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1:72 Airfix/MPM Gloster Meteor F.8


Navy Bird

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14 hours ago, Learstang said:

I think it's all just to show off your modelling (with two 'll's, as the Lord intended) skills and let us know what a bunch of numpties the rest of us are.

 

Yup, that's it, said Mr. Self-deprecation Navy Bird.     🤪

 

14 hours ago, Learstang said:

...(who refuses to use the 'American 'Zee'')

 

So you use the Canadian zed then?     :hmmm:

 

13 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Thats turned out very good looking. 

 

Let's keep the conversation about the decals shall we? My wife is off-limits.      :drunk:

 

9 hours ago, giemme said:

They do look painted on!

 

They should, many of them are!     :doh:

 

*****

 

I've added the stickers for both sides of the top portion of the fin - things will be much better here! I trimmed a bit more so that there is not much that wraps around the leading edge. This will make it much easier to link up the checks on each side, and it doesn't look like any checks will become rectangles.

 

Cheers,

Bill, who is not really looking forward to huge platefuls of Thanksgiving dinner today. Maybe just a nice glass of Doom Bar instead...

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1 hour ago, Navy Bird said:

 

Yup, that's it, said Mr. Self-deprecation Navy Bird.     🤪

 

Of course, I don't mean that you're trying to show us up with your insane model-building skills, Bill, as you are the very soul of humility. I also consider myself to be a very humble man, with a lot to be humble about.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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On 11/23/2022 at 3:38 PM, Navy Bird said:

It's a 3-D geometry problem, and although I'm quite good at geometry, I have yet to construct a cubical sphere. Or even a spherical cube.

 

I think we tend to overlook the fact that the chaps who painted 'em in the first place undoubtedly faced the same sorts of challenges.

 

We were "gifted" a Thanksgiving dinner. My wife is from Finland originally, and I don't go in for all the manly arts of grilling and carving, so we were a bit unprepared for a whole turkey.  Ah well, I've (badly) removed resin pour slabs, so pushed up the sleeves and had at it.  We certainly had enough meat to go around, but for once I actually stopped at the first serving, rather than choosing to go back for more.  I didn't even break into the pumpkin pie (nowadays that's the only thing that really matters about Thanksgiving to me!) until I woke up at 0130 and decided to stay up...

 

bob

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22 hours ago, Learstang said:

... as you are the very soul of humility.

 

Me? You need to speak with my wife!     :)

 

7 hours ago, gingerbob said:

We were "gifted" a Thanksgiving dinner. My wife is from Finland originally, and I don't go in for all the manly arts of grilling and carving, so we were a bit unprepared for a whole turkey.  Ah well, I've (badly) removed resin pour slabs, so pushed up the sleeves and had at it.  We certainly had enough meat to go around, but for once I actually stopped at the first serving, rather than choosing to go back for more.  I didn't even break into the pumpkin pie

 

I survived, and was quite pleased to have not overeaten. We had more than 25 people at our "feast" so there were two, count 'em, two turkeys. My son-in-law, my daughters, and my wife did all the cooking - everything was great. No disasters. Stuffing is usually my downfall, but I kept my composure - and now I've got leftovers for the next month! However, you can't get me near pumpkin pie or squash. I must have had a bad experience with orange baby food was I was an infant, and there is some suppressed memory of it in my reptilian brain stem.      :) 

 

*****

 

Checks are almost completed! Photos to follow!

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

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Chess or checkers?

 

IMG_6639

 

IMG_6641

 

IMG_6640

 

IMG_6642

 

It goes without saying that I'm happy to move on to other aspects of this build, but I said it anyway just for reinforcement. At the end of the day, the decals settled down nicely, even over the rudder actuator, and the cleanup with my trusty Gunze Mr. Brush Round 0/20 required little effort. I couldn't really figure out how to mask the front of the bullet fairing so I just winged it with the brush. I think you can see that Gunze H414 is an exceptional match to the red checks on the decal sheet. Lucky me, as I didn't want to screw around mixing up something.

 

The rest of the stickers will take an hour maybe, instead of several days for the checks. I hope the yellow I chose when painting the tail matches the yellow in the squadron insignia - it looked pretty good when tested against the decal sheet. Against my better sense of what's right in the world, I used Testors Flat Yellow from one of those tiny bottles that I used to buy for 10 cents when I was, well, younger than I am now. I used Mr. Color Leveling Thinner with it, and didn't have too much of a problem with it clogging the airbrush. It still did, but it wasn't as bad. Anyway, I think she looks purty good.

 

Onward...

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Spent most of yesterday with the Christmas tree and associated decorations. Joy. Now I have to figure out how to get young Dexter, who we babysit four days a week and is 20 months old, not to eat it. The missus always insists on big trees, and this one reaches right up to the ceiling. To put the star on top would require cutting a hole in the sheetrock ceiling, but then you wouldn't be able to see it. So I just zip tied the star to the front of the tree's apex, and now it looks just like the star on an old Texaco gas pump. 'Tis the season for nostalgia.

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That tail looks absolutely spectacular, Bill, great work :)

 

I spent Saturday with the zip ties (cable ties over here) and Xmas decorations too, however they were not my decorations. My parents (both in their mid-70's) leave the lights up on the front of the house all year now, and only switch them on over the festive period, as my mum (quite rightly) doesn't like the idea of my dad up a ladder at his age & with a dodgy heart. After a few years of that the ties holding the novelty lights into shape have had it and are snapping off. Hence how I came to spend 2.5 hours up a ladder, freezing various bits of me off, using up about 350 cable ties to re-attach the rope lights to the frames so Santa looked more like himself, rather than a mis-shaped blob. And I'm petrified of heights. I made sure to wear the brown trousers

 

James

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10 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

Masterly understatement there Bill, she looks gorgeous B)

 

Thanks Stew! Amazing to think that it was all done with flat decals. Thank the big guy for decal solvents - better living through chemistry!    :)

 

2 hours ago, 81-er said:

That tail looks absolutely spectacular, Bill, great work :)

 

I spent Saturday with the zip ties (cable ties over here) and Xmas decorations too, however they were not my decorations. My parents (both in their mid-70's) leave the lights up on the front of the house all year now, and only switch them on over the festive period, as my mum (quite rightly) doesn't like the idea of my dad up a ladder at his age & with a dodgy heart. After a few years of that the ties holding the novelty lights into shape have had it and are snapping off. Hence how I came to spend 2.5 hours up a ladder, freezing various bits of me off, using up about 350 cable ties to re-attach the rope lights to the frames so Santa looked more like himself, rather than a mis-shaped blob. And I'm petrified of heights. I made sure to wear the brown trousers

 

Thanks James. For some reason I always called them tie-wraps, but folks nowadays say zip-ties. Beats me - cable ties makes the most sense! Come to think of it, the zip tie nomenclature comes from using the heavy duty jobs as handcuffs. Anyway - there is nothing I hated more than putting lights on the house, or all those other silly decorations in the yard. I didn't mind going up on the roof, but I didn't really have the right ladder for the job. Once up there I was OK, but getting there scared me to death. The kids loved it the first time the lights came on each year, so it was worth it.

 

Nowadays I have one of those "high-tech" projectors that can display all of the original John Leech illustrations from the first printing of A Christmas Carol on the front of the house. No, wait, that's what I want it to project. Instead, there is falling snow and a display of red and green lights designed to induce epileptic seizures.      :drunk:

 

1 hour ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Yeah me too, I wasn't going to attempt to mask the fairing either.  

 

Smart man. I tried with really thin strips of Tamiya tape, but I couldn't get it where I liked it. Then I remembered that I have a sheet of Kabuki tape that has spirals die-cut into it, and I figured it would work. Nope. Spirals were either too big or too small. No luck for the wicked. At that point it was just "Oh blast it, just paint the damn thing with a brush." I don't have essential tremor (yet) so I should be able to do it. It came out OK. I could tell you where I cocked it up, but I won't.     :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Splendid work on the old Meatbox, Bill! Now I'll know how to build mine. I won't build it nearly as well as yours, but at least I'll know how to. Speaking of paths that you have forged, I need to get back to my Northrop BT-1, if I can find it.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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5 minutes ago, Learstang said:

I need to get back to my Northrop BT-1, if I can find it.

 

Yes, continue your quest, young grasshopper. If you find enlightenment - it's not because of the BT.     :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

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2 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

Yes, continue your quest, young grasshopper. If you find enlightenment - it's not because of the BT.     :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

Unfortunately, you were correct, Bill. I was able to find my BT-1, but sadly, I remain as unenlightened as ever.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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19 hours ago, Learstang said:

Unfortunately, you were correct, Bill. I was able to find my BT-1, but sadly, I remain as unenlightened as ever.

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11509383-enlightenment-ain-t-what-it-s-cracked-up-to-be

 

Pretty cool book.      👍

 

16 hours ago, giemme said:

Now press on with the rest, will you?  :D  :D 

 

If you insist - I'm still freaked because I haven't stuck the wheels on yet. Anyway, the stickering is complete:

 

IMG_6643

 

IMG_6644

 

I don't like tiny stickers that say "PRESS" in 0.01 point font. Just saying. I used a decal for the gun camera window. Probably should have made it darker, but I guess it's OK. Now on to the wheels!

 

Cheers,

Bill

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33 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

I don't like tiny stickers that say "PRESS" in 0.01 point font

 

I think I see them, abaft the cockpit, below the spine? I'm assuming it's them anyway, I certainly can't read them :D 

 

Nice to see the fuselage checks match the tail colour perfectly B) 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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1 hour ago, Navy Bird said:

 

Thank you for the link, Bill, but I was born a snake handler and I'm going to die a snake handler. By-the-by, the transfers look good!

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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14 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

I think I see them, abaft the cockpit, below the spine? I'm assuming it's them anyway, I certainly can't read them :D 

Nice to see the fuselage checks match the tail colour perfectly B)

 

I had to get out the big magnifier to read them, but they actually do say PRESS. I assume it's the way to open the panels on the spine. There are also six of them on the nose. I got lucky with how close the Testors Flat Yellow is to the decal. At first I tried good old Insignia Yellow, but it needed a bit of an orange tint to match and I didn't want to mix something up. I found that old bottle of Testors (amazing it hadn't turned into rubber yet) and it was a great match.   

 

13 hours ago, Learstang said:

Thank you for the link, Bill, but I was born a snake handler and I'm going to die a snake handler. By-the-by, the transfers look good!

 

Pentecostal? I always wondered what snakes have to do with the Naz...      :hmmm:

 

Thanks - I do like how the stickers came out. I have to assume that Cartograf printed these, as they reminded me very much of their decals. Strong, thin, and able to be "snuggled."

 

8 hours ago, giemme said:

I'm actually glad I did :D Looking awesome with stickers on!  :clap:  :clap:

 

Danke. I think she's just about finished. Not much to go now.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Wheels and tyres so she can stand up:

 

IMG_6645

 

The mud guard brackets are simple solder. Luckily, the 5g of weight up front that I calculated earlier is enough...barely. If I had used 3g as the instructions say, she'd be a tail-setter.

 

IMG_6646

 

Gear doors and belly tank are on. The tank needed some TLC to get it to follow the contours of the underside. At least that's what she said.    :)

 

The instructions would have you paint the exhaust rings copper - I thought that was odd, so I used Alclad Pale Burnt Metal. I'm not sure this flavour lives up to its name - it looks more like a pale gold to me. Whatever, I used it anyway. My photos of the real thing don't show the colour of this piece much different than the nacelle, but they are all from restored birds.

 

IMG_6647

 

Let's see...what else did I do today? Oh, right, I masked and sprayed the windscreen and canopy. The IFF antenna was sanded and sprayed but I really didn't like how it came out. The moulding was bad to begin with...some nasty seams and a big sprue gate. I decided to just build my own using a circular punch and die set and some small diameter rod. My IFF antenna is on the left, and the kit part on the right:

 

IMG_6648

 

No babysitting tomorrow, but I have to go the hospital in the morning for my monthly IVIG infusion. After that, wifey says my glacial progress may proceed.     :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

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