It's been a while part one: The Egg and I

I may not have been posting, but I've been doing stuff. My local modeling club (the No Website Club, it seems) is having a contest. Back in May, one of the guys bought a bunch of ostrich-sized plastic eggs. Split longitudinally, half the egg is clear and half is opaque. Anyone who wanted to enter took an egg. There are only two rules:

1) if you take an egg, you have to make something.
2) a significant portion of the clear part must be left clear.

I took the challenge, but when I got home I realized that, since I have only been modeling again for less than a year, I have no stash of leftover parts. This meant that I would be having to scratchbuild the entire thing. Talk about biting off more than you could chew.

I dug and dug into my brain and came up with the idea of this thing. I've been into Forties and Fifties radio Sci-Fi for a while and thought about making some sort of exploration vehicle that an Golden Age-style exploration ship would drop onto a planet. Not having any wheels, I decided on an exploration vehicle for arctic-climate worlds and that meant skis:



the Heiden-Brinker SS-3b "Snowflea" is based on the Lotus Ice Vehicle a real vehicle made by the luxury car company.

A bit ambitious, but I pressed on. I drew some nearly-scale (1/48) plans (floor plan, furnishings and structure) and started in. My first test was to make a leg out of sheet styrene. It worked so well, I made all three.



Then I actually began working on the interior of the hull and the cockpit floor, but I have no images of that in progress. It was really hard for two reasons. First, constructing vertical bulkheads to fit the curve of the egg was nearly impossible (as I can't really get a good cross-section of it without cutting it apart). Secondly, the plastic of the egg is awful. It is very soft and no adhesive I have works, not model glue, not CA glue, not white glue; I don't want to try anything harder as it might melt the whole thing into a pile of slag. So, I'm doing a lot of wedging. to keep it structurally sound.

I then made four seats. This was extra-tough. Making one of something is easy, making four is hard. If I do something like this again, I'm going to make one and cast the rest in resin. As it is, each chair is more similar than identical. Ah, well. This wasn't going to win any contests anyway. Here's the cockpit:



And the cockpit next to the hull with the hull interior. You can see the beam that crosses the entire hull. This is the main support for the left and right main skis. Since I couldn't glue hinges to the side, I had to make it structurally sound by putting the solid beam through:



And the cockpit installed on the hull:



The engine is proving difficult. I tried cutting a smaller plastic egg, but cutting a perfectly circular hole for the inlet was impossible (and with the crappy egg plastic, I couldn't keep anything glued in anyway). I happened to find some cheapo wooden eggs with a flat bottom at a craft store. Sweet enemy's father drilled a hole in the bottom for me and I was on my way:



One part I'm proud of is the 'ice brake'. The Lotus has this and I replicated it as simply as I could:




I've begun painting it, but ran into a snag that is a lack of water trap for my compressor. Nothing like having your airbrush spitting water all over your work to slow down the process.

Well, the sun just came out, so I'm going outside, darn it!

listening to while posting: "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" by The Postal Service

post meeting update

I met with the Mount Mansfield Modelers, my local modeling group, for the third time now. Interesting group. A mix of car and plane guys, of newbies and old hands. Two of the old hands are plane guys, one of them works in 1/72 scale and can really cram detail into a cockpit you can barely see! My goal, I think, is to impress the two old hands.

I brought the T-6 in it's unfinished state and spoke of the foolishness of working on two models at once (quite humorously, all of the guys after me, including the two old hands, admitted to working on two models at once! lol)

Here's the Texan:



Not, too bad. The landing light lenses are REALLY thick. I'm not sure what to do about that.



Here's the nose. I do like that engine.



The tailwheel broke off and disappeared entirely. Luckily, I had two tiny wheels in my Box-O-Parts. I have no idea where the came from, but the were the perfect size. I'm glad I had two, because my scratchbuild looks better than the original.





I could only present the chassis and cockpit of the Cobra as a paint test showed that something was very wrong with the paint I was using. It went on super orange-skinned. The old hands thought it might have been too cold and recommended soaking the can in warm water before spraying.

What I brought was well-received, even by the car guy who wires his engines in the proper firing order. He's really into making the bodies look good, so I doubt my skills will measure up to his standards. The 1/72 scale plane guy liked my seatbelts, but I know for a fact he puts in seatbelts that were hardly bigger than my buckles.




Here's the cockpit. The second shot is just to show off my scratchbuilt fire extingisher!



Listening to while posting: "Light the Match" by Mirah

dual model update

I had to strip some parts of the Texan: the engine cowling and the tail. I had painted the cowling and a bit by the tail blue to replicate this scheme:



What happened was that some of the blue got chipped AND some of the Rub N' Buff got all caked up near the tail. So, I stripped the entire tail and cowling with Simple Green and then re-pre-shaded it (heh). A bit of the Rub N' Buff came off as well so I had to re-spray with flat (matte) white. You see, Rub N' Buff needs a slightly gritty surface to catch on. It just slides off of gloss paint or bare plastic. I've actually already Rub N' Buffed the fuselage and I'm going to be painting the tail yellow tonight and the blue bits tomorrow.



The Cobra's coming along. Sort of. I worked on finishing the engine last night. I bent up eight pieces of wire for spark plug wires individually, then installed them with Cyanacrylate glue. Here's my 'wiring diagram' so I can match my individually bent pieces to their proper places:



and here's the finished product. Tamiya silver certainly does photograph better than it looks in person. I mean, it looks pretty good in person, but looks extra good photographed. I also "scratch built' the oil filter. If you can call cutting and sanding a piece of sprue scratchbuilding. I can't believe they didn't include an oil filter on this car.



I also built a 'trunk' for the Cobra. It's not functional, it's just a sort of blocker made out of cardboard. What it does is simulate where a trunk might be and blocks light. You see, when the wheels were put on for a test, I found that without this blocker, you could see all the way through the wells in a non-realistic way. So, I took some cardboard and white glue and made this:



And, because I'm an aircraft guy, I had to put seatbelts in the cockpit. They're scratchbuilt with masking tape straps and wire and wine-bottle-cork-metal latches and buckles. I'm not all that sold on my buckles, but It was a first:



in workbench note, here's my Special Box. It's an ancient wooden box that I placed foam in the bottom of and use to put any very fragile built pieces or figures that I really don't want to get hurt of chipped. Occupying it now are the Cobra engine and the engine to the Texan. Mostly engines go in here, but some larger fragile assemblies like the landing gear for the Wildcat.



Another workbench note. I have learned a valuable lesson with these two models: ONLY DO ONE MODEL AT A TIME! I thought I could hack it and work on one while stuff on the other is drying, but it doesn't work. I've split my brain and both models have suffered.

listening to while posting: "I'm From L.A." by Go Betty Go

Two plastic models, muahahaha!

Last month, I started work on a T-6 Texan. You usually don't see trainer aircraft, but I wanted to do something a little colorful and this was very cheap (US$ 12).

It's a pretty neat model, if a little strange. Strange in that in places, there is fantastic detail, in others, not so much and it's the choices of where the chose to put the detail that makes it strange. The engine for instance. The engine is not bad, but the detail on the cylinder heads is really soft:



The rear of the engine, behind the firewall, there is some pretty crisp detail. The thing is, after installation, you can only view this through a crack about 3mm wide.



The cockpit is very nice, with but a few issues. I re-worked the seats to make them more realistic, added some engine control levers, added the linkage between the two rudder pedal groups, built up the rudder pedal groups to be more realistic, added a crossbar underneath the rear instrument panel and added wires for the radio mics
.






Of course, once it's installed, you can see virtually none of this. I am such a nerd, but dang it was fun to do:







The figures are rather nice. Also included was a fig of the instructor pilot climbing in. His parachute is nicely cast:




One annoying thing was the lights on the bottom of the airframe. They are a single clear piece with three nubbins that fit in holes in the fuselage. It seems like a nice idea, but it makes seam-filling and painting very annoying. I did discover a new technique in making colored lights. I painted all of the outside of the light that would not be visible the proper color; leaving the 'lens' part clear. So, you see down into the color and it reflects pretty good. This offers a more natural way than just painting the outside of the clear.




Now, model two. At the model group I started attending, most of the guys are car guys. I used to be a car guy when I was 12, but not so much now. However, I thought I'd show them what a plane guy could do, so I bought me a Shelby A/C Cobra. Man. This model has some issues. Flash and mold seams abound; especially troubling were the mold seams directly down the top of the body! Pain in the ass to get rid of. It's also molded in white plastic which makes it hard to see if you've sanded properly. Oh, and tons of chrome pieces. Who wants chrome pieces? They look like ass and as soon as you cut them off the sprue, you've inevitably cut the chrome. So, I've soaked them in Simple Green and removed most of the chrome for painting.

Because I'm me, I've gone and put details where nobody will see them. I spend a great deal of time painting, shading and detailing the suspension. The front, you'll be able to see if you look hard enough, but the rear will be nearly completely invisible once the tires are installed.



Isn't that pretty? Too bad you'll never see it again.


listening to while posting: nothing, as Sweet Enemy is in the next room, in front of the woodstove, wrapped in a blanket with the cat and reading a new Terry Pratchett book (and I don't want to disturb her)

interlude: Figures

I got a bunch of figures made by ICM and I can only sort of recommend them. They are basically rip-off recasts of Tamiya figures and the detail is soft in some places. However, it is really hard to find USN/USAAF WW2 aviation figures in 1/48 scale. Oh, if you want great Brit or Soviet, Eduard is your company and if you build 1/72, you can't help but find really nice stuff by Airfix.

But 1/48 is tough. I wonder why. So here are my two recent paints. I've got some film shots coming, but until then, you've got to deal with bad digital. I will say that they do look really extra nice when slightly out of focus.




I'm trying some new things. First, I gave the figures no whites to the eyes as you really wouldn't see the whites if it were a real person 12 feet away. The entire figure was painted white, then a light coat of flesh was applied to the skin areas. I put in irises and then shaded and highlighted around it. It helps to reduce that popeyed look.

The white base coat also helps with another technique. When it comes to clothing, I don't do highlights. I paint a quick, smooth light and slightly thin coat of the base color. I then begin to build up the shadow areas. First with the base color then a slightly darker version that I try to blend from dark to light. The thin first coat coats the entire area, but tends to pool a bit leaving the raised areas (areas that would be highlighted anyway) a bit lighter. The places where different things meet such as sleeves and arms, hats and heads, straps and body, I outlined in black to make them pop.

listening to while posting: Groundhog's Day (live in Lewiston, Maine) by Primus

Martin MB-2: Sow's Ear Edition

I had a bunch of armor models lying around that I'd never build (one M113 ACAV was purchased in 1989 and was still only 3/4 built) and gobs and gobs of 1/35 figures, guns, heads, and assorted gew-gaws that I'd never use. I found out that a co-worker of mine builds and so I tossed them his way. I asked nothing in return except that they be built within a year; if they were to sit in a stash, they could sit in my stash and soothe my nostalgia.

The next day, he brought in a model he'd never build: a Martin MB-2 by a company called Glencoe. Apparently, Glencoe was an injection molding company that made models of odd subjects on the side. If this was any indication of their injection molding capabilities, I can see why they are out of business. This is a pretty terrible model. Where there are guide pins, they don't align, or the holes are so close to the skin that they are ripped; The injector points are in the stupidest places (trailing edge of fabric wings, center of mesh radiator screens); The pieces have no numbers unless they are large pieces, then it's stamped on; Sink marks; The figures, are an embarrassment; and the model is 25% flash.

It does, however have some very, very nice box art.



So, why am I building it. I have no idea really, except that I am between models, waiting for a Revell SNJ/T-6 Texzn to arrive from Great Models Webstore and I needed to build something.

So, I grabbed the engine and decreed if I could make the crappy engine look decent, I'll build the whole thing. Here's a compare of the unpainted engines.



First, I assembled the not-well-fitting pieces and puttied the bejeesus out of it. I'm actually very happy with how it turned out as I had to do some carving of the plastic to make things align; and it's smooth as a baby's cheek. I then carved away the wire/hose looking things below the cylinders and made new ones out of brass rod. I also added little ribbed supports that would have been cast into the block. You can barely see them as the white bits behind the brass. I also added exhaust pipes. Glencoe couldn't even make exhaust pipes. How hard would it have been? Jeezum.

The manifold that would go on top of the engine was problematic. I could have made an entire new one, but It would have been a pain and besides, I couldn't find a good reference for it. So, I just made some new 'blowers'. The new one is raised up a bit because I added some geeblie wires on the underside to flesh i out a bit.




The radiator needed work. As mentioned there's an injection mark in the middle of the screen. Check it out


The mesh is actually HO scale chain link fence that I had lying around for some reason (I may not have a current stash, but I have box full of model pieces that go back to the early 80s).

My SNJ Texan gets here on Friday, so the MB-2 may go into hiatus, but I think I'm doing pretty good so far and will complete it. Firstly because I could only find two examples on the web and also I'd like an excuse to buy one of these puppies

listening to while posting: The Elements (live) by Tom Leher

F8: part five, epilogue

It's nearly done, so it's now more a near-failure. Or just a Disappointment. I had hight hopes and thought my skills could hack. However, there were too many things that I didn't, couldn't see until it was too late. Not enough experience... yet.

Here's the front:


FIP.

The underside photographs well, but it doesn't look smooth and 'in scale' enough when viewed in real life.
The landing gear scratchbuild turned out pretty good, but I didn't plan ahead for the brake lines and they just sort of end at the wheel well now and don't actually go anywhere.

You can also see a gap between the engine cowling and the fuselage. This was not there in the numerous test-fittings I did, but when I went to put the cowling on for final assembly, it would not go on any farther.



The oil cooler flaps turned out pretty nicely, though.




Here's the back. The paint job looks decent here, but up close the brush-applied future has some uneven drying. Academy's decals also don't like sitting in Future a much as the Tamiya decals did. What you can see that I like is a small, totally scratchbuilt bomb cart. I'm pretty proud of that mediocre thing. I also like the padeyes on the top of the bomb.


Here it is close up.



So, did I waste my time? No. I learned a lot. I learned to use photo-etch details; I learned a lot about scratch building; I learned that pastels don't like gloss finishes and stick better to matte; I learned about planning; I learned about using cyanoacrylate (super) glue;

Did I waste my money? Nope. I got a good price and I got it local. The only wasting feeling I feel is that I may have wasted the kit. I don't think the kit nor the detail pack is available any more. It's a shame, it's a really nice subject.

Listening to while posting: Something from the Fight Club soundtrack