RiderFan

Thanks. Yes, I'm aware that the nozzles have a taper to them. That's reflected on my 3D model and on the prototype print. The dimensions I used came from various photos, drawings, and by looking at other kits. The intakes will have to remain as they are. That construction work is already done. Based on examining various boxings of Hasegawa Phantom kits (and this assumes they got it right), the overall outside dimensions of the full ramp is the same. Pretty sure that nobody will ever notice, or even know to notice, the perforations being a mildly different pattern. Thanks David

That's some great work there. I really have to improve the CAD side of my work.

Well, today I received my parts from Shapeways. All things considered, I'm pretty impressed. This was the first part I'd ever designed for 3D printing and what I submitted didn't actually pass their automated inspection process because I made the outer wall too thin. They have an option to 'Print Anyway' and I figured what the heck. Well they printed just fine. The part is a little faceted but that's the 3D model, not the print. For this first print I didn't spend the time to smooth out the walls. In reality I'd sent a low resolution model though a high resolution printing process. I wasn't e

When it comes to conversions, one of the areas's that goes forgotten about on the FGR.2 is the location of the underside aux air engine doors. This isn't mentioned in the Frank Mitchell conversion guide and it was missed on the Wild Hare conversion set as well. So even if you had that (really expensive) conversion set, you still needed to make this correction. Below are two photos of Hasegawa kits. On the right is a standard F-4E in 1:48 scale. On the left is a FGR.2. As you can see the tops of the aux doors on the F4-E line up with the tops of the main landing gear bay. On the FGR.2 they're

Yes. This always happens. It's the same sort of Karma force that sees a pro sports player cut or traded away from your favourite team as soon as you pay $180 for a jersey with their name and number on it.

Some progress on the cockpit over the past few days. The front pit is pretty much built out of box save for some decals for dials. After doing some test fitting I've realized that the side consoles are not wide enough and they don't but up against the fuselage walls like they should. So I'm going to build some side walls and attach them to the forward pit and flesh them out before putting the whole thing in the nose. The back wall has had a few additional details added just to busy it up. The map holder is scratch built, might be a little large but it works. You can also see in this ph

A little more accomplished over the past couple of days. I've filled in the aux engine door 'Boxes'. Taking a look at some aftermarket resin bits used for the 48 scale Hasegawa kit (and assuming they're accurate?) there's not all that much to see in them anyway. As the doors will be 98% closed on this build, I'm probably just going to add a couple of pipes and paint the whole thing black. But at least it won't just be a hole in the plastics. You can also see in the picture below the reworking of the exhaust area for the wider diameter Spey engines. The panel lines need to be rescribed but

I have lots, shoot me an email.

Actually, that's a fairly poor example. Governments don't bother to regulate inkjet printers because they might be used for printing money, because they can't be used for printing money. At least not money that would pass for anything other than an inkjet copy. It's simply not possible to reproduce a usable (passable) bank note using a home inkjet printer. Even the really high end photo printers like the ones I have, can't do that. Any note printed on a home inkjet, using home paper, would need to be passed to an incredibly gullible person for it to be passed off. Any reasonably knowledgeable

A couple of months ago, I pulled this kit out off my shelf again and started looking at the project. At this time I had finished widening the fuselage and creating seamless intakes. The aft end of the fuselage had been changed to accept the wider SPEY engines and I had done some experiments to figure out exactly how I was going to go about building those. I had also contacted several resin casting businesses in the hobby to talk about the project. While some said it couldn't be done, those that were willing to give it a go were quoting me production costs that were well, well outside my budg

This is the story of a build that has taken place over (currently) 5 years, and 3 Canadian provinces. It's one of those projects that I pull off the shelf from time to time and fiddle with, then something happens in life that forces me to pack it all back up and put it away for a few months or a year. Then I get it out and fiddle some more. Waaaaayyy back in 2010, when I was living in Lunenburg Nova Scotia, I was able to acquire the really nice Tamiya 1:32 F-4J Phantom kit from an estate sale for a pretty fantastic price (a low 2 figure number!). When I purchased it I had hoped to be able to

Talking again about DRM, you have to have a place to manage not only licencing to rights holders, but also local law. Take handgun's for an extreme example. In Canada it's currently extremely difficult for someone to go into a store and purchase a 9mm. But now it is 100% possible, even with today's relatively crappy 3D printers, to just download a file and print your own handgun. No license, no wait time, no training courses, no problem. It's already been proven possible. You can't print ammunition obviously but I'm sure someone could figure out how to put bullets in their newly printed Glock

A couple of photos of an old build of mine. The Matchbox 1:72 Flower class corvette. I built this model many years ago (it's RC converted) and is now resting in the front hall display of the Peachland BC Legions Club.

The DRM for downloaded content will be interesting. Even outside of the hobby industry, you're going to have companies needing to control the number of prints you can get from a single file so that they can make money. An 'Itunes' style system would need to be set up to avoid having people purchasing a kit file and then sharing the file with their buddies. DRM stops that (mostly) but how do you stop someone from downloading the kit, then printing copies for their buddies? Right now everyone has to buy a kit. For business trying to make money, making it as difficult as possible for someone to m

The Matchbox 1:72 Flowerclass Corvette is still an amazing model when it's built up right. The largest parts count I've ever seen in a single plastic kit and easily converted to RC made it even more popular.

Looks phantastic. Great job!

That's looking really great Sean! Much larger than I thought it would be. Also, love the Kensington Orbit Optical in the background. I was the project manager for that when I worked at Kensington out of Vancouver. Great little devices.

An FGR.1 or 2 in 1:32 scale would be killer.

We really don't have any details on how the Trojan got on the machine. Could have been any number of ways I'd imagine.

Hi Mike. The base colour is just Model Master Light Grey. FS36495. A few panels were accented with Canadian Voodoo Grey FS16515. The weathering on the engine deck was airbrushed in NATO black, then misted over with more of the light grey to tone it down. There's also some yellow sprayed oddshot here and there. After that various pastel chalk shades of grey, black, yellow and white were applied with a q-tip. The rust streaks and stains were model railroad colours that were dabbed on with a brush, then a q-tip to pull the paint down(or up) in streaks. Some dry brushing of various Browns and

This is the 'Fine Molds' 1:72 scale Millennium Falcon. The model is about 12" in diameter (side to side) and, for the most part, is a scaled down version of the 32" studio filming model. Complete with Panther tank parts on the engine deck and Porsche transmission parts on the side walls. The kit has about 1000 parts total. The only part I really dislike about the kit is the stand. It'll have to be replaced at some point. The model is built completely out of box save for a couple of extra little decals I added. The kit decals are just horrible. They take forever to come off the backing paper an

I'm expecting the ARC article submission to be posted on the main page tomorrow afternoon.

I know people that paint F-18C's with Canadian markings and don't care that it's the wrong variant. When the difference is one or two antenna, or a vent grill is a different shape, I'd have to think most people don't really notice or care. I get that the F is a two seater vs a single, but still, the vast majority of people building something on the weekend are not going to care too much.

Michaels Crafts stores (at least locally) have lots of 48 scale F-18E's on shelves. Also online from here - http://www.michaels.com/10413801.html

hmmm, you should have had yours already. They were sent out last Monday. Shouldn't take that long to get out to the prairies.