USMC GB : Now until Sept 2015

Lookin good Brandon!  Pit detail is tedious and tough to do but well worth it!  Well done...

Doug

Great job thus far Brandon...love a USMC Corsair, great choice! What overall colour scheme are you going with?

Rob S.

Great job thus far Brandon...love a USMC Corsair, great choice! What overall colour scheme are you going with?

Navy blue overall.

OK, Got some more today, I started the decal application... I couldn't bring myself to use those HIDEOUS white decals sent with kit. Now in my experience and memories , I don't recall ever seeing white "Marine" lettering on the tail boom except a few times at Camp Pendalton stateside, or from what I've been told by some early conflict Marines I know, one who was on the second landing craft to come ashore in the very beginning of the war, That at first they did indeed have white lettering... At First but that rapidly went away. I have no black MARINE decal so I broke out the Dry Transfers and burnished them on instead.

Hey... Why not...

Well that's it for now, These decals are tough buggers and even resisted Solvaset and needed to be worked a bit but finally sucked down OK. I have a sheet of pin up girl decals and she fit pretty nicely on the nose. Well next I will begin the fading and final weathering and get ready for the dull coat. Thanks all!

Doug 

VERY good so far Doug...love that nose art!! In that position, on a helo, it really, truly IS noseart, Eh?

LOL... Right you are sir!

I have the basic maing airframe of the F-18 all glued together now, but there will be allot of filling and sanding of the overly complex seams. I just hope I can rescribe the lost detail back.

Theuns

Looks great Doug. Love the nose art!

Well , Getting close now and got some more done over the last couple days... Mainly just getting home and working for an hour or so before my wife gets in...

I was trying to find a way to age and fade the paint a bit, and nothing was working. The last thing I thought to do was just get some good ole Model Master RLM Grau Grun (Grey Green) and thin it down about 60 thinner 40 pigment and it looked pretty good! Working mainly in the center of each panel until desired effect was achieved, then a misting coat ofer the whole build including the decals to tone the shine down.

Oh, and at this stage I almost always use Isopropol alcohol as a thinner due to its ability to dull paint down.

The other side...

And installing the weapons racks...The next pictures I should have the antenna array on for the HF radio equipment used by the Marines in their craft, then just a matter of taking the finishing pics... Take care all... Thanks for looking!

Doug 

Doug..that warbird is coming along handsomely

Doug

Your helo weathering looks like it's been there and done that. Looks great.

The method I use to fade the paint is after applying the decals and letting them dry and cure, shoot clear acrylic flat. Next day do some washes of highly diluted grey enamel or grey artists oil paints in turpentine. You can apply these filters with a brush till you get the desired effect. A hair dryer speeds things up.

I will be doing a light weathering treatment on mine once I get to that stage. I shot the Tamiya green, black and red colors. I also shot the top of the main rotor blades OD and the bottom of the blades black. Decals will be next.

I have not yet tried the turp. wash way, never could stand the smell, but,,, I have a project coming up that may lend itself to that method... Thanks,

Lookin good PJ.

I felt the same way about turp until I learned on here about odorless turp..great stuff although a bit expensive

Il

Yes there is odorless turp that should be ok for you Doug. I had an on duty car accident back in 1977 where I suffered multiple injuries, including a severe concussion that disabled my ability to smell so the terp or lacquer odor don't bother none.  

Ernie...know its been awhile but so sorry to hear that... when I was a young Marine in 71, I injured a knee and now a days its really making its self known! Thanks for the tip on the odorless. I will try t locate some.

Doug

Doug

Thanks buddy. My back was also injured in that crash and now the back issues have been creeping out. Try Home Depot or Lowes for the odorless turp, way cheaper than the LHS.

Well, folks, here's my latest installment of my CH-53E. Whenever I build a kit, I try to build everything that doesn't need paint first. This helps keep me motivated during the build, and makes me think that I'm making lotsa progress quickly (I know - it's a mind game that I play on myself.....). Anyways, below are all of the sub-assemblies that I could build without the need for paint. Because of the size of this kit (even though it's 1/48th scale), each of those sub-assemblies has many, many parts, so it took a few days of 5 - 6 hours per day to get this far. The two sponsons (far left, next to the tail rotor) took the longest, as they had some severe seems to contend with. Nothing overwhelming - just really long seams that took a lot of super glue as filler and lots of sanding to get right. But now, you can't tell there was ever a seam (well, at least my old eyes can't see any!!). The winch (just under the main rotor hub) took a while, too, because the support frame was in three pieces, and a lot smaller than my big, fat, bumbling fingers could handle easily, but I persevered and got it together (kit-wise and mentally!). I'm at the point now where I gotta shoot some paint before any additional building gets done. Luckily, my wife got me a very nice portable spray booth for Christmas!! It's the one in the MicroMark catalog for about $100. So far, I like it, as it has a vent hose and adapter so that you can open a window just slightly and stick the little adapter through that and close the window on it. Looking forward to trying it out this coming weekend. I'll let you all know how it works out. Looking forward to comments about my progress so far, good or bad!

Good start Devil D

Well Guys... I kinda got into a zone building the last 2 days and just flat forgot to take the final WIP pics, Before I knew it I was right at the finish so I just kept going. There wouldn't have been anything really that interesting, just finishing up the weapons and fitting with the antenna for the HF radio. That being said I will post the finished pictures...

Lets try that again without forgetting to post pictures before accidently hitting post...

Well there she is. Just a comment and a recap... Even though this was a PITA kit to build I'm not displeased with the way it came out, but I think if I had received the RMX kit that I ordered it would have been a much more pleasant build.

Personally I would not recommend this kit to any one but to each his own,  If you do decide, have a lot of patience and be determined to complete it and it might come out pretty good for you. Two times I almost gathered it up and dropped it in the trash, but after calming down and looking again I guess it finally made a Huey. Thanks guys and I'll be back in a short to try for my Sharpshooter Badge. Take care all, and keep up the great work going on here!

Doug

USMC 71-75

Excellent ending Doug. The Huey looks very sharp indeed. The aerial gives it a unique look.

Well, I managed to finally complete the engine and it's ignition harness. 36 separate wires going to each plug. That was a lot of work but the engine looks much better with them than without. I began by painting the assembly Alclad Airframe Aluminum followed by a dirty wash of Flory Black. I sealed that all in and painted the push rod tubes gloss black and then added the 0.010 dia brass wire to each cylinder's plugs. I followed all that up with a heavy application of Tamiya clear smoke to darken the whole thing down a bit. I like to leave then glossy as it gives the engine an "oily" look.

 I am currently removing seems from the fuselage and should be ready for primer in the next few days. 

Great job on that engine Brandon!

Doug

Those Revell decals are a PITA, specially the tail boom stripes. It takes tons of Solvaset to tame those things! It looks like a freaking rainbow! Still have more decals to put on but I'm stopping here tonight.

LOLOL... (sorry) but yes they are! I was kind of miffed cuz I've never seen decals stand up to Solvaset, I think you can even see it in some of my pictures. Man, you've done an awesome paint scheme! Shouldn'tbe long now!

Doug

Brandon, that is one good lookin engine! Cantwait to see some more...

Doug

Josiah

If it's all the same to you, I would like to switch my build from the 1/72 F4 to the 1/72 Kitec V-22 Osprey. I just can't seem to get up the umph to work on the F4 right at the moment. I probably will later, but I want to get something on the building board for this GB.

Here it is. I got it for a song off of eBay from China (I think the shipping was more than the kit) so well see how it goes.

Steve

Holy smokes Brandon! that engine looks great.

Good thing I was browsing back a bit and saw that magnificent Huey Doug!! Congrats on a stellar build (despite it being a bit of a pain, but you suffered through mightily!!)....

Thanks Rob... I guess as I get a little older and less tolerant of (in my opinion) A SLACK A** engineered and produced product, I tend to forget that trying to make silk purses out of sows ears are where and how we develop and learn the ability to make good kits even better!

Thanks again...

Doug

Pardon, I forgot a part... And a POS acceptable! LOL...

Doug