TheRealMrEd

Thanks Martin. Robert, that's probably about what I'm going to have to do --- we'll see. Ed

Back again. Now with all the tiny decals on, looks like I'm making a little progress. Below, the landing gear have been added: Above right, the folded, dropped and decal-ed wing assembly has been completed, with the clovers turned right way 'round. Next, a couple of shots of the landing gear, which to me, is pretty hard to tell where everything goes in the Academy instructions: Just about then, I noticed that disaster had struck. A couple of days ago, I had managed to drop the fuselage while decaling, onto a vinyl floor. Since not many parts were yet attached, I didn't worry about it. Only when taking these photos did I notice that a chunk of the resin intake opening was missing from the bottom of the intake: Plan "A" is to saw off a piece of the old original kit plastic and to trim it to size, then glue the plastic part to the resin nose with CA, as shown above right. After the CA sets up, it'll be time to try sanding to size and repainting. Hopefully, I'll see you on the other side, and won't have to get to plan "J", or whatever! See you then... Ed

Hello, I've been looking for WWII (although stocks were used until the 1960's) AMN66 2000 lb bombs in 1/72 scale. As far as I can find, no one makes any, nor do I know of a kit where any have been provided. I was wandering whether anyone out there might know of a near-sized smaller type bomb in 1/48 or 1/32 scale? As near as I can find, the bomb I'm looking for would have an L.O.A. of real 90.4", which in 1/72 works out to 1-7/16" or 34.5mm. The length of the bomb body only is 70.00" in real life, or 1-1/8" or 21.5mm. The diameter of the bomb body is 23.3 inches in real life or just a hair over 5/16" or 8.5mm or thereabouts. What I am trying to do is substitute on of the larger scales' smaller bombs for the 1/72 2000 pounder. It looks like this (not to scale): Appreciate any ideas or leads, as I need two of these... Ed

I think you did a beautiful job on the model and finish -- congratulations! Ed

Hello again! Since wrapping up the P-58 Chain Lighting on the "Year You Were Born" GB, I have been working along on the F-8C mod. Finally got her in basic paint, Gull Grey over White, with some black anti-glare panel and bare metal leading edges, along with the bare metal tail-pipe area and elevator walks: Above right, this is the aircraft that I decided to model, hence the need for the folded wings. The Academy kit decals had a later version of the markings for this squadron VMF-333, but of course, for the later "E" version, when they were re-designated all-weather {VMF(AW)333}. That meant I had to come up with the wingtip markings (top and bottom) as well as the ventral fin markings (green with -- "boomerangs"?) or whatever they're called. Fortunately, I had two sets of the kit decals and an old green stars and solid sheet green from Stoppel decals that were a fairly close match. As shown next, the larger, basic decals are applied: The tail flash decals from the spare set were cut apart, leaving the two green strips, which were then applied to the underside of the wingtips, separated by a correctly-sized piece of white decal sheet, cut to match the removed part which had upon it the clover symbols. But, as you can see, those clover symbols were oriented "up and down" vs. the needed "fore and aft" required. Parts were cut from the Stoppel sheet that matched the size of the under-wing decals, and were applied to the top of the wingtips. Next the wing tip clover leaf symbols were cut apart, leaving them each on the white square of the original decal, and were applied in a fore and aft manner onto the previously installed decals: The bit of touch-up on the green will be accomplished with small bits of decal trimmings, applied later. Below, a few more added decals: I still have to figure out how to do the white markings on the ventral fins -- any suggestions would be helpful! Next I'll work on adding the tons of tiny stencils, then work can commence on adding the landing gear and final assembly. FWIW, I have photos of this aircraft in some different stages of it's life. It started out as an F-8C, but was later upgraded to an F-8K -- pretty much the same external shapes, etc., but as is usual in squadrons, the markings change and evolve. I do not know whether this aircraft at this point in it's life was a "C" or a "K", as the serial numbers remained the same. Stay tuned... Ed

Thanks Rob, I'll try some of that! Rabbit Leader, appreciate your moving the build thread back home... Ed

Thanks Ian, That's sort of what happened to me, as I had never heard of him either -- until I started to build some of his colorful aircraft. When it suddenly dawned upon me that they were all flown by the same guy, I just got hooked! Ed

Hi Dennis, I built one of these back in 1972 or 3. Glad to see that it still builds up into a beautiful model! Ed Edit: Oops -- wrong forum, please delete, s I don't know how to...

Thanks guys! John W, thanks for reminding me that I forgot to post this following picture!! would you believe that it is LARGER than a P-61?.... Ed

1944 -- First Flight of the Lockheed XP-58 Chain Lightning -- 1/72 Planet Models Build thread HERE: Unless it gets moved to where it's supposed to be... Ed

Hello again, Well, after several rounds of the usual masking, painting, re-masking, re-painting... add nauseam, I finally got the basic metallic colors on -- all various shades of Alclad II, topped off with some 95% thinner and 5% Alclad II Aluminum to blend in the various colors. Next a coat of Aqua Gloss water based clear was shot on where the decals would go. After drying the major decals were add, save only the little "1656" on both sides of the nose, which will be added at the end. Even though I am wearing white gloves since I started the painting, one can't be too careful! After the decals were added, another coat of Aqua Gloss atop them, and when dry, a layer of Alclad II Klear Coat Light Sheen was added overall on the model. With that finally dried, the model was masked with Parafilm "M", to allow painting of the Interior Green wheel wells: Above right, the masking has been removed and the wheel wells have their color. Next, I began adding the landing gear legs and doors, etc.: Metal landing gear are provided in the kit, but you must drill your own mounting holes. There are little squares molding into the well wells that tell you where they go, but not at what angles. As you can see from photos of the real aircraft, the front gear angles forward, and the rear gear legs angle rear-ward, but no where does it tell you at what angle. Using a pin vise and appropriately-size drill bit, I used the TLAR method to drill the holes, then everything else was slowly glued into place with thin CA. It was right here that a really irritating problem reared it's ugly head! Let me first give a disclaimer that I bought this kit from an individual off E-Bay eons ago, probably close to the time that Planet Models first released it, and so the error may have been an early run thing. In any event, the kit ended up missing half of the main gear doors! The instructions themselves, in the parts list, calls for two sprues of these items; there should have been four altogether. Since I did not buy this kit through a regular dealer, and Planet Models provides no contact info on their web site, I could not ask for replacement parts. ( By the way, this kit is still listed on Planet's active kit list, so if you buy one of these, check out how many sprues of main gear doors you have, and govern your actions accordingly!) Anyway, I went to cast some new ones from resin, and my existing supply of silicone mold rubber had gone T.U., so I scrapped that idea -- I'll wait for a bigger project to re-order. Sure wish someone would offer molding rubber at maybe 8 oz size, at maybe 60% of the cost of a quart. I am SO TIRED of wasting lots of molding rubber and resin, due to their very limited shelf life! Eventually, I went to the spares box and found some old unknown bomber gear doors and I cut and sanded them down to size, omitting the detail on the inner face of the Planet doors: The Planet doors are on the left, spare box replacements on the right, above. I eventually glued these into place, then made up the dual pitot tubes on the left wing from tubing and wire, painted the wing-tip lights, added added the little nose decals. As I was gluing on the propeller assemblies, it became obvious that this was going to be a real tail-sitter, so I glued some clear sprue under the elevator to hold up the tail. If you should try one of these kits, I would recommend that before joining the tail booms and body, that you drill out as much material as possible BEHIND the main gear, and perhaps even drill outsome of the nose molding of the fuselage halves and add some lead. I think the metal landing gear will support it just fine. Because of the odd fit of the clear parts of the canopy, the potential shortage of half the main gear doors, and the extreme tail-heaviness, I would only recommend this kit to someone of experience, or perhaps those harboring suicidal thoughts... Anyway, she's now done. I'll post a teaser pictures below, and eventually, a link to the final pictures, hopefully in the Year You Were Born Group Build area, if possible; in RFI in not. BTW, the moderator is welcome to move this whole thread to that area if possible... RFI in Group Build HERE: Ed

Well, the XP-58 is coming along. Decals are drying now and I will soon post an update on that thread. Meanwhile, I've been working on the F-8C (F8U-2E?). I decided that I was about ready to paint, so felt it was time to finish off the cockpit area.: Above, I've added the kit control stick and my version of an early Vought seat. I won't repeat all that about the seat here. Those interested in it's construction should refer to my F-8A thread HERE: Also, while Muroc gives you a new vacuformed front canopy section, it is very thin, and doesn't mate with the main canopy section very well, forcing you to build the canopy open. I wanted the canopy closed on this one (just being contrary!), so I used the original kit windscreen sanded down and the sensor holes filled with CA. I had intended to use this as a master for a new resin canopy, but after a couple of dips in Future, I think I can get away with just using it by itself --we'll see how that works out. Next the main canopy was glued into place, and both clear sections were masked with Tamiya Tape: At about this time, I decided that I needed to find out why the dropped flaps wouldn't fit properly on the wing. After comparing with drawings, it turns out that Academy molded the wing flaps -- exclusive of the ailerons -- too wide. So, I got out the old sanding stick and narrowed the flaps from the inner end, until they were sized correctly to allow the flaps to drop down beside the fuselage: Above left, the arrows point to the amount of material that needed to be removed, about 7/64", half on either side (Or, just sand to fit!). Above right, small bits of plastic card of appropriate thickness were glued onto the fuselage as shown, aligned with the BOTTOM edge of the wing stubs on the fuselage to make up for the material removed from the wing flaps. Next, because my sanding was a bit sloppy, one part of the actual wing gap was too wide, so another, thinner piece of plastic card was added to shim that space: When sanded a bit, things are coming along nicely. Or so I thought.... Turns out that when I started looking at which F-8C to paint, the one I was going to do was not flown by the unit I was going to depict. So, when I finally picked one, it turns out that it had some nifty wingtip artwork that could only be shown with folded wings. I think I'm a pretty fair modeler, but I'm not good enough to get bogged down in that much tiny scratch-built wing fold detail! Enter Wolfpack Designs: Above right shows the parts you actually get in the folding wing set. However, as has been shown, most of the mods can be done on the kit itself, here's what I'm actually paying for: The detail! Interestingly, however, Wolfpack nicely asks you not to raise the wing. Turns out that this is because they molded their parts to fit the existing kit -- as other resin aftermarket companies do, so the same mods will have to be performed on their wing, as I did to the kit's wing: Above left, after a bit of work with a sanding stick, the Wolfpack wing fits, allowing the flaps, etc. to be dropped. Above right, as with the kit wings, we separate the flaps and ailerons from the wings, and when done, we glue all the various bits back together with CA: Above left, the Muroc wing top has been glued on and slats from a dropped Crusader wing slats set that I had laying about. I've lost the instructions, and I forget whose... I used them only because they were already angled for the dropped position, With a little sanding, the Academy parts would have done as well. However, as I have reiterated many times, I am quite lazy... Above right, I took advantage of the new wing, to drop the flaps further than the ailerons, which I had desired to do all along. So now I have raised wing, with everything dropped, plus folded wingtips. Just what the doctor ordered. And yes, this configuration IS possible, and I have photos to prove it! Anyway, now I really think I'm ready for paint so TTFN... Ed

Well opus999, Well done! It's very hard to set a certain standard for doing this because aircraft vary as to age of service, maintenance, environment, etc. Some are shiny, some not. The trick is to keep trying different techniques for different situations. One thing I would still suggest, is the much thinner (less paint to thinner) overcoats will generally work better. Just do them one at a time, let them dry, and add more if needed. Going too heavy at first can really get expensive, as you noted... Ed

While I haven't tried the AK paints yet, while working with Alcladd II, I agree with the comments above about an overcoat to tie all the colors together better. I use a 5% paint to 95% thinner ratio, and use anywhere from one to 4 coats, here and there as needed, to make the color contrasts blend nicely, as on my YF-105A: The contrast sort of varies with the lighting, as you an see. Ed

Thanks Steve, and you're welcome! Today, I'll move along on the actual fuselage conversion. I'll begin by doing a little work that needs to be done, before closing the fuselage halves. First, I removed the sensor ("A") from the tail, as it was not yet in use. Next, I made certain to open up the holes started on the inside of the fuselage for the rear afterburner cooling scoops and the ventral fins, which first appeared on the F-8C. Also, if you're going to depict the missile rails mounted to the aircraft, open those holes as well. I forgot to do this on my F-8A build, and it was a real PITA to do it after the fuse halves were assembled: Above right, I also deepened the nose gun holes, as they seemed a bit shallow. Next I add the remaining major parts to the inside of the fuselage: They are (above) "A" the intake assembly, "B" the air brake well, "C" the main gear well, "D" the arrester hook well and "E" the under-wing bay (not shown installed yet here). It should be noted that the kit instructions call for adding some of the gear leg parts at this stage, BUT DON'T DO IT! I did that on my F-8A build and broke them off several times, finally loosing one piece altogether. The arrow pointing to the air brake will be addressed below. Also note that the cockpit assembly and the aft cockpit bulkhead are not yet installed. Next, the fuse is closed up. Note that it took some fiddling and juggling to get all these pieces to fit together properly, particularly the air brake well and the main gear well. Take your time, as they WILL eventually all fit together: The resin part "A" is provided in the Muroc conversion kit. I think it is called the "launching bridle", but I'm not sure. Anyway, the front part fits flush with the surface, while the rear ward part of it is slightly below flush. For those of you build Muroc's F08A or F-8C conversions, I suggest that you first carefully position WITHOUT GLUING, the main gear well doors to the model, and then carefully locate the air brake door to it's exact centered position. I had to sand this part gently across the front edges to fill a gap, but then it fit almost perfectly. Next, glue the air brake into the closed position (the early models were considerably different than the A/C models, so unless you want to scratch-build a whole rocket tray, etc. -- glue it closed!). When this is done, the main gear doors can be set aside until after painting and detailing has taken place, and the launch bridle can be carefully sanded to fit, virtually perfectly! Note that in the arrow mentioned a couple of pictures back, the arrow indicates the area that must be sanded down for a good fit of the launching bridle. Next a bit of scrap plastic is glued to the inside of the fuse, to reinforce the filler that will be needed where the little hump was removed from the fuselage, at the leading edge of the wing well. Also the aft cockpit bulkhead is installed at this time: Above right, it's finally time to remove the kit nose. As usual for me, I scribed the kit line a couple of times with a sharp #11 blade, then a couple of asses with a scriber, and finally the cut was made on both side of the fuselage. While the saw shown cuts about the finest line possible, it does not have a deep enough blade to saw all the way through the intake trunking, so a deeper (but thicker) X-Acto saw is used to saw apart the intake trunking: Above right, NOW is finally time to install the detailed cockpit and instrument panel. Muroc provided decals for the IP and side consoles, and after being installed and the softened a couple of times with Walther's Solv-A-Set, they look great. Everything else was just painted and then given a wash of flat black to pop some details. Hard to see in this photo is the gun-sight, which is also installed to the IP. I just slid the cockpit into place with no glue, and left out the ejection seta and the control stick until after some of the clean-up later. Lastly the Muroc F-8C nose is glued into place with CA, carefully guiding the gun sight into the little slot in the cowl coaming. As you can see, the fit is very good, with the exception of a little thickness variation between the resin and the plastic part, which will be taken care of with a little Bondo spot putty later: Well, gotta go check on my XP_-58. Back later, with more. Ed