RedHeadKevin

I'm currently stripping the chrome off the parts from an AMT Burton Batmobile. I soaked the parts in Simple Green, which took the chrome right off, but it looks like there's a hardened, yellowed clear-coat still on the parts. It's a nasty shell, and you need a toothpick or something to get it off. Do they varnish the parts before chroming? Seriously, this undercoat, plus the chrome makes every part look like a piece of chewed bubble gum. When you strip the chrome off, they're beautiful parts. But does anyone have tips about a "varnish" on the parts?

Check out the RetroBright process for restoring yellowed plastic. They use it on old toys a lot. Basically it involves high-powered hydrogen peroxide, like 12%, and they also hit it with UV lights. That helps bleach the plastic back to white. You could use sunlight as your UV source, or blacklights. Sunlight will take longer, but it's free.

I use a Badger 360. It's a Badger 155, but with a rotating head so it can be either gravity-fed or siphon-fed from a bottle. It's crazy how little I use the bottle, and how I can use a single drop of paint in the little paint cup if I want.

Here's a detail question: How long are the hydraulic rams that lift the "canopies?" The Kitty Hawk kit doesn't have them, and knowing how long the real ones are would help posing the canopies open.

EDIT: Answered my own questions

Why in the good EFF do they mold the tail fins that way, with a seam that will be nearly impossible to fill without destroying surrounding detail?

I could see them leaving out the sprues for the interior for a cheaper version of the kit, but you'd have to mold all new fuselage halves to have the ramp and doors closed. Ideally they'd be molded closed by default, and you have to cut off the doors and ramp if you wanted them open. I'm betting that the cargo bay will only be a few pieces (floor, ceiling, and walls) anyway, similar to the old Italeri C-130s. So not including it wouldn't make that much of a difference in the complexity of the kit.

I'd love to know why the BSU-49s were never injection molded. They're a REALLY common bomb from the 80's/90's, and I don't think anyone ever produced them in styrene.

Dear God the selection in that Short-Range AAM set is infuriating. Building anything modern would only use the AIM-9Ms and AIM-9Xs, and you could basically throw the rest of the set away. At least the long-range AAM set could almost outfit a Tomcat or an Eagle.

If you want a nice booth, or a box to make a plenum for your fan, check out the cheap pre-built cabinets at Home Depot/Lowes/etc. I bought a medicine cabinet that was actually cheaper than buying a sheet of plywood to make a box.

Huh... more than I thought. I don't suppose anyone makes conversion kits yet?

The newer Academy F-15E's are probably the best starting point. They have all the F-15E parts, plus the GE Engines and 6 different instrument panels, so you can have spares if you're scratchbuilding new ones. The tail parts and the triangular sensors under the cockpit are the big "missing" parts. Most older F-15 kits come with the outboard pylons, so those shouldn't be hard to find.

I use Sterilite drawers like these to hold my Tamiya and Model Master paints. You'd need something taller for Alclad paints. But these are cheap, sturdy, and you can pop them apart to add levels.

You don't even necessarily need to use black. For a white spaceship, for example, you could use a lighter gray so you don't need 900 coats of white paint to make it read as white. Or you could do a rusty undercoat under your paint coats. This could be handy for chipping the paint afterward. I love the look of black-basing, but it makes touching up nearly impossible, since you'll have to mix your touch-up paint to match the blended black/color look.

Your diorama looks awesome! I remember the first issue of FSM I ever bought had Lewis Pruneau's scratchbuilt 1/32 B-52D in a very similar diorama.