chuck540z3

Thanks Guys! Thanks and same here Mike. Even on good days there's still too many rocks and salt on the road for the toy to come out and play. Cheers, Chuck

I would REALLY like to get my hands on these OOP decals and I am prepared to pay a premium if anybody has an extra set. Cheers, Chuck

Thanks Guys! I have been asked how I use CA glue as a filler before, especially when panel lines and rivet detail is enhanced or restored. Although I’ve written tutorials on this subject before, I can’t find them, so here’s a new updated one! Using CA Glue as a Filler I have been using Cyanoacrylate (CA) glue as a filler for many years and more recently, about 90% of the time over traditional modeling putties. I use CA glue on every single join of my models, to make sure there are no gaps to be found later. While putty still has its place, CA gl

A view from the top, showing in purple which joins to eliminate. Same pic without the colored lines. With the front intake extensions painted on the inside and glued on, the sharp contrast from black to white creates a nice sense of depth and unless you use a flashlight like this pic, you really can’t see where the join is. Could this be the first build of this kit with full intakes? That’s it for now. Next up will be wings and landing gear, which have thei

March 28/19 As shown earlier, I used white styrene sheet at the rear of the front intake parts, to both fill the gaps and provide a sharp demarcation line between the black at the front and the white that will blend into the front of the intake pipes. Before assembly, the inner parts were painted so that the finish would be smooth, avoiding airbrush air turbulence. The parts were then glued together, oozing Tamiya Extra Thin Cement (TETC) into the join from the outside, to avoid paint damage on the inside. As you can see, the kit part

Interesting replies. I've driven the 3 and although smooth and quiet with an amazing amount of room, I found that I had to keep looking to the right to the big info screen, taking my eye off the road. Not a huge deal, but still annoying and maybe not all that safe. Range is still a problem with all these EV's, but that will very likely increase dramatically with time and technology. Also, and I know this is subjective, to me the Model 3 is bug ugly and I'd never buy one. For those who think that electric cars will completely eliminate hydrocarbon use for all future transportati

Intake Update! It looks like the Phase Hanger seamless intakes are coming soon: Phase Hanger Resin Accessories on Facebook And GT Resin will have some of their own in about 3-4 weeks? GT Resin Since I haven't seen either, I can't vouch for which ones are going to be the best (nor would I), but either product has to be a lot better than PVC plastic pipe! With intakes en route, all that's really needed now is a decent resin cockpit. Cheers, Chuck

Thanks guys. I appreciate your comments very much! Cheers, Chuck

From the sides, however, the front panel lines are lower than the rear on both sides… While the bottom fit is quite bad. This may have been created by the insertion of my plastic pipe intakes, but I don’t think so, because the fit was not forced. In any case, sanding all this down while retaining the fine detail will be very tough. After a LOT of sanding and rescribing, I think I have the join licked. Again, ghost panel line detail can still be seen under clear CA glue filler.

Tim, that blue fabric just came with my mini-photobooth, so I don't have a good answer. March 20/19 Back again after a few weeks on a cruise to Hawaii and back, where my wife and I were able to meet Scott Wilson and his wife, who helped me so much on my long F-4E build. As mentioned in my first post, Scott sent me the 1/32 Hasegawa version of the F-5E and the now very coveted Black Box cockpit, which has been instrumental in “kicking up a notch” the cockpit of this Kitty Hawk kit instead. Scott and his wife Lei took us on a full tour of Volcano National

Thanks Guys! 1. Sewing Needle in a pin vice. Choose a needle that's sharp, but also a bit fat not too far from the tip so that you can modulate the depth and width of each rivet hole. 2. The Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color (TPLAC) product comes in the exact same bottle as their Extra Thin Cement, complete with the same application brush. Shake the bottle, then apply the wash sparingly, using capillary action to suck the dark wash along panel lines. When it dries for at least 10 minutes, use a paper towel or rag with just a little plain paint solvent (not l

Thanks Guys! See below February 19/19 In my last post a few days ago, I was fairly impressed with the lower main fuselage which has fairly good panel lines and rivet detail. Although I usually re-scribe every panel line and re-punch most rivets, the bottom didn’t need too much of that. The upper fuselage, however, is not nearly as good as the bottom half. As a matter of fact, it’s quite bad and almost everything needed to be enhanced or changed. Here’s a few pics of what I mean. There are some nasty and

Thanks Guys! I never would have tried this method of creating intakes on a larger jet, like my big Eagle, because you can actually see quite a bit inside those big intakes. These tiny intakes mean that you can get away with minimal detail, because you can't really see much of it inside, even with a flashlight. In any case, even crude intakes are better than nothing! A bit of an update, but more of a warning. I am currently detailing the upper fuselage before I glue the entire fuselage together and along with moving the fuel caps to the port side, I've been scratching

Thanks guys! While I have criticized this kit, the alternative Hasegawa offering is much, much worse, so we modelers have to remind ourselves that we lucky to have these kits at all. Aftermarket seamless intakes and other goodies like maybe new gun doors will likely arrive soon enough. Cheers, Chuck

Now the intakes present a much bigger problem, because they don’t exist at all and so far, there are no after-market ones available. Phase Hanger Resin is making some, but after at least 10 attempts to contact them and get a real date for delivery, I gave up and for the first time, tried to make some of my own. With small engine intakes and a fairly straight forward trajectory, I found some 5/8” OD/1/2” ID PVC pipe and gave it a whirl. Let’s call these “Econo-Intakes”, because they are nowhere near as good as resin ones, but they are better than nothing- and waiting for some to show up one

Thanks Guys! Feb 12/19 Thankyou Gentlemen! With the front fuselage done, it’s now time to attack the rear fuselage. Before I go any further, many of the modifications I’m making I found in the LSP Kitty Hawk F-5E SIG thread, so thank you to everyone who pointed these out before. You guys tell me what’s wrong with this kit, and I’ll try to show how to fix them! My jet doesn’t have the chaff and flare dispenser (B12), so the raised panel should be removed and the two small holes filled.

Just for laughs, I put on the canopy to see how it would fit. Almost perfect! Very surprising, since a canopy closed option is not available without extensive modifications, that are not described in the instructions. The fit is so good, that I think I will be using the canopy to seal the cockpit, using masking solution as the “glue”. Next up, the engines. I have a few surprises that I think you will like, but like everything in my builds, this will take a while! Cheers,

February 9/19 Time to finish off the front fuselage once and for all, with the windscreen and gun doors installed permanently. In sort of random order, let’s start with the glare shield and HUD. The Black Box (BB) resin kit doesn’t come with a HUD, so you are asked to create one from scratch. While there are lots of options to do this, the kit HUD isn’t too bad, although it’s a bit too thick, so I went with it. It needs to be sanded down from the sides, however, because it’s about 10% too wide. Unfortunately, the BB assembly that holds the HUD is crude and not uniform,

Heck no. As mentioned, my original post was meant in fun to get things going on a slow day. I will admit that I did mean what I said, but that was only to get to see some nice car models. I will give the car guys kudos for a number of things they generally do better than we aircraft builders, like painting. Some of those perfect glossy finishes are very hard to do well. Cheers, Chuck

Now THAT, looks real. Finally! Any more pics of that diorama? Cheers, Chuck

Wow, I can't believe that this thread still exists after 8 years (Feb 5/11)! While it was meant to be somewhat tongue in cheek and to stir up the pot on what was likely a dull day, I still haven't seen a model car that looked all that real, including the examples above. Sorry 😉 Cheers, Chuck

Thanks. Another Harold at LSP just sent me a zillion pics of just about everything, so I'm good- and thanks again for pointing this out. As for Phasehanger, I'll believe it when I see it! Cheers, Chuck

Hi Chris! What you really should do is cast some seamless intakes for this sucker. You'd sell hundreds of them! There's a few guys who claim they are making them, but so far I haven't had any luck in getting product, including Phase Hanger. What I'm likely to do is try and make some myself, but I have no idea what to do yet. More "fun". Cheers, Chuck

At the front on either side of the gear well are gun vent doors that are molded open. They should be closed and another molding flaw fixed. To close the gun vents, I trimmed the back of the vent doors, deepened the hinge with a scriber, then bent them flat. They also need to be shortened about 10% and the corners rounded before you install them. Two more areas fixed and the panel lines are now straight. There is a lot of trimming and dry fitting to get any or these pieces to f

Thanks Guys! Thanks Don! The Photography tutorial is already pinned in the archived Tools and Tips forum, but it's hard to find. Thanks to your suggestion, I updated it with my newer version above. Thanks a lot Harald. Do you (or anybody else) have some good pics of this strap? It would likely be an easy edit, but I'm not sure what it would look like with a seat with no back cushion, like the resin one I have. February 2/19 This next update was fun. It was the right combination of sufficient kit quali