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

[TheChronicOne]

This reminds me... to keep from having to mix paint, I need to go to the LHS today and find some brown. I don't have anything that is proper for the .....uhh.... "earth" color.



No plan for now.  I'll just pick something up when I get home and get after it. 

[TheChronicOne]

Nose work is done for now. I might have to sand more after I prime if any flaws show.

Next up I'll sand to tops of the wings. I may not need to skim coat where the fences used to be afterall. I'll check after the sanding. That alone might be enough to level everything. If that goes well, I'll glue on my home-made stall fences. I may need to sand on those a little but that's OK.





So, after the sanding and gluing on the fences, it'll be primed AGAIN.

Oh I forgot to mention that this thing took a trip on me... wound up outside the box wedged between some other stuff and in the process ALL THREE landing gear snapped, eve the reinforced main gear. I went ahead and left the nose gear off but have repaired the mains..        SO, yeah...there's the result of that experiment. I will continue to leave the fiddly bits off until the very end unless construction prohibits. I thought I'd try to make it through with them put on early in the build but NOPE! It's always the unexpected. I've gotten used to handling the things, for the most part, and not snapping stuff off but it just takes one momentary lapse or shitty judgment in where and how to store the thing overnight and off with the gear again....  (or stabs, or antenna, etc.)            But hey, you know... even a negative result is a result so this was a successful experiment! 

SO, when I get done tinkering on this one I think I'll do some sanding on the Yak.

I didn't go to any stores this morning. After mowing I was super dirty, hot, tired, itchy as hell, and just wanted to go home.    So I gotta find things to do that don't involved spraying of the red or painting of the brown. There are plenty of other things to do though, so I'll get them all going if I can. 

[PR19_Kit]

Amazingly I was sitting in the cockpit of a 1-11 today while visiting the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection at Old Sarum nr Salisbury.

Sadly I didn't take a pic of the nose shape for you  but you can just see it on the far right of this pic of an ejection seat trials Canberra B2A.



And here's the control panel of the 1-11.



Later on I expect I may post of me sitting in the Captain's seat. 

[TheChronicOne]

Amazingly I was sitting in the cockpit of a 1-11 today while visiting the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection at Old Sarum nr Salisbury.

Sadly I didn't take a pic of the nose shape for you  but you can just see it on the far right of this pic of an ejection seat trials Canberra B2A.



And here's the control panel of the 1-11.



Later on I expect I may post of me sitting in the Captain's seat. 

That's what the hell I'm talkin' bout!  I do love when relevant-to-build things happen!

Man, that cockpit look like something out of WWII.       


Update!! Totally relevant, too!

I primed this jive up after the wing sanding and bit more light sanding on the nose. The nose looks good!! So that's one more modification out of the way. Only one left now are to get the new fences on. I'll try that soon, but I have to get the wings sanded smooth first. Problem is, I have to wait a while for the primer to fully dry before I start sanding on it. So.. it'll be awhile.



You can't see all the scratches and the little bit of raised detail remaining in this picture..but it's there. The funny part is the little round thingies turned into the same, but recessed all of a sudden. They actually look damn near plausible so I could potentially leave them alone but there's some nasty scratches there that HAVE to be sanded so....away with it all. This might take a couple rounds of sanding...       Like I said, can't see all this, but here's the wing anyway:



Whole thing:



I've also been filing/sanding on the Yak-53. I had to put some filler on it, and have sanded it again. I think the top part is all good to go. I need to check over the bottem and if it's good, I can start putting wings on it. Going to do this later, however.

While it's nice and early and time is on my side, I'm going to work on the ATR-72. Going to get those wings glued and clamped then see what I can do about some weight.

[TheChronicOne]

Camera will no longer talk to my computer.     I have a ton of pics of recent work, too. Oh well. This stupid stuff is so finnicky...  it'll likely start working again for no apparent reason in a day or two but I've already been contemplating buying a newer one so I might need to look into that and order something.


Anyway, between today and a couple days ago I've worked on everything. Small details all the way right on up to main constructions putting fuselage halves together. Everything from sanding to painting and all in between.

More sanding on the BAC 111 wings. Waiting to buy more primer before I can continue. Haven't worked on it today, but the other night I did the sanding on the wings like I said and also filing and sanding on the new stall fences I scratch built. They look good now!! I just need to finish the PSR on the wings then I can glue them on.


Spitfire..... I masked it to paint the white half of the bottom. Stupidly, I completely masked the topside which was totally unnecessary as I'm painting it over. Waste of tape and time!! Oh well, it happens. It was a long day.

F-52... the ultra complicated Macross kit....   I got back into that and built more interior stuff like the cockpit and the vertical take-off fans. I also did more trimming of sprues. Amazingly enough, this one is becoming more and more easier to manage. I also went through the instructions and hilited all the parts from the clear sprue. Trust me, this type of thing helps. All the instructions are in Japanese and getting things organized into "this comes later" "this gets done now" etc. makes for a smoother build.



I've glued the wings on the Yak 53 and put a bit of glue on a portion that didn't line up. It'll need some PSR then I can glue the tailplanes on.



Last (I think) is the RAF B-58 Hustler which I've built 90% of the landing gear for, trimmed out the wings and fuselages, cleaned up sprues,and filed and sanded burrs and such. It's actually starting to progress nicely now. At first the busy sprues and complicated instructions were daunting,but, as always, compartmentalizing things and working in order results in turning multiple parts into one and moving the build along whilst clearing the "fog" of  confusion away. Now I look at the parts I have left and there's not nearly as many and it looks easier.


EDIT:


OOps!!    The fuselage halves going together I mentioned earlier are for the ATR-72.  I lined the top up.... it looks really nice, but on the bottom, one half isn't as wide as the other so I'm going to have to fill that in....   oh well, better to have that on the bottom than the top! I goofed up, though. I forgot to finish opening the holes the wings stab into. I'll have to do all of it from the outside now. It's still doable, but more difficult not being able to work on the inside as well.

[TheChronicOne]

Well, the camera is talking to the computer again for the time being so here's some catching up photos.




First, this BS. Only after I did the entire thing did I remember that I didn't need to mask the top, AT ALL, and this was all a waste of tape and time!




Oh well.........   So I sprayed the starboard side white:



And just recently removed all the masking after having painted the ailerons and finished the bottom completely:



On to painting the top. I still need to go buy some brown. I could paint the green on I guess but I'll likely just wait. There's no lack of OTHER things to do with a now ridiculous 6 builds on the bench. I'm doing all I can to sit on my hands and not start a 7th! 


Wings are on the yak now and I'm just putting a bit of extra glue on some of the seams as slow drying filler so I can sand it then I can glue on the tail planes:



I also began the tape strips for the canopy. They are 1mm wide:




Then they go three coats of paint:




Next up, the ATR-72 halves are together and I've been putting on extra glue over the seams. I'll probably do that once or twice more then get to filing and finish it off with skim coats of the glazing putty:



Also been thickening up that really thin spot some more.  Not sure what I'll do next. I know the props are going to be a nightmare so maybe I'll start building the engines and start to look at those..... get them done and out of the way.


I think I mentioned already but haven't taken any pictures... but much more stuff is being clipped out, cleaned up, and glued together in the F-52 kit. Hiliting clear parts, etc. (yeah I think I do remember talking about this      )

The RAF B-58 is coming along quite well, as well, but go over to the RAF GB for that.

[NARSES2]

Memo to self - "invest in masking tape company" 

Some neat work here mate 

[DogfighterZen]

First, this BS. Only after I did the entire thing did I remember that I didn't need to mask the top, AT ALL, and this was all a waste of tape and time!

Hey, better safe than sorry, right? There's always a chance you get distracted and spray when you shouldn't... but that really was unnecessary if the top isn't painted yet.
The underside came out clean, nice work!

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks y'all. Yeah, that's the funny part... after I put all the crap on there I realized I hadn't even painted it yet. I ain't even GOT the paint yet. lol      I must have been distracted at the time. I was also masking a couple other things I didn't need to then even later on I STARTED to mask the top wings again around the ailerons... although I don't need to!??       I dunno what it is, but I've been in la la land every time I pick up a roll of tape lately.     

But, hey, things are moving along anyway and it's that much closer to time to re-stock my tape. Yup.. buy some shares...

[Old Wombat]

You've either developed an addiction to masking or a form of OCD.

[TheChronicOne]

Must be my subconscience doing it. I'm wanting to buy a bunch of new tape but I'm telling myself to make use of what I have already first so I guess the devil on my shoulder is winning a little bit and having me waste tape so I can run out quicker and buy more.       Or... whatever. 




SO, I've started buying LEGO again....    One of very few "deals" I could find that met my criteria of being aviation related. It's this 3 in 1 thing (funny how they advertise this on the box, as it was always like that? They just didn't use it as a selling point... . ) It's like a smaller size V22 Osprey???  And, you can make a pretty neat looking bi-plane and a helicopter too.

I also ordered in some spare parts. A relatively complete kit of a plane I have/had. I highly doubt I have every single piece for it after 30 years so I ordered this lot off eBay and hopefully between them and my remnants I can re-construct the entire aircraft, if not the entire kit. Pretty cool stuff.

Also, I just realized something.....  even though it's a bit fast and loose to call LEGO models like with "traditional" plastic and glue models but if one does count them as such, then I was what-iffing aircraft way back even before I built my first model because I built what-if airliners.  Funny that, I've gotten into the airliner and fell in love with them again and I forgot all about the fact that way back, I dang near started with airliners and whif ones to boot!       OR, if we're tight with the rules I was just a dumb kid playing with his toys.

Still, an interesting thought.

So anyway, this leads me to my next point: Airfix quick build kits. Compatible with LEGO and I've also been planning to get some of those as well. I'd like the WWII fighters for sure. So now I'm thinking, if I had multiples of these Airfix Quickbuild kits and piles of LEGO bricks what kind of whif contraptions I could possibly create.

Lastly, a lot of this train of thought is brought to you by Tophe and his and Jacky (i believe it was)'s awesome whif LEGO builds. 

So that's what's happening now I guess. Also getting some kits in. I bought one of those Rotodyne things after I saw someone talking about them. Man thing is a hoot. It's like ...  well, let's say it has identity crisis! 

[NARSES2]

SO, I've started buying LEGO again....    One of very few "deals" I could find that met my criteria of being aviation related. It's this 3 in 1 thing (funny how they advertise this on the box, as it was always like that? They just didn't use it as a selling point... . ) It's like a smaller size V22 Osprey???  And, you can make a pretty neat looking bi-plane and a helicopter too.

I must be one of the few people on the Planet who has never owned any Lego  By the time it became a popular toy in the U.K. I was past that stage and never having had kids I've not had any in the house. I had building toys which involved "proper" bricks and flour based cement and I had Meccano, but Lego ? No. Is there a support group ?  Must admit I do keep my eyes half heartedly open as it would be useful for jigs etc, but I seem to have managed 66 years without it. Mind you does that mean I'm officially "deprived" 

[PR19_Kit]

SO, I've started buying LEGO again....    One of very few "deals" I could find that met my criteria of being aviation related. It's this 3 in 1 thing (funny how they advertise this on the box, as it was always like that? They just didn't use it as a selling point... . ) It's like a smaller size V22 Osprey???  And, you can make a pretty neat looking bi-plane and a helicopter too.

I must be one of the few people on the Planet who has never owned any Lego  :angel

And me too................ 

[TheChronicOne]

HEATHENS!!!   

I was lucky in that I was provided with them was a kid. If not for that, I doubt I would care any about it now. But.. man... nothing like some LEGO. Always been high quality and so much fun!

The fun really begins when you start making your own stuff, deviating well away from any known instructions.


Check this out, for instance...... be sure to see the one where he's holding it and realize how big it is:  http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/233745

Wow!

But anyway....  I'm going to build lots of planes, of course, but another thing I'd like to do is model my own house. By now, with the thousands of unique pieces they have, I'm sure it's possible. Probably expensive as hell and having to buy single bricks at a time, but it's a long term goal for LEGO.  Hell, I could mess around and model the whole property, why not. 

But anyway.....    Got me some primer now so I can get back to work on the BAC-111 which I think I need to  uhhmm.... dull ....   the nose a wee bit. I was checking it over again and it's just a tad TOO long, but not by much. I'll have to be careful. After that, though, it gets primed again and hopefully I won't need to sand any more then I can glue on the fences and hit it with a couple more quick shots of primer and be done with all that. I can finally start painting at this point!

A ton of other stuff, too, but I'll go into all later. It's too much to just blab about, rather, I'll talk later about what I got done instead now of what I MIGHT get done.

[NARSES2]

The fun really begins when you start making your own stuff, deviating well away from any known instructions.

When Lego first came out that was all you could do. I can well remember sitting and having fun with much younger cousins. The idea of these "sets" is a relatively new thing, although I'm almost certainly stretching the definition of relatively let alone new 

My Meccano set had a booklet which had some suggestions, but basically it was down to you and your imagination