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

[TheChronicOne]

Hmmmm.  Well... what to do today.

I think I'll get the Tristar primed.

Also, it's about time to work more on the Caravelle but I'm scared of the damn thing because of this tricky black paint. I need to put the cheatline decals on then gloss over them so I can mask on top of it all and not lift them back off. I'm going to test the clear on  a wing and see if it crazes or not. If it does, at least it's easy to sand down being on the wing then I'll need to come up with another plan of some sort.

This is something I was thinking about yesterday but kept forgetting but I have a 1/144 push-back tug thing for airliner jets and I'm going to post pictures of it and see if yous guys can help me identify it. Stand by for that. I'd like to know a little more about it before I try to paint it.

[TheChronicOne]

Here's the tug.



Does anyone recognize anything? I want to identify as much as I can. Make, model, and even possibly who made this. All I know is that it came from Russia as a freebie thrown in with a Zvesda airliner kit. It's resin. That's it. That's all I know. I'm assuming it was made somewhere in Europe, considering where it came from.



So anyway, if I can figure out the make and model I can look up pictures so I can properly paint it!     Doesn't it look nice, though? It's the best moulded resin anything I've seen to date. Mighty impressive. Happy for that because I don't relish the idea of sanding on resin.


In the realm of other projects, I did some sanding today on the messed up engines of both the Tristar and Super Caravelle. I've also done my experimenting with the paint of the Caravelle... I had to sand some stuff down and re-paint it but the "proof of concept" was a success. I can now proceed with the plan I have for it and hopefully I'll be back on track in a matter of days.

[PR19_Kit]

Somewhere I've got a couple of those tugs as well, and very nice they are too. 

The ones I have were moulded by a guy in the UK who used to be in the Airliner SIG, but I've not seen his stuff around for a while.

He also did airfield fire tenders and stuff and I may have some of them as well

[TheChronicOne]

I have unearthed the name.   

22crocus is the eBay seller.





What a cool job to have. Driving that thing around pushing and pullin' on airliners. 

[TheChronicOne]

Anyone up in here have anxiety?  Just wondering if people can sympathize with this. OK... so.... due to work, I rarely get out and about and socialize but the MAIN reason I don't is because of anxiety. I don't like crowds, unfamiliar situations, and being near people I don't know. I ESPECIALLY hate being pressured and harped on to do something I don't want to do. It turns would COULD be a fun time into a %^&^*~!)# nightmare.

So... I WAS going to go out today and try to play some cards and unwind but other people keep trying to change things up and force me to do OTHER things I don't have the time for or want to do. I say, "No, I don't want to do this.... " and even explain WHY as embarassing and anxiety inducing that is. Then people totally disrespect my wishes by keep forcing me to say "No" and explain myself OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Well, I say, "To hell with it." So ... none of that mess.

To that end, I now have my entire afternoon open to continue work on my models!    I highly doubt anyone here is going to show up to force me into doing things I don't want to then ignore my wishes. Ahhhhhh..... sweet safety of WIM. 

So....   the Caravelle is SORT OF back on track. I'm going to try to get those cheatlines on today I think. I am and I am not looking forward to it. I am looking forward to it because after they're on, it's just a matter of throwing a coat of clear on to seal them in then a couple days from now I can mask them then paint it silver. At that point, it's just a matter of un masking those and putting the rest of the transfers on then into fiddly bits (still need to finish the engines, too, but I'm working on that... I messd them up pretty bad..    )

I might switch modes and paint my litle Shopf (sp) tug. Would be neat to have it on hand for pictures. I'd also like to take a look at the tiny Bug Van. I think I have come up with a way to paint it without messing up the very nice detail on it... the doors handles and stuff. What I'll do is, when I have a steady hand, start off immediately by hand painting around all that stuff to make a border. I'll do it early on to avoid muscle fatigue and burn out. Should work out... I might have to do it in a couple different sittings but it'll be better than trying to mask that tiny stuff. I don't even think it would be possible to cut let alone apply something small enough to mask, say, the door handles..... 

So anyway...  I'll leave it at that for now because no telling how much energy I'll have today. I have time, but I also have 4 jobs lined up today so at the end of all that I could be pretty tired if the weather works against me and I do believe the humidity is up there and of course we're still dealing with mid 90's for temps.

[TheChronicOne]

Anyone up in here have anxiety?  Just wondering if people can sympathize with this.

Yep

I rarely get out and about and socialize but the MAIN reason I don't is because of anxiety. I don't like crowds, unfamiliar situations, and being near people I don't know. I ESPECIALLY hate being pressured and harped on to do something I don't want to do. It turns would COULD be a fun time into a %^&^*~!)# nightmare.

Same to all

It's maddening. It has completely soured me on the idea of the leaving the house within the next however long amount of time. Well, aside from work and groceries and stuff. I don't mind that because I never interact with anyone other than my customers and the occasional cashier but I even try to avoid that. I loooooooooooooove self checkout. People say it take away jobs. That's horse %*!)*. All it does is replace lower skilled jobs with higher skilled, better paid ones. Also, I've seen no less actual cashiers at the places with them. They always only had 3 cashiers for 47 registers and still only have 3 cashiers for 47 register. I'm digressing here. Let's just say that I love things like self checkout and online shopping because of anxiety. 


Update time! I'm working on the transfers for the Caravelle. Color me shocked; the numbers on the sheet and the numbers in the instructions don't REMOTELY match.    This is going to slow me down a fair bit because I'm not familiar enough with the Caravelle or even the United paint scheme to just do it from memory so I'll have to plays "where's Waldo" with the smaller ones trying to match them to the pictures. For now I'm just going to get the cheatlines and windows cut out and ready to be applied. I may wait for another to apply them, however. I'm feeling a bit laggy from work and not quite clear headed and motivated enough to do all the "wet work." 

I think I'll make this a theme for today. Probably less of the *actual* work and more of prepping up to start actual work. I won't put them on, but I'll get the transfers cut out and ready. Next, I'm going to gather up the paint and supplies I need to paint the micro scopic Bug Van. Won't do any painting, but I'll be prepped for it.

One caveat to this is sanding......   I'd like to sand some more on the Caravelle and Tristar engines (if they need it) then I'll leave those alone and paint them another day. Everything else will be low-effort piddling designed not to tax my dwindling energy and mental capacities. 


So that's that!!! Progress is sloowwwwww..... but it IS happening so I'm pretty happy with it. 

[DogfighterZen]

I don't suffer from anxiety but i can understand what you're saying, i don't go out as i did when i was younger and it's mostly because of the type of work i have as i get home very tired most days, especially during the summer, exactly when everyone here goes out to bars and concerts. You know what it's like when we finish a day of lawns and gardening work under the blazing sun. Age is not helping with that...
Not a fan of big crowds and was always much more into staying indoors with good people or a good type of entertainment except for the time i spent riding my BMX... When i started singing and the band had quite a few shows during the summer, all i wanted to do after we finished a gig was to go back to the studio, roll a big fat one and chill, just to getaway from all the madness.
What you want is what you have to do and you have to stop trying to explain yourself so much, although it's hard to do so sometimes and to some people.
When i was going through depression after my first "real" relationship ended, i had lots of people calling me everyday trying to get me out of the house but i decided that i preferred to stay home working on music and denied most invitations. Some people just stopped trying to force me out and understood that if i was saying no, it meant NO! The ones who didn't, had to get a more extreme answer like: "What part of the word NO don't you understand?"But i admit it can be a bit selfish to refuse invitations from the people who really like us, they're inviting us for a reason, right?
We can't forget that other people might enjoy our company and want us around but if those people really like you, they'll understand and change their attitude. In the end, it's your life and you should do what you want with it. Take it easy, brotha...

[TheChronicOne]

I hear ya man. You got that work junk nailed. I can't wait for Winter to get a break! Sometimes folks don't realize that that's a rather large contributing factor. I get so worn out that I can't even muster up the motivation and energy to work on models sometimes and all I'm doing is sitting in this chair! But... still... it's effort and can require concentration and sometimes you DO have to get up to get something. So, it's like, If I'm too tired to SIT HERE and do things I'm definitely too tired for dragging myself out of the house to socialize. Factor all this junk in and it compounds the whole situation. What a mess!      I think the problem I had this last time was the whole altering of plans. I had gotten to the point where I was willing to get out and play cards with my buddy but for some reason all types of other equations were introduced that pushed things into uncomfortable territory. It's the whole "give an inch, they take a mile" type thing. It's like... hey, I'm willing to go to such and such place for a quiet afternoon and play some cards...   then it turns into well let's go get this person and let's go to this place instead of what we had planned and I'm over here like..... wait...  hold up.

It's like when you agree to give someone a ride somewhere and then when you get on the road, all of a sudden it's, "Oh, well, since we're out, you can take me to this place and this place and this place oh and my friend needs to go some place too so let's go pick them up and wait 20 minutes at someone's house and be all uncomfortable then oh let's stop here and let's stop here and before you know it a 15 minute trip has turned into a 3 hour #$&#$%@#^#$^ nightmare.

I'm in danger of going on some very long rants here.       Not that *I* mind but it might be mind numbing for those that just want to hear about the latest model work efforts.      Not that I'm discouraging discussion here, either, quite the opposite. I just think I'd better keep my rants mixed in with the model building for a healthy balance and not to drive people up the wall with my whinging. 

On that note. In typical wishy-washy fashion I am very close to changing my mind about an aspect of a build again. Tristar stuff this time. I was thinking of painting this tiny VW truck in PSA colors to go with it. But uhh....  I just remembered that I have a spare set of 1/100 scale stairs for a stairs truck. WRONG SCALE, but uhhh... .stairs can be any ol' size just like any other path you can walk so the scale doesn't matter if it's not TOO whacky. Being 1/100 I wasn't having much luck finding a place for it but it looks like I could glue all this crap onto my truck and make my own stairs that I can use with ALL my airliner builds!     So peep game:


Sidenote, I did go ahead and grab the paint I need in case I cancel the stairs idea. I've been looking at the info and specs on my truck to make sure it works. It might not... I'm not sure how heavy a set of these stairs typically are. They look pretty damn heavy. But, then again, it's not like the truck needs to go 100 MPH down the highway.


There they are with the truck. See, they don't look out of scale... they look like they would work together just fine.

Back to the truck itself. From what I can ascertain, this one has a 1.6 litre engine. The lack of split window and placement of certain things like the blinker have lead me to this conclusion based off of information on Wiki.Good thing is, it meets the time criteria. I just wonder if it's powerful enough to tote them stairs. Input on this would be nice. This one DOES have a larger engine and beefier make (as these vans go) in general so it could work.

I do have a third alternate plan to try to force this to work if the engine isn't strong enough....  I could... like... build a simple box to throw in the bed that would house a larger engine, naturally. But then, that's even more weight with the stairs so would the chassis and all that even be able to support it all? With a larger engine, we can now carry the stairs but I'm still wondering about weight on the frame and stuff itself, too.

Lots to consider. 

[PR19_Kit]

Stick a 'virtual' Corvair engine in the truck. And if it needs even more power, turbo-charge it. 

[TheChronicOne]

Flat 6! Well, now, THAT'S a solution I like! Done and dusted.  If I can get by without making anything other than the support braces for the stairs system, that'll do me just fine.

Dropping this here for reference so I can properly contemplate the brace and hydralic... things... pistons, rams, whatever.. I can't remember which is which, piston I think because they can go either way (in and out). 



I could STILL change my mind about this but I say it's worth investigating. I'd like to find a little more information about load limits and stuff like that for the VW.

In other news... an example of a model I see people raving about but I just can not get behind. I do not care for this as a model with verisimilitude. I think.... cartoon, illustration, toy...I don't think, "scale replica." The scale part is there, but the replica part is not.



The build skill and refinement skills this person have are choice. I just disagree with painting methodology and approach to panel lines.


A bit random but I'm just trying to keep things interesting. Sometimes I see things elsewhere I'd like to talk to the people hear about. 

[PR19_Kit]

Dropping this here for reference so I can properly contemplate the brace and hydralic... things... pistons, rams, whatever.. I can't remember which is which, piston I think because they can go either way (in and out). 

Now you're talking my language! 

The bit that slides in and out is strictly called the 'piston  rod', the 'piston' is usually invisible as it's on the bottom end of the piston rod and down inside the larger circular tube bit, and that's called the 'cylinder'.

The whole assembly has various names, depending on the user market, some people call them hydraulic 'jacks', some call them 'rams' and some call them 'actuators'.

Tomorrow's 'Hydraulics 101 Class' will be in the same lecture theatre at the same time and will cover aspects of seal configurations and materials. 

The build skill and refinement skills this person have are choice. I just disagree with painting methodology and approach to panel lines.

Also my language, I DETEST this blasted 'pre-shading' that's taking over the model world! 

Just take a look at any real aeroplane, they just DON'T look like that, even Whiffed ones!

[Rick Lowe]

Agree about pre-shading.
A wash is usually sufficient - if you want the lines darker, put another layer of wash on...

To me, a lot of the pre-shaded stuff looks like it's ready for a complete disassembly and rebuild.

Like the old 1970s method of outlining of pockets and belts, etc on 1/35 figures. I can see what they're trying to do, but find another way of doing it.

And I hear you Brad, about not wanting to get out and about. Sometimes you just want a quiet day inside with the models, or a book, or a movie.

[DogfighterZen]

Yup, after a day of heavy duty gardening, it's hard to get the energy and concentration for model making... that's exactly my case tonight... had a very hard day of work at the estate and i have a terrible headache, that's why i'm not even working on models, just reading and typing...

I've tried pre-shading once or twice and also the more recent "black basing" and "marbling" and IMHO, the latter can be more realistic concerning weathered aircraft. To my eyes, most pre-shaded models look like what they are, models, and not like most weathered aircraft look. Black basing OTOH, gives it a more random and patchy look which is much more like most "in-service" planes. I have seen some pics of fighters like the Portuguese A-7P Corsair that have some panel lines that look like they've been pre-shaded but they're never on every panel line or as symmetrical and "clean" as most pre-shaded models we see on the web. I've read a few interesting posts on Facebook about this subject and although some people posted pics of very weathered aircraft, not many can achieve a realistic look on a model with pre-shading. Most just seem too exaggerated but it's up to the modeler's taste, i guess...
I've done black basing on the Phantom and now i'm going to do it on the F-5F cause i was satisfied with the Phantom's result. Still, can't say it looks like any real one i've seen but i'm not too worried about it, i like the way it looks and that's enough.

[TheChronicOne]

Black basing to my mind seems much more plausible and useful. Some people knock it, but I like the theory behind it. It's like getting a head start on weathering. I'd done it once or twice even with brush painting and it was handy. It's not for every finish, though. Light, bright, and colorful it seems less appropriate but dark camos and greys and stuff...  yeah buddy.

I sympathize with you on being worn out! Same here...  I've been just sitting here watching TV and contemplating things. I TRIED to work on model earlier but it was slow and went to arse anyway.    Rest up, buddy! There'll be another day to get back to them builds.

Quick update on my Caravelle build. Deadline is approaching and while it's relatively back on track, I still worry about my pacing. Even if things go right I wish I had more time. Problem is.... the transfers are no good! Nooooo!      I can use decal fix on some of the smaller stuff I hope but the cheatline and therefore windows are just.. done. Shattered. This had triggered a cascade of problems effecting everything from paint to back story. More on this interesting new development in the thread for it in the "Engines" GB forum.

I have some other interesting stuff to share soon, as well, but I'm going to break from this blog for awhile to get my Caravelle thread updated. (and this getting long winded...     ) 

[TheChronicOne]

A couple days ago I was reading up on some airliner blog stuff... one is "Fear of Landing."  There was a write-up about a recent flight where the pilots spilled their coffee into the cockpit guts and nearly burned down the damn aeroplane.  https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/size-matters/

Toward the bottom of this, it was mentioned that a similar situation was portrayed in a 1964 movie where an airliner crashes and all aboard perish with the exception of the gorgeous stewardess (naturally). Turns out the spilling of the coffee wasn't the entire problem that doomed the craft, but was a major contributor. Youtube actually has the entire film available to watch, for free, and it's not even ate up with ads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srgOhqzOssQ

The first 10 minutes of the film are "where it's at" so to speak... it's during this time we get all the looks at the airliner. Check this out....  NONE of the airlines or plane makers of the day wanted anything to do with this film so the producers were forced to.....  make a what-if airline and airliner. It's quite strange looking, too, and I have to make it. 

If you go to 5:35 in the youtube link up there, the aircraft pulls up and swings around and we can get a really good look at it.  There are also a few more places in the film (remember, all before the 10 minute mark so don't waste time looking for it AFTER the crash..     ) if you want to look for them but here's one. I did a screen grab one minute earlier at 4:34 to get this and it actually makes for a pretty cool looking picture!



Intrigued yet? ....  Yeah, that's right, horizontal stabalizer mounted engines. And.... if you go look at that shot at 5:35 it would appear this sucker is MAD tail heavy.  Also, it looks like this is simply a DC-7 with some weird wing fairings, no prop engines and stab-mounted engines. Quite weird but it looks pretty cool in a way. On and look at the livery! PRetty cool and that bird logo is awesome.

Here's a better look at the rear. Good shot for the logo, engines, N number (which I'm going to look up in a minute for giggles).  EDIT: It was in use for 5 years, until 2018, for a Cessna 421B. 



Anyway, go watch the first 10 minutes of that film or at least the part around 5:35 to get a good look at the plane. Like I said, there are more images of it throughout the 10 minutes section but if you don't want to devote 10 minutes of your precious time to it then you can get by with just checking that out at least.

It goes without saying I have to make this thing. Tracking down information on it is proving difficult, though. It's not in Internet Movie-Plane DataBase and the IMDB and WIKI pages for the film offer next to nothing. It would be nice to know what colors this was painted. I realize that when they painted things strictly for B&W films they sometimes focused more on contrasting shades and not necessarily getting good LOOKING colors but it would still be nice to know. It would be nice to get ahold of.... anything about it.