Amazing, amazing work!  Great WIP!

Toshi

Why thank you, Toshi!  :D

I got impatient and sprayed down some primer to check my lines before I added the raised panel lines back on. D'oh. Well its a minor setback, but its another example of me not being patient. I'll pay for that and I know it.

The lines don't look horrible, but I thought they would be better.

So even without the raised panel lines put back, it doesn't look half bad with the five foot rule.  :/

Yeah. After all of this work I'm not setting it on these fragile turds. So, guess what?

Some aluminum tubing from Hobby Lobby and a paper clip are all I need to fix this problem.  ;)

I cut off the hubs and drilled those out. Cut the paper clip into two equal length pieces and glued them in with CA.

And that's already an improvement.

And finally, after I drilled and set the new struts, I had the model sitting on her "legs".

I might need to make an adjustment.  lol  :D

Interesting on the improvised landing gear... are you going to add the bands on the exterior of the tubing to match the kit parts?

Absolutely. I'll be getting creative with tamiya tape and styrene. I've got an idea as to how to attach the bay doors that should work.

Tires on and a dry fit before bed last night;

and a nice and blurry pic from this morning. (Not enough coffee yet, sorry)

Have a great day!

Coming along nicely, Mike........

As a newbie getting ready to tackle my first build I really appreciate the step by step WIP and commentary.    Can't wait to see how it turns out. 

Ive learned that planes take a lot more care and patience than most other subjects.  But its also very rewarding.  Excellent work on the landing gears, Mike.

She's coming along nicely Mike. I've never been able to scribe panel lines that weren't more crooked than a politician so I gave most of it up. And neat replacement landing gear, not only are the plastic ones often flimsy but the replacement white metal ones often aren't much better, the paper clip wire is much stronger. 

Greg, Thank You. One can never escape the feeling that progres is never fast enough, but pushing too quickly leads to greater mistakes and missed steps. Something I am constantly fighting with. Trying to make my visions appear before they are fully realized. Some of those mistakes are quite present in this build and it never fails to make me feel like I'm not doing a good enough job on the model. I need to remember that its okey to make little-to-no progress sometimes.

Ultra, You've been a member since October of 2009, and yet you have not built one model yet? That's some dedicated studying! I'm going to bet your first build is going to be far better than you will give yourself credit for. If anything I have shown in this build log helps in that endevour I will be a very happy camper indeed. I don't show how I do things to promote my own skills, but to help others find new or easier ways to get the results they want to see with their own builds ( I typically make a lot of mistakes and its very helpful to show how to fix them when I can. There is always a way to get back on track and overcome any disaster). This spirit of cooperation is what I find most amazing here at FSM. The constant sharing of information of new, old, and revived tricks and techniques is always going on here. Each new project seems to have something in it I had not thought of, or had forgotten lol. I hope you share your build with us when you decide to finally tackle it. :)

Allen, I hear ya buddy. These winged thingy's do take quite a bit more patience (and precision) than my usual armor builds. I can't get away with covering up small mistakes and flubs with dirt and weathering lol. The new landing gear do look rather sharp, don't they? lol I'm confident they will look far, far better than the kits offerings.

Gamera, Straight panel lines are a royal B1tc#! The round gas cap even more so! lol. Even after this small amount of scribing I have some serious respect for those of us who will rescribe an entire model! That's dedication!! The landing gear are nice and solid. With the aluminum tube on the outside of those paper clips they are very strong. The nice thing about using paper clips, as I think you know, is that although they are rather stiff, they can still be bent slightly if they need to be. I usually use them for MG pintles and such because of their rigidity. They do bend, but not easily as we all know lol. They are perfect for landing struts. Plus the added bonus is that I won't have to paint them to get a realistic chrome-like shine! They come that way lol.

I don't know if I'll be getting much done in the next couple of days. My Monday load didn't show up at the store I'm working in and it should be showing up with todays load. That over 300 pieces I have to shelve and the store is doing inventory today as well. That means all of us vendors have to wait until after 12p before any of us can start working our orders. Its going to be a long, insane day with double the work for me. I'm going to be exhausted for sure. I'll probably end up sitting at my little box in the garage staring at the models and day dreaming once I get home tonight.

I'll be ghosting the forums probably all day. My old Blackberry clone won't let me log in, but I can at least read the threads. :)

I wish you all a pleasent day!  Happy modelling, my friends! Keep up the most excellent work!!  :)

M. Brindos

I need to remember that its okey to make little-to-no progress sometimes.

Hey, come spend a day or a year with me, I'll train you in that Mike.

This is looking so nice. I remember building this one as a kid, and as much as I'd like to do one of these kits justice, I just don't have your skills. Especially when it comes to scribing. Any secrets? I find the tools tend to wander when I do it, and it gives me infinite amounts of headaches.

I can't wait to see more.

-BD-

Thanks Brandon. If you want advice on how to get better at scribing, you need a monovell kit lol. I really have no secrets to scribing or any methods that no one here hasn't heard of. I guess my secret weapon is my own home made scribing tool, but that doesn't help me keep anything any more straight than the proper tool for the job.

I have an old No. 11 Exacto blade that I cut teeth into with a file and sharpened on a stone. I run the serrated blade slowly over the line I want to scribe until I've got a noticeable line formed. Then I turn the blade around and carefully scrape the line deeper until I have my line scribed. I'll dig up a picture if you're interested. Its quite simplistic and there is nothing fancy about it at all. I used a bit of Tamiya tape to help me along some of the longer lines, but as you can see from the pictures, that only helped so much. The biggest problem I've had so far is controling my depth. Th epanels on the wing are way too deep to be practical and they didn't turn out as square as I wanted them to.

But there really is no secret. My Academy P-40E gave me a lot of practice and I learned what not to do and what to do better next time. I swear, the next plane I have to scribe will probably look even better than this one does, and I surely hope so lol!

M. Brindos

Thanks Brandon. If you want advice on how to get better at scribing, you need a monovell kit lol. I really have no secrets to scribing or any methods that no one here hasn't heard of. I guess my secret weapon is my own home made scribing tool, but that doesn't help me keep anything any more straight than the proper tool for the job.

I have an old No. 11 Exacto blade that I cut teeth into with a file and sharpened on a stone. I run the serrated blade slowly over the line I want to scribe until I've got a noticeable line formed. Then I turn the blade around and carefully scrape the line deeper until I have my line scribed. I'll dig up a picture if you're interested. Its quite simplistic and there is nothing fancy about it at all. I used a bit of Tamiya tape to help me along some of the longer lines, but as you can see from the pictures, that only helped so much. The biggest problem I've had so far is controling my depth. Th epanels on the wing are way too deep to be practical and they didn't turn out as square as I wanted them to.

But there really is no secret. My Academy P-40E gave me a lot of practice and I learned what not to do and what to do better next time. I swear, the next plane I have to scribe will probably look even better than this one does, and I surely hope so lol!

 

Toshi

Here 

Sir, I'm so very sorry!  My mind was not where it's suppose to be this morning.  I posted my completed project on your thread by mistake.  If anyone can help me delete this post ASAP, please do so.  Again, please except my apology sir, I'm so very stupid to do this.

Toshi

Toshi, Mike's going to kill you, go hide! The rest of us will never speak to you again.

Kidding aside, we all mis-post sometimes.

When I do it, I usually go in to edit my post, just delete everything and replace it with something like "deleted by poster" or "Deleted by Greg" or something. I figure everyone knows what happened when they see that.

Well, I'm not going to lie - I'm disappointed that you didn't give me the magic technique that makes it foolproof :)

I like the sound of that tool. May have to make one myself. Right now, I typically lay the No. 11 blade flat and push gently, with the tip slightly up from the plastic. Then I flip it and ise the backside of the tip to scrie the line like I want it. I can generally match panel lines for depth and width, but when it comes to curves, I have a really tough time. I'm thinking of getting a knife with a rotary tip, since that will allow the blade itself to spin as I scribe, and that might be what I need.

The tape as a guide is a great idea, too. Thanks!

-BD-

No worries, Toshi. But next time I'm taking credit for the build lol!!! MINE. j/k

I think the advantage that my home made tool has, is that since I cut teeth into the blade I have a front "tooth" at the tip of the blade. That makes corners much easier to navigate with the blade. From what you basically described to us, you already use the same method I use, but you're using a standard No. 11 blade which is difficult to manouver around tight corners.

If you modified one of your old blades like this, I think that would help you get what you want. But like me, you'll still need practice.  ;)

Thanks for showing us your modified #11, Mike. I was curious what it looked like, and it looks very handy indeed.

No problem, Greg. Its obviously a simple modification that anyone could do, and it works better than you would think. It doubles as a small parts saw as well. It carves lines, it makes nice cuts, and it comes with a sald shooter attachment for lunch breaks.  ;)

LOL

I bet you could have two saws if you just pay separate shipping and handling! 

Oh, wise guy, eh? Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. lol

I suppose I should get something else done with this bird soon. ;)

Mike, thats an excellent idea for a saw blade.  Ill try doing that on one of my blades.

No problem, Allan. Its not a great saw, but it does work as one for very tiny pieces. I use it more as a scribe as I intended it, but yeah. If it helps you out, all the better.  :)

Fantastic stuff!

"So yeah all you need is a bit of scrap" and if I might add a heck of a lot of talent. Thank you so much for sharing.. So far all of my scratch building invloves scratching my head

Well thank you guys! Yes it takes some talent, but more than anything it takes practice lol.

Not much to show. (Secret birthday project for my Dad happening right now.) but I did manage to get the spinner painted up. Standard flat black blades, aluminum hub which cant be seen anyways, and the correct color for the spinner. Vallejo Green-Grey 70.971

I've never had this color before though I've tried to replicate it dozens of times over the years to varying degrees of success. Nice that I finally found it in a convenient bottle lol. The instructions call out this part in white, but that's not the correct color for the aircraft I'm building. The tail band is also called out as white, but I'll be using this color instead.



As I said, not much, but it feels nice to at least have this much done.

I too purchased this same color on another project for the same reason.  It's the little details like this that makes things look exceptional and you're doing it just like all of your WIP!  Thank you for sharing your techniques!

Toshi