Vidar_710

Fitting the Tamiya canopies to this turd of a kit... The rear canopy will not fully follow the contours of the rear deck, so I sculpted in a new shape with the Epoxy Sculpting dough I used now. The new gun port has been fully blended into the hull. Looks MUCH better than what was molded into the kit. After a lot of sanding and grinding away to get this kit's nose cone to fit the fuselage properly, the front ended needed some help as well. The Master Miniatures Alpha Probe has been blended into the nose cone. Tracy

Well, I had a pot of Black Mr. Surfacer 1500 mixed in the airbrush for the F-16XL project, and had way too much so I took the 707 off the shelf to check and see if I had seam shadows and shrinking putty after the model had been sitting for so long. Looks great!

After giving my Excelsior project over at the sci-fi section all my attention lately, I finally broke this out of the closet. I replaced the badly detailed gun port with a 3D printed panel. First time using my new cutting tool. After grounding down the kits gun port down to an even surface so I could scribe in the shape for the new gun port panel, I used the sonic knife to cut in the shape. A quick test fit... I used sculpting dough around the edges of the hole then pressed in the new panel so excess would squeeze out the edges

Adding the Greeblies to the skin of the hanger bay shroud, and doors. Hand cut squares and stretched spue shorter than a mm... My eyes hurt! I'll apply a thin layer of primer to protect and lock them in and the Main Hanger Bay assembly will be DONE. Tracy

Here's the front end of the nacelle top master before filling it in to show the layers of scratch building. After getting the new extensions on and blended them in, I discovered this subassembly is based on the original shroud that matched the original incorrect shape of the secondary hull. Since my secondary hull has been corrected, the shapes here are considerably off. You can see here that the sides are too flat, and the door deck aggressively bends inward to the stern of the hull. After sculpting in light weight material to the outer skin, layers of

Wrapping up the top master to the Warp Nacelles, and more progress on the main hanger bay doors and cowl... Here the 3mm x 3mm styrene strip outriggers (for lack of a better word) have been added to the bottom box. I would later decide to stack a 2mm x 2mm styrene strip on top because it looked better to the eye from the references I have. The box with a sloped side has been added to the front of the top assembly. I had to search the world for 5mm quarter styrene dowel. I found some in France at a Doll House company. To my frustration, they rolle

Hand drafted plans completed... Scratch building the components to the top details of the Warp Nacelles. There are six sections to make the shape of this assembly. A section was cut out of a 1/2" styrene tube that I saved from a yard sign, then cemented to a strip for styrene to keep its shape. Here the aft tip has been ground away before applying Epoxy dough to fill it in and shape it to a taper. The base is made into a box. 1-2-3 blocks are being used to keep this assembly flat, and square as the cement cures. Two of the six sections are comple

Nacelle top pattern scratch-build... Drafting everything to determine the shape in my scale. Here are the offerings from (middle: The Collective halfway decent try to at least look somewhat like what was on the studio model, but poorly vacuum formed and too narrow.) and (Bottom: Lunar's big hunk of resin that nowhere near represents what the nacelles look like. Since I've modified the nacelle masters (top) and lengthened them to the correct size and shape, the original parts are too short. The actual ILM masters will guide me to make a single mas

Nacelle blisters sanded to shape. I'll lay is some red glazing filler to smooth them out and call them done. Tracy

The fabrication of the bottom nacelle blisters. Two layers of sheet styrene laminated with cement, then 2mm 1/4 cut styrene dowel (not triangles) were cemented to the edges to create height. Front Rear After the cement cures, the blister's gluing surfaces were sanded down with sandpaper wrapped around a nacelle master to recreate the contour of the nacelle onto the bottom of the blisters for a perfect fit. Blisters match the shape of the nacelles. Then the material was removed to match the shape of

Warp Nacelle bottom blisters from scratch... Drawing out the paper templates. Tracing paper used on scaled images to copy the actual shaped of the leading and trailing edges of the blisters. Front Rear Tracings about to be transposed to the paper templates. Paper templates placed to check position, size, and shape to the nacelle masters. Paper templates completed and the preliminary parts cut from sheet styrene have been clamped together to ensure they are sanded into identic

Couldn't help myself. Had to show how everything is tying together... Warp Nacelle bottom blisters are next... Tracy

Sanding to the final shape with fillers is complete. Now it's time to divide the pylons so they will be able to assemble within the Warp Pylon blister... Here a special bit was used to drill through the multi-media of materials, which includes brass tubing. The hole was a tad too big because it exposed both armature brass tubes, so I shimmed in some styrene then backfilled it with epoxy dough. A cut line has been established here as well. Top and bottom views The cut went almost perfect. Small repairs and some clean u

I have the Titan 777-300 and the 757 kits. I can't wait to build them. I'll NEVER build a BUS, but I hope someone on here builds one with a thread! Tracy

Another short... Excessive sculpting material pressed into gaps and blending the vertical sections into the horizonal piece. Starboard Port When fully cured after 24 hours, I'll shape and blend everything together. A coat of acrylic filler will be applied to even out the surfaces as seen on the blisters. Once I'm happy with that, a 3/4" hole with be drilled for wiring access, then it will be ready to cut down the middle of the wing for ease of assembly. Steel rods will be inserted into the forward and aft brass tubing with