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

[Gondor]

Looks like something from the Trigan Empire or one of the other civilizations around them.

Gondor

[zenrat]

Looks like something from the Trigan Empire or one of the other civilizations around them.

Gondor

It does, doesn't it.
Good job Brad C.  How you gonna paint it?

Fokker looks great BTW.

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks folks.

Plans for now are to paint it in 1960's USN grey over grey and slap A-4 Skyhawk decorations on it. It's getting elongated nose gear and a tail hook at some point so I was thinking that with the compact design, short wings, etc etc that it would be good for carrier operations.

[NARSES2]

Looking less like an F-5 now! 

Less? 

It doesn't look ANYthing like an F-5 really, until you notice the shape of the centre fuselage. You've changed the rest of it radically, so much so that I was thinking 'What the devil is it?' 

Very much so. Parts of it remind me of the Aero L-39 Albatros for some reason

[TheChronicOne]

That's good, I like the lil Albatross. Maybe it was on my mind when this thing forced it's way into my conscience.     I actually entertained turning this one into a trainer for a while but didn't want to bother with implications of dual cockpits.

[TheChronicOne]

Well......  hmmm....


After almost a 9 hour work day I made it home and had lunch and was starting to build around 1PM. Between then and now (8:30 PM) I've managed to..........  paint a yellow ring on a cowling, paint a propeller white, and paint one half of a canopies frame work.          Like.... 20-30 minutes worth of work dragged out over hours. I'm moving at the pace of sludge. I guess I'm a little worn out from work. I'm back mowing lawns again so that explains that!!!  It's good to have money coming in again, though, that I can actually spend a little of on FUN stuff instead of just siphoning it all to bills and boring things.

Well, anyway, enough bloviating, here's what the Fokker is looking like now.



Starting to come together!! I'm through for now, though. I'm getting really close to being finished but I refuse to rush things any more. Causes too many problems. That's good, though, because next time I sit down to work on it and have some energy about me I'll probably be able to get it done. I have very little painting left and it's really just a matter of getting the transfers on and the last fiddly bits.

TTYL! 

[TheChronicOne]

Nothing to report building-wise today. But, I had a ton of fun in the hobby anyway! I ordered up a junk lot of airliner C.R.A.P. and it showed up and I've just been going through it all afternoon and getting it sorted and just looking at it and researching bits of the lore on the web. Good fun! I love rescuing old junky kits and I love rescuing stuff like this, too. I scraped together two actual complete kits (maybe a third, now, thanks to info I gleaned from the stash thread from Weaver) but the rest of it is styrene gold as far as I'm concerned.......   lots of wings, engines, and fiddly bits. Stuff even a simpleton like me can use to kitbash new whif projects.

So anyway... other than that and a general clean up and organizing of my work space I've done nothing other than apply a couple skim coats of filler to my 737.

Well, I take it back... one other thing in the brainstorming realm of the hobby.  I've come up with a simple idea for a project for the Cold War GB. I've been itching to build an F-15 so when I saw one for $5 the other day (Hasegawa) I picked it up. It dawned on me later to use the transfers from my Hasegawa F-14A on it and make a carrier based USN F-15 Eagle.   

All for now... I guess I'll play some video games or something. 

[TheChronicOne]

Getting some good work done today! Been at it all afternoon. This masking, . . ... . ..  may look simple but damnit, it takes a while to do it and do it right!!!! Especially trying to cram tiny pieces of tape into crevices... these angled bits make for a tight squeeze in places.

NEVERTHELESS, I've gotten the main wings masked off aside from two single lenghts on the bottoms, and the stabalizers are masked completely top and bottom. Next will be the two fins and I'll stop at that point. After that I know I need to do the leading edges of the intakes and also mask the radome so I can get panel lines as the kit does not come with them molded on.



Next up, I finished painting the D.21 and gloss coated it. I need to finish painting the props and then will have to paint the little needle like bits that go on later but she's ready to be decalled.


Since it doesn't look much different from last time, I took a picture of the other side. 

That's about it... Going to mask these fins (or maybe not, I'm about to go look around the forums here!) then call it a day and go play Far Cry 4. The new one is coming out on th 27th and I'd like to pick it up early next month so I'm trying to finish this one just in time for the new one.   

[DogfighterZen]

That's why i left the fins off to glue on later, the angle at which they sit, makes it hard to mask everything properly. The fins are easy enough to glue on later, no gaps or fit issues but it's too late for you now, i guess. 

[TheChronicOne]

 

Hell yeah, I'm definitely doing them separately next time! Not sure why I didn't this time.... I'd normally leave them off like in the past. Maybe I got that "instructions booklet tunnel vision."  Good thing is I put the more tedious pieces of tape on already so now I just need the last 2-3 per side and they're either on the trailing edge (so the entire plane body isn't in the way) or on top.

[TheChronicOne]

Trying to come up with a battle plan today. I've already been working a little on the 737 and the Liberty this morning. I might continue masking a bit on the Raptor then I need to shoot it with more primer before I can do the intakes as I missed a couple spots on those. I'd like to get that done by lunch so it can dry up awhile before I mask then I can finally start painting the actually paint scheme.

For the Fokker, though, I think today is the day for the final "big push" to get it done. I'm ready to start decalling it and there are very very few transfers so it should be easy and quick. I say that, but now, watch the transfers go tits up.     If the transfers DO work, however, it'll just be a matter of deciding whether or not to whether the thing then putting on the fiddly bits then a last coat of satin varnish. I think I need to dunk the canopy in future one more time to get the shade of brown looking like the rest of it. I'll cross that bridge later, though.

Time to start thinking about the next build. I've been wanting to build an F-15 so I decided I'd build one and put my F-14A transfers from my Hasegawa Tomcat kit on it. The transfers look like they are in really good shape so they ought to be good to go! We'll have a look at it all later after I get the D.21 worked on.

[TheChronicOne]

So much for all that crap!! 


Here's the thing... I woke up at 1AM... right.... I knew I didn't want to get up at that ridiculous hour so I stayed in bed but could NOT go back to sleep! 4AM rolled around and just got up and did my normal routine. Well, I went and did the work thing and all the chores and stuff and by time I ate lunch all I could do was sit here and lament the lack of sleep so about 1:30 I took a nap and didn't get up until a bit after 4PM. Then, I went on a cruise around town for a little bit and I only started monkeying with models in the last hour and a half.

I won't be finishing this Fokker today after all. I COULD, there's still plenty of time, but I don't like working under a deadline (bed time in this case lol ) so I'm just going to get the transfers on and if I FEEL like it, I'll continue work. I'm also painting the props which is actually a bit involved because I need to paint red white and blue stripes, metal on the front, and black on the back. I probably won't even finish working on that but I'll at least have all the transfers on. Good news is these transfers are working nicely! 


The lil mice!! 

[zenrat]

... I woke up at 1AM... right.... I knew I didn't want to get up at that ridiculous hour so I stayed in bed but could NOT go back to sleep!...

Don't you hate it when that happens?
Mrs z says "get up and do something like watch a movie" but I always think no, if I just lay here and blank my mind then i'll sleep.
Which I don't.
The trick is apparently not to think about sleeping at all but to think about something else and then you will drift off.
Not always that easy though.
Try doing mental arithmetic.  A friend of mine swears on going through the 17 times table.  If you lose track then you start again.  Or try doing long division or working out square roots or working out scaleorama'd engine capacities (what capacity - in litres - would a 1/25 426ci Hemi V8 be if used as a 1/72 aircraft engine for example).

[TheChronicOne]

I have had varying amount of success with certain things. My biggest problem is I can't stop thinking about all the days activities ahead. "They" say it's actually rather normal and would be more natural if we slept about 4 hours, got up for a couple, then slept for another 3-4 hours. I think this is just our bodies trying to get back to that but since we've industrialized and went on standard time it's just not that likely. I've done it before.. it's actually kind of nice. I'll wake up... can't go back to sleep, so I'll fire up the TV or get on the computer. I'll smoke me a dooby or something and just hang out and enjoy the peace and quiet of the night and about an hour and half later or 2 or.. maybe just one, I wind up falling back asleep naturally. Problem being if it's not Winter time, I don't really have the time for it so I try to just force myself back to sleep. You're right... thinking about trying to get to sleep rarely works and I wind up just thinking about anything and everything! Every time it happens it throws the whole day out of whack and even the next day I still seem to have a hangover from it and I still feel a little more tired and sleepy this morning than if I had been sleeping normally all week.

I might try the math next time. I guess it's like counting sheep. Same vein. Thing is, these tasks seem like the excruciatingly boring repetitive things I hate to do. Maybe that's the entire point. 

[TheChronicOne]

OK, trudging slowly with this Fokker build! The transfers I said looked so nice started to lift off and fracture so I had to re-wet them then press them down again. I'm considering weathering this thing so rather than straight to satin, I decided to hurry up and seal in the stuff with another pretty wet coat of gloss.

I could possibly still finish it today but I'm not going to actually try. I'll just let the gloss dry up and probably do weathering Saturday and finish it after.

That aside, I finished the canopy and props. Free handed it all so it's a bit sloppy but then again, so is the rest of the paint! 



Looks good to me, though, and them some classy lookin' props, bruh!!!    I really like when even a war machine has little bits of artistic flair. They could have easily just put red bands or something on there but, no, they got all artsy-fartsy with it and I dig it.

Otherwise, PSR continues on the 737. I've got it now where there are only two small, minor areas that could use a bit of sanding but otherwise, it's good to go! The roof seam looks better and the cockpit area and nose are 95% good to go. No pics, it looks just like last time.

I think I'll look at my Liberty as I know I have a hole in the cockpit area that needs some filler and I might be able to start sanding around where I glued the canopy stuff on. If I can, I'll spend 10-20 minutes sanding on it and get that hole filled then it's back to masking the Raptor! Pretty close to being done with all the wingy bits then I need to spray more primer. It'll help seal the tape and prevent bleed and also I need to get it on the intakes where I still have actual white paint.

I might bust out my F-15 model, too, though because it's next!! I'm looking forward to it, I can't wait to build an Eagle!