Moments of Zen

[TheChronicOne]

TOMCAT!!  I keep threatening to build one every year this time of year... and haven't. We need more Tomcats around here. 

[DogfighterZen]

TOMCAT!!  I keep threatening to build one every year this time of year... and haven't. We need more Tomcats around here. 

TOMCATS!!! YES!!  Just like C.W. Lemoine says.  He's an American fighter pilot who flew F-16s in the Air Force and Legacy Hornets in the Navy. He also just recently got his helicopter PPL and his training for comercial licence ATM. I follow his channel on Youtube as well as Ward Carrol's (Ex-Tomcat RIO) channel too.
CW does great interviews with current and retired fighter pilots, amusing reviews of movies which include jet fighter scenes and some flying in DCS(he's also a gamer).

So... been a while since i last posted on this thread but, reality is that there hasn't been much related to modelling going on as i've been really lazy since the holiday season. I've also had to buy a new air filter for my compressor because the original one started leaking badly, it couldn't even fill the tank and the engine wouldn't stop running. Now it's all good to go again.

With that said, during this past weekend i did sit down at the bench and managed to get some work done on the F-16W's tail section.
Got some sanding done and after that i attached the horizontal stabs and got some sprue goo on the area where they join the fuselage to make them similar to the F-35's stabs.

Still haven't tested the oil paints i got for the weathering of the Moroccan RF-5E's camo and the only work done on this one was to get the AIM-9s painted although i haven't been able to finish those either.

On the Blue Thunder front, i've just started masking it again for a new blue to be applied. I've got all the colors i need to do it so, i have no excuse to keep it gathering dust on the bench.

Not much but it's all i have for the moment...

[DogfighterZen]

Well, another month gone by and i haven't done much modelling at all... Still haven't finished masking the Blue Thunder...
Today i'm hoping to get that done as there's not much left and i'm not feeling (too) lazy.
I have done some work on the F-16W's tail which consisted of getting the putty sanded on the top fuselage and glue the elevators on. After that i got some sprue goo dabbed all over the joining areas to blend them into the F-16's air brakes to make them something like the F-35's elevators.
I guess i could try to get a pic of that and update the build thread on the current projects section...

Anyway, the Moroccan RF-5E is still gathering dust, i haven't mustered up the courage to start smudging it with the oil paints to try a faded paint look but, even with these 3 on the slow go, i have been itching to start a build i've had in mind for a while so i really have to get my groove on and get on with the show...

[DogfighterZen]

Finally... I got the Blue Thunder all masked up again and ready for a new blue mix to be sprayed. That took some work... i've learned my lesson with this kit and the second one will surely be easier.
I'm gonna try to do it tomorrow and if that goes well, decals will follow! 
If these two goals are achieved tomorrow, it believe it won't take long for me to finish this helo and get back to work on the RF-5E and F-16W.
That may end up making me go through the stash and dig up a couple of kits i've been hitching to build, the RS P-51H and an Airfix P-51D. The Griffang has been on my mind for almost a year now and i really wanna get it done.

Going through my BMX pics and so many memories, i went back to my short stay in England, when i moved there in 2001. Manchester is a beautiful city, and the few times i went riding there, i was amazed by the size of the city.
I Stayed in Stockport at my friend Andy's house and after a week, i found a nice apartment to rent in Cheadle Hulme.
I went into the Greater Manchester area to ride at an indoor skatepark called Bones on Canal Street, Stockport.
What a trip down memory lane... someday i will go back and visit all those places. I had a great time there and the truth is, i wanted to stay there for good but things got pretty heavy when i called my dad after two weeks of living in Cheadle and he told me my mom had a breast cancer. Luckily, it was found and removed early on so she recovered pretty well.
But that did make me come back to Portugal and it also pretty much ended my BMX career at 21 years of age cause i had to find a full time job to help support the family.
Still, no regrets, family comes first and i'm grateful to still have both my parents in relatively good health.
But i do miss those weeks i spent there...
The only time i was out in Manchester at night, Andy took me to a bar, Jilly's rockworld on Oxford Street, which i guess, some of you may have known as Rafters. That was a wicked night, had a lot of fun.
Just had a look at google pics of the Cheadle area but i can't remember the address so i'll have to dig up all the papers and stuff i have related to that period to find it. I wanna see if i can take a google street view "walk" over there.

[DogfighterZen]

Well, seems like being at home on sick leave doesn't really help to relax with the whatapp group from work constantly ringing the phone with some problem going on with the water supply grid...
Portugal is going through a severe drought situation, the dams are below half capacity and every day there's something going wrong at different locations of the district so, people start calling the central management and the operators have to go deal with it. That's part of our job but, things have been going crazy lately.

Anyway, today i got the new mix of blue sprayed on the BT and i'm finally happy with the tone. I think it's much closer to the real one so it's time to finish this thing! 
I also spent so much time on the phone talking to my work mates trying to help solve some issues that i had to leave the rest of the stuff i had planned for today so, guess i have my work cut out for tomorrow.
So tomorrow, detail painting, clear coat on the areas i painted today and get the decals on. If i can get things going at a good pace, maybe i'll even go as far as clear coating over decals, and if manage to do that, i'll be very close to calling it done.
I'm gonna try to spend the whole day at the bench as i'm feeling much better now. It's my last day of confinement so i wanna make the most out of it and do as much as i can on what's on my bench.

[DogfighterZen]

Well, finally got the BT's blue more to my liking... probably still not the exact shade of blue but it looks close enough for me now. Got a few details painted and it's time for some more masking to paint the exhaust pipe.
The colors in the pic don't show the real shade of the paint but i've taken it outside on a sunny day and i think it's pretty close to the real one.



Nothing done on the other two models currently on the bench... but i think there's another one that's going to be started soon...

[DogfighterZen]

Well, the BT's exhaust is painted. I wanted to give it a used look so, going by the pics found on the web, i used Vallejo's aluminium as base color, then a bit of very thinned Tamiya X-10 gun metal and then a bit of clear blue. After those colors were sprayed, i dabbed just a bit of dry Humbrol's rust pigment to give it a bit more of color mix. My reference was this pic:



And this is how my attempt came out...



Not perfect but it's the best i can do... Next, i found that the fuselage seam on the nose has opened up... that means PSR and repainting that area...

[Old Wombat]

Maybe not perfect, but excellent job, none the less!

[zenrat]

Very good.



Paint colour looks good as well.

[DogfighterZen]

Thank you, guys! 
TBH, it came out better than i expected because i was using my H&S evolution airbrush, which i haven't used very much since i won it on the ISM free prize draws, and i'm not very used to it.
It's a very nice AB but it lacks the trigger limiter so i have to be very careful when trying to spray a thin line. I guess it helps with practicing my trigger control but i remember using the cheap Chinese AB when i did the camo on the Me-262 and the trigger limiter was very useful to control the amount of paint coming out of the nozzle.



That's why i haven't used the H&S AB very much...  The price of a separate trigger limiter for the H&S is almost the price of a new complete AB so i guess i'll wait and buy a better AB when i can.

Well, now, i'd better get that seam on the nose fixed and move on with this build.

[NARSES2]

Neat work on the exhaust 

[DogfighterZen]

Neat work on the exhaust 

Thank you, Chris! 

So, for the 4th or 5th time, this seam was filled... it was filled with sprue goo so i hope it's the last time i have to do this before it's finished and in the cabinet...

[Wardukw]

Oh i miss the Blue Thunder model..ive had 2 of them and i want another but finding one is like hens teeth these days.
I want to upgrade one like replace the vulcan with a PE one and things like that.
Yours is coming along very nicely Zen 
Strange thing...i remember that i had problems with the front of mine too..i had make the hole bigger where the gun and site goes once I'd managed to close the gap.

[DogfighterZen]

Oh i miss the Blue Thunder model..ive had 2 of them and i want another but finding one is like hens teeth these days.
I want to upgrade one like replace the vulcan with a PE one and things like that.
Yours is coming along very nicely Zen 
Strange thing...i remember that i had problems with the front of mine too..i had make the hole bigger where the gun and site goes once I'd managed to close the gap.

Yes, Blue Thunder is, IMO, a beautiful design. I've always wanted one since i show the series back in the 80s. I've managed to buy 2 kits since i got back into modelling and i have to admit they were hard to find at reasonable prices. I did manage to buy both kits for less than what most sellers are asking for one kit on ebay.
Funny you should mention the PE Vulcan, i had to do it cause the kit's cannon is the worst part of the kit.

The second kit will also get a turned brass cannon and some other changes to.

That seam opened up a few times during the build and now it's just annoying cause the paint job came out ok.

[DogfighterZen]

Well, i'm back after almost 2 months with no real modelling done besides a bit of PSR on my F-16W's rear end... and that is still to be finished...
Anyway, in the past few days i got a bit of mojo back and decided to get the Blue Thunder finished so, i got to work and finally, i'm almost done with it, just need to give it a coat of matte varnish and there's just a few of parts that'll go on after that.



The last bits to go on will be lenses for the spotlights, the ammo feed chutes on the underside and the microphones on the cabin's rooftop.



Love how the brass cannon looks, it's something i'll have to get for the other Blue Thunder kit i have in the stash and also, for most of my chopper kits with guns like these. 



I really have to give a big shout out to the friend who printed the decals i used on this model. They worked perfectly and are what made it possible for me to finish what was one of my holy grail kit builds. Both of the original decal sheets that came in my kits where in bad condition and using them would ruin the build so these decals gave me the chance to have a BT in my cabinet.

Finally, i'm getting some mojo back... i've been really lazy and just out of focus regarding modelling in these past months. I was going into this loop of making plans to get something done but ending up getting distracted by other things and all my modelling plans going down the drain...
Also spent lots of time watching documentaries which is good in other ways but felt guilty every time i looked at my stalled builds.
A few days ago i got home and started looking at those builds and something clicked again... Grabbed my airbrush and started doing what was left and that kickstarted the mojo back up.

Now, the BT is almost finished and it's time to go back to my Moroccan RF-5E and finish that one too.