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

[TheChronicOne]

Working on the F-15N. Check that over in the Cold War GB forum. I settled on the paint and have done some of the main construction!


EDIT:   I'm really tired and barely know what the hell I'm doing..  I normally try to sync my pictures up with what I'm talking about but these are just randomly placed between paragraps so .. whatever...  bear with me.    Doing the best I can.     It doesn't match up but I'm trying to not make boring updates. 


For now, we're all about this Airfix BAC-111. This kit..... is... uhhh.... it's pretty neat, but also problematic. Such a neat kit, though. I want more!! All the doors and the stairs and stuff can be opened or closed which provides possibilities for some really neat dioramas. That said, some of the fitment and pieces leave a bit to be desired.    Panel lines, especially on the wings, would be.. like... 6 inches tall or something.. these things are ridiculous.    I'm wrestling with the idea of sanding the entire thing smooth but doing the wings would be a task. It would be easy to smooth the whole fuselage but the other stuff would require a lot of close-in tedious sanding to work around things. 



Here I was thinking that this, being small, would be a somewhat easy build but it's starting to look like I'm going to have to do a bunch of stuff to it or settle for a really wonky model. I already know I need to fill some sink marks with putty and then the panel lines... I was thinking of a hybrid... leave all the stuff on the wings, tailplanes, and part of the fin but sand the fuselage smooth. Also,the end pieces that went on the engines had a horrible fit. I did the best I could to just get the things on then I'll have to PSR them the rest of the way.



I'll figure it all out as I go along. For now I'm just going to focus on getting things done that I know CAN be done. To that end, I've built the landing gear. I've glued on the two cargo doors and glued the fuselage halves together. I've glued in the cockpit glass. That will be entirely fill in and filled over because I have aftermarket transfers for the cockpit glass. I also have them for the fuselage windows but I'm curious to try my hand at PVA windows and also see how the "punching holes in the cheatline transfer" goes.    Also, all the weight is in. I've tipped the thing up and there is a lot of BBs and PVA in there. So much so it turned the inside of the glass white. 








So there we are! I'm well underway with this finally and it's proving to be interesting! Having fun with it so far. 

[PR19_Kit]

The 1-11's looking good Brad, and yes, it really didn't have a name, ever. 

That kit's a zillion years old, which is why the raised panel lines are like the Great Wall of China. Sanding them off isn't too tough if you do it early enough, so nothing else gets in the way.

That ATP decal set's a good buy. They do, or did, some really useful airline stuff in their time, but they've closed down now, somewhat sadly.

[TheChronicOne]

Well, this is the time of day I check in and try to come up with a plan of action for the day.

Hopefully the PVA is dry enough that it will be nice and solid so I can continue work on the BAC 111. I need to decide whether or not I want to do away with panel lines or not. I think I settled on a hybrid last time around; sand the fuselag smooth but leave the stuff on the wings. But, now I'm having second thoughts about that. I could just leave them ALL on there and build this thing OOB (aside from covering over the cockpit glass and putting on my own). OR, I could try to sand away ALL the panel lines which is tedious on the wings but I think I could get it done if I could just throw the lazy-monkey from my back. I'll contemplate it further as I'm out mowing rows of lawn.     

That's always a good time to think. Once the weedeating is done and all the ins and outs of the yard are mowed one can achieve a bit of an "autopilot" during the straight, back and forth typewriter mowing. Leaves a lot of time to gather thoughts and brainstorm about plastic atrocity. 


I had a bit of wing dihedral problm on the F-15 so it's had to sit and dry extra long on my holding-contraption (Helping Hands soldering .... helper.... thingy..thing, whatever) .  If not for that, the fitment would have been VERY good and required no action but now I think I'll need to run a bit of filler through there and sand it down. I probably could have taken care of this problem on the front end with a bunch of sanding and stuff but this is going to be much quicker.  So, that needs done and then a bit of PSR on the rear portion where the stabalizers go then I can put them on and evaluate what comes next. Might be time to prime it or I might find more things to glue on.  OH YEAH, I have to fill in the slots where the opening canopy would have sat. Toy-like feature that has to be eliminated completely. Even if the canopy were posed open I suspect most people would fill those in still. 

All this could change, however, because if it is cloudy out when I get home then I'm going to bite the bullet and start mowing on my own yard which is starting to be grown up and looking like bunk. Too sunny out then I'll be inside and will have to wait for another day. I can't go out and work 8, 9, 10 hours straight, most of it in the sun, then come home and work another 5-6 hours in the sun. I'd be a very ill crispy critter by the end of that!   

[zenrat]

... if it is cloudy out when I get home then I'm going to bite the bullet and start mowing on my own yard which is starting to be grown up and looking like bunk. Too sunny out then I'll be inside and will have to wait for another day. I can't go out and work 8, 9, 10 hours straight, most of it in the sun, then come home and work another 5-6 hours in the sun. I'd be a very ill crispy critter by the end of that!   

Good luck.  I'd give you a hand if I wasn't on the other side of the planet.

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks. I'll be happy so long as I just get the paying work done today. I have a strange situation that might mean I have to do a third paying yard today though that I forgot to mention so there's no telling how things will go. Even the weather forecast is wishy washy today. It'll be a "play it by ear" type of situation.


One other thing I forgot to mention in my plastic update: the folding wings on the F-15. I'm going to glue a couple of bumps where it goes then after paint I think I'll use a fine tipped pen and just draw some lines on there. This ought to be interesting and I'll be sure to start on this today before I paint.

[TheChronicOne]

Man oh man!! The more I look at pictures and read up on this BAC 111 the more I'm finding that this kit is suffering multiple innacuracies from "slightly off" to "downright incorrect." I'm not going to fix anything, though. I'm just going to build the sucker and it'll be a "reasonable" facsimile. I was close to start sanding all the panel lines off the wings, too. As far as that goes, I'm going to leave them there (I think the stuff looks cool! It's wildly innacurate but..... like I said, it looks cool) but I AM indeed going to get the fuselage sanded smooth. I think that's a fair compromise and will make transfers easier perhaps. I think this is closer to being visually correct anyway.... mostly if you look at a airliner it looks nice and smooth but if there is any area where things might not be as much, it's the wings. So... there ya have it.

Now that I've decided to just plow through this one and not "fix" anything I'm actually kind of stoked. I can just focus on getting it done and won't get bogged down with tedium. I still need to fill in the cockpit windscreens, however, and get that stuff PSRed and I may have to do same for wing roots or whatever but I ain't moving wing fences or adding all the missing bumps and antennas and I'm not re-shaping the nose and adding vents to engines and correcting the nozzels, etc etc etc plethora of things.

At the end of the day, it'll look just fine, I'm sure!! It'll look like a BAC-111, even if a bit toy-like.


The fuselage seams are nearly good to go. In fact, I think the top one is done. I still need to do a little work on the bottom seam then I can get to worked just obliterating all the raised panel lines. Shouldn't take long. These sanding pad things I buy at the dolla' sto' are the best damn things, I swear man.     I've mentioned these before on a few occassions!!

They're great... like.... stout enough to get things done and also able to take some elbow grease for RAPID sanding away of things that would take much, much longer with files and sand papers. I love these things!! .. .. . Stout, but also delicate enough to contour to things... won't ever flatten the roof on a round ruselage for instance... won't break off certain protustions....  contours even to tight bends like wing roots and then when I stick a sanding film onto it it works great like that as well for fine sanding.    But yeah.... after I get the seams done and take a bit of a break and I'm to just start sanding the everloving crap out of this thing and see how fast I can do it. 


I've also been working on the F-15. Nothing spectacular, but necessary all the same. I'll update the thread about that one later.

I also have some stash pictures for that thread. That lot I lost a couple weeks ago and was lamenting is now in my possession. See, it pays to "stalk" a seller to see if they re-list something after someone else fails to pay and sure enough that's what happened. I offered ol' boy $9 more than he would have got just for his troubles but I still got all that stuff for a song at $45 after shipping. (The Lightning F3, L-10111, and that stuff...  picture up a few posts somewhere in here).

[PR19_Kit]

During that period when Airfix were trying to take over the 1/144 airliner market they quite frequently rushed a model into production when only the prototype had flown. That happened with the BAC 1-11, the Trident and the original airliner VC10. So you end up having to 'productionise' them to make them match the decal sheets. 

When they turned the VC10 into the RAF tanker they didn't even bother to correct the original mistakes either!!!!

[TheChronicOne]

Oi!! 

I have all of those.     

It's fine for the Tanker because it's going to be pure fantasy (Chronic Airlines) but I'd like my 1-11 and Trident to be "normal." Ah well, I'm not going to fret too much. I have plenty of others like the Zvezda stuff and Minicraft that will be "better" but these I can just make look good and call it a day on. Happy to have them for sure! I can deal with problems when things are priced decently. 

Speaking of the BAC 111...   the PVA and BBs are not dry...    I had a couple "plunk" out and I had to put them back in there. It's been sitting for two days but the humidity around here is way high so it's going to have to sit longer. I can't do anything else to it right now. I suppose I could start painting the gear doors or something but... naaaaah. I'm going to actually glue the gear on with the main build this time as well so won't be touching those.


That leaves me with the F-15 which is still slowly having things done. Glued the intakes on, etc. I'm going to go update that thread here in a few and gather my thoughts on that one. I think it's time for some AIM-54 Phoenix action. I'm going to use the two that came with my Italeri weapons set. I don't remember the set coming with pylons, however, so I'm going to have to find some. I have some scrap F-4 and MiG-21 parts that might have what I need. 

[TheChronicOne]

Big work day today so I'm likely to be wiped out at the end of it all so no major plans.

For now what I will definitely do is try to get the Aim-54 phoenix missiles put together then check the PVA in the BAC 111 to see if it's dried yet so I can get back to sanding on that one.

ONCE AGAIN having second thoughts on that one!!!  The wings. I was thinking that if I had to mask anything to paint wing spars or something that the miles tall panel lines will create a headache so I'm thinking about going ahead and sanding the wings smooth after all. I'll need to try to find some pictures of BAC 111 wings from the top down. Also, there might be some walk way escape path decal that could go there. I have some from ATP that claim to be for the BAC 111 among others but they're looking too large. Perhaps with some trimming?? I dunno.. we'll see... like I said, I need to get ahold of some top-down pictures of the wings which are always one of the more elusive angles for walk around photos.

Had a wild thought yesterday about what to start next and ..... it's a 1/48 this time!!! !          One of my pet, home town projects of a plane I saw flying over heard nearly daily for decades. I still see them every once in awhile. Talking about the T-38 trainer.  I have the Sword kit and I think it would be a treat to build one up IF the kit goes together well and doesn't have 30 trillion superfluous parts and pieces.

[TheChronicOne]

Crazyiness at work! I managed it, though. Caught up now and I have some room to breathe. I should have known, though, holiday weekend coming up so everyone wants their yards nice, no wonder I had a billion lawns this week! 


I've done work on both builds. The F-15 stuff isn't even really worth talking about. I'll just say that for tall the high points and good things about the kit, when it comes to the intakes, there's a bit to be desired....   (fitment).   I was NOT looking forward to having to fix such things so I'm a bit mad at that build right now. 


So that leaves us with the BAC-111 and I've gotten quite a bit done on it. I can't quite recall every last bit but it involved bits and pieces of filler to fix gaps around the doors and sink marks in the engines, sanding away all the panel lines on the fuselage and engine housings, and gluing things. Other stuff, too, like preparing the wind-screen area for eventual decalling.



It's not ugly.


So there it is!! It's a whole plane now and it's an airliner for sure, no confusing it!      T-tail, too.       Oh yeah, I lucked out and the paint work for the wings will be easily applied with all the raised detail so I left that on there. Also, for one of very few times ever, I have glued the gear on at this phase of construction instead of at the end. I think I've progressed enough with my skill that I can handle the plane without snapping it all off. We'll see, though!    Engines also glued on already...    this is both a test of my not breaking things, but also painting parts in situation, so this is a learning experience and practice along with being "just another build."

I'm about to drag out the 1/48 Sword T-38. This is fascinating territory because I've all but shunned 1/48 due to space limitations. I make exceptions for certain subjects, though, and seek to build them all scales. 

[TheChronicOne]

Man!!  This work is catching up with me. I took a three hour nap. I'm barely even coherent.    Groggy and can't figure out what I want to do here..  I was thinking about going outside and getting some outside work done but, my God, it's 6 PM but still 95 degrees. Independence Day will be here before we know it and I'd like to grill and sit outside that evening because they always do a massive fireworks show at the park a block North. I have the best seat in town! If I want to be able to do that I need to start now. Not the least of which is my mowing which is like 2-3 weeks behind. I mowed all the front and outside yard and most of the backyard but there's still the huge lot on the North end of the property to do But, other than that, I have a ton of projects dragged out to be worked on that I need to go ahead and work on so I can put that stuff back up. Some mowers needing tuned-up and a couple other things like coolers that need to be cleaned and some other things. I need to get all this knocked out so that NEXT time I mow it won't take 6 hours. It really eats up a ton of time having to weedeat around all this stuff.

But hell, that's not model stuff and I think that's what I'll try to do now. I just need to wake up because right now I'm feeling really lazy. I think if I can just get started on SOMETHING then the rest will begin to flow but I need to knock these cobwebs loose.   

I thought I had like another month and a half or more before the end of the current GB but there's only 4 days left! The hell?!! Where has all the time gone? I'm nowhere near being done with the only project I've tried to do so I'm going to try to focus heavily on it and not so much on the BAC 111.

So, uhh... I guess I'll be over there in that thread with updates and stuff.


I dragged out the T-38 and had a look!  It was late and I was pretty tired so that might have influenced me a bit but when I was looking at it it appeared as a great mountain cliff. I'm looking for a leisurely summer stroll through a meadow, not sheer-face rock climbing so I might be dismissing that as the next build. There is a lot of really nice detail in it and a lot of fiddly bits so I better not step off in something I can't handle.     I might look at it again here in a bit and see if having slept a couple days has changed my mind but it's looking like I'll be back on the search again for something simpler. I found one kit already that might work.. Airfix Boomerang. 

[TheChronicOne]

Not a whole lot of time for a real update. I'm trying to get my GB build done. 

Distracted like crazy the whole time so it's slow going.



The 1-11 is on hold anyway trying to solidify the nose gear. I'm putting glue into the well to shore it up but it's slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww to dry so I can't mess with it really.

Anyway, I'm going to hop back over to my GB thread and get back to work on the F-15.

[TheChronicOne]

While less busy than the prior week, this one is still nearly wall to wall with lawns... multiples every day. It's hotter this week, too, so I'm getting beat down by the weather. By time I get home I'm exhausted and can barely get anything done!! Still, I'm trudging along and getting progress done on the F-15 which I will finish painting today and get glosses so I can start putting on the transfers. 

I might work a little on the BAC 111, too. It's getting close to primer. 


I found my one week GB build, too. It's a whif-in-box.  The Flying Ram that I will put in RAF dress. I'm HOPING, that despite the kit being RS and less mainstream, it will go together well and quickly seeing as how it's just a wing.  So anyway... at some point today or within the next couple of days I'd like to get all the parts trimmed out and ready to build up.



Here's the funny part...   this thing was never meant to fly around and ram things. That's an old wives' tale that's been going around for some reason but it's not true. Anyway.... should be pretty fun if fitment isn't a disaster. 

[NARSES2]

That looks interesting mate 

If memory serves it's not that old a kit and RS models have improved a lot over the last few years (they were never bad) and the latest ones are very, very good. The only problem you might have is with the canopy, which might need some fairing in. So I'd look at that as soon as possible in the build.

[TheChronicOne]

Great!! Thanks for the tips. Just the info I need.

Should be interesting....  it'll have the green and grey camo uppers with yellow on the bottom. Doesn't that mean it's a trainer? Could it also be on things in trials or on protoypes or something? Anyway... it looks good to me and I like it better than light grey or whatever.