Moments of Zen

[DogfighterZen]

PLANT PORN!  Yeah!! 

Nothing worse than trying to dig through water soaked frozen sand! Might as well be concrete.

Nothing worse than trying to dig through water soaked frozen sand! Might as well be concrete.

Ditto Iraqi sun-baked desert.

Never tried those before but i imagine it's not even worth trying if it's that solid. Better to get an electric or even an hydraulic Jack hammer and get it done faster and with much less effort. 

Anyway, back to models... J.A.F.O. Richard Lymangood has a face now... not trying to make him look like Daniel Stern but at least give him a human face and, today he's getting a flight suit and shoes as he waves to the crowd...

[NARSES2]

I'm impressed with the sculpting 

[DogfighterZen]

I'm impressed with the sculpting 

Thank you, Chris! Again, i am very surprised that i got the first figure done in a reasonable way but i'm not sure if i can pull it off on this one, it's not a hard thing, just takes time and patience.

Well, on Monday the mailman came by and left a small package with a Master 1/32 M61A1 Vulcan 20mm cannon and i got it assembled and got to work...



Seeing that i gor it assembled without turning it into rubbish, i proceeded with the Blue Thunder original gun's removal and drilled a hole, glued a strip of styrene inside...


And voilá! 


And also scratched up a replacement for the part that was missing from this kit, the gun/camera pod support...


Seeing that this went well, i have to finish the J.A.F.O. so i can move on with the build-

[NARSES2]

Impressive 

These brass barrels do look good

[DogfighterZen]

Impressive 

These brass barrels do look good

The Master brass products are very good although they can be fiddly to assemble but with a little patience, they can give our models a great boost in looks. I have a bunch of stuff from this company, mainly pitot tubes but i intend on getting more, especially for my AH-1 Cobras and Vipers and for the RAH-66 Comanche kits both in 1/72 and 1/48.
Well, now that the cannon is done, it's time to get back to the J.A.F.O..

[PR19_Kit]

Try doing Master's 1/72 Vulcan cannon............... 

You need to be 1/72 scale yourself in order to get all the teeny-weeny parts together!

[scooter]

Try doing Master's 1/72 Vulcan cannon............... 

You need to be 1/72 scale yourself in order to get all the teeny-weeny parts together!

Surely you could get away with being 1/48th scale to build something like that in 1/72d

[DogfighterZen]

Try doing Master's 1/72 Vulcan cannon............... 

You need to be 1/72 scale yourself in order to get all the teeny-weeny parts together!

Well, i don't have plans for a 1/72 Vulcan yet but I will certainly try the Cobra's and the Comanche's 3 barreled version so, i guess i'll only go through half of the madness. But still, I may end up trying the 1/72 Vulcan on something else... 

Try doing Master's 1/72 Vulcan cannon............... 

You need to be 1/72 scale yourself in order to get all the teeny-weeny parts together!

Surely you could get away with being 1/48th scale to build something like that in 1/72d :wacko;

[TheChronicOne]

Fancy pants! I love it. There was a time when I figured plastic was "good enough" for things like this but seeing yous guys make this stuff out of brass and what-not just proves I was wrong!

[DogfighterZen]

Fancy pants! I love it. There was a time when I figured plastic was "good enough" for things like this but seeing yous guys make this stuff out of brass and what-not just proves I was wrong!

Fancy pants...  
I like the extra detail but I choose some of my favorites for that. Besides the cost of the extra parts, it would make some builds far more complicated and I'm lazy so, that's why I only want to do it on my most favorite subjects. The Vulcan cannon cost me 14 euros and I can't afford to buy extra details for all my kits. The Blue Thunder's original gun looks very bad and with all the work I'm putting into the figures and the rest of he build, i had to have a better gun, it's way too visible and I would feel bad about it if I didn't do something about it.

[zenrat]

Try doing Master's 1/72 Vulcan cannon...

No thanks.  I'd rather not thank you.

[DogfighterZen]

Well, i've had a week off work, mostly chilling with the Missus but i do have some Blue Thunder updates...

Drilled the original camera pod to install some "glass" instead of having to deal with the stupid seam.
Right side is the kit's part OOB and the left is the modified one with the glass grossly glued in place just to check the fit...



And also scratched up a camera lens to go on the inside...



After that, i managed to finish the J.A.F.O. Lymangood and now i can move on with the rest of the build...

[Old Wombat]

And here was me thinking I got insanely technical sometimes!

[NARSES2]

Looking good 

[DogfighterZen]

And here was me thinking I got insanely technical sometimes!

Looking good 

 
It's the Blue Thunder, my favorite helo ever and it's also a much more comfortable scale being 1/32 so, i wanna try my best to do it justice. Still, i believe that one could go further than this, specially in the cockpit. I've seen a build or two in which the modeler changed the layout of the tv screens and added much more detail to truly represent the "real" thing. There are more screens and instruments for the J.A.F.O. in the helo used in the movie but maybe the kit was made to represent the setup of TV series' helo, i'm not sure.
Anyway, i'm not going to do more in the cockpit besides the comms wires that connect the crew's helmets to the helo's instrument panels but first i have to take care of the overhead instrument panel that is to be attached to the canopy itself.
This will include masking the inside of the clear part, spray it with the same XF-66 i used for the rest of the cockpit and then glue the panel on, before i can get the comms cables connected.
There's also a few additions i still have to care of on the exterior of the airframe which are the cables that connect the cameras and sensors on the stub wings to the airframe, the microphone cables over the canopy and a thin antenna under the tailboom. Maybe i'll replace the position lights on the tail and stub wings' camera pods with clear bits but there's a lot to do before i get there.
I also have to figure out how i'm going to paint the engine's exhaust cause the engine's cover still has to be glued on and i'm not sure if the Molotow's chrome paint that i'm planning to use on the exhaust can withstand masking without coming off or getting blemished in the process.
I also have another issue which is the right color to use for the blue of the airframe. I've bought a 10ml jar of Gunze's H326 which is the color used by most people on their Blue Thunder builds but to my eyes, it seems too dark and the XF-50 i've used on Frank Murphy's helmet seems to be more accurate compared to most of the pics and movie footage i've seen so, i'll have to do some further tests to choose the one the one that looks more like the one used on the real helo.

Like i said, the Blue Thunder is my favorite helo ever so i wanna do my best, that's why i'm going through so much trouble to get things right... and at the same time, i also wanna get it finished ASAP cause it's been on my bench for over 5 months and i can't wait to finish it and have it in my display cabinet.