Were you becoming defensitive?

lol you guys are awesome.

  Cheers!

HAH! I need more caffeine........... 

I need more MEK.....

MEK?

I think my brain is frying. Methol Ethel Kerotone? (sp).

OH BTW everyone, in case anyone is interested, I have some decal sets up on eBay.  UserID sparrowventure.  They're not anything super special, but they are nice sets.  I need to sell them to recoup some funds I spent on a kit for my Nephew.

Okay;

So here's where I'm at with the F-4P 'hips' issue. I build at a tectonic pace, because I seem to cut open every kit rather than just glue it together. I started out in the balsa and carved wood era, my first plastic kit was an Aurora Panther......I dunno, 1962ish, but I had already made those little balsa gliders by then.....dang...Spent alot of time building Estes rockets.....Astron....ALPHA....V-2...Cobra....blah....blah....Astron JabberWockey......lol.....

yeah so here's the gig:

That's the Tamiya F-4C/D , reading about 79+80mm  on the plastic Micrometer....

and here's what I managed to balloon the kit out to using spars and good old shim technology:

and just under 79mm as it stands after the 'styrene-shim-assisted-angio-bulkheadio-transverso-plasty....

i was written up in the New England Journal of Styrene Surgical Medicine for this......my Nobel Prize for Styrene Medicine is pending.......lol....

See how much i had to warp the fargging thing out?...well at least it didn't explode.....::

See how I split the bulkheads and inserted shims to balloon the hips outward?....it's a cinch....

See how while i was doing all of this i was practicing for the Olympic Decathlon?....

See that middle spar, gosh, it held while I was forcing the hip-bones out........healthy connective tissue.....

See that big arrrow on my plastic micrometer because i am legally blind???? see that?????

Don't worry, it looks painful, as you can see,,,,lol,,,,, and it is, but the styrene exo-endo-skeleton heals miraculously:

Yeah......nice bone structure......

The plastic was very thin and crispy for 25 years or so, I had to re-line i.e. re-inforce the insides with a softer 'Green Sheet' "styrene tissue graft" errr.....stock....note the aluminum blood....."NURSE!!!!!!SPONGE!!!!!!!!!!STAT!!!!!":

I know that looks ugly, and it is.....like I performed open-heart-surgery on a big tom-cat, no anesthesia....lol....

So you see the difference between the Tamiya, a much later kit more attuned to detail accuracy,

and the old Revell standard. I'm not knocking Revell, the kit has been worth the tectonic time to finish.

Technology moves on.....I'll use the green-sheet stock to round out the tail pipes....

PS...note the big thick plates Tamiya slabbed onto the fuselage.

Berny told us in Dayton, and I think on the threads,  that Tamiya's engineers came to an Air Force Base in Vietnam to measure out an actual aircraft, and the one they got assigned to had battle damage and patches.......he sanded the boiler plate off.....he said the real patches were never that thick in scale, but the Tamiya guys thought it looked "cool".

So you can see I still need to cut a bit of styrene sheet to complete the "plastic surgery" to sculpt the hips into shape........"lateral contours approaching tolerances, no requirement for styreno-suction immediately indicated".......phew, I hate it when I "see that happen".....lol

Holy toledo. An american measuring in mm?

That rhino plasty looks like alot of work. How does the base fit now?

Well, Rich is from Toledo, Ohio, I'm from, Vaughan, Ontario, Canadian,

and it's 'American".....lol......you know my American bro's would shoot me

if I said "american," and that is because Amerigo Vespucci

insisted on having his name spelled in capital, er...UPpER-case, letTers....lol

What i did Mikey is use the original parting lines, so I'll send the fit pics

next time i grab the cam. I'm going to extend the fuselage body over the base wing assembly if

that is what you mean. Should be snug.

I measure in Imperial and Metric,

but I like to point out,

"we", i.e., "Mankind", landed on the moon in Imperial.....lol.......

Scorpiomikey

Holy toledo. An american measuring in mm?

That rhino plasty looks like alot of work. How does the base fit now?

Hah! Well, as a guy that works in a lab I use both metric at work and imperial at home (yeah it does get confusing at times)

Dom: Great job!   Does this make my butt look big!?!

Bockscar

"we", i.e., "Mankind", landed on the moon in Imperial.....lol.......

And you crashed on mars by using both

I know its spelt with a capital. But my fingers run away on me sometimes.

My dad is from the imperial era, so its quite funny watching him (and my boss) use both in one sentence. "Thats what, a 3 foot tank 400mm from the wall?" hehe.

I figured id say America since i didnt know if you were from the U.S of A or from Canadia. (if you call your people Canadians im calling your country Canadia)

Well, some things landed on Mars okay.....lol.......

Krikey, look at all the stuff we crashed on Germany....blowed up...real good.....metric guys tooo.....lol.....

We call you guys Noozies........like Snoozies.....

Get those fingers under control pal.......krikey......could end up in a door slammin''''....under a rockin' chair....runnin' through your hair when they should'n' be holdin' a sneeze.....er, or maybe right after?????..........lol....i keep mine in a jar at night.......with my teeth......wouldn't want them gettin' out together.....the havoc they would wreak......lol...........

I suppose, that makes sense, Canadia, or

maybe Canadans, like Americans......lol.....

Canadia sounds like something a dentist needs to look after....lol....

I forgot, can you imagine americians?

Would they care about capitalization?....lol

I guess I go to bed too early!  Man, too funny!

Ken

Noozies lol. We call ourselves Kiwis, or NZers. (Pronounced En Zed er's)

Hey you could always use Americainians.

Seriously look at the Planet Models Bugatti 100 Racer. Not sure on it though. Never done a full resin kit, never used Vacform before. Kind of intimidated.

Nice work Dom.  It's starting to look airworthy.

Okay.  so I was having no luck with the F86, I finally decided that, after staring at it for over a year, I would rebuild a childhood memory, literally.

One Aurora Blue Box, Big A 1969 B-58 Hustler...

This was the first Bomber I built and only like the 10th aircraft in total.  I bought my first one for $5 at a small pharmacy a few doors down from my 4th. grade elementary school.  It was the last day of school and I had saved for almost the full school year for it.

Now I had some pretty bad restrictions back then.  For one, all my parents would let me use was that hideous lemon No-Tox model glue in the black and yellow tube.  You tended to develop some pretty creative glueing skills being forced to use that stuff.  And painting was limited to what I could get at a small craft shop in our town square.  I used the default red, black, and white color scheme that the plans called for.  I had to brush paint the entire thing since my folks had a strange aversion to me having any spray cans..  It may have stemmed from when I painted my Sister's doll blue...  Hey I wanted to see if the stuff would stick to doll plastic....

Now, I have some more tools and resources so I am hoping it will be an improvement.  And it is such a simple kit that it can.......  Um nevermind, I don't want to jinx myself.  Okay onto the beginning pics.

First, the box...

A real blast from the past.

Next up, some basic assembly, and paint gotten out of the way.

Landing gear struts assembled, and jet intakes and exhausts painted.  I used MM Steel for the intake cones and MM Jet Exhaust for the exhaust cones.

Wing and weapon pod sub assemblies glued and clamped.

Okay.  Now one of the most annoying things about this kit is that Aurora didn't include glass for the side windows.  I guess they wanted the pilots to catch a breeze or something.  Although they DID include the cockpit windshield.  Kind of dumb I know, but this was 1969.  So being creative and having had this issue before, I just smudged in a whole ton of MicroScale Krystal Clear on the inside of the fuselage half to form a window.  When it dries it should look really nice.  Some future will finish it off and make it very durable for masking before final paint.

Here is the other side.

That's about it for tonight.  I'll send some images tomorrow.  I might get the wings painted with any luck.

Rich

Mike: Interesting, Kiwi is the only one of those I'd heard, wasn't really sure if it was a nice term or rude though. I suppose Yank is fine with most Americans but well down South here most people won't like it!

Rich: That's awesome! Never built an Aurora kit but I've heard so much about them. I have used that stupid non-toxic glue back when I was a kid. Ross brand I think. It stank on ice, won't hold worth a darn- glue the model together with it, let it dry, pick it up and the blasted thing would fall apart! Krystal Kleer ought to work fine for the windows - sometimes I just throw the small parts away and use it instead.

Hello, Everyone!

Just got back from my vacation in Thailand. Had a great time but I'm bushed from travelling - 36 hours including layovers. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to the internet while there so I will be catching up on all the posts in the next few days and will be following up with any addressed to me.

Cheers to all,

Russ

Welcome back striker.

Yeah Kiwi is a pretty standard term here. Thats why we put a kiwi in the roundels on our aircraft.

Just bought the Planet Models Bugatti 100 Racer. Cant wait for it to arrive.

Okay.  I got some more done on the Hustler today.  Engine pods are assembled except for the exhaust cones.  I am thinking of just leaving them off until after I paint so I don't have to mask them.   I also assembled the fuselage halves, and masked the cockpit windshield.  I have a bit of smoothing and gap filling to do on the fuselage, but it's coming along nicely.  I have the nose and wing landing gear struts assembled and I will be painting them soon.  The wing leading edge has been installed on both wings and they are almost ready for paint.  Here are some images.

That's about it for now.  More as she progresses.

Rich

Are the USAF markings etched into the plastic?

Striker8241

Hello, Everyone!

Just got back from my vacation in Thailand. Had a great time but I'm bushed from travelling - 36 hours including layovers. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to the internet while there so I will be catching up on all the posts in the next few days and will be following up with any addressed to me.

Cheers to all,

Russ

Hi Russ,

Welcome back!  I am sure you are a little surprised by the new format of the website that took place while you were gone.  It was a surprise to all of us.  We are stil getting used to it, but it is getting there.

So tell us more about your trip to Thailand!

Ken

Yeh, that's a trademark of these old Aurora kits.  They act as cheat lines for the decals.  I am going to try and sand them as flush as I can get them , before I start paint.  I just assembled the wings to the body and attached the masked cockpit glass.  The side windows are still a bit gray, but they will clear up over the next few days as the Krystal Clear dries completely.  I also painted the landing gear struts white.  The only thing I am not sure of is that the kit really doesn't have landing gear bays.  The gear just attaches to the bottom of the wings and fuselage.  I may leave them off.  It has a good stand so I don't really need the gear.  From what I remember of my first run with this kit, the gear snaps off within a week if you so much as look at it anyways.  If I can get the fuselage smooth enough, I might metalize it with Alclad.  Either that or Steel Paint, with the red and white markings.  The cheat lines are useful for one thing anyways.  They also outline the different areas of paint color.  So they really help with masking.  I should have it ready for paint tomorrow.  Time to break out the old airbrush....  If you saw it in the first images, I am using a set of reworked Decals I made from an image Dom sent me of his decal sheet.  They actually are quite a bit sharper than the originals.  I had an idea that I might start reworking old dead decal sheets for folks for a few extra bucks a month.  Dunno yet...  I don't know what kind of demand there would be for them.

Rich

Scorpiomikey

Are the USAF markings etched into the plastic?

Probably a fair amount considering what you see on here.

I remember getting a few kits when i was younger that had the star and bar outline as raised panel lines. That was the days where colour didnt matter as much as smearing as much paint on as possible lol.

Great work there Rich!  Keep it up!

Yes Mikey, as Rich said, that is a trade mark of Aurora to put the decal placement AND the aircraft designation in nice big raised lettering in the plastic.  Here is a picture of my Aurora F-90:

Oh dear god, im so glad i came into modelling after Auroras hey day.

I'm happy I started in the late 60s.  1968 to be exact.  The aurora kits weren't the most detailed, none were back then, and they had their little peculiarities, but they fit great, and were fun and simple to build.  They were a strong heavy plastic that could be dropped out a second story window without breaking, and did I mention they were fun... lol  I also have the Big A XN-70 Valkyrie, but it's in storage now and I can't get at it.

Rich

Scorpiomikey

Oh dear god, im so glad i came into modelling after Auroras hey day.

I grew up with Tamiya and Revell, and a handful of Airfix kits. Until I found this site i didnt know there were so many different manufacturers.

Son Of Medicine Man

Striker8241

Hello, Everyone!

Just got back from my vacation in Thailand. Had a great time but I'm bushed from travelling - 36 hours including layovers. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to the internet while there so I will be catching up on all the posts in the next few days and will be following up with any addressed to me.

Cheers to all,

Russ

Hi Russ,

Welcome back!  I am sure you are a little surprised by the new format of the website that took place while you were gone.  It was a surprise to all of us.  We are stil getting used to it, but it is getting there.

So tell us more about your trip to Thailand!

Ken

Thanks, Ken, it's good to be back.

Yes, I was a bit puzzled by the changes in the forums but I'm getting the hang of it - I think. Not sure I like some of of the changes - like what happened to the capability to review your post prior to posting?

As for my vacation, we stayed with relatives (my wife's) in northern Thailand, close to Chiangmai. It was hot and humid most of the time even close to the mountains. Once you've been there a couple of times and seen all the tourist attractions, there's not a whole lot to do, so it was mostly family visits and dinners. I did a lot of reading and relaxing - and dreading the long trip back. But, we tightened our cinches when the time came and made it back ok.

Thailand is not a place you want to live if your passion is building models - they are difficult to find if you can find them at all, and the accessories (paints, modelling tools, etc) can be even harder to get. Most people get all their stuff through the mail, but that can take weeks or months to arrive.

So I was happy to return to the land of the Big Plastic

Hello gang,

Slowly I have been easing back into the world of plastic as I find myself with evenings free, though I would wish it were otherwise. It's seems more difficult than I thought it would be, but when someone has been a part of your life for almost 55 years, it's hard. It doesn't help that the bank where Mom kept her accounts is being a major pain trying to get access to her moneys, and settle her estate. Again I thank you for all your thoughts and well wishes.

I guess I should update my project as I originally listed to also include a project I started before the nightmare month of June happened.

I bought Hobby Bosses 1/72 scale A-7D Corsair II a while back when they offered it at less than half its normal selling price. I had wanted SLUF for some time and reviews had this as a better than average kit.

I found it had the avionics bays open, and happen to spot an Eduard pre-painted PE kit at my LHS, figured it would be a shame to leave them as an OOB build or to just close them up. Naturally, my LHS did not have an interior kit available so I needed to order one from Sprue Bros. If I was adding detail to the avionics bays, I couldn't leave the cockpit alone could I?

The topper came when I checked Squadron's site for new products and found they were offering AirDoc decals for the A-7D, one of which was a set that had markings for a Colorado ANG A-7. I happen to be a Colorado native and saw these aircraft a few times before they were eventually replaced by F-16C's.

( I should mention I also have decals for the Colorado ANG F-16C and a Hasegawa kit stashed for a future build)

Now my "bargain" kit has increased to an investment of over 50 dollars! Right now I am slowly working my way through the cockpit and will ready soon to slap the two fuselage halves together. There have been a few fit issues there, but not unworkable. I will see about getting a few photos posted, but I regret not have taken any WIP pictures of the project. SOMM, can you update the front page? I might yet still pick up the F-105G project, though it is a bit more involved as the detail set I am doing on it also includes exterior details, which I opted out of for the A-7, though a set was available at the time. I'm sure Berny would approve of my recent choice of builds as my tastes seem to be mostly Vietnam era aircraft.

Hmmmm. Maybe Berny will say hello to Mom...