TR-29 Wraith (X-29 Recce Thing)

[TheChronicOne]

Just dropping by to let everyone know that I haven't given up. I'm slowly getting things done...  at current I've nearly finished painting the gear and last night I cleaned up and dipped the clear parts in Future. Man that stuffs works wonders on canopies with scratches. They have to be quality clear pieces to begin with, though... I've dipped thick lower quality canopies in the stuff before and it did nearly nothing but these clear pieces made by Hasegawa for this kit were scratched all to hell and looked bad even from a distance... until I dipped them in future and they now look damn near perfect. Pretty cool!

[Flyer]

 

[TheChronicOne]

Well.... progress has been made again. Major progress, in my opinion, is the completion the masking of the canopy. I get so much anxiety over this and drear it every time. Not entirely sure why... I've gotten better and quicker at it but it still is one of my least favorite parts. That, and painting up the landing gear. Not sure why... but... painting the tires in particular. That's done, too... I just need to clear over them. Now it's on to getting the interior parts painted up and the dashboard decal applied. After that I can paint the gear doors then all the smalls/fiddly stuff is all but sorted and I can get into the FUN stuff... which is cutting and gluing and general assembly.

[kerick]

If possible try placing the wheel on a tooth pick (the round pointed ones) stuck into the little hole for the mounting peg/axle then hold the brush with paint up to the wheel and rotate it. I paint the wheel color first then the tire. In 1/48th scale try a bamboo skewer. Keeps paint out of the mounting hole too. Just my $0.02.

[TheChronicOne]

Right-o! I'll try that.. you know, I've come close to it but never made the connection..    I'd rotate the wheel, of course, to reset so I could brush a new section, but didn't paint it whilst doing the rotating....       Definitely will try this, thanks!   Irksome for me is when the rim detail is so faint that it's difficult to prevent paint bleed from escaping the tire area into the rim area (and vice versa). When I paint the rims, I usually just out a dab of paint in the middle and let gravity run its course but even that sometimes would go bad thanks to their being no large enough barrier between the rim and tire... 


Update: painting interior stuff and the exhaust now. This is pretty nice.... actually finding the time, motivation, energy, focus, etc. all at the same time to get some stuff done and enjoy myself. It seems getting all this stuff together at the same time is more and more difficult these days..

[Old Wombat]

 

[kerick]

I know what you mean by finding opportunity, time and motivation. My model mojo has been weak for quite a while now. Press on while you can!

[TheChronicOne]

Done with the seat and 95% of the cockpit interior.

[kerick]

Look'n sharp!

[Old Wombat]

Nice!

Just an aircraft to fit it into left to go!

[TheChronicOne]

Hopefully the speed of things will pick up when I hit that point. I like to get the tedious troublesome stuff knocked out first before I dive into the build proper and I'm just about to that point.... I have a tiny bit of painting to do inside the cockpit then I can glue this tub in and get into the main portion of the build finally. I've already started that part, in fact, when I painted behind the intakes and glued them on so I have a head start.  Running up against the deadline here but we always have the extension thingy so I'm not too pressed about it. The paint scheme won't even be difficult... it's a whole wrap-around so I don't have to worry about keeping any transitions straight or worry about little patches and pieces of .... whatever.

In other news... I'm considering putting a refueling probe on this thing. I know I've seen F-5 derivatives with them added post-production that would stay external and I think I'd like to do that....   but.... do I HAVE a probe? Also... considering scratch building some actual cameras to go in the nose behind the side glass panels....    Might not do the cameras but the refueling probe would be neat.

[kerick]

Probes have been mounted on RW F-5s since Vietnam so should be no problem. IIRC its the ESCI kit that has two probes, one for each side. So you could make it a two fisted drinker if you wanted to..........

[TheChronicOne]

ESCI you say? Brilliant.. thanks!! I'll have a gander through my stash to see if I have one. I'd like to expedite this thing but if need be I'll just scratch build one. That's what I did the last time with one of these (An F-5 "thing"). I thought it clever and hadn't seen it done before but actually used the tip of a ball point pen as the nose of my fueling probe.    The difference with this one, though, is that I just shot it straight out the front like on a helo instead of putting the crook in it. For this one, I'd like the crook like the ones they actually used.





I'll make it work some how or another.... even if it's to just skip it. 

[TheChronicOne]

Back to work. Getting a fair amount done now. The wings are on and now I'm cutting it up. Masked the windows on the nose. Glued in the spacer for the main gear. Feeling pretty confident that I'll get it done! 

For the hell of it, this is what it might look like if the wings were on backwards.



And now the Rhinoplasty. Seems like the cut is good and everything matches up well. I want to do a bit of sanding on the nose before I glue it on but I hope to get that done tonight and at that point I have to let the glue dry I suppose so I can start working on other crap like making a fuel probe and getting the jammer together.

[TheChronicOne]

Alright.... it's on there. I still have to clean up the area where it's glued but this is on its way!