Are the USAF markings etched into the plastic?

Okay.  I got some more done on the Hustler today.  Engine pods are assembled except for the exhaust cones.  I am thinking of just leaving them off until after I paint so I don't have to mask them.   I also assembled the fuselage halves, and masked the cockpit windshield.  I have a bit of smoothing and gap filling to do on the fuselage, but it's coming along nicely.  I have the nose and wing landing gear struts assembled and I will be painting them soon.  The wing leading edge has been installed on both wings and they are almost ready for paint.  Here are some images.

That's about it for now.  More as she progresses.

Rich

Welcome back striker.

Yeah Kiwi is a pretty standard term here. Thats why we put a kiwi in the roundels on our aircraft.

Just bought the Planet Models Bugatti 100 Racer. Cant wait for it to arrive.

Hello, Everyone!

Just got back from my vacation in Thailand. Had a great time but I'm bushed from travelling - 36 hours including layovers. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to the internet while there so I will be catching up on all the posts in the next few days and will be following up with any addressed to me.

Cheers to all,

Russ

Mike: Interesting, Kiwi is the only one of those I'd heard, wasn't really sure if it was a nice term or rude though. I suppose Yank is fine with most Americans but well down South here most people won't like it!

Rich: That's awesome! Never built an Aurora kit but I've heard so much about them. I have used that stupid non-toxic glue back when I was a kid. Ross brand I think. It stank on ice, won't hold worth a darn- glue the model together with it, let it dry, pick it up and the blasted thing would fall apart! Krystal Kleer ought to work fine for the windows - sometimes I just throw the small parts away and use it instead.

Nice work Dom.  It's starting to look airworthy.

Okay.  so I was having no luck with the F86, I finally decided that, after staring at it for over a year, I would rebuild a childhood memory, literally.

One Aurora Blue Box, Big A 1969 B-58 Hustler...

This was the first Bomber I built and only like the 10th aircraft in total.  I bought my first one for $5 at a small pharmacy a few doors down from my 4th. grade elementary school.  It was the last day of school and I had saved for almost the full school year for it.

Now I had some pretty bad restrictions back then.  For one, all my parents would let me use was that hideous lemon No-Tox model glue in the black and yellow tube.  You tended to develop some pretty creative glueing skills being forced to use that stuff.  And painting was limited to what I could get at a small craft shop in our town square.  I used the default red, black, and white color scheme that the plans called for.  I had to brush paint the entire thing since my folks had a strange aversion to me having any spray cans..  It may have stemmed from when I painted my Sister's doll blue...  Hey I wanted to see if the stuff would stick to doll plastic....

Now, I have some more tools and resources so I am hoping it will be an improvement.  And it is such a simple kit that it can.......  Um nevermind, I don't want to jinx myself.  Okay onto the beginning pics.

First, the box...

A real blast from the past.

Next up, some basic assembly, and paint gotten out of the way.

Landing gear struts assembled, and jet intakes and exhausts painted.  I used MM Steel for the intake cones and MM Jet Exhaust for the exhaust cones.

Wing and weapon pod sub assemblies glued and clamped.

Okay.  Now one of the most annoying things about this kit is that Aurora didn't include glass for the side windows.  I guess they wanted the pilots to catch a breeze or something.  Although they DID include the cockpit windshield.  Kind of dumb I know, but this was 1969.  So being creative and having had this issue before, I just smudged in a whole ton of MicroScale Krystal Clear on the inside of the fuselage half to form a window.  When it dries it should look really nice.  Some future will finish it off and make it very durable for masking before final paint.

Here is the other side.

That's about it for tonight.  I'll send some images tomorrow.  I might get the wings painted with any luck.

Rich

Seriously look at the Planet Models Bugatti 100 Racer. Not sure on it though. Never done a full resin kit, never used Vacform before. Kind of intimidated.

Noozies lol. We call ourselves Kiwis, or NZers. (Pronounced En Zed er's)

Hey you could always use Americainians.

I guess I go to bed too early!  Man, too funny!

Ken

Well, some things landed on Mars okay.....lol.......

Krikey, look at all the stuff we crashed on Germany....blowed up...real good.....metric guys tooo.....lol.....

We call you guys Noozies........like Snoozies.....

Get those fingers under control pal.......krikey......could end up in a door slammin''''....under a rockin' chair....runnin' through your hair when they should'n' be holdin' a sneeze.....er, or maybe right after?????..........lol....i keep mine in a jar at night.......with my teeth......wouldn't want them gettin' out together.....the havoc they would wreak......lol...........

I suppose, that makes sense, Canadia, or

maybe Canadans, like Americans......lol.....

Canadia sounds like something a dentist needs to look after....lol....

I forgot, can you imagine americians?

Would they care about capitalization?....lol

Bockscar

"we", i.e., "Mankind", landed on the moon in Imperial.....lol.......

And you crashed on mars by using both

I know its spelt with a capital. But my fingers run away on me sometimes.

My dad is from the imperial era, so its quite funny watching him (and my boss) use both in one sentence. "Thats what, a 3 foot tank 400mm from the wall?" hehe.

I figured id say America since i didnt know if you were from the U.S of A or from Canadia. (if you call your people Canadians im calling your country Canadia)

Scorpiomikey

Holy toledo. An american measuring in mm?

That rhino plasty looks like alot of work. How does the base fit now?

Hah! Well, as a guy that works in a lab I use both metric at work and imperial at home (yeah it does get confusing at times)

Dom: Great job!   Does this make my butt look big!?!

Well, Rich is from Toledo, Ohio, I'm from, Vaughan, Ontario, Canadian,

and it's 'American".....lol......you know my American bro's would shoot me

if I said "american," and that is because Amerigo Vespucci

insisted on having his name spelled in capital, er...UPpER-case, letTers....lol

What i did Mikey is use the original parting lines, so I'll send the fit pics

next time i grab the cam. I'm going to extend the fuselage body over the base wing assembly if

that is what you mean. Should be snug.

I measure in Imperial and Metric,

but I like to point out,

"we", i.e., "Mankind", landed on the moon in Imperial.....lol.......

Holy toledo. An american measuring in mm?

That rhino plasty looks like alot of work. How does the base fit now?

Okay;

So here's where I'm at with the F-4P 'hips' issue. I build at a tectonic pace, because I seem to cut open every kit rather than just glue it together. I started out in the balsa and carved wood era, my first plastic kit was an Aurora Panther......I dunno, 1962ish, but I had already made those little balsa gliders by then.....dang...Spent alot of time building Estes rockets.....Astron....ALPHA....V-2...Cobra....blah....blah....Astron JabberWockey......lol.....

yeah so here's the gig:

That's the Tamiya F-4C/D , reading about 79+80mm  on the plastic Micrometer....

and here's what I managed to balloon the kit out to using spars and good old shim technology:

and just under 79mm as it stands after the 'styrene-shim-assisted-angio-bulkheadio-transverso-plasty....

i was written up in the New England Journal of Styrene Surgical Medicine for this......my Nobel Prize for Styrene Medicine is pending.......lol....

See how much i had to warp the fargging thing out?...well at least it didn't explode.....::

See how I split the bulkheads and inserted shims to balloon the hips outward?....it's a cinch....

See how while i was doing all of this i was practicing for the Olympic Decathlon?....

See that middle spar, gosh, it held while I was forcing the hip-bones out........healthy connective tissue.....

See that big arrrow on my plastic micrometer because i am legally blind???? see that?????

Don't worry, it looks painful, as you can see,,,,lol,,,,, and it is, but the styrene exo-endo-skeleton heals miraculously:

Yeah......nice bone structure......

The plastic was very thin and crispy for 25 years or so, I had to re-line i.e. re-inforce the insides with a softer 'Green Sheet' "styrene tissue graft" errr.....stock....note the aluminum blood....."NURSE!!!!!!SPONGE!!!!!!!!!!STAT!!!!!":

I know that looks ugly, and it is.....like I performed open-heart-surgery on a big tom-cat, no anesthesia....lol....

So you see the difference between the Tamiya, a much later kit more attuned to detail accuracy,

and the old Revell standard. I'm not knocking Revell, the kit has been worth the tectonic time to finish.

Technology moves on.....I'll use the green-sheet stock to round out the tail pipes....

PS...note the big thick plates Tamiya slabbed onto the fuselage.

Berny told us in Dayton, and I think on the threads,  that Tamiya's engineers came to an Air Force Base in Vietnam to measure out an actual aircraft, and the one they got assigned to had battle damage and patches.......he sanded the boiler plate off.....he said the real patches were never that thick in scale, but the Tamiya guys thought it looked "cool".

So you can see I still need to cut a bit of styrene sheet to complete the "plastic surgery" to sculpt the hips into shape........"lateral contours approaching tolerances, no requirement for styreno-suction immediately indicated".......phew, I hate it when I "see that happen".....lol

MEK?

I think my brain is frying. Methol Ethel Kerotone? (sp).

OH BTW everyone, in case anyone is interested, I have some decal sets up on eBay.  UserID sparrowventure.  They're not anything super special, but they are nice sets.  I need to sell them to recoup some funds I spent on a kit for my Nephew.

I need more MEK.....

HAH! I need more caffeine........... 

  Cheers!

lol you guys are awesome.

Were you becoming defensitive?

Scorpiomikey

I didnt mean it to be a slap in the face. Just figured someone needed to set a time and place to stop mourning things we cant change. I hope i havent offended anyone.

Mike: I am horribly offendicated and just generally angryfied by that remark!!!!

Ok I'm over it now......

Actually I've been kinda annoyed at modeling and haven't done much over the weekend. I did pull some figures out and paint them though so I guess I got something done.

Cool, that would be impressive to see.

NZ didnt have much in the way of military presence in Vietnam. But dad was on the short list to go when the kiwis canned it. Apparently there was meant to be a small airforce contingent head over which dad was a part of (grease monkey) then then the plug got pulled. (thank god)

Hey on a brighter note, I spoke with my Dad's best friend tonight and invited him over for lunch this Sunday.  He is a big aircraft history buff, loved going to the USAF museum in Dayton with my Dad.  So we will have a good time talking about the old times and about aircraft and everything else in between.

On the description of the video that I sent in to have converted to DVD, half of it has the Saigon Zoo, then there is a tour of Saigon.  My Dad was stationed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Da Nang Air Base, and Nha Trang Air Base, so there is some footage at each base on the flight line.  There is also some brief aerial footage from I believe a C-123 of Saigon.

The last scene shows two RF-101Cs taxiing out very quickly to the runway then blasting off together.  Very impressive how quickly they can move from the parked spot to the runway and into the air!

Ken

Scorpiomikey

I didnt mean it to be a slap in the face. Just figured someone needed to set a time and place to stop mourning things we cant change. I hope i havent offended anyone.

Hi Mikey,

No no, I was totally joking around!  No I got exactly what you were driving at.

As far as the yellow tape, that might work but it would start adding to the thickness which is one of the things I was fighting with.  We will just wait and see how this acryl clear works.  It is pretty tough stuff when it is cured so it may do the trick.

Hey Dom, thanks for the kind words about my uncle.  My Mom is beginning to get depressed realizing that he probably does not have too much longer.  He is the last of her close family, so it is going to be a real bad thing when he does pass.

Ken

No offense taken Mikey,

I sure wish I had the power to stop

folks dropping though,

but it's not quite over yet.

If I sound a bit like an old fart,

well, that's what happened the last ten years....lol

They tell it won't get any better....lol....

My next project is to finish the intake ducts for the F-4P.

I have to break out the hairdryer to warm them up real good.

Hmmmmm.......90 tomorrow?.......might wait a bit on that.

Revell didn't scale the hips on the bird either, they are absent,

so I cut a paper pattern and I'm going to

cut styrene sheet stock. Those hips are a bit over 1/8th"

too narrow....the designers didn't even try to put them in.

I pulled the fuselage from a 1/32 Tamiya F-4C/D as a pattern.

I'm a bit put out at how much plastic I have to add to the Revell

And like Berny, surprised at how much I have to sand off the Tamiya.

-Dom

Son Of Medicine Man

Scorpiomikey

Has anyone built anything here recently?

Wow Mikey, what a slap in the face! I guess I needed that!  I decided that enough time has passed and I will make another attempt at the ejection seat handles.  I will try the suggestion by Mikey to use some acrylic clear on them first.  I used flat clear.  I will wait a couple of days to make sure it is good and dry and then I will make another attempt at bending them into shape.

How's that Mikey! 

Ken

Just had a thought. what about using black and yellow electrical tape with wire as a stiffener inside instead of trying to paint the wire?

Son Of Medicine Man

Hi Dom,

It sounds like you are the one that needs the friend right now.  Yes, you are right about it being the time in our lives, at least for those of us "baby boomers", where we start seeing more and more of our friends and relatives pass on.  My Mom's brother has cancer and from what little information we have been able to gather, it doesn't sound like he has much longer.  I am taking my Mom to see him next week since he lives a 3 hour drive away.

Ken

Sorry to hear about your uncle.

All the best to him and your family.

-Dom

I didnt mean it to be a slap in the face. Just figured someone needed to set a time and place to stop mourning things we cant change. I hope i havent offended anyone.

Does that include sanding and cutting wing spars?

I build slow most of the time, mind you i've already put in well over 100 hours on the F-4P.

Those J-79 burner cans were very persnickity and tore up about 3 months of weekends.

Right now I'm resuscitating an F-84F, if anyone has an extra canopy in 1/48 for that

I'ld be willing to trade.

I can't paint anything so I'm doing all the rough stuff on a number of kits.

As for picking up the pace, well, it is summer, so good luck on that.

Good news though, i bought a couple of kits,,,,,,lol.....