The 144 Group Build - Complete, pics pg 1

AHHHHHHHHH! Why did I even start looking at this scale? I have never even toyed with the idea of 1/144 till this group build. Now looking for a kit I have found too many. Even more scary is that I am actually toying with the idea of building the C-17 Globmaster III by Revell! Please stop me now! LOL!

I had no idea this scale had the nice kits with fine outside detail! Some input would be appreciated though. Any brands I should absolutely stay away from? Thanks for the input and the new addiction!

Travis

deeve,
I thought it would work too so I gave it a go.
I used the Press n Seal for large areas with tape for the actual lines and borders. When I removed the product it left the adhesive on the paint. Lots of it and in the same texture of the product itself. Now I had a mess. I tried a couple of things to remove the adhesive, windex and tamiya X-20A, neither touched it. What finally got it was mineral spirits. Fortunately the Krylon semi gloss white underneith never noticed the treatment.
The product was in place for at least a week while I did other painting so it's possible that if the stuff was removed quickly there would be no problem. I've never noticed the problem on any of my bowls or dishes so maybe there was a chemical in the paint itself that reacted with the adhesive. I have no idea, all I know is I'll not use it again over paint.

Ok it is official. I am in with Dragon's B-1B Lancer of ACC. I figured why not just go big in the little scale! Pictures to follow.

Travis

travis

I had come across the Revell C-17 a few weeks ago in my LHS. It was going for $20 but at the time i was looking for something else and passed it over. That kit nagged at me for the rest of the week so when I went back to pickup what I had ordered I figured I'd get it too. By the time I got back the price was jacked up to $34. The shop keeper swears it was never $20 but I'm 99.999999999% sure it was. Out of spite I put it back but I think it was still a good price for that kit. Someday I might go get it.

Today in the mail I received the Hobby Craft B-36D in 1/144

Dirkpitt,

That is just crazy! A week ago I would have walked, or scanned, right past that for $20. The cheapest one I have found is on Ebay for $28.95 + $7.00 s/h from China! The rest of the C-17's were $30+. It looks to be a very nice little kit. I love the plane, but it is sooooo big. I will probably pick it up depending on my experience with the Dragon B-1B.

I saw a B-36 on Ebay as well and almost went for it too. It might be a good scale for those bigger planes that I have always wanted to build.

Take care....See you in the Funny Pages!

Travis

Shooter.

I have noticed the stuff leaves behind some residual stickiness on my bowls and whatnot when I seal food.

Never thought about it leaving residue on models. Glad I never tried it out :) I do imagine it wouldnt leave much if you pull it off immediately, but you never know. I don't think I am going to try :)

Thanks for the heads up.

The beast is done. Enough.  A whole day and a half of decalling and a few extra minutes of small stuff and here we are.

A few problem seams in a couple of areas but nothing decent modeling skill won't cure. Worst fit on the kit is the joint of the nose to the fuselage.

The decals don't fit so well either. Careful compromises of placement are needed to get them to somewhat fit. Biggest problems were in the nose and where the long fuse stripe meets the band over the vertical stabilizer.

Forget about the antiglare panel decal as there isn't any compromises to be made to make it fit. I painted this one.

The kit has a decent amount of flash and for a while I thought I was doing armor while cleaning up all the wheels. Every wheel had flash and the mold halves were not aligned well and the halves were off, making a step on about half the wheels.

If the gentle reader decides to build this kit do yourself a favor and leave off all the gear struts until final assembly. They can all be installed later and I managed to break off the front struts and injure the mains during construction and paint.

To repair the front struts and make them stronger in the process, I drilled the struts out and inserted brass rod then CA'd the things back together again. I STILL broke one of them off later and had to repair it again.

The kit comes with over 500 decals (guess) but I only used the major ones. As it was it still took me forever to decal this rather large canvas. Only then did the model take on life and begin to look alive. I did manage to muck up some of the decal work. There are some errors in the stripes I'll not point out but just say I should have looked at the instructions a LOT closer. What you see is my best attempt to save the decals instead of order a new sheet.

The engines were left off and treated like kits unto themselves then added as the very last pieces of the plane. This made handling the kit much easier not to mention painting and decaling work.
So there you have it. RoG 1/144 An-124. Not my normal area of subject matter or quality of work but hopefully the owner will be happy with it.

Fine looking bird!!  All those wheels would be right at home on a tank.  Very appropriate timing.  Posted on Christmas carrying the markings of an Operation Christmas Child flight. 

Well kw, 1 done. 143 to go.

Cassi, I still gave my fingers crossed, lol, one from you would make us closer

Travis (stfd367), welcome aboard, will add you to the front page tomorrow (i hope)

hkshooter, well done please feel free to collect you badge from below. Looks like on ehell of a beast

Well Since hkshooter has finished I thought I'd better pull my finger out and do a badge. Its a bf 109 tail with 144 marked kills, happy building

 feel free to collect on completion (or before if you want to advertise the build )

Andrew

Andrew: You can also put me down for Revell's B-2 with my B-1B. I will give it a shot at 2 at once.... I scored it and Revell's C-17 off ebay. I don't think I could attempt the C-17 as well, especially after wathcing hkshooters build of the "beast." Hope this gets us closer the 144!

hkshooter: Awsome plane. Looked like a handful....literally! I am now looking forward to my builds when they get here.

Travis

Will do Travis.

 I must admit I'm biting at the bit to start.

only 110 hours and 5  minutes to go :)

Andrew

Nice job HK!!!

Excellent build there! I really wish we could get a new C-5 Galaxy in 1/144. Since the old Otaki molds are gone forever maybe Revell will be nice and consider making us a new one.

Cheers, Douglas

That would be nice. Saw a Revell and Otaki C-5 on Ebay the other day. With 2 days left they were both over $80. I would love to see a C-141 as well. It didn't get as much notice but was the real work horse of the airforce for years!

Travis

I'd like to add a third kit to my build quota. A strange one but it is 1/144: Pegasus - War of the Worlds Diorama. I picked this up today at Hobbytown USA for my birthday. Being a big fan of the movie I'm pleased to fnally see some injected kits on this subject come on the market.

Cheers,Douglas

Beautiful "124" HK!!

Progress on the "741"... I finished foiling/rubbing the engines and aft pylons (good 6 hours work), sanded away the "lump" at the wings' outer engine position and puttied a new "sharp" fairing, then sanded a slot at the inner engine/wing joint so that it would fit properly against the wing.     I then dipped the intakes and attached the engines, glued the wing to the fuselage and puttied the joint.

Today I will shape & attach the anchor studs to the fuselage interior, and while they're drying, apply the foil to the wings' leading edge.      If that goes well, I will then proceed in building the LE flaps, but that will probably drag into tomorrow.

More to come...
Frank

Looking great Frank. I don't think I have ever seen a build where the fusilage is still on the sprue. Any reason? Just curious as this will be my first 144 build. I can't wait to see the finished project.

Andrew, the B-1B is on the way, and I hope the B-2 is as well. Should be able to get this off the ground running! Good luck with all your builds.

Travis

Thanks Travis,

The spru protects the fuselage seamline, keeping it completely sharp until it's affixed to the wooden backboard to be worked up. (a lesson learned early on when building a MID display where the fuselage is white; because the most minute dent/irregularity causes the seam to be visible when it's against the mirror)    

A visible seamline ruins the effect of the MID, where an invisible one causes an interesting illusion to occur.... like so:

Take care,

Frank

That C-5 is incredible! The effect is..........WOW!

Travis

OK 16hrs to go to official kick off.

Travis finally have you updated to first page. Douglas/rogerwilco, added the diorama as well for yours. Other than Cassi stiring the pot, I think I have everything and everybody added right for kickoff.

Andrew

SWEEEEEEET! I just got my "Bone" today. I am so glad I went with the Dragon version. The detail is great! I'm ready to roll! Hopefully the B-2 and C-17 show up in the next couple days. Will post some pics of the B-1 later.

Andrew, Depending on how the other 2 go I might add the C-17 as well! I will let you know. Where are we on the count anyway? I figure I can't let you carry the load with all your kits....a model complete every 11 days is a tough task!

Travis/ STFD637

Travis, one kit every 11 days isnt so bad, some are two in one packs that will get built at the same time. The only one I'm dreding is the f-16A tigermeet as all the main markings are painted, not decals, masking yellow/black & grey/ dark grey tiger stipes in 1/144

Andrew

Ok Official Kick-Off was nearly 11 hours ago.

Hitting my bench later today will be a Revell apache D, I couldnt help but buy it, to make me not build my 1/48 till my AM stuff arrives for it LOL. Apache hooked at the moment with Ed Macy's Apache and Hellfire Books.

Ok, now I know which model(s) I'll build: three F-14D of VF-103 Jolly Rogers; the CAG bird and two "normal" birds.

I'll be using Dragon's models and Fightertown's decals.

     Here are some photos from the assembly of the VC Flaps; I'm not the type to go running for aftermarket when there's generally all kinds of things you can find laying around the house to use, like the metal screen on the front of an old broke ceramic heater for instance:

 VC Flaps dry fitted into position to check fit....

Also, here's a couple other modifications the old Revell kit needs...
Outboard engine pylon/wing fairing:

...and the fairing at the upper wing root:

Take care, more to follow :)
Frank

Looks goods Frank, Watching with interest.

I've mostley finished painting the cockpit the apache, have the fusalage together and landing gear on. Well the landing gears is a right balls up. As far as I'm concerned. The Ah-64 has a main strut for the gear and a support strut, the molding of teh support strut in non existant and the guide holes for the main struct are at the wrong angle big time, so I had to manage that as best as i could, pics next time.

On a brigher and pleasent not, I almost died when I had a good look at the heller e-2c hawkeye, I would rate it as teh best 1/144 in terms of quality of detail in my stash, firm but crisp molded body with sunken panel lines and tiny raised rivets, seats are excellent, not a thought of after market parts, pilots almost mid range 1/72 quality, manual to make most 1/72 and some 1/48 builds dissapear in shame, I will be building this girl next I will post a blow by blow pictorial account.

Most of the other kits I'm going to order AM seats for in a couple of weeks, matadors website guesses it could take up to 6-7 weeks (they say up to month local post plus I figure add 2-3 weeks for international post),  to get here after ordering, but I hope it wont take that long.

Andrew

Thanks Andrew,

    Sounds like you're having a good time on the Apache, and looking forward to a good time with the Hawkeye!   Looking forward to seeing the Hawkeye!

   I thought I would include some photos from the LE foil application from the other day, and the VC Flap attachment of today:

LE foil application:

Landing Lights: I used finishing nails for the bulbs, applied a strip of clear decal over the holes, then applied the precut foil over them... turned out nice! 

VC Flap application:  secured with super glue

    I need to make and install the Krüger flaps and engine fans, THEN the fuselage gets attached to the work-up board!   (I know, FINALLY)      Then, the belly foil goes on!  

More to come...
Frank

Oooops.... didn't check my references well enough; the outboard VC Flap has to be removed and re-sized!    Oh well, no rest for the weary! :)

Here are some photos of the restructured outboard VC Flap:

Frank

Some pics from the B-1B by Dragon. Very nice kit with fine lines and resin engines.

Can't wait to see the B-1 come together STFD!!

Took a day off, but back at it again today, finishing up the Kruger Flaps and attaching them....

    .... and building/installing the engine fans....

    Rubbed the wing down with steel wool to prepare it for the Future thus completing the wing construction.     Tomorrow I will attach the fuselage to the wooden board and begin working it up.

Comments and/or questions always welcomed!
Take care,
Frank