Shelf of Doom GB 2016-17 (now extended to 30th June !!!!!!!)

Thanks for your techniques OO, I am trying to get my courage up to have another shot at NMF.

Looking forward to seeing the F-16 in its glory too.

SO the Raptor is finished - here are the shots before it goes onto the son's shelf

So Tony, thanks for hosting and helping get another model finished.

I will keep on watching the other projects finishing, for now finish off a couple more GBs before starting another, and another, and another...

Piers

Ooh that's a beauty O, I'm really looking forward to that. Don't worry too much about the April 30  deadline, I've got a few more on my mind, so it may get extended again. That's a really pretty F-16.

Cheers

Tony

Hey lostagain,

Thanks for the kind words.  As far as what I use for my NMF, I use Alclad's line.  I start with their proprietary primers and finish with their metalizers.  I prefer their white primer, but I've used their black and gray, too.  I think their white gives a more realistic finish when the meatilizer is sprayed over the top.  In my opinion, the "metal" looks a bit more "oxidized" and realistic.  I usually use Airframe Aluminum or plain ol' Aluminum for my base coat.  Then I use mixes of their other metalizers to pick out panels and highlights.

For my panel lines, I use Flory's washes.  To give that sooty look to the panel's edges, I use artist pastels.  I scrub them on with a stiff brush, then feather them using a retired soft make-up brush my wife wasn't using anymore.  If I think the effect is too dark, I just use a moistened ear bud to wipe it off, and I try again.  Usually, my lines are a bit more subtle.  These really darkened up under the flat coat.  Eh, I can live with it.  I usually prefer something a little "softer."  

Hey Tony, 

I've already saved 6 from the Shelf of Doom, but since you asked, I'm going to try to get one more done.  I'm on Spring Break this week, so I'm going to have some time at my work table.  I'm going to try to get this one done:

This one's been sitting on the SoD for quite a while.  It stalled because, well honestly, because I got sick of painting white and touching it up.  The major components are done, I just need to paint and assemble the fiddly bits.  Oh, and the decals, of course.  

When everything's said and done, it should look like this:  Edwards AFB F-16A

Let's see how it goes.  I'll try to keep you all posted.

Cheers!
-O

Thats looking realy good Lostagain, it'll be a winner on your shelf. I'm looking forward to the glory shots !

Cheers

Tony

Hey OOrtiz, that is a great finish, love the shark mouth on your F-80.  What are you using for the metal finish? What do you use on the panel lines?

Tony, looking forward to seeing the Hunter done - and hope you can through all the decal issues. And looking forward to a line up of all the aerobatic hunters.

The Raptor is getting close. After the decals, there was another gloss coat, then panel lines were highlighted.

Then the flat coat went on, looking okay:

Then gluing on the landing gear.

You can see the panel line wash here. I have done practically no weathering as this was a demonstrator and test aircraft.

Next I will turn the plane over and do the cockpit and canopy and it is done.

Here it is with some paint on it. Since this photo was taken, I've also done the white wing tips, black nose cone and natural metal ring at the tail. I'm just starting decalling. Decalling is a challenge for this model. The roundels and tail flashes all have an extra white outline around the RAF Roundel. I bought an extra set of Xtradecals for the Black Arrows Hunter to provide these. There is a white lightning flash down both sides of it and a squadron insignia on the nose that can only come from the old Matchbox Hunter T.7 kit. The twist is that I've been told that the opacity of these decals is sub standard, so you actually need two sets to get decent coverage. Luckily, a contact I have gave me two sets, but using 35 year old decals is dodgy at best. I've given them a coat of Microscale decal goo just to try and stop them shattering. I hope it works out ok.

I've chosen this scheme as the last of my five aerobatic team Hunters project.

Cheers

Tony

This is my 1/72 Revell Hunter, about to get some paint.

Cheers

Tony

Lotsagain - your Raptor isreally taking shape. Nice work !

theuns - I've posted your Spitfire to the gallery on page one.Another very nice build of one of my favourite aircraft. I think that old Revell kit is quite a difficult build, so wel ldone.

O - I love that F-80. It's probably the best build I've seen from that kit. I hope we see another one from you. It's in the gallery too now.

Cheers

Tony

Fantastic work everyone !. I'm just back from another business trip, so I apologise for the lack of responses over the last week or so. I'll settle back down to normal life and update this thread in the next day or so.

It looks like we're really getting something done here, great !

Cheers

Tony

I completely forgot about this build O. I think it turned out well.

The NMF, panel lines and shark mouth look good. 

I'm back to share another SoD rescue!

This F-80 was started a while back and shelved after I painted the shark mouth. It didn't come out as sharp as I wanted so the project stalled. It's interesting how one little thing like touching up paint can cause me to lose motivation on a project. Anyway, after finishing the Jugs and Cobra, bvallot asked about this ol' build. Yes, he called me out and I had to answer the bell. So, I dusted off this kit and got to finishing it.

First thing was first, I touched up the mouth and teeth as well as I could. Not as sharp as I would've liked, but I can live with it. Then I painted the red nose and vents. The NMF is Alclad Aircraft Aluminum over their white primer. Other Alclad shades were used for different panels. The rest of the painting was done with Testors and MM enamels. Weathering is Flory washes and pastels. A TD seat and a set of wheels were also used on this build. Other than that, it's the kit's plastic, rescribed.

The decals are from Aeromaster's "Shooting Stars Over Korea, Pt. 1" sheet. A quick word about the markings. According to my research, FT-798 was with the 8 FBG, 36 FBS in Korea. From what I can tell, it was in-country while the 36 FBS wore the shark's mouth. I couldn't find any evidence that this particular airframe wore the mouth, but as the Mythbusters say, "It is plausible." Eh, even if I'm wrong, I think it looks cool. So, there's that... 

Anyway, let's look at the pictures, OK?

I'm not 100% happy with this build, but I think it's a solid 3-footer. It's bright and colorful, and the shark mouth jumps out at you from my shelf. I think it looks pretty good considering it's an ancient mold.

Anyway, feel free to share your comments and criticisms. Thanks for looking!

Cheers,

-O

lostagain

Modelcrazy, Glad you found the PE. Do you use superglue to assemble it and bond to the model?

Lost,

yes, applied with the tip of a needle or the end of some streched sprue.

lostagain

Pyrman, The details look great. The LED decals on the light bar are great – is that a kit decal?

Lost,

Thank you for the kind words.  Your Rapto looks great, too.  If you're referring to the arrowstik on the Vector lightbar, it's just old fashion Tamiya Clear Yellow over the kit part chrome. THe lightbar came in the Ohio State Highway Patrol issue of Lindberg's 1997 Ford Crown Vic. It was also offered separately and can somethimes be found on Evil-bay.

Beautiful Spit Fire Bird there Theuns!

Love it.

Thanks Tony,

I am having problems finding good clear pictures of this tank though.

I am going to do this as the "famous" T-26 tank that killed the Panther tank inforont of the Cologne cathedral.  There is movie footage, but stills are hard to find.  I just need to figure out all the storage and markings that were on this tank.  That is why it has been sitting on "The Shelf Of Doom" for so long.

So far, thiese pics are all I can find;

Maybe someone here can help???

Here's the Puma. I had previously done the body, but started on the turret yesterday. You can see the turned metal gun barrel.

and here is the Hunter. I'm going to have to be creative with the decals for this subject, as they're not readily available.

Sounds good Tony, I can always go to the Arizona after the Fletcher. 

Nice work Panzerjager, good t osee you back into it.

I've just added another couple of builds to this GB.

I've got a 1/48 Italeri SD KFZ 234/2 Puma that I'm still putting together, and a Revell 1/72 Hawker Hunter F6 that I want to finish in the colours of the 'Blue Diamonds' aerobatic team. I primed it yesterday, but I built it last year. I'll post photos soon.

I'm thinking of just extending the GB until the end of this year. There seem to be plenty of subjects out there. Any thoughts ?

Cheers

Tony

sorry for being absent for bit, I had to get some other projects out of the way first.

Finally made some progress, and got this one primed and painted;

More tomorrow...

Awesome O, and very brave to paint that mouth. I'm guessing that you engraved a Monogram kit ? Your NMF looks pretty good even if you're not quite happy with the mouth yet.

I'm going to update the roster now.

Cheers

Tony

Alright Tony...you've sucked me back in!

I had forgotten how gratifying finish a build can be, that is, until I finished 5 for this GB.  I'd like to get back in with another, if I may.

bvallot called me out for a F-80 that I started, and obviously, never finished.  I decided to paint a shark mouth on it instead of using a set of decals, and the touch-ups and clean ups turned me off.  Sadly, the kit went onto the SoD.  

Major construction is done.  It's basically just waiting for touch-ups, decals, and the fiddly bits.  Here's where it stands:

Here's the shark mouth that needs some clean up:

I'm going to get back to this one and finish it up.  I'm glad this GB is providing me with the opportunity and motivation to get 'er done!

Anyway, progress pictures will follow.

Cheers!

-O

That really looks fantastic O. I love the weathered appearance, it brings it to life. I'm so glad that we helped you to get these models done, and thinks for bringing the rescue tally to 16 !

Cheers

Tony

OK, my Cobra's done!  Another Shelf of Doom rescue!

Here's my Monogram 1/48 AH-1F built as an Operation Desert Storm bird.  The build is mostly OOB.  It had been dying a slow death on the Shelf of Doom until the GB gave me the motivation to finish this project.  The only parts that weren't in the box are the (awesome) Werner's Wings TOW racks and rocket pods, the serial on the tail and the airframe number on the doghouse (which were cobbled together from spares in the bin), some scratched sensors, and the scratched landing light.  Oh, and the rotor tie-down that's made from paper and shaped wire.  It's painted with MM enamels and weathered with pastels and Flory's washes.  Considering this is only my second helo build, I'm pretty happy with the results. 

Let's take a look at the photos. OK?

Some detail shots:

(By the way, I fixed the low-hanging rocket pod after the photos were taken.)

After building 4 P-47s straight, I was happy to switch gears and do something different.  Of course, feel free to share your thoughts.  Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

-O

Hey Tony,

Thanks for the kudos!  To answer your question, of the plastic, the Hasegawa kit was my favorite.  The ol' Monogram had some flash and fit issues.  The raised panel lines don't bother me too much.  If I lose some to sanding I usually replace them with resin replacements.  The HB kit's fit was pretty good overall, but the detail was too simple.  The Hasegawa was my favorite compared to the other two, but I hear the Tamiya's even better than the Hasegawa.  

As far as the subject matter goes, Miss M was my favorite to finish.  I really like the yellow cowl and pin-up, and I love NMF Jugs in full invasion stripes.  I'm happy with the way Miss M turned out.

Again, thanks for looking and the feedback.  I'll be posting pictures of my Cobra as I progress.

Cheers,

-O

Those jugs look absolutely first class O, nice work. Out of the four, which did you prefer to build ?

I've updated the front page and also added your AH-1H, which also looks great.

Cheers

Tony

The Jugs are done!  Both are 1/48 Hasegawa kits built in WIF markings for friends.  I'll be posting a more detailed post with more photos in the Aircraft forum when I have a little more time.  Until then, here are some teasers...

Lady D:

Miss M:

Keep your eyes open for my posts in the Aircraft forum.  

Now that the 4 Jugs are off the Shelf of Doom and onto the display shelf, I've turned my focus to a different SoD kit.  

Here's a Revellogram AH-1F that had been languishing on the Shelf of Doom.  When I opened the box, this is what I found.

I decided to use Werner's Wings weapons for this build. So, I started by building up the TOW racks.

The empty rocket pods will be hung from the kit's pylons that I separated from the kit's rocket pods.

I painted them up, but they didn't look like the pictures I had seen of Desert Storm...

...so I decided to repaint them.  Here' they are dry-fitted to the painted "wings."

Speaking of paint, I got the airframe painted up...

...glossed and decaled.

While the decals dried, I thought I'd paint up the rotors. The photos of ODS Cobras I've seen showed a "sandblasted" look to their leading edges. So, I first primed the blades. Then I sprayed a metallic color. After that, I sprayed very thin coats of the black. Once that dried, I used a 2400 grit sanding pad to slowly cut through to the underlying "metal" color.  I'm happy with the way they turned out.

That's where my latest SoD rescue is at.  I'll be weathering the airframe a bit more before everything goes together.

I'm always interested in your comments, criticisms, and questions. Feel free to share your thoughts.  Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

-O

Looks really good Theuns. For some reason I always have trouble with silvering stencils on Spitfires too. You've covered it well.

Cheers

Tony

Paint and weathering turned out OK, I still need to put some oil on the bottom.

The stencling carrier film silvered like mad, even with loads of microsol. I had to carefully put tamiya  thin cement on those areas to desolve the film.

Theuns