Builds are looking good people. Let’s have a strong finish! In trying to finish strong, I have finally cut sprue on my 4th build. Tonight was all about surgery… Just to give you an idea of where I stand…
Let’s see where this one goes!
Mike
Off to a good start Mike. Wish I could sit behind my bench but dont have one anymore....[:'(]. Thank goodness we had a lot of help cleaning up over the past 3 days but I caught one woman tossing some of my soggy stash in a trash can (lost some boxes,decals and instructions) and I yelled "whoa!" so loud it was like when the needle slides of the record kinda thing....after explaining the kits are made of plastic, not cardboard, just the boxes, we got along much better. God bless her, shes a teacher where my wife works , and a ball of energy, but I raelyy scared the crap out of her…[:D]
Len… Hope your going to be able to recover quickly. So sorry about your home and area being so badly devistated. Went through similar storm when I lived in Destin Fl. many moons ago. My neighbors are Katrina refugees too! Your (and everyone touched by the storm) are in our thoughts and prayers. Take care …
Doug
Got a little bit more work done this weekend. Pit is done and installed. The fuse is closed, the wings are on, save for the outer parts. Still have some more construction on the wing fold area, but it shouldn’t be too much. Filling and sanding still to do but not major.
Good work fellas. I won’t mention them all but Stik’s TBD caused me to buy a 1/72 Valom one. What paint did you use for the upper surface Stik ? I like the shade.
I’m also really looking forward to the F-82 being completed. I’d like to see a twin boom GB one day.
Once I get through the 1966 Mustang GT-350, I think I’ll stay left of centre and build Monogram’s old 1/48 M48 Patton tank. It’s a snap-fit, and I think the molds date from 1966, so it just manages to be older than me.
Cheers
Tony
Tony, I am using a paint from a discontinued line, Aeromaster Warbird Acrylics. Testors does make the same color in their Model Master Acrylic and Enamel line ups- USN Blue Gray, but it is not quite the same shade.
I have not been around the “family” lately but, I have been busy. I have been working on Monogram’s F-105D. It is pretty much straight from the box. It will have markings for the “Arkansas Traveler” flown by Col. Paul Douglas Jr. out Korat, Thailand , 1968. I chose these marking because he carried his WWII kill markings on the plane. So here is few build shots,
I have the a gloss coat on the top side and need to add it to the bottom. I tried something new with the panel lines on this one. They are combination of raised and recessed so I took a mechanical pencil and highlighted the raised lines, then dragged my finger across the line. I went in the direction of the airstream as I was dragging my finger. The panels are highlighted and it adds a little “grubbiness” to the plane. I will try to get some photos that show that. I am pleased with the results, to me it is just enough weathering to make it look operational. I will add a wash to the recessed line when the gloss coat dries. Comments welcome.
OHHHHHH! The Thud! My FAVORITE jet!!!
Mine too, pretty much anything with “Thunder” in name and Republic on the name plate.
The Thunderjet was not so impressive to look at. But I thought the Thunderstreak and Thunderflash looked pretty sharp. And of course ya gotta love the Jug!
Due to weather here,no airbrushing was in the cards, so just a bit of detail painting was in order on the guns.
nose gun
flex mount gun
both guns
I use that stuff too, have for years… Works really well as long as it likes the finish coat, and doesn’t attack Tamiya or Testor’s… I shoulda warned you about it, that it likes only certain brands of paint, and even has a tendency to attack some gloss finishes… Lost an AT-6 Racer (Vetteman will remember that, my “personal” Reno-Mount, AT-6 N8686U, “The Hammer of Hell”, race-number “00”) to that, spraying their clear gloss over a gloss black (Wal-Mart Gloss Black) finish… It didn’t attack the Testor’s MM though… As always, test, test, test…
Truth be told though, I still swear by Testor’s Dullcoat, Glosscoat, and the semi-gloss… 70% of my finishes are Testor’s, the rest Tamiya, so I prefer using the Testor’s clears…
Everything I know about casting I learned from Shep’s diorama book, lol… I use the casting stuff from Hobby Lobby (the Alumilite resins) and RTV Rubber too… But I use epoxy putty, even plaster for some things too… I also use clay, foil, plaster and the like for molds to cast one-sided objects…
I’ll see if I can write up a tute in the very near future… (I learned a couple short-cuts that Shep didn;t write up, lol…)
By all means, buy it… 2nd edition is preferred, but 1st will do nicely too… The 2nd Edition covers more dioramas, and goes into greater detail on shadow-box dioramas, forced-perspective, and other SFX… Even shows how he used mirrors and lighting to create the “ghosts” of Custer and some of his men in a Little Big Horn dio-box… It’s incredible…
I did a lot of model RR scenery too, back when, bought the mags, (John Allen’s layout was fantastic)and some of it’s quite useful, but overall, they deal too much with HO… Very little figure-conversion stuff… Shep deals in 1/48 and 1/35th-1/32nd a lot more… You can also go to this site:
sheperdpaine.atspace.com/index.htm
There you’ll find his diorama tip-sheets that used to come with select Monogram kits… Nowhere near as detailed as his book, nonetheless, it’s a good starting point… You’ll notice that he uses very few after-,arket sets of figures in the aircraft dioramas, sticking with the Monogram figures about 99% of the time… (Pay attention to the C-47 (the paratroopers), B-24J, and P-61 dios (Although the conversion he did with the pilot figures from the TBD and turning two of them into a pilot helping his wounded gunner is AWESOME!)
The main thing is that he uses mostly Monogram figures in the kits, (even some those horrible 1/35 figures from the old Monogram Infantry set). So I kinda do the same thing in 1/48, casting boo-coo copies of various figures, especially ones like the Do335 “Schwarze Männer” i.e.“Black men”, from their coveralls), the bare-chested mechanic from the P-61 and his buddy, “No Hat Canteen-guy”, and the TBD, F-86, MiG-15, B-25, B-26 (Marauder gunner too), P-51D, Me262 and other “one-of-a kind” Mongram pilots… ( Casting REALLY helped out with the “in-flight” figures from the ProModeler B-17 and B-24 kits too… Getting ETO bomber crewmen in full cold weather flight gear is difficult, at best… I got a bunch of now, lol… Before those kits came out, all we had was the seated B-25 pilot, and the top turret gunner from the B-26 Marauder)
It was those diorama sheets that got me started doing dios and figure-conversions, in fact… My first one was a copy of his M48 Patton diorama… Way back in about 1975, I think, lol… I’ve never looked back since then, and never build anything for “display” anymore, only dioramas and shadow-boxes…
The main trick to modifying figures is to put yourself in the same pose you want to create, and looking in a mirror, paying attention to where your limbs are, where your weight is, etc… Then taking your figures and cutting at the joints of the arms, legs, feet, and head, and “belt-line” for torsos… I’ll write something up, very soon… I promise…
I’m liking it!
Did my last Monogram Ju-87 in a winter camo too… I later added scratch-built gunpods (twin MG81 7.92mm, known as “watering cans”) to the wing-racks instead of the bombs or the 37mm cannons… They were twin 7.92mm guns mounted so that they pointed down at a 15-degree angle to the aircraft to allow strafing from level flight… Made the gun-pods from a pair of Monogram P-51D drop-tanks…
I just shot the top with a rattle-can of Krylon flat white primer for the color-coat… Then used my knife (and occasionally a fingernail) to scrape paint off the panel lines, exposing the OD plastic under it…
In strategic places, I used charcoal dust to accent the scraped lines as well as for the exhaust and gun blast-stains… I painted the underside Tamiya Lichtblau and shot the rudder, wingtip-undersides, and fuselage Theater Band with Krylon yellow… The canopy frames are Tamiya Schwarzgrun…
One quick tip: Use your razor saw (or knife if ya ain’t got one) to cut through the plastic ‘tween the guns’ barrels… Be careful, but the result of having TWO barrels instead of one “wide” one is worth it…
Fascinating, in all my years I’ve never seen that! Quite ingenious.
Wish I could say I planned it, but I didn’t, lol… Stumbled across it while surfing “Google Image” for “Ju87 Stuka Guns”… I just wanted a picture or three of an Eastern Front Stuka undergoing some kind of weapon-maintenence… Saw the “Watering Can” pic and had to further investigate, lol… When I saw the thumbnail pic on Google, it was a “WTF?” moment. lol…
I’ve never seen that either and going to have to do one myself.
After a week of no power and almost two weeks out of town I got back to No. 4. Got some black paint on the F-82G
Started applying the decals on the 82 since some of them have to be in place for further construction.
Ed, looks good! [Y]
I’ve also been making [slow] progress. I wanted to get the skyraider finished by my birthday (Wednesday) but it isn’t going to happen. I do have some paint on plastic though… Put your shades on! [H]
Figured this scheme would be different. Have some touching up to do, but I’m pleased with the way things are progressing. Hopefully more to come soon.
Cool, is it a target tug?
I believe that it was a weapons testing platform…