Official Alley Cat GB Sept2010-Sept2011

pepper kay

Scorpiomikey:

Er, F-86 isnt a grumman cat. Sure you got the right GB pepper?

 

Ooooops !! ...

Heh... Now you must don the prop-beanie , run around the inside of the hangar with your arms extended and making airplane noises, while singing "Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer"...

Hans von Hammer

pepper kay:

Scorpiomikey:

Er, F-86 isnt a grumman cat. Sure you got the right GB pepper? 

Ooooops !! ...

 

Heh... Now you must don the prop-beanie , run around the inside of the hangar with your arms extended and making airplane noises, while singing "Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer"...

Damn, gonna have to use your green beanie, as my DayGlo beanie is still at the dry cleaners ...

As far as running around, arms out and making airplane noises, my wife accuses me of already doing that ... particularly, if I hear a Merlin or a 'round engine' airplane go over our house ...

As far as singing goes, all who know me say my singing sounds like a hound dog with iits leg caught in a barbed wire fence on a cold night ...

What's one to do, sez me ...

pepper

Scorpiomikey,  A while back I had a problem with Photobucket and had to replace and move some files.  My F7F Tigercat was wiped out with this move.  I've since edited my posts and replaced the photos, but I cannot edit your post on the first page.  I feel bad that my finished aircraft is a lost photo icon.  Could you replace it with this.  Thanks.  Rick

No worries. Ill sort it all out now.

On a side note, I HATE MONDAYS

I'll build a Testors 1/48 Bearcat.

Well i've started. (Pick your jaws off the floor now). Here's a pic of the True Details cockpit. I was going to post a pick of the cockpit (painted of course) but I ran out of paint (rattle can) in the middle of it. So I gotta bust out the airbrush to finish painting it. More later.

Opps. Forgot to post the pic of the decals. They're from Eagle Strike but I'm not sure if I like them. Gonna try to get the just released ones from Fightertown Decals as they look sooo much better.

I used eagle strike once, i wasnt overly impressed with them. Especially after using ventura decals. I felt they were quite thick. Even so, thats a mighty striking scheme. I like it.

Forgot to mention, front page is updated. Welcome aboard personman.

Horizontal surfaces are on the bearcat.

Waiting for a decal bond to arrive at the LHS so i can sort the markings out. 

I started a WIP thread on this build back on page 22 and I finally got some time on the model bench after work and family commitments kept me busy for nearly a month.  I applied two coats of Gloss Sea Blue on the recce bird and started the fighter-bomber version that is going to be the Blue Tail Fly.  That will be covered in a separate thread.

Today's efforts:

Darwin

I would like to enter my third project for this GB.  It is the 1/48 Monogram F9F-5 Panther and I will be finishing it in the same NMF and Gloss Sea Blue.

Darwin

I almost forgot to post the pics of the finished cockpit.

Wow, you 2 are motoring along. I ran out of CA so i cant do anything else for a bit.

Medic, that cockpit looks awesome.

Yardbird. Thats a better job than i did on my corsair. Looks fantastic. Hope you get more time at the bench this month.

Ill update the front page shortly.

Lights, camera, action, let's go take some pictures of the bad guys.  This is the 1/48 Monogram F9F-5P Recce Panther, BuNo 126278 in the markings of VMJ-3, NAS Miami, Florida, May 1954.  Most of the planes in this squadron had white noses on the fuselage and silver noses on the tip tanks.  I found a photo of this particular BuNo without those, so that is the way I did the model.  It also did not have the bare metal leading edges on the stab.
- The overall parts fit was very good and required just a tiny bit of filler.  The only exception was the camera bay panel on the belly.  It had a huge gap on the front half of one side.  I normally don't use the pilot figures, but this one was pretty decent, so I painted it up and can put it the CP or leave it out.  It required a whole handfull of BBs in the nose to avoid being a tail sitter.  The instructions are not very clear about the placement of the actuating strut for the main landing gear and I just guessed at it.  I later found some detailed pictures of this area and I had put it in wrong, rotated 90 degrees from what it should be.
- The decals are from the kit and went on extremely well with just a little Micro Set.  The red band on the tip tanks didn't like the compound curves, but eventually settled in fairly well.  Everything is in register and all of those litttle ground crew instructions are fully legible, even if I DO need a magnifying glass to read them. 
- I used Wally World rattle can for the primer and Model Master Gloss Sea Blue enamel for the basic finish.  The decals went on over that and then I put Model Master Acryl Semi-Gloss clear over them.  Tamiya Acryl clear red and green took care of the marker lights on the wing tips, belly and tail.  I hand brush painted the white and blue on the canopy frame without masking after dipping in Future.

On to the photos:

Darwin, O.F. 

Wow, fantastic. You hand painted the canopy? That is a spectacular example of hand painting.

Ill update the front page.

I'm out.  Unfortunately, when I was installing some fuselage details, a rather large hammer that I kept for some reason on top of my spares/sprue/tools drawers was knocked over by my cat and hit the plane, breaking it.  I am dropping out of the GB because of this unfortunate disaster.

Yardbird,

Spectacular results on your photo Panther.  That is an amazing build, especially with no aftermarket parts, not even decals.

Grandma L

Scorpiomikey - would you mind pulling my Tamiya F4F and Eduard F6F off the build roster? My eyes were clearly bigger than my stomach when I went on a GB spree last year!

Instead, can you put me down for Trumpeter's 1/32 F8F-2 Bearcat? FedEx just dropped it off today ($42 + free shipping on eBay).

Hey guys, updates might be few and far between, ill try and keep up as best i can but with everything going on, i dunno. If someone could start a post to keep things updated that would be awesome.

As for me i might possibly be out too. I cant even find my bearcat anymore. last i saw of it was one of the tail planes sitting on the floor which WAS securley attached to the model. Of the rest of the aircraft. no sign. see what happens when we go back and clean up.

thanks for all the support and ill be on as often as i can.

Unfortunately, there ARE a few things in life that are more important than modeling.  Yikes, what blasphemy!   Do the things that NEED doing, take care and visit back often.  Thanks for all the effort that you have put into this GB already.

Darwin, O.F. 

Hi All:

I've been, again, fighting a nasty case of pneumonia - hospital stay and all ... but ...

Finally have gotten underway with my GB ...

Have started an F-7F-3 Tigercat and and F-8 Bearcat ... surprise paint schemes on both, so hope everyone likes what they see ...

Will be posting some WIP pictures over the weekend  ...

As an aside, I just captured a TBF Avenger - not a 'cat', but this is interesting and I need a bit of advice ... the kit box top is signed by the only Avenger pilot  to survive whilst flying from Midway Island during the great, pivotal battle of Midway in 1942 ...

Included inside the box were some 8 x 10 B/W photos of the pilot and his gunner (who also survived the battle) + a bio on each and some other items of historical interest ... cost me $5.20 and the box contents, other than the kit itself ,were a complete surprise  ...

I'd like to pose a question to the group ... should I build the kit (it's simply a Plain Jane 1/72 Academy kit) or should I leave it all in the box and perhaps get the kit box and the photos framed in a shadow box of sorts ? ...

Thanks,

pepper

A long time coming, but I made some progress.  I painted the blue the other night.  This morning while de-masking I managed to already drop it (twice).  Despite that, it is heading in the right direction.

Cheers,

Greg

A wee shining light, the bearcats fine. one tailplane broke off. the rest is fully intact, no damage. It was hiding in the v of an open book so it got pretty well protected.

All we lost was a few plates, everything else is fine. That and about $1000 worth of food from the fridge freezer.

Ill update the front page now.

I am glad to hear that everyone is OK with no serious damage.  The food can be replaced, even if it DOES make a dent in the budget.

Darwin, O.F. 

I finally got some work done on the Panther.  I epoxyed a bunch of BBs in the nose to ensure that it is not a tail sitter and painted a few fiddly pieces.

Darwin, O.F. 

Wow. Looks like everyone is having things going on.

Scorpiomikey-  Glad to hear you're ok. My prayers to you all down there.

Pepper Kay-  Good to hear that you're feeling better. I just got over being sick as well, although not as bad as pnuemonia.

Looks like my builds gonna be on hold for a while (End of the month). Between both jobs and having to recertify my EMT, I have very little time. Rodeo is going on here and that keeps me really busy. I'll try to get to it when I finish doing the recertification stuff. Sorry all.

I finished my RF-84F for the Recce Group Build over at ARC a few days ago, so now it is back to the F9F-5 Panther.  I painted the interior details, added nose weight, glued the fuselage halves together and added the wings and stabs.  It needed some putty on the upper nose joint and one little spot underneath.  I sanded everything smooth, down to 2400 grit sandpaper, meticulously cleaned everything and applied two coats of Future.  I misted on a coat of Alclad II, Duraluminum and then after a couple minutes, came back with a heavier coat.  It actually turned out rather well.  It was dry to the touch after only about 15 minutes, but I plan to wait at least a couple of days before handling it anymore.  It will have to be masked off for the Gloss Sea Blue tail, then the decals applied and the pylons & ordnance added.

Darwin

I masked off some panels and sprayed them slightly different shades of Alclad.  The nose is burned metal and the fuselage panels are chrome aluminum.  I was rather surprised when the masking tape pulled off a small amount of the first coat of Alclad in couple of places.

Darwin

masked and ready for paint

done

bottom view

That looks real nice Darwin!  You are going to finish two Panthers before I ever get mine done.  And they look MUCH better than mine.

Cheers,

Greg

Yeah they look pretty flash. Im in the same boat as greg. youll finish 2 before im even onto painting my first lol.