Candygram for Mr. Mongo, Courtesy of Kinetics 1/48 Grumman C-2A Greyhound COD Transport ablaze in colour FINISHED!

[LorenSharp]

A little something to occupy my while I wait on few( Few? Yeah right) builds to meander across the bench. 

So for today I present Kinetics 1/48 Grumman C-2A Greyhound with Caracal Models spiffy aftermarket decal set.

Yep, it's going to be done as C-2A BuNo. 162144, VRC-40 50th Anniversary scheme and since space is at a premium I'll have to fold the wings on this one.

Should be nice and relaxing..... right?

[JeroenS]

Nice, should be a looker in that scheme. 

[LorenSharp]

Good Lord it's been 2 weeks since I entered this. I better get cracking.

And what better place than the office  It's rather bare bones but then not much will be seen either, but Let's see what I can come up with to "spice " it up a bit.

First, a little decoration to the instrument panel..

I did think about making a new set of seats for the cockpit, but aside from some rivets, nubbins and such there really isn't much on the seats. one thing that was missing, No seat harnesses whatso ever

So instead of my usual kabuki tape option I dug around and found some cloth printed green harness' that will do just fine. I've completely ran out of buckles but again, won't be seen.

 

 

[LorenSharp]

The bulkhead at the behind the pilot though did need  little dressage.

I used some .010 plastic sheet nd fashioned a plate to cover the holes. 

And began working on the bulkheads to the cargo/passenger area. I didn't have any ivory coloured paint so a mix of Tamiya White and Vallejo Ice yellow and applied to some of the overhead panels. The lights I touched up with some Mirror paint. Then a medium gray wash for the panel lines.

 

[LorenSharp]

The the fun part painting and adding harnesses to 20 passenger seats. I used some Tamiya vinyl tape thinned down for the harnesses. only the first row of seats got lap belts. The rest will barely be seen. Buckles would have been nice though. oh well.

The cargo bay floor I painted Aluminum stripes down the length for the tie down runs and noticed there was a very large drop from the cockpit to the cargo area. since the forward hatch will be open I' made a set of steps. I couldn't find any reference to what is actually there, so I used a little artistic license 

Then the cargo stowage bin and overhead bracing headache racks.

[LorenSharp]

At the front the instructions didn't say if a nose weight was needed, but I figured with the wings folded the C/G would probably be shifted back. So I added some weights around the nose wheel bay.

60g should be enough, don't you think?

And the cockpit all gussied up ready to go.

And final touch-ups to the cargo bay area. before sealing everything up.

[LorenSharp]

There in occurred my first big snag. As I've found out in the past, interior cargo or interior structure though looks pretty rarely fits properly to get both fuselage haves to mate together. After a lot of fiddling, and sanding, some carving, and  test fitting, wash , rinse, repeat several times over a couple of days I finally got everything to fit properly without the seams wanting to pop loose here and there along the long axis. There was still a gap, but this was much more manageable.

I masked off along the seam line so as not to damage the surfaces when I start sanding down the filler.

 

[LorenSharp]

One seam I couldn't fill was on the inside rear of the cargo area. the ribbing would have made for a next to impossible situation trying to get everything smooth, if I could have reached it. So I took some very thin card to cover up the seams then used some .040 square rod to make new strengthening braces along the length. this covered up the patch edges. I should have  made more braces but I had just enough rod for this.

Finishing off  the beginning of the fuselage assembly  work on the cockpit glass and the overhead instrumentation.

The clear plastic had gotten a couple of good coats of Future and after drying for a few days to cure I masked off the wndows.

The starboard side of the glass and the bottom rear was just a tad too short. everything else fit spot on, so a little rod filler for the gap.

I'll let this dry overnight then add just a tiny bit of filler to the gap. The other areas won't need any which is a first for me. Once that has dried for a day or two, I'll sand everything down and begin the prep work for the fancy paint job. That's where the real fun will be.

 

[LorenSharp]

Leveling everything up and sealing the gaps I let this all dry for a few days then sanded everything down in preparation to painting all these nice bright colours.

 

[LorenSharp]

Starting off with yellow. since it' s translucent colour and would not cover either the blue nor the gray every well.

I masked and sealed everything then crossed my fingers before spraying.

I did mask off also for the blue wave at the bottom since I wasn't sure if the blue(more on THAT colour in a bit) would also be able cover the yellow.

[LorenSharp]

Feeling rather cocky that the yellow came out perfect I used. That. Blue.  Now Caracal Models suggested FS15187 as a close match since this colour blue was actually a custom mix. Well there is only one manufacturer of that particular paint Life Color. I thought cool,I ordered this months ago in anticipation of this build. I came in ok and I did take a gander at what the paint looked like. A little lumpy and thick, but since it was water based it would thin out ok. WRONG! not only lumpy and thick, it was gritty. Like and old bottle of Polly S paint that's been around for far too long.After several tries in the air brush and clogging everything up with sludge and grit I did a search on life color and this problem. turns out the paint is great for the brush, not so great for the airbrush because.... wait for it.... grittiness.

So back to online searching to see if anyone else besides Lifecolor makes this shade. Nope. so I found a shade I was thought was close, maybe a touch darker but I thought I could work with that.

Mission Models Bright Blue. But t was way darker, but never say die. In stead of waiting for another colour blue that may or may not work I decided to make my own custom colour. I used the Bright blue, MIg-Ammo Sky Line Blue and a touch of white and came up with a fairly close actual match.

The photos lighter than the actual colour.

[LorenSharp]

Then the final main fuselage colour. Light gull gray.

Again after everything had dried for several days I masked off for the gray.

Now at the demarcation line between the yellow and gray is not a single line but an alternating yellow and gray series of lines at different thickness' to create a faux gradient. 

So I used 1mm tape, 2mm tape and 6 mm tape in an attempt to re-create this. 

The actual lines are thinner and a lot finer, but I didn't too too bad trying my hand at this.

[LorenSharp]

While waiting for new paint to arrive I went ahead and started on the wings.

Starting off with the gray on top nd on the nacelles

[LorenSharp]

Then masking off for the red underneath.

 

[LorenSharp]

Let all dry then added the wings. I will have to do some filling at the front where the wing and the fuselage meet and I do have to make another inner flap which at sometime in the dim and distant past decided to go walkabout, but not a biggie. But I think at this point a Couple of coats of clear gloss is in order before proceeding further. Slow and steady, but progress is being made,

[CaracalModels]

Looking really good. I have good memories of designing this sheet and learned a great deal from the experience, so I have always been a bit sad to see that very few people took on the challenge of using it. I only saw a handful of excellent builds; an I am looking forward to seeing your project completed.

 

[LorenSharp]

28 minutes ago, CaracalModels said:

Looking really good. I have good memories of designing this sheet and learned a great deal from the experience, so I have always been a bit sad to see that very few people took on the challenge of using it. I only saw a handful of excellent builds; an I am looking forward to seeing your project completed.

 

Thanks. I hope I can do justice to the work you put in the designs. With luck I start applying them tomorrow.

[LorenSharp]

Time for another update, though a tad small. I did finally get a replacement printed inner flap to turn out reasonably well.

I'll add these at the end so I don't have any mishaps while handling.

[LorenSharp]

After that it was time for applying all those nifty colourful decals. Starting with the sunburst.

They were a little thick which caught me by surprise, but after all the handling I had to do to finally get in their proper positions That's not a bad thing. Had they been thinner they would have broken apart and been an even bigger problem. I did have to use a lot of MicroSol to soften the rays at the wing root and thankfully a spare red square was provided for any odd gaps I couldn't align perfectly.

I attached the door temporarily with white glue so I could line up the rays and rider on it. I let the rays dry over night before continuing on adding the rest of the main decals. Same with that tail rays.

I did have to use a few dabs of red paint along the spine of the tail fins. Though there was enough decal for the overhang they didn't snuggle down as tightly as I wanted so I trimmed back a little bit and filled in with red paint.

Now that these have dried overnight, I'll seal all this up with a clear coat of lacquer and finish the stenciling and use a fine light gray wash on some of the panel lines to bring out some of the detail before continuing on finishing the wheel wells. But I think the worst is over now(at least I hope).

[dnl42]

Nice! A fine Ironwork aircraft with an outstanding color scheme! This looks very good, all the more so given the kit. 

 

I hope you have enough nose weight, I needed a fair amount in my 1/144 OzMods conversion and I didn't have the wings folded back. Too bad @CaracalModels didn't do a 1/144 version of that sheet.

[LorenSharp]

The instructions said to use 50g and I put in 70g to be on the safe side, But you're right, still wasn't enough once the wings were attached. Thankfully the ramp is down and that has kept it from being a heavy tail sitter. Speaking of which lets see how that turned out shall we?

[LorenSharp]

I had planned on  putting up an update yesterday then doing the finals today but with BM down that scuppered that idea. So here's everything, everywhere, all at once.

With all the fancy decals on I turned my attention to the landing gear.

I used some thin florist's wire painted black and some jewelry silver wire for the various brake and hydraulic lines. I couldn't add all of them, but there is enough to get an idea of the "business" of the gear.

Same for the nose gear.

Then a touch of wash to "dirty" things up a bit.

[LorenSharp]

Then painting and decaling the props. I went with the newer Scimitar version with the hi-vis tips.

Installing those and the gear it's starting to look like a real live puddle jumper. and at this point sat perfectly on all 3 gear without flipping back.

[LorenSharp]

Added the rear ramp, though it's up too high here and I looked at several images online and its lower. which helped in the end, but I didn't know it at this point.

then all the little antennas and small bits like the inner flaps got added.

[LorenSharp]

I managed to snap off several of the anti-static wires on the trailing edges of the wings and tail. So I snipped off the remaining wires and replaced them with real wire.

I cut them long to make it easier to attach and once the glue dried I snipped them off to the correct length.