So my wife thought this Lindberg Snark missile looked super cool in orange and got it for me for Christmas a year ago. I’ve been working on it off and on…she said hey it normally doesn’t take you this long to build something I told her the kit is ancient and every piece is warped or full of flash! I can only take the torture for short periods of time lol
so I’ve finally gotten somewhere worth showing. My plan for this thing is to do a launch scene! Which i am excited about. It took 3 months to get the cob led’s due to shipping delays. Now that they’re here I’m go for launch.
Heres what the display looks like, just a mock up here where I’m setting the length and angle of the rods for the exhaust.
ignore the missing steps. It’s hard to keep those in place, every time i move it a few fall out into the box. I want to keep it so it scissors like it’s designed so I ll just keep putting them back on till the layout is all set. It truly is the best part of the whole kit
don’t ask how long it took to work that nose cone into shape lol
now here I’m laying out the led’s. This is 9’ of 6000k 24v cob lighting. 8mm wide. I slid it inside 10mm tubing to make the jet exhaust from the nozzles. In pics it is a blinding white leaving those nozzles and then quickly turns to a heavy black and brown smoke.
and now that the layout is good i finished up the Snark itself and got some black primer on it
I’m on the road for a week so probably late next week and I’ll have some color on the missile and some smoke on the tarmac! See you then [B]
Very cool concept! This will be great to see the progress. I am also working on the Lindberg Snark, but being afflicted with detail frenzy, I have been scouring the web looking for photos of the launcher and details of the operational missile (in it’s very short service life). So are you going with the red and white scheme or the gray with the SAC shield and sash?
Hey Dave glad you stopped by! I’m going with the red(kinda an orange red maybe?). In the pics I’ve found so far that scheme seems pretty pristine. The launchers seem quite abused tho. I’ve seen at least 1 shot where the truck is still there with the trailer attached during launch! For the snark i think some mottling over the black primer with +/-10% yellow might do the trick for my display. Anything to distract from the warped look lol
How about yours, picked a scheme yet?
checked out the video from the usaf museum of them moving theirs around? Gives some great shots of different parts of the missile you don’t see in most pics.
I remember that model. I, as a youngster fascinated with things that fly, and didn’t get a big allowance. Missile kits turned to fighters were de-rigour for me. They were cheaper.
I did my mottled coat tonight. gypsy red lightened 10-20% with yellow 1st
followed by adding 10-20% black
it took more than I thought. Had to go slow and let the orange build up a bit for it to show on the black. Travelling tomorrow so done for 4 days or so.
The guidance system was so bad that one test flight that was to be a round trip from Canaveral to Puerto Rico dissappeared. The missile was later found in the Amazon Jungle in Brazil!
Oh yeah Bill this baby was apparently just about scare tactics. They must have been depending on the range of the nuclear cloud.
Gamera you and i are about to be disappointed with the mottling attemptt…
Oh what a bad decision! The red is translucent. I knew the black needed covered well but this is ridiculous. I ended up putting a gray over it all. I think as bad as this shows thru that there will still be mottling after i cover the grey.
Here it is in light ghost grey over red mottling lol
glad i tried that while i had time this morning. Letting this dry while I’m at the inlaws this weekend.
Going to go with the gray opeational scheme with the SAC badge and milky way sash on mine. Still working on the launcher details. Overtime, the launchers were modified to reduce the amount of support equipment needed for a combat launch. They eventually mounted a start cart (huffer) on the front of the launcher and ran a box duct down the frame of the launcher to the rear, where it divided into a couple of high pressure air bleed lines used to start the jet engine. The photos of the truck in place during launch were also used in the combat operations at Presque Isle AFB in Maine. The truck carried a electrical generator (I think) to provide the ground power for the launch. I think that the booster nozzles were turned to reduce any damage to the truck and generator.
made a little progress on mine. Mixed a custome guards red and 20-25% orange to try and match the color to my eye. Toss on some stripes and here you go!
Today i put some felt on the bottom of the base and put some 5minute epoxy on the rods. Snark is all aligned now and ready for some smoke!
i tried one of the decals…on a positive note it did not shatter into pieces [:O] and on the flip side, well it didn’t want to release from the backing paper at all. [:'(] I waited about 3 minutes and was able to get it off in sections. Should have waited longer and maybe it would have come off all together? Anyone know a trick for that problem?
i have lots of the white stripes i can experiment with now that i painted them on.
Sorry about the delayed reply. Yes I did. And it was the best looking conversion to a fighter plane I had.Looked wild in bright red with a pilot in it. I wish I still had all those models.
When I enlisted I gave them all to my next oldest brother to play with. Well, needless to say he did and they went the way of all played with models, Right from his hot little hands to the round file eventually!
TB you made me remember the 1st time a buddy wanted to blow up our models with firecrackers! i had forgotten all about that experience. I never brought a model over to his place after that. Just couldn’t destroy something i made.
Decals going on today and I’m pretty happy! Liquid decal film and 2 minutes in the water then 2-3 minutes to set and they slid right off…all in 1-piece too!
check out the shield
solvaset isn’t destroying them either so i have high hopes of these looking ok for the diorama. No crazy expectations that it’ll be a show winner, just a great display that will remind some of us of the younger days like TB says and maybe inspire a kid or two around the model tables [Y]
coming down the home stretch now. so i can’t use chicken wire to form a base for the smoke…realized after the fact that the lights have exposed wires at the joints so metal is a no-no for sure [I]. Walking around home depot i found this plastic mesh they put between layers of landscaping bricks! Free [:D] so i also found that CA doesn’t stick to it real well. Dang. Twisted some copper wire to hold it together and stapled it to the base lol
then i used synthetic cotton rope. Gives a nice impression of flow doesn’t it?
next is layering it up and then doing some hairspray and painting!
Yep, the blast effect and smoke is going to look way cool!
But I wanted to say, Well done on allllllllllllll those white stripes. I have a complicated reletionshi* with white decal stripes … and black ones … and red ones … and …
I told her the kit is ancient and every piece is warped or full of flash! I can only take the torture for short periods of time lol
