The " Office "

My favorite part of building an aircraft kit is painting & building the cockpit. Don't know why that is. My least favorite part is the overall painting, and I think that has to do with all the clean-up afterwards.

It's often a toss up between how much detail work I am gonna put in versus how much will be visible when it's finished?  95% of my builds go to IPMS or AMPS for at least a chapter contest or examination by fellow members. Once you put forth a certain level of effort regularly, they expect it from you regularly.  I often find myself doing work that I later say to myself-'nobody is gonna see this' ... Yet somehow I think somebody does... Ah well, it helps pass the time.

I enjoy working on the "office", especially without the aftermarket goodies. I never have the money for all that nice stuff.

I used to TRY to get everything right in the pit of 1/72 aircraft. As I got older, and the eyesight and hands got worse, I settled for " that looks OK from here". Now, I've decided to finish up the 1/72 kits that I have and move on up to 1/48. I'll still try to get the pit right. Hope the eyes and hands don't get any worse. I don't have enough room for a bunch of 1/32 except to hang them from the ceiling.

Jim 

On bipes, detailing the snot out of the office is almost a must.  Open cockpits afford a great view of what's inside, and on those birds you find details you don't see on other aircraft - turnbuckles, control cables, bracing wires, predominant wood finishes, etc.  To me they are the most challenging offices to get 'right'.

I'm one of those modelers who WANTS to detail every little thing. But, I have to do it within reason. I've pretty much decided, for example, that in the case of aircraft I'm gonna build mostly straight from the box if it is smaller than 1/48 scale. For me, 1/72 scale is just too small to add all that intricate detail and that's just because it's far too tedious to get any enjoyment from it. I might add AM landing gear or something along those lines if I think it will look better than what is offered in the kit. But aside from that I'm gonna keep it pretty straightforward. I built Tamiya's Me-262-A a few years ago in 1/48 scale and used all the PE parts I could find for it. It was the first model I ever tried detailing from front to back with PE parts. Some of the buttons and switches for the cockpit were so small, even at that scale, that it was almost insane to even try using them. So if a model is too small to get any enjoyment from adding all those extras then I'll leave them off.

For my 72nd scale I make sure the seat looks good belts etc. Can't see much else anyway. For 48th I will usually get a zoom set to spruce up the office. I'm still in the learning curve with PE so....John

Well, TB, for me it was easy.

I simply didn't have any choice, I could work in those tiny little places for weeks, or I could build models of the whole aircraft.

I was doing okay right up until the interior sets for the 1/350 aircraft came out, around the same time as people started doing the inner bridge details on 1/700 ships. (yes, those are not typos)

at that point, Anne and I had a talk,,,,,,,,and the result is that the cockpits on my 1/72 scale aircraft now get a nice cast resin ejection seat, and either a Zoom cockpit set or one of those very basic cardboard and clear plastic Instrument panels, and that is all, and even then you have to get nose oil on the canopy to see very much.

I pulled back in other places too,,,,,,,,no more "authentically shaped" wire clips for RBF flags, bomb arming wires, bomb decal stenciling that can't be read. I have decided to "scale effect" those types of details, also, lol, If it takes an extreme close-up photo to be able to see it to model it, then it wouldn't show as you walk up to the aircraft in real life until you got "nose oil close" to it.

A few products or techniques showed up at around the same time,,,,,,and I just said "enough",,,,If I could find it, I would post the link to a 500 pound Snakeye,,,,,,,with fins that open and close,,,,,,,in 1/48 scale !! I build a lot of Phantoms, and that means that most of the time, I would need to build 12 of those bombs for each Phantom on the shelf,,,,,,,,and that just wouldn't be happening at the Hangar Deck.

I am just fine with getting the paint right, the tail codes and carrier assignment accurate, the weapons load having the right parts, the nose bumps right, and building without a thumbprint on the fuselage,,,,,correctly smelling hydraulic oil leaks I will leave up to a better modeler than myself.

more than you asked about, I am sure

Rex

Rex