PACIFIC CARRIER AVIATION GROUP BUILD

Say Greg--not only did you take a page from my Mom, but you called me Stevie.  My Mom calls me that.  Too funny!

Joe, a couple more weeks not so bad. You've been through worse, mon ami.

And on the second issue, oh oh. I'll start looking for my 1,000x optivisor lenses. When will I learn to

Stevie, I know you're just kidding but you just opened Pandora's box anyway.

My last update for the day. I just finished weathering the exhaust pipes.  It is getting too late in the day, so I won't be posting my final images tonight. Pretty sure it will be tomorrow evening.  

BTW Greg.  I was totally kidding.  I just want to be clear on that.  

Ok.  The last thing to do before taking photos is to weather the exaust pipes and then install them.  I have an idea how to try this but it is one big question mark if it will get me what I want.  

See you on the flip side.

Hey guys.  I am just taking a break from the build.  The front canopy is glued on, the tail gun is as well.  Getting there. It looks like I will have to improvise for the photos.  I was hoping to use some natural sunlight in the process and there is none of that here today.  Sleeting out! Son of ....

A week and a half, Joe?  That should be breeze. Think of how more productive you will be once that anchor is lifted off.  You may be like Super Model Man!

Hey Greg.  I am going to take a page from my Mom on this. How would you know how far along I am? "You never call!  You never write!  You never visit!" Lol.

Thanks Bruce!  I am as well buddy.  It has been a long road and it's great to see the finish line.

BTW guys.  I don't know about the popcorn.  It could be a short movie.  I'll try to give you the extended version so that you have time to chow.

Oh, by the way Greg, this new found "incentive" I've inspired in you will, in all likelihood, have a profound impact on your upcoming birthday gift. Yes indeedy.

Mornin' Greg. I've got about another week and a half with the splint. Then, hopefully, it will be in good shape.

Aaaah, to the dark side we may go, mmm. Exciting this is.

Joe, now that doesn't look convenient at all.  

That said, if you can continue work on your 1/72 with that injury, in a strange way you've sort of incented me to try one soon.

So what's the prognosis on splint removal and back to 100%?

Hey Bakster, didn't realise you are so close to finishing the TBM. I'm with Joe, getting the popcorn out of the pantry.

Wow! Joe, didn't realize you had an injury! So, sorry to hear that. But as always, you find a way to press on! The Hellcat looks great , can't wait to see it finished.

Bakster, looking forward to seeing the Avenger finished!

Oooh, I like it, I like it! Hmm....if i could only find some gauze that is dark blue, light blue and white and then paint a growler motif on the end of my finger.

Super news about the Avenger. I'll be parked in front of the laptop with popcorn for that finale.

Hey Joe--nice picture of your bandages.  I think you ought to spray a nice camouflage pattern on there. Or maybe add a Hellcat decal. Now that would be cool.  

My Avenger is almost done.  Can you believe it?  I can't.  My goal is to finish it tomorrow.  I just need to install the tail gun, tail gun canopy, front canopy, weather the exhaust pipes, and install fhem.  If all goes well, I will be posting images by evening.  

Thank You Clemens and lewbud. lew, glad to hear that you're going to finish your Hellcat. Hopefully that revitalizes your modeling ***.

Thank You Steve. I really appreciate the positive feedback from you. How's the Avenger coming along?

Thought I'd give you guys a shot of what I'm dealing with. No, I did not pick out the colors for my gauze. Although it is rather becoming.

Hey Joe... It's great to hear that you can still work on your Hellcat.  Which by the way, is looking really--really good.  It is nice and tight.  Your perseverance is paying off man.  Good job on the weathering. That really brings the plane to life. 

Steve

Despite my injury I am actually able to work on my Hellcat reasonably well. Thank God! So, I am making some progress and, Happy Day, I have some pics to share with you all. Prior to my injury I applied a brown/black mix Flory wash to the underside and sides and gray/black mix to the upper dark blue. I normally use an oil wash but I was having some issues with it and it just was not coming out right. I've had the Flory washes for awhile and didn't use them because it kept beading up on the gloss coat and thus not working. But, once I got me worthless noggin to working it dawned on me to add a small drop of dish soap and problem solved. And thus I have found that Flory washes are awesome and work wonderfully. Today I shot the flat coat on. It dulled the gray wash just a tad but, completely acceptable. Here is how it looks for now:

My challenge is going to be trying to hold the Hellcat while I try to spray the exhaust stains on. If it proves to be to difficult I may then result to using pastels, which is what I have done in the past. Thanks for looking guys.

I should be able to finish my Hellcat by the deadline.  Had a bit of a paint mishap, but haven't really felt the bug to build since the Weekend GB ended at the end of last year.  Hang in there Joe!

Joe, what a recovery! Your patience never fails to amaze me! I would've given up on that build ages ago, but you just keep building on and manage to make it look as if nothing ever happened!

Hey Joe....Sorry to hear about the latest.  That is a real pain.  Like Greg said, take care of that.

Steve

mustang1989

Greg

Joe! I think this kit of yours is hexed

Ummm......nooooo! I think it's Joe that's hexed! lol . Really though , sorry to hear the news about your hand and hope it gets better Joe. You actually made me feel good about my slow building progress this morning. lol

Greg

Joe! I think this kit of yours is hexed

Thank You Greg. It's all good my friend. Although I might be getting tossed some curve balls as far as this build goes I'm not too down about it as the rest of the things in my life are good and happy. No self pity here. Simply going to find a way to model regardless of the gimped up condition.

Bruce, I can certainly relate. Just glad you're going to keep at it and continue to share with us. I'm still excited to see your work.

To SS and everyone who contributed to this GB, I apologize, but I will not be finished with my SB2U.  Even with the extension, work and family took up more of my time than I expected.

I do intend to finish this project and I'll post pics when I do.

Joe! I think this kit of yours is hexed.

Sorry to hear about the torn tendon, and hope it heals well and soon my friend.

Please be careful, let it heal. No heroics.

Hi There Fellas. Well, I have hit another unanticipated snag in my progress on the Hellcat. Yesterday I tore a tendon in the middle knuckle of my left hand. Thus, I have a big ole splint which inhibits my ability to work on my model efficiently. Yup, It sucks. On the bright side I have made some decent progress right up til said boo boo. I'll get some pics soon.

Clemens, I believe that I can say with certainty that I will not make the deadline. It's all good, just encountered to many set backs. I should though, make my bigger goal which is to have it done in time for WestFest 2015. I'll keep posting here, though, up to the cut off.

Thank You Steve and Craig. Yeah, for the most part, I've had good luck removing decals with tape. MM enamels tend have good "bite" and aren't usually damaged by the tape. But, I have to admit that Eduard decals prove to be an admirable foe to the tape method. I find that encouraging in that it gives me confidence that they are not likely to be damaged very easily. Which, by the way, reminds me to plug their decals. They go on with no hassle and conform nicely with a setting solution.

Nice work Joe.  Good save.

Holy moly Joe, that could have been a disaster.  I was holding my breath when you started talking about pulling the decals off with the various types of tape.   Thank goodness the paint didn't come up.  That would have been bad. You obviously have a solid foundation of paint.

You certainly have had your share of tests on this build.  Way to go in fixing the problem, Joe. That was a clever fix to a vexing problem.  Way to go man! Seriously.  That is a great outcome.

So that you don't feel too alone with these gremlins.  Two days ago I accidently got masking tape stuck to a wing, right on a decal.  Oh yeah.  The tape pulled the decal right off.  It was pathetic.  Thank goodness I had bought two decal sheets.  At the time of purchase I was grumbling that I had to buy two, it was an order min. I certainly ended up needing them. Now I am glad I have the second sheet.

Thanks for posting all that, Joe. It's a great example of patience and perseverance. 

Steve 

Whoops, sorry, I posted before I was finished. Moving along now. So, after having let the initial shock wear off it was time to contemplate a solution. And NO, I am not giving up dadgummit! Needless to say, purchasing another kit was out of the question. So, I sat down and reexamined the original decals and found I had 2 options. First was I could use the upper wing insignia that was used in "43. This one has the blue border around the bars and is slightly larger. Although it would  technically be incorrect it would at least look better than my current situation. My next option was to utilize the even earlier insignia with the red border and trim the red border off. In doing so I would end up with an insignia that was correct in size and design. This option was fraught with fear. This would be no easy task as this would require a steady hand and hawk like eye sight. None of which I possess. Here is a pic of my options:

I then thought to my self that I might as well give the red border trimming a try. At least I have the other decal to fall back on should I hack the other one up. So, with my trusty scalpel, small beauty scissors and optivisor, I set to it. After several nerve wracking minutes I had managed to do a half decent job on it. It's a bit rough but it might just work. The next task at hand that had the potential for initiating yet another panic attack was to try and strip off the old decal. Now, I've had some really good luck with this and some really really bad luck. But, I opted to try none the less. I started with Tamiya tape to see if it would come off easily. Not much luck there. Next was blue painter's tape. Some small chunks came off but, not much. Then it was on to clear packing tape. Hey, I was desperate. Even this had little effect. At least it didn't tear the paint off. So, now I had to go ahead and decal over the top of the old one. This was the action that prompted me to use the trimmed decal as it would fit perfectly on top of the old one. the fear here was that it would effect the color of the new decal. It was time to stop over analyzing and just DO.

Glory Be and Hallalujah! IT WORKED! It's a little rough from the trim job but, nothing I can't cover with a little weathering.

So, now it sits marinating in Solvaset. Then get a quick  over coat of gloss and then I will mount the new wings and I will be back to where I started and I move forward to finishing it up.I'm in the clear. I mean seriously, what could wrong now? Right?

Well, The rackin' frackin' hits just keep on coming! I have now officially met with so many set backs on this build that I have lost track of how many times I have had to redo or repair something.This latest test of my sanity definitely blind sided me. As you all know, I purchased an Eduard Weekend Edition F6F-3 kit mainly to obtain the decals, namely the wing insignia. Last night I applied the said decals and was really elated that I was finally turning the corner on this whole wing rehab project. Well, after having applied the upper wing decal and letting sit to dry, I came back to notice that the blue on that decal was way out of register. Naturally, I'm just standing there saying, "How can this be? It's the same decals right?". But, sure enough, there it was, much lighter than any previous decals i had already applied. I even compared it to the one on the first wing:

The wing at the top is the original and the one on the bottom is the new one. You can pretty much tell how badly the difference is:

That looks right nice so far Steve. It does in fact look fairly sharp as is.

Hey Joe and Greg--

here is how the masking turned out.  Now as you say, hand brush the black down to the hub.  Its almost a shame to do that.  It looks pretty cool the way it is.  Then of course I have to paint the yellow tips.