The Forgotten War GB (6/25/08 - 2/28/09) - Deadline Extended Yet Again!

Bobbaily -- I would love to take a shot at the new Talon acrylics and SnJ powder finish -- I've been looking for a source in the UK or Hong Kong, as with the postal regs change I can't buy paints from the US anymore and they're almost certain to be unavailable in Aus. There'll be a few proplem finish spots on this airframe, I have trouble with the attachment points from the sprue, I never seem to be able to make a perfectly clean separation. Going from my reference pics, the Mustangs in Korea suffered a lot in the harsh weather, and the brightness of the NMF was noticeably reduced. I'm thinking of doing an enamels job, mixing Chrome Silver with Flat Aluminium to both cut back the shine and increase the hardness. The surface should still be amply bright enough to take decals well, just less polished.

Mucker -- lovely T-33! Hobbycraft? Sorry, I've not read the thread as closely as I should, busybusybusy!

Cheers,

Mike/TB379

Thanks, Mike and Bob.

Mike: I didn't know you were from Down Under. Excellent! We have more of an international flavor now! Someday my travels will take me there.

Yes, it's the Hobbycraft kit. Not an easy kit, but not that bad. Typical hobbycraft/Academy: Nice fine panel lines, decent fit, but sparse interior detail. thus the resin cockpit. Hopefully the decals will work out as I really want to use the Korean War markings.

Charles

Hi Mucker --

Yep, I'm in Aus, 38 years here!

So, tell me, how did you find the Hobbycraft plastic reacted to glue? I was going to build their FG-1D COIN bird for the Corsairs GB but, on top of crazy paradoxes like round pegs and square holes (and a lot more besides), I found Testors liquid cement actually caused small parts to melt...

EDIT: Progress pic:

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Many joint lines fall on natural panel lines and the close fit means no dressing is required at the wing and tail joints. It's just the fuselage seam, really, though the leading edge can also beg a little attention under close examination.

Mike

WOW!!!Looking gooood, mucker. Your doing us proud! I too cant wait to see this baby in some color. Keep us posted.

   Thunderbolt the stang is comming along VERY nice, I likey.................Harv

Thanks, Harv. Slowly but surely I'm putting her together.

Mike, I've been using Tamiya liquid cement and Tenax. So far the plastic has responded fine, like a Hasegawa or Tamiya kit. I've got some Testors liquid cement, as well. I'll have to give it a whirl. I usually use the Testors when I need more set-up time for handling the parts.

The Mustang is looking good. The squared off Wings and overall lines make it a real beauty.

Thanks, Mucker! Well, I checkled out Squadron but the canopy masks are still out of stock, so I think I'll tackle this one the old fashioned way. She should be fine. Hoping to have her in the display case for New Year.

Well, maybe it was just bad luck that I used Testor cement on the teensy tailwheel parts of the Hobbycraft Corsair, with disastrous results... First there was no hole to connect with a corresponding pin, so I drilled one, but the thinned wall of plastic just gave up the ghost when glued. Seriously, if I could get AM Corsair gear, I'd substitute it, but when I can pick up Tamiya's -1D from Hong Kong for only US$9.98, there's no point in wrestling with the HC...

Cheers,

Mike

I hear you, Mike. You gotta love Luckymodel! I've seen Hobbyeasy and Cyber Hobby but haven't ordered from them yet. Lucky Model have several product lines with free shipping, too. THat got me trying Legend resin products and I absolutely love them.

I think once a year they have an Academy sale. Some of the WWII fighters get as low as US$4.49. This is how my stash grows.

Who do you buy from in HK?

Charles

Hi Charles,

I've done a couple of orders to Luckymodel, they're a first-rate company. The Hong Kong traders are usually competitve, but when it comes to kits I buy from a couple of eBay traders. There's one in Beijing (Clarion Militaria) who sell Trumpeter at factory-direct prices, even including further discounts for bulk, which creates prices that are unbeatable. Then there's a HK trader from whom I buy all my Tamiya, we're talking a quarter US shelf price in many cases. The only drawback is he packs like crap, wraps kits in paper so they arrive crushed, charges for protective boxes and if he actually uses what he charged they're supermarket dumpster boxes that cost nothing anyway... Profiteering is what it's called, and he wriggles like a fish on a hook if you try to pin him down. Speaks English well enough to take an order, but not to answer a question about it, if you know what I mean. The only thing that keeps me going back is the dirt cheap prices. Basically, when I need a Tamiya Mustang, Corsair or Bf 109, I order it up, expect a crushed box and bin the packaging as a matter of course -- the contents is fine.

You'll have to give me a yell when Luckymodel have their Academy sale, I'd love to land a few at that price! I get Echelon decals from Singapore on free shipping, which is great too.

Cheers,

Mike

Another small update. Here is the completed pilot (1 of 2 pilots). After some small touch ups they'll be sealed in the cockpit for all time. Then I can place the canopy on and apply paint.

Forgive me for jumping in here late, but have finally cleared the bench and got started on a Sabre. I should have no problem geeting this done before the deadline, just waiting for some good detail pics of the cockpit. Hard to find BTW.

Great progress everyone.

Jerry

dragonfly wrote:

Forgive me for jumping in here late, but have finally cleared the bench and got started on a Sabre. I should have no problem geeting this done before the deadline, just waiting for some good detail pics of the cockpit. Hard to find BTW. Great progress everyone. Jerry

Excellent, Jerry! I'm glad you made it. Which kit are you building? The Hasegawa?

And which of the marking in your picture are you going with?

I've got a few Sabre pics at home. Which areas of the cockpit are you looking for?

Charles

It's the Hasegawa F. I'm leaning towards Dottie 52-4701 yellow tail, but I kinda like the looks of Mitch's Squitch as well that's a checker tail.

I pretty sure the instrument panel of both these were all black, but I could use some good color shots of the throttle side consoles and the seat. Actually any color pics would be helpfull. I've exhausted all my web ref sites only to find there's very little out there on the Sabre. (scratches head)

I'm going to meet with a good friend of mine tommorrow who literally wrote the book on the Sabre. Don't know if you know who Larry Davis is but if you look at most Squadron pub. you'll see his name there. I'm sure he'll have plenty for me to look at but I'm sitting at the bench now and want to paint something LOL

Jerry

I know what you mean, Jerry....they both look cool. I've the the Superscale "Mike's Bird" sheet if that'll help. I'm kind of partial to the checkertails, myself.

I'm still looking through  my photos. Here's one I've run across:

I'll shoot you an e-mail just in case it's bigger that way.

EDIT: I found a nice, large color photo from the book "Cockpits of the Cold War" (Donald Nijboer), but it's an F-86A at the Dayton Air Formce Museum. I think the "A" cockpits were black, whereas the E's and F's were gray. If you think you can use it I'll scan it for you.

As for me, small progress. The pilots are now forever in flight:

Charles

The illustrations are better than nothing ...thanks Charles. I really does surprise me that there isn't more reference available for such an important aircraft. If I were lucky enough to be able to get walk around photos, the cockpit would be the first place I'd go. Fortunately, I will meet with Larry Davis tommorrow, and he has told me he has an entire disc filled with everything I need. I'm anxious to see some good quality color pics of a real seat. With his permission, I'll send some your way or maybe just post them.

Nice job on the pilots....very realistic.

Jerry

   Mucker, your bird just amazes me! Looking realy good!........

  Jerry, grat start on your saber..........Harv

dirtball wrote:

Mucker, your bird just amazes me! Looking realy good!........   Jerry, grat start on your saber..........Harv

If you want to see amazing, Harv, wait until Jerry is done with his Sabre. I'm convinced he could put about 4 oz. of jet fuel in his planes and they would fly around the room.

Oh man, talk about pressure....thanks Charles.

Armed with a little reference, I managed to get the seat and IP painted. These parts are KMC resin and are very nice.

Hope to close the fuse. soon.

Jerry

Geez, Jerry!  incredible! Hwat strength Opti-visor do you use when painting the IP? Mine just isn't strong ennough to get close enough to produce results like yours.

I heard the North American factory uses pictures of your model as a reference when building the real things...

By the way, how was Mr. Davis? I'm sure he had the pictures you needed.

I manged the first coat of Alclad on my T-33. I'll lay down a few other shades later on. now I need to figure out a nice way to display "in flight".

Small update: I'm almost done with the painting, but had a slight mishap,: For some reason the MM Acryl yellow orangepeeled something aweful over the Tamiya gloss white base. to the paint that is cracked. It looks to be some sort of reaction to the Tamiya paint. Now that it's dried I'll have to sand and re-shoot the yellow fuselage band.

EDIT: Well, I've really botched an otherwise nice Alclad job. The yellow band has done this in. I've sanded and tried to mask the errors as much as possible, but unfortunately I had to put the paint on too thick. I'll be away from the bench for about a week, but try a little more to fix the stripe. Hopefully the black out edges will strighten it up a bit, too.

Sorry to hear of your paint probs. Charles. The Alclad job looks superb!

Not sure what happened there to cause such problems. I'll be painting the fuselage band on my Sabre as well, and hope it goes well. I've painted over Alclad many times without a hitch. What happened to you is just plain weird. The only thing I can think of is you've got 3 different types of paint on top of one another, and one of them doesn't like the other. Or...something wasn't completely cured. Too bad...the Alclad finish really does look good!!!

Jerry

Thanks, Jerry. I'm finally comfortable with the Alclad procedure of Tamiya Gloss Black covered by Future. 48 hour minimum cure time. Alclald. So far no cracking.

My guess is that I didn't let the Tamiya gloss white cure enough before applying the model masters yellow. It coud be that the Model Masters thinner reacted with the not-cured Tamiya paint (which I used Tamiya thinner on)?

I should probably ask Triarius! He knows this kind of stuff.

****************

Well, I'm off to Cleveland for the Holidays. I may even be able to break away to a hobby shop or two.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Charles

Hey Charles....stopped by to see whats going on during my lets call it "Sabbatical"....the pit snd piots look great..very nice shading, great depth on the figures. The allclad looks great too...you are becoming a pro with that stuff...KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK. Hope to join you all again this coming year!

Well I wish you my friend and everyone else a very Merry Christmas and my Santa bring you many kits for the new year!!!!

Carlos

Hey Everyone!

There are some great builds going here. I haven't been at the bench since early October - don't you hate it when work gets in the way of fun? Anyway, I have next week off and January is usually one of my slowest work months so I expect to get the A/B-26 Invader finished by the Jan 31 deadline.  I started re-scribing it today and also am working on converting the glass bomber nose into the gunship nose.  I used Super Fine Milliput to change the shape and now I need to sand to shape and figure out how to make the gun ports.  As I get a little more progress made, I will post some pictures.  Thanks!

Steve 

Aaron, Steve, son't be shy about posting some progress pics!

So what did y'all get model-related ofr Xmas? My father found a cool book for me called "Fight Talk". It was published in 1945 and shows all of the signs a wire and cable company that supplied the army posted in their factories to boost morale and improve the quality of the cable and wire going to the "boys" on the front line. As you page through you realize it really was a different world back then. it was a pretty neat gift to get.

Charles

Well unfortunately the F-84 just isn't going to happen. I tried to paint it and the silver made a weird alligator skin pattern due to the paint remnants beneath. My son however thinks it looks cool so I think we are going to finish it up for him, but it won't be anything ever seen over Korea.

This just sees to have been a cursed kit for me, I can't remember a build going so wrong. Not the kits fault it actually went together pretty well, just an unfortunate paint mishap.

I do have an F9F Panther in the stash. Since we have a 30 day extension I might try to squeeze it in to replace the F-84, at least I won't have to deal with a NMF. I'm not sure if I have the blue paint for it though which could be a problem.

Sorry to hear that, Aaron. I know how you feel, though. At least your son brings a different perspective to it and saves it from being all for naught. Kids are neat that way.

I hope you can get the Panther in. I may have an extra bottle of the dark blue you need. If it becomes a problem for you, let me know and I'll see what I have.

I'll be going for the "save" of my yellow ID band again today.