Monogram Mafia III

Great stuff happening here. You guys are doing an awesome job and B1 should be renamed to "Supersonic Catch Me If You Can!"  You sure do build fast dude and those Eagles look great.

Not much to photograph at this time but just a short update. I finally got rid of the nasty join lines along the bottom wing running just a bit behind the leading edge. Don't understand why they put a join line there since there is no panel line there to begin with. It also had a narrow valley where they met that required multiple applications of thick CA smoothed out with a toothpick. Took about 4 application to fill in the valley but it's invisible now after sanding and polishing and re scribing some minor details.

Getting ready to attach the nose cone and masked canopies prior to  shooting  multiple black and grey panel color variations in prep for the Alclad polished aluminum that I will be using. I have experimented in the past with this method which gave subtle variations in panel colors using one Alclad shade.

Will post some pictures once I get there.

Stik,

The F-8E will be the 1/48th offering.  Plus I have been digging around and I found a 1/48th Thunderstreak. It is a Revell of Germany kit but, I am pretty sure that it is Monogram molds. So I am thinking that this would be my second build. If not I have a T-6 or a P-40B that I can use.

MK, which F-8 kit is the one that you are building? I know that Revell did a 1/72 Crusader originally, and then there is the Monogram 1/48 F-8 as well...

Eric, your Tweety is added to the roster. I know that I keep eyeballing that kit in my stash.

Thank you Stik!  For the second kit, could you please put me down for the 1/48 scale Monogram A-37 Dragonfly?  It'll be my first time building that kit and I've heard it's a fun little build.

Thanks!

Eric

stikpusher

I found this photo of B_1 for when he's between builds...

Eric, you have been added to the front page roster. 

Great work guys... 

Speedy added . 

OK Stik I was asleep at the wheel. I am jumping in now, if that is all right. I have an F-8 that I will build.

Eric, you've made me a jealous man. I've been looking for the F-89C kit and the aeromaster sheet with the Idaho ANG ship, and I've never been able to find either at a decent price.

I found this photo of B_1 for when he's between builds...

Eric, you have been added to the front page roster. 

Great work guys... 

Eric, welcome aboard! This GB has no cut off date, and your 6 months for two builds has started as of Sunday...

HI guys!  Is it too late for me to join?  I just started my 1/48 F-89C on Sunday.

Eric

Wow!  Great finishes already!.  I haven't even started yet, we had a family issue come up.  I'm hoping to start putting glue to styrene in the evenings this week.

Great work going on here fellas! I am loving it! B_1, when do you sleep? LOL! Wow!

Well I've decided to go ahead and paint the gun bay. You can see the bottom side of it looking up in the front gear doors, so if I'm gonna take the time to do half of it, might as well do the whole thing right. I'll snap a picture or two of it before I button up the fuselage. May be a few days though; have a super busy day tomorrow. Gonna be all over NE TN.

Oh thanks friend! I didn't even know they did that. Thats good to know; I also have a P-47 in the stash missing a tail wheel.

Thanks all,  ajd  you could try and go to the revell site and submit a parts request. I had to do that for my second build. It had no landing gear so they sent me a set for free.

Well my P-39 is missing both parts # 47 (cowling MG barrels) anyone know if there is brass tubing made in 1/32"?

Oh yeah. B_one those look awesome! Sorry folks I haven't had time to do anything to the Buff, we just had our busiest month ever at the shop. I have worked late most days and when I get home I am just too good-n-tired to even take sandpaper to putty. Eerrgghh. This month holds more promise.

All right, B_one! You a marked...errr.....made man!

Build#2 Completed. Revell 1/48 F-15E

Build #1 left build #2 Right

Yeah, I've got a few bullet sinkers in my tackle box I never use that I was planning on glueing in there.

If you dont want this kit to be a tail sitter, and dont want to use the clear tail stand that the kit comes with, you might want to cram the closed nose section full of weight...;

Well started on the P-39 interior. I hate to leave things undone, but I'm really considering not painting the gun bay. Not going to have the hatch open, so it will never see the light of day. Unless she crashes and burns off a book shelf or somerhing.

I have that same info, Stik,,,,,,with the Army Air Corps/Force using blue bodies with white letters and no stripe, just like that photo,,,,,and the USN using Black (yuck) , with no stripe and White lettering. The table is headed "1940's-late 1950's", so it covers US in WW II nicely.

There was a whole other set of "practice" bombs, those are the Drill Bombs used by the ground crew to teach loading and unloading, those are Olive Drab with Black stripes for the USAAF and Yellow for the USN, with Black "Drill (inert)" lettering.

Additional useless info from Rex,,,,,,those M 38 are 100 lb steel shell bombs filled with 80 lbs of sand, with a 3lb black powder charge,,,,,used from 1930's to the 1960's.

click, boring mode deactivated,,,,,,,,,or at least I sure hope so

Rex

I cant say for certain about the role of the P-39 in 1941, but it was just entering service at that time. It had not been to war with the USAAF yet and its role as a fighter had yet to be proven or disproven. USAAF brass was not going to take too much faith in RAF results with US equipemnt, becuase they often held the opinion that US equipment was not emplyed properly by the RAF.

Yellow was the color of standard HE bombs in 1941, not practice bombs. Blue has been the color for practice ordnance in the US for decades, but I  can not say how far back that goes.

Nice work, everyone!

Wow everybody's builds are looking sweet ! I have been busy building other kits for a bunch of upcoming shows our IPMS chapter has here. The big one being the Dec 7th show at the Arizona Memorial. Since I have never build anything WWII its a learning curve with lots of research for me. 

But anywho here is where I am at with my second build. She is almost complete. I got the decaling done. Just down to weapons, weathering, and Wheels. I work on here in between the other builds I have going.

Had to straighten out the Lt. tail to even it out.

Started fixing up some weapons for the eagle. I still have to mask and paint the yellow lines on the ordinance. This is turning out to be tougher than I though.

1st wash applied. 

Lots of great modeling going on. Everyone is doing a fantastic job on their projects.

As for me, I'm trying to keep my Voodoo as OOB as possible but sometimes I just can't help doing some modification. The side fuselage light has a molded bulb that was screaming to be replaced by a MV lens. 

Unfortunately, I don't have the size I need in my goody box and 3 places I checked had #116 out of stock so I made my own from clear plastic.

I drilled out the bulb which left a hole on the cockpit side. I used a small thin plastic sheet piece cut to the correct shape and glued over the hole then painted with the matching cockpit grey color.

According to my references the light compartment is black so Floquil engine black was brushed on.The flat side of the lens was painted Floquil bright silver and when dry was attached with a dab of clear parts cement. The MV lens is a much better alternative but a clear panel will go over the light making it a bit less visible. I think it came out ok.

There's a scoop that is located up front and very visible to I deepened the openings a bit to give it more depth.

The nose cone was assembled and seams sanded and polished smooth, no filler used at all. All the probes were glued. I don't know if it will require weight to keep it from being a tail dragger.

Floquil engine black was brushed on the top cockpit sides. The canopy and windscreen will go on very soon to be used as masks from the exterior color.

I also went back and added a few smaller pieces of stretched sprue and Tenax to close up some of the seams on the weapons bay joins.

Latest update:

I love the way the seats never go together right on snap kits

managed to get a bit of detail painting done....

I need to touch up a few spots

I gave the grills a wash of flat black

Stik: looking good there, nice job on the figs - mine would have looked like the muppets!

B_one: nice F-15, always liked those since I was in high school and got a chance to tour Wright-Patt's tower as a flight of those were taking off.