Vietnam Air War GB - Extended!

I have more kits on the line for this GB. 1/72 O'' Mania is my mai9n focus right now and my A-24 Banshee conversion. I will be back to this GB shortly.

eatthis

youre doing a great job on this

Thank you Eatthis!

Ken

youre doing a great job on this

Hi Everyone!

I got some rest last night, so tonight I was able to get some work done at the bench.  The Metalizer showed up today as well so tonight was a good night!

This first picture is a shot of the avionics bay after I buffed it.  It really shines up pretty good.

 In these next pictures I show the work I put into masking the auxiliary air intakes.  It takes a lot of patience, tweezers, and more patience!

 Here is what they look like after I painted the Meatlizer:

I will have to do a little touch up but not too bad.  I will buff them tomorrow night.  Then I will add a little color and contrast to bring out some detail.

Ken

Dogfish_7

Nice work on the bays!

Thank you Bruce!

Ken

Nice work on the bays!

Hi Everyone,

After considerable thought I came up with a plan on how I am going to apply the Metalizer to the auxiliary air intakes and the avionics bay.

For the auxiliary air intakes I will mask off the engine which will be painted with the Metalizer and paint the green zinc chromate (enamel) with an air brush on the inside walls.  Then after the green cures I will mask that off and apply the Metalizer with an air brush to the engine.

For the avionics bay there is so little area that will need to be green I will paint it by hand with a brush.  So I will paint it first with the Metalizer (spray bomb, since that is all I have on hand at the moment) and hand paint the green afterwards.

Here in these first pictures are the auxiliary air intakes with the engine masked off:

 And here they are with the green zinc chromate sprayed on:

 Here is how they turned out with the masking tape removed:

 And here is the avionics bay with the Metalizer painted on:

According to the directions, it is supposed to be sprayed on as a mist.  But that spray bomb only comes out as a water fall!  It is already pretty shiny without buffing it.  The directions say to buff it after it dries which is suposed to only take an hour.  But as thick as it came out I will wait until tomorrow night.

Ken

Second f104 has been delivered so i am back in the game. Turning into an expensive build, lets hope norhing else goes wrong.

Please E-mail me you completed builds so I can add them to the main page : tcepilot@gmail.com

looks great to me

Incredible work on the Sea Horse!! Looking awesome!

Found my build for the Group. F-104C Starfighter ' U.S.A.F.' ( 198th TFS Air Natinal Guard DaNang, VN.

Ok Here is my Seahorse, sorry for the lack of Wip's though.

Hi Everyone,

I think I have the cockpit, avionics bay, and front wheel bay cut, filed, and sanded to where they are going to fit together.  Here is the front view picture:

 And here is the side view:

 Another shot a little closer showing the cockpit and fuselage seam:

When it is time to glue this all together it is going to be intense.  I will have to use 30 minute epoxy so I will have time to get everything lined up.  The avionics bay since it is going around a curve in the front will have to be pushed in at the front using a wedge under the rubberband while the epoxy sets.

The next step is to paint the auxillary air intakes so that they can be glued in place inside the fuselage before the fuselage halves go together.

Ken

Unfortunatly its not a short shot, the rest of it was t

here at one point, the other fuse half is cracking in the same place too, weel out of production i think so its off ebay

Hi Talentless,

Looks like a "short shot", where the plastic didn't fill the mold all the way at the factory.  If that kit is still in production, you should be able to contact the manufacturer and they will send you a replacement.

Ken

was doing ok till this

sd by omgpainful, on Flickr

would just stich it back together , but no idead where the mising bit is  .looks like ill have to buy another damn kit, im never going to finnish this damn build, i know it 

looks a bit snug!

Hi Everyone!

I realized that it has been a while since I posted any pictures of my progress.  It is slow and tedious but here is how it looks so far.

In this first picture I have it all stuffed together and held together with rubber bands.  This is what I do to find where I need to file, sand, or cut next:

You can see there is still a small gap there in the top front.  That is what I am currently working on getting rid of.

In this next picture you can see the avionics bay.  You can see how it is sticking out towards the front.  I will be working on that next after I get the fuselage halves to meet.

 The next picture is from the bottom showing the front wheel bay:

 And now here is how it looks on the inside with the left side fuselage removed.  You can start to see how crowded it is.  Also take note of the sanding, filing, and cutting marks:

 This next picture shows the view from behind the cockpit.  You can see how it is flush up against the fuselage:

 And finally here is the view from the front of the cockpit.  Also note the cut into the avionics bay for the cockpit to fit into:

The sidewall of the cockpit is already paper thin.  When I hold it up to the light you can see right through it!

Ken

my comment looked more sarcy than i meant it im glad you took it as i intended and a honestly do feel for you!

we occasionally get bad floods over here (iv never seen any myself though) and it trashes everything APART from the actual houses. the odd old building becomes unsafe/falls down but 99.9% are fine

Son Of Medicine Man

eatthis

thats it?! you have bloody awefull weather and still build houses on the cheap?

you have my utmost sympathy fella i hope you get what you want and i hope you dont have any more problems

The United States covers a very large area.  Consequently the weather is quite different depending on what area of the United States that you are in.  There are areas that rarely go below freezing, areas that are quite humid, areas that are very dry, etc.  And a house that is built out of lumber can be made very strong and durable.  It is a matter of proper maintenance.

I think what you are talking about is the hurricane Sandy victims.  This was a very very rare occurance, not a normal type of weather event.  And the significant damage was flooding, so no matter what type of building material, it would have been destroyed if it was not high enough.

Ken

Any new construction in the flood zones have to be above the new FEMA heights, so all houses must be built on pilings and any exsisting homes must be raised upon pilings, or you won`t be able to get flood insurance. There are rumors about the new flood ins premiums being anywhere from 5k to 30k a year in the velocity zones, if you don`t raise your home! And...every house on my street would have to be raised `cause we`re in the "V" zone...amazing because there`s prolly 80+ houses on this block alone, not to mention the rest of the lagoon section, which have thousands of homes on "slabs"!

eatthis

thats it?! you have bloody awefull weather and still build houses on the cheap?

you have my utmost sympathy fella i hope you get what you want and i hope you dont have any more problems

The United States covers a very large area.  Consequently the weather is quite different depending on what area of the United States that you are in.  There are areas that rarely go below freezing, areas that are quite humid, areas that are very dry, etc.  And a house that is built out of lumber can be made very strong and durable.  It is a matter of proper maintenance.

I think what you are talking about is the hurricane Sandy victims.  This was a very very rare occurance, not a normal type of weather event.  And the significant damage was flooding, so no matter what type of building material, it would have been destroyed if it was not high enough.

Ken

thats it?! you have bloody awefull weather and still build houses on the cheap?

you have my utmost sympathy fella i hope you get what you want and i hope you dont have any more problems

eatthis

are timberbuilt houses common over there?

almost all houses in the uk are brick what are the advantages of timber?

In a word, cost.  It is much cheaper to build a house out of wood than brick.

Ken

are timberbuilt houses common over there?

almost all houses in the uk are brick what are the advantages of timber?

troublemaker66

LOL! Last thing I need! It`s just supposed to rain down here, we`ll see. Had an inspector for FEMA at the house yesterday to do paperwork for an SBA loan...so we can get moving forward. Bad news tho`...I guess in how you look at it...the house appears to be non-liftable, so...it has to be torn down and a new one built on pilings. We`ve been looking at modulars...pretty affordable and it`ll be  way faster to get back home than if it were built "stick and frame". Well, at least we`ve made a little progress but, have a long way to go.

Son Of Medicine Man

Hey Len,

I hope you don't get slammed by the snow heading your way.

Ken

yeh the arrow is a very similer story to the tsr2 :(

the us probably got the arrow murdered i dont think they had any direct involvment in the tsr2 affair but they were certainly glad it died (there was a very real chance that it wouldve been better than the f111)

Hey Len,

I hope you don't get slammed by the snow heading your way.

Ken

eatthis

youre correct thats my what if story lol

the tsr2 saga pretty much killed the uk aviation industry stone dead!

technically it was brilliant the manedgement of the entire project was an absolute disgrace and a total farce from day 1!

techniaclly brilliant but murdered by polotics you guys poached most of our engineers after that too lol

Okay, now I understand.  Yes, Canada also had a project but actually looked to be a very successful aircraft that was cancelled.  The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow.  It also put Avro out of business.

Here in the U.S. a project that I have great interest in that has a lot of controversy was the Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing.  It was also cancelled, and all aircraft completely destroyed and melted down including the earlier YB-35s.  None survived.

Ken