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

[kerick]

I did a quick search and found this. It might help.



Looks like the extra part you mentioned is an air brake and is flat against the fuselage. It might droop down when parked as hydraulic pressure bleeds off. It also appears that the main gear doors are also closed except when the gear is operating. Hope this helps.

[TheChronicOne]

Sweeeeet.... ok, aft nose gear doors closed, air brake snug against the fuselage.  Check. 

I could kiss you.   




It's not often I'm upset with my hobby. I blame Premiere for the lack luster instructions.

Now that the problem is solved, back to business as usual! 

(oh and this is the type of frustration that happens when I do real world stuff... if this were a whif I'd just pick and choose whatever I felt like.... I'm no bolt counting JMN but I DO have pressing sense of getting things right and once I set my mind to something it's impossible to go back....  I'm enjoying this lil guy and can't wait to see it done but I'll be glad to getting back to whif-world.. )

[TheChronicOne]

In other news!   (And I know I've made a lot of replies in a short span, I'm not "spamming" or anything I promise!!     )

Not everything has gone T.U. today! I've finished up the red on the fuselage and managed to not totally butcher the oval shapes around the wing roots... although, I will have to go back in with white to do touch-up as I got some red in there when I switched to my larger flat brush. No problem! It's just like painting a house... there's always touch up at the end.

ALSO, lesson learned on penciling the guidelines.....  the "slippery" nature of graphite and how thick and dark I made my lines have them "shining" through the red paint. I'm not going to try to fix it as it would require mutliple layers of paint and would be worse in the end, but, a valuable lesson was learned; the guidelines are a great idea, but next time, make them very light so that the paint can cover them up.

Also!! Look at my canopy!! Wow! I AM getting better at painting! I did it all by hand and I only had to clean up a couple of tiny areas with my toothpick. Not bad!! (VERY simply canopy, but still....)   The canopy and my props are going to be a couple of the high points of this build.     I think the end product is going to be very nice!   

[kerick]

A couple of videos on you tube would be helpful but it looks like you have this one solved. I just wonder how many paint schemes these RAF birds have had!

[Rick Lowe]

Canopy is looking good, nice work.

WRT the overspill of red, I would try gently scraping it off with a sharp blade first and when you're mostly back to the white paint, then put another layer of the white down... it's a whole lot easier than trying to cover red with white...

HTH & Cheers

[TheChronicOne]

A couple of videos on you tube would be helpful but it looks like you have this one solved. I just wonder how many paint schemes these RAF birds have had!

I know, right!!! Right when I think I've seen them all, another five or six pop up. 

It's great, though....  It would be sweet to make a Tucano collection of all these neat schemes! Even if the Shorts versions were crappy and the originals kind of flimsy (or whatever problems that I've seen mentioned) these planes are simply cool -looking- and all the different liveries adds to the appeal.

If this plane were a woman, she'd be very sexy and always well dressed!

[TheChronicOne]

Canopy is looking good, nice work.

WRT the overspill of red, I would try gently scraping it off with a sharp blade first and when you're mostly back to the white paint, then put another layer of the white down... it's a whole lot easier than trying to cover red with white...

HTH & Cheers

Aye!  I appreciate that one... I will do that.  I was kind of worried about that and this particular way of addressing it hadn't crossed my mind. Not only that, but I put 3-4 coats of floor polish on the white before I masked and did the red so that should help even more with the scraping..

Man it's good to have friends help me along the way.

And thanks about the canopy!!  Man, some of my earlier work was rubbish compared to this...  a lot of what helped has been purchasing much better paint brushes but that doesn't help shaky hands and poor technique. Practice has helped me out quite a bit and this is one area I'm very happy to be getting better at. The thought of masking canopies is not all too pleasant.

[Rick Lowe]

If you have a barrier coat like that, would it be an idea to use just then merest trace of thinners on a Q-tip and take the red off that way?
I don't know what sort of paint the red is, but the acrylic floor polish can be pretty robust.

Otherwise, you'll have to be very careful not to go through the polish with the blade, as patching that never goes as well as the original coats.

[TheChronicOne]

I thought of that, too, but I'm not too sure I have the proper tools to try it. Everything is so small and tolerances so tight.

I need a bunch of the little micro brush applicators.. that would be ideal. As it is now, I'd have to take a tiny piece of paper towel and prick it to the end of a toothpick (or something). That's not a bad idea though and worth a shot and worse comes to worse I can always come back in with touch up.

I think I'll try that first though, considering... I'll make some apparatus to scrub on the red and see what happens. I'd like to try now while the paint is still relatively fresh but I'm done for the day. So, tomorrow I'll give it a shot. I imagine with a combination of both methods and then coming back in with touch up I should be able to get things in order. 

[Rick Lowe]

Fair enough... best of fortune. 

[TheChronicOne]

Gracias, amigo!  I can't go wrong now. All the right help in all the right places.

Now... about that Cuban heavy bomber. . . .. 

[seadude]

I need a bunch of the little micro brush applicators.

http://www.hobbylobby.com/Crafts-Hobbies/Model-Kits/Tools-Adhesives/Superfine-Microbrush-Applicators/p/875

Actually, the little brush applicators can also be found wherever dental supplies are sold. I kept finding a lot of Google dental sites that kept mentioning the brushes.

[TheChronicOne]

I need a bunch of the little micro brush applicators.

http://www.hobbylobby.com/Crafts-Hobbies/Model-Kits/Tools-Adhesives/Superfine-Microbrush-Applicators/p/875

Actually, the little brush applicators can also be found wherever dental supplies are sold. I kept finding a lot of Google dental sites that kept mentioning the brushes.

Oh, nice! With the 40% off that's a great deal! Hell, I have an HL two miles from here... I'll have to stop in and snag some. I actually looked for some earlier this afternoon when I was at Dollar Tree (found some other good stuff for modeling but no micro brushes... closest things where these lil deals with like little.. uhh...  lil branches or whatever...dental stuff but not the neat lil applicators.. .     )

Hobby Lobby is awesome most of the time but a lot of stuff is pricey... that's where the 40% thing comes in. One thing I purchased about a month ago was a nice set of sanding sticks... came with all the sticks themselves, the sanding belts, and a slew of extra sanding belts. Reg. price was around $24 (and having looked around all over the 'net that's about the going rate... people are proud of these damn things..) but I used my 40% thingy and they wound up being around $13.  Now that's not bad for something so useful..

[TheChronicOne]

Hey there!!   

Neat stuff going on. I just got in the mail today one slice of inkjet water slide printer paper!  I'm going to be making my own transfers soon.  My problem is finding a "paint" programs worth a crap to use. I use MSpaint for jsut about everything but It is lacking and I need something better for making these decorations..  I think I might try Gimp. If anyone could offer advice on this I'd love to hear it....    I did learn one thing recently, that downgrading an image from, say, PNG to JPEG will mess it all up..  For instance, when I take even a very SIMPLE image and past it into MSpaint and save it as a jpeg, it "compresses" it. When I want to use the paint bucket to fill in an area, it'll fill in one or two pixels instead of all of it, so I have to ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM then paint it all a with the brush, etc... it turns a 1 second thing into a 10 minute ordeal. NOT COOL.  At least I know part of what is causing it.. the next thing is like I said, I need to use something better than MSPaint...

If anyone is curious, one project I have in mind that I need to make my own transfers for is an A-10 I'm going to create in a Magic The Gathering livery. MTG is a CCG (Collectible Card Game) and the cards are mainly 5 different colors. Red, Green, White, Black, Blue. I'm going to use green as the inspiration and turn the mana symbol for it (a tree) into the roundels and try to paint it and have it sort of like a magic card.. I'll name it "Stompy" as often green decks are populated with large creatures.  Should be neat if it goes well!

In other news, back to work on the Tucano! With the success of my "oval shaped area near the wing roots" painting that means that my "plan A" of painting the wings separately now has me with a nasty seam at the wing roots. First thing I did was hit the very edges of the paint with a file then chip it off of the joinging surfaces and do some light filing. Even after this, the seam is still nasty. I glued the wings on, though, then ran a bead of glue through the seam, followed by a second about 20 minutes later. Next I'll try just plain ol' paint in there to see how it looks and I HOPE I don't have to put putty or anything in there. It's tight and I don't want to mess up my paint. I guess if I have to, I'll mask everything to protect it then fill with putty then finally break out the brand new set of sanding sticks I bought.



At this angle, the oval bit looks a bit "long" there at the trailing end (when veiwed from the side it looks great, however, this just might be a case of bad camera angle.. )... may have to hit it with more red paint.  But... yeah, looks pretty good!  This is in danger of being a really neat build if I can just hold it together. . .

[TheChronicOne]

Got some work done on the Cuban Tu-4 then decided to devote a bit of time to my Tucano!

Another bead of paint down the wing root seams. Might do a couple more then hit the inside part of the wing with the white on it to have it match up better but I'm happy with this and am ready to progress with the build. With that in mind, I need to glue the tail planes on so I de-masked it.



I need to clean up the butting surfaces of the tail planes and also fuselage then I'll glue them on along with the two little horizontal fin things.

I THINK I'm about at the point where I can gloss this and start in with transfers!  Neat!

(have to touch up the interior and pilots, too)
EDIT: Also, have to paint black on the nose and then also paint the anti-glare patch up by the windscreen.