Well, I had a very productive week on the workbench followed by a very productive Hobby Day weekend.
Brace yourselves people, this is going to be one long update with a ton of pics.
I'll start out at the Shipyards with my ship this time. This Russian carrier Baku got some additional detail parts on the island. I also added the ships boats and other detail parts to the main hull. I then assembled all the missile launch tubes and dry-fit them to the forward deck to see how they were going to look:
The "Cake Stand" radar is also just dry-fit. I still need to paint it first. Here's some more shots:
Moving back into the aircraft assembly line, I managed to get a lot done on a number of my aircraft. On the F-15E, I removed the masking to see how well the steel laid down. It was a bit rough as you can see here; this has since been buffed out to a smooth finish:
Now to add decals to this.
My next model was the P-51B Mustang I'm doing for another Group Build. I painted the pilot and placed him in the cockpit of the plane and then sealed him in under the canopy. This plane is now ready for making and paint, along with the P-40 that came with it in the box:
Another aircraft I made progress on was my F-102 for the "Charlie Don't Surf" campaign. I masked off the areas I needed to so I could shoot the tan color:
I hope to fire up the airbrush this week to finish that camouflage pattern, along with a number of other models I have ready for paint.
One of the aircraft I did get primer on (again!) was my Boeing 737. After having sanded and buffed out the discrepancies, I shot it again to see how well I did on smoothing this out:
Not bad. I will need to buff this to a fine shine again before I attempt to shoot paint on this,
Another model I primed was this little USAF Jetstream I was working on. First though, I had to fill in and sand smooth all the sink holes all over this little plane. Here are some pics showing everything I had to fill and try to feather out:
I even had to fill a few places on the wing assembly:
After all that sanding and buffing, I added the main cockpit canopy and started to mask off the windows:
Finally, the primer went down:
If you look close, you can see where I have to try again to fill some of the sink marks. Still, it turned out better than I expected.
Moving on, I decided to get some more progress done on my two F-14 Tomcats for the review I'm doing. It's been too long and far too late so it was time to hustle on these. First off, I added the P/E additions to the inside of the canopy:
These were slightly difficult to glue in place, be sure to check the bottom edge of the P/E parts to make sure they don't fall below the edge of the canopy. Also, check the instruction sheet closely to insure that you glue them in right side up.
Again, I am doing one with the full P/E workup; here are the two canopies side by side:
In my haste to close the two cockpits sections up, I neglected to paint those inserts, but they aren't that easy to see anyway. What I did remember to do was to paint the yellow stripes on the ejection seat handles:
Finally, I closed these up:
The fit of the canopy pieces was very good. Despite the gap you see in the one; these fit exceptionally well. The gap was my own mistake, not due to any lack of quality in the kit parts.
After having closed everything up, I cemented the cockpit sections to the rear fuselage assemblies. These two aircraft are now ready for masking and paint:
I do know that the wings appear to be retracted too far; they are not glued in yet. I need to find out why they keep slipping into that position and set them properly.
Now that I made such significant progress on these two Tomcats, I decided to start another review kit I had gotten. This one is the Hasegawa A-10C Thunderbolt II.
As usual, I started to assembled the cockpit. It was a very easy and quick assembly. The parts fit very well and I was later able to paint them after assembly. Here in this pic, the seats are only dry-fit in place. The instructions have you add the seats after closing the cockpit tub inside the fuselage halves. I don't know why since there disn't appear to be any obstructions, but I decided to follow the instructions for the purposes of this review. Everything is shown here:
The decals for the instrument panels went in well. I always trim along the edge of each decal anyway to insure a good fit. The main instrument panel was glued under the cowl and then the decal was added after it dried:
I used Solvaset to help draw the decal into the detailed engraving on the IP. It hadn't quite finished yet when I took this pic.
The instructions then have you assemble the nose gear bay which will later be cemented up under the fuselage assembly:
They also give you a schematic showing where to add the nose weights to keep this model from being a tail sitter. So, I added my nose weights to the gear bay assembly:
Yes, it is probably too much, but I just wanted to be sure. Once this is closed up, it won't be opened again!
Moving on, they have you assemble the engines. The parts for these engines don't quite fit very well with lots of little 'steps' and misaligned parts. It's very slight, but if you try to adjust one side, you pull another section out of alignment. I did the best I could with these:
It's just going to take a bit of extra sanding on these.
After that, I assembled the main wings. These were a fairly good fit for the most part:
The roughness around the edges was me adding a slight amount of extra glue to squeeze out of the joint to seal it up better. The bottom however is where you find some of the fit issues that need to be dealt with:
Here's a close up of the worst part. Try as I might, I could not get these ends to lay down properly:
I'm not even sure how I'll sand that given the rectangular detail near that seam; I'll have to experiment.
Finally, the empennage went together exceptionally well. The vertical stabilizers went on at a perfect 90-degree angle on this:
NOTE: Be sure you cement the two vertical stabilizers in the proper direction! It's easy to cement them on upside down if you forget the opening for attaching this to the fuselage is on top, not the bottom of the horizontal part.
After all of that, I closed up the cockpit assembly inside the fuselage; added the forward gear bay, and the engine and empennage assemblies:
Everything fit well here. The only issues I really had were the forward gear bay assembly did not match up too well with the fuselage assembly. It took some judicious manipulating to get everything lined up. I'm happy enough with the results; I think my issues might have been caused by the nose weights inside. The other issue is the step on the engine assembly. I'm still debating whether I'll sand that down or not; it is in a difficult position with a difficult curvature to match.
Finally, I dry-fit the wings to see how this will look:
It is a nice looking aircraft!
With all that going on, I wanted to also start something quick and easy that I could just "throw" together (and hopefully not miss to often!) I pulled out an old Heller J-32 Lanssen aircraft and got started on the cockpit:
Afterward I painted it up. I had to guess at the colors. but when the cockpit is all closed up, no one will really notice. Besides, this is just a fun build for me.
You can see where I dry-brushed the instrument panels to bring out the detail.
I then added the engine intake strakes to the fuselage halves along with a few other bits and bobs:
While they were drying, I assembled the wings:
All that was left to do was to put everything together. But first I taped everything together to check and see if this plane needed nose weights:
It did. You can also see where the nose was going to give me a problem. No biggie.
I added the nose weight; cockpit, tail cone, tail 'feathers' and cemented everything together. Then I added the wings and canopy. This is now ready to sand, mask and paint:
This final one is not a fixed wing aircraft, but it's an aircraft nonetheless. I started my Special Hobby AH-1G Marine Corp Cobra by looking in the box. The first thing I saw made me say out loud: "SERIOUSLY? I have to do WHAT?" Yes, I have to assemble the entire cockpit canopy piece by piece when the time comes:
Well moving on, I started; once again, with the cockpit. The first thing I had to do was to cut off the back part and replace it with the one shown in place right here:
Then I added all the control sticks and targeting equipment along with the instrument panels:
Afterwards, I added the armor plate and then painted this up:
The instructions said to apply the decals to the instrument panel faces but there were no instrument panel decals on the decal sheet! So, I painted them too:
After that, I assembled the seat and set them aside to dry. While they were drying, I assembled the tail section that my particular version was supposed to have:
I then went through and put all the weapon pod halves together:
That's as far as I got so far on that. Hopefully this coming week I'll be able to get more done.
Okay, that completes my aircraft work. Now we can move on to my armor....
Starting with armor, I primed the Schturmtiger:
Now I can shoot a better coat of paint over this and then camouflage it.
Next, I assembled the pilot deck for the 'phib, starting with the pilot house controls and then adding the hatch and other bits and bobs:
Later I cemented the interior and the pilot house deck in place:
My next project was another simple one I wanted to do. I pulled out the Airfix RAF re-supply set to go with my USAAF re-supply set. I started with the Bedford truck doing the basic chassis and cab interior:
They give you an option to make the Bedford a tanker or a cargo truck. I opted for the tanker version and built the tank for it:
The tank is just dry-fit on there, but this is a neat little truck:
After that, I started on the Tilly. Three or four steps later, I had this:
The rest of the cab parts for both trucks are molded in clear so I'll paint these as they are along with the clear parts separately.
Finally, my last model to show is this Roden Ludwig Areo bus that I started for the Kickoff Group Build here. I'll get a dedicated Thread going tomorrow or the next day.
I assembled the basic chassis and engine first:
Since the engine wasn't going to be seen, I didn't do too much detail to it. What I did was enough to get it mounted on the chassis and also support any other parts that needed it for support. I also added the wheel hubs to the axles:
Later I cemented together the double wheels that go on the back axles:
After that, I built the body of this bus and started to sand the seams that I found:
Afterward I primed this bus to see what I had succeeded in doing. Not much apparently:
Oh well, I just have to keep at it.
Meanwhile, I mounted the floor of the bus and the dashboard; then I added all the seats and controls:
Looks like I need to straighten a seat. That'll happen.
Okay, that completes this very long tour of Maddog Manufacturing, showcasing the latest in-progress work. I appreciate you stopping in to look it over. Comments are always welcome.
