Restore It, Decommission It, or Recommission It Group Build

[AeroplaneDriver]

I'm looking for a project to work on this week and am thinking of doing a 'restoration' build on an old A-4 or Corsair.  I've done a few restorations over the past few years and it got me wondering if it might make an interesting GB. 

It would involve taking an old, built kit, and refreshing it, basically with just new paint, decals, weapons, etc.  Structural mods would not be part of the build, since that would take it into the realm of the recent Junkyard GB (though minor mods like lumps, bumps, laser designators, FLIR, superchargers, spats, etc would be OK).  Cleaning up seams, rescribing, and that sort of thing would certainly be allowed.

I enjoy this kind of project since my favorite part of a build is painting, decaling, and weathering.  Anyone else think this may be interesting at some point down the road?  One nice thing would be it could be a fairly quick GB too.

Here are a couple of examples of the kind of thing I'm talking about.


This...

...into this


or this...


...into this (though not a whif)

[B777LR]

Id be in, but i have no more models to restore. I need someone to send me a model i can restore...

[nev]

I'd be  in -my French tiger striped TSR2 needs some restoration - all the black paint has cracked 

[AeroplaneDriver]

Id be in, but i have no more models to restore. I need someone to send me a model i can restore...

That would be another aspect of this kind of GB; those members who dont have any suitable candidates for restoration could breathe new life into someone elses.  We could have a pool of old builds if necessary.

[Taiidantomcat]

Id be in, but i have no more models to restore. I need someone to send me a model i can restore...

That would be another aspect of this kind of GB; those members who dont have any suitable candidates for restoration could breathe new life into someone elses.  We could have a pool of old builds if necessary.

That's pretty clever. 

[darkwolf29a]

I'm specifically thinking of aircraft, but you could do this with any piece of military hardware, really.

The idea, simply, is to decommision it. The picture I have in my head is of the Jaguar that the RAF did, with the gray being shredded off to reveal the Jaguar fur underneath.

Just off the cuff ideas:

Panther Tanks,
Intruder A-6
Viking S-3

[Mossie]

By decommissioning, I take it from the Jag refference you mean special schemes for phasing out of a piece of equipment?  You could also take it to mean scrapping, of which I've seen two fantatic builds in recent times:

Baz's A-5 Menaz:
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,19037.105.html

'Scrap Metal' by Dan Greening, 1/72 Vulcan diorama on ARC:
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal6/5601-5700/gal5651_Vulcan_Greening/00.shtm

I've wondered about doing a real world scrap diorama, seeing sad pics of Lightnings on fire dumps for some reason makes me want to replicate that in plastic one time.  Another thing you could do is scrap an aircraft (I'm thinking on the A-6 'Intuder Reef' lines, or maybe downed WWII aircraft) & sink it in your fish tank!  Not Kidding!!!

[Daryl J.]

I'm going to see the head of decommissioning of the Umitilla biological weapons dump next week.  If there is anything of modeling interest, it'll be posted here.    They're just finishing decomissioning the 155mm Vx weapons and are ready to start some smaller stuff.    Project completion is slated for 2017.
Go to Google Earth, type in Hermiston, OR, and look at the west side of the community to see all the mounded bunkers.  There are hundreds of them, each about the size of a house.


We're getting to see the swords beaten into plowshares right under our noses.    ...and for the public's benefit, the evac. routes are clearly marked if needed.   


Daryl J.

[Joe C-P]

I have some tanks and an LCT from my childhood.
The LCT's anti-fouling paint appears to be red fingernail polish, its upperworks were left in their unpainted gray glory, and the tank that came with it is long gone.
I think I could reassemble a Sherman from the two models I have. I was considering an alternate history AA Sherman, with twin 37mm/40mm guns. There's also a Lee and a Grant, and a Churchill flamethrower, a Crusader, and two Nazi SPGs.

By how much would we have to disassemble?

[darkwolf29a]

Mossie, I think my original idea could be expanded to accomidate your idea, but I have to admit, I didn't think of it that way. It's a great addition.

[philp]

Mossie,
Were you thinking something like these?







All done by the same local builder (I wish I was this good).

[Mossie]

Mossie, I think my original idea could be expanded to accomidate your idea, but I have to admit, I didn't think of it that way. It's a great addition.

Your welcome darkwolf!  I like the idea of farewell schemes, it'd be interesting to see TSR.2's & other aircraft that never made it in such paintjobs.  Maybe even F-22's, F-35's, Typhoons, J-10's etc that are just entering service too.

Mossie,
Were you thinking something like these?

Yeah, those are great, thanks Philip!.  I particularly like the dive dio's!  Funnily, enough, there's a pic in the latest SAMI of a diorama called 'Sea Hurricane' from a show in Hungary in a very similar vein to those.  I'd post a pic, but although I can find pics from the show, I can't find that one.  The detail of the tail with the fabric stripped away is fantastic, modelling this kind of 'decomm' diorama gives you a chance to really show of structure.  Hats of to those that can do it!

You could include casualties of war like those dive dio's, I guess they're decommisioned by default!

[Radish]

And there's me imagining pilots with plunging necklines and curly Charles II wigs

[Spey_Phantom]

this idea came to after reading the thread for the "Decomm it GB"

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,20932.0.html

The idea is the same, but instead of decomisioning its re-comissioning an aircrft/tank/ship.....
the goal is take out an old retired air force aircraft, and upgrade it to re-enter service.

Example:

• Spitfire F.22 recommisioned in 1966 as a COIN aircraft.
• F-105 recommisioned in 1990 to fight in the gulf war, upgraded to carry GBU's
• FB-111 recommitioned to serve the SAC up to 2011, modified to carry JDAM's

Other planes that could be used are MIG-19, F-5C, F-102/106, F-88, CF-100.....

[AeroplaneDriver]

Well maybe the hook here could be that the participants swap builds to restore.