IT'S BACK! Secret Santa 2: Rudolph Strikes Back

Looking great Drew.  Nice smooth finish.

I closed up the fuselages (fuselagi ? sounds like a pasta!) on the P-51C and the F-16B on Friday.  Saturday I decided to cut the clear canopy for the F-16 off the tree and test fit it.  The top of the rear seat contacted the inside of the canopy so that there was about a 1/4 " gap where the canopy was supposed to meet the fuselage in back - OUCH ! - That's a scale foot and a half !  This is gonna take more than a few minutes.  I was able to break the floor of the cockpit from where it was glued and push it down a little without any damage.  That got me a little more than halfway to my goal.  Time to break the rear seat off the cockpit floor (fortunately was able to do that without any damage too - Whew !)  Sanded down the underside of the seat and voila !  I can close it now, with just the tiniest bit of contact.  It'll do.

Next step - a trip to the cosmetics aisle for a new 4-way sanding stick.  Lotsa seam cleanup.

Chris

Hey Folks,

Well, for one thing I got the wings on and the lower fuselage panel glued and sanded.  Fit is pretty good, a little wiggling , but still went OK.  It all lines up!

Next.  I wanted to build her OOB but I had a problen to deal with.  Marine SB2U's only carried one .50 cal MG in the STBD WING.  The plane was equipped to carry four but in practice, to save weight, they operated with one.  AM puts the shell eject chute under the PORT wing, not the STBD.  I had to fill and sand the wrong one and rescribe the chute and it's panels onto the correct wing.  Also, I filled the gunports for the three remaining MG's as they weren't needed.

And finally, here are some more cockpit shots.  I guess I like the way it is coming out. 

Thanks for reading this post.  I hope to get a lot more done over the next few days.

Regards,

Freddie from LI

Thanks Papa-John for the nice walkaround link, and thanks Drew for confirming the accuracy. When I know what I need to know, I'll let you know! References are always good to have. I read an interesting article on IPMS Stockholm about interior colors and it says a little about Corsairs here. Nice progress btw.

Freddie, nice pics, looking awesome!

Azgaron

You are welcome.

Don't know is this has ever been posted as there is just so much material in the forums to try and find this information, but I'll put it up anyway.  I have it bookmarked.

Cockpits of numerous aircraft'  site, for me anyway

http://uscockpits.com/

Nice progress Freddie and Drew, you guy's are doing some great work and I have had a chance to start yet. Hopefully I can get to the bench this weekend.

Steve

Here is another website, I hope you find interesting, if you don't know about it.  If I post previous ones that already have been put up, and humour me in my senior stage.

http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/World_War_II_Aviation_Link.html

PaPa-John

Drew, Chris, Freddie, TLP (did I miss anyone ) Nice progress Guys!    Keep it coming.

I finally finished the pit tonight on my 1/72 fine molds Me 410 and I'm ready to close up the fuselage.  The only thing I added was some spare PE seatbelts in the front seat and some scratched belts in the back seat as that was my last PE seat belt that I put in the front.

Looking real nice, Dave! Very nice cockpit!

Azgaron

 1/72 scale? Incredible! Nice job! Amazing

Zip

WOW !

 Y'll are going a GREAT job

Bud

OK! My apologies to Bondo for not getting these posted sooner!! I didn't get any of my ugly mug opening them but, here is what I got from Bondo!

Pardon the picture. I just couldn't get the darn camera to focus for some reason. Anyway, here are the cool decals that were also sent for the Bronco kit!! I would also like to say that if anyone is interested in building a CDF Bronco? These decals from Draw are fantastic!!!

Looks like a couple of great kits Randie.  I look forward to seeing them built. 

Thanks guys for your comments on the pit.  Progress continues with assembly and I'm just starting on the filling the seams.  I tried something different this time and glued the top wing half on first before gluing it to the bottom wing as dry fitting showed the wing root seam would have been huge.  I am happy with the result (anything to avoid a wing root seam) but there is some misallignment of the engine mount.  I certainly don't mind that trade off.

Looks nice, Dave!

Gluing the top halves first, sounds like a trick I like to try sometime!

Azgaron

Well, I finally got a start (albeit a small one!) on the AM SBD-3 Dauntless.

Its just a little bit of the office. I love the detail on this one! It's gonna be fun!

Hopefully I can pick up the pace on this one a little.

Comments and criticisms always welcome! (keep in mind I'm not going for perfection as far as accuracy goes. I just want it to look good.)

Freddie, catching up in here tonight, what an amazing build! I cant even take pics that close much less build a cockpit like that :)  Look forward to seeing more....

I finally got some pics, here I am posting my Xmas pic while some people are almost done with their builds :)

The great Eduard kit I got from Freddie from LI:

Start date is planned for the summer.... thanks again! james

I am finally posting some pics. I don't have any of Christmas morning due to no camera where I was :| I do pics of the kit itself. I got the Pro-modeler F-86D Dog Saber from John. I am excited about this as this will be the first aircraft from that era that I have ever built. The NMF will be interesting, not sure how I will deal with that just yet but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

There's some nice progress here!

I've started building mine, but I have a question before I can contiune: what's the interior (cockpit) color of IJN aircraft?
The instructions say a mix of blue green and yellow, but i'd prefer to have a defined color (possibly Vallejo Model Color) that fits the need. Any help?

Avus wrote:

I've started building mine, but I have a question before I can contiune: what's the interior (cockpit) color of IJN aircraft? The instructions say a mix of blue green and yellow, but i'd prefer to have a defined color (possibly Vallejo Model Color) that fits the need. Any help?

Um, I looked this up awhile ago for some Zero/RUFEs I was planning to do for the IJN/IJA GB, let me check....

A web page with some discussion on the topic:

http://www.j-aircraft.com/faq/aircraft_interiors.htm

The color I found best match was testors/model masters Interior Mettalic Blue (2119).

Not sure what the Vallejo match is (if any) but here are a couple of paint equivalence charts:

http://www.ttfxmedia.com/vallejo/cgi-bin/_modelis_info.asp?p1=ing&p2=modelair&p3=1#modelairinfo

http://www.phoenix-model.com/paint_charts.htm

Good luck!

A visual progress update on the 1/72 Jeep, P-51, & F-16.  I'm pretty sure you'll be able to tell which parts are which...

The surface detail on the Academy P-51 kit extends from the nose to the wing tips down to to the tires.  I'm really impressed with this kit.

Chris

Thanks for the info, guys! Very helpful.

I'll have a look at the sites and will do the conversions myself, thanks again! 

I've started out, assembling the cockpit, but I got some questions. Will the color like I used in the wheel wells on my Typhoon work?

The instructions says medium blue (XF-18) on the panels, but on the pics they look black, except for some of the panels on the sides that looked blue to me.

I'm thinking of building it with the wings folded. If so, then are the cowling flaps closed or open?

The instructions also states that the wheel wells and inside of cowlings should be that interior green mix, but as far as I know at least the wells are the same color as the underside ie Navy insignia white (AS-20)

Last (for now), the colors for the tri color scheme are given for Tamiyas rattle cans if I'm not mistaken, but I don't intend to use them and like to know suitable substitutes for AS-8, AS-19 and AS-20.

TIA

Azgaron

After running outta tape for my IMS2 build, i got this baby out and started on her.  I Got most of the Prelim painting done.  Next is assembly.  I was overlaying the PE parts out when i noticed a slighht problem.  The PE is for a Hase kit.  This is a fujimi.  I can fudge on some of it, but most of it just doesn't fit.  Here are the pics.

P.S. Azgaron, I use for my IJN cockpits, Tamiya XF-4 Yellow green over a Green Zinc Cromate base.  It works fairly well for the interior colors.

Jim

Bossman - Nice update on the jeep!

Azgaron - Sorry, cant help too much... I *think* that rattle can "colors" are the same as the bottles, but I have only matched ONE color (some gray). Problem is, with the rattle can color will seem more "heavy"/darker due to more paint being deposited on the plastic. Wish I had better info to give you...

Mist086 - Looking good! and my, WHO sent you that wrong PE??? 

GO NY GIANTS :)

I got a little more done on the SBD-3 office. I hope the instructions are right when they say this is the hardest part of the kit. Half the parts of the whole kit seem to be here!

So far the parts seem to fall together, its a really nice kit!

Comments welcome!

I almost thought everyone was on vacation or something!

Mist,

Thanks for the tip, I might try that! Looking good btw. Hope you get the PE sorted out!

JMart,

Thanks, but which colors match the AS numbers?

Max,

Very nice looking cockpit!

Cheers,

Azgaron