I'm down to one day a week of therapy and one last visit to the Doc next week. Girlfriend situation still a work in progress. (No she's NOT pregnant) , just some issues to work out....or not.

I have done some more work on the Hyakushiki and will get some pics up NLT this weekend. BTW GB badge looks cool!

mikeymize

Ken, please accept my belated B-Day wishes and trust it was a great one. I've been a little side tracked and distracted with work stuff and relationship stuff (girlfriend issues). Once the dust settles from that I should be back to "normal".

Thank you Mike!  I hope that everything works out for the best.  By the way, how is your ankle doing?

Ken

Ken, please accept my belated B-Day wishes and trust it was a great one. I've been a little side tracked and distracted with work stuff and relationship stuff (girlfriend issues). Once the dust settles from that I should be back to "normal".

Son Of Medicine Man

Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes!

Jim, I am really surprised at the amount of work it is taking for a Revell OOB build!  Those cockpit fitting problems are something that I would expect for using aftermarket resin!

I hope the rest of that build goes better!

Ken

I'm surprised as well, as the kit had very favorable reviews online. The biggest downside was the unclear instructions. Perhaps it was me- no matter as the cockpit is finished and I can move on to the rest of the kit.

Jim

Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes!

Jim, I am really surprised at the amount of work it is taking for a Revell OOB build!  Those cockpit fitting problems are something that I would expect for using aftermarket resin!

I hope the rest of that build goes better!

Ken

Bish

Sorry I missed the kick off of the GB, just so much to keep track of.

Jim, that's brilliant work, she's a real beaut. what's with the name Growler, I have not heard an F 18 called that before.

I will be getting to my F-16 later in the year, but I will try my best to keep up in the mean time.

Hi Bish,

No problem on missing the kick off, we are really pretty easy going on this group build.

Ken

Jim: I love the photo, looks very real there. Yeah, you might try just a light blue poster board as a back drop- they're not that expensive so there's not a big waste if it doesn't work out.

Mike: Yuck, at least it wasn't plastic cement or they'd be pretty much totally ruined. Hopefully they'll look ok. If not you might try dipping them in Future- I'm come to avoid using the stuff for most things but dipping canopies I still like to do.

Ken: Hey, Happy Birthday to you my friend!!! You should have told them it's YOUR birthday so THEY should have baked YOU a cake!!! All joking aside I hope despite all the work it went well for you. At least the weather here is warming up some, hope you guys get some of this too.

Son Of Medicine Man

Hi Everyone!

Today is my birthday.  For my birthday present, I told everyone that I would make our family's secret recipe graham cracker cake.  It is a LOT of work.  Everything is made completely from scratch.  I made the mistake of telling people at work that I would bring one in tomorrow to share.  So that meant I had to make two cakes.

I am just now siting down.  I think the last one that my Mom made was over ten years ago.  I think it will be another ten years before I make another one!  It is VERY rich!  But of coarse, oh so good.

This last week I spent every night working on computers.  That is the reason for my lack of participation.  But now I hope to get back to the workbench this week.

Jim, that Growler looks fantastic!!  Great job man!      I think that there has been a couple of articles right here on FSM that talked about how to take pictures of your completed  project.  I think that one idea was to take some heavy card stock and paint it flat light blue to use as a back drop.  There was even the discussion of using multiple lights to take away any shadows.

Ken

Ken, first off ......

Another March baby! Mine's coming up at the end of this month.

It now occurs to me that there is a Hobby Lobby just down the street, and I would bet they have card stock already colored a light blue!

And (slaps forehead!) my camera has a fill-flash setting I didn't think to use! Maybe I'll get another nice weekend. We were around 70 degrees today! Another storm is headed our way and we will be back into the 30's by mid-week!

Jim

Hi Everyone!

Today is my birthday.  For my birthday present, I told everyone that I would make our family's secret recipe graham cracker cake.  It is a LOT of work.  Everything is made completely from scratch.  I made the mistake of telling people at work that I would bring one in tomorrow to share.  So that meant I had to make two cakes.

I am just now siting down.  I think the last one that my Mom made was over ten years ago.  I think it will be another ten years before I make another one!  It is VERY rich!  But of coarse, oh so good.

This last week I spent every night working on computers.  That is the reason for my lack of participation.  But now I hope to get back to the workbench this week.

Jim, that Growler looks fantastic!!  Great job man!      I think that there has been a couple of articles right here on FSM that talked about how to take pictures of your completed  project.  I think that one idea was to take some heavy card stock and paint it flat light blue to use as a back drop.  There was even the discussion of using multiple lights to take away any shadows.

Ken

Bish

Sorry I missed the kick off of the GB, just so much to keep track of.

Jim, that's brilliant work, she's a real beaut. what's with the name Growler, I have not heard an F 18 called that before.

I will be getting to my F-16 later in the year, but I will try my best to keep up in the mean time.

Thank you for the compliments!

The E/A-18G is the electronics warfare replacement for the E/A-6B Prowler, that has since been retired.

The Growler is based on the F-18F Super Hornet, but the internal gun has been removed, and the wing-tip missile rails have been replaced by a set of ECM pods. The Growler can carry 2 AGM-88 anti radiation missiles for attacking radar installations. It also carries a pair of AIM-120 AMRAAM's against the fuselage for defense. Up to 5 ALQ-99 pods can be carried under the wings and fuselage.

The Scorpions are the first fully operational squadron to be deployed.

In service, the call sign for the Growler, is actually "Grizzly" so as to not confuse it with it's predecessor, the Prowler.

Jim

Jim, I needed to comment on how wonderful your jet looks. After all that hard work it must be gratifying to be able to look at the final product with pride and a sense of accomplishment. Whatever struggles and bumps in the road with that one it sure doesn't show now. Great job buddy!

Finally got to the right GB page; wondered why no one was active on the other....... Had a "situation" today at my workbench when I tipped some enamel thinner on my finished canopy sections. They were painted with acrylic and I scooped them up pronto and ran 'em under water. Hope they're not too messed up. They didn't get soaked per se but that stuff couldn't have been good for them.

Sorry I missed the kick off of the GB, just so much to keep track of.

Jim, that's brilliant work, she's a real beaut. what's with the name Growler, I have not heard an F 18 called that before.

I will be getting to my F-16 later in the year, but I will try my best to keep up in the mean time.

Hi all!

I was experimenting with some outdoor photos of the Growler. I like the angle and composition of this one except for the distractions of the trash can, BBQ grill and shed in the back ground. I will have to think on a neutral background, maybe a board painted with sky blue or something? Maybe some ideas?

It's pretty crowded where I live, so there is no place handy nearby that might have an open sky visible. The thought of trying to transport it to a park or something is just too much to do. As you know, these things are more delicate than glass......

Jim

Jim: Looks great, I love the detail of the instruments there.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Sprue Bros has this 10% off kits this weekend and there was this Trumpeter F-100F that I've sort of had my eye on, and they only had two left, so......

I choose the F, mainly because all the other versions had metal finishes, and I admit to being a big chicken sh*t when it comes to NMF (This one has a SEA marking version). And I thought it interesting how some F's were modified to track and mark SAM sites, in the early days of the "Iron Hand" program before it later developed into the "Wild Weasel" program (105's would come in behind them and pound the site!)

I just thought how I really couldn't have a collection of Century fighters without a Hun!

Jim

Hi all

Chop, chop, grind, grind, file, sand, curse, saw, file, etc.

3 days now, of working the cockpit to make all the components to fit. Below, you can see, just as someone mentioned, I had to file and sand away at the bottom of the tub to the point of translucency. You can just see that I almost broke through to the floor of the cockpit.

The worst is the modification of actually having to cut notches in the sides here to make the rear instrument panel fit.

The panel will actually sit a tad higher, as I did cut the notches a little deep.

Now after all that work and test fitting, I'll need to repaint the black areas around the cockpit opening.

I don't know if you can see it in this photo as it is sort of dark, but on the right is a 3/4 round part angled toward the RO's position. This should actually be round with a green CRT face. This might be the only "fix" I do as far as detailing the cockpit, perhaps try to create a new part out a piece of sprue. Or maybe just attach a little round disc painted green to simulate the CRT. I intend to close this cockpit on this one in any case.

I hope the other areas of the build go better. I have test fitted the wings and lower fuselage and they fit very well. I may have a little trouble in the rear gear bays as I may need to box part of them off. I haven't looked at the rotating weapons bay or the trunking for the intakes yet.

This is seriously not a kit for beginners, in my opinion. I would have thought a little more of a Revell Germany kit, but from my examples, it has been marketed under both ROG and Revell USA brands. Plus, a copyright stamp molded inside the fuselage shows the kit as dated from 1991. The USA kit is labelled as skill level 2 "more challenging" (on a scale of 1-3) and the ROG kit gets a skill level of 3 "more demanding" (scale of 1-5). I would have to agree!

I know the two Revell's divided for a while, before the came back together under Hobbico. but I don't know where they were in that year.

Jim

jimbot58

Hi Gang!

I have been working on the gear bay done and into place-as you see, the gear must be installed as the bay is assembled. Some sanding and fitting was required to get the pieces to all go together. First photos is the halves with a little wash to bring out detail.

That picture is a bit fuzzy as the camera wanted to focus about  an inch in front of my subject.

After I cemented it up, it gets inserted between the two sides of the fuselage before they are joined. I just continued to cement up the two halves:

I have been trying the cement that came with my Touch-n-flow, and it seems to be thinner and more potent than the Testors I have always used. I just always figured they were all the same.

It works pretty fast and it was easy to achive that bead of plastic that oozes out when you want a seam that's good for easy clean-up:

Now for the not-so-good part. After doing this, I found the cockpit tub was not easy to fit into place. The bottom of the tub interferes with the landing gear box, and I had to work for quite a while, sanding, trimming and filing to get it into place. Left it out for the moment as there is some painting yet to do there.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not calling this a bad kit. The exterior detail looks great and the fuselage went together with hardly any effort. I just think that between the vague instructions and the difficulty fitting the interior parts, this kit would be best for an "experienced" modeler. The cockpit could have used better detail as well.

I'm barely into this build and already I'm a critic!

I'll have to see what kind of weather I get this weekend, so maybe I can get some decent photos of the Growler for the forum.

Jim

Nice work Jim!  And thank you for the tip about the Touch-n-flow.  I will have to investigate getting some of that.

Ken

Jim: Looks good! I know what you mean about cockpits though, I've had to sand the bottoms of some till the plastic was translucent to get them to fit correctly.

Hi Gang!

I have been working on the gear bay done and into place-as you see, the gear must be installed as the bay is assembled. Some sanding and fitting was required to get the pieces to all go together. First photos is the halves with a little wash to bring out detail.

That picture is a bit fuzzy as the camera wanted to focus about  an inch in front of my subject.

After I cemented it up, it gets inserted between the two sides of the fuselage before they are joined. I just continued to cement up the two halves:

I have been trying the cement that came with my Touch-n-flow, and it seems to be thinner and more potent than the Testors I have always used. I just always figured they were all the same.

It works pretty fast and it was easy to achive that bead of plastic that oozes out when you want a seam that's good for easy clean-up:

Now for the not-so-good part. After doing this, I found the cockpit tub was not easy to fit into place. The bottom of the tub interferes with the landing gear box, and I had to work for quite a while, sanding, trimming and filing to get it into place. Left it out for the moment as there is some painting yet to do there.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not calling this a bad kit. The exterior detail looks great and the fuselage went together with hardly any effort. I just think that between the vague instructions and the difficulty fitting the interior parts, this kit would be best for an "experienced" modeler. The cockpit could have used better detail as well.

I'm barely into this build and already I'm a critic!

I'll have to see what kind of weather I get this weekend, so maybe I can get some decent photos of the Growler for the forum.

Jim

Jim, that's beautiful! Thanks for letting us follow along, looking forward to seeing more photos from different angles.

Kudos sir! 

jimbot58

Hello gang!

Tonight I worked on the Growler!

Touched up those mirrors, and a few other spots. Cemented that metal ring to the back of the windscreen with some Krystal Klear.  Then attached the canopy:

Then I dull coated all the blade antennae and attached them with CA. (A bit of tape holds the rear of the canopy while the cement sets.)

Then I inserted those rear stabilators in place, and guess what?

D-O-N-E-!!!!!!!!

TA-DA!

I'll have to see if I can do a better photo without all the clutter of tools and paint bottles in the background for the front page of whichever build.

Jim

Great job Jim!  Your Growler looks fantastic!     

Just post the picture when you are ready and let me know which build you want to post it on.

Ken

jimbot58

Ken, talk about irony! My buddy from out of town showed up today. He's here to attend training in Denver for the city job he holds where he lives. We went out to grab a bite, and he begins talking about when he lived here and all the snow we had that one year (as I mentioned earlier!) I didn't even bring it up, we were just talking of how the media holds various agencies responsible for the conditions of the roads, not the storms or the people who drive recklessly on them! The subject was the 104 car wreck yesterday and the media is blaming CDOT! (Colorado Dept. Of Transportation)

Yes, it is always hard to say who is at fault sometimes.  Drivers should always slow down and give more room when the roads get slick.  But sometimes when the politicians try to cut corners and not send out the equipment when they should, there is some responsibility there as well.  I am sure the media will get it figured out for us!  (Sarcasm!)   

Ken

Hello gang!

Tonight I worked on the Growler!

Touched up those mirrors, and a few other spots. Cemented that metal ring to the back of the windscreen with some Krystal Klear.  Then attached the canopy:

Then I dull coated all the blade antennae and attached them with CA. (A bit of tape holds the rear of the canopy while the cement sets.)

Then I inserted those rear stabilators in place, and guess what?

D-O-N-E-!!!!!!!!

TA-DA!

I'll have to see if I can do a better photo without all the clutter of tools and paint bottles in the background for the front page of whichever build.

Jim

Ken, talk about irony! My buddy from out of town showed up today. He's here to attend training in Denver for the city job he holds where he lives. We went out to grab a bite, and he begins talking about when he lived here and all the snow we had that one year (as I mentioned earlier!) I didn't even bring it up, we were just talking of how the media holds various agencies responsible for the conditions of the roads, not the storms or the people who drive recklessly on them! The subject was the 104 car wreck yesterday and the media is blaming CDOT! (Colorado Dept. Of Transportation)

Hi Everyone!

Well I spent most of the weekend doing computer work.  So this evening I returned to the workbench.  Much to my disappointment, I found the other end of the photo etch piece did not glue down when I removed the clothes pin.  So I went the extra mile this time around.

First, I removed the photo etch piece from the A-1C gunsight.  Then I scraped off all of the paint from the resin where the photo etch is suppose to attach.  Then I wrapped the photo etch around a toothpick to "pre bend" it to the desired shape:

Then I glued one end to the A-1C gunsight (again):

I will let this dry overnight and then try gluing the other end down tomorrow night.

Ken

jimbot58

 

Sorry, I wasn't trying to make that point, I was just thinking back to the worst winter I can remember. I think the mid-west and east has gotten the nastiest of it this year, no doubt!

I did manage to make a dash to a Hobby Town after work Friday, arriving 10 minutes before they closed to see if they carried the Touch-n-Flow. They did, but only as a kit that includes a bottle of Plast-I-Weld and a little plastic squeeze bottle to suck the adhesive up into the glass tube, It was 16 bucks, but I considered that a trip to Colpars was a 60 mile round trip, so I would have spent that much or more in gas!

The little sucky bottle actually works pretty good and the cement won't go to waste. I may order another tool only from Flex-i-file as a back up.

My decision actually was for the best as I awoke to about 2 inches of snow on the ground. Plus I see on the news that there was a pile-up on I-25 through the middle of Denver that involved 104 cars and there was even a fatality! The highway was closed for 5 hours as they cleaned it it up! It wasn't the highway I would have been on, but it did tell me that this was a very good day to stay off the roads, and be in where it's warm and dry!

After sleeping in and a round of house work, I finally sat down at the bench.

As I said before, I'm not spending a lot of time in the cockpit. As much as I am not wild about the decals, they are going to be what they are. After all, OOB is OOB!

Basic seat painting: The little black half ring is actually for the Growler-it mounts on the inside edge of the wind screen:

Newly painted front gear bay-a little wash and then ready to assemble. The red parts are the bay doors. I chose Testors Dark Red in the little bottle as the Insignia Red in the MM line just looked way too bright!

Not too crazy about Testors flat steel here as it is on the grainy side.

And added all the mirrors to the inside of the Growler canopy. I attached them with Micro Krystal Klear and then dabbed on a bit of Future to hopefully keep it in place. I'll go in tomorrow and paint the backs of the mirrors with a tiny brush. Should be fun since I have CSS (Can't See S***) plus large sausage like fingers and not so steady hands....

Other than that,I need to flat coat those blade antennae, attach them in place, mount the canopy, (plus that ring) and insert the stabilators in the back, and it is done!

Hooray for me!

Hopefully, I can get a decent photo for the front Hall Of Fame!

Jim

I still need to update my signature with the last build badge.....

Hi Jim,

No problem dude, I knew what you were saying!   

Nice work there on the Voodoo and the Growler!      Sounds like you are about to wrap up the Growler.  That has definitely been a labor of love.  Still hard to believe that you are working at 1/72 scale!

Ken

Son Of Medicine Man

jimbot58

We have had some weather here, but nothing like you Ken. We had a couple of inches of snow and our low is expected to drop to about 11 tonight. The big concern for now, is some of the river basins have a higher than normal snowpack. The South Platte basin alone is at 145% of normal. Authorities are already releasing water from some reservoirs  in anticipation of possible flooding, esp. if we have an early thaw or a wet spring. Or both! I would hate to see that as some of the the towns hit so hard by last years floods are far from recovered. Major roads have been reopened, but smaller side roads will need to be taken care of, probably into summer.

The worst year we had was where we had something like 10 weeks of nothing but snow. It snowed every weekend like clockwork and never got above freezing in between. They quickly ran out of places to put the snow, often commandeering parking lots and empty lots anywhere they could. Streets remained snowpacked and rough.

The City Of Denver had a large unused lot near the old airport where they piled a lot of snow. This thing was a massive dirty black mountain (didn't look like snow) that took until almost the end of June to melt! The small lake it left behind was no less attractive.

Looking at the weather records, I think this was about March of 2003 where we had something around 35 inches of snow.

Hi Jim,

Well that just goes to prove, the old saying "it could be worse" holds true!  I am glad we have not had that kind of winter!   

Ken

Sorry, I wasn't trying to make that point, I was just thinking back to the worst winter I can remember. I think the mid-west and east has gotten the nastiest of it this year, no doubt!

I did manage to make a dash to a Hobby Town after work Friday, arriving 10 minutes before they closed to see if they carried the Touch-n-Flow. They did, but only as a kit that includes a bottle of Plast-I-Weld and a little plastic squeeze bottle to suck the adhesive up into the glass tube, It was 16 bucks, but I considered that a trip to Colpars was a 60 mile round trip, so I would have spent that much or more in gas!

The little sucky bottle actually works pretty good and the cement won't go to waste. I may order another tool only from Flex-i-file as a back up.

My decision actually was for the best as I awoke to about 2 inches of snow on the ground. Plus I see on the news that there was a pile-up on I-25 through the middle of Denver that involved 104 cars and there was even a fatality! The highway was closed for 5 hours as they cleaned it it up! It wasn't the highway I would have been on, but it did tell me that this was a very good day to stay off the roads, and be in where it's warm and dry!

After sleeping in and a round of house work, I finally sat down at the bench.

As I said before, I'm not spending a lot of time in the cockpit. As much as I am not wild about the decals, they are going to be what they are. After all, OOB is OOB!

Basic seat painting: The little black half ring is actually for the Growler-it mounts on the inside edge of the wind screen:

Newly painted front gear bay-a little wash and then ready to assemble. The red parts are the bay doors. I chose Testors Dark Red in the little bottle as the Insignia Red in the MM line just looked way too bright!

Not too crazy about Testors flat steel here as it is on the grainy side.

And added all the mirrors to the inside of the Growler canopy. I attached them with Micro Krystal Klear and then dabbed on a bit of Future to hopefully keep it in place. I'll go in tomorrow and paint the backs of the mirrors with a tiny brush. Should be fun since I have CSS (Can't See S***) plus large sausage like fingers and not so steady hands....

Other than that,I need to flat coat those blade antennae, attach them in place, mount the canopy, (plus that ring) and insert the stabilators in the back, and it is done!

Hooray for me!

Hopefully, I can get a decent photo for the front Hall Of Fame!

Jim

I still need to update my signature with the last build badge.....

jimbot58

We have had some weather here, but nothing like you Ken. We had a couple of inches of snow and our low is expected to drop to about 11 tonight. The big concern for now, is some of the river basins have a higher than normal snowpack. The South Platte basin alone is at 145% of normal. Authorities are already releasing water from some reservoirs  in anticipation of possible flooding, esp. if we have an early thaw or a wet spring. Or both! I would hate to see that as some of the the towns hit so hard by last years floods are far from recovered. Major roads have been reopened, but smaller side roads will need to be taken care of, probably into summer.

The worst year we had was where we had something like 10 weeks of nothing but snow. It snowed every weekend like clockwork and never got above freezing in between. They quickly ran out of places to put the snow, often commandeering parking lots and empty lots anywhere they could. Streets remained snowpacked and rough.

The City Of Denver had a large unused lot near the old airport where they piled a lot of snow. This thing was a massive dirty black mountain (didn't look like snow) that took until almost the end of June to melt! The small lake it left behind was no less attractive.

Looking at the weather records, I think this was about March of 2003 where we had something around 35 inches of snow.

Hi Jim,

Well that just goes to prove, the old saying "it could be worse" holds true!  I am glad we have not had that kind of winter!   

Ken

Striker8241

Brrrr! Come down to Florida, Ken! It's about 75 today with bright sunshine and a light breeze. I think our temp average for this winter so far is around 70.

I'll keep the coffee on (iced coffee, that is... )

Russ 

Hi Russ,

Thank you for the invitation!  I tried to talk my wife into doing exactly that shortly after we were married, but she did not want to move away from her children.  Maybe when we retire I can try to bring it up again!

Ken