Looking good Ken, seems like nothing ever fits just right and you have to fiddle with it, guess that's why we all have so many modeling tools.

The AH-64 was all painted, preshaded, and glossed for decals and I found a huge honking seamline running right along the top. I have no idea how I missed it before. Puttied and sanded, hopefully will get her repainted this weekend, grumble, grumble.

Hey Guys!

I started building another armor kit, Academy`s M3 Lee Super-Detailed kit.

This is kinda "fast-forward" to where it presently stands. Very detailed interior and entire kit for that matter.

This is the turret "basket" . Each round is painted Tamiya Gold Leaf and tipped with a fine tip silver paint marker.

Called out sick from work today...just feel run down. Hopefully I`ll get some bench time today!

Thanks for looking!

Len

Len: Looks great! I was following your post over on the armour forum but hadn't posted on your new work yet so I'll just post here. I really like the way you dinged and chipped up the interior finish.

mikeymize

Coming along nicely Ken. Having 7mm not being enough is better than it being too much. The amount of time and thought given this project and your attention to detail is very impressive. Between work, my girlfriend and just goofing around I could never pull it off. Even so, the pics and tips are great so keep 'em coming!

Thank you for saying that Mike, I really appreciate hearing that!   

Ken

Gamera

Looking good Ken, seems like nothing ever fits just right and you have to fiddle with it, guess that's why we all have so many modeling tools.

The AH-64 was all painted, preshaded, and glossed for decals and I found a huge honking seamline running right along the top. I have no idea how I missed it before. Puttied and sanded, hopefully will get her repainted this weekend, grumble, grumble.

Total bummer Cliff!  I know I have said this before but I will say it again.  I hate redoing something, even to the point I will look for something else to work on to put it off!   

Ken

troublemaker66

Hey Guys!

I started building another armor kit, Academy`s M3 Lee Super-Detailed kit.

This is kinda "fast-forward" to where it presently stands. Very detailed interior and entire kit for that matter.

This is the turret "basket" . Each round is painted Tamiya Gold Leaf and tipped with a fine tip silver paint marker.

Called out sick from work today...just feel run down. Hopefully I`ll get some bench time today!

Thanks for looking!

Len

Wow Len, that is amazing detail!  Nice job!      You have been working too hard, no wonder you feel run down!   

Ken

Hi Everyone,

Two words.  Frustration and disappointment.  I began working on the fitting the other exhaust to the left fuselage and noticed that it was fitting differently.  First I will show off how nice they look from behind when they are simply placed inside with the fuselage and lower wing fitted together:

And now for the bad news.  The exhaust nozzles are different sizes.  Both in diameter and height!  I don't know if Eduard Brassin had a different batch of resin for each one that shrunk differently or the molds didn't match.  Here are the pictures that shows the differences:

In this first one you can see the difference in height:

And in these next two you can see the difference in diameter.  This first one shows the one side matched up even with each other:

And without touching anything I took another picture from the other side and you can see how the one on the bottom is wider than the one on the top:

If you are wondering why I am making a big deal out of this, when I put them into the fuselage together, you may not notice right away the diameter is different (I do now however), but the difference in length is definitely noticeable!

I am going to find the contact information for Eduard Brassin and see if I can get replacement nozzles.  Of course it will be a major undertaking to repair since I have epoxied the nozzles into place.

Ken 

Ken, that's yet another bad break. I found out that resin does shrink, because I bought some True Details seats one time and they appeared to be way undersize to fit my cockpit! I put a pilot on it and he looked as if he were sitting in a kiddy seat! It seamed odd that they would be molded that way and figured maybe I had a bad set myself.

Do contact Eduard! I had great customer service from them. I lost a painted film out of one of my interior sets one time, sent them an email asking if it were possible to purchase a replacement! They mailed one all the way from the Czech Republic no charge! Took about three or four weeks, but I was impressed! Ironically, one evening while crawling around on the floor looking for yet another lost part, guess what I found?

  I spent some time doing bits on the Tiger-painted mufflers and machine gun their base color:

And painted inside surfaces of the hatches, plus parts of the tow cables:

I'm going with the suggestion of the dark gray,  and I went for the darkest gray I have. Dark European Gray. However, when I opened the bottle, it appeared to be solid. I probed with a toothpick and found some liquid below. I salvaged enough to use for brushing, but would never try what was left in the airbrush. As far as the suggestion of using a bit of pencil lead shavings to rub on, I can do better: I have a tube of graphite lock lubricant, which should work well, I think.

Painting the molded on cable is going to be a pain:

Also a side project:

My Mp3 player no longer plays out of both sides, so I did some surgery:

Seems the patient has some cracked solder joints.

Too late for further surgery tonight, better get off to bed.

Ken: Wow that's some quality control there! Yes, by all means contact Eduard's customer support. I ordered some PE a few years back that was supposed to have one fret of PE for the A sheet and two identical frets for sheet B. Someone had packed it with one fret for both A and B. Contacted Eduard and they shipped out the missing fret free of charge, no muss, no fuss.

Jim: The graphite lube should work just as well, probably better. I used to use gunmetal paint but it's just too silver looking. Good work there so far, not much left to go.

jimbot58

Ken, that's yet another bad break. I found out that resin does shrink, because I bought some True Details seats one time and they appeared to be way undersize to fit my cockpit! I put a pilot on it and he looked as if he were sitting in a kiddy seat! It seamed odd that they would be molded that way and figured maybe I had a bad set myself.

Do contact Eduard! I had great customer service from them. I lost a painted film out of one of my interior sets one time, sent them an email asking if it were possible to purchase a replacement! They mailed one all the way from the Czech Republic no charge! Took about three or four weeks, but I was impressed! Ironically, one evening while crawling around on the floor looking for yet another lost part, guess what I found?

  I spent some time doing bits on the Tiger-painted mufflers and machine gun their base color:

And painted inside surfaces of the hatches, plus parts of the tow cables:

I'm going with the suggestion of the dark gray,  and I went for the darkest gray I have. Dark European Gray. However, when I opened the bottle, it appeared to be solid. I probed with a toothpick and found some liquid below. I salvaged enough to use for brushing, but would never try what was left in the airbrush. As far as the suggestion of using a bit of pencil lead shavings to rub on, I can do better: I have a tube of graphite lock lubricant, which should work well, I think.

Painting the molded on cable is going to be a pain:

Also a side project:

My Mp3 player no longer plays out of both sides, so I did some surgery:

Seems the patient has some cracked solder joints.

Too late for further surgery tonight, better get off to bed.

Great detail work Jim!  I still can't believe how you do it at 1/72 scale!  You could be an eye surgeon!

And good job on troubleshooting your MP3 Player!  That will save you some money fixing it instead of throwing it away and buying a new one!

Ken

Hi Everyone,

That is good news to hear from both of you Jim and Cliff about Eduard's support.  I submitted a "request" on their website last night explaining the problem.  I haven't heard back from them but hasn't been 24 hours yet.  Aires was pretty quick about sending the replacement for their kit, so hopefully Eduard can match them on response time.

Ken

Good luck Ken. I don't remember how quickly they got back to me. I can never figure the whole international date line and time zones, but I think it was probably already Saturday there.

Worked late tonight and then stopped at the home center to get a new float valve for my evap cooler so I can repair it in the AM. I did piddle a bit with the Tiger, touching up some things, but spent most of my time trying to remember where I put my solder pencil so I could fix the Mp3 player. I finally found it in the strangest place: in a tool box I had put together last year in an old tackle box I made into an electrical tool box! Sometimes I think my brain is turning to mud, but it may be the fact that so much has happened in the last year, with work, losing Mom and everything else, there has been a lot to occupy my mind!

Did get my little toy fixed:

jimbot58

Good luck Ken. I don't remember how quickly they got back to me. I can never figure the whole international date line and time zones, but I think it was probably already Saturday there.

Worked late tonight and then stopped at the home center to get a new float valve for my evap cooler so I can repair it in the AM. I did piddle a bit with the Tiger, touching up some things, but spent most of my time trying to remember where I put my solder pencil so I could fix the Mp3 player. I finally found it in the strangest place: in a tool box I had put together last year in an old tackle box I made into an electrical tool box! Sometimes I think my brain is turning to mud, but it may be the fact that so much has happened in the last year, with work, losing Mom and everything else, there has been a lot to occupy my mind!

Did get my little toy fixed:

Nice job Jim!  Yes, you are completely excused for forgetting where you put that sodering pencil after the year you had last year!

I am sitting here at work again.  Waiting on my fellow network admin to do his thing so I have some time to kill.

On another note, I have decided against killing that hornet's nest myself.  After doing some research on it, and the fact that I am so allergic to the bastards, I am going to call a professional on this one.  With the size of the nest, from the research I have done, there are most likely thousands of hornets in that nest!

Ken

Son Of Medicine Man

On another note, I have decided against killing that hornet's nest myself.  After doing some research on it, and the fact that I am so allergic to the bastards, I am going to call a professional on this one.  With the size of the nest, from the research I have done, there are most likely thousands of hornets in that nest!

Ken

Ken! Absolutely do not attempt to tackle them yourself! At the risk of the possible consequences, you better take no chances! I've taken on a couple of nasty ones over time, but I'm just stupid and don't have the risk you do. My last encounter cost me three stings and I was ill for a couple of days, but for you....

I had one that they had found a loose board on the side of my house and built a nest in the wall. I managed to climb up the ladder, armed with my cordless drill and some screws, and screw shut the opening as they began to swarm! I dove off the ladder to avoid them! Like I said, I'm stupid! I think that one must of had thousands! For days the ones trapped outside the wall searched for their nest as the ones inside slowly died.... I had another nest in my B-B-Q grill. Can you guess what happened to them?

Today I had to perform a repair on the cooler. A hole has rusted through the bottom and I was lucky because where it was, the water could have leaked into the house. I patched and now I'm sitting here, waiting the prescribed 8-24 hours for the cooler sealant to cure. It's fortunate that the temps here today only got to the upper 70's, unlike earlier this week when we were at 97 on Monday. The idea of being on the roof in that heat and how hot the inside of the house would have been.....

The dang thing is shot and to replace it would come near around 7 or 8 hundred bucks, and that's doing the work myself! To have it done would be closer to 3 grand!

Maybe it won't be too hot this evening in the hobby room to work, as I think I'll wait until morning to refill the cooler.

jimbot58

Son Of Medicine Man

On another note, I have decided against killing that hornet's nest myself.  After doing some research on it, and the fact that I am so allergic to the bastards, I am going to call a professional on this one.  With the size of the nest, from the research I have done, there are most likely thousands of hornets in that nest!

Ken

Ken! Absolutely do not attempt to tackle them yourself! At the risk of the possible consequences, you better take no chances! I've taken on a couple of nasty ones over time, but I'm just stupid and don't have the risk you do. My last encounter cost me three stings and I was ill for a couple of days, but for you....

I had one that they had found a loose board on the side of my house and built a nest in the wall. I managed to climb up the ladder, armed with my cordless drill and some screws, and screw shut the opening as they began to swarm! I dove off the ladder to avoid them! Like I said, I'm stupid! I think that one must of had thousands! For days the ones trapped outside the wall searched for their nest as the ones inside slowly died.... I had another nest in my B-B-Q grill. Can you guess what happened to them?

Today I had to perform a repair on the cooler. A hole has rusted through the bottom and I was lucky because where it was, the water could have leaked into the house. I patched and now I'm sitting here, waiting the prescribed 8-24 hours for the cooler sealant to cure. It's fortunate that the temps here today only got to the upper 70's, unlike earlier this week when we were at 97 on Monday. The idea of being on the roof in that heat and how hot the inside of the house would have been.....

The dang thing is shot and to replace it would come near around 7 or 8 hundred bucks, and that's doing the work myself! To have it done would be closer to 3 grand!

Maybe it won't be too hot this evening in the hobby room to work, as I think I'll wait until morning to refill the cooler.

Well Jim it sounds like you and I have a lot in common.  We are both DIY kind of guys!  That is why I was going to take on that nest.  I was planning on making my own "wasp suit" by putting on gloves and a ski mask with goggles, using a lot of duct tape to seal my pants and sleeves etc..  But after researching it, those darn hornets are just too aggressive to mess around with.  And I already know how just one sting can kill me.  And every website said over and over to leave hornet's nest to professionals!  Normal wasp's nest sure, but not hornets.

Ken

Well, I have always been a kind of 'DIY' guy who likes fiddling with things. I enjoy working with my hands.

After today with uncounted trips up the ladder to fix the air cooler, and this included cutting a bunch of branches that were rubbing on the roof, I feel a bit stiff and sore. My labors didn't do much good for my wrist, either. Looks like it will be some Tylonol to get me fixed up for bed.

The weather gave me some issues today as well as it began to rain as I was putting everything back together on the cooler. Tense moment trying to climb down the wet ladder, but I made it ok. It did cool down nicely, though.

Spent a bit of time finally at the bench:

Though you can't see it, the top was rubbed with graphite as suggested. The lock lube didn't work so well as I found it to be like tiny little flakes, and not a powder. Had to search for a pencil, and finally came up with some old pencil leads, in the bottom of a drawer, back from when mechanical pencils used those leads that were about as thick as a small nail! They have to be about 30 years old! I was able to grind some of that up on a piece of sandpaper.

Managed to paint whatever cable that is that's attached here:

Still not sure just what it is, since it can't be a tow cable-there's obviously two of them already!

I also drilled out the exhaust a bit to bake them a little more real:

Better be off to bed, I suppose.

Nice job Jim!  (Again!)    Great idea on drilling out those exhaust pipes.  How you did it at that scale is beyond me though!

Ken

Hi Everyone,

I found a great link to a website.  It is called "Forgotten Jets", and it has an extensive database of military aircraft (jets of course!) grouped by type and listed by serial number.  It has some detailed information about it's history and current location along with a picture in most cases.  Here is a link:

http://www.millionmonkeytheater.com/ForgottenJets.html 

Pretty cool!

Ken

Son Of Medicine Man

Hi Everyone,

I found a great link to a website.  It is called "Forgotten Jets", and it has an extensive database of military aircraft (jets of course!) grouped by type and listed by serial number.  It has some detailed information about it's history and current location along with a picture in most cases.  Here is a link:

http://www.millionmonkeytheater.com/ForgottenJets.html 

Pretty cool!

Ken

Cool website Ken. I searched through it to see if I could find the RF-84G Thunderflash that's on display here at the Wings Over The Rockies Museum. Sure enough, it was listed. The plane they have on display is a parasite, that was intended to be carried to the target site beneath a Convair GRB-36D.:

I've got some photos of the plane somewhere from my trip to the museum last year I'll have to look for. I guess the development of this version was dropped after the trapeze was damaged during one of the tests. I also saw some photos of the 86 being loaded; The had to jack the tail end of the Peacemaker up in the air in order to drive the parasite underneath. I couldn't post the picks here because they had some big ol' copyright markings on them. I do have this-

In the meantime, I did some shopping today and found this at Barnes and Noble:

I thought not bad for around 20 bucks for the two. I have so many books about modern aircraft, but I seem to know very little about the machines of WWII, esp. tanks and armor.

Also picked this up at Walmart for less than 8 dollars:

Thought I might try a little of the dot filtering thing on the Tiger.

I did use a few of the colors to make a rust wash to try and weather the tracks a little:

I could have turned it over to show you the tracks, but I figured: What's the point? Nobody is going to turn a real tank over to see the tracks, are they? Let's see how it looks from ground level.

I also did a wash on those hatches and mufflers I painted earlier, but didn't add photos here.

Til' tomorrow...

Cool pictures Jim!  I didn't realize they tried to do that with an RF-84F!  They have the "Goblin" over at the USAF National Museum that I have seen that they did the same thing with.  But it was actually built for that purpose!  Ugliest little fighter it the world!

Nice haul you got there from Barnes & Noble!  There is a armor museum just 34 minutes from where I live.  I need to take a day off and go see it.

Those tracks look great Jim!  Nice work once again!     

Ken

Hi Everyone,

Good news, Eduard contacted me and said they would send replacement exhaust nozzles.  Now I just have to wait for them to arrive.  I hope it doesn't take too long.

On another note, my Mom contacted an exterminator and they removed the hornet's nest yesterday!  They told her that the nest was full of eggs so it was getting ready to increase in size!  It was already pretty big.  Then they treated the spot so that any that returned would die.  They guaranteed it for 30 days.

Ken

Jim: Nice haul there and the Tiger's paws look good!

Ken: Good to see Eduard is taking care of the problem, of course the parts will have to make their way from the Czech Republic but it shouldn't be too long. And I think you made the right decision with the hornets, I'd have sprayed them myself but I'm not allergic to stings either. No use tempting fate there!  

Ken, glad to hear that Eduards is going to take care of you and glad that those hornets got taken care of. I've been lucky so far this year and haven't seen any of those nasty little b*stards!

I never made it to the hobby bench last night as it was a long day which ended up with me crashing out on the couch shortly after I got home. The day started with a return trip to the hand specialist, and finally learned that I have nothing broken. However, there is damage to the cartilage and tears in my ligaments. The treatment? Time, of course! Wear my splint for about another month, but I can remove it at night. The kicker? He also informed me that I have arthritis in it and a lot of wear and tear in my wrist and hand. Not a surprise but not good to hear in any case.

Jim thanks for the looks of your Panzer; very realistic! Also the fact that the B-36 is one of my all-time favorites really got my attention with that off-beat arrangement. I have read a bunch on that aircraft but never knew about that config. It's always amazing to me what things were tried by our engineers especially the ones from the early post war years. Great stuff!

mikeymize

Jim thanks for the looks of your Panzer; very realistic! Also the fact that the B-36 is one of my all-time favorites really got my attention with that off-beat arrangement. I have read a bunch on that aircraft but never knew about that config. It's always amazing to me what things were tried by our engineers especially the ones from the early post war years. Great stuff!

Thanks Mikeymize, I'm having fun with the Tiger. I think I've been doing so many aircraft, I needed a break.

You can read a bit more about the FICON  (Fighter Conveyer) project here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FICON_project

I see that they tried this after the Goblin was deemed a failure.

Another cool website, I think you might enjoy the animations of the 'Peacemaker'. The Thunderflash I saw here is pictured way down at the bottom of the page. There are also some photos of the bomber with its rear gear driven up on ramps to put the 'Flash underneath. That must have been a trick to do.

http://www.air-and-space.com/ficon.htm

Did some decals tonight:

It took about 20 gallons on Microsol, the better part of an hour, plus a small make-up sponge and nearly all my patience to get this one to behave. It wanted to argue with me before it finally decided to lay down into all the details on the rear hatch.

Also worked more on the hatches and other small bits. The carpet monster almost got that square hatch, but I showed him who's boss!

The exhausts are painted with Floquil rust and then I dry brushed on some silver as I saw on another model kit someone did. I think it will look how I want when it's overcoated with Dullcoat. We shall see... I may need more rust.

Also that tool that gets mounted in the back was brush-painted with MM non-buffing steel metalizer. Many people don't know you can brush metalizer on small parts like this. Doesn't cover like a paint, but I like it better that enamel steel, as that goes on way too thick

Ken, be patient as it may take a couple of weeks to get those cans all the way from the Czech Republic. Took about that long for my films.

Jim

Wow Jim, great work once again!      That tank is coming alive!  You definitely have a lot of patience and skill. to work at that scale.

Yes, I realize it will probably take at least a week for those exhaust nozzles to arrive here.  I will start on getting the cockpit, front wheel bay, and avionics bay epoxied into place while I am waiting.  Even after they do arrive, I will still need to paint them, polish them, cut the bad one off, and epoxy the new one on.  It will require some precision surgery!

Ken

Looks good Jim!

Btw not to be anal  but the rear tool there is the jack. Kinda like your car jack but designed to lift a wheel on a 70 ton vehicle! 

Gamera

Looks good Jim!

Btw not to be anal  but the rear tool there is the jack. Kinda like your car jack but designed to lift a wheel on a 70 ton vehicle! 

I was going for thingamajig, but I guess jack works just as well.....

  Hey Jimbo, thanks for the links; great stuff! My favorite book on the Peacemaker is Magnesium Overcast truly phenomenal. I remember seeing the Jimmy Stewart movie "SAC" and being amazed by everything about that airframe That was an era of classic and unique aircraft that will never be equalled 

I finished up my latest side project, a KV-2 tank and will post pics in a day or so. Even though I'm somewhat reluctant to after seeing your Tiger II. 

Mike: Come-on!!! We want photos! Hurry up!!!