OFFICAL NO AFTERMARKET Group Build

Oh yes Owl I see from the pictures you are addicted to scratch building in a big way and in such a small scale no less. I just cant believe how much detail you were able to add, very well done indeed young lady.

I got the dive flaps all drilled out, but nearly took off the tip of my finger in the process! OUCH!!  That stalled me for only a little bit, but once the bleeding stopped and the bandaid was on, I continued to plug away. I've finished the P-40 cockpit, and am nearing completion on the Dauntless cockpit. The instrument panel decal in the P-40 was over-sized and took some trimming to get to fit onto the panel. Here are the cockpit pics, anything not tan was added by me.

OWL

I've just decided to challenge myself (either that or IM Crazy!) and finish 2 kits before the end of the year. The P-40, and additionally the Testors 1/72 scale SBD Dauntless!!  I'll be working on these at the same time, too. The SBD will get a full interior and a drilling out of the dive flaps.I have a lot a free time now that Xmas shopping is done, So lets see what I can do!

Ive even started on the dive flaps:

OWL

Kermit,

The stainless steel .50 gun tubes look excellent!

The best thing about them is when sourced from pharmacies or veterinarian clinics is they have no idea how much to charge! I recently picked up 20 at a vet's clinic for... 1.60$ CDN.

 Thanks all!

 As for the yellowish hue, think that's just the lighting!

V-man, the mag is not out yet, but I'll let you know the particulars when it does! I wouldn't say this one went fast. I put in at least 50 hrs! Not working a regular job means I have an entire winter of Saturdays!!! (except when it snows, then I get to go plow the runway and taxiways at the airport. Only had one snow so far)

Here's a pic from last Monday......finally got to sleep around 1a.m., phone rang at 1:15a.m......off to work!!!

That snowblower way out there on the front of the tractor is 8 ft wide X 4 ft tall.......shoots the snow about 75 ft.......AWESOME!!!!

Joevis welcome back to the bench. The rescue boat is looking great, sorry to hear about your broken pen troubles, and I am sure you will be coming to its rescue in short order. Been looking forward to seeing your build.

CallSignOwl I am at a loss for words here, well not really I am totally impressed with this build, your best to date IMHO. Not only have you jumped into scratch building with both feet, and done some very nice work. But you had to go and do a pristine paint job on top of that, with a paint brush. Very nice fading and weathering. Fermis you had better watch out for this young lady, she is going to be giving you some competition soon.

And speaking of Fermis, your speed and skill can not be of this planet. Beautiful, stunning work on the B-26. Oh and where can I get a copy of the mag you are writing for ? I would love to see the secret parts of this build you spoke of.

Kermit yes the engine looks much better now, if I may, I would suggest a smaller diameter wire. I strip wires from phone cords ( the ones that go from the jack in the wall to the phone) they are about .007 dia. and believe it or not are much easier to work with for plug wires in 1/48 scale. Love your work on the gun bays, looks spot on to me.

The front page has been updated with the finished builds, and the added build. Thank you for sharing your work with us.

Owl,

Looking forward to your sharkmouth P40! Looks very tiny though.... hope your eyes are in shape

Fermis,

Gorgeous B26!!!! How on earth did you get that OD to look that way? I really like the yellowish hue it has. My own standard OD (Revell paint) looks much more bronze greenish). Love your work as always. And darn fast too Congrats

As i told you guys i would be working on the gunbays and fitting wings and stuff. I took the tip of using syringe needles as gunblast tubes and i'm very pleased with the look of it!:

And a total shot:

Richard

Very nice fermis! another beauty!

OWL

 Thanks SF

 Over time, the stuff goes away....I aint too worried. Just seems wierd. I look at some of my builds from way back, and the clear parts are flawless. But, when I think back, they were much worse, when they were first done. Up next? I got a Great Wall FW-189 on the way......pretty geeked about it. Hopefully, It'll live up to my expectations!!! I'll be doing a review for the same publication as this 26.

fermis:

 As always seems to be the case, all kinds of dust and whatnot has clung to the inside of the glass. Over time, the static disipates and the stuff goes away. Happens to me almost every single time.

Dang fermis at the speed of which you build I wonder how the dust even has a chance to settle!

It seems the clear plastic developed a static charge. I wonder if a small magnet glued behind the pilots seat would attract the dust away from the glass? Its worth a try on your next project. 

Regardless excellent build as always fermis! Whats next on the bench?

 I got the plane finished off this morning!!!!  Just have to paint up the fig (Ed Vollenweider), build a base, put the glass cover together, and write an article, and then the whole project will be finished!!! Oh yeah...and get paid!!!!!!!!

 As always seems to be the case, all kinds of dust and whatnot has clung to the inside of the glass. Over time, the static disipates and the stuff goes away. Happens to me almost every single time.

Thanks for another great GB V-man!!!

It still looks the part Kermit! I'll have to grab a 1/48 kit of mine to try out a bit of engine detailing, lord knows if its 1/72 I'll go mad!

As stated previously, while the Corsair was drying, I started to dink around with another kit. I would like to add another 1/72 plane to my list. Its a P-40 (or Kittyhawk Mk. I) by Hasegawa back when they were paired with Minicraft. I'll be painting this one up in a desert scheme because no P-40 looks right without that shark mouth!

I'll be adding detail to the cockpit and adding sidewalls. The kit supplied part is pretty bare and doesn't fit well, allowing you to see into the rest of the plane!

OWL

Fermis,

Stunning as ever!!, no wonder they want you in the mag.

Owl,

Brush painted you say?? Very very impressive indeed; love the faded look!

Ok boyz ('n gal),...

Been a bit busy with personal stuff this week (and the previous one), so not a lot of work done... I did not like the look i was getting last time i posted and tried to restart with wiring the engine front and back with two wires every cilinder.....didn't work out the way i quite wanted either so i opted (with a third start) for a compromise: copper wire on the front end of each cilinder... Sorry if i dissapointed people with that decision but i think it looks quite ok given the scale.

I have a 1/32 wildcat that looks more suitable for a "full" wiring though and will certainly strongly consider attempting it!

Anyways...pics!:

Adding a wash in the morning and on to the next stage...

Richard

 Looks well used and quite good Owl!

And, welcome to the wonderful world of plastic surgery......GETTING hooked???...You ARE hooked!!!! No turning back now!!!

I am writing for another magazine that is soon to hit the market. Pilot issue is due out within the next month or so. Hopefully, it'll make it! It'd be a nice addition to our FSM subs., can't get enough model mags!!!

thanks guys! Fermis, are you really building for an article in the mag? What for? IN any case thats pretty cool!

As promised, here are the completed pictures of my Corsair. I am really happy with how the paint came out, as well as with my first foray into major surgery/scratch building....but Im afraid I might be getting hooked to it!!

OWL

WOW Owl, I love the way that wing turned out...it looks like magic!!!

I've been hard at work. I'll save the boring stuff for the mag, here's what I got!

I sprayed a base coat of grey, then lightened grey randomly to break up the monotony. I did the same with the green, going with two lighter shades, so the top ends up slightly lighter than the lower portions.

The variation shows up a lot better "in person". She'll get a glosscoat and decals tomorrow. Should be finished this weekend. Then I gotta build a display case for the new owner. I recieved an email from him with a pic of his father, that flew this plane.

Ed Vollenweider (Revell screwed up the name on the decals....."Jolkenweider"....I'll have to fix that)

Almost forgot, here's that nav light.

I've been away from the bench for a short while.  Finally got back and was able to make some progress on my boat. I had to scratch build the bits on the bow and stern.  The main tow bit is also scratch-build (not in the picture). The rails are in place after some small modifications due to a poor fit. 

I had a paint pen break on me and ruin the paint job.  The hull had to pretty much be striped of all the paint.

The picture below is about a week old it only has a base coat of paint (and its been sanded).  Obviously BEFORE the paint incident.

If you guys have any suggestions on anything please let me know.. I'm all ears!

Thanks for the tip! I'll have to go through my jars and see if I can replace the seals. This white isn't the only jar that went all coagulated on me as of late...   

There was enough usable pigment left to get the undersides of the Corsair covered, albeit a bit crumbly in some places. But a quick pass with high grit sand paper smoothed it down nicely and even gave it a streaked/patchy look that complements the rest of the weathering on the plane. I have a decal-sealing coat of future on it right now so I should have completed pictures for you guys tomorrow. The final Flat coat will have to wait until I am reunited with my airbrush. (I tired hand-brushing the flat once....it wasn't pretty! )

OWL

Time to file that bottle of paint under 'G' for garbage!

OWL skip your morning coffee and use the 2$ to get a new jar of paint, it will save a lot of frustration attempting a 'save' on expired paint. 

*I submitted a readers tip regarding new lid seals on Testor's paints. Not sure if you all have them but milk & OJ 2 liter containers now have threaded lids. The safety seal gasket trimmed down makes for a excellent jar seal. Pull the factory paper one out & file under G as well. Every jar I own now gets the new seals, time will tell if its a perfect fix but so far everyone that is done and re-opened is just like new bottle fresh.

Miss Owl I cant even weather that well with an air brush

NO worries, I will still be in the dorms until Saturday and the corsair should be finished by then. Im ahead of what the pictures show, and I am liking the way this is turning out!! The only difficulties I am having is with the white undersides. I grabbed only a few colors to bring with me to the dorms, and I happened to grab a white that was going bad!!   Its all thick and crumbly, but I am making it work.

OWL

Brush painting...1/72 scale WOW excellent results!

I think you should complete the Corsair using the techniques that limit you in the dorms. Taking to project home over the holiday break will change the direction & dedication you have thus far. If need be break out another kit to work on at home.

Here is a quick teaser of the fading effects I am doing with paints (remember I am brush painting, no airbrush in the Dorms). I am liking the way this turned out. I also applied a similar technique to the decals too. It gives them a matching faded look.

OWL

While waiting for paint on the Corsair to dry, I started playing around with another kit...and decided I'm going to build it next!  It is another 1/72 scale plane, this one from Hasegawa back when they were paired with Minicraft. I'll be doing a shark-mouthed P-40 from North Africa.  From the looks of things, it will be getting a lot of scratch-built cockpit detail

OWL

Owl,

i am not entirely sure but i think the paint program that comes standard on every windows computer can resize .gif's too.

Personally i use animation shop (comes with the paint program paint shop pro) for creating .gifs but there are numerous free or trial programs outthere. Just google words like "gif" or "banner".

My own program also comes with this neat optimizer thingy. It gives you the best image quality while keeping the file size small. Great for internet use as bigger file sizes and images will take longer to download

Richard

alrighty! Thanks for the help joeviz!  

OWL

CallSignOWL

thanks joeviz, I got the GIF to work! But its kinda big...is there any way to make it smaller?

 

Yes, once you add it you signature click on it.  you should get small squares at each corner (if you dont, click away from it and click on it again).  You can then drag the squares down to re-size the image.

thanks joeviz, I got the GIF to work! But its kinda big...is there any way to make it smaller?

CallSignOWL

how do you do that?

You can try Gickr for the automated gif.  Not the greatest but its a start. You can also download software, just google for some.

As for combining all your badges well, I guess that depends if you are on a PC then you can download paint.net its free and easy to use.

how do you do that?