Eye In The Sky GB - January 2010 - October 2010

Alright gents, couple questions for my Vigi-

1) It comes with a couple weapons and pods as optional. I can't decide if it would look better with or without them.

2) I want to build it with the wings folded up, which is an option, but there is no detail at the fold, like I assume they would be. Any suggestions?

3) The wing leading edges call for a color called Burnt Iron. I also used it on the exhaust and it loks like, well, burnt iron. Works well for exhaust, but I can't imagine a wing edge really being that color. Thoughts?

Thanks guys.

Aggieman-it does look like you've got your hands full...looks like quite a challenge.  However, you're doing a great job....looks good.

Here are some photos. 

Note the horrible mis-alignment between the tire cover and the leg for the landing gear, particularly in the second photo.  These parts were put together exactly as called for in the instructions and from the molding of the mating tabs appeared would go together flush.  This is something I could fix with some extra effort but I'm just not feeling it at this point.  True disgust with the kit has surfaced in me.

This photo shows the wing connections to the fuselage.  The starboard wing is aligned properly and snug against the wing spar but note that it does not take up as much of the spar as does the port wing.

A couple of other shots to demonstrate the paint scheme.

The engine

Thanks everyone regarding my son.

The Lysander is a garbage kit.  It seems that some of the pieces just aren't molded to go together properly.  I have been making a go of it, but what I've been doing is basically just going through the motions.  Gonna get this dog built so I can move on.  The landing gear shrouds did not match up with the legs, and not to beat my own drum here, but I don't feel like I did anything wrong in putting it together.  I did finally get the wings attached and had to use a lot of CA to get them to stay. 

I'll try to take some pictures in a little while to post to exemplify some of the issues I've had.

Aggieman-congratulations on the news of your son receiving a scholarship.  We have a 10th grader and I can only imagine the feeling of relief that the news gave all the family. 

No idea when I'll be starting on my Mustang.  Still out of work (6 months) and not in the frame of mind to start any 'non-job search' activities.  A lot of nice work being displayed though....good job guys.

Hello Aggieman and all,

Congrats on your good news, Aggieman-I know that you musty be feeling great on many levels. As you may recall, I am also doing the 1/32 Lysander for this group build. I am not as far along as you (got the pit done and installed into the fuselage. I can testify to the problems with this kit also-I thought it was just me with my recent return to the hobby. I did make a couple of mistakes, mainly because the instructions regarding the pit were not too clear. I am also really concerned about the really sketchy attachment for the wings at the top-it really seems that gravity alone will be holding most of the wing structure.Anyway, I will be working on it this weekend and hope to have some pics up by Sunday.

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

Vance cant wait to see more of your Storch, she is lookin sweet so far.

Aggieman congrads to your son thats awesome, lotsa work on his part too. My hat is off to him and the proud Dad. I am also sure Aggie that you will force that Lysander into submission and end up with a nice build.

I wanted to ask if a TBF Avenger would fit in here as they were used as both sub killers and spotters in the Atlantic from some of the reading I have done on them.

The helmet is just a gif file, not a photo of a real helmet.  My son played football through middle school but decided at that point that he wanted to be able to walk without any knee issues later in life so gave it up to concentrate on (a) school, (b) girls, (c) baseball and (4) basketball.  This was a minor issue for me given that I love football and was really hoping he'd continue in the game, but that was purely selfish on my part.

Hey Aggieman - if you're worried about the wing attachment point, might you be able to build up a little more structure inside the cabin? Maybe not accurate at that point, but certainly better than having the wings remove themselves later on.

Congrats to your son also - so is he the football player, or is that your A&M helmet I keep seeing?!

Vance that Storch is looking great so far!!!

Aggieman, that's GREAT news about ur son!!!! WELL DONE!!! Hope the Lysander will start behaving for you soon.!!

Well, the fit is horrible.  The landing gear attached to the fuselage via small stubs but refused to fit snugly.  The wings had separate ailerons that did not attach as the instructions indicated, so I ended up having to sand off the attaching stubs, and at that point one of them simply did not want to stay in place.  I'm not looking forward to attaching the wings to what appears to be a woefully small mount atop the fuselage - looks like it's going to be a lot of fun.  But I'm going to persevere and see what I can make of this turkey even though I've realized that this is not going to be a banner build.

But all is not lost as today I learned that my high school senior son got a scholarship that will help fund a portion of his time at Texas A&M starting in the fall.  It's a bit of a load off more for my wife than for me but it's great news just the same.

Thanks Aggieman, I think I'm at the other end of the spectrum with the Storch - everything is dropping into place almost perfectly. Even those actuator arms have a positive lock-in position. :)

So what's going on with the Lysander? The interior is looking good from what you've shown us so far.

Looking good Vance. 

I have run into a brick wall on my Lysander.  I can see why the kit was so cheaply priced, as it is the next best thing to a hunk of garbage.  It's fighting me every step of the way and almost achieved airborne status this afternoon.  I have determined that I will finish the build at the bare minimum, no major efforts will go into this thing, and I'll move on to something else. 

OK, a few pictures for the curious... Speaking of curious, my you can see my "helper" in the first picture...

brushpainting cabin details etc., starting to look at wing assemblies.

Lining up the wing halves, leading edge slats and various actuators after cleanup. (I just wanted to go right to the wings while interior paint was drying.)

Yup, great detail right out of the box - I feel like an armour guy lining up individual links... OK, maybe not quite the same! :)

Ready for slats...

Slats in place, flaps & ailerons next up.

Wow, looks like half of the wing is made up with control surface, it really must have looked like a Stork flapping away while it was taking off!

Interior pics should be up in the next few days.

Thanks Buddy!!! Still, want one, just a bit more now.

Richie,

That would be the relatively recent Trumpeter kit.  Hasegawa's kit is late 70's vintage, it don't compare.

Sub,

The pit's looking good.  Got one in the stash, looking forward to watching yours come together.

Sub, is that a Hasegawa kit!!! Would love to see if I could find one. the offices are looking great!!!!

So here is my cockpit work on the Vigilante. Started working on some other sub-assemblies tonight. I still can't believe this one section had 32 parts!

Well not more to go decal wise on the Jake. I am struggling with the tail feathers and flap lines but that's only because I din;t let the decals dry thouroughlly before applying alchohol. I think with enough alchohol they will eventually settle down, like me LOL Here is a few more shots with the Hinomarus in place, they are two piece affairs and was quite surprised with the fact I got them D*** near spot on!

And a shot with the prop in place.

Greetings Eye in the Sky-ers -

Storch update - cockpit sub-assemblies are slowly being painted, just need to assemble, wash & highlight these for the most part. Just for the change of pace I moved on to the wings last night. Lots of little attachment points for the slats/flaps/ailerons needed to be cleaned up but the fit was darn near perfect. The leading edge seams just needed a little swipe of sandpaper & will basically disappear behind the slats anyway. I'll add some progress pics in the next couple of days.

Oh, winter update - snow all day here today, expecting 8-9" of the fluffy stuff, just enough to inspire the Winter Warriors!! Keep up the great work gang,

Vance

Hi Aggieman and all,

I am also doing the 1/32 Revell Lysander, and started a couple of days ago. I got about as far as you did.I am a recent returnee, so my skills are still developing.I had a little trouble getting the pit assembly into the fuselage. I could not find any AM parts, so this is basically OOB. I am going to try to modify the decals to do Hugh Verity's Jiminy Cricket from the 161st Moon Squadron. I left out the guns/gunner, because I want to  model this as one used to drop off/pick up Resistance agents.I will post pics next week.

Regards,

Stenscience

LOL thanks Aggie!! Well Darren can attest it was last July when I started. Anyways, I will post a few pics here as well. Having a hard time with some decals at the moment on it. Didn't let them dry thouroughlly before applying sol, so have wrinkles that won't.... err i mean that are being stubborn. Will try and allocate some solvaset maybe and see if that works. I have read that is a last resort sol. The last pic is the dilemma, but is a lil better since taken. So I might just keep adding sol and hope it all settles down.

Will put the first stage Hinomarus on tonight and let them dry thouroughlly and then if I see i need to use sol, see the diff. This build really is a guinea pig and it's paying for it and just gonna make it the best I can and will get an award winner one day!

When did you start work on your Jake?  If on/after Jan 1 then it's fine to be included in this group build.  And go ahead and post pictures of your build anyway, I'm sure we'd all like to see it!

Wow some really nice work going on!!!!! Hope I can see to joining in but have several committments going already. Will be keeping an 'eye' on these builds. Sorry bout the pun.

I am doing a Hase 1/72 Jake for Darren's War in the Pacific GB that is being decaled at the moment and would qualify here but really too far along I think to join here with. Anyways looking forward to seeing more!!

Steven, great progress on the Lysander

Darren,  I never realized how small the Predator is.

Thanks Steven, guess the third times the charm, huh?  The pit on the Lysander is looking good.

Darren,

Can't wait to see her with some paint on.

Steven the Lysander looks fantastic, great work on the pit and the wiring really adds to the whole appearance, especially in 32nd scale.

Lew thanks for the heads up on the landing gear, I took note of what you said and made sure the tail wasn't scraping the ground.

Here's a couple of pics of the kit completed, filled, sanded & washed with warm soapy water in prep for painting.

The pitot tube was one of my wife's beading needles that was cut to length, just don't tell her for heavens sake

The only thing missing are the two Hellfire IIs which I will paint  and decal separately

Cheers

I have started working on my first entry to this group build, the Revell 1/32 Westland Lysander.  I have completed the cockpit and buttoned up the fuselage.  I added some wiring behind the panels and stringers but none of that is visible.

I purchased a new camera, a Canon EOS Rebel xSi DSLR, so I will be practicing a lot with it on this build.  These pictures are all huge (~4MB each) so that tells me I probably have the resolution set very fine perhaps.  With my older P&S Olympus I was using the pictures generally measured out in terms of KB but with the various photographs I took over the holidays that were out of focus even though the on-screen display indicated I had the subject in focus, I decided I'd had enough of that. 

Darren,

Your Predator's looking good.  When I was building mine, the seam that bothered me the most was the one on the bottom that ran through the landing gear bays, I didn't have a problem with the wingroot/fuselage join.  After I got her painted and decalled, that was the seam that kind of jumped out at me.  Oh well.  I was looking at the problem of the landing gear yesterday and I thought that had I test fit the nosegear, I might have been able to shave a little off it's mounting point thus dropping the nose and raising the tail.  Looking at it again, that wouldn't have worked, the problem is I've got the mains too splayed so watch your angle there.   For a moment, after I had everything buttoned up I had a flash of worry about not having enought weight in the nose, so I balanced her on her wingtips and when the nose dipped I figured I was ok.  The carpet monster ate the pitot tube, so hopefully it's satisfied for a while.  Hopefully you won't have any problems with your decals.  In one of my earlier posts, I was worried about the Tamiya spray can light ghost gray being too blue.  Either I've gotten used to it, or the color shifted as it cured over the last couple of days-probably a little of both.  Looking forward to seeing yours and Rufio's come together.

Great work Lewbud and incredibly fast as well .  One thing I noticed is your Predator doesn't have a pitot tube, did yours break the same way mine did?

Here's some progress shots of my build so far and aside from some of the parts being almost microscopic it's been reasonably trouble free.

I was worried about the kit being a tail sitter so even though the instructions made no mention of it I added some nose weight with a blob of Blu Tack

The main areas of the kit that needs filler (at least on mine) were the wing and tail roots.  This shot was taken before I finished sanding

The underside had no real issues apart from the face that the rear wheel bays are little more than indentations in the fuselage, but I'm not even thinking of trying to fix them.

The final lump and bumps along with the weapons pylons will go on once I've finished sanding the puttied areas so I don't bump them off by mistake.

Cheers