Warmest welcome to Stencience and nicefit. Your company is appreciated and i am very much looking forward to seeing your work

And in general i would like to wish the american modeling buddies a very nice thanksgiving today Have a good one

Richard

B17Pilot wrote:

Just saw this GB.  I have a B-17G and three P-51 Mustangs painted in NMF.  All are waiting to be weathered, some almost done being weathered.  I used MM Alunimum (Non-buffing) Metalizer on all. Here's some shots of the B-17G After the NMF was applied Masks removed Decals applied, no weathering Don't have any pics of the Mustangs, yet

is that revells 1/48 b-17? If so, how did you get the decals?

B-17 pilot, its looking great so far!

total american patriot: Yes its the 1/48 Revell B-17G.  The decals came from multiple sources.  The Triangle-A, bomb markings and Stars and Bars came from a SuperScale decal set,  The nose art, letters and serial number are cutom decals.

vetteman42: Here's some WIP pics.  I went and put a lot of details sets into this thing.  With that said, I've been working on her for about two years, but she's always been a side note working on her about one or two weekends a month, as other projects have been taking precedence.  I have focused on her as of late as other projects (even those not model related) have been finished.

Cockpit and nose

Radio room bulkhead

Waist gun

Cockpit/Nose installed

Scratchbuilt winglets and replacment resin engines

Before the paint was applied

And finally just before the NMF was applied

I don't have any WIP on the Mustangs, just after they where painted and decaled, though I have to download them from the camera still.

B17Pilot I think a bending of the partical build rule is in order here because of the huge amount of work that goes into these B-17 models especially in 1/48 scale. I wander does anyone make one in 1/32 scale ??? Geeze that would be over the top. So with that said welcome to the shiney group and your build is on the front page. However I cant accept the Mustangs in the build with no WIP pictures and the partical build rules, you are welcome to post the finished pictures here though as I am sure we would all like to see them.

Stunning work on the detail B17Pilot I hope some of it can be seen with the fuse being closed up.

Thanks! Unfortunately, most of the detail can't be seen, except through the big nose cone up front but, I know its in there.

If they do make a 1/32 scale B-17, where can I get one?

B17Pilot WOW!!!!! 1/32 scale B-17 ???? that would be a monster, you'd have to hang it from the garage ceiling !

OK guys a small update on the F-104, I haven't done much in the way of scratch building having just recantly started doing some, so hope you can understand my slowness and inaccuracies. So with that said here's a picture of the main gear bay in this lack luster Testers kit, its close but not perfect.

I used .020 plasticard, a little evergreen rod, and some .013 beading wire. Oh and a bunch of cussing beacuse of my big clumsy fingers fighting me all the way.

Well I am a few months late on getting these pics taken and posted, but here is what I have so far.

Today I started airbrushing the base colors- Interior Green in the cockpit, and Yellow Zinc Chromate in the wheel wells and inner face of the speed brake...

And a shot of everthing built so far, somewhat in place (fuselage held together by some rubber bands)

Stikpusher First off I wish to apoligize for taking so long to comment on your start. I have selfishly been putting my efforts into my build and neglecting my duties here. Your Thunderjet is looking good, I have seen some of your other  builds and have no doubts this one will be another very nice one. I do have to make the comment I dont know how you guys build so well in a scale so small as a 1/72, I find it amazing.  May I ask how you will be finishing your F-84, with paints or foil ? I am just courious is why I am asking.

Now for an update on my build the F-104 by Testers. I am new at this scratch building thing and have been fighting it for a few weeks now. Cant believe how slow it has been going. Anyway the gear bays I am calling finished as far as detail goes. I did take some artistic license on them because I couldnt get very good pictures of them and also had so much trouble creating what I saw in the pictures I did find. I do think I got kind of close though. With that said here is what I have got.

If anyone has advise on my detail work or dry brush colors I would love to hear them.

Next the cockpit is finally in

I couldn't get side panels to work so gave up and left them out, I do think the seat and IP came out well though.

The canopy comes in 3 pieces in this kit and is ment to be posed open. I chose to pose it closed due to lack of good cockpit detail, and found a bad fit issue with it once I was commited to it being closed. The center section sat way too high maybe a 1/32 at the rear and around .020 at the windscreen. also there were rails on the front and rear parts of the canopy that wouldnt allow the center section to sit down where it was supose to sit when closed.  So I cut off the rails on the front and rear parts, then skated the center section on 600 grit wet&dry sand paper while putting more pressure of the rear I was able to get it to fit right, but ended up with a slight gap at the rear that I will have to use crystal clear glue to fix. Anyway heres a picture of what I have now. The canopy is just sitting there and not glued yet.

Comments and advise are always welcomed, without them I learn nothing ya know.

The cockpit looks great. Doing stuff like that is what demoralizes me about model building. I can handle doing all the fiddly stuff, but just thinking about painting a 1/16 of an inch of one color washing my brushes mixing another color to paint an 1/8 inch of another color etc. ad infinitum makes me tired.

As for artistic license well unless you are doing exact replicas(which basically none of us are) you have to decide to draw the line somewhere. I think in a way it's hard for most people who do scale models to make that decision as we want our models to be perfect. But just thinking about all the ways that your model isn't exactly like the original can induce paralysis that make sure you never finish that model.

Looks great so far. Starfighters are really cool and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product. These NMF models inspire me.

Kermit Vetteman: you guys seem to be rocking it! I love that B-17 and the 104. Since you guys asked for them, I got some new photos of the Hayate. 

Also I'll be making a return to this thread in the future; I picked up a CMR 1/72 P-51H last week and I'll be building it in the coming months. 

Rains_on _parades Thanks for you complements and comments. I havent been building long, only a couple of years really. I do find the scratch building I have been trying to do quite challanging but also have a lot of fun doing it. We all have differant goals in this hobby, and I have to say thats part of what makes the hobby so enjoyable. My goal is to try and build each model better than the last, and at some point, my end goal is to be able to build as closely as I can a correct miniture version of the real thing without buying a hundred dollars worth of after market stuff. In the  mean time I build to please me. Some of the guys here are true masters in my mind and I do envy their skills, maybe one day when I grow up I will be able to build as they do, until then I enjoy building and learning more to improve. The whole point is dont build so that it becomes work and not enjoyable, build to please yourself.

Guys meet my Son-in Law !! Rains_on_parades. Cant wait to see his first build, so hurry up on that Spitfire Robert.

Neu Now thats a sweet build !  Thanks for posting the pictures of the Hayate, I do like the weathering on the NMF looks great. Is that a 1/72 scale build ? Still waiting for your Thunderbolt ya know

Ugh that thing ticks me off. I should have used a better surfacer before I alcladed it and it shows due to pitting. I'm not too sure what I'll do... I'm considering doing large portions of it... but maybe not.. We'll see. I promise to have it done by the end of the year... how about that? 

Neu No worries I was just rattelin your cage a bit Sorry to hear errr read you are having troubles with it, and hope you can get it fixed.

 HOLY CRAP!!!!    47 pages...and counting!!! I've been gone too long. All the changes here (to the site) have kinda pushed me away. Excellent GB idea you had V-man!!!! I'm glad I got to be a part of it. All, excellent builds here. Maybe I'll get inspiration enough to do another "shiny" before this ones over. I'm kinda stuck in limbo again, trying to figure out my next project.

   See ya'll 'round!!!

       FERMIS

Fermis Thank you for the complement, my first group build as host has surpassed my expectations by a mile let me tell ya. Lots of fine builds on the front page too. I hope to see another of your fine builds in the group Fermis, maybe a shiney T-6 ? Also thanks for joining the group and helping in the sugecess of it.  Hey Fermis did you get the CH-46 finished ? I havent recieved any updates on it.

 Haven't quite finished it yet. Got some weight on the blades to give em a bit of bend, seems to be taking forever. Then I gotta somehow figure out how to get a decal of the "nose art". I've got another plan for the T-6s now. A local guy is working on putting in a museum at my airport, and has aquired a NA-64(basically a fixed gear T-6). I'm planning to do 3 for this. 1, as it sat in a farmers field(since 1970. 2 as a cutaway, partway through the restoration. And 3, when she's finally done. All in all, about a 3-5 year project. Still trying to get in touch with the guy to get pics. www.legendofaces.com  They are also doing the restoration of "Galloping Ghost"......what are the odds???

Fermis Man I hope to see those builds ! You do come up with some cool projects for sure. I was going to build Hurry Home Honey when I did my first NMF P-51D, but decided to do one for my girlfriend that I called Angels Playmate. Later I found out the was an Angels Playmate flying during WWII, go figure huh. Where I was going with that thanks for posting that site I will have to watch the vid of Hurry Home Honey I also want to build Risky Business too.

Guys the F-104 is finally coming along nicely, I need to glue the canopy on, do a bit more sanding and clean up then it will be ready for foil. I should have some pictures in a few days. I am trying another new trick on this build and frankly am in a hurry to see how that comes out.

Finally time for some WIP pictures This has been a very slow build due to me trying a number of new tricks, namely all the scratch building I did. However I just couldnt resist just one more experiment, As you may know I like to use foil for my NMF builds but have never liked the heat stains I did with the AB or pastels and such. So I called around and found some 304 stainless steel foil and got my grubby mits on it with the thought of using it on my NMF P-51 builds as the exhaust heat shields. After looking at Pictures of the F-104 I saw what I think would be stainless steel shields around hihg temp parts of the engine on the airframe. Anyway after two weeks of messing around and wasting quite a bit of the stainless foil heres what I came up with. Let me know what you guys think, if it looks lousy let me know. At this point I think I am too close to the subject to be very objective if ya know what I mean.

Gotta bump this group up a bit too

Looks great!

Makes me want to try the alunimum foil method.

B17Pilot Thanks I hope my little stainless trick works out. You should try the foil out, to me it is worth the extra time and effort it takes.

The F-104 is almost covered in foil, just need to do the wing tanks and the nose yet. I hope to have some more pictures in a day or 2. Then building will be going on hold for a few weeks as I will be moving, hope none of my precious models get harmed.

 Can't wait to see the rest of it done, Randy. I really like the effect.

Here's a tip for the move!!!

http://www.swannysmodels.com/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1262664231/0#2   

Fermis Thank you I just hope it comes out the way I have it pictured in my head. Kinda silly doing all this work on a Testers kit though LOL. Thanks for the moving tip, I will only be moving a couple of miles down the road though. So was thinking of that foam that looks like an upside down egg carton, dont know whats its called, in the back seat with the models upside down on them. I will even have a garage so I can set up a proper work shop and retire my TV tray

I just spent the last hour reading the entire GB from the start. There are some truly outstanding finishes there!! Nice work guys!! I've built several natural metal models in the past and have tried just about all the techniques; foil, Alclad,  metalizers and it was great fun. I guess foil took the longest. Anyway, not to be a buttinsky, I hope you guys don't mind me posting a pic of one of them. I saw this Mustang at the Fantasy of Flight Museum in Fla. and just had try to see just how shiney I could go with Alclad. This finish was not meant to be a WWII subject but a museum piece.

Sorry...I couldn't resist...hope you don't mind.

Jerry

Dragonfly do I, errr we mind ???? I should say not, thats a really sweet build, thank you for sharing the pictures with us. Only complaint I have is you just cant leave us hangin ya know ? What kit is that, looks like a Tamiya. What did you use to achieve that finish ? Come on man we need the skinny on this one.

Thanks Vetteman!  Yes...it is the Tamiya kit. I used Alclad airframe aluminum over MM gloss black. Wanna do a Starfighter some day with the same treatment. Here's another Mustang I did.

Jerry

Dragonfly -- that finish is truly remarkable! I envy your airbrush control!

Mike/TB379

Well I'm kinda stuck at the moment till the weather gets back above 50 to paint the remaining parts for the B-17 NMF, so I finally got the mustang pictures I've mentioned earlier, downloaded from my camera

Here's the P-51C (AM)

The P-51D (Tamiya)

And the F-6D converted from a Hasegawa D

Hey NMF guys, I've lurked on this thread for a while now and marvel at the talent exhibited.  It got me to thinking of a friend, now sadly passed, that built the most beautiful natural metal aircraft I've ever seen.  He made plastic look like polished aluminum because that is what it was.  He used SnJ metal powders and polished them to a high gloss.

I dug through my FSM and found the issue with his article, one of many, on how he did his finishes.  It is the March 1996 issue.  I don't know if it is available from the company.  His name was Les Sundt from St Louis, MO.  RIP 

Satch

Hi Satch,

I'm so sorry to hear Les Sundt has passed on, I remember enjoying his builds many years ago in the pages of FSM as well. I almost certainly have that very issue less than three feet from me right now. NMF is an art and it takes a long time to learn how to do it just right.

Cheers, Mike/TB379