speaking of photos, the finished model on the front of the instruction booklet clearly has aftermarket wire wheels. Well, I'm just trying to keep up with @Fritag. Cheers, Bill

He's a wizard, a true star. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wizard,_a_True_Star Cheers, Bill

I'm back, although I'm a bit waterlogged from a water line bursting in the basement. Thank goodness that didn't happen while we were on the cruise as that would have been a real mess. I need to get into the habit of turning off the main water valve coming into the house when we're gone. Anyway, all is fixed and dry again. Whew! I managed to find a little time to do some work on the interior. First, painting the headliner: Exciting, eh? Revell picked some good spots for the ejector pins as none of this will ever be seen. The instrument panel (sans the steering wheel) and center console were then added, followed by the side door panels and the boot. Now, I assembled them in that specific order even though Revell have you add the boot first, followed by the instrument panel and then the doors. The boot, however, had some back and forth movement against its alignment ribs so there was a possibility of gluing it in the wrong position, resulting in small gaps between it and the door panels. My procedure ensured that everything matched up well. We'll see what happens when the body goes on! The rub rails in the boot are decals, and they were a bit of a pain. The decal is flat, of course, but the moulded rail has a circular cross section making it difficult to get the decal positioned properly. Especially when they are swimming around in a pool of decal solvent. Luckily, this probably won't be real obvious once the body is on. Note - the paint had to be removed from all locating pins, tabs, holes, and slots in order for all of this to fit together. The tolerances are very tight. There is an error in Revell's instructions concerning the hole you need to drill out for the parking brake lever. For right hand drive, Revell have you do what I've done here. Oops. I think this is the position for the parking brake for a left hand drive car. It should be on the other side of the console so it won't interfere with your arm while you're shifting. Speaking of shifting, Revell provide a decal for the pattern on the shift knob. Nice. I'm working on the steering wheel now, experimenting with how I want to do wood grain, assuming I want to do it. We'll see. Several of the holes in the steering wheel spokes needed to be drilled out as they were flashed over. No biggie. The wire wheels were given a base coat of gloss black followed by GSI Creos Mr. Color Super Metallic 2 Super Chrome Silver 2. Seriously, that's what the label says. Note that this paint is double super. The chrome effect is much more noticeable in real life. They are really quite shiny, but nothing like what came with the kit. Revell provide Jaguar logo decals for the spinners but they are not on yet. I managed to glue the wheels together correctly, so the wheels should roll. Now, since I don't build car models very often, what is the best way to keep these rubber tyres clean? They are a perfect dust magnet. The rubber is not tacky at all, but man, I clean off the dust (seems to require water and a micro-fiber cloth) but they don't stay clean long. It looks worse in the photos, but it's still noticeable. Let me know if you have any ideas. Cheers, Bill PS. The cruise wasn't enough. We leave this coming Saturday for a week at the beach house in Delaware. Because, well, it's there. 🏖️