Nice work SP, I get some drying on the tip with Polly Scale and MM Acrylic with my GREX but not to the point of being a big issue, wish I had some trick to tell you that would clear up your problems.

Thanks, I hadn't intended on the Jeep but I had to work over the weekend and brought the kit with me, after three days I had the whole thing assembled! Nice change from the slow going on other stuff.

Yes, sometimes those little diversions work out just fine... Regarding the Grex, the closest thing I have to a quick fix aside from opening up the paint volume more is to keep a small amount of thinner handy along with a  micro brush to dip and daub it on the needle when it stops up. My next Polly Scale usage will be with my own older Promodeler/Thayer & Chandler airbrush, rather than the Grex loaner.

I thin my Gunze acrylics 50/50 with isopropyl alcohol and also Tamiya acrylics 50/50 with Tamiya's arcylic thinner . I only have the Badger 155 Anthem airbrush with a Sparmax compressor . the compressor is set at about 10 psi and the first two coats of paint are alway's 'very' lightly applied  . seems to work out okay for me . I have a couple of those Aztek airbrushes but they play-up a lot and won't allow any paint through . Pitty , the Aztek airbrush was great for little touch ups and the like but these day's I'm just using the badger .

John .

Yes, I just used to Grex for applying an overall coat of Tamiya Aluminum on a F-100 that I am working on. I am not favorably impressed by this airbrush so far. It is ok, but I had better results out the gate with my old Badger 350 and my Promodeler/Thayer & Chandler Vega 600. I will try a bit more work and then return it to AMPS chapter in a few weeks to pass on and make my remarks on it.

Interesting, different strokes for different folks I guess! Had a Badger 350 for years and thought it was ok then upgraded to a 150 and hated it, pain to clean and the needles constantly were getting bent. Went over to a Paashe and loved it but it won't give me a fine spray pattern so I picked up a Grex XG for detail work and now use it for most everything. Never used an Aztek or Thayer & Chandler though.

Still plugging away on the M40, did get the gun mounted though. Sprayed the tires/tyres on the Jeep and put down a primer coat. So far moving along well. I'm going to try to get a small dio built with the Jeep and the M40. Thinking of doing the Jeep up with three MPs and a ROK translator riding in her. Was going to start on the figures but I'd ordered a set of extra African heads from Hornet to do some of the soldiers as black guys and now can't find the little bag of heads! Guess I'll have to start on the white guys first.

The diorama idea sounds great... of course the mssing bag of heads is a bummer... the carpet monster can not be that hungry, can it?

And yes I agree, that airbrushes are like pistols, in that they have to fit the user and their hand, preferences, technique, and style. One size does not fit all and what works for one does not work for the next person.

Our Grex is a interesting case. Grex is associated with a LHS for sales, and thru that shop a man from Grex came to our AMPS Chapter meeting and gave a presentation of their various airbrushes. Afterwards, one airbrush was loaned to us to rotate around each of the members for a month or two to take home a try. A very good sales/marketing technique if you ask me. After using the loaner, we ar supposed to pass it on to the next recipient and say a few words about our experience and impressions with the airbrush. But I still do want to try some enamel paints with it before I put it away for good so that I can give a more well rounded evaluation.

Thanks! Funny, I found the bag of East Asian heads to use for the South Korean guy but not the African heads, and they should have been in the same box of figure parts!

I like the airbrush loaner idea. A couple of Grex's guys did a series of demos at the IPMS Nationals in Atlanta years ago which prompted me after trying to do some complex camo with the Paashe that just wasn't designed for such detail work to look up their website.

I got back into modeling about 4 years ago and knew I had to have an airbrush.

My new best friend ( my LHS owner) had just gotten the new Grex brushes and

he let me buy one !  

At that time their line was small but the XT model was just for me .  While its true I'm not a Van Goth with airbrush I have been able to more confidently try various techniques with much less trepidation and have a grand time with my XT, spraying what ever doesn't move....Opps   

 gone too far back in history.

The guy from Grex has been down to my LHS several times for our swap meets and demonstrats the capability's of the various models and is able to answer any and all questions or show you how to do something . Good guy, Good company support.

Oh and I like my Grex

Well I know it is part me and my preferences... part paint issues... and part trying something new/different...  I tried it again today with Polly Scale (a new bottle of QM Yellow) and trying a different thinning ratio, 8 parts paint to 1 part thinner, had no issues whatsoever... and with YELLOW of all colors. In my experience with every brand, enamel or acrylic, that color is usually a beast to paint. By hand or by airbrush. Go figure...

Anyways without any masking I airbrushed Polly Scale QM Yellow (an Army Air Corps between the wars color) on the tail rotor guard, main rotor tips, and rudder rear (and also the boarding ladder for the F-100 that is my main current WIP). The boom/tail area was already OD so that acted as a primer, while the main rotor (and F-100 ladder) was unprimed.

Anyways a few pics...

main rotor

tail rotor guard/rudder rear

in a day or so I will mask off the yellow and do another coat of OD to clean it up. And a inplace overall shot

Steve: That's great! I wasn't sure how well the trigger would work for fine spraying so I went with the conventional button model XG. Good to see it's working out for you.

SP: Nice work there on the chopper! And yeah I have to agree, I hate yellow, I swear it's even worse than white! Still everything came out great there!

BTW: The Jeep is OD green now, came out more greenish than I wanted, I may end up respraying her.

Gamera

Steve: That's great! I wasn't sure how well the trigger would work for fine spraying so I went with the conventional button model XG. Good to see it's working out for you.

Yes indeed that trigger takes getting used to. The loaner Grex that we have is the Tritium TG-2 model with a trigger and not the button like I am used to.

Gamera

SP: Nice work there on the chopper! And yeah I have to agree, I hate yellow, I swear it's even worse than white! Still everything came out great there!

BTW: The Jeep is OD green now, came out more greenish than I wanted, I may end up respraying her.

Well, as I learned here, OD makes a good primer for Yellow, amazingly enough. In the past I had used flat white or yellow zic chromate to prime. But considering that to make OD all you need to do is mix black and yellow, it is not too suprising. And I know what you mean about OD coming out too green. There are so many shades to choose from... dark, light, brownish, greenish, grayish... I love it

well last night I did a bit more work on the H-13, I painted red on the stiffener bar on the rudder

then I painted the exhausts and fan belt on the engine

and painted the various details in the cockpit- seat cushions, stick and collective handles and boots, etc...

and a couple overall views

thanks for looking

Great WIP Stik on your H-13

Especially the detail painting in the cockpit and engine parts , She's starting to look like a medivac chopper now .

I never realized that olive drab is a suitable undercoat for yellow , I alway's used flat white but I've now lernt something new ...Great stuff guy's .

I haven't had much bench time this past week , so sadly there hasn't been any real progress .

I was tidying the kit stash last night and started sorting the US. Navy/USMC Photo Reconnaissance aircraft kits and compiling a list of what I had in 1/72 scale . Along with the Banshee and Panther photo birds I've started , I have another High Planes F4U-5 , which I thought I could easierly convert to a 5P version . I was wondering what other Photo Recon aircraft the US. Navy/USMC used during the Korean War ?

And this is slightly off topic but I was thinking of building a series of Photo Recon birds starting from WWII right up to the present day for the Navy / Marines . I already have a RA-5C , RF-8G and a RF-4B in the display cabinet . Other aircraft I was thinking of getting were the F9F-8P , F7U-3P , AJ-2P Savage , RA-3B Skywarrior and RF-18 Hornet . Does anyone have any suggestings of other naval aircraft .

TIA ,

John .

I was looking through the Steve Ginter AJ Savage book and came across a small pic of a AJ-2P Savage of Photographic Squadron Sixty-One VJ-61 .

I'm not 100% sure but am I right in what's written above that this aircraft participated during the Korean War and flew secret missions over North Korea ?

The paint scheme of natural metal undersides and gloss sea blue upper surfaces looks unusual ; Would this be a suitable build to add to the Korean War GB ? . Even though it was stationed in the Philippines .

John .

Helo H-34

And this is slightly off topic but I was thinking of building a series of Photo Recon birds starting from WWII right up to the present day for the Navy / Marines . I already have a RA-5C , RF-8G and a RF-4B in the display cabinet . Other aircraft I was thinking of getting were the F9F-8P , F7U-3P , AJ-2P Savage , RA-3B Skywarrior and RF-18 Hornet . Does anyone have any suggestings of other naval aircraft .

Dont forget the F-14 with the TARPS pod

And thanks about the H-13. You know how it is when a kit gets close to the finish line you start to feel the need to bear down and get it finished. Last night I had to go to Youtube and look up the MASH movie intro... the song lyrics with the images of the wounded on the H-13 was quite haunting. And believe you me, I was quite pleasantly suprised about OD and yellow until I remembered the mixing properties of OD.

I completely forgot about the TARPS pod fitted to the F-14 and I have plenty of Tomcats in the stash ...

Speaking of all things 'cat' ; I was just looking through Squadrons F7F Tigercat in action book and spied a pic of a F7F-3P (photo recon) Tigercat

This would make for another unusual naval recon bird that operated in the Korean theatre and I don't think it would be too difficult to add some camera windows

It wouldn't suprise me if the theme from MASH , would be the most recognizable music theme in the world .

John .

Oh the Tigercat... I really do not know enough about those. A very good looking bird. My dad, who used to aircraew on B-26s after Korea with the 452nd took one look at the Tigercat and saw that it must have been a "hot rod" with those two big radials and sleek lines. Not that his beloved Invader was any slouch either...There is an older gentleman in our local IPMS Chapter who was a Naval Avaitor in that era. Every meeting that I get a chance to speak with him it is always great to hear his reminisces about flying Corsairs, Hellcats, Bearcats, Tigercats, Panthers, etc. A really great guy to speak with.

Anyways here is my H-13 up to this point- first up I masked off the main rotor tips. Then I painted the lower surfaces Flat Black, per the instructions. Then it was time to hit all the OD areas needing touch ups so I masked off the Yellow tail fin and tail rotor guard areas. So I airbrused all those areas in need with more OD, and on the upper surface of the main rotor.

but I did get a bit lazy on the masking... I will have to repaint the the tail fin stiffener in red again...

SP: She's coming along great, as you said not much left to do now! And I'll try OD under yellow in the future, I'd been using white to a light tan before.

John: A series of recee birds does sound cool, go for it!!!

Though I'm thinking maybe the Hawaii 5-0 theme may be a most recognized theme song though!

Well, the Jeep is green, was going to get some photos and then forgot, I think I'll wait till I start pre-shading her now. Grabbed the razor saw and the big box of spare figure parts and went into Frankenstein mode this weekend, a leg here, an arm there, ah a head........

IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE AHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I'm done with my next to last kit before leaving Korea.  I still have the Matchbox/Revell Privateer on the bench and it's finally sitting on its landing gear.  Without further ado, the completed Thunderjet Diorama!

I like this picture and how it shows off the cockpit and the guns.

I used the wire out of a pair of broken headphones for the fuel hoses on the truck.  The Hasegawa kit comes with all three figures!

A few comments on these pics:  I'm using natural sunlight at a very low angle (at about 0800hrs in the AM) because that's when it actually comes in my classroom windows.  Some things that have gotten lost are the gloss weathering on the fuel tank and the puddles on the diorama base, as well as the different colors on the base..  Things that got highlighted are the chroming and different panel colors on the aircraft and some of the figures (and the cat hairs!).  The kit was wonderful, the figures okey dokey, and I liked the base.

Take your pick Stikpusher, whichever one you want is fine with me.

Nice work there Andy, I love the cluttered look to the base that you seem to get in any garage/maintenance situation.

Oh that is a beauty Draken I am gonna have to ponder awhile as to which photo to use for the front page here. So much good stuff!

Well on another thread here where I had posted requesting some info for my H-13 build I recieved the info that I wanted. But I was also told that the IP center console needed to be repainted into OD. So I did that last night. No big deal, but here are a couple shots.

The latest update on my H-13- last nite I appled a wash to teh engine and then glued it in place.

I need to attach the radiator and tail rotor drive shaft next, do a bit more work in the cockpit, then I can attach the cockpit bubble to the framework...

Excellent dio Andy, I really like it. Are you leaving it or taking it ? It seems a shame to leave it behind. There is so much to see in it, it's worth a second look.

The H13 looks complicated Stik. I guess it was.

Cheers

Tony

I guess it looks complicated cause it's nekkid... Nothing covering up all that intricate framework like we are used to seeing on current stuff. The kit itself is not complicated at all.

A little more progress on my H-13 today. I was able to get the tail rotor shaft and radiator glued on. I just need to go back and touch up with OD where the glue shows. And I also applied the instrument dials decal to the instrument panel. Unfortunately that pic was way out of focus. So here are the pics that did come out. I was able to get the IP face in the back of a couple pics.

SP: You're charging ahead like a fireball now! Nice work, I'm pleasantly surprised that all those struts aligned without any major problems.

The fuselage frame work is a very complicated and impressive piece of molding. Most of the boom, the the lower two sides of the V triangle is a single piece from where the tail rotor guard attaches to where the cockpit bubble attaches. Just the top cross member framing, some framing below the engine, and few other items here and there such as the skids need to be attached.

This is about 5 or 6 parts attached to the main framework part.

Well I was about to post a pic about the bubbles that covered the front of the litters... then I stumbled across this gem of a photo which answered my question. I know that it is the older version of the H-13, but the litter bubbles are nearly identical to those in the Revell kit

Is that Radar and Hawkeye ?

Weirdly enough...  Revell did put out a M*A*S*H Jeep and tent with Radar and Hawkeye...

http://www.oldmodelkits.com/jpegs/Revell%204335%20Mashswamp.JPG

My wife has the kit (got it for her for Xmas one year, she's a HUGE fan of MASH!) an maybe I can convince her to put it together for the build.  Doubtful, but would be srsly cool.

That would be cool. The H-13 that I am building was originally released under the same banner as a M*A*S*H* kit. I do recall seeing both at the LHS  back then....