the_draken

Heya John! 

I don't remember who makes it, but there's a kit out of the AF-2W/S, it's from Russia and it's not a horrible looking little unit.  I've got one back in the states but can't remember the name of the outfit.  ISTR that it was a two-off run by that company.  They only did the two kits (S version and W version) and I didn't see anything else.  I could be wrong about that last bit, but I know it exists!

RVHP did the Guardians in 1/72 resin, 7298 for the AF-2S and kit 7299 for the AF-2W.

They look pretty good in the box.

John

Yeah Stik, you're right...  We need some variety.  Especially since my next addition is a nebula of Lockheed stars...  I'm working on the Starfire right now, but already have the RT-33, T-33, and F-80 kits done minus decaling.  I'm not sure what's next after that, but it's likely going to be more NMF.  I've got Sabres and Thunderjets on my mind.  The interesting thing about them is that I'm going to be building several different brands.  For Sabres I've got the Frog/AMT/Hasegawa/Heller kit, the Fujimi, Matchbox, and Academy/Hobbycraft kits.  I'll be doing one of the Matchbox kits as an RF-86A, another as a straight up A kit, the Fujimi and one Hobbycraft will be F's, the others will all be E's.  For T-birds I've got the Tamiya kit which I'll have on a diorama base and the panels all open, the Academy kit, and the ancient Heller kit.  I've robbed my previous Academy kit for weapons for the Heller unit so that it can have SOMETHING other than guns and fuel tanks.  I've still got that Lindberg LSU down and may delve into that ad throw some Haze Grey into the mix... 

Type to ya later folks! 

Draken, your HUP 2 has been added to the front page. Very nice addition! It seems like we have a slew of Navy Blue additions lately here. Nut I suspect were are gonna be seeing a few USAF NMF in the near future here. Now we need some more Soviet Green, Bronze Green, USMC Green, and Olive Drab subjects here next...

Draken Andy: Have to second what John already said, really sharp work on the Lockheed jets and the HUP-2 looks great!

John: Good luck on the storage shelves. I end up shoving everything I finish in a cardboard box since I don't have room to display anything.

Andy , Great work on the HUP-2  

The WIP on the Lockheed jets are coming along nicely as well ;

Looks like you will have 5 or 6 builds done over just a couple of weeks .......Awesome stuff !

I've had a busy week on the home front , I've been wanting to build some new display cabinets for my finished models for a couple of years now as the other three cabinets are pretty much full .

I also needed to replace the old robe and dresser in the bedroom , so I was able to get my brother to come with me to the hardware and I bought some of those "Flat Pack" robe and drawer units ,

I  also bought 6 lengths of 2.4m x 600mm x 17mm shelving board  and 8 lengths of 1.8m x 600mm x 17mm board for the model aircraft cabinets . 600mm deep will be great for the larger 1/72 scale birds ,

Like the B-29 , C-97 , C-119 , C-121 and some more SB-17's . Anyway I finished the three robe cupboards and two draw units and I've moving kits around to make room for when I start the display cabinets .

I'll probably only have enough left in the wallet for glass sliding doors for the display cabinets and just use the same white board for some shelves and add glass shelves when I can afford them .

Unfortunatly I'll have to make room for the flat screen TV , which takes up a good chunk of the display place in one of the new cabinets and I'll have to get the power outlet and cable TV connecting plate

moved higher up the wall as well .

Anyway I'll try and get some airbrushing done over the next few day's , although my thoughts are distracted most of the time planning the new cabinets , especially now I have most of the material required

and I can start building at least two of them straight away .

Again great work Andy on the HUP-2 .

                         John .

Heya Stik!

Here's finished pics of the HUP-1/2  It's built as the HUP-2 version.  Amodel 1/72 HUP1/2 is in DA HOUSE!

The kit includes a really nice engine and transmission that's barely visible when finished.  If I'd had more patience I'd have put some screen over the transmission inlets.  This is a serious dog of a kit.  Nothing fit well, the instructions weren't very clear, and the decals were VERY thin...  It turned out okay, all things considered.

WIP Pics of the Lockheed jets I'm currently building.  Rather than a production line I ended up doing them separately.  There's just enough different on them that it made more sense.

Oh, and the first two are of the HUP-2 in progress...

Hasegawa bought the molds from AMT, who'd originally bought the molds from Frog...  A T-33.

Completed builds of the Hasegawa T-33 and the Gran F-80.  Might have well as done the Airfix kit over again except for the dropped flaps.

The Heller RT-33, which has the canopy on prior to respraying.  I still need to make the radio compass (fitted to all Recce a/c and to all USAF fast movers (F-80, F-84, F-86) which performed ground attack.  On the RT-33 it would have been on top of the rear seat equipment.  It was also fitted to the F-94's flying in Korea.  I've done one for my Starfire already and will do a few pics of it when I get it all painted and installed.  A PERFECT example can be found in the academy kit.  It's the little radome thingy that's kind of a rusty cream colour on the back deck of the Thunderjet.

My particular kit had a few shortcomings, no splitter plates for the intakes were included (I'm thinking that they fell out in the US when I opened it and it fell outta my hands) and ther's a defect in the canopy.  It's like a white or light grey pellet was included in with the grey ones during the plastic melting process.  There's a definite white streak INSIDE the plastic of the canopy.  I tried polishing it and nothing.  Yes, from both sides.  I'm also disappointed that the glass panes for the camera ports are dished in, but no clear parts are included.  I'm going to paint the areas flat black and then drop successive layers of gloss coat on them. On the Hasegawa kit I went with Flat black on the inner portions of the tip tanks, the Heller kit is getting OD Green, and the Starfire will get black.  I'm still not sure what to paint the radome on the Starfire.  I'm leaning towards white or rust just to be different, but radome tan is nice.  Just not freaking flat or gloss black.  The markings are black and that would just be too much of it on one a/c for me!  The T-33 will get markings for an F-80 unit and I'm going to search around for the markings for a Recce unit from Korea.  If nothing else, I'll just dump some F-80 markings on her.

Of the three kits, the Gran has the best detail, the Heller kit the best fit, and the Hasegawa the best combination of the two.  In a nutshell, none of them are nice.

Hi Guys:

Started the Mig 17 ... here's a  WIP shot of the beginning work on the cockpit ...

Had asked back a bit ago about the interior color and found in the MM acrylic line, the color 'Russian Interior Blue' ... solved that little problem quite neatly ...

pepper

Lets see some progress pics of these beasts Draken Thats half the fun of a GB...

Hey all!

Finshed the building portion of the Hasegawa (old AMT/Frog) T-33 kit.  Not horrible, and not nearly as bad as I'd expected.  Now working on the Gran F-80.  It's going together in the appropriate manner.  The plastic is a daoft, nearly translucent white, and there's tons of flash.  I've built vac-forms with less plastic around some of the parts!  Seems as though nothing fits correctly and I'm using up sandpaper and white putty like there's no tomorrow.  Good side of the kit, though, it has separate flaps and detail in the gear bays.  The only thing good, though...

Next up will be the Heller RT-33 or F-94A/B...

John- Catching up as I have been out of state for a week... wanted to say how much I like your last build.  Looking forward to more of this...

Helo H-34

I have a question for the "Group"

I was looking on the net and found some info on the AF-2W Guardian on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_AF_Guardian

I also found a listing for the Airmodel 1/72 vacuform AF-2W Guardian , but I was wondering what injected molded kit would I need to buy to sorce the landing gear struts from or is there a metal landing gear set available ?

                      John .

Heya John:

Check here for landing gears of all types ... I don't know if these folks have what you want, but they certainly might ... to save you some money, if you find them on this site, let me know and I'll buy them and mail to you ... the outfit is located in Dallas, less than 10 miles from my house ... being so close to me and being a good customer, they send them to me right away ... I get them within 2 days of ordering, so you wouldn't have to wait for your check to clear (maybe 10 - 15 days or more before they'd ship to you) ...

I've used these on several builds and they're great ...

http://www.scaleaircraftconversions.com/homepage.cfm?sr=1

pepper

Way off topic...

Saw this on Stumbleupon, I have a friend who's into legos and I used to be into them as a kid.  Things have come a LONG way in the last twenty five years since I last messed with them.  And this is an incredible example of what can now be done with them.  a series of Lego RAF/RN jets!  I don't know which I like more, the Sea Harrier or the Vulcan, but I found this with the Vulcan shots.  INCREDIBLE!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/legomonster/3668133192/in/photostream/

Back on topic...  I actually got some more done on my Hasegawa T-33, I'll be getting to the nose anti glare panel soon and then it's on to the gear and the decals.  Maybe I'll get it done this weekend?

Ah, poo... 

Heya John! 

I don't remember who makes it, but there's a kit out of the AF-2W/S, it's from Russia and it's not a horrible looking little unit.  I've got one back in the states but can't remember the name of the outfit.  ISTR that it was a two-off run by that company.  They only did the two kits (S version and W version) and I didn't see anything else.  I could be wrong about that last bit, but I know it exists!

I have a question for the "Group"

I was looking on the net and found some info on the AF-2W Guardian on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_AF_Guardian

I also found a listing for the Airmodel 1/72 vacuform AF-2W Guardian , but I was wondering what injected molded kit would I need to buy to sorce the landing gear struts from or is there a metal landing gear set available ?

Also ( slightly off topic ) I saw a 1/72 Vacuform C-140 Jetstar as well and again the question of where or what to buy to use as the landing gear struts ??

Anyway according to wiki the AF-2W Guardian was used during the Korean War but was plauged with preformance issue's and was not generally liked by the pilots who flew them .

Still , would make an interesting addition .

                      John .

Thank's for the kind words Cliff and Stik on the PB-1W build and also for adding the finished build to page one .

I was going through some of my old posts and I remembered that Andy (Draken) wasn't able to see some of the WIP pic's I posted when I was using image shack to host my pic's .

So I uploaded a few WIP pic's of the 1/72 Mach 2 C-54 Skymaster build using photobucket this time ;

I set up the bench in the garage as there is lot's of sawing and grinding with the motor tool and sanding sticks to clean up all the parts ;

Ther were lot's and lot's of little lugs on the inside of just about every part so it took a while to clean up everything .

A quick dry fit of the wings and fuselage halves and the C-54 seems like it should go together without too much trouble

I didn't worry about making a rear floor for the cargo section , perhaps on the next C-54 build . So I just airbrushed the interior with some interior green ;

The instructions suggest 90 grams of weight for the front to prevent her sitting back on her tail but I'm concerned the front gear strut won't be able to support that much weight so I'll leave out all those fishing sinkers and make a support pole for the tail section . Here's a close up of the cockpit ;

Here she is all glued together ;

The left side fuselage top had lots of little hollows that needed filling but other than that the fuselage and wings glued on without any real issue's ;

Another cockpit close up ;

underside view ;

Today , I filed and dry fitted the canopy in place ;

next I'll glue the wheel halves together , clean up the engines and get ready to mask her ;

So my plan is to try and get some paint on her by the end of the week and hopfully include my two Mach 2 , C-123B Providers as well ; All three will be painted with Tamiya's AS-12 rattle can silver , it's great paint , all I uaually need is just three coats on each aircraft and they look great .

                                   John .

John: She looks terrific! As said you don't see many Navy blue 'forts so she's even more of a head turner.

Great work as always!

Oh, John!

I forgot to mention, the Heller 1/72 F-86 kit is not only a dog of a kit but it's the same mold as the Frog/Novo and the Hasegawa F-86F kits.  If you could find one of those cheaper than the Heller, then go for it.  Also, Heller might be changing over to the Airfix F-86 now that Airfix has bought the company.  Hence the reason that Heller suddenly has so many 1/72-6 armour kits with identical box art to Airfix.

Talk about, " ...and now for something completely different..."

That AEW Fort is different and a beauty. And added to your growing collection on page 1 Helo

I forgot to post these three reference pic's of the PB-1W with a roof mounted radome , I found on the net ;

                       John

Heya John,

I eant to post on this earlier, but I've got a bad case of the flu and wasn't really able to.  There was apparently only one twin seat Sabre ever built.  It flew as a prototype and then as a chase and test platform at Edwards for a few years.  Lotsa sources on line about it. 

The Avenger AEW wasn't used in Korea, but the fuselage (minus radome) is appropriate for the ASW version and for some air ambulances.  NOT ALL of them, though.  Most air ambulance Avengers were the original body style, only a few (can't find anything that says yes or no to Korea usage) were the thinner less tall rear body version.  What's GOOD about that vac form is that the upper fuselage, the cockpit area, is correct for the air ambulance, whichever version.  I'm going to use the canopy area for an already started Academy bird that I got off eBay for a buck.  It should work out just fine.  The Avenger ambulances were very active in the initial push north following the Inchon landings.  A large number of sorties were flown in and out of Hagaru-ri before the 'assault in a different direction' from the Chosin Reservoir.  The Avenger could carry a small amount of supplies in and a few wounded out.  From what I've read, they couldn't carry stretcher cases, but I don't know if that's true.  There's so little info about them on the web.

Hope that this helps!

Well , here's another finished Korean War aircraft build for the front page ;

Boeing PB-1W , AEW Fortress of VW-1 , K-3 Marine Air Base Korea 1953 .

VW-1 , 77234 was the sole PB-1W AEW Fortess with the top fuselage mounted radome ;

The build came okay in the end , a little tip for those wishing to build Academy's B-17 kits , remember to file the wing tab and fuselage slot to reduce the dhedrial of the wings ,

straight out of the box the wings just angle up too high !

I found out the hard way after glueing my wings on both (B-17) PB-1W builds and then realising it didn't look right , I ended up not only pulling the wings off after the glue had set  but watched in horror as the fuselage halves and the cockpit all came apart as well .........'What a mess'

Anyway I've finally finished one PB-1W , her sister ship with the belly mounted radome will hopfully follow along soon .

                       John .

I was tidying the Korean War kit stash and found myself looking at the Falcon Vacu-form P2V-5 Neptune ;

As you can see on the same sheet is the TF-86F Sabre fuselage halves , which Falcon suggest using the Heller F-86F kit . Did the two seat Sabre operate in the Korean War ?

There is also the TBM-3W Avenger conversion but I think the AD-3W Skyraider may of replaced her by the time the Korean War started but I'm not 100% sure ???

             John .

Awesome link Andy ;

IIRC , I think FSM may have done an article on the same guy just a few years ago .

The close up pics of the engine is truely amazing .

Speaking of all things metal , another kit arrived today , it was the BW Model white metal Scammell Explorer Heavy Recovery Vehicle ;

I must say the detail of this metal kit is really , really good . A lot better than the SHQ M15A1 halftrack .

There is a nice engine and transmission and even a fan at the back of the radiator ;

The rear section which is bagged seperatly is equally as nice particulary the storage boxes ;

The instruction sheet is very informative but so far I have only found the one pic on the net of a Scammell Recovery Truck being used in Korea .

BW Models also includes a clear plastic strip to use to make windows for the cab and there are lots of detail to add to the cab as well .

I'm quite impressed with what BW Models have provided to build this Heavy Recovery vehicle and sitting beside my Tracks and Troops No.7 Wrecker when both are built will take center position in the display cabinet for sure .

Great work, John!

I have to say, you're a far braver man than me with that upside down belt sander.  Of course, I am a clumsy oaf with bad luck.  I just don't do that stuff anymore.

Anyway, I've noticed that this group has been sorely lacking in posts and wanted to bump it up a bit.  I've gotten absolutely NOWHERE on my Lockheeds or my Commando since Sunday.  Too many things going on at work and in my life.  I HAVE found something really cool but off topic.  Well, not ENTIRELY off topic.  Two of the birds featured are the Mustang and the Corsair, which fall under our purview... 

http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/retired-dentist-creates-functional-miniature-airplane-models.html

Just what the link says, a guy with extreme AMS is making functional aircraft models out of Aluminum. 

IMPRESSIVE! 

Hi Andy , here''s my first attempt at a An/APS-31 radar pod ;

I clamped the belt sander upside down to the bench and cut a piece of dowel to sand to shape ...

I compared it to the RVHP resin EA-1F pod ;

I think it's not too bad for a first try , I'll make another for the AD-4N Skyraider I'm putting together as well .

                      John .

Some thoughts on what you could scrounge for the radar pod/EW pod:  The underwing tanks for a B-26 might be round enough with a blunt enough nose.  I really can't think of ANY weapons that would work for that shape.  You could do what I've done in the past and use some two part expoxy (like miliput) and make a general shape and use putty to smooth and finish it.  Here in the states we have a product called JB Weld that comes in a clay like stick.  GREAT for making large one-off parts.  I used it for the upper radome and nose on my MC-130 that I built aeons ago.

And for the group:  I've finished my HUP-2, and it's looking nice, even after the cat took off two more rotors!  I'm going to finish up the Commando and bring it to work and have pics of those up for y'all later this week.  In other news, I took a look at my shelf at work and decided that I was sorely lacking in shiny stuff.  So I've started a four-at-a-time build:  Gran F-80, Hasegawa (Formerly AMT) T-33, Heller RT-33, and Heller F-94B.  I'm thinking of changing the a/c numbers on the Starfire just to keep it different from Doc Win's.  Otherwise, I'm using aftermarket decals on everything.  I may get into my LSU after that.  It'd be nice to have the last two of my haze grey floaty things done soon!

Excellent P-80 build , Pepper

Great idea on the different wing tip tanks and the markings are very cool .

The 1/72 monogram (Mattel) AD-5 Skyraider is quite basic , so it may be a quick build ;

I airbrushed the fuselage halves and cockpit tub with some chromate and then glued the three pieces together ;

I have some spare drop tanks I can modify for the searchlight pod but for the radar pod I'm thinking of using a piece of woodern dowel . I have the RVHP resin conversion for the EA-1F Skyraider in my stash which comes with the radar pod , so taking measurements from that it's about 12mm diameter in the middle and 52mm long overall ; I'll have a go at sanding some dowel to shape .

Wings are on the AD-5N and she's ready for a little putty along the seams ;

The Tracks and Troops GMC No.7 Wrecker resin set just arrived ;

Pepper kindly sent me some nice HO metal chain which will be perfect for the hoist at the rear of the vehicle ;

I'm quite impressed with the resin pieces and there seems to be no excess flash on any of the parts and the instruction diagrams are very clear as well . I'm looking forward to getting this one together

I just gave the AEW Fortress a buff with the panty hose/stocking (best tip I've ever been given) and she's ready for decaling .

My builds are going along nicely .

                                  John .

Pepper-  Beautiful work you have done on your planes!  Love the colors of the decals.  So colorful!  You know I am not into planes but I really enjoyed watching many of plane WIPs here. 

Regarding the Mig-15 interior color, from what I have turned up while researching for a build I did a few years back, the interior color could vary from a light gray to light to medium blue gray, to a medium blue green. I think this has to do with the Mig-15s long production run and wide variety of factories building it in the Communist Bloc. The Hellbalu recommendation would fall in that color range.

There was some great female nose art in Korea as well. On B-26s and B-29s in particular. (And an F-86 with Marilyn's famous Playboy centerfold. Although USAF Brass was a bit more puritan about it than USAAFBrass during WWII for some reason. If you can ever get the Planes, Names, and Dames books from Squadron, Vol II covers the Korean War era.