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Scorpiomikey Nice work so far everyone. In a way im kinda dreading my F-14. its got alot of PE which ive never used before. and ALOT of tiny tiny parts. Im still not sure if i should have the little winglets in or out. and im not sure if i should do it wings swept or extended.
Nice work so far everyone. In a way im kinda dreading my F-14. its got alot of PE which ive never used before. and ALOT of tiny tiny parts. Im still not sure if i should have the little winglets in or out. and im not sure if i should do it wings swept or extended.
afaik they deleted the winglets after a while anyway so i wouldnt bother with them. are you gluing the wings in position??
snow + 4wd + escessive hp = :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7egUIS70YM
"I am a leaf on the wind, watch how i soar"
Recite the litanies, fire up the Gellar field, a poo storm is coming
Check out my blog here.
some progress pics of the tomcat
I finally started..here are the kits. Only Thing I have done is clean up the parts and paint the interiors.
My Plan is to build both as Blue Angel birds.
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It kinda helped me to let gravity do the holding job, running tamyia tape from the wingtips to the upper fuselage after my styrene glue (i use revell contacta exclusively) becomes tacky. I really can't remember having alot of gap trouble there...maybe a bit on the undersides...
Richard
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Sir Winston Churchill
kermit Sorry Doogs, forgot to tell you that bit.... And from the pics you show i can tell you now that you probably will have to be cruel to those legs and maybe part of the cockpit floor too in order to have the wings fit into the fuselage...
Sorry Doogs, forgot to tell you that bit.... And from the pics you show i can tell you now that you probably will have to be cruel to those legs and maybe part of the cockpit floor too in order to have the wings fit into the fuselage...
Amazingly, I've been test-fitting the wings obsessively, and they seem to fit and line up just fine. It's actually not the fit I'm worried about, but the strength of the join. The wing "tabs" are really, really shallow.
I'm still trying to figure out how I can manage to hold wing, fuselage AND Touch-n-Flow all at the same time without three hands.
Right now I'm thinking I might bust out my Loctite adhesive. It's thick and slow-setting, but sticky enough that I could use it to help hold the tab in place while I Tenax the wing roots. That and I'm going to need to attach the real landing gear so I can keep the fuse more or less steady.
On the Bench: 1/32 Trumpeter P-47 | 1/32 Hasegawa Bf 109G | 1/144 Eduard MiG-21MF x2
On Deck: 1/350 HMS Dreadnought
Blog/Completed Builds: doogsmodels.com
... the cockpit's "legs" didn't seat properly on the lower fuselage's locating tabs. So I cut them off...
This bit of the build i have to admit is the major drawback of the kit but once you get the fuselage bits smooth and level with some filling and sanding work you will probably have smooth sailing from there. I agree that the three piece fuselage could have easily been avoided with some careful designing of the molds but if that is all that you have to solve with such a sweet and bang-for-buck kit i would personally be happy to accept that. I will most probably build another wildcat in the future as i am still eager to do an atlantic grey scheme provided in i believe the FM-1 offering of hobbyboss.
You are really doing great Doogs! Love all of it sofar.
I'm amazed how fast these Wildcats are going together.
Installed the gear bay guts and the lower fuselages last night. These were a pickle, since the lower fuse doesn't seat up very well without the cockpit/gear bay bits. Once they're in place, things get more complicated.
Since I installed the cockpit into the upper fuselage - per Kermit's suggestion - the cockpit's "legs" didn't seat properly on the lower fuselage's locating tabs. So I cut them off!
After that I still had to deal with the gear bay trestle/bulkhead assembly. I found that placing it in the lower fuselage, and clamping the forward end down with a clothespin did the trick and let me fit everything together more or less well. From there, I busted out the touch-n-flow and went to work. The fit was still rough, and I'm going to have a fair amount of seams to deal with, but I test fit the cowls on both 'cats and they fit great.
Also got the rudders, stabilizers, and the scoopy things (technical term) under the wings attached. Just need to get the landing struts, radio mast, and a few other details in place before I can move on to sanding/filling/priming.
More progress on the Wildcat twins tonight. The wife and kids get back from visiting grandparents in Houston tomorrow, so my progress will probably go back to it's slightly slower pace...
Managed to get through a good chunk of the major construction tonight. Both fuselage halves, and all four wings. Dear god, I'll probably end up dreaming about those wings tonight!
So far, I'm loving these Hobbyboss kits, except for two things. First, the fit of the gear bay trestles, which I'll see about tackling tomorrow. Second, the way their sprue attaches to the join seams. Typically sprue cutters and a quick swipe of a file or scrape of a knife are all I need, but these leave these little tabs that have to be filed perfectly flat in order for things to line up. Not a dealbreaker by any stretch, but annoying.
Also...I had to laugh at how pointless the cockpit work seems once it's shoved up into the fuselage!
Glad I didn't spend much time super-detailing things in there!
Mike, glad you are okay. When I heard about the quake in the news, I said a little prayer for you and yours.
Those Hobbyboss 'cats look great! I'm seriously thinking about picking one up now.
Last shift at work, I made some progress, but forgot my camera. I brought it today, so here is a little update. After doing some seam work, I sanded off a bit of detail, so I rescribed it. I also cut the flaps out too. That was a pain, as I should have done that to begin with. It was an afterthought, but I thought that they would look good sagging down a little. Hopefully, I will get the NMF parts done in the next few days, in preparation for the Dark Sea Blue. Nice kit so far.
Cheers,
Greg
- yat yas!
Gorgeous pits Doogs! Really like em. Those Hobbyboss cats are great in OOB detail, fit, price and ease of building. My hellcat (as i hoped and expected) is no different from that.
BTW, glad to hear nobody got hurt in the quake Scorpionmikey. I remember a little quake when i was a little boy with a force of 7.0 about 200 miles away. Still trembled me awake and out of bed from that far. I clearly remember wondering what the h*ck just happened
Anyways.... my WIP post....
Work on the hellcat is going at a steady pace and without trouble sofar. Only have to fill up the wing roots a bit and finalize construction before it hits the booth somewhere next week:
Due to the design of the model with "slots" for the wings this part went together seamless and without any filling up whatsoever.
The interior of the wings is very detailed OOB. Added a black wash to dirty it up. Still have to drybrush it a bit...
And when i dryfit the lot it looks like this:
Think i will paint the wings separate from the aircraft due to them being so close to the fuselage and to make masking work easier. News to follow soon! Thanks for watching
Got the Wildcat cockpits done tonight. Also got the gear bay trestle assemblies glued together, but those aren't interesting until they're painted...
Ultimately I decided against using the Mike Grant IP decals. The way things slot up into the fuselage, I'm not even sure the instrument panel will be visible without serious intent.
Instead I used a trick that I've found works really well for "good enough" gauges. After the drybrushing, I draw hashes and lines and such on the gauge faces with a silver Prismacolor pencil (I'm sure white would work even better...alas...you go to war with the colored pencil that you have, not the colored pencil you want), then apply a few drops of Future via toothpick to simulate glass.
It's not ideal, but for kind of buried instrument panels, it works pretty well. Who knows, maybe somebody else will find it of use.
Thanks Richard. Brush painted pit with Mike Grant dial decals on the panel. Each guage has to be cut from the sheet so a bit tedious. I still have to weather both pitsl but waiting until I finish the modifications for the rear bubble canopy. Paint is Model Master acryllic.
Chris
kermit kg4kgp, Very nice work sofar sir! Is that interior green brush painted? In any case i like the colour shift. Gives it a used worn look IMHO. What paints did you use? Also, is that IP a decal or painted? Like your work sofar Richard P.s. Medicman, Good luck on the moving!
kg4kgp,
Very nice work sofar sir! Is that interior green brush painted? In any case i like the colour shift. Gives it a used worn look IMHO. What paints did you use? Also, is that IP a decal or painted? Like your work sofar
P.s. Medicman,
Good luck on the moving!
Link to my built kits: http://s37.photobucket.com/user/kg4kpg/library/Planes?sort=3&page=1
Thanks for the support guys. I think the scarriest part is CHCH isnt prone to earthquakes. in the last century theres been about 6 in the greater cantabury area not including the latest ones.
Heres a picture to illustrate.
It reads Date followed by magnitude.
that quake has made the uk news mate! glad everybodys ok
iv got some wip pictures il post em when i cba
Yeesh...never lived anywhere prone to anything like an earthquake so I can only imagine. Glad you're alright.
Wow. Glad to hear ya'll are ok. My support and prayers to you all.
Building- (All 1/48) F-14A Tomcat, F-16C Blk 30, He 129
Hey guys, this threads been humming since i saw it last.
eatthis. its probly a bit far along for most GB's. but im interested to see it finished. do you have any WIP shots? If you backdate them ill accept them :P (bit like a cheque for the power bill lol)
Great work so far everbody. Sorry ive been a bit absent. Been dealing with a nasty earthquake. quite a bit of damage round town. 7.4 magnitude (some saying 7.1) 10km deep just outside of christchurch (where i live) Luckily me and the missus are fine. appartments fine. everyone in our area is fine. Ive made a thread in the odds and ends section to let people know.
Also Hans Von Hammer has had a few problems aswell, got a message from him this morning when i could get online again. If we could all send our support to him that would be awesome guys.
kermit I suppose nitpicking like this will occur for all eternity as almost none of us have actually seen combat in WW2. Your work is of the highest standard sofar and i did not intend to be a whining SOB in any way my friend. Richard
I suppose nitpicking like this will occur for all eternity as almost none of us have actually seen combat in WW2. Your work is of the highest standard sofar and i did not intend to be a whining SOB in any way my friend.
I'm so offended that I'm going to quit the forum!
In all seriousness, though, I dig this kind of back and forth. I think it makes us all better modelers and, yes, historians. Besides...I majored in history with a Classics bent...and I'm still a total dork for the middle Roman Republic. This is nothing next to the butthurt people get into debating such minutiae as when the legions started using the gladius we're all familiar with. I mean, none of us are staking academic careers on any of this.
And no worries about being a whining SOB! I was being a lazy SOB by just grabbing the bronze green without actually trying to run down what it looked like in an actual aircraft...
I stand corrected Doog. My assumptions are purely and entirely based on this essay i found on the IPMS stockholm website. To me their sample looked more like a greyish green gray as opposed to a greenish grey as you seem to have found valid.
Like Zinc Chromate, the term Bronze Green is generic and describes a dark green finish obtained using oxidized bronze as a pigment. Still used today, the term is another example of a name designating a chemical composition becoming the name of a colour. Many people associate the word Bronze with red-brown colour, but this is not the case for Bronze Green. The pigment itself contains mostly Copper Carbonate, a compound responsible for the green patina often seen on old Bronze monuments
http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2004/01/images/us_interior_colours_03.jpg
A bit more on the bronze green. I dug up Tom Cleaver's review of the Trumpeter F4F-3 over on Modeling Madness, and his bronze green looks pretty close to what I'm using:
http://modelingmadness.com/reviews/allies/cleaver/tmc-3.htm
His assembly order also has me thoroughly intrigued, especially since the Hobbyboss Wildcats are basically Trumpeter's 1/32 kits scaled down to 1/48th. I mean, fit the wings to the fuselage before the fuse halves are joined? Weird, but I was planning to assemble the wings ahead of the fuselage anyway, so I might just give it a go.
I think the real bronze green - at least the pictures I've been able to run down, has a lot more blue in it. It almost looks more like bronze aqua to me. But I think that might also be long-term wear. I haven't done the research to discover whether bronze green actually had bronze in it, but if it did the patina effect would explain the blue cast.
I just used straight Vallejo Bronze Green, which looks pretty close to Humbrol's bronze green, but just a touch darker:
Glad to hear the Hellcat's going together so well! Is it going to get the tri-color scheme or the later shiny blue?
Doog,
Sorry, missed your post initially... Your pits look great indeed. But is it your camera/ lighting or me... interior bronze green looks so greyish.... Don't get me wrong i really love your work sofar sir. Just curious.
My pit is fully assembled and painted. Just this afternoon (different timezone) i glued it together with the fuselage and also assembled the lower fuselage bit. Design has sofar been easier than the wildcats. No gaps, no problems just following the instructions. The putty and sanding part of these parts is in progress as i speak and WIP pics to follow soon
Only real critic i have sofar about this Hobbyboss hellcat is the fact that painting instructions are very sparse. After partial pit color suggestions, the instructions don't state any color instructions whatsoever. Anyone building this kit would have to do some research...
Sorry all. It looks like i'll be starting late. We're moving in a couple of weeks to the other side of town. Hopefully I can get settled quick and get my Tomcat out and started.
Okay, couple pics.
First is the instrument panel. Kind of blury, sorry. I used Mike grant IP decals.
Right side of the pit. Based on a pic I found I only have to add a smail remote control panel to the rear pit for the drone controller then modify the skin to accept the bearcat canopy. Anyone have a scrapped F8F with a good canopy you can spare?
The engines are just getting basic paint job but I am adding ignition wires.
this is the current state of the 1/32 cat is this elligable?
iv also got untouched 1/72 and 1/48 tomcats for this
Richard - nice bit of work on your Hellcat build!
Is the cockpit fully assembled? I've got mine staying up deck-of-cards style, and once I've got everything detailed the way I want I'm planning to shove it up into the fuselage and glue the bulkhead and instrument panel tabs from the bottom to make sure everything lines up just right.
kermit Macattack, Believe me, the Hobbyboss cats are alot of bang for buck I am confident you will love it!
Macattack,
Believe me, the Hobbyboss cats are alot of bang for buck I am confident you will love it!
Seconded. Got into my twin Wildcats tonight and I have to say I'm still loving the cockpit design. The fuselage halves seem a bit janky in terms of fit, but I think that's because of how they attach to the sprues and the fact that I haven't gotten around to full construction prep on them yet.
Here are a few cockpit WIP pics. The big sections are painted. Next up, touch-ups, drybrushing, details and then a wash. I'm contemplating whether or not to try out my new punch set and Mike Grant instrument decals. The kits seem perfect for them, but since they're being built as decoration for the kids' rooms I don't know if I want to use up such a precious resource...
Been working on my hwllcat for a bit now and have the pit and engine done:
Ok, back to the bench for me Thanks for watching.
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And from the pics you show i can tell you now that you probably will have to be cruel to those legs and maybe part of the cockpit floor too in order to have the wings fit into the fuselage...