80313 Nord 2502 Noratlas - Aero Maritime LANDED WITH FEATHERED PROPS AND ALL TANKS EMPTY...BUT LANDED

[JOCKNEY]

On 11/01/2021 at 01:48, bianfuxia said:

Man, I really hate this part....

 

 

Look on the bright side, I was reckless enough to build a Unicraft kit in the recent Blitzenbuild GB, at least you can still see your kit under the filler !

 

Its coming along a treat 

 

Now you did put enough weight in the nose, didn't you ? 

 

Cheers Pat

 

[bianfuxia]

Well it's rainbows and unicorns time again over here at the Noratlas factory...shouldn't take too long I hope:

 

[bianfuxia]

I feel like I'm on the home stretch with this thing now!

 

 

Today in a long session I assembled all the sub-components (including adding the vertical tails after this photo was taken. This was after a long few sessions of sanding...

 

The canopy is pretty clear so I have decided I need to do a little more up front. I've painted the inside of the canopy framework, too.

 

It fits really well. I am tossing up whether to attach it prior to spraying, and mask all the windows, or afterwards and freehand the frames (my usual practice). Given that I'm spraying, I'll probably go with the masking route I suppose.

 

If you see on the rear clamshells, taped together here for ease of working, there's a cut-line on a curve there. I eyeballed that with a sharp knife, and now it's peeled off, that will the curve on the back where the white goes. I have decided to do the rear doors open. Not going to do a ton (or any) detailing in the rear, but I might find a nice 1/72 car to be unloading. I have a few 1/72 figures to hang around there too.

 

 

[exdraken]

Looks promising!

[JOCKNEY]

Great to see this one progressing 

 

Cheers Pat 

[RidgeRunner]

14 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

Great to see this one progressing 

 

Cheers Pat 

Absolutely

[bianfuxia]

 

 

 

 

Moving along here - the masking took quite a while...

[JeroenS]

That is a lot of masking... I think this is one of the reasons I don't build aircraft 🙂 

[roginoz]

Without wishing to tell you how to suck eggs, I might suggest you take a sharp tool to those masking edges that look a bit loose.

 

Hate to see paint bleed all over that lovely canopy.

Really enjoying this build of such an enigmatic aircraft !

Rog

[bianfuxia]

18 hours ago, roginoz said:

Without wishing to tell you how to suck eggs, I might suggest you take a sharp tool to those masking edges that look a bit loose.

 

Hate to see paint bleed all over that lovely canopy.

Really enjoying this build of such an enigmatic aircraft !

Rog

thanks for this advice btw - I took it. There were indeed a couple of bit of tape that may have bled.

 

I sprayed it As-12 this morning, after first fixing the topside masking after I realized I'd made a mistake in planning for the wings to be white on top. It's only the fuselage top that is white.

Even the underside was ok. Maybe it'll need another coat, I will see how it dries up.

 

 

the sprue thing is to hold it while spraying.

 

 

 

There was room to do a better job on the bottom, although it was hard to do it without sanding off all the rivets. My philosophy is that the underside isn't worth the effort since the models mostly sit on a shelf, so I don't bust my hump there. 

 

 

[bianfuxia]

I meant to include this photo, too. 

 

I think the silver spray worked pretty well. I don't think it needs a second coat.

 

 

 

There are a few scratches around the portholes in the main strip there where I was over-enthusiastic with the knife. But that whole line of windows will be covered by decals, which is why I was a bit lazy there.

[bianfuxia]

 

I masked up the fuselage for the white, this time, and gave it the first coat. I use paper to save on the yellow tape. Probably there is some trick to getting white to look good, but I don't know what it is (apart from having white plastic in the first place). I am hoping that a couple of gentle coats will do the job properly, so I resisted the temptation to drown this thing in white with the first go.

 

 

 

I don't know if I will get this finished by the deadline - I certainly intend to try though. 

 

What remains other than finishing the white here is to do some sanding on the wings (the boom/nacelle join to the wing is pretty bad), then spray those. This requires masking sadly because the vertical tails are white and the rest is silver.

 

I've done the tyres already so then it's just a case of adding all the bits and pieces and doing the small number of decals.

 

Fortunately for me, I have realized that the previously dead time in my day - waiting around for my kid to do her ballet class in a boring industrial district part of town where there is nothing else to do and there isn't enough time to make it worthwhile going home - can be utilized for SANDING.

 

I mean, I hate it find it less than the most enjoyable aspect of these builds, so why not do it in the crappiest part of town? Let's put a nice rotten cherry on that mouldy sanding cake, hahahaha. Just fooling.

 

So hopefully this afternoon I will knock the sanding over. If I can, then I think I can probably get this done.

 

 

[JeroenS]

I sure hope this one will make it, if not then certainly not through lack of trying. Keep it up!

[JOCKNEY]

Great stuff keep going we are all right behind you 

Now where did I put those pom poms....

 

Cheers Pat 

[bianfuxia]

Thanks fellas. I did indeed get some sanding done while my six year old (as of today) did her dance class. Sat there in the car park in the front of my Skoda wagon like a regular #SuburbanDad

 

This is the mess I am cleaning up.

 

And this is the "it really happened in a car" shot.

 

Naturally we were kind of late because she couldn't decide what to wear so I just grabbed every piece of sandpaper I own and sorted it out later. I only did the first crack with 280 on one of the nacelles, but still it's a start. I'll do more tonight as I wait up for a midnight concall I have to take. 

[JOCKNEY]

Happy birthday to your daughter. 

 

Glad she is actually getting to celebrate her birthday with others. The UK is currently in lockdown meaning no contact with others unless your are shopping for essential items.

 

Virtual birthday parties aren't the same, although you don't have as bigger mess to clear up and there's more cake left for you, so theres always an upside !

 

Cheers Pat 

[bianfuxia]

41 minutes ago, JOCKNEY said:

Happy birthday to your daughter. 

 

Glad she is actually getting to celebrate her birthday with others. The UK is currently in lockdown meaning no contact with others unless your are shopping for essential items.

 

Virtual birthday parties aren't the same, although you don't have as bigger mess to clear up and there's more cake left for you, so theres always an upside !

 

Cheers Pat 

Thank you! And yes, it's for this exact reason we abandoned Washington DC. I recognize every day how very lucky we were to be able to do that. She missed her fifth birthday because we had postponed the party for March as it was so freezing in DC then (we wanted to do it in a park as we only had a tiny apartment). By the time we were ready to do it the city was in lockdown. This year we will have a small party for her, as we're pretty new here too and she only knows a couple of kids from school. We took her out for dumplings and ice cream tonight though and that seemed to hit the spot for her.

Wishing you and your family and everyone in the UK better times real soon.

[bianfuxia]

Since finishing up the ballet school car park sanding session, I also sprayed the wings and booms. Here's where things were at this morning when I found about 30 minutes to do some more:

 

Peeling off the tape revealed I'd been lucky with the masking. There was some bleeding, but not on the windows. I have since scraped that white smudge off very gently with a blade and will touch it up with paint later.

 

I know the line between the canopy part and the rest of the fuselage could have been done better...but it wouldn't have had a chance of making it by the deadline had I done that. So I am calling that a panel line.

 

Thee rear doors had some bleeding too, but at the point this pic was taken I hadn't yet sprayed the silver parts. I have done that now, so it should have cleaned up this mess.

 

It didn't take long to mask up the leading edges of the wings - the line is a raised feature and dead straight so I just ran the tape right along it. The only tricky bit was a tiny line in the middle (not sure you can see it) where the leading edge remains silver. This is Vallejo flat black brush painted on. Even if I had a black spray, it wouldn't have been worth masking the whole wing just for this. It will look fine when dry.

 

What we need now are some wheels and doors. Ah! Here's some I prepared earlier. 

 

I also masked up the tail fin ready for its white. My can is running pretty low - the AS-12 ran out when I did the silver on the clamshell doors too. Let's hope the white has enough in it for these fins. I will cover the rest of the silver with paper as I did with the fuselage earlier.

 

So, I could have clearly done a better job had I been more patient - the canopy piece could have been blended in properly, and the top of the fuselage at the nose is actually a bit of a mess. I may even come back to that later - sand it back, mask everything off very carefully, hit it with some more putty, etc, and respray. When I say "may" in that last sentence, I actually mean "almost certainly will not". Haha. Here and there in other spots I could have been more patient with the sanding too.

 

But overall this is shaping up to be one of my nicer efforts, I have to say, and I am kind of surprised it's gone so well this far. 

 

Let's hope I don't mess up the decals next! 

 

Once I do the last white spray on those tails, I think I will do the decals. Then I will superglue the wings to the main part of the plane, and finally add all the small bits like wheels, props and doors.

 

The weekend is packed but I can wangle some time on Monday probably and still sneak into the gallery by the deadline, taking advantage of being 11 hours ahead of the UK!

Edited February 12, 2021 by bianfuxia
typo

[RidgeRunner]

There’s a lot of good work there, mate.
 

Martin

[Grandboof]

Looking good Keep going 

Martin H

[bianfuxia]

On 2/12/2021 at 8:46 PM, RidgeRunner said:

There’s a lot of good work there, mate.
 

Martin

 

On 2/12/2021 at 11:58 PM, Grandboof said:

Looking good Keep going 

Martin H

Thank you both!

 

 

Getting right down to the wire on this one and still a fair way to go. My tactic of leaving the wings off has helped. This morning I masked up the wings and sprayed the tail fins. They've had two coats by now, though only one at the time of the second picture. Keeping them separate until the end has meant it's easier to progress the fuselage than it would be if those big wings were in the way. I've also painted the props, the black bulge antenna thingos (DF loops?) that go on top, and the wheels I did a while back.

 

 

This afternoon while that thing was sitting outside drying its second coat, I did a test run on the decals. For that, though, I've had to tape the doors into position so I can get the decal on. For this side, the only one I've done so far, I tried cutting them with an incredibly sharp blade while still wet. Lucky I am opening the doors because the fit is pretty bad.

 

 

 

Surprisingly they aren't too bad, for what must be a pretty old kit. The little UAT signs gave me a lot more trouble than the big yellow blue stripe. For the other side I think I will wait until they dry. But I will wait til the first side is dry before tackling the second. In the pic below they are still wet with Mr Mark Softer.

 

 

While I had nothing left to do I dug out these old Airfix OO scale railway passengers and started painting them. If I get time, I'll include them in the display...

 

I can come back to this later tonight, and early tomorrow. There couldn't be more than 90 minutes left in the plane, but it's delicate work not to be rushed. 

 

As for the figures, well, we'll see.

 

[JOCKNEY]

Wow those decals have suddenly brought this one to life, looks really good.

 

Cheers Pat 

[bianfuxia]

Yes it makes a sudden difference, hey?

 

So I am done for the night and pretty much done overall except for actually putting it together. I need to buy some superglue to do that, I think. 

 

I've now done all the decals and painted and assembled everything that can be done. Other than putting the wings onto the fuselage, it's just the undercarriage, one antenna and the doors. I will hit all that tomorrow my time, and still sneak in before the deadline. No figures though - I didn't get enough time tonight.

 

For the red/white/blue tail flash I ended up cutting the white out. The decal white was actually more ivory and it looked a bit silly on the white paint. I think it looks better how I did it.

 

 

 

 

[JOCKNEY]

10 minutes left, I'll try and distract @Enzo Matrix while you sneak this one in. 

Look lively now, just get it in the gallery and update the build thread after.

That's a Blitzbuild GB tip, by the way

 

Cheers Pat 

[JOCKNEY]

Yes Yes Yes

 

Just saw this one appear in the gallery, I'm even willing to forgive you showing off you have lovely sunshine while I'm freezing my nads off in the Scottish highlands.

 

Congratulations mate

 

 

Cheers Pat