Eye In The Sky GB - January 2010 - October 2010

PROGRESS!! And just as importantly, I'm feeling good about the Storch again - I had "a moment" there a few days ago...

Cabin etc. from above. The metal insert for the landing gear is in place, engine is now mounted, trying to figure out the best way to show off some of that detail. I plan on leaving the door open anyway, there are flaps & slats everywhere, I'll just leave the access panels open I guess. A little more smoothing to be done to my putty job on the back.

Ditto,

And here it is while dry-fitting the upper cowling, wings and tail feathers. Note the size of my standard Exacto knife... this bird is bigger than I thought it was going to be! I see a bunch of painting coming up this weekend!

Thanks Vetteman. It is a complicated bunch of supports etc inside the cabin, but any review or buildup I've spotted has said that as long as the instructions are carried out perfectly, it falls together. I'm sure the modeling forensics team could figure out what I did to it if I gave them access!

The good news - I was testing the wings + wingspar last night (in between rounds of sanding!) and I don't think I've lost any alignment. Should be smooth sailing now. more pics in a couple of days.

Vance that Storch looks like a tough one to build but you are pulling it off very well. It does seem to me that was a complicated airframe anyway. I am looking forward to seeing more of it.

Hey look, that guy with the Storch didn't bail out!! :)

And now for my update, titled "The good, the bad & the ugly"! I'll blame it on being distracted by the Olympics! (Apologies for the picture quality, left my tripod at work & hands are apparently not that steady!)

Leaving the door open on the other side so I can see all of the interior detail... so I figured I'd take my first crack at the "cut-them-yourself" masks on the other side. (That little stack on the left will all get cut out.) Knife blade wasn't quite sharp enough on the first few edges, had to replace blade & keep going. I'll use a little Micro mask to make sure I haven't missed any spots.

Cabin floor & rear set installed. Weathering looks a little off in the pictures but seems fine to my eye in person.

Cabin sidewalls. The piece in the lower left is the underside portion with all the stitching, more on that later...

OK, here comes the bad... Well , first the two halves were glued together. Hard to get all those little alignment pins into place - there are three in the dead space behind the rear bulkhead, one inside the cockpit that eventually supports the pilot's seat, and one which is also the mount for the IP. Doing it again, I think I would concentrate on making the topside seam perfect, then gouge out all the holes for the pins (from below so they wouldn't be seen) then add the pins & glue them. Fewer thing to worry about all at once.

Then Vance broke the rules & for some reason clipped off the little support piece that protects the slice that hangs over the door opening. I think I was planning on installing the wing spar & then got onto something else? Superglue at the break & then at the connection to the spar eventually fixes this.

YES! cabin floor + lower section placed inside

More of the cabin interior, looking backwards.

Now here comes some of the ugly. Hard to see in this pic, but look closely & you can see that despite all of the alignment pins etc., I have ended up with a step in that upper join, right side (in the pic) is slightly higher. A little filler putty & sanding required, not that big a deal I guess.

But as you may have noticed earlier, I also have a big gap between the sidewall pieces and the lower piece. There is triangular bracing near the cockpit that obviously needs to line up, so I superglued that section as best I could. The tail end of the lower portion slots into place at the rear too, but when both of those connections are made, the entire lower portion bulges leaving a noticeable gap.

Note the wing spar is in place now to avoid any more breakups on that long skinny bit!

Gap-filling superglue to the narrowest areas, epoxy putty to fill in the larger gaps. Kind of slopped on in a hurried, epoxy putty driven rage I guess! Sanding & smoothing tonight.

After I realized the lower portion wasn't fitting, I took it out & examined all the interior framework etc that I installed. For the life of me I can't figure out what I did to throw alignment off. (Have heard nothing but glowing reviews of the kit, so I'm assuming I've done something to it.) And now that I've stopped to think about it, maybe sanding the trailing edge of the lower portion would have fixed the issue without so much plastic surgery. Anyway, the patches I've made don't look to have any effect on alignment of the wing supports etc., so I should be alright from here on in!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so here's what's up:

I went to the hobby store to find "burnt iron" for the leading edges of my Vigi. The only one they had was made for airbrush only (already thinned.) So, I airbrushed the areas on the wings and the engine outlets.

After airbrushing, I sealed with future so I could mask the area.

While masking, I missaligned a piece and went to fix it. It pulled off all of the burnt iron paint! I removed the other mask and it did the same thing! AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Now what? Is there a way to make the paint useable for a brush? If so I'll just hand paint the areas last.

Thanks very much for the comments, Aggieman,Randy, and Simpilot. I was  very pleasantly surprised at how well the model came together after I was able to get the wings into the right position. I am waiting for the black paint to completely cure before I do anything more. The last coat went on Sunday morning.When I checked last night, it was still slightly tacky. Due to the impending storm, I may have an unscheduled day off tomorrow, and if the paint is good, then I will put the camo colors on the upper surfaces. I am almost tempted to leave the model basic black cause I like it like that, but I want to finish the model. I decided to do the 161st Squadron scheme and markings, which will leave most of the black. My biggest concern is how well I did on the canopy masks, but I wont find out until the very end.

Bring on the snow....

Stenscience

Very nice indeed Sten!!!

Stenscience ohhhhh but she is lookin sweet very well done, hurry up I wanna see more !

Stenscience, you are doing well with this turkey.  I see some of the areas that I had difficulty with where you appear to have had more success than I did.  Glad to see you stick with it since I threw in the towel on this kit.

Back again,

So, the previous post show the progress up to last week. I let everything dry and cure, then set out to fix problems.The main issue,alignment, was taken care of by making sure the wings were set properly. I am happy with the result. The flaps got sanded thinner and installed just slightly dropped.The wheel cowlings took a bunch of sanding,putty, and fiddling.The lens covers are too big and chunky-they got mostly sanded down flush and I will polish after the painting is done. I used globs of CA to fill the gaps in the wheel assemblies, and at the bottom of the struts. I hand painted the interior canopy frame colors over the mask. I did a bunch of sanding and a little fill on the engine cowling. I then hit the whole thing with Mr Surfacer 1000 (primer), then a sprinkle coat of Testors metallic aluminum and gloss black enamels from rattle cans. Let that dry, then 2 coats of gloss black enamel over the whole thing.I am going to let that dry/cure for about a week. Next will be grey and green acrylic brush painted camo on the top and sides of fuselage, decals, and finish coats.Since I will be away next week, the next progress will no be until the end of Feb.

Here are some pis:

Happy with the wing position and slight dihedral:

The model from behind:

Most of the wheel problems fixed:

I think it is starting to look good:

A closer look at the front end-I lost a lot of detail painting on engine, but easy to get back later:

Best regards to all,

Stenscience

Hi all,

Had some ISP issues, but got back online this morning. So, I got the pit and interior framing assembled and painted.When I put it into the fuselage, I found that the forward part fit nicely, but the IP was too low and forward, and the pilot seat/figure was too high.I don't see where I went wrong on the instructions,but I went ahead,trying to make sure the wing spars were where they should be.Also note-to make sure the engine and cowling fit correctly and was at the right angle, I needed to put some putty in the seam forward of the canopy and sand the daylights out of the nose:

I put together the fuselage,wheels and cowlings,installed engine/cowling/prop, and masked and installed the cockpit canopy pieces,As you did, Aggieman,I started to get really frustrated with some poor fit issues.The side canopy pieces needed some surgery, as did the wheel assemblies. I noted exactly the same fit roblems with the wheels and struts as you did, Aggie.Here it is looking really lumpish:

Even though I was discouraged, I decided to keep going and try to fix the problems later. The biggest issue was the wing fit. There was a pronounced tilt to the model, so I stuck the model over a radiator for an hour, then glued the bottom of the wing struts to the wheel legs,then the tops of the struts to the wing sections. I sanded off most of the positioning flanges (should have sanded it all before gluing), then used an old brush to put CA on the wing spars. Then I put on the wings, and sat for 45 minutes holding the wings in the right position. This did the trick, putting the wings in the right position. I then spread a thin layer of CA in the seam between wing and canopy and feathered it out. I really hope this 'sticks' because there is not much surface area. This pic shows the area (a little later on with the priming undercoat)

So I let that stuf dry, and started in with fixing problems.I started to like this model at that point. More in a few-Regards,

Stenscience

Carlos, looking forward to the elves new project!!!!! I read that was a nice kit!!!

Sten, great start mate!!!

to both of you!!

Hello Aggieman and all,

I got caught up on taking and uploading pics so I ould post here as promised. As you may recall, I am also doing the 1/32 Westland Lysander (Revell). I began the model around Jan 15th.Here's the beginning pic:

I put together the cockpit and framing as directed.As I later found,most of the problems with this model started here.Since I am doing a closed forward canopy, I didn't spend a lot of detail time here.I am satisfied with the IP, but should have spent more time on the figure:

I tried to follow the instructions for the pit,but they were pretty vague.Looking through the entire instructions,it became clear to me that the most important part was the placement and angle of the wing spars. That meant an awkward fit of the forward part of the pit and IP into the fuselage

.

Let me post this now and get to the rest in a few,

Regards,

Stensciene

Well Aggie....I did it...I bought myself a 1/72 hasegawa hawkeye...the JASDF..looks good....now I only need to find time to start  it.

Carlos

WOW what a lucky b****** , er I mean person!! Thanks for sharing the link!!!

Cool video! Thanks for sharing Randy.

jmabx: man that's a nice engine, shame its going to be covered up.  Too bad the kit doesn't offer an open access panel.

LOL I see what you mean Jeremy!!!! Not one single bit of detail would be seen at all, so no point!!!! Really only cowled radials deserve that treatment, at least you can see the front of them. Looking great mate!!!

Jmabx awwww bummer man thats such a sweet looking engine too Too bad we cant see it once its all closed up. Hey maybe you can...................................ummmmm never mind

Aggieman can you sign me up for a 1/48 Monogram TBF Avenger for the group ? I will now have to find some markings for one from the north Atlantic. Anyone know of any available ?

No detailing for me Richie... oh no, you can't make me. I think we should see you do some super- detailed engine and close it up so no one can see it and we'll both know it's there.

Coming along nicely here...

I absolutely love this kit so far. I have another one in the stash that I want to do as a civilian version and I can't wait. She's going together so quickly that I might have her masked up for a nice splinter job by this weekend and maybe even completely finished by next weekend.

Well you could use the excuse "I know it's there" to detail the engine further!!!!LOL seriously, looking good mate!!!! Haven't heard anything bad about EDUARD kits so should be a good build!!!!

Richie - Thank you sir... you're too kind!

Randy - I don't remember if it's the same plane in the movie or not. I don't think I've seen the movie in over 10 years. A quick internet search yielded no results. I'm sure someone else knows.

This kit may go quicker than I expected. So far it's been a real joy to build.

Here is the cool little engine it comes with. I brush painted it because I don't think much of it will be visible.

If all goes well, I'll close up the fuselage tomorrow and this old gal will be looking like an airplane.  

stenscience

Randy (vetteman)-good to see you here on this GB.I really enjoyed the NMF build for the GB thread you moderate, and thanks again.

Regards,

Stenscience

Stenscience Was a pleasure having you in the NMF group, thank you for joining it and for the complement. Had to get into this group as there are some interesting planes being built here one doesnt see very often. Looking forward to your build.

Aggieman Sorry to hear about the Lysander, its such a neat looking aircraft and was hoping you could finish it. That kit seems a nightmare that just gets worse, dont think  I will be trying to build one.

Jmabx wow cant wait for this build, isnt it the one James Garner flew in the movie " The Great Escape" ? Looks like a great start you have going there.

Won't be later than me mate!!!! lol Jeremy. am really looking forward to your new builds!!!!!! You always do beautiful work!!!

Alright... late for the party but here I am.

Steven - Shame about the Lysander as I've wanted that kit for some time now. Each problem looks fixable but add them all up and I'm sure it's overwhelming. Fudge it the best you can and hang it from the ceiling in a dark corner.

Here's my offering for your fine group build...

Eduard 1/48 Bf-108B Taifun. (as if you can't read the box )

I'm a slow builder but I managed to pop her open and get the cockpit mostly finished...

Nice kit so far and I'm shooting for an OOB build with this one, so no frills and frazzles. Hopefully we'll see her together in a few weeks. I'll keep you posted on progress as it happens.

Well, it's comforting to see that it's not just me.  Not to wish ill-will on your build, mind you.  I think that mold is an old one, but considering that I only paid about $15 for it, it's not a big deal to just let this thing go. 

And I'm discovering that the 1/48 kit I had seen is actually quite expensive, so I'm not sure that I'm even going to pursue that idea.

Hi Aggieman and all,

Stenscience here. Sorry to hear that the problems with the Lysander are boiling over. I looked at your pics so far, and honestly I would be happy to do the job you have.OTOH,you are much more experienced than I am and likely have much higher standards. Why not put it to one side for a while?

I am doing the same kit and can attest to the difficulties.I am going to continue on, for a variety of reasons (one being that I paid full price for the kit).It is strange-there are some parts that are extremely well made,like the 2 part engine cowling.Then, when you put it together, the after ring (to attach to the fuse) is one honking big chunk of plastic that does  not fit the fuselage,even with sanding etc. I ran into the same problem with the landing gear attachments to the fuselage as you did.The stubs, when you insert them, run into the cockpit framing.I had to cut them mostly off, and then I had to slop on the glue to get them to stick right.They are drying now, but I am not happy at all. I wonder if this is an old mold with tiny alignment issues that make it impossible for a lot of parts to fit. Anyway,I am going to finish this kit, but I am not going to pay for a custom decal set to be made as I originally intended.No point in putting lipstick on a pig.

Pics tomorrow,I think. Regards,

Stenscience

Ok, I've had it with this Lysander kit!  Got a bit of bench time this morning and the canopy pieces did not match up.  I really don't have the desire in me to force this kit into compliance, so I'm calling it a day on this one. 

I'll get started on my Storch pretty soon but in the meantime I'm giving consideration to a 1/48 kit of the Lysander.  And there was a new release from Italeri coming of an Arado sea plane that would probably qualify for this build.

Sub, from the A-5B onwards they had a boundry layer control system on the leading edges. Typically they would leave the leading edge flaps unpainted because of that. They take bleed air from the engines so it would be hot. The pictures in the book I have doesn't show any close ups of the leading edges of the wings. Nor any detail shots with the wings folded. As far as the weapons and pods, well, if it's the recon bird I would just put tanks on the wings and the recon canoe on the bottom of the fuse. The book I have is Aerofax Minigraph 9 North American Rockwell A3J/A-5 Vigilante. HTH!!