Thursday, December 21, 2017

Filling in some wing gaps...

Been busy times as the holidays approach but I managed to find a few minutes to fill in some gaps between the wings and the fuselage. Initially I wanted to glue tissue but the location was so tight and the area so small that it was not practical... After trying a few different techniques I ended up gluing wood on the interior to make a barrier than covered it with white putty. I'll let it dry than sand it off gently to avoid damaging the wing tissue. Once done I will apply some white glue to make the surface as smooth and rounded as possible.


Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Horizontal Stabilizer Installation

With last night installation of the inverted gull wing I couldn't wait to get the horizontal stabilizer installed.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Wings Installed!

Tonight I installed the infamous inverted gull wings which is what makes this aircraft so iconic. It's really starting to become a massive scale model!




Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Engine Cover

I finished installing the engine cover today, have been working on it for the past few days as it was difficult to install. I suspect the issue was caused by a slight deformation of the plastic due to the white putty I used. This made the outer edge not match the outline of the fuselage. With some patience and lots of glue I managed to make it fit.

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Installing the Engine

Tonight I finally glued in place the radial engine and despite the challenges it presented to make it functional and detailed it sure turned out nicely!




Saturday, December 2, 2017

Propeller Shaft

After painting the center piece of the propeller shaft aluminum color I attached it to the wooden rod with super glue and inserted it into the metal shaft of the radial engine. Finally I super glued a metal thumb tack so that the propeller would stay in place but still allow it to spin freely.



Thursday, November 16, 2017

Adding some Cork

Using cork from a wine bottle I cut a piece off and drilled a hole in the middle to allow a metal shaft to be inserted. I then hot glued the cork into the interior on the radial engine which will allow me to add the center piece of the propeller which I will glue to the wooden rod that has a metal tack glued to the other end so that it would not slide out. 





Friday, November 3, 2017

Radial Engine Detailing

After quite a bit of work I have completed detailing the radial engine.After having some issues weathering the metal parts of the engine and repainting the whole part twice I think I got a pretty good result.


Initially I painted the engine parts aluminum color with acrylic paint but put a flat clear which made it completely dull looking and not the desired effect I was looking for. Once I repainted and put a gloss coat I tried some new Mig weathering products which gave it a nice look. I then added extra wiring to represent fuel lines using copper wiring.

Monday, October 16, 2017

Lots of Putty!

Using my respiratory mask as this putty smells very bad and protective gloves I managed to put a first coat of putty and do some initial sanding. As you can see its not bad but more work will need to be done. I sure wish Guillow had not made it necessary to cut it out this way...



Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Radial Engine

This kit offers several choices as far as the radial engine is concerned. For a static display I had the choice of the engine being integrated with the engine housing or cut it out and use a more realistic one. I decided to go with the latter and cut out the engine. Although I debated the pros and cons I realized that the extra detail had a cost as cutting out the original engine would leave a nasty half circle marks all around the interior of the engine housing. Looks like I'll be having some fun with putty and sanding!



Monday, October 9, 2017

Pilot in the Cockpit

The pilot is now seated and I installed the cardboard dials. Several instruments are sticking outside of the airframe silhouette so I created boxes to better represent how he should look. The challenging part was to fill in some gaps in the cockpit seat which were visible from certain angles... 


Saturday, October 7, 2017

Primer on the Fuselage

Gave the fuselage a nice coat of primer to make the tissue opaque and uniform in my garage using my new air filtering mask.

Airframe Spray Painting for Canopy Area

Over the past few days I have taken the airframe to my garage to spray paint it. After masking off the cockpit area I started by spraying it with a few coats of Krylon Clear to make the tissue stronger.

A day later I tried to paint on top of the instrument panel area black which I need to do before placing the canopy over it but it would not set properly. To my frustration I could see through the paint even after a second coat! I then realized that I need to spray it with a primer which I did a few days later and after wards the black went on perfectly with just a single coat. I decided to spray a second coat of black just to ensure that everything was covered properly.

Friday, October 6, 2017

Canopy Masking Part 2

Yesterday I started masking the canopy with a new curved masking tape. While it was great I planned to use it sparingly and tonight used standard Tamiya masking tape to fill in the rest of the areas to be protected.

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Canopy Masking Part 1

Back in August I saw a YouTube video demoing a new type of Tamiya masking tape designed for curves which I found potentially interesting so I ordered a 3mm wide roll on eBay which I received in September. I was not sure when I would use it or on what subject which made it hard to choose a width but as I started to plan masking the canopy I realized that this product would be perfect. I went ahead and outlined the areas to be masked with this new tape which has a plastic feel to it and it went very well. As usual I am satisfied with this Tamiya product.

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Lung Protection

Spray painting more than usual recently I have been thinking about the health inpacts of such activities especially as I start to get older. I have already used those cheap dust masks but I suspect there effectiveness to be minimal at best...

A few weeks ago it was my 38th birthday and I received a $50 gift card at Home Depot. I had initially intended to buy some lumber for a shelf project but the idea got "shelved". But then I got the idea to get myself a high end air mask as seen in the photo.

The first time I tried it I could smell nothing while painting in my garage so I was curious and just made a crack between the mask and my face and what a strong smell of paint! So this 3M mask really works well and will hopefully extend my model making activities while breathing a bit easier...


Thursday, September 28, 2017

Cockpit Finished & Installed

After 4 coats of green I was satisfied with the cockpit interior. I did have some doubts as I applied the first coat since the cardboard started curving but it straightened out once dried to my relief. With some spare balsa I created a headrest which I painted flat black and glued the cockpit to the airframe. This last step was a bit difficult as the sides of the airframe curve inwards but with the aid of some super glue everything went into place.



Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Cockpit Window

I decided it was time to cut out the cockpit window from the mold. Had been dreading this for a while because any screw ups will be hard to correct and the part cannot be easily replaced. With a new x-acto blade and some patience all went very well.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Detailing the Wheel Wells

I plan to paint the wheel wells green and the detail of the cardboard will unfortunately be lost. Since the plane will be hanging from Andy's ceiling I decided that extra detail would be worth the trouble.

I started cutting up small 2mm wide thick cardboard strips and spent about a good week detailing these two areas of the aircraft. In all I estimate that it took a bit over 10 hours to complete.  Was it long, yup but I think it will add a nice touch.


Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Painted Pilot

Completed painting the pilot which did not have any details in the plans but reference color photos found online provided enough info to get a fairly accurate look.




Monday, September 11, 2017

Cockpit Assembly

Tonight I completed assembling the cardboard cockpit which was fairly straight forward. I do plan to paint the interior green and add a headrest for some extra detail.


Thursday, September 7, 2017

Pilot

Assembled the pilot halves which took a lot of white glue to fill in the gaps and smooth out the seam lines. Just coated the figure with Tamiya fine primer during my lunch break and will start painting tonight.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Landing Gear Strut Cover

The F4U Corsair has covers on the wheel struts which for this kit are also in green cardboard so like the landing gear doors I have replicated them in basewood.

Honestly I would have done this yesterday but I have been having issues with my hands going numb for the past few weeks. If I work more than 10-15 minutes I start to have a lot of pain in my arms so I have been limiting my scale modelling activities. I am currently waiting for an appointment with a specialist to get it checked out, suspect a nerve is getting pinched. Just hope I don't have to reduce even more how much time I can spend on my hobby.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Landing Gear Doors

Just like the landing gear wheel wells the landing gear doors are also in green cardboard to my disappointment. So today during my lunch break I went to a local hobby store and picked up a 1/32" sheet of basewood which was the thinnest piece of wood I could find that was fairly ridged. And unlike the kit which is made of balsa, basewood is stronger, perfect for the cardboard parts I want to replace. All I had to do was trace out the parts and use a sharp xacto to cut the pieces.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Wings Covered

With the landing gear wheel wells completed I proceeded to finish covering the wings with tissue. I left the middle section uncovered until it is attached to the fuselage.

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Landing Gear Wheel Wells

The kit suggested to use cardboard that was supplied to make the landing gear wheel wells. I started adding more detail by making my own boxed off areas where the landing gear struts would go, just above the green cardboard. Will then use the panel lines on the cardboard as a template to add styrene strips then paint the interior green. Took a while to get to this point since the kit plans are designed for both static and flight versions and the directions are not very clear requiring a lot of analysis.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Revell P-51D Mustang


This week I took a trip to New York State and picked up a nice 1/48 scale Revell P-51D Mustang from,Wal-Mart for only $10 USD ($13 Cdn), what a deal! I verified at a local hobby shop and on eBay and the same kit would go for at least twice the price so I am pretty happy with what I will be adding to my stash. I normally prefer a higher quality kit but at this price I just couldn't pass up the deal.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Completed the First Step

Although building wooden models is fun I still prefer plastic kits so I decided to start work on the Revell Bell H-13H Helicopter. Tonight I completed step 1 with to my surprise a fair amount of difficulty. Two of the parts were not easy to instal per the plan and I had to check reference photos to make sure I got it correct. Not a great start to what I thought would be a simple kit to build... In the photo I used a Tamiya paint jar to weigh down the chopper to ensure that the tail section dries straight.

Monday, August 7, 2017

Covering the Fuselage

With the summer here and me being busy with outdoor projects I have not spent as much time as I would have liked to work on covering the fuselage with tissue. With a little persistence I finally managed to get this section completed, up next the wings!





Friday, July 7, 2017

Covering the Stabalizer

Today I started covering the aircraft parts in tissue. I decided to begin with the smallest parts, the vertical and horizontal stabilizers.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

A little message

As with all my models I signed it and added a small message for Andy wishing him a happy 5th birthday which will be on January 30th 2018.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Wing Edge Sanding

Spent two evenings sanding the wing edges after having worked the over two weeks to build the wings. Had to cut out notches for so that the air intakes fit properly as instructed in the plans.