Polet Cargo Airlines H4 Hercules (DONE!)

TheChronicOne · December 04, 2017, 12:48:31 PM

Plane proper is together now and I've started PSR on the two remaining bits that had to be filled in. Not much further to go then I can prime it up! Maybe today if I'm lucky.

kitnut617 · December 04, 2017, 01:32:08 PM

Cripes Brad, I never had all that to do on the one I built --

TheChronicOne · December 04, 2017, 01:52:59 PM

Luckily this is the only place that needs it! Everything else is hunky-dory and an excellent fit but even after a lot careful dry fitting and sanding it was either take too much away and have to build it back or just fill in the big gaps and level it off. Not sure what the deal was. Later boxing of the kit, molds a bit out of whack? I considered just leaving it but there was no way I could explain the gaps away as "panel lines."

Tophe · December 06, 2017, 09:16:59 AM

Looking good! Go on!

TheChronicOne · December 14, 2017, 07:06:44 AM

Finally back at it. Lost a bit of interest there for awhile due to multiple paint problems all occurring at once. Got that sorted for the most part and am turning this thing nice and white. If all goes well I'll test some masking tape to see whether or not it lifts the acrylic off. I got a coat of primer on it before the can went to C.R.A.P. but it was just a mist coat basically. Hopefully it's enough to keep the paint in place!

TheChronicOne · December 14, 2017, 06:53:22 PM

Finally something worthy of showing/talking about.

I've been putting on thin coats of white paint and am nearing the finish line. It's finally starting to look "solid" now and that's pretty neat!

Not in any big hurry and I'm perfectly fine with taking the time to slowly build up the finish. So far it's looking nice. I had to stop first and sand away all the stupid chunks that came not only from two separate rattle cans but my fouled bottle of white acrylic. I made a special stop at the LHS to get more white paint so I could continue sans chunks. Long story short, though, is that I still have 3 or more coats to go then I will do the masking test to see whether or not I need to gloss it before moving to painting with blue.

TheChronicOne · December 20, 2017, 10:25:13 AM

Not much to look at right now but something is better than nothing, right?? I've begun the masking... I think I'll just go ahead and do it in phases so to keep from confusing myself and allowing room for adjustment along the way. To that end, I'm going to painr all the wings grey. After that, I'll dive into the stuff on the fuselage! I don't know how close I'll wind up sticking to the "original" An-124 scheme but I'd like to get it pretty close at least.

One thing I know now, is that I should have paid way better attention to my picture references before I spent so much time applying tons of coats oh white to places that don't need it. The wings... for example.. being painted grey instead of white. I could have just put one coat of white on all that then left it alone.

Oh well, I found out in time to save some paint and time on the bottom of the main wings, at least!

TheChronicOne · December 20, 2017, 04:39:33 PM

Moving along now! I have the wings painted up with the grey and have de-masked in order to cut-in and get everything fixed up nice again before I move into Phase II of the "other than white" painting.

Seeing as how I don't need to reference anything to do so, I guess I'll go ahead and mask out the underside of the wings and do those next. Most of the bottom sides of the wings and the bottom halves of the engine nacelles will be painted blue. There will be a black line separating the bottom from the tops of those so I won't need to mask. I'll just have to make sure to get them reasonably straight!

Lots more little odds and ends will be done. I plan to mask off a bit of an area up around the windscreen for anti-glare duty and will mask a bunch of stuff on the leading edges of flight surfaces for de-icing boots. Also, wing tips will be painted red and I'm going to paint the float pylons grey (same as rest) with a black band toward the bottom with the pontoons themselves being blue. I could go with a simpler scheme to save a bunch of time but I think all this stuff will make for a much more interesting model in the end.

zenrat · December 21, 2017, 02:37:12 AM

TheChronicOne · December 25, 2017, 01:58:34 PM

Back to work on this one today... trying to get all the blue on. There are transfers for the white stripes that go on the fin and fuselage but they just won't like up very well with the shapes I'm working with so I'm just going to mask them instead. The ones on the fin will be slightly different in order to fit them on behind the horizontal stabs but it won't hurt a thing. Anyway... I've got all that mess masked up and I'm now painting the fin. Will take at least two more coats to do it properly then I can move to the fuselage. That should be the end of the blue paint other than aside from what is going on the pontoons and I'm doing them at the same time. Wings and nacelles are finished, by the way, and just waiting on a bit of touch up which I'll do at the end after all masking is over with.

I hope all this painting turns out alright!! If something wings up crooked that's not going to be very grand.

You know what would be nice?? If everything goes RIGHT and the paint is good and requires minimal touch up. If this occurs, I only have a few minor things like painting the air intakes black and doing the anti-glare thing around the windscreen. There may be a couple other small things I could do, but really, the paint would be pretty much through at that point and nothing left but to gloss it and start decalling. NOT many of those to do, either, so this thing could be done done in the not too distant future... this evening perhaps. Like I said, everything needs to go exceptionally well for this, though...

TheChronicOne · December 25, 2017, 03:59:44 PM

A bit of touch up to do but this should work nicely.

I'll do that, then a tiny bit of work left on the pontoons then I guess I'll start masking the fuselage lines and the anti-glare patch.

TheChronicOne · December 25, 2017, 04:29:16 PM

Wing bottom... they turned out decent enough as well. I think the colors work well together especially the grey I used. It's a "softer" grey that has ever so slight amount of red in it the bottle calles "heather grey" and I think that bit of color mixed in gives it more character than a neutral grey of any shade.

Tired of appologizing for lousy camera work. You get the idea though and I promise the final pictures will be better.

EDIT: Decided I may as well take a pic of the whole thing while I'm here, yeah?

Current state. I'm about to start masking the fuselage.

Having a blast working on this one. I think I'm on the down hill slide now and that means all the PSR is done and most of the masking work is behind me as well. The scheme is to my liking so I can't complain about having second thoughts or any problems with that. It's just a matter, now, of getting the rest of the blue onto the fuselage and getting the anti-glare thing painted.

EDIT AGAIN: Well, hell... I keep forgetting the de-icing boots that I want to put on here. That's going to eat up a bunch of time so no way I'll be finished with this today or the next day even.

I'm not wanting to skip them, though. It's a fair amount of work masking between the nacelles but I think that bit of extra detail will really add to the visual appeal so... no corner-cutting today..

TheChronicOne · December 25, 2017, 09:08:18 PM

Camera work is straight garbage but it would seem that my masking and painting work has actually turned out a treat!!

I'm so pleased!! I've only had to do very minor touch up and amazingly all the angles and placement seem to work! I think I need to go buy (waste money) on lotto tickets (toilet paper)!!!

Having a TON of fun, still, with this. When things go well it helps.

Lousy picture of the bottomside:

A couple of shots with and without flash:

A different angle:

Apologies once again for the shoddy camera-work but it gets the point across..

The Rat · December 25, 2017, 10:30:07 PM

Quote from: TheChronicOne on December 25, 2017, 09:08:18 PMApologies once again for the shoddy camera-work but it gets the point across..

Meh, in-progress pictures are rarely in need of detail, unless it's a close-up of a critical part. A rough idea is all that's needed. But when you get this beastie finished, we expect National Geographic standards! We'll have a whip-round if you need a better camera. Biggest donation gets a kit from your stash.

TheChronicOne · December 25, 2017, 10:48:58 PM

Quote from: The Rat on December 25, 2017, 10:30:07 PM
Quote from: TheChronicOne on December 25, 2017, 09:08:18 PMApologies once again for the shoddy camera-work but it gets the point across..

Meh, in-progress pictures are rarely in need of detail, unless it's a close-up of a critical part. A rough idea is all that's needed. But when you get this beastie finished, we expect National Geographic standards! We'll have a whip-round if you need a better camera. Biggest donation gets a kit from your stash.

I'll being doing us all a favor by taking the end results outside.

Plans are in the works to buy a dedicated digital camera, speaking of... At this point I could even buy a cheap old(er) model and it will be much better than what I have now. Hell, I bought this smartphone back in 2013 and even then it was about a year old or half a year old. I'm one of those that always, reluctantly, upgrades to the newest tech late as possible.