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

[TheChronicOne]

Ooops, I forgot the picture earlier:



A thoroughly sanded Tristar...   I'll be putting putty along them windows next, hopefully for the last time. I might throw it out in the heat to let the putty dry faster or I could just hang it from the CHANDELIER. 

[TheChronicOne]

Been awhile since I been up in here....   5 days. I've been all over the boards but not here. How strange!     


Oh well... I'm just stopping in and taking a break to mention how LOUSY these instructions are in this MPC boxing of the Airfix F-111!!!  I came very close to throwing the kit in the trash, something I view as a cardinal sin. Ill fitting parts in some instance.... the way the intake pieces are set up is asinine and the instructions make no attempt to help you through. Even the exploded diagram doesn't offer much help because .... well, it just doesn't. I had to wildly guess at the correct ORDER to put certain pieces together. 50/50 shot in this instance and well, I lost the coin toss and had to pry already glued and dried pieces back off the stupid things. Then, when I tried to do it in the reverse order as I should, the stuff simply would not fit so I just did the best I could with it. I just glued on the last couple of pieces for the intakes and.... well.... they don't fit worth a damn and there's no rhyme or reason for it.  Then, I glance a little ways further in the instructions and see parts magically appear on teh aircraft but aren't mentioned in the instructions or diagrams anywhere.... they're just their one minute after not having been. Magic appearing peieces that fit between the cone things in the intakes and the side of the fuselage. That would explain the huge gap there but I already pinched it all closed and welded the cones to the side of the airplane because that's what the W$%&$&%^&$%& picture showed me to do..... now, like I said, a few pictures later and it's all different and magical extra pieces are in there!!  So WTF?   I should have just used real reference photos to begin with because now I'm not sure anything is correct.

I just needed to vent. The last time I was this frustrated with a kit it was Also a 50 year old Airfix model....  (The F-5A).  I'll try to take pictures of some of this stuff later so that you all can see that It's not just me not interpreting things correctly.....   The combination of ill-fitting parts with nonsensical engineering couple with lousy instructions is making for a rough time of it.

ANYWAY. I'm currently working on it right now trying to fix things best I can but ... like just now when I found the magic pieces ... if this thing keeps throwing up barriers left and right I'm going to put it down pretty soon and get back to an airliner or something. ON that note... whether sooner or later, I'll be back working on those later, too. I'm getting closer and closer to being able to prime the Caravelle. That's my goal for today, get it primed. 

[PR19_Kit]

Yes, that Airfix F-111 is pretty rubbish. When I reviewed it and the Revell kit I said that even though the Revell model wasn't as accurate, you had a much better chance of actually building the thing as the parts actually fitted. 

[TheChronicOne]

Man... thank you for that. I was hoping beyond hope that it wasn't ME but here I am going over things again and again and I keep concluding that this is a beastly device and it's just ill-fitting. Good to have confirmation.

Could it be this was one of the first ever swing wing model kits? Maybe it was their first time making a kit in this configuration or something....  The intakes, though.... quite ridiculous I don't know what they were thinking there. Better instructions would help, too. I've again had to pry parts loose because while the instructions show them in a certain place, later pictures in the instructions show them in a different place and even still actual photos (that I just went and looked at, better late than never) show the real story.

Figured out what the magical extra pieces were..... hangover pieces from the F-111A kit (this is an E) and the pieces were not on the E models but they decided not to take them out of the instructions, although they didn't number them.    If any of this sounds a bit confusing, it's because it is. 

The good news is that so far I've been able to fix all this crap. I'm still going to have to putty up some big holes in the side of the fuselage where some of those parts refuse to fit but it's coming together. 

[TheChronicOne]

Good Lord.... Yup, I'm putting this up for now. In order for the swing wing mechanism to work, period, I'm going to have to chop up a bunch of plastic inside the plane on the wings and the god forsaken intake pieces. The tolerances are off. And guess what's causing it? Said intake pieces. Further more, even thoough nothing went wrong with the wings, they're apparently a bit fat (or the fuselage pieces are not wide enough)... anyway....  the fuselage won't close up around them without heavy duty clamping action so I'm going to have to FORCE it close when the time comes unless I bring a bunch of friggin furniture making tools and start using wood chisels and stuff.    It's like people on different planets made each individual aspect of this kit without checking with the other space aliens first.

I'll stick with Hasegawa for Aardvaark from now on (and Revell, I guess, for Sparky).

Break time!      I'm tossing this sucker back on the shelf for a day and will work on some airliners or something. 

[TheChronicOne]

Alright! Final update for this session. I've gone back and reeled in the Aardvark and she is back on track now and on her way to being a decent model.     It's going to fight me the whole way but I dig the subject. I figure, if I have to do this much "fixing" early on that perhaps eventually it will ease up and the latter parts of the build will be easier. Wishful thinking but it could work out!    I still have work to fix the wing situation but I have a plan. I can't really fit files and stuff into the interior but a rotary tool will work and I need one for another project anyway so I'll go ahead and buy one. 

The Caravelle is on its way, too. I managed to finish sanding it and primed it and left it outside to dry in our ridiculous heat. Sure cuts down on the wait time.  At this point I'm going to work on the undercarriage stuff while the plane dries.

[zenrat]

Perseverance mate.  That way it'll all come good in the end and you'll know you're a model maker not just a kit assembler.

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks, I appreciate it, bud! I'm going to stick it out.     

It's weird, I just realized that I've never has so many problems with stuff that is INSIDE the model. I demand my swing wing to work properly, however, so it much be done. It's just.... weird... normally problems are on the OUTSIDE.   

In order to break away from this for a minute and focus on something different, I'll clue everyone in on a pretty strange idea that I've been rolling around in my head for some time now. That idea is to make a strange *Star Trek Airliner. I want to take a 707 and paint it and make it like the original USS Enterprise from the 1960's show. Paint it all the grey color and apply a bunch of the window decals across the fuselage (but not in a row; in the same type of staggered "random" appearance as on the side of the E.) then use the long red stripe with the yellow deltas as the cheatlines. Then.... for the engines, use warp nacelles. Could do this a number or ways... if I use smaller ones I could double them up like was on the B-52 or if I use larger ones, I could simply shorten them so they don't look goofy. 

I'm going to go make a concept drawing of this I think. MSPaint can be fun sometimes....       


*In a way, there actually was a Star Trek Airliner called "Sky Trek" and they even had the Star Trek Delta (sort of). They made it to look like a star to avoid infringement I guess.... 



I'd like to get ahold of transfers for this one....   

[PR19_Kit]

I'd like to get ahold of transfers for this one....   

I've never heard of the airline or any decals for it, but they'd be pretty straightforward to draw up and print.

And the paint job would be SO simple. 

[zenrat]

Sky Trek flew unique aircraft.  That had no seatbelts and the overheads were rigged to emit showers of sparks when they hit turbulence.

[scooter]

Sky Trek flew unique aircraft.  That had no seatbelts and the overheads were rigged to emit showers of sparks when they hit turbulence.

And the ground crew wore red shirts?

[TheChronicOne]

 

The imagery y'all conjured up.   .....       

This gives me an idea... to buy a set of little 1/144 figures and paint them up in the TOS uniforms to be the flight crew, etc. For my Trek 707.        That reminds me... I think I'll go draw that up if I can. I could never hope to achieve Scoot's level of refinment but I know how work the ol' MSpaint! 

[TheChronicOne]

Found a neat old video on Youtube of a Convair 880 being dragged out of mothballs at the Mojave boneyard, fired up, and taking to the skies for a flyby. BIG SMOKE. Former TWA bird going to a museum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isP1LVVZ6nU&fbclid=IwAR3FDnDpImJYCqsd_QaasilKyMlC0MmLPmUZvY923JW37DS3SplrbiwMTR8&app=desktop

A few screen grabs:





In other news.... working on the F-111 (going very well so far today). Forgot all about the MSpaint stuff.     I think I'll go try that now.

[PR19_Kit]

Much though I like the DC8-60 series, the Convair 880 was the best looking airliner of the period, maybe beaten only by its stable-mate, the 990 Coronado. That smoke reminds me of watching B-47s take-off at Brize Norton and Fairford!

What WIERD shaped doors the 880 has though!

[TheChronicOne]

I'm with you.... they're very attractive aircraft. The nacelle things on the 990 wing tops at the back are especially fancy.  I can't ever remember what they are though.     Flap slide thingies or something?       I have kits of both of them (F-RSIN) but after the ATR-72 it'll be a while before I try one.

Not much else going on. I started painting the gear doors on the Tristar. I've also sanded then gloss blacked the engines in preperation for glorious NMF:



I glued a little "thing" on the F-111, too. A fin type thing that sits between the exhaust nozzles.