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opus999

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Everything posted by opus999

  1. That is really neat in FAA colors! Somehow I missed your WIP on this. It looks terrific.
  2. Beautiful bare metal! I can't tell you had trouble with it. This is a fantastic job on this kit -- I'm particularly impressed with the intakes -- mine didn't turn out nearly as nice when I built this kit.
  3. That's wonderful! I really love the look of the Ventura.
  4. I didn't know enough about the Irish insignia to see they weren't right -- that's too bad. But, this is a beautiful model nonetheless and I think you did a fantastic job despite all the difficulty. If it makes you feel any better, I recently did a Czech build and got every insignia but one wrong. I was able to fix all but two
  5. Terrific work! I love the subtle weathering and the bare metal!
  6. Beautiful work on such an interesting aircraft! Weird thing is, I just learned about this plane Thrusday night and then saw this today!
  7. Thank you! Yes, this was part of the 3 piece adversary set. My best friend bought the 3 piece in college and I helped him build it. Ever since, I wanted to make the Warbird. Thank you! Thanks -- the windows really seem to make it. I recently saw my best friend's Warbird from the '90s without the windows and it just didn't look right!
  8. Thanks Miguel! Thank you Chris! It was nice to have you along on this one. Thanks! I have the Tony in the stash along with the decals with all the green mottles. I've heard its a great kit and I can't wait to build it.
  9. This is breathtaking work. I followed the WIP and the attention to detail was like none I'd ever seen before. Fantastic work!!
  10. Romulan Warbird AMT | 1/3200 Finished this on 11/7/2023. It's a bad kit with terrible fit, but the only game in town if you want to model this ship. Still, I'm really happy with how it looks! WIP is here. Hope you like it! Comments, questions and constructive criticism always welcome!
  11. A6M3-32 "Hamp" | Tamiya | 1/72 2nd Air Group, New Guinea, Buna Airbase, August 1942 Finished this on 2/9/2024. This was an effortless build -- the fit at the wing root was so perfect, I didn't have to do any work at all on it. I tried MRP's new IJNAF Olive Green (Mitsubishi) paint and was a little disappointed that it seemed too light when compared to the color swatches at the aviation of Japan blog. Still, the paint looked like the correct color when faded (as far as I can tell from research -- take that with a grain of salt), so I emphasized chalking on the top side. In all, I'm happy with how it turned out, but I'd sure like to do one that's a little more factory fresh! WIP is here. Hope you like it! Comments, questions and constructive criticism always welcome.
  12. Got some painting done today. Yesterday, I attached the masked canopy (still waiting for the seat to come though, so it will have to come back off) and masked the exhausts. This morning I started off with Mr. Surfacer 1500 black It's pretty cool in black -- looks like how we all envisioned "stealth fighters" in the late '80s/ early '90s. Then, I sprayed all the white parts white. and I finally got down to business. Since the color matched the one in this picture: YF-23 top view U.S. Air Force, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons That's what I used for a reference. So, after some marbling and detail painting I had this for a base: I then lightly sprayed the top coat over that until it matched the photo. The pictures don't quite do it justice. In real life you can see the subtle variation in the color. I over did the top coat on the starboard wing though, so I'm going to try to fix that tonight.
  13. I'm glad I decided to do PAV-1, then! I have noticed in the pictures at least one difference between PAV-1 and PAV-2: On the top, just forward of the exhaust openings, the demarcation between the bare metal and the paint on PAV-1 is a straight line from port to starboard, while on PAV-2 it is a series of radar-reflection triangles. That could easily be replicated through scribing and paint, though so it isn't a fatal flaw. With all the studying of photos I've done in the last couple weeks, I feel this kit is really, really close shapewise.
  14. I loved Testors kits in Middle and High-School. But then, I wasn't all that concerned with fit! You're right though, I remember they had some interesting subjects, which might be whiy I liked them so much.
  15. I've been thinking a bit about painting. When I first bought the kit I wanted to do "grey ghost" (87-0801), which had a two tone gray camo. Now, I've leaned toward "spider" (87-0800), which is a uniform dark gray, mainly because of the black widow hourglass on the bottom. Although this was a prototype and I wouldn't expect it to be very dirty, picture show interesting variance in the color of the aircraft. Ray Wagner Collection Image YF-23 SDASM Archives, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons YF-23 top view U.S. Air Force, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons What makes this more difficult is that, depending on the lighting, the aircraft can look very dark or very light. In this picture with its sister, it looks very dark and a lot of the color variation disappears. Northrop YF-23 DFRC NASA/DFRC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Two YF-23 in formation USAF, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons So, the trick is going to be getting that variation in the paint without over doing it. I think I will create the pattern over a black base and then lightly apply the top coat. In other words... I'll be winging it.
  16. Yeah, it's coming along. A lot better than I thought it would actually. I don't know if it's the kit, the age or the combination of both, but the fit has been less than stellar. I'm pretty excited to have it looking like a full airplane at this point!
  17. Yesterday I worked on filling the terrible gaps in the seams. Here's an example: I bulk-filled with Tamiya putty, and used some CA on top of that in places. I sanded everything flush and smooth and then rescribed where necessary. Yes, the width of the white filler is really the width of the gaps in the seams. It really was that bad. Finally, I got the tail surfaces on. There were tabs that fit into slots in the fuselage, but the slots weren't holes and the tabs were too deep so there was daylight all along the seam except for where the tab was. I had to trim those down and had a good solid join all along the tail pieces, but there really was no guidance for the angle. The pieces didn't lock into place, they were just really loosey goosey. I had a front-on picture of a YF-23 on the tarmac and used that to get the angles right. Next up, masking and painting primer.
  18. This is terrific! I don't have the courage (yet) to make a crashed aircraft. It looks fun, but also very difficult! I love the P-39's looks and based on what I've read, the Academy kit is a good option for a crashed P-39 🤪
  19. That is fantastic! I love seeing this in such different markings.
  20. Yesterday I started things by determining how much nose weight to add. The instructions called for 3/4 oz. but when I weighed out 3/4 oz. of lead sinkers, there was no way they'd fit in the nose! So, I did a test of the center of balance without any nose weight and it looked OK: But, to be on the safe side, I put a couple lead sinkers in the nose anyway. Next, I finished the cockpit by doing some silver dry brushing and I dry brushed behind the seat with dark gull gray to bring out the detail. I then put together the intakes and used quite a bit of apoxie sculpt epoxy putty to not only seal the gaps, but to try and hold everything together because the fit was so bad! I got the exhausts glued in Finally it was time to put the fuselage halves together. The pieces were warped so it took a lot of clothes pins to make sure everything stayed together. At the cockpit, one side had no gap, and the other side had a large gap, so I used a clamp to eliminate the gap. It took some pressure to close it up and I was worried it might come apart when I released the clamp. I released the clamp this morning and so far so good. There's a ton of filling that needs to be done, so I expect a day of work before I can consider painting. Didn't get to it today because my wife and I were replacing some stair treads. Maybe tomorrow?
  21. Progress was slower than I anticipated yesterday. Despite having the house to myself all day, I wasn't able to get to the bench until late afternoon and then progress was slow. I painted light ghost gray in the cockpit and intakes. I didn't take any photos because I'm not done painting the cockpit yet. A note about the cockpit: The seat provided in the kit is actually really pretty good by early 1990's standards, however I ordered a resin seat anyway, because the detail will be far better. I am going to continue ahead without it since I should be able to drop it in the cockpit at any time (possibly with some modifications to make it fit). I had painted the IP gloss black for applying the decal. Interesting how the decal and the IP raised detail are completely different! I could've just painted the IP, but I wanted to try the decals. When I was in middle school and high school, I built a lot of Testors kits and their decals had this weird gunk on them that turned brown within only a few months. It was tremendously frustrating. Sometime in the late 80's or early 90's the decals got changed to fix the issue. So, yesterday the question was: were these the old, cruddy decals? Turns out they were. I ended up separating the decal completely from the paper, and then did my best to remove every trace of the milky substance that had come from the decal paper. That was extremely difficult and I really didn't want to do that with all the decals. So off to the internet I went to see if there were any aftermarkets. Talk about luck and timing... Caracal just re-released their Cartograf-made YF-23 decals in late December! And so... Yes! They are on their way! I then painted the exhausts. I used Alclad magnesium and steel on the outsides of these pieces and Alclad Jet Exhaust on the insides of the "tubes" I only used Jet Exhaust once almost 10 years ago. I found it makes a very sooty looking finish. Very nice! I also painted these areas with steel and applied jet exhaust over them Unfortunately the picture doesn't really show the contrast between the steel and the jet exhaust, which is much more evident in real life. Luckily, these areas look like they will be easy to mask! So today I will finish the cockpit, put the intake and exhaust pieces in, add nose weight and glue the fuselage halves together. Hopefully. The intakes look a little fiddly... This is good information! I'd suspected as much. We'll see how it goes.
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