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

[TheChronicOne]

I'm impressed with your straight line masking 

Thanks, bud! That stuff, even with a pretty wide piece of tape and using the factory edges is more troublesome and tedious than it would appear I'm finding. If ya don't check and re-check and look at it from 50,000 different angles and recheck a few more times it could easily be wavy.  Not only that, the 3D shape and curves and stuff can throw it all out of whack, too. 

The sad part? It's going to be hidden! I got it so nice and straight but really I just wanted to make sure the cheat line transfer would cover it so nothing of the wrong color sticks out above or below. Once that's on, though, we'll never see it again!       Oh well, it's good practice. 

I know what all that stuff is.  It's whiff fodder...

Hell yeah it is!!! I'm gathering up all kinds of nutty kit bash ideas for a jetliner. Scheme swaps are a given but I'm going to make a FRANKEN-LINER at some point, just watch. I even have a 1/144 C-130 hercules around this joint somewhere that may wind up being United Airlines or some such malarkey but that's back to scheme swapping again, but still.   

I have pretty solid plans right now, however, to take my 1/100 DC 9 Fuselage and fill in the 8 million windows and the front windscreens and gluing my surplus C-5 Galaxy wings and engines on it. Of course, this might not work because I'd have to get rid of the original engine mounts and the wings might not match up very well in which case I'll just come up with some other goofy contraption.

[TheChronicOne]

Those engines are P&W turbofans, TF-33s in USAF parlance, as fitted to early model E-3 Sentry AWACSs. In the civvie word they're JT-3Ds I think.

Typically three of engines have the small turbo-compressors mounted on top and one doesn't, don't ask me why, that's just the way Boing did it. Some airlines only had two turbos for some equally obscure reason. At that length they look to be 1/144 scale.

I don't suppose these were only on a couple planes, thus making my research easier?    And yeah, that is very strange about the oddball setup on the fourth engine not having the turbo compressor. Those are the type of interesting tidbits that I like to hear the reasoning behind. 

Thanks for the info! I'm going to take a look around today at some pictures and stuff and see what I can figure out.

[PR19_Kit]

I don't suppose these were only on a couple planes, thus making my research easier?

Nah, THOUSANDS of 'em!

Some turbo-fan 707s had the larger JT-4s, but IIRC they were mostly allocated to South American routes with PanAm and Braniff, but most had the JT-3Ds. Quite a few early ones were updated to JT-3Ds too so it'd be difficult to build a 707 with them in a scheme that'd still be a Whiff.

Unless Chronic Air flew them of course........... 

[TheChronicOne]

Ahhh..        There's the motto,   "When in doubt: Chronic Air" 


I looked at these engines closer and they're accurate, three compressors and the fourth engine has none. That's something a kit maker could potentially miss so hooray for accuracy!

WELLL.... the mystery is solved........   look what I just found:




"B-707"



But which one?  Can't be 1/144 because the parts are quite a bit larger than what I have in my 1/144 Airfix box. I could drag out my 1/72 707 but I suspect this stuff is smaller than those. Perhaps another 1/100 jobber like that other one? Nitto again?

[PR19_Kit]

Could well be 1/100 Nitto. They did one I recall, with the usual ultra-smoky take-off pic on the box lid, but I never saw one built.

[TheChronicOne]

Right on. Well... at least I know more about this stuff. I ought to be able to kit-bash these onto something, eventually.

[TheChronicOne]

Most of my energy is zapped. The motivational kind. I mean, I'm a little worn out and all, but I don't feel like crawling into bed or anything,-- but I'm still at a level of tired that makes me quite lazy!!     Long day at work! One yard I mowed looked like Don King. So, I'm just barely working on my 737. I'm thinking I'll wind up more motivated once I get started. Sometimes "getting started" is the hardest part. 

ANYWAY, I've been doing the touch up paint work on the things I've painted so far. I still need to put some blue on in a couple place and a bit more grey then I can start on the wings. I only checked eBay but couldn't find any wing spar decals and I don't feel like waiting any more. If I were to have ordered them 4-5 days ago I wouldn't mind but at this point the whole build is waiting on the wings to be painted so my hands are tied! I would work on one of the others but I simply don't want to right now so... 737 is the only game in town for now. 

That's fine, too, because I DO want to work on it and I'm looking forward to getting more done! In fact, if I can get the wings painted (and the three gear bay doors that I already started but forgot bout til just now) then I can gloss it and let it dry a couple days then do the transfers. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE IT DONE.   

After, I'll be in the swing of things and will likely be ready to work on the other builds. I can't do any sanding today so it's all about paint work. To that end, I'd like to start getting the Raptor's blue belly painted. Time to start figuring out the weird folding doors, too... 

[TheChronicOne]

Moving slow but I got some stuff done! The touch up work is finished for now and so is the sanding of the ridges created by paint build-up on the edges of masking tape. I messed up some of the finish in the blue areas slightly so I might touch that up with some nice thin blue or might leave it as accidental weathering.

Here she is for now, it still looks about the same but the wings are now a solid color as I painted them grey for the outer edges. The interior will be a metal type color for the spars.

As usualy, it seems, I look at my reference pictures and toward the end keep finding little things to do. There is a chrome strip on the leading edge of the fin so I masked for that. Also, the kit is sans landing lights so I'll likely just free-hand a silvery colored square patch on each wing root for those. Hopefully not much else crops up. Anyway, the picture. I took it from a different angle this time at least. 



That's it. I'm going to fire up a doobie and try my hand at Warthunder for awhile. They always stick something odd into the games for April Fools so I'm eager to see that and I also adjusted the guns on my Soviet P-47 so that they cross a bit closer than how I had them before. In testing, it seemed to help so I'd like to try to shoot down a few actual humans and see how it goes. If that goes tits-up, I'll just hop back in my Pe-8 and mainly gain altitude for the majority of the time. 

[TheChronicOne]

Stuff done on the 737. I'm finished painting most of it I think. I still need to paint the wing landing lights and the de-icing rings on the engines. Might have to touch up the exhaust cone thingies, too. Last, I need to finish up the engine pylon things - the part that sits on top of the wings. I did most already, I just need to cut in with my itty bitty tipped brush.


Mixed up me own custom blend of paint to make the wing interiors. I started out with my acrylic silver and heather grey then introduced black for the top coats.



I keep forgetting to clean the lense (or maybe it's finally damaged beyond repair! I take no special precautions with it(camera/phone) and carry it in a bag with me when I leave home.)

Work today done made me sloth-like and un-motivated. 

Last year about this time I had already wrapped any "more-tedious" projects and kept things simpler throughout the summer and it's time to do this again. Problem is, I have hanging two "complex" builds so I'm going to attempt to focus on those more in the coming days. The lone exception to my "Simpler in Summer" rule may be the C-5 Galaxy. Also, I'll whittle my builds all the way down to 2 or 3. One of which right now is the two-seater NAVY F-15 which I've already sort of started and made a thread about.  Thats damn near ALL I've done on that one.  

[TheChronicOne]

Not sure what's happening today. I'd like to finish painting the 737. Should be easy enough! 

I'm just not all there today, though. I'm starting to have the same problems I had last year concerning my lawn/trash business and it all stems from PEOPLE. I can't "get rid of" these people so I just have to deal with and it leads to things like me being all depressed and tapped for energy. I'll leave it at that but I wanted to get it off my chest I suppose. Normally I keep a pretty "regular" schedule around here with my updates and stuff but it might start looking like I'm an absentee-modeller here or something and if anyone is wondering why.... well now you know. 

But to hell with all that...    the heater ring things on the engines need to be masked off (thankfully there's a nice engraved panel line for it that I can use to guide myself! ) then painted with my silver paint. Next up is a lil bit more on the pointy-cone-thingies on the ends of the engines. I painted the middle section with the same stuff I mixed up for the wing spars but it looks mighty close to the last section so I'll put some sort of darker color on it to make it stand out. Otherwise, a pair of landing lights that sit in the wind roots and I guess I'll need to stop and eyeball my references pictures once more to see if there are any other absent details that I can add to this thing before I gloss it.

Once that is done... she's getting glossed and I'll start trimming out the transfers. Going to cut the long ones at least in half to make things easier. Speaking of, these things look really nice and there's even some of the dinky things like the red lines that go on the engine housing and some stencils and stuff I do believe. The wing thing with the shoe patterns on it to show people how to walk off the edge of the plane are a nice touch to have and will make for some pretty neat looking wings!!!  They even come with the swirls for the spinners but I already painted them on by hand.     Also nice, all the flags and stuff are pointing the correct ways. The little ones(full color actual flags) are "not reversed" like what would be on a military uniform (star field forward, regardless of which side it is on) but the big USAirways flag logos for the fin and fuselage DO reverse, just like they should!    Stuff like that is so easy to "get wrong" when makers don't pay attention. I can't wait to see these on the plane! The "Bob Ross moment" when it all comes together.. ....



So that's the plan for now I guess. Whether or not I get anything done is another story. 

Only other thing I have left is to go visit the stash thread!! I've gotten some things in over the week and some of it is VERY cool stuff. More on the way, too!! While I'm having complaints about the work this year already, the explosion of extra cash all of a sudden has been a treat.     Silver lining.. 

[TheChronicOne]

OK, piss on it... I may as well go full tilt if I'm going to do anything at all.       

I'm finding a TONS of things I can paint on or add to this thing. Strobes, nav lights, slats (mains and stabilizer both), cockpit glass framework needs to be metal color, and an antenna or two. This means it's time to break the masking tape back out.     Also time to break out the paint thinner as I will need to brush paint the slats in order to get them to look right. Can't do THOSE with a toothpick, no-suh.    The rings on the engines will be the same color and I was just going to paint them with a toothpick as small areas are easy... the paint flows off the toothpick and settles just fine (how I did the little strip on the fin) but something with as much "field" as the slats will need to be done with a brush so I may as well bite the bullet and do it right. I VERY rarely paint with enamels because I'm lazy and clean up and prep work, etc. is so much simpler with water based paints. (Someone once tried to tell me the opposite is true but I'm just not buying it... the whole having to have chemicals and stuff around is an "extra step" is you ask me.. having water around is a given and normal, however) 

One problem I'm having is a sheer lack of TOP-DOWN views or the planes to get a good look at what's on top of the wings!!!  This has to be the least photographed angle of airplanes,hands down, and it's no wonder of wonders why. You'd have to be standing on the top of a crane or a in a helicopter or up on one of them de-icing spraying trucks or... SOMETHING.  They can be found but the ones I'm seeing look like satellite images so the finer detail is missing. Either that or they're drawings or computer graphics or something.


Random picture:


Picture by Adam Wright

Here's a handy lil picture:




I'll probably find more odds and ends as I go but the more this stuff adds up, the better the end result will be. Attention to detail is a must!

[TheChronicOne]

Yeah here we go!! I made some really strong progress today. I started masking everything and went into a zen mode and started to relax and feel much better. It took, like, 3 hours to do it all properly but by the end I was having a ton of fun and was enjoying masking.     I stopped short of doing the cockpit window framing as that will be pretty intense and I'd rather start that on a day where everything is "fresh." It's not the type of thing to be done at the end of a long day, in other words.

Everything masked up:



Painted the heat rings:




Slats and stuff. It was "weird" working enamel for the first time since..... I dunno.... 1994 or something... but man I like it. If you brush it right and leave it alone it lays down so nice! I might be convinced to experiment more with enamels..



For now I'm going to let this stuff dry a bit. Some say to strip the masking off as soon as possible but I'm not enthused about that approach. I'm sure there's merit to it and all that but I'll take my chances. Only one coat anyway and I took precaution to brush any build-up away from the tape edges so hopefully it will be alright. That said, I'm going to roll up a dooby and start chiefing on that while this stuff dries up some more then I'll peel the tape away from the engines and see what happens then go from there.

[TheChronicOne]

That's it for tonight. I peeled some tape off after I let things dry about an hour but the silver paint is still gummy and it left a ridge so I'm going to let the rest dry thoroughly then peel the paint and see how that goes. No better time for an experiment than on an actual project, eh? 

Oh well.. the engines look nice! 



Touch up will be necessary and I'm anxious to see how waiting longer to peel the tape away will effect the "ridge" left over from peeling it away when the paint is still not fully dried.


I guess the dooby got to me and I started goofing around:




Goofy, sure.. but... could be inspiring! 

TTYL 

[TheChronicOne]

Still unable to do any type of sanding work so sticking to paint work only today but that's alright because I think I'm about all done with that on the 737 so I can gloss coat it. No wait, I still need to paint a bit on the engines but that's it?? 

Anyway, I'll get it glossed up then back to the Raptor. I need to finish off the missiles and fuels tanks on that and can start painting on the plane itself whenever because it's ready to go.

After that, back to the 737 for transfers! 

[TheChronicOne]

Forgot about the window framing!!  So, I've been doing that for the past hour. It looks like it's all going to be alright but we'll know for sure after the second phase of gloss coat.





I peeled the tape off the wings and stuff and the slats and stuff look pretty good! I had a ridge in some areas that I shaved off with my hobby knife. I still need to come back through and do touch up, though.



So there we go.... I think it's "more accurate" this way and adds character to the build.


It's about time to cram copious amounts of vittles down my gullet to coincide with the sun's zenith  (Hey, wait, that would make a good name for a what if plane!! ).  Maybe?   

Any how, after lunch I'll get back to painting on this airplane. I noticed my field of blue is starting to look raggedy. Chunks have came off and the overall finish is looking not too great so I'll either call it "weathering" or I'll mix up some blue paint and put another light coat on. Hell, I might even re-mask, sand, and then add a COUPLE of coats... we'll see.