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

[zenrat]

...For those following along with early stages of my attempt at quitting ciggies, I'm happy to report another day of not having smoked any. It's easier to do on the days where I don't really do anything... no coffee, no work, no stress, etc. So.... anyway.....   since I started counting, I've now reached 75 hours..... still at 8 ciggies!!!!   So thats only 8 ciggies in the span of over three days!     Way ahead of schedule here...

Be strong Brad C.
You can do it.

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks, man!!!!  My anxiety levels have increased but otherwise I'm not having any massive problems yet. No terrible cravings, no foul mood, or anything like that...  I think I'll start integrating these lozenge things into my routine and see how that goes. 



Back home now, obviously. I have been working on the 737. It's not bad really!! Needs sanding on the window areas because they look rough... like...  they're not sunken in any more aside from one or two but the area where they are has a rough finish and doesn't match up with the rest of fuselage. One of the doors appears to still be a bit sunken in so I'll work on that but the roof SPLIT. I was worried about that because the last time I was sanding I heard it crack....  sure enough.. it busted so I had to re glue it so there goes a few more rounds of PSR added to this thing. I'll learn one of these days to not be squeezing the stuff so much when I sand. I don't know me own strength apparently!  Also, I've been painting the wings. Boeing grey is on. Looking at my reference pictures, though, shows one little patch outboard that is a different shade of grey and then the outboard aileron I guess is painted NMF I think...   



This thing is going on the shelf for now, though. I'm going to take a look at the glider for awhile then it's time for RED DEAD. 

[TheChronicOne]

2:30 in the friggin morning. Once again I find myself wide awake and it was 1:30 so I fought it for 15 minutes then just got up. So much on my mind I'd never be able to get back asleep until it was too late. Once again, I was trying to make it to 4 but oh well. This works well enough but I'm liable to be a bit out of it later. Some mornings I consider moving off the grid and becoming a super-hermet I swear man...   


Anyway. It's Red Dead Redemption II today. By time I turned it off the other night I was really getting into it and didn't have to force myself to pay attention. That's good. I'm trying to salvage this hobby and to be honest, model stuff has invaded and nearly exterminated video games. It all started back when the internet went bad because the company was working on new lines. I kind of lost interest at that point and never looked back.

That said.. I'd like to proceed with the work on the 737 and I'll also start sanding on the F-52. I'll take a couple pictures first if I can to show you some of the ridiculous things that happened on the finish. I've seen people "bin" builds over less. (that's another sore subject of mine, to be honest. I never understood throwing things away instead of fixing them.)


A site for sore eyes. Sure wish I could find one of these.


No plans beyond that. I'm brainstorming on how to do the racing glider. It's so small it's hard to come up with a way to add designs and even my wee 3mm tape looks gargantuan on it. I was going to work on it the other day and completely gave up. I might try again today and see if I can get even a little bit masked.


Lastly but probably most importantly...  I kind of lost count of my smokes and hours but I'm now a full week into the ordeal and I'm twice as far along as I planned. I bought two packs of ciggies one week ago (23rd, today is 30th) and I only smoked one and then a single out of the new pack so simple math tells me that's 21 cigarettes over the span of 7 days for an average of 3 a day.       Fantastic.  I had planned on smoking both packs and likely having to get another but my GOAL (they say it's important to set these) was to smoke no more than 2 packs in one week and I smashed that one. I just hope I can keep it up.

[zenrat]

Well done Brad C.  Next goal is to stop thinking of it as an ordeal.

[TheChronicOne]

You're right, that would help some of the anxiety stuff I imagine.  Hell, it hasn't been nearly as bad as I THOUGHT it would be so I should lighten up about it but I'm a worry-wart about EVERYTHING. I think inherited that trait from mama. 


I've been working on models already today....       Doing my morning routine.. I usually take 2-2.5 hours to drink my 3 or so cups of coffee, take my prescriptions which I stagger as a favor to my stomach, do paper work, check email and phone, look at weather, plan out the schedule, etc but I've finished all that and am just sitting here so why not get something done?! Anything I do now I consider bonus work. To that end, I've sanded down 737 fuselage already and it's ready for primer. I'll do that later because the paint isn't warmed up.

Also, I'm cutting masking tape strips for the glider. I lost my ruler that I use to do this the other day (one contributing factor to me giving up on it) but I found it this morning. It's glorious. Stainless steel and has this awesome padded surface on one side that raised it up off the surface (cutting pad in this case) and also HOLDS IT STEADY. I will not cut masking tape strips without out. I COULD but it's just sooooo much easier and better with this rule. So, I cut a nice long strip one milimeter wide that I plan to use to make black pin stripe borders for a couple white racing stripes to go on the wings. I'll probably cut some more of it when I get to the fuselage. Prbably a simple affair: orange belly with black border. I'm tempted to completely change gears and make it a John Player "Dumb-Arse Ciggies" Special because the black paint on it now is PERFECT for it but uhhh... I dunno.. I have some gold strip decals somewhere but I don't feel like messing with it... but, it's tempting! 

[Old Wombat]

Keep going on the quitting, Brad, it gives me hope!

I'm on the verge of making the call to quit (again) & the decision I make tomorrow may well be the deciding factor ... I'm looking at buying a Nissan Navara dual cab ute (see below) &, if I do, I'll have to quit to ensure I make the payments & a (fair) bit spare.

This is, in fact, the vehicle in question:



ex-demo car; 6,000km on the clock

[TheChronicOne]

Snap that up, man!! That's badazz!!!  I don't think they have those on the market over here. That's exactly the type of thing I wish I had. I wouldn't need separate vehicles for work and for everything else. As it is, I do my shopping in my single cab truck.  I can't place any groceries back in the bed because it's toxic back there (literally) so I cram it all in the cab with me which is overloaded as it is. Things get busted from time to time.  BUT ANYWAYYYY......  go for it!!  Get the jump on all the rubes that do the "new year's irresolution" stuff. 


Meanwhile, I'm back home and have been doing chores for the last 45 minutes so I can sit down and work on builds guilt-free. Not much of that left. I'm fixing the back screen door... the screws came out of the hydraulic damper thing. Going to wait until later because I'll have to drill holes and stuff and I don't want to disturb mama's sleep. At 86 she's earned the right to not be woken up at 6AM by power tools. Also going to wash my dog and clip his nails. Toughest thing I'll do all week, I imagine. That's later as well, though, because it's pretty cold outside. So... going to get lunch started and see what other little odds and ends of house chores need done then I'm going to start painting or masking or something. I'll work on my builds for an hour or two then time for video games, I do declare. I'd like to get something done on all 4 current projects first, however!

Basic plans include:

*paint the gear doors for 737

*sand the braille frome F-52

*prime the 737 fuselage

*start masking the glider

*work on the props and spinners for the ATR-72. I think I need to sand the spinners down but the prop blades are fine. (I somehow forgot to do this and primed them already so I'll have to re-prime of course)

Just before I left for work I cut two more strips of 1mm wide tape so that ought to be enough for me to make quite a few black strips!   

[kitnut617]

I'm looking at buying a Nissan Navara dual cab ute (see below) &, if I do, I'll have to quit to ensure I make the payments & a (fair) bit spare.

My son (who was a heavy smoker) came to the same conclusion, he worked out what he was spending on smokes in a month, realized that the amount would pay for a brand new car loan each month (with some to spare). So he quit cold-turkey, and now he drives a brand new Cadillac ATS

[TheChronicOne]

Oh man...... thought I found that airstairs and gravel kit set..... I was so happy............. NOTICED IT WAS 1/200!!! DAMN! SO CLOSE!     

Speaking of 737 stuff..... I not only need the gravel kit (or to make one) but another part of the kit that I keep forgetting is the housing for the main gear. Until I do that, there's no point in continuing to PSR on the fuselage. I suppose I can add a little more skim coat where it needs it and sand it down but I won't primer it any more. The existing primer on the portion of the nose where I'll glue the new gear housing will be sanded away so it welds properly. After that I can get back into primer.  I guess now I need to find a good source for styrene sheet! I'm not holding my breathe on finding this PE gravel kit.    Otherwise, all the gear and gear doors are finished now. I can do some more work on the wings, however, but that's about it. Cockpit glass is "crooked." I'll likely need to sand it back down to where I can see the clear stuff then start over so I get the right shape. If I leave it like it is, when I put the windscreen decals on, it'll look terrible, lopsided, and bowed out.

Otherwise, I'm working again on the ATR-72. Found some more parts to actually get rid of outright to lessen the workload, then I did the "clean up" on the gear doors and a couple of cross members that connect to the gear struts. These items are have been primed. I started painting the landing gear.

Got some work done on the glider, I'll ruminate on that in that thread, though. Just wanted to mention it.

F-52... the one with the paint disaster.     I started sanding it down already but stopped to take pictures:









Air bubbles and ripples and stuff. What a disaster! This is where a lot of people "bin" the kit but not me. There's this thing called SAND PAPER that I can use to fix it. 

It'll take some time but with a little care and effort I can get the finish back where it needs to be then I'll cover this all up with my brush paint which I know is compatible with my clear. 

[Old Wombat]

Oooh, nasty!

[TheChronicOne]

Yeah, this is probably the worst paint mishap I've ever had. It's like this all across the entire thing. There are portions that are nice right next to bubbly stuff and ripples. Maddening.

The fantastic thing is, though, that it will never happen again because I know for a fact that the paints I'm trying to use together simply won't jive. It's caused problems in the past but I wasn't sure... now I *AM* sure...   so I've learned valuable information that will save time in the future.

Trials and tribbulations man I swear...   

[Old Wombat]

Amen, Brother!

[PR19_Kit]

Look what I've found..................

[TheChronicOne]

I could chisel stone tablets right now.   

AHEM, ....    Let's wheel and deal!!!!!!!!!!! 



EDIT: I don't suppose I could pry some of those elusive UPS decals out of your hands while we're at it??        Speaking of, Revell just put out a 737-8F in UPS livery...     

[PR19_Kit]

AHEM, ....    Let's wheel and deal!!!!!!!!!!! 

EDIT: I don't suppose I could pry some of those elusive UPS decals out of your hands while we're at it??        Speaking of, Revell just put out a 737-8F in UPS livery...   

I'm sure we can, I have no plans for that set. 

Which UPS decals are you interested in? I think I have all of them, but they're all the old style with an all over brown fin and single brown cheat line. The Revell -8F is in the more flashy modern scheme, I saw it at the Telford Show and it looks pretty smart.