I am as you know, all involved with my card (or paper) phase again. So far I have five under construction. How did this happen? Well, it’s a Looong story. remember all the articles I have written about Details? Yeah well, they came back and bit me on the BackSide! Yup!
I have three I can do this with and darned it, I’ve gone and done it after saying I wasn’t gonna! I was going through some P.E. for another project and what did I find. Yes, P.E. Generic 1/400 parts .Twelve frets of ladders, rails and other goodies. All ship related.
Yeah , I know, the Ciudad de Rio is 1/400! Oh Boy, “What a Revoltin Developement this is”. Here I am trying to figure out how to do another detail, now this. Oh well, someone deep inside said to me," You know there’s a lot of detail that will be covered up if you build the Helo deck support structure like they tell you , Right?"
Aw, do I really have to do that? That’s at least three extra days on it! After looking again at the instructions, there’s no way I can build the helo structure like the kit says to. Soooo. Now, after two days I have destroyed a box of parts that I thought were parts. Turns out it was an H.O. tower crane without a description sheet or box cover. Sadly it WAS complete! Not anymore! I didn’t figure that out till the instructions fell out of the wrinkled paper taped to the bottom of the box.
That means I am going to have to build another crane and pay full price for the kit! But, Darned ,You should see the beautiful Helo Support structure it has made. Now that means I also have all the extra parts with which to make the Burn-Off tower and the other fixtures on board. As I look at the start of this I can’t help but say" Do I Have To?"
Its a hobby. The more choices I have in my hobby, the better I enjoy it. I sometimes scratchbuild, sometimes use all the aftermarket I can find, sometimes I buil out-of-box. I am old enough that I started modeling before there was such a thing as aftermarket accessories. Only model airplane accessories were winders for winding rubber motor, stuff for starting gas engines, control lines and handles, etc. Oh, I guess paint and glue were aftermarket, but only gloss colors and only primary colors and that.
I think it is fantastic now that we have so much aftermarket now, and such a wide range of kits, from basic ones to fantastic detailed kits including resin and photo-etch. Each year brings a new more golden vista, as new techniques, aftermarket products, new finishes, new tools (only tools I started with were a razor blade and lots of pins).
She started life as an ordinary Tanker-WOW ! My magnifying Glass and I will have a field day here. By the way I have the New, Improved Plastic Helo rig partially built. And all my 1/400 P.E. will show up great!
