obermartin

Finally managed to take some decent pictures. (more shots in the gallery)

Finished! (more photos in the gallery)

R4D-5 / LC-47H - Dakota on Ice 1&72 ESCI Kit, some decals from the spares box, some self-printed Build thread here. One of the skis popped off during the photoshoot, that's why it is somewhat misaligned in a few shots. It's fixed and drying now.

Early 60s R4D 1&72 ESCI Kit, some decals from the spares box, some self-printed Build thread here.

Almost there. I might just make it in time... Another couple rounds of masking and painting got me here: And on to decals - some kit decals, some from the spares box and some self-printed: Only weathering and the fiddly bits to go!

The deadline is looming large, thank god I found some time to work on this over the past weekend. First round of masking. Primer. Second round of masking. Orange. Grey (Third round of masking omitted). Yet another round of masking.

This is incredible. I used to think the WW2 olive drab/neutral grey scheme was the most boring option possible for an aircraft that wore hundreds of colorful and interesting liveries. But you proved that wrong. Seriously impressive work.

And we're back in business! Ebay yielded another copy of that kit with thankfully straight fuselage (and a complete set of JATO bottles!), so here we go again.

Impressive build. I‘m furiously taking notes here, since I have one of those in my stash. BTW, if you‘re still struggling with the decal lettering, I can help you with that. I‘m a graphics guy by trade. Shoot me a PM if you‘re interested.

Right. I repeatedly tried to fix the warped fuselage, only to end up with something vaguely looking like a squished C-47. Trying again (and again, and again) only seemed to make it worse, so I admitted defeat and binned the poor thing. Oh well. Time to hit up ebay and look for a replacement.

Yup. Engine grey, natural metal and fluorescent red-orange.

With the other R4D finished (and still awaiting decent photos), this is gonna be my second entry. It's gonna be another USN bird. This one, to be more precise: Mostly because it's dayglo again, it's a paint scheme that hasn't been done too frequently (i think) and because my inner 12-year-old still thinks the VX6 nickname "Puckered Penguins" is hilarious. So here's the box contents: I got this off ebay recently. Seems to be mostly complete (one set of JATO bottles is missing), but one fuselage half is badly warped. I'll have to see how to deal with that (I remember reading something about warm water?) Anyway, I started on the interior. Didn't put that much effort in it, because I know very little of that will actually be visible. I also glued the wings together and added the window transparencies. Maybe that was a bad idea when I still have that warped fuselage to straighten out? We'll see.

Added landing lights made from bits of clear sprue. I decided against trying to rig antenna wires. I've never done that before and using this model for my first attempt would be too risky, I think. Maybe I'll revisit that later, but for now I'd say she is done. So now I'll wait until the weather has cleared up (It's been rain and high winds for weeks) and I can take some decent photos for the gallery. Until then, here she is hanging from the ceiling, above a rather silly C47 I built as a christmas decoration last year:

I had thought about doing it this way before, but was afraid of paint seepage at the points where the rectangle overlaps the circle (hence the silhouette cutter on my wishlist, for cutting out masks that already have the correct shape and don't need to be pieced together). Well, I'll have to give it a try.

Not quite yet. But something like a silhouette cutter is on my wishlist. Note to self: Add circle cutter to wishlist. Yes, I am aware of that. Though the subjects I've been thinking about are USN trainer/transport aircraft and antarctic aviation (mainly because my inner 12-year-old finds the squadron name "Puckered Penguins" hilarious), which frequently do feature white bordered insignia.