Caveman, life happens. Unfortunately, paying the bills is more important than modelling. Looking forward to your build this weekend. How you doing out there GM? Still hanging in there? As promised, pics of my latest attempt. Had to call an audible at the line when it came time for decals. I tore the rudder decal from the kit markings. Markings are from an Eagle Strike sheet. The markings are for a Marine squadron in Korea, 1954. On the sheet, they had a silver color to them, once I put them on they were very opaque, and very white. Anyhoo, the pics.
Proof of start pic.
Didn't take any pics of the actual construction, was too busy (Yeah, that's the ticket, they'll believe that). Kit went together a lot better than I expected. Just a few seams on the top and bottom to take care of. Here she is all primered up and ready for paint. At this point I called a morning and went to bed. Thus endeth the first day.
Normally, I would have masked the canopy and used it to cover the cockpit. Instead I took the lazy (for me) way out and covered it with some tape. Time for some blue.
As the paint dries, my former car builder's eye notices that the paint has pulled away from some of the deeper panel lines such as the elevators, and flaps, outlining them in the light gray Tamiya primer. This is a hazard with all gloss paints when they don't have significant tooth and as they dry, they pull away from the edges, leaving the panel lines, door lines, etc. in the color of the primer or plastic. Didn't really care as it was going on the shelf. Got ready to apply decals, and noticed that I hadn't entirely coverd the port side of the tail. Pulled out the airbrush, and reshot the a/c, ending up with a shiny bird. Did I mention that gloss enamel takes a loooooonnnnnnggg time to dry to the touch? I've really gotten spoiled with Tamiya's spray bombs. 3-4 hours later, the plane was able to be handled and the decalling began.
While the decals were setting, did mundane things like paint the prop, assemble the landing gear etc. Woke up this morning, glued the front of the cowl on, attached the prop, and the wheels. Shot the rear canopy, and headed off to work. And so here she is when I stuck a fork in her at 0547 this morning. Came home, cleaned off the rear canopy and hear she is in all her glory.
