Thom216

I was teased with getting one of these at some point, but hearing about the fit issues, I may stick with my (as yet not even started) Promodeller examples. Soldier on!

Bought one of these at the last model show I was at. It looks good and joins the two 1/72 Academy kits awaiting the time and mojo. I'm pulling up a seat!

Thanks! She turned out great! I think I'll be starting with this one.

Lovely lady! Nice work.

Lovely looking ship. You did a great job on her.

Jeeze, that thing is big! (or just something else she said...) Kudos for tackling such a mighty project. You'll make a real Angel out of her.

That looks like a cool idea for a hover tank! Very nice.

Have gotten back into sci fi for a 'quick' build, I pulled out the Defiant model from PL. I started with the clear parts, backing them with silver and then spraying Tamiya clear red and blue, then masked them. There is a mask set available, but being the same price as the kit I decided not to buy them. The eight clear parts on the spine were also done and then covered with masking fluid. Then onto the nose and the neck attachment. The way the kit is made, the gap between the head and the main body was a little too wide, so I grounded out the locating point so that it would seat a little tighter. Before... After... Then onto closing the hull up and cleaning up the edges and adding the nacelles. After that it was onto paint. I used Model Master Light Gray for the base color, over a panel shading of Tamiya Nato Black. I've decided to forgo most of the paneling decals. I'll be using just the registry, pennants and windows only and sticking to paints for the rest. So, out came the Tamiya tape... As in the pic above, I used the white Tamiya tape for curves to help with some of the curves. But one side lifted shortly after being applied and was replaced with regular Tam tape. The other side stuck - until the next day when it too slipped, but I was into painting before I realized it. A couple of paint and mask sessions followed... ...until I am finally to here... I'm not done yet by any means as there are two other colors to lay down, and some clean up to be done here and there, but so far I am glad I decided not to use the decals. Will update shortly. Model on!

Like she just rolled fresh out of the paint hangar.

A modern day mummy! I can't wait for the unwrapping.

Love it. As always, exceptional work.

Great work and a nice base.

Build continues in the main Works in Progress section!

I started this thread in the B-17 Group Build, and was doing pretty good until I ran out of mojo. Happens sometimes, you know... Started to get it back, but it was too late to reach the finish line, but it's not stopping there, no sir! I have too many 'in-completes' to let yet another join the pile! Here's is the link to my GB thread, And so now that you've caught up - or I've caught up? - here is the continuation of the build. I had last glued the fuse together and added the glazings, being none to happy with some, and yet happy with others. But that seam-line, damn that is ugly!! I started sanding along it, knocking it down and feeling pretty good about that - until I realized plastic dust was sneaking in under the glazings. Turns out they were no so sealed as I thought they were! You can see the sanding dust just above the rear seats. The good news is that there was enough of a gap at the front of the cockpit glazing that I could press my mouth against it and blow most of that away from there. Some still remains, but most is now where the solid silver will be sprayed. Turns out I'll have to live with a little bit here and there - unless I wanted to crack open the glazings, which I would fear doing far more damage than a few dust motes are worth. Here's a shot of the belly, and no the PPP has not been used. I can't seem to use one of those without the stuff getting hard in the tube before I can use even a little bit of it... Clear to see is the bad shape of the bomb bay doors, esp the 'hinges' near the corners. Between the belly bubble and the tail wheel I also snipped off the two lower antenna to facilitate clean up. And after a some time with rough sanding sticks we get this. Looking lovely! I'll need to redo a lot of seams and lines, but I got plenty of dymo tape, straight edges and a needle in a pin vise. Another thing I decided to do was drop the elevators, so out came the aforementioned pin in a vise, which was then followed by an exacto blade. I have some half-round stock that will go against the leading edge of the elevators themselves and then round the rest of it out before gluing them back on with a little bit of droop. And that's where she is right now. This won't be a fast completion, as I intend to detour to a DS9 Defiant for a short bit. but I'll keep the ball rolling. Model on!

It's on both tail planes. And I'm pretty sure VNN in the second pic has it to a heavier degree.