Eaglecash: Nice work so far especially on that cockpit!

Gamera: B.A is looking much more like himself now. Also, can't wait to see the outside of the van fully painted.

Haven't had much time to work on the truck lately because of another project on the workbench that needed to be finished. One of the rattle cans I have been using to paint the box ended up giving me clogging issues so I decided to move on and start working on the engine and cab until I go to the store to get some new paint.

Thanks Gamera!  Yeah, had a week off this week, so its given me a lot more time than I usually have.  I normally build 1/48 and 1/32, and I've gotta say that 1/72 models will help me keep my sanity.  Its kinda nice to have something that builds up as quickly as a 1/72 fighter so I can feel like I'm getting something completed.  Bigger scale builds tend to get agonizingly slow at times.  Wanna get this done so I can get the new Tamiya F-4B on the bench with the Su-25...its a SCARY good kit.  Got my probe kit today for the F-16, and WOW are those probes tiny!

What kind of polishing compound are you trying out on your van?

Looks great Eagle! And sometimes it's just better to remove the probes for aftermarket or scratchbuild ones.

Nothing done with the van recently. I've ordered some polishing compound I want to try out. When it gets here I'm going to try to polish out the red stripes to a nice shine and then mask them for the black.

Got the upper and lower fuselage halves together and the wings on.  Fit has been typical Hasegawa...decent, but not wonderful.  Managed to get the seams between upper and lower erased with a tiny bit of super glue, tiny bit of Apoxie Clay, and miniscule dabs of Mr. Surfacer 1200.  Broke off one of the AoA probes, so I sliced them both off and just drilled a couple of tiny pilot holes for the Master Model probes and pitot tube set that I have on the way.  They were both kinda too big anyway.

Bigger gaps between the wings and fuselage, but nothing that I think Apoxie Clay won't be able to make disappear.

Also cleaned up the excess primer and black around the cockpit with a couple of q-tips dampened with 99% isopropyl alcohol.  Love that stuff for removing paint and primer!

Cool Wayne, horrific  story there. 

These figures were off AliExpress, don't know the brand. 

[quote user="Gamera"

Wayne: That is very cool! I picked up some Soviet figures in NBC gear about a year ago. Not sure if this is the right protective suits for the Chernoybol clean-up or not though.

[/quote]

close enough. i have the first 3 kits. the 3rd kit is the roof cleaners, 4th is deactivators (decontamination all in full NBC gear), 5th is civilian evacuees from Pripyat who were never allowed to return. Kit 1 has one guy in decon gear. they brought in over 600,000 soldiers during the clean up. the roof guys were deploy go to the roof, throw one shovel of debris into the hole and be sent home becuse they got a lifetime or Rads. the whole cleanup was typical Soviet brute force inefficiency.

i have 3 books, read 2 additional books and watched the HBO series  which gets the basics correct but "modifies" some facts for drama. good visuals though. scary stuff. thinking of doing a 16 hour class based around the HBO series

none of my friends want to fly into Kyiv and do a day tour of Chernobyl and the big DUGA 1 Radar site.

Thanks Eagle! I used to buy a lot of the Eduard ZOOM sets since the instrument panels are way better than anything I can paint. Lately though I've been just building more straight from the box though. 

And you're right about about painting the stripes. Not only do they look better but the spoiler is red too, and I'm not sure I could have perfectly matched the red in the decals. 

Gamera

That looks great Eagle! Are those instuments decals or did you drybrush/paint them? In any case love your results. 

Thanks Gamera.  The instruments are all an Eduard color PE set, and they're just about right for 1/72 scale.  In larger scales they don't have enough depth.  They even had PE for the HUD frame and ejection seat handles.

BA and his van are looking great!  Wise choice to go with painting the stripes.  Even if those old decals were still viable, the painted stripes are going to look so much better.  The skin tone on BA is perfect!  Mr. T would be proud.

Rob Gronovius

Gonna need to add some scale chain from model shipbuilding to give him more bling!

 

Lol, good call Rob! They'd look way better than that pitiful flat molded jewery!

I got B.A.'s van primered and painted the red stripes. Sorry, I don't trust nearly forty year old decals. I'll wait till this is good and dry and then mask them and paint the black body of the van. 

Spoiler and and 'fins' or what you call the raised areas on the hubs are red too.

Gave B.A. two coats of 'leather' paint and a black wash. He's starting to look more Mr. T-ish already... 

That looks great Eagle! Are those instuments decals or did you drybrush/paint them? In any case love your results. 

Got the cockpit bucket and instrument panels done and mounted in the upper fuselage half.  I figure I'll put the seats in later since I just see them getting in the way and causing issues while I work on the rest of the jet.

Yeah, My Dads unit shipped out of Ft. Carson after training on the 108.  The went to West Germany in 66-67 where they trained on the 109 and then shipped down to Vietnam. The M108s stayed at Fort Carson.

68GT

Thanks, I've had the two 109s and a M108 pulled to build for over 5 years now and just haven't started them.

 

Robert: I wish I did have a complete set of figures to go with the van. I think I'll do some snooping around, I'd be surprised if someone hadn't put a set of 3D printed figures by now.

Wayne: That is very cool! I picked up some Soviet figures in NBC gear about a year ago. Not sure if this is the right protective suits for the Chernoybol clean-up or not though.

68GT: That is cool too! I went for the van instead of rooting though my military stuff. Most of mine is WWII though Korea with a smattering of 'modern' subjects, not sure any of them would work with the '80s timeframe or not. Love your 109! Good luck with the kitchen!

I have some Italeri M109 kits that I was thinking of starting one in a 4 color scheme. I'm kind of in a holding pattern though since I'm redoing my kitchen.

where are the tracked vehicles?  i need to get back into a GB or 2 other than the SHELF QUEEN GB

i still have a bunch of shelf queens to finish but i have a ЗИЛ-131 6X6 command truck from the ICM Chernobyl No. 1 that can cross over.

You just need Hannibal, Face, and Murdock to go in too.  And a couple Mini 14s with folding stocks of course.  

Rob Gronovius

Change the ears and you have the proper color for the Night Elf Mohawk.

 

https://youtu.be/D1vF3-BsoxE

 

Good thinking Rob! 

LOL guys, I've got the brown paint out. Mr. T is going to a more accurate shade. 

Change the ears and you have the proper color for the Night Elf Mohawk.

https://youtu.be/D1vF3-BsoxE

I pity the fool who used white primer on me!

Still working on the van. 

I'm probably in some hot water for some racist thing or the other for priming Mr. T white though... 

Thanks, Ed.  Those are Eduard PE panels.  Really glad I made that small investment...they look so much better than the decals in the kit.  Eduard PE stuff lacks sufficient depth in larger scales like 1:32, but in 1:72 they look just about right.

Eaglecash, that's a nice start to the cockpit. Are those decals or PE?

Rob, I have lots of builds where I spend more on the decals than the kit. Hopefully you can get a few more builds out of that sheet.

Great job on the Firebird Octain.  Do you have preference of which picture to post at the beginning?

Rob Gronovius

I have a kit similar to that, but after a quick trip to Hobby Lobby, I found a Tom Cat, not any Tomcat, but Tom "Maverick" Cruise's F-14 from the movie Top Gun.

The Top Gun Tomcat was only around $11 after their 40% off sale.

I cracked open the Revell F-14 Tomcat and it is a rather basic kit. Two sets of decals, one are stickers and the other the same set but in water slide decals. I ordered a set of decals from Sprue Brothers just now and hopefully they will be here in time. I spent more on the decal set ($12.77) than on the actual kit!

1:72 Furball Aero Design F-14 Tomcat Stencil & Data