My work bench is now a real mess of little pieces of plastic and fine white plastic dust everywhere. Anybody here who has built a vac kit before will understand the fingerprint thing.
I started this project last Saturday, the fuselage halves are glued together and the base pieces for the turret position are in, the cockpit floor pan is just taped in place as there is still quite a bit of detail work to do in there. Nothing has been started for the bombardiers position yet. One wing is together and one engine nacelle is started. It’s making surpisingly good progress for such an old kit. Since shelf space is growing limited this will be ‘gear up’ and hung from the ceiling when complete.
This is a 1/48 scale project, can you identify it?
[:D]
What happened to the JU-290 ? Change your mind, or is that in another just started pile? You are a workhorse, not to mention a modelholic. Good luck on the build, should be very interesting.
I’m still working on the ‘in box’ review of the 290. I’m not sure if I want to start it just yet. I’ve been kind of building up to a series of 1/72 builds; have the Bv-222, the Bv-138, the Emily and now the the 290. I might just wack myself in the head with a hammer and start the whole lot of them.
Swanny, how are you gonna finish that Tupolev? I seem to remember those planes took a real hammering at the hands of the Finnish Airforce during the winter war, so maybe…?
I kind of have an in-flight diorama in mind. You see, I have two Yak 7s and was thinking to do the SB-2 with one engine out and visible battle damage and the yaks coming in to formation with flaps and gear down to keep pace while checking the damage. It’s just an idea still under consideration.
I find that wet sanding the pieces in order to remove them from the vacuum form sheet keeps the dust down. It will not save the fingers though! I use 220 grit sandpaper to cut away the most of it, then change to 360 grit to finish removing the plastic surrounding the piece.
You end up with a wet slurry, and it helps to rinse the sandpaper periodically, but it sure beats having all that dust all over everything.
Sanded off fingerprints… finally resorting to crime to support your modeling habit??[:D]
Never done a vac kit. Have a vac Mig 31 though. I’ll have to watch this thread and see how it’s done.
I have gotten pretty good with a Dremel and a sanding drum (kids, don’t try this at home) - After etching and snapping the parts out I can run the drum down the edge and get within a couple of mils of the line then just touch it up with some 220 paper. Did both halves of a wing in about ten minutes last night, cut down, sanded off and glued. When I did my Fw-200 I did not do this and spent weeks sanding parts down - uhg. Thanks for the Goose comment.
Hey Cassibill, you really want to see how it’s done check the Fw-200 build on my site - I get pretty detailed on the process there with links to instructionals.
I like your idea for the diorama. As usual, looking forward to more pictures. The Emily that you mentioned, is that the Hasegawa kit? I sure would be interested in your opinions and thoughts for tackling this beast. The rivets look to be way out of scale and the pattern just doesn’t look right. Otherwise it has the potential to be an impressive kit.
