Amen to that brother Stik.
And it was a real pleasure to host it, once again, it was the great members that really made it a great GB. Its just a shame HvH hasn’t shown up, but its good to see your holding up the Monogram banner in his absence.
Love those photo’s and the history. You certainly did the old girl proud.
Hey SP, two big thumbs up- fantastic job on taking an older classic kit and making a masterpiece out of her! And thanks for the history, I knew ‘Flak Bait’ had a distinguished career but not to that extent. As I think I’ve said here I live down in SW Virginia- I’ll have to get up to there and check her out when she’s done.
CMK02: Nice work there too- looking forward to seeing her all done up!
Flak Bait looks really AWESOME!!!
Many thanks for the kind words guys.
Stik - you have created a stunning build there, and from such an old kit. Enjoyed reading the history of her too. As you were approaching the final stages, I was thinking you have to enter this at some competition, and you have and came home with some hardware to boot.
Congrats on all fronts! [B]
regards,
Jack
Thank you Jack. I really wish that I had it done in time for the June meet. The theme was D-Day and I think I might have been in the running for the theme award had this been completed in time.
Everyone did a real bang up job on their builds. They all look great. It was great fun. and thanks again Bish for hosting it.
I can’t help but think of the guys who went through D-Day and after. There can’t be many left. My Dad, uncles and all the other WW2 Veterans I knew are gone. “I didn’t know what to say here for a few minutes.” But, with things like our GB’s, we can keep their memories alive.
Great photography of an outstanding model, stik. What exceptional results you achieved!!
And thanks, Gamera. I’m looking forward to finishing up, too!
Added decals to the props yesterday, and had mixed results trying to salvage them with MicroScale’s liquid decal-preservation potion. Some still shattered, so I have to return to the spares file today.
Will post photos when I have some success to report.
Thanks for the compliments CMK. That really sucks about the decal problems. That can be a huge speed bump to completion for such a simple thing. Best of luck on getting that handled.
Thanks for the sympathy, stik. [:'(]
I applied the decal potion a little thicker, and it seemed to hold things together better. But–solve one problem and another crops up. The stuff didn’t level too well, and left a few bumps and ridges here and there. [:(] I perceive this will take some finesse.
Still, it’s working at least, and I got the stars and bars attached without losing any.
Time for a reward. [B]
Lol! Good idea!
Stik> That turned out great! Congratulations on the prize win. [:)]
CMK> Decal problems? I can sympathize! They very nearly did me in. Good luck on getting the rest done!
Gary
CMK02: Decals- grumble… been there, done that, got the T-shirt…
Here are the results of decaling the props. Turned out OK, in spite of the “issues.” They didn’t come with a T-shirt. [6]
I had a spare “Aries” decal sheet from a less-than-successful attempt at this aircraft more than ten years ago (this must be a jinx kit).
I went through both sheets getting the squadron codes on. Mostly, it was the edges of the image that continued to flake and shatter, in spite of MicroScale’s decal potion. Eventually, I cut around the image a little farther out, and that seemed to fix the problem. Finally accomplished it, and will stop messing with it cuz it’s as good as it’s gonna get.
And since misery loves company, I’m glad I’m not the only one that has issues with decals. [+o(]
CMK02: What you’ve got so far looks fine in the photos. I have an issue with getting all those prop decals lined up at the same place on the blade and then AFTER they’re dried finding one has slid or maybe I measured wrong or something and some of them are off…
Thanks, Gamera. I know what you mean; and the tendency to either slide around or stick fast the minute you put them down seems to vary with the decal manufacturer.
One thing I’ve tried is to punch a hole in a piece of paper, insert the prop shaft so the prop lies flat, then make one measurement and mark it… Then you can rotate each blade to that mark and apply the decal.
It has the advantage of getting the decal in the same location on each blade, or approximately so…
This time, I confess to using the eyeball method.
Looking really nice there Check. Add me to the list of people who have problems with prop decals.
Thanks, Bish. It’s always demoralizing to get to the decal stage, and then have them act up, Good thing for after-market replacements.
Speaking of which, I bought the Kits-World sheet for “Aries,” then noticed today that that aircraft number is different from the one included with Academy’s kit–although the nose art is the same. K-W is left; Academy is on the right.
So I did some research on the net and found that there were apparently two “Aries.”
Here is noseart for 42-52765 which is the number included with the kit. Using this number, the nose art would be wrong. But the window doesn’t look like this is a B-24H, and the window is covering up the “A.”
Here is 42-52693 which carried the nose art included on both sheets. The nose window is obviously different from 765. Plus, the barely visible mission markings seem to indicate that this plane flew at least eight missions before this noseart was completely finished.
The information on the net is conflicting. According to www.usaaf-noseart.co.uk 765 flew her first mission on 7 May, 1944 and her final combat mission on 17 July,1944.
According to www.extreme3d.wordpress. com, Sgt. Phil Brinkman painted the noseart for 693 in April, 1944.
None of the Zodiacs were lost on missions, so why there were two sets of noseart carried on two planes, both reportedly marked “2S-O?”
On top of that, the group letter for the 486th Bomb Group is an “O” on a white background. Academy’s sheet has the background as a white square; Kits-World has it has a white rectangle.
It’s a little late now to do anything about it, but I’m wondering what “Aries” really looked like during the D-Day time-frame.