Chronic's Research and Aeronautics Project (C.R.A.P.)

[TheChronicOne]

Sure are! When I finally glue them together.. I'm going to have to go pretty fast with it. It'll be a hectic 5 minutes I imagine. 

And yeah, good point, I hadn't noticed but... definitely nice to not worry about them wing roots. I like this design!  All the flight surfaces are one piece, which is great. And while there are a fair number of parts over all, there isn't an un-necessary amount of them.  Fairly straight-forward looking so far. Haven't made up my mind whether to have open bays with weapons or not. It would almost be a shame not to, though, since it's all there and nicely detailed. More work but would be pretty neat I guess. 

[TheChronicOne]

Cleaning house all day instead of working on models.     LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME. 

That's alright though because I've had enough of this BS so I'm going to eat lunch then tone back the "cleaning" and get back to butchering styrene. 


Making some good headway on the F-16. I even sanded and filed on it a bit this morning before I left for work. I noticed a couple of areas that needed more glue to fill up seams and after that dries adequately it'll be time to file and sand that smooth. This is what I'll try after lunch but it may not be dry enough yet. We'll see.  If I can't work on that, I'd like to get under way on the Raptor.

For it, the plan will be to .... well... make a plan. I need to gather my thoughts and make sure I have at least a bit of an agenda for it so I can have a smooth build. I'm THINKING I'll start with interior stuff and painting on some of that. First thing in the instructions is the bang seat so maybe I should just follow the instructions at least for a little while but If I can scan through those and figure out what sub assemblies I can go ahead and glue together I'll do that so that stuff can sit around and dry while I work on the rest. One thing I'll definitely do, and is one of my favorite parts, is go in and trim away un-needed sprue and clip out pieces that won't get lost... filing and sanding away burrs all the while. 

I'd like to also get started on the Warhawk......   At least SOMETHING... you know... at least do the trimming and cleaning up of the sprues and larger pieces like I want to do on the raptor but if I can start painting wheels and stuff then all the better.

No pictures or anything exciting for now... just bloviating. Sorry! 

[TheChronicOne]

Oi!! Just saw this "outside" on the net proper. 



Time for a dank build??   

[TheChronicOne]

The hell man! 

I was ready to prime this glorified pencil up when I figured it prudent to double check that everything is actually glued on that needs to be. Turned out I was missing two wee pieces.... uhhh... VERY wee.  Why didn't they mold these on with the rest of the doo-dads already on the fuselage I wonder? Or are they only on certain models of the plane? Anyway.....   



Dependin' on ya's eyesight, monitor/phone screen, etc you may not even be able to see the damn thing but it's down there below the toothpick! It was easy enough trimming it off the sprue but even me tiny needle files were almost too macro to even put on the thing.

It's these deals back near the end of the gear bay. I'm assuming some sort of bypass intakes or... some cooling intakes for parts of the engine or something. ANYWAY... just thought it rather amusing that these are like this. 




Good to go!

I think that concludes everything I need to do on the fuselage. I'm cutting a couple corners.. (I won't call attention to them) but I do believe I can go ahead and wash this and prime it on up. I've had me can o' primer sitting atop the surround sound system for about an hour so should be nice and warm. I'll shake the piss out of it and turn this bad boy grey!! Time to see how good PSR was. 

[TheChronicOne]

Maaaaan here we go...   

Barely even into this and already confused as a cow on astro-turf.


OK, so my understanding was that being as highly classified as it is, there shouldn't be any pictures of an actual F-22 cockpit floatin' around but yet I just came across a statement from another modeller that build a model of one that. "I added the yellow ejection handle although it is not accurate."       Uhhh......    So how does he know if it is accurate or not? Are there pictures out these days of the cockpit that are real ones I could use?      See, I'm confused because I read a review on this kit and while it may be 10 years old or so the person said that Revell did the best they could with the interior not knowing anything about it because it was obviously classified. Perhaps some things have changed since the kit was produced initially and certain things have come to light.

I guess what I'm asking is.... where is the truth in all this and what would a good reference be? So far, I'm just copying this dude's interior but by golly if I *can* make it more accurate and if there *are* good, actual references out there....  I would like to do it/ see them.

"Dude"'s build page: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/sca/modeling_subjects/f/34/t/120659.aspx

Nice looking cockpit tub if you ask me!!     I haven't looked at anything past this yet.

[DogfighterZen]

Oi!! Just saw this "outside" on the net proper. 



Time for a dank build??   

Yes, i'm in!!

Now, what's that on cutting corners on a Viper build??

Re the F-22, there are a few pics of the actual cockpit but i don't know how old they are... Remember what i told you about the kit, there are inaccuracies on it, missing radome line being the most noticeable but there are a few others.

[TheChronicOne]

lmao   

umm.. errr.... They're not cut corners, they're modificationz.   

Actually, I primed it, and it looks pretty decent, but even after I get paint on it, if this stuff winds up still an issue, I don't have much of a problem sanding away the small sections needing it and "doing it right."  But.. without divulging too much... I'm hoping that between the primer and a few coats of actual paint that these problems will largely solve themselves.

Re the F-22, there are a few pics of the actual cockpit but i don't know how old they are... Remember what i told you about the kit, there are inaccuracies on it, missing radome line being the most noticeable but there are a few others.

Aye!! I was looking at that nose and sure enough!! It's all one solid piece as if there was no radar or radome at all.  I wonder how they missed that? Should be obvious even working with nothing but pictures. 

I'm going to be picking your brain a few times through this... and.. probably be scoping your stuff so I can uhh... "copy your homework" so to speak.

At the end of the day... this is a friggin SOMALIAN Raptor that I've contemplated actually hanging RPG launchers on so I don't even know why the hell I'm fussing over it anyway. . ..     


Oh... "hey, hey, hey, buds away!!"   

[DogfighterZen]

Hum... modificationz... Viper watching closely...   
No worries, glad to help. I haven't taken many pics of the build but i'll share what i have and learned so far. 

Oh... "hey, hey, hey, buds away!!"   

Drop'em over here, please!! I'll start a fire outside so the pilots can spot the drop zone easily... and it'll save me some rolling, too!

[TheChronicOne]

I can't cheat otherwise! 

[DogfighterZen]

I can't cheat otherwise! 

[Rick Lowe]

Hey, Brad

Thinking about the intakes, it's probably the same deal which sees my 2-Pit Hasegawa Viper kit have you carve off the nav lights on the sides of the intake, in order to replace them with clear parts that look only marginally different!

So yeah, the perils of using an existing set of moulds to make a later version...

Ah well, if it was all plain sailing we'd be 'assemblers', not 'modellers', now, wouldn't we?!   

And it's not 'cheating', it's 'imitating in the sincerest form of flattery'... sound feasible? No? I'll get my coat...

[DogfighterZen]

Hey, Brad

Thinking about the intakes, it's probably the same deal which sees my 2-Pit Hasegawa Viper kit have you carve off the nav lights on the sides of the intake, in order to replace them with clear parts that look only marginally different!

So yeah, the perils of using an existing set of moulds to make a later version...

Ah well, if it was all plain sailing we'd be 'assemblers', not 'modellers', now, wouldn't we?!   

And it's not 'cheating', it's 'imitating in the sincerest form of flattery'... sound feasible? No? I'll get my coat...

Ya, i hear you, Rick. It's a pita when one wants to build a recent variant and the kit is of an older one. The 1/72 kits of recent Vipers are the Tamiya, Kinetic and Academy. And those are of Block 50/52 birds. The block 60 has different scoops/vents, others were removed and some panels on the top aft fuselage have different shapes... minor details but if you want to do an accurate model, those details will need some attention.

[Rick Lowe]

What is this "Accurate" concept of which you speak?

Keep tellin' ya, I'm more of the 'Close enough is good enough', or 'bored now, let's just git-r-DONE' mentality... 

Well, within reason of course, but I've never let concerns over how much better one kit is over another hold me back... Cheap Is Fine...

[TheChronicOne]

Hum... modificationz... Viper watching closely...   
No worries, glad to help. I haven't taken many pics of the build but i'll share what i have and learned so far. 

Oh... "hey, hey, hey, buds away!!"   

Drop'em over here, please!! I'll start a fire outside so the pilots can spot the drop zone easily... and it'll save me some rolling, too!

I've always wondered what it would be like to be standing around in one of those giant drug agency burns..... like... a forrest fire but it's just weed burning. 

A colossal waste but damn... would be a hell of a deal. 

[TheChronicOne]

Hey, Brad

Thinking about the intakes, it's probably the same deal which sees my 2-Pit Hasegawa Viper kit have you carve off the nav lights on the sides of the intake, in order to replace them with clear parts that look only marginally different!

So yeah, the perils of using an existing set of moulds to make a later version...

Ah well, if it was all plain sailing we'd be 'assemblers', not 'modellers', now, wouldn't we?!   

And it's not 'cheating', it's 'imitating in the sincerest form of flattery'... sound feasible? No? I'll get my coat...

Nah I'm with ya!! I love it any time someone "cheats" off of me, as rare as it may be.

I have a couple XP-75 kits (Valom) that take this to the extreme... the stuff comes molded already but the kit has to sawing it all off only to replace it with new parts. Considering the nature of the kit I can see why but until I knew what was going on it didn't make sense to me. I was like, "Why the hell would you mold the wing tips on here only to have us saw them off and glue on others?!" I learned that.. well.. it was probably much easier and more cost effective for them to "run" existing molds of the wings and then just also produce the "new" parts as little pieces instead of re-tooling a bunch of stuff.