Zenrat's Flying Circus

[PR19_Kit]

Isn't a jet powered Martel a Sea Eagle?

[jcf]

Isn't a jet powered Martel a Sea Eagle?

In appearance, slightly larger and completely different
internals.

[PR19_Kit]

Isn't a jet powered Martel a Sea Eagle?

In appearance, slightly larger and completely different
internals.

But in modelling terms..........

[zenrat]

(the large missiles - anyone tell me what they are supposed to be? ).

Martels Fred...

Thanks Robert.

So will this be a feeder liner for Zenrat Industries' internal airlines or an entry into the 'Visit your local aircraft carrier' tourist market? 

Executive transport.  Always useful for those to have carrier capability.
I've been doing some reading and it seems that Lockheed built six US-3A COD Vikings which each carried six passengers or up to 2125 Kg of cargo in what had been the combat avionics bay.  I don't know if they lowered the floor and lost the bomb bays but I doubt it as it was a minimum change solution to the requirement for a COD aircraft.  I shall be fitting windows.

Fitted the crew into the Cupid today and added the bombs.  Started cleaning up the props which have some knarly mould separation lines on them and huge, obvious sprue attachment points.

Chain stretchers for the KrAz are built but I am still weathering the chains.  The light surface rust finish uncoated quality used steel chain gets takes a bit of work to replicate.

[zenrat]

Too hot in my shed today (37℃) so I sat and put together a Gundam in the lounge room while Mrs z watched Hobbits #2 & #3 (we watched #1 last night).
As always I am blown away by the quality of Bandai's design.  I needed no glue and this is unpainted straight out of the box.

It'll get taken apart and painted eventually.

[Tophe]

My son, who loves Gundam kits usually (he made 2 of them), loves this creation too

[zenrat]

That's good to hear.
I like that they can be posed in different positions.  It has been suggested I do a stop motion animation of them.

[zenrat]

New lap top arrived today.

Woo hoo!

Like a new mistress it's thinner, lighter and yet more expensive.


I also found time to paint the props for the Cupid and finish weathering the KrAz chains.

[PR19_Kit]

Like a new mistress it's thinner, lighter and yet more expensive.

Who said new mistresses had to be thinner? 

[scooter]

Like a new mistress it's thinner, lighter and yet more expensive.

Who said new mistresses had to be thinner? 

Must not be a gaming laptop then

[NARSES2]

Like a new mistress it's thinner, lighter and yet more expensive.

And you also have to figure out how she works and what makes her tick 

[Rick Lowe]

Like a new mistress it's thinner, lighter and yet more expensive.

And you also have to figure out how she works and what makes her tick 

I understand that's half the fun... apocryphally... allegedly... 

[zenrat]

Having finished the Stoopid Taxi I spent about half of todays modelling time going through the box and sorting parts I didn't use into my various parts boxes.  This took a while because from the Revell kit I really only used the bodyshell.  Also, I had put a lot of "possible" parts into the box that I thought I could use but didn't (two different seats, three sets of extractors, different wheels etc).
The OOB taxi wheels, being plain steel rims with small chrome central hub caps will be perfect for a 50's mild custom or hot rod so they went into a bag & then into a new "more special wheels" box (the old one, being full, needed to be replaced with a bigger one).

Having done that it was obviously time to begin something new.  Ballarat NNL is on May 19th and I need to build something for the Special Theme Class.
This years Special Theme is 1/32.  This is not a scale I build in (and yes, I did ask if they would be checking for sneaky 1/35 builds - they will and if detected they will not be allowed) but at last years show they gave away 1/32 ARII car kits as prizes in preparation.  I won a couple of classes so had two to chose from.
Choice was a 1967 Datsun Fairlady 2000 roadster or a Contessa 1300 hardtop.  I went for the Datsun as it has a lot of MGB in its DNA and being a roadster any detail work I may do on the interior will be seen.
Not building in 1/32 means I have very few parts in that scale in my parts boxes.  Wheels in particular looked like they were going to be a problem until I remembered I had some 1/24 Tamiya mini wheels which as they replicate 10" wheels in 1/24 are the equivalent of 13" wheels in 1/32.
A bit of fiddling showed that while they were possibly a bit on the big side they would work.
67 Datsun Fairlady by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr
They are just propped in place there.  When properly fitted it'll sit a bit higher.
The rims are Miniltes from the Tamiya Monte Carlo Rally Mini which then gave me a direction for the build.  Datsun entered Fairladys in the '68 & '69 Monte Carlo Rallies but in '67 ran the 1600SSS.
So what If they had entered a Fairlady in '67?
I'll scratch build a roll cage, find some suitable small driving lights, paint it white with red racing stripes and print up some Monte Carlo Rally decals.
I had no ideas until I remembered the wheels (it's always about the wheels with car builds) and now i'm all fired up.  Excellent.

And in other news i've finished the Cupid.  I'll take some pics tomorrow.

[PR19_Kit]

That does look REMARKABLY MGB-like, I'd love to see the chassis to see how much it really was a clone.

[Rheged]

And in other news i've finished the Cupid.  I'll take some pics tomorrow.

Pictures of the Cupid taken on St Valentines day 14th February seems most appropriate