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

[NARSES2]

IIRC, the triangles were supposed to be Neutrality markings

Yup

[TheChronicOne]

Neutrality markings... cool!  Works for me. They're other ones are a little too close to Czech roundels if you ax me. 


Waking up...   there's a rooster at a house around the corner and that little turd cock a doodle doo ALL..... DAY....... LONG. It could be 2 AM or 2 PM, doesn't matter. It'll cock a doo from the time I wake up (3:30-4AM) until at least mid afternoon. NON STOP. Every 15-20 seconds.. "ROOO ROORO OROOOOOOOOOO!"   

I thought I'd luck out last night but mama left the dogs out. It's OK if Mimi is out but Buddy.... he treed something so starting at 2AM he was barking WOOF WOOF WOOF!!!!!!! for the next 4 hours solid and the security lights would turn on and off the whole time. I could have easily gone back to sleep this time. I wasn't awake because my mind was going, I was awake because Buddy was going. But, I couldn't go back to sleep with him WOOOF WOOF WOOF every few seconnds and the damn security lights acting like it's a Disco club in the 70s. WOOOF WOOOF WOFO ROOOOOR OOOOOOOO ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH.       

[TheChronicOne]

Wish I were in a better mood... it seems the better my days start out, the more people try to ruin it.. but anyway.

Done with this.

Finished masking the Raptor wings and control surfaces, will next prime it again to cover the missed areas then mask the intakes and nose.

Did a GOOD amount of sanding work on the Liberty. It's going to be wonky in the end but I was tired of trying to re-arrange the molecular structure of something that was simply a pile of crap (canopy). Thing was just too wide, etc but it's on there and actually looks pretty decent so far. We'll know the real story when the masking tape finally comes off but for being what it was -- I'm pretty happy!  I finally "built" the housing for the tail-hook:



Looks pretty decent, I think, and adds character to the tail end of this.

Didn't do anything to the 737 other than a bit more sanding.

D.21:









I caught a couple more things right at the end that the kit failed to mention/include but solved by paint. There's some rectangular thing on the port side between the engine and cockpit (some type of outlet I think?) and then a couple of landing lights between the gun barrels on each wind so I just painted on simulations of those.

[Rick Lowe]

That's a cool lookin' li'l Fokker. 

[NARSES2]

That's a cool lookin' li'l Fokker. 

Yup, shows what can be done with a rather basic kit 

[TheChronicOne]

Basic is right!! Even at the very end stages of the build I kept finding things that it was missing.     

Didn't do ANYTHING in the cockpit, so that's another matter, but the things I managed to catch and "rectify":

*Rudder Post
*Port Landing Light
*Stbd. Landing Light
*Exhaust pipe
*Malarkey on Front of Props
*Control wire (OK OK, I haven't found a 1/72 kit yet that COMES with one so... this is a stretch  )
*Fuselage Opening thing

Makes for better over all facsimile and any practice I can get doing scratch building/painting is appreciated. 

NOW, I'd like to go ahead and snag a Special Hobby one and build it Finnish and see how they stack up. That, and the Finnish stuff, like the Dutch stuff, just looks so cool. 

[TheChronicOne]

Going to try to get the Raptor masking finished. In order to do so, I need to prime it a bit as it is then let it dry then finish the masking. Pretty sure all I have left are the leading edges of the intakes and the radome panel lines. I would like to at least have this done then I can either do stuff like keep working on the ordnance (gloss it, apply transfers, and any painting that I haven't already done) or I can start work on something else. Probably the 737 because if the minor sanding stuff I needed to do is "good to go " now then nothing left on it other than to paint.

[NARSES2]

NOW, I'd like to go ahead and snag a Special Hobby one and build it Finnish and see how they stack up. That, and the Finnish stuff, like the Dutch stuff, just looks so cool. 

I've built a couple of the Special Hobby ones and it is a very nice kit. Nice delicate detail and goes together very well. Recommended 

[TheChronicOne]

NOW, I'd like to go ahead and snag a Special Hobby one and build it Finnish and see how they stack up. That, and the Finnish stuff, like the Dutch stuff, just looks so cool. 

I've built a couple of the Special Hobby ones and it is a very nice kit. Nice delicate detail and goes together very well. Recommended 

Do you know if all the SH boxings have the skis (or skids, or whatever) or just the one with them on the actual box art?  Keeping my eyes peeled and will snap one up when I find it below my price threshold.


Update time!  Things are going pretty smoothly. I've finally finished the PSR on the 737 ONCE AND FOR GOOD!        My stupid, careless mistakes amounted to a TON of extra hours having to be put into this... easily 12 and probably more, but I brought it "back to life" and boy am I glad!! Didn't want to start off my airliner building career with a disaster. That would really suck!!! 

Anyway....  so it's ready to be painted on once the primer dries well enough to be handled. It's VERY humid today so I'm not holding my breath.

Otherwise, I put another light-ish coat of primer on the Raptor to get the intakes primed and to help "seal" the masking tape to prevent bleed when I start brush painting it. It'll need to dry then I will finish masking. Until then, missiles and stuff (might do that later but sounds sort of boring so might not).

Liberty finally gets some primer to see what we're working with!!! I was having trouble telling what needed more sanding, etc., and what didn't so just decided to prime it and give myself a hand. It's not TOO bad but I definitely still have work to do around the canopy (of course!). I'll not get in any hurry, though. I'll give the primer a few days to get to the point where it sands then I'll dive on in to Phase II of PSR.

This worked out handily today as I primed all three at the same time. Seems efficient that way!   








These lil fellers are just thirsty for me cheap-azz craft paints!     

I'm about at the point where painting will occupy most of my time so it's time to get something else going. Down to three builds on going, as well, with a couple in danger of wrapping up sooner than later so time for a new build!!  This next one is relatively straight-forward. Only problems I could see with these involved the transfers.... they're a bit old and also some might not fit too well BUT I'm going to put the Transfers from my Hasegawa F-14A onto my Hasegawa F-15 for a simple scheme-swap and throw that bad boy into the group build. I've been wanting to build an F-15 for a while now so this should be fun. I'll probably mention it from time to time here but you may want to find the thread over in the Cold War GB forum if this type of things peaks your interest.

Also.... I'm considering starting a Fokker D.XXIII to go with the lil guy I just finished. That, and I'm fighting the temptation to start building my 1/144 C 5 Galaxy that showed up two days ago..   

[PR19_Kit]

Here's the Otaki box lid, WELL over the top. 

See your PM about the instructions etc.

[TheChronicOne]

Recieved and appreciated!! I found my Entex copy of instructions but I want to see the Otaki ones for comparison and I'm going to print them out and keep them with my C-5 Galaxy stuff. Being in top 5 airplanes of all time for me personally I tend to collect it. I mean.... I even almost bought a gaudy baseball cap with one on it. 


Love that boxart.    Best of all the ones I've seen for sure and certainly the best scheme to ever grace that airplane. I remember when I was little and they did touch and goes at the airfield near here... they would fly right past just mere hundreds of feet away. AMAZING! Me being little and not knowing any difference, I thought these "white" ones were special somehow because out of every some-odd whatever fly-bys of one in the Europe I scheme there would be a lone white one. I could see a Euro I Galaxy fly past 30 times to just one of the old MAC scheme planes.  I thought they looked very pretty in the white and seemed more elegant, etc. Wasn't til many years later that I found that the opposite was true and that these were the older planes with older paint jobs. 

[NARSES2]

Do you know if all the SH boxings have the skis (or skids, or whatever) or just the one with them on the actual box art?  Keeping my eyes peeled and will snap one up when I find it below my price threshold.

Neither of the 2 I currently have in stash (Dutch and Finnish boxing's) have skis, so it must be just the specific Finnish ski fighter boxing ?

[TheChronicOne]

Ahh!  Ok! Just wondering. I still have mine from the PM kit so don't really NEED them per se but it never hurts to have more intel. 

[TheChronicOne]

Busiest day I've had the entire year. Despite waking up at 2AM and getting out of bed at 2:19 I haven't had but 20 minutes to work on models. It is currently 7:09 PM and I'm finally sitting down to update. 

The 20 minutes of work was to wrap up painting the grey lower on the 737 to go with the US Airways livery. I sanded a bit on the first coats beforehand, though, to try to get a smooth finish. There for awhile when I first started I was getting a very nice, very flat smooth coverage of paint but as I neared the end of what I had mixed (paint and water to thin) up the quality suffered. I'm still learning but I think in the future I'll be sure to either re-fresh my paint, mix up a new pot, or whatever it takes to not get down to the very end of what's left in my cup. The last bit of paint not only seems to thicken but the pigments seem to separate more and even with stirring that "bottom of the barrel" paint provides worse results than when I do the first coats with my freshly poured & thinned paint.

NO pictures of that because it isn't anything special yet.. I did get outside pictures of my D.XXI, however. The clouds thinned for a bit and I actually saw blue skies and it brightened up so I decided to go for it. It's been overcast for about 5 days. I'm tired of waiting!     So anyway, by time I went outside it was a bit darker again and also nearing evening so not the best of conditions and..... I forgot to clean the lens. Everything looks smudgy. So... pictures are BUNKO. That said, they're still neat to look at.      I mean.. even bunk-azz lousy pictures are better than nothing, especially after having talked about 'em. 













Goes pretty good with the ol' piece of ceramic tile there! 


Not sure what is going on next. I might continue the masking work on the Raptor or I might fire up the video games. I'll figure it out after I swill half a beer.

[TheChronicOne]

Video games didn't appeal so I put Full Metal Jacket on and got to chiefin' and next thing you know I was all up in some masking a Raptor.

Took awhile but I've masked the intakes, radome, and what I believe is the fuel tank inlet for mid-air refueling. This wraps up the masking as far as I know.












I still need to finish working on the ordnance in the way of painting a couple things, I think, and then glossing them and applying transfers that came with the F-22 kit. Other than that, I can build all that stuff into the bays if I want or I can start painting the actual paint scheme. Whicheve/whatever; all the PSR and masking is finished!