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

[TheChronicOne]

I cleaned 'em up already, they're good to go! Styrene to styrene... I just didn't put very much glue on it. I should have put more but I didn't want any squeezing up out of the gaps. I bumped it or grabbed it wrong or something.... and it turned into a problem child. I should have let the glue dry before I started handling it again (less than 5 minutes, I'd normally let it dry up at least 20 but I told myself, "oh I'll just be careful" with it  ) but I just couldn't stop working on it.. I had to finally force myself to stop messing with it and go play games.  Oh well, it's holding steady for now, we'll see how if goes after all the krimskrams are hanging off it. 

Back on track with it at least and now the decorations are going on to the fin while I let the reinforcement I put on the plane body dry up some more. It's been about 4 hours now so after I eat a snack I can check it over one last time to see if I missed anything then go ahead and gloss it.





Playing with the zoom function... I'd like to read what those words are. I can just barely NOT make it out looking at it. I imagine it says something about Selfridge....?

Also working more on the glider!! I put more putty in the seams then glazed it over wit' me Mrs. Surfacer 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 and I'll be sanding on it later I imagine. 

Still no love for the other builds, though! 

[TheChronicOne]

I'm just going to paint the tips of the Aim-9s my darker shade of flat olive color.  I think it will look just fine! This is what is next, but, the rest of the plane is hanging to dry after gloss. I stopped short of putting on the nose gear, all the gear doors, and the pitot tube. I deemed the main gear sturdy enough to come-with during the decalling phase but not these fiddly little bits... they'll be glued on last with the canopy but aside from that, all the actuall constrution is done. 

Here's what happens when you spray primer with absolutely zero shaking of the rattle can...  :


WHOOP-SEEE!   

That is rather lame as the PSR work on the top looks very good now and I'd likely be minute away from painting on this.. ohhhhh well.. now it has to dry good and proper so it will sand properly. No worries! I'll box it up and drag out the Raptor kit and see what odd and ends I can do on that one. I left off on doing the cockpit construction so I'll probably do that, let it sit to dry, and maybe clip out and file the main body pieces. 

I'd like to start the RAF high altitude P-40N as well, if possible. (we'll see..     )

[DogfighterZen]

Use a dark metallic grey for the Sidewinders, it's the color used on most i've seen, but it also depends on the model and if it's live or just a training round.

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks for the tip!!  I had 'em all painted up by that point but I just decided instead of the green to just mix them both and now I have a grey/grey-green thing going on. They look good enough for C.R.A.P. work for sure! The bands and stuff are probably a bit crooked but the missiles look great at arms length.



There's those but any more update pics on the plane itself are done. I'll try to show some pics of the fuel tanks because I want to try to gloss the centerline one to see what it looks like on this silver paint and also there are some red transfers that go on. Otherwise, though, I'm at the point where I don't want to spoil the "big reveal."

Done with it for now. I've learned my lesson... not to try to press the issue and just let this thing be finished on its own time. 

So, I think I'll get to work on the Raptor and hopefully the Warhawk. 

[Rick Lowe]

Just a thought, but what about a shallow hole in the rear, for the rocket exhaust? It took me a while to realize, but it really does improve the look of them, rather than there being a blank rear end.
Or, is there some sort of FOD plug that gets blasted out on ignition?

[DogfighterZen]

The "Go get'em" sticks look pretty good to me but Rick's suggestion is a good one, a small detail that works wonders.
No idea about the FOD cover, though...

[TheChronicOne]

I need a pin vise and accessories but until then I just paint a black dot back there and call it a day.    I'd consider doing it on these with my drill and a drill bit but I don't have any wee enough.

I can't remember what kit they were from but I remember not too awfully long ago working with some missiles that were molded that way with the shallow open spot in the rear end... like yous guys, I thought it much improved the look of the projectiles. 

As far as an update goes (F-22), I've trimmed out the fuselage and all the wingy-things from the sprues and also filed and sanded the left over burrs and such from the clipping action. Squared those all away in one of the bigazz bags that the malarkey came in.

After that I went through and clipped out individual sections from the big sprues and got rid of lengths of plastic that I didn't need. Now I have neat packages and a lot less "visual clutter" mucking things up.

Funny thing is I've already put in more work on a Somali aircraft than the actual current Somali Air Force!          In all honesty, though, they've been getting their stuff together, re-organized back in 2015, and it's only a matter of time before they have operational aircraft again. 

[Rick Lowe]

I need a pin vise and accessories but until then I just paint a black dot back there and call it a day.    I'd consider doing it on these with my drill and a drill bit but I don't have any wee enough.

You could always bore a hole by rotating the point of a #11 blade or similar - I often use this method when I don't have a small enough bit, or as a pilot hole for a bit...
You may find yourself breaking a lot of points, though...

But the black dot would work just as well and be easier.

[TheChronicOne]

Yeah buddy, Black Dot Power! 

Should be done with this lil feller today I hope???  It's 5 degrees outside, -15C for the rest of the world, so I won't be spending any time out doors or away from the house aside the things I HAVE to do so.... looks like I have pretty much all day to work on builds. 

[TheChronicOne]

Back home now and I think it's time to continue the decalling. As far as the stuff from the P-6, I think it's all on. I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to put modern stuff on it as well... things like panel outlines, some of the rescue stencils and stuff like that. I think I'll just have to start putting some of it on and see what it looks like. I don't want to turn this into a gaudy, tacky mish-mash that can't decide if it exists in one place or another. That said.... some of the stencils from the Norwegian transfer sheet are an orangey-yellow color that looks quite close to the other yellows going on so they could look really neat.


Not the best looking stuff but not the worse, either.

Next up I wanted to do an experiment... I decided to gloss the centerline tank to see if the magic silvery paint works with my gloss. As I figured, it does not. It ruins the finish and wants to craze!!! I guess I'll be leaving this in the spares bin....   


Good to see the Vaseline filter is back!

With that out of the way, I'm going to crack open the two packages that just came in the mail and post some pics to the stash thread. Got a couple of Soviet jetliners.    Next.... transfers time.   

[Rick Lowe]

I reckon go with the Rescue arrow, the Bang Seat triangle and the IFR target thingy and leave it at that.
Less is more and like you say, too much and it's neither one thing nor the other.

[TheChronicOne]

GMTA!! That's what I wound up doing. The rest of the stuff would go on the bottom anyway so to hell with that.... there's so much junk down there that I would have had to put them on before this stage anyway. 

They worked out nicely, in my opinion. The colors of them are good on the blue.... almost as if by design...  that's what I call a "happy coincidence."   

Slowly getting all the fiddly stuff glued on... I'm down to the needle that goes on the nose and a pitot tube that goes under one wing.... and... two last Aim-9s. And the canopy. So.... pretty much done. I'm not getting in a hurrry though, so, might still be awhile before I can take pictures and all that. Still need to put on the last coat of gloss clear as well so there's going to be at least a half hour wait time assoc. with that.

In the meantime it's back to the Raptor. I can't do any work on my glider until the wind changes direction. I'm dry sanding it so I need to have my exhaust fan on and since I can't do that, it'll just have to languish some more in purgatory. 

[TheChronicOne]

All done!!! 

What if... space aliens did something and then something happened and this existed?

Pre-War-Post-War F-16:

[TheChronicOne]

Moving on!   

I've painted a little more on the cockpit stuff for the Raptor but now that the Falcon is all done I decided to finally get this P-40 moving.

It was a bagged kit but whoever had it printed out a really nice color picture of the box on nice photo paper. That's nice!!  So I decided to hang it up while I work on it. 




Going to take a look first at the cockpit stuff and see if I need to build it before I start gluing the fuselage together.  Otherwise, I'm going to start clipping parts out, sanding and filing any burrs or rough spots, and gluing some stuff together.

Nothing like a simple single engine piston fighter!   

[TheChronicOne]

Well I don't know if the fuselage and wings were already clipped out and "cleaned up" for the most part or if they came that way from the factory. Either way, they were out, and most of the edges where good but the stuff some people might skip needed attention... you know... stuff you won't see but still affects fitment. So anyway I cleaned that up... there were a few burrs but more prevalent were ejection pin marks on the wing mating surfaces. Can't have that!! So I got all that cleaned up and right now the wings and fuselage are good to go for glue. Now I'll stop to look at the instructions about the cockpit.... 

I figured out why this thing was bagged....  this kit was stored in a place that was very damp. Mold all on the instructions and the transfers were obviously in some substantial moisture. Anyway, I almost forgot but I stopped for pics of those (and the new replacements) along with the plastic as it was when I pulled it out of the bag:





I tried but couldn't actually find any reviews or build pages of this specific kit so I have no clue if it's a beast or builds up like a dream.  First thoughts from ME however... well... it looks nice so far!! Before I filed away the ejector pin marks on the fuselage mating surfaces I dry fitted that for a second and it looked decent even then so maybe we have a winner here.