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

[TheChronicOne]

I'm going to start using ready made masks whenever I can. I even remembered to check for some for this F-52 but they don't make any.

I look at it as a time versus money thing. Say the masks costs 10 monies (or whatever)... well, is it worth 10 monies to avoid 2 hours of tedium and/or is 2 hours(or whatever) of time worth 10 monies? Absolutely...  if I could pay 10 monies to get an extra two hours of my time I do it for EVERYTHING!   

[TheChronicOne]

Found my camera. Picture update for sure later because the F-52 is starting to take shape finally.

Speaking of that one, I plan to get back to work today on it. I glued the intakes together last time so now I need to sand them a bit to clean up the seams. This thing is weird, man. The gear bays are in the intakes, right in front of the engine exhaust. So.... where the hell is the engine or are they some magical tiny little things? I'll post a pic of what I mean later. There's like... 2-3 feet of space (real world) between the exhaust and the gear bay so the engines are either tiny or they didn't really put much thought into it. This thing is fake as hell anyway.... maybe I'll go read up on it on Wiki or something because this is quite curious.

Going to take a look at the ATR-72 and start detail painting on the fuselage. Some engine intakes need to be painted and there are chrome strips on the engine housings. Probably a bunch of other stuff, too. Nav lights and the like. I'm sure I'll find all kinds of little things to paint then I think I'm far enough along now that I can probably start decalling it. 

Fire truck finally? I started to mess with it the other day but the wind was acting up and I don't like spraying when the wind is blowing like crazy. I either have to open up a window in the opposite direction the wind is blowing (and sometimes it shifts and blows back in my face temporarily which leads to strange things happening to the finish) or I have I to go outside.

I'd like to grab one of my glider kits and start getting it ready for the racing GB. I can't find the ferrari or whatever it is right now so this is all I have planned for the GB.

Also, I was mainly joking prior, but I'm starting to seriously consider trying to make a racing airliner. That would be pretty unique I think and at that point I could dispense with reference photos or making the kit accurate and just build it up real quick and get after it. I have a busted up old BAC-111 (I just finished one of these damn things though so I dunno!!!) that I could use. Or something...  I have a bunch of oddball airliner parts, most in 1/100 and 1/200 and I could probably kitbash some stuff together and scale-o-rama it into 1/144.  I dunno.. I'll figure it out later. Might bin the idea all together but it's a thought.

Going to try to primer the 737-200 to see what else needs done with PSR and I'd like to prime the wings too. Oh, and the gear doors. They're ready. I've already built and primed the gear themselves so I just need to get with some references and figure out what color they should be. Yes, this is real world, so I'm having to try my best to keep things accurate. Well, aside from fixing any flaws with the old Airfix kit. There's probably some things wrong with it just like there was with the BAC-111 but I don't know what they are.

TTYL


EDIT:  Oh yeah...  been wheelin' an dealin' quite a bit on eBay lately. One find I'm pretty stoked about....  I can't get ahold of a Tu-114 airliner without selling my soul to the devil but I DID find a 1/144 Tu-95 for less than $10 so guess what!!! Whif-liner of some sort. It'll be weird because it'll have... like... Boeing windows on it in a random pattern, etc. Truly fictional!     Long term goals, however... I just wanted to mention it though because I was pretty happy to pick up the kit so cheap. Even better, it's coming with a slew of other 1/144 goodies so I'm getting that sweet combined shipping discount. 

[TheChronicOne]

Bah.. I make all these plans and stuff and haven't been able to keep to them all too much these days.     So.. today.. despite my plans, I've devoted 100% of my time to the Space Force F-52. Nothing wrong with that!

So... now... uhhh... all kinds of sub assemblies are going together and this thing is growing larger and LONGER. Someone one FB asked about the size and I said it was comparable to an F-15 and it is, for the most part, but this is going to prove to actually be a fair amount larger. Especially in length. They're still in the same ballpark but this is turning out to be a rather large build for being 1/72 and what is essentially just a fighter. It's already 12" long and I still have a bunch of stuff to add to the back that will make it substantially longer! 




I'm going to wrap up gluing on this and let it sit for the time being. I'll need to do a little more sanding on seams before I glue too much more to it and also, it's about ready for primer believe it or not. I'm thinking I'll leave the tail planes and canards off until the end but will probably glue the main wings on. That will be after I glue on a couple pieces that attach to the sides of where the engines are.

Or.... something....    As far as I'm concerned, I'm doing really well with this confusing thing because it IS confusing as hell and I can't read a damn thing in the instructions. 100% in Japanese.

[TheChronicOne]

HMMMMM.... what the hell is going on?! 

Back to work on the F-52 for sure. I've built up a nice head of steam and I don't want to stop now. I'm very close to being done with the main construction. I have to glue on a couple.... thingies... that the tail planes plug into and I need to do some sanding a bit but then I think I'll glue on the main wings and leave it at that. I can put the canards and tailplanes on later. So... I might be priming this sucker pretty soon. Also, I'm going to start building all the wacky space weapons.

Also, time to start thinking about how to paint this sucker. I'd like to try some things with metallica and "tinted" black paint. I want the paint to be as close to black as possible yet still have color to it. If I do it right, it could look pretty sweet. For now, the plans are to use red and blue with the black paint and make some sort of pattern with it using masking tape perhaps or maybe just freehand....   I'd like some gold stuff here and there and some silver stuff here and there as well along with white/light grey for things like intakes and gear bays.

Might not have time for anything else after that but I'd like to prime the 737 fuselage if I can and start a little detail paint work on the ATR-72.

[TheChronicOne]

So, the tailplanes and engine exhaust things are just mocked up for now but all the rest of this is glued together and awaiting one final look over and a quick wash before priming.


I'll grab my F-15 at some point for a better size comparison but for now here's my little 10 hour P-51B "Ustio" for size reference! 

I've also put together the neat space weapons and it turns out this thing has some sort of big laser canon that goes on the bottom. I'll have to make up what all this crap is at some point. Probably will paint the stuff all some sort of really dark color since it would be dumb to have stark white weaponry (or some other light color) hanging off of something meant to disappear into a black background.

Also have been doing more PSR on the 737 fuselage... getting the finer aspects of it all lined out. I'm very close to priming it to see what all is left but from where it is now, to my eye, it looks pretty good. Can't really tell until the primer is on, though, but it looks pretty decent from all types of angles and using light to make ridges pop up.   BUT.... I busted the damn thing.     Not bad... I just tried to gently screw a toothpick into the slot where a stand would go so I could mount it for painting and predictably as hell it split some of the belly so I had to reapply glue to it. It'll be a few hours before I can adequately sand it so I'll just put it all up for now. 

Time to work on the fire truck finally! I'll get to sanding on it and the can of paint is warming up on the Hi-Fi. Watching "The Pacific" so it's turned up loud and all the war going on really heats up the head unit and makes the paint nice and warm. 

Dragged out my two glider kits to make one or both into more racing gliders to go with the one I already have. Trying to ruminate on a good paint scheme and some nice colors to use...  I always seem to default to blue for some reason. This time I'm thinking of a "Gulf 66" type of paint job with a light blue, like a Petty blue but perhaps a bit more faded out, paired with orange...

[PR19_Kit]

Ah Gulf. 

Difficult to beat as a memorable colour scheme.

[TheChronicOne]

Say it again, hoss!   


The colors work so well together. Throw in a bunch of stock car racing advertising decals and it'll be just right, I think!  I'm looking forward to it. I need a simple build after all this nonsense I've been working on the last few months.    I'm hoping to find some glorious Dutch neutrality roundels in the transfers stash somwheres that I can cut up and use for the "orange with black border" aspect which could be applied to the build in numerous ways. That would make things even easier. 

[zenrat]

Yep, Gulf blue and orange work well as do Marlboro red (or flouro) and white and JPS black and gold.
And Martini white blue and red.

[TheChronicOne]

The Marlboro scheme was another I was ruminating on. I'd loooooooooove to have some Marlboro transfers in fact. I used a Winston one on the last glider and it's my fav one (so taboo and illegal now, etc).  But even sans ciggie transfers or whatever, the color scheme could be used.

By the by, who was John Player?  Since you mentioned it, a JPS glider would be KILLER!!!      That would round out my three gliders... the one I have, a Gulf 66, and Marlboro or JPS scheme, whichever proves to be easier. Ooohhh.. I just remembered, too, I have some nice gold pinstripe transfers in my stash...  Hmmmmmm.....

[zenrat]

John Player was a British ciggie manufacturer.  John Player Special being one of their brands.
I was never keen on them.  I smoked Marlboros, Camels or when I could get hold of them Bastos.

[TheChronicOne]

Ohhh ok... well that's disappointing.     Here I am thinking "John Player" was some awesome racecar driver from an era I was unfamiliar with but it's just dumbarse ciggies. 

Nasty habit. Takes me 3 days to go through a pack opposed to some folk who go through one or two... or more a day; 2-3 packs a week instead of 2-3 a day.  I say this because it's my rationale for thinking it might be easier for me to give it up than others perhaps. There are days I don't smoke any at all.... 3 or 4 a week in fact. I'm hoping I can build on one of these days and keep going. I've been keeping it secret but I've been planning to quite for some time now and my attempt will begin in a matter of days. 

I would never even mention it if I wasn't serious. I've never tried to quite before because I always knew in the back of my mind I'd fail miserably. For the first time ever, recently, this has changed. Is this a thing? The biggest thing keeping me from trying to quit was the fear of failing and everyone KNOWING I failed? I think that's it... but at this point, I think I'd rather try, fail, and be embarrassed than keep smoking ciggies. Whatever...    don't matter. I'm going to try very soon once the last lawn of the year is mowed and I have money in my pocket to throw at making it work. Stay tuned... should be interesting.   

[TheChronicOne]

Finally something good to report about the Fire Truck!!!  For some reason, the finish has been a colossal pile of arse through mulitple layers of sanding and paint. For some reason, all type of scratches and flaws would broadcast right through the paint. I've never seen anything quite like it. Who knows what the hell I'm doing wrong but it doesn't matter now because I've managed to finally coax a halfway decent finish out of it all:



Now I need to paint the interior of the cab that glorious generic tan color then I can proceed. I think next I'll need to put on what few transfers are called for then I can gloss the stuff, the do the final assembly with the clear parts and all that.

Also, I painted a bit of detail work on the water canon:



There's more detail work to be done, on the canon and on the truck itself and I'll do that after the red paint I just sprayed dries. Man, it's good to have this going again! It's been nagging at me for months now. 

[zenrat]

Do it.  Stop the smokes.  But you have to want to give up.
Quitting is the hardest thing i've done.
Having no willpower I had to use a drug called Champix (possibly marketed under a different name over there) which changed my brain chemistry so I got no pleasure from smoking.
What really helped was reminding myself about how much of the cost of a pack went to the taxman, how big tobacco were profiting from my addiction and how much I was beholden to the bloody things.

You'll get nothing but support from me.  I know how hard it is.  I failed many times before I succeeded but I kept trying and eventually did it.
Try chewing gum instead of smoking and  to start with avoid places, situations and people where you'd habitually have a smoke.

PM me if you need help, advice, abuse, nagging...

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks bud!! In many ways, I'm looking forward to it. There's more "stuff" out there now than ever before to help me along. I'm going to be blowing cumulous vape clouds like a Hipster. Also, Oklahoma has this state gov't "agency" thing that puts out anti smoking commercials ands tuff and I think they can hook me up with free stuff like nicotine gum, etc. Then, I might get ahold of my healt insurance because many of them have free "smoke cessation aides" because when people don't smoke, they don't use their insurance as often so giving away free stuff helps them save money (or they wouldn't do it, I'm sure  ). And, I have a doctors appointment coming up soon. Supposed to be tomorrow, in fact, but I'm going to have to cancel it. I didn't even go get my blood work done so I'll push it back to December some time but I'll ask him for some stuff.

I have heard of Champix......   not in a while though so I wonder if we still have it here or not. We have another one called Chantix, which sounds the same so might be the same,who knows. I've heard of people taking either Chantix or another one and they had nightmares and stuff and was having people wig out and turn into serial killers and stuff. (Not really, I'm joking, but it would do strange things to people. . .. )

ANYWAY... I'm not going to wait an entire month to quit, though, so for now the plan is to taper off and if I'm not having much success by my doctors appointment, I'll ask him for some help but for now I'll use my vape and my free stuff.   


What we need now is to find someone else around here that wants to quit with me. . .. .. ..       

[Rheged]

Best of luck with giving up smoking. I'm happy to join a nagging/ praising group if it helps. We'll nag until you start stopping ( on rereading, that sounds weird but you know what I mean) Then we can praise you every time you report another day/week/month smoke free.

First nag:-  Well go on then, what are you waiting for?

and the first bit of praise:-  Congratulations on your decision, this is a wise, far sighted move on your part!


More praise/nagging to follow as required.