The 50 Shades of Gray Group Build!

Here's the latest on the Viper. Gloss cleared today, decals tomorrow! I found the bluish gray for the upper surfaces at the LHS in Mission Models livery. It sprayed nice straight out of the bottle. Clear coat it tho before you get anywhere near it or it will come off lol

Hey Grayers,

As the paint on my Stearman's tail dries, I started on my AH-1J. My plan is to build it in the 3 gray camo scheme used during Desert Storm. 

I want to build every version of the Cobra that served with the Marines. This will be the second of the series. I finished a kit-bashed -1G in '19 and the 4-bladed demstrator last year. I purchased the Cobra Company resin cockpits for the the J, T, and W for my project. I decided to go ahead and use the resin for this build. 

I have never used a resin cockpit before. My experience with resin hadn't extended beyond an ejection seat or a set of wheels. Overall, I'm happy with the way it turned out. There are a few little mistakes here and there, but they really won't be noticeable under the canopy. The only addition I made was a pair of scratch built ECS hoses.

I'm ready to move on to the airframe. I'll be sharing my progress as I make it. Comments, questions and criticisms welcome. Thanks for looking!

-O

68GT-looking forward to seeing the Warthog come together-I need to pull the trigger and grab one during the next HobbyLobby 40% sale.  I always enjoyed being on vacation in Myrtle Beach and watching them fly over.

Mongoose & O-love the Cobra's-I really need to add one to my stash-will be following closely.

Thanks for the encourging words on the Chevy-didn't do much else on it this weekend...hopefully will take care of some smaller sections this week.

While I finish all the seam work, and paint my Strike Eagle, I managed to finish all of the underwing stores...

I will added these as completed sub-assemblies after the paint work, decals and weathering is done.

Tomcat i think your stores exploded - all i see is a white out 

Fabulous projects 68GT and Mongoose!

That cockpit looks like it flew together.  Well done, O!

Tomcat, you may want to double check that photo link, it looks like an error message instead of ordnance.  

Hey all, I just wanted to share some of the progress that I've made on my Stearman.

Last I left you, I had tried to touch-up some paint issues on the vertical stabilizer and ended up pulling off chunks of the rudder decal. My only choice was to get back down to bare plastic and paint.

So...

Stripped:

Primed:

Painted:

Installed and rigged:

It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with the results. I'm going to focus on the engine and windscreens before I move on to rigging and installing the top wing.

Stay tuned!

-O

O-very nice indeed!

That paint job if great O!

 Rooster the Eagle cockpit is coming along great, seats look good, shame about the fit.

 68 GT, Always like an A-10, the fit looks good

 Mongoose the hellfires look great, and the Viper is coming along really well with a great finish.

O the Stearman is looking really smooth – very clean finish. Great rescue on the tail and the rigging is very neat. Enjoying your build – what paints are you using?

Glamdring, the seahawk looks good, the drone is very cute!

Where's my fork because...the Stearman is done! This Kaydet is ready to solo!

It's not even close to being perfect, but I'm happy with my first attempt at a biplane. I learned a lot during this build. I think it will look fine among the other 3-footers on my shelves. Here are a few photos, and I've posted a few more in my thread in the Aircraft Forum.

lostagain

O the Stearman is looking really smooth...what paints are you using?

Hey lostagain, to answer your question, I used MM and Testors' "little square bottle" enamels. The main color is MM ADC gray. The fuselage band and tail are MM Insignia red, white and blue. The yellow is Testors Yellow. Additions are some simple wire on the engine and tape belts in the cockpit. Some some aftermarket decals to customize my livery. Fine wire grab handles on the fuselage, and finally, E-Z Rigging line for the rigging.

I'd like to thank everyone for their comments and compliments. Much appreciated! As usual, feel free to share more comments, criticisms and questions. They're always welcome.

Thanks to Robert (again) for hosting. Now that this little guy is done I can turn my focus to my USMC AH-1J as my third submission. 

Sorry gang, but I'm not going anywhere...yet.

Cheers!

-O

Oh, and Robert, you can use this one for the main page:

The A-10 got a black base coat of Tamiya X-1 thinned with their lacquer thinner at 1:2 after some filler work.

68GT

The A-10 got a black base coat of Tamiya X-1 thinned with their lacquer thinner at 1:2 after some filler work.

 

WHOA! That looks superb in gloss black! 

LostAgain, the casting looks good to me.  Can't wait to see all those fiddly bits added!

O, magnificent work once again!

68GT, I actually like the look of the Warthog in black...it kind of inspires me to do some kind of sci fi, what if sceme....

Gloss black Warthog? Crying out to be an Oshkosh racer!

Big thanks for all the comments, suggestions, and just plane following along guys  The weeks been busy and i just got a few minutes tonight to do a little decalling. Thought I’d at least throw a teaser out for what will be this weekends work now.

A little microsol and off to bed.

I’m doing YP 41 from HMLA 267 off the Boxer. This one’s on the Marine Skid Zulu’s Flying Leathernecks Sheet. I found info on the black aces and skulls. I can’t find anything on the red skeleton on the ripped black flag yet. Does anyone have a link to more info on this insignia?

Hey gang, wow, there's some great work going on in here! I'm always impressed by your talent and skill. Very inspiring! Pushes me to be a better modeler myself. 

So I've been able to make a little progress on my Cobra. Last I left you, I had the cockpit built up and ready for the next step. Well, the next step was to install it.

The resin cockpit was a bit of a challenge because I had to do some grinding to get the resin to fit. Also, there are no locating tabs so I had to do some careful measuring and comparing to an AH-1G I'm concurrently building.to get it pretty close. Well, as close as I could. Something you don't see in the above are the armor plates. I added them after I took the photo but before I closed up the canopy.

Speaking of canopies, I got both the canopy masked up and installed. Again, there are two because I'm also kitbashing an Army AH-1G.

Shortcomings of kit are the intake and exhaust assemblies. The intakes are molded as hollow openings that allow a viewer to see into the empty doghouse.

I'll have to figure out a solution for that. The exhausts are just these two shallow ovals molded onto a piece that mounts to the rear of the doghouse. I pressed some tissue soaked in white glue into the shallows to mold some FOD covers. A small hole drilled into the backing of the exhaust allowed me to push them out after they dried.

The last thing I did was attach the rotor blades to the hub. When I kitbashed a USMC -1G, I found that the assembly was very weak and allowed for a lot of flexing. So much so that I accidentally snapped a blade off during construction. This time I used a couple of small styrene strips to add some rigidity and reinforce the joint. I'm sure once everything is painted up and washed, the extra plastic won't be noticeable.

So the main fuselage is assembled. Next will be to clean up all the joints and fill the gaps around the canopies. After that, I think things will go pretty quickly. 

Thanks for looking. Feel free to share any comments, questions or criticisms. I hope to be back soon with more progress.

Cheers!

-O

Ok finally got some grey on this 

You can just barely tell the difference in the top and bottom color 

 O, the Stearman looks super! Excellent finish on the model, very attractive. I did get a ride in one for my 50^th.

 Mongoose, the Viper is looking great, can’t help you with the markings though.

 O, the Cobra looks great, good work getting the resin cockpit in

 TJ, yep hard to spot the difference, is it easier to tell in the flesh? Regardless, the Gripen is looking sharp.

 Repainted the deck in a better colour this time, then glued on the superstructure. Bit of a gap between the two after.

 So filled, sanded, masked and painted

And happy with that

lostagain that gap closed up nice. You must be happy bout that Cause it was definitely noticeable! Must have been a shock to see that when you put the two together lol

Seriously nice work here, well done all!  Really excited seeing these projects coming together.  

Got the Strike Eagle painted (Gunship grey of course)...

I masked the underside engine bay to paint it Titanium...

I tried a new paint for this...

It sprayed on well with no need to thin. And its tough. I didn't have any chipping problems like I've had with Metalizer. I recomend mixing the paint really well, as it tends to settle on the bottom of the jar. Here I masked around the engine cones so they can be sprayed Jet exhaust (a shade of grey?)...

Again I used a new paint...

After all was dry, I future coated her in preparation for the decals...

While waiting for the paint to dry, I worked on the canopy. I decided to try something new when painting canopy frames. I decided to mask and paint as I go. Working this way, I feel, gives me a little more control of the process. First I polish the glass, and mask off a little at a time. I then brush on some future along the tape seam to seal it and help prevent paint bleed...

when dry I paint the color over top...

So far it seems to be working out Ok.

Finally, here is a repost of the completed underwing weapons pylons to be added at the end. Hope the pic works this time...

That's it for now, off to the decals.

Love the stores tomcat! How's that AK Titanium look in the sunlight? ive Thought about those instead of the vallejo as it has the problem you highlighted, scratches off real easy.

The F-15 is looking really good Mark! Here's a little update on my progress.

Main construction is moving along nicely with a little filler needed here and there. I decided to paint and decal the vertical stabilizers separate as I thought it would be easier to do the gloss coats and sanding needed to blend in the decal film. As you can see the one on the left needs a little more work to get rid of all the silvering but the one on the right is looking good. I also decided to paint and decal the stars and bars on the side since it will be easier to do the decaling blending before the intake covers go on. Green/white stripes at the top were painted on as I didn't look forward to getting the decals to conform to those complex shapes.

Great work Tomcat, I will have to try out those AK metals.  I am always on the look out for good metallic paints.

Rooster, nice decal work!  I like that the USAF birds have that little burst of color with the emblem on the stabilizers.

You aren't kidding Mongoose.  That is more decal sheets than I have used on any 3 kits....

The results are mighty fine though!

Working on all kinds of little touch ups and ancillary stuff right now. All the weathering is done. My AIM-9’s won’t be in till Tuesday tho so another week before i can truly finish it. Here’s some progress pics.

 

 

 

 

the next time i post up should be with finished pics :-)  

Howdy all,

I'm back with a quick update.

Progress on my AH-1J continues. I've been able to get the fuselage together and some gray sprayed.

I started with a base coat of Light Ghost Gray.

Then I got the Dark Ghost Gray and Medium Gray sprayed to complete the camo. I couldn't find references or pictures that showed the camo pattern, so I used a little artistic license.

The stub wings, skids, and elevators are just dry-fitted for the sake of the photos. It's tough to see the difference between the LGG and the DGG, but I'm happy that's the way the two colors appear in my reference photos. The Medium Gray seems a bit blue when compared to my references though. I play on misting on some LGG to tie the three colors together. Maybe that will help tone down the Medium Gray.

Next will be prepping the airframe for decals and assembly of the fiddly bits.

Comments, questions, and criticisms welcome. Stay tuned for more!

-O

Added a splash of color to the grey. Getting very close to the finish line on this one