In My Stash GB : Threepeat

Great looking ship Paul!

Thanks Sidure, this kit is a pleasure to build.  I can partially grant your request, I had to use the chassis to prop the gun up for picture time.  In effect the gun is on it. 

Update on the gun sub-assembly:

Glamdring, really good progress and hope the paint comes out well, cant wait to see it painted and the big gun on.

Arki, really like the way the paint looks, gotta love a red helo. Good luck with the painting on the blades.

Paul, many congrats on finishing the Essex. Its a sharp looking ship and you did her justice. Doing all those guns and the aircraft must have been a lot of fun. Great build

Steve

Here are the shots I know we have been waiting for:

It's a coming together nicely.  Next up is all the suspension.....

So, I am going to call the Essex finished.

This is the first ship I have done and the major lesson I learned was not to choose ships that are packed with 1/700 scale 20mm cannons. Luckily the other 2 1/700 ships in my stash do not have the same 'problem.'

The finished kit is about 12 inches long. I still haven't worked out where to store it.

I'm glad I managed to get it finished in time to start IMS4 - no ships this time!

Paul

(I must admit though the thought of a nice Napoleonic frigate or 1/350 battleship does appeal) :)

Glamdring

...by the end of the year! 

Which is much closer sooner than expected!  Yikes, times ticking away.

Nice progress by the way.  The stippling effect should work fine.

Max, love the Mystery Machine!

That Chopper is looking mighty good Arki!

I have a brief update on the Big Shot:

The gray stuff is Mr. Surfacer stippled on in an attempt to replicate the casting texture.  I fear that it isn't working very well, but we'll see after the OD is applied.  I started work on the big gun, but I haven't any shots of that yet....

I may get this done yet by the end of the year! 

Quick progress pics.  Major painting is complete on the fuselage.  Still quite a bit of touch-up work, but I'm very close to beginning installation of landing gear, exhausts, and miscellaneous antenna.

Main rotors are painted, with the painful task of masking the multiple marking strips on each rotor next.  Yea.

Yeah, that rocks.  Brings back good childhood memories of watching Scooby-Doo after school.

Looking great everyone!

I got the major paintwork done on the Mystery Machine. It still needs major touch-ups, but the hardest part is done. I couldn't get the color green I wanted in model paints, so I had to use craft paints mixed with acrylic airbrush medium. Even over a white base, it still needed several coats. This resulted in quite the ridge on the edges.  I think I'm going to try a few more coats of future to see if that will smooth it out somewhat. I also masked with frisket film as the decal instructions suggested, and my non-surgeon-like hand-eye coordination is apparent! For it being the most complex paint scheme I've tried to date, I'm pretty happy with it so far.

I'm on the home stretch...some painting(wheels, bumpers, seat, etc) and assembly, and I should be ready to solve some mysteries!

Wow - lots of action in the last stretch!  There is some great work up there guys, keep the momentum rolling.  Only 22 days left.

Here's the hokum with finished cockpit and some scratch-built bits.  The rear view mirrors were a challange:

I removed the tail rudder 

Bear, thanks.  I'm not as close to finishing as I'd like.  The build is nearly kicking my butt.  This new forum is doing the same.  Can't say I'm thrilled.  Nice progress on your Dauntless.

Paul, sweet work.  Camo looks great, it's suprising how big it is even at 1/700.

GREAT JOB!!! on the F-101 Raptor Driver. I have seen that kit at Hobby lobby.  Might pick it up for a future build.  Pics are looking good also.  Thanks for sharing. 

Also, check your PM

Well done Paul she looks great

Cheers

Bear

Essex Update

As you can see the ship is basically done - the flat coat has just been applied in the photos and the aircraft just have to be painted and decaled. Looks like I will make it in time :)

Paul

ARKI looks good so far how close are you to finishing.  You've done very well with the CG orange.

Sir IL2 nice progress on the beast

Mark I'll echo the other Shag & Scoob look good how goes the mystery machine?

Andrew Your F-101 came out super  Well done

Progress report I'm now at putting on the second coat of the blue after I messed up a bit applying the first coat.

After that's done remove the masking, install the gears and final bits, decals and I'll call here done.  So work permitting I will make it before Xmas.

Cheers

Bear 

Alright, I will assume you guys say yes. Here it is, 1/48 Monogram kit staight from the box, except for Aeromaster decals.

Thanks for looking Any comments very welcome.

Fellow Stashers, I have completed the F-101. Would you like to see?

Sorry I have been so slow, its been a hectic trimester at school. With a combination of trying to get perfect grades and four hours of swim practice every day I haven't even touched my model until this weekend.

Robert, nice progress.  Certainly is a big kit.  Redleg is tearing it up with his, but I kinda doubt you'll have the time to invest to that level with the time remaining.

Max, love Shaggy and Scooby!  One of the quirkier builds we have.

On my end, I have white highlights painted but not my better work.  Mucho touch-up so no pics of this mess until I get it straightened out.

I got some more done on the Mystery Machine today. I finished painting Shaggy and Scooby. All they need is a quick shot of flat coat because The color I used for Shaggy's shirt has a sheen to it.

They're not perfect, but you can't see much of them once they're mounted anyway.

Here are the boys!

Thanks for looking!

I puttered around a bit with the Big Shot this weekend.  I'm  kind of jumping around the instructions a bit.  I don't think their order is very logical.  I'm following Redleg's build over in the Armor forum, since he's building it at the same time.  I recommend y'all check it out, he's really knocking it out of the park.

raptordriver wrote:

Arki its looking really nice, always have to put in loads of aftermarket huh?

Yes, glutton for punishment.   Thanks for the comment, Andrew, appreciate it.

Nice progress Arki and Il2.

Arki its looking really nice, always have to put in loads of aftermarket huh?

Il2- Better hurry, the deadlines coming up!

Body work and filler...

The use of early primer made it more apparent where the biggest trouble spots where, but it certainly didn't fix them for me!  I would, however, say that it knocked out the small stuff pretty well though.  And it helped immensly with visulizing the problem spots.  It seemed to expedite things: an evening of sanding (wet worked best on the Tamiya primer), followed by a second cycle of sanding and coating, and the body is now pretty well ready to go.  I am going to start up work in the cockpit area next.  I would definitely try applying primer early again on other builds.

Sorry about the pictures.  Only the camera phone was handy.

IL, that is a wicked looking heli.  Not a bad idea on priming early.  Let us know if that condenses down the seam effort.

Thankfully, I won't be worrying about weathering on this.  CG keeps these clean, and frankly I don't weather anyway.

The Essex looks awesome, Paul.  Godspeed with all those gun turrets :P

Superbear's build is coming right along too. It should look sweet when it's done, the interior looks cool.

Arki, looking at the exhaust area on your kit got me wondering how I will go about weathering my Hokum.  I mean... I've weathered so many aircraft, I know rigth where to work.  This helo on the other hand... hmmm... gonna have to think about it a bit differently.

--

I closed the fuselage assembly, and in a rare departure from my normal process, I decided to prime this build earlier in the process that usual.  I typically spend an extensive period of time working seams before I prime the first time, but the idea I had is that the primer may heal some of the smaller seams, or at least reveal the ones that are small enough not to matter.

Anyway, not much other progress, but it looks neat in gray!  Good enough to bump the thread, i thought.

Excellent, some life left in this group build toward the end.

Some quick progress pics on my end.  Put some black down on the canopy and exhaust area.  And of course had some paint pull from masking.  That's fixable, but aggravating.  Need to do some more seam work at the canopy, but don't know if I"ll ever get it perfect.

Also started focusing on the rotors, which I had completely neglected.  I have a feeling I'll be working on this build right up to the end.

Nice start superbear. Well done to everyone, lots of nice things going on. here's my update after a bt of a break form the USS Essex.

This is the state of play as of today. The fact that IMS IV is starting up has got me motivated again. Putting together and installing 76 20mm guns wasn't much fun and led to this sitting on the side for a few weeks. It's mostly there though, jus small things to add, some decals and some 1/700 aircraft.

In the meantime I did...

1/72 FW Ta 183..so far so good. Basic details and  filler needed to smooth out seams and wing roots.

Airfix 1/48 Hawk. Nice plastic shame about the decals. The white is opaque and although it looks as though the film is tight around the decals, when they slide off the paper they have huge pieces of film around them. They need really close trimming with a knife.

slightly out of focus Tamiya samurai - almost finished, needs more washes etc and some finishing off.

These are the 4 I want to get finished before Xmas...and maybe a 1/72 P-38 as well if there's time.

Paul