sigtau
-
Content Count
223 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Calendar
Posts posted by sigtau
-
-
42 minutes ago, thegoodsgt said:
I see that Hannants will stop shipping to the US at the end of the month.
That's one way to solve for this situation.
Their website says they are shutting down ordering for the USA while they upgrade their system to collect the tariffs.
-
5 hours ago, KursadA said:
I'm sorry. My inbox is full of angry e-mails; and I am busy responding to them. I promise the second batch will be ready as soon as possible, and I will contact some of you folks to set one aside for you.
Email sent concerning the set I received from the first batch of 10. I promise it's not angry.
-
So I've always found the Alclad Aqua Gloss clear to be an over-rated clear coat. It doesn't dry very hard and like you experienced, it doesn't do a good job of protecting anything from a wash. I have a large stock of Testors Acryl clear gloss that I use for coating over Alclad to protect it from hot lacquer clear coats like Mr. Color.
It's also worth noting that the Ammo washes....well....suck. They are enamel based paints just thinned down to appear to be washes. They are not based on the traditional artist oil paints. The pigmentation in them is very coarse. I drank the Ammo Kool-Aid years ago and bought a ton of them, along with their mediocre paints. It's just all marketing hype. Artist oil paints are far superior and much easier to use than the Ammo washes. I'm still using my old artist oil paint tubes from ~25 years ago. Most of my 5 year old Ammo washes have cured up hard in their bottles.
-
11 hours ago, Spruemeister said:
Since the Blackbox products were traditional cast resin, I image that the last molds are beyond their life expectancy. Who has the masters? Did they go with the new Squadron? Probably would be better to get someone to engineer 3D print on demand replacements for the RM Century series. I could see a decent demand for that. There’s a lot of them in stashes, and even though newer kits are out there, most of them are Trumpeter and are afflicted with their apathy regarding shape and correctness. (The Kinetic F-104s are a welcome exception) We modelers being mostly older still are nostalgically building RM releases and enjoying it.
Rick L.
Anything that was part of the "old" Squadron company was sold at bankruptcy auction. I know the ebay seller "racershaven" ended up buying most of the masters and then raffled them off for charity in the Facebook selling group called "Scale Model Graveyard". I don't know the person who won them and have no idea if they ever made anything of them. If I recall, it was at least all the True Details masters and possibly some of the redone Blackbox sets that were sold under the Avionix line. Jeff Verswijvel started KMC and eventually Black box, before working for the original Squadron through the end.
This video from the new Squadron has Jeff V. on it and he tells the whole story:
-
59 minutes ago, Alex.B said:
Pretty much all enamel based paints tend to yellow
Yeah, but you're not going to notice it when model master gunship gray yellows.
It also depends on if you used testors glosscoat/dullcoat on the build. I didn't start using it until the mid 90's and I wish I hadn't. Everything white I used it on yellowed badly. Luckily, I switched to acrylic clear coats in the late 90's.
-
It depends on several factors. Some of my older builds look like they were finished yesterday, some look like they are 50 years old. Here's what I've noticed about my older builds that are 30+ years old:
- Testors enamel based whites almost always develop some yellowing
- Clear coating over decals helps them not age as badly
- Tamiya paint holds up well at 35+ years
- Humidity swings + dust = badly caked on dust that can be hard to remove from a model
- Old Testors tube glue joints weaken with age
- CA joints seem to hold up well and the seams don't reappear over time
- Hasegawa plastic can get very brittle over time (easy to spot before building, sprues turn a gray-yellow color)
-
On 5/2/2025 at 5:30 AM, eraucubsfan said:
I took a chance and ordered some F-15 engines from him, and here is a timeline. Overall, though, I am happy and received my product in a relatively timely manner
April 8th order placed
April 15th I sent a follow-up email asking about the order
April 19th, Mike responded and said that another set had to be produced and it would ship that day
Not sure the actual day I got the parts, but it was about a week later, which is about right for shipping
I did eventually get my order around the 2nd week of March. It turns out the USPS package drop he was using wasn't being checked by USPS. Mike threw in a ton of extra items to make up for the original delay with Paypal payments not working for him.
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt since it all worked out in the end. Not to mention, his products are actually quite good. His PW nozzle for the Kinetic Gold F-16 series is amazing and I'm looking forward to several builds using them. His F-16A early pylons are also excellent. Print quality is on par with Eduard or Reskit.
-
I live in Washington state and we've had to deal with this sale tax thing for about 10 years. While I understand that US based companies have no choice but to follow the law, I would be very suspect of a foreign company collecting state sales tax. I wouldn't count on those tax payments actually making it to the state coffers.
If a transaction is through Ebay, then the money is probably going to make it to where it needs to go since they were forced to collect it for sellers several years back.
As a side note, I had an EU based model company try to charge me EU VAT. It took a bunch of back and forth messages before they admitted it was more work for them to not collect the VAT, so they just collect it on all sales, even those outside the EU. This makes me very suspect with tax collection and online ordering.
-
-
This is shaping up to be a very complete update set!
I'm not sure if you have finalized your support layout, but some of the parts have defects that would indicate inadequate supports. The launch rails and some of the afterburner parts have a wavy finish to them. It looks like they are moving around quite a bit during the printing process.
-
This kit seems to continue to elude me. PM me if you have one to sell or trade.
-
-
17 minutes ago, KursadA said:
I will take a look at it. There were a number of prepackaged Pave Tacks so I might have shipped it separately. This is probably not the right place to sort it out though - could you please send me an email?
OK, got it, email sent.
Edit: Forgot to mention the Pave Tack set arrived in perfect shape with no breakages. The packaging was bulletproof.
-
On 3/1/2025 at 4:11 AM, KursadA said:
I am still shipping them - please be patient, it will take a while.
It looks like I counted the inventory incorrectly and I have about 15 or so available. I will re-enable the order link today.
Question about combined shipping. I placed three separate orders for three different update sets (one Pave Tack pod, two standard F-16 upgrade sets, and two WAR HUD upgrade sets) I got ship notifications for all three resin orders w/ one tracking number. One package arrived with just the Pave Tack pod set in it, so it looks like maybe the F-16 sets got missed?
Or are you shipping everything separately?
I also got a ship notification and tracking number for the decals I ordered. I'm assuming the F-16 sets won't be packaged with the decals.
-
On 1/28/2025 at 12:48 AM, C5flyer62 said:
I’m having the same issue. Ordered a product from him on January 9 2025 didn’t hear from him until January 15 saying it was gonna be mailed on the 16th since then crickets so have I’ve been had or what cause I can’t get a hold of this guy.
Tom
Did you ever receive your order?
Mike finally responded to me on 1/29, telling me he had issues with being evacuated for the wild fires. That sucks, no problem. Paypal had returned the payment by that point, but he had already packed the order. He directed me to re-submit the order using the regular CC payment option. I didn't really think anything of it since he came through on my last order. After re-submitting the order, crickets for another week or two.
I had to ping him a couple times before he finally responded with a tracking number on 2/13, saying it would be picked up the next day. It's now been two weeks and the tracking still shows waiting for drop off. Also worth noting the tracking number was created on Dec 27th.
I sent yet another email on 2/22 asking what's going on with the tracking not showing it moving through the USPS system yet.....again crickets.
So in summary, he packed my original order quickly within two days of the original order in December, purchased a label for it, but for whatever reason, he hasn't managed to not get it dropped off at the post office for two months.
Absolutely terrible service. This was a large order, around $156. I'm giving him until Monday 3/3 to respond, then I'm going to dispute the charge with my CC company.
-
I use Mr Hobby GX clear coats. Thin with self leveling thinner. Flows out great, super glossy finish that is much tougher than Aqua Gloss.
If any of the base colors are Alcad high shine, I clear those with either aqua gloss or model master acryl clear gloss. I bought a huge stock pile of acryl clear gloss, so I'm set for life at this point.
Also worth noting, MRP acrylic lacquers can stain from weathering oils if not clear coated. I tried weathering without a clear coat with their paint and it nearly ended badly. Also, their clear finishes are nice, but artist oils will stain them as well.
-
8 hours ago, KursadA said:
A couple photos of the WARHUD part - it is the same set as 503 with the BLOS tail, but with a block 40/42 front panel and now HUD glass:
That WAR HUD frame looks great. I would love to see this and the non-WAR HUD IP released in the legacy non-CDU config. I have dozens of older schemes that I'd love to build with such a nice 3D printed part.
-
6 hours ago, C5flyer62 said:
I’m having the same issue. Ordered a product from him on January 9 2025 didn’t hear from him until January 15 saying it was gonna be mailed on the 16th since then crickets so have I’ve been had or what cause I can’t get a hold of this guy.
Tom
I eventually received my order from back in October, and then placed another order in late Dec. Several emails requesting a status and still nothing.
His products are actually really good, which is why I decided to order more. But at this point, it might be safer to buy from one of his distributers like the48ers.com.
-
On 1/24/2025 at 8:57 AM, KursadA said:
The F-16 update set (and the new variant with WARHUD for Block 40/42) is back in stock and I will enable orders pretty soon. Like the last time, I only have 100 of each and will not have any more in the next couple of months - get ready to order yours to get your Tamiya F-16C up to the current USAF standard.
Any update on when the links will be enabled?
-
1 hour ago, Dutch said:
And ordered! I also asked Arnaud if he can scale the nose probe down to 1/72 scale. He replied that it may be difficult due to the thinness of the plastic. We will see.
K/r,.Dutch
Even in 1/48, the details on the probe are very tiny. I'm going to use mine on a streak eagle build and that probe will be prepped and painted after the rest of the kit is already finished and on the shelf.
-
On 1/10/2025 at 5:59 AM, Curt B said:
While I can’t speak on the subject of accuracy to reality, your experience with your Academy A-10 is completely different than mine. Perhaps Academy’s moldings are degrading, but I encountered none of the issues that you had; mine went together almost perfectly. I have both of the GWH A-10A and 10C kits also, but haven’t built them yet. I hope the builds go as easily as my Academy build went.
It's possible I got a bad kit. I had issues with the Kinetic Gold F-16C retooled kit and there were definitely manufacturing problems with my copy (confirmed by the owner on this forum).
While there were across the board fit issues I encountered with the Academy kit, the major issues were the joints between the fuselage sections. The slide molded aft fuselage was far to narrow to match up to the nose section. There's a bulkhead piece used to join the two, and it fit fine into the tail but the nose halves were to wide. To solve this issue, I removed material from the top joint just behind the cockpit. I also had to remove material from the bottom nose panel to get the bottom edges to align with the tail section. A similar issue occurred with the slide molded nose cone. I opted to reshape the outside surface of the cockpit section to blend into the nose cone. Even though I didn't change the geometry of the windscreen joints to the cockpit section, it's still too wide and will need to be blended into the sides.
Everyone is going to have a different standard as to what makes a good fitting kit. I think this kit was overengineered with too much slide molding. It reminds me of the AMK F-14D kit. It looks good sitting in the box, but the over-engineered design makes assembly difficult. It's also worth noting that all of the slide molded parts on my kit had really pronounced steps where the mold sections came together. This made the clean-up process very tedious in the areas around the rivet details.
I haven't built my GWH A-10 kits yet, but their sectioned approach seems like it would avoid some of these issues with the slide molding steps.
-
10 hours ago, Alternative 4 said:
At twice the price of the Academy kit the GWH kit better be accurate, fit well and have amazing decails
The Academy kit is none of those things, so yes the GWH kit is worth it.
There's no amount of aftermarket upgrades that can fix all the issues the Academy kit has. Academy clearly rushed this kit out the door to beat GWH to market.
The worst part of the Academy kit is the fit. The vast majority of the major fuselage assembly requires extensive fitment tweaking to achieve even a mediocre fit. The entire forward fuselage fit was off. It's too wide on the aft joint with the slide molded rear fuselage by ~0.5mm. Even the engine pod fit to the aft slide molded fuselage part was off and required carving away plastic to get it to set right. The forward nose components and nose gear bay also require heavy fitment work to avoid steps in the joints.
-
5 hours ago, Planegeek said:
Thanks, the Kinetic kit was on sale, and comes with some nice decals for reserve jets. I was just going to try to use decals I already had for TJ jets I worked. I was also at Hahn which did have Block 25s, but the only decals for those I've seen are inaccurate. But the 80s are getting a little hazy in spots...
I ordered a Fab intake and we'll see how it fits.
That aftermarket intake is only the duct, you still need the outer parts of the big mouth intake from the Kinetic big mouth kit.
-
On 12/29/2024 at 10:48 AM, kozlok said:
Let us know when the preorder goes live. I am NOT missing out on the Early Years F-15.
Does anyone know of an aftermarket nose probe for the prototypes/Streak Eagle?
Bam Models makes an early F-15A conversion that includes the probe:
WTB: Caracal 1/144 C-141 decals
in Buy and sell - add scale to your title
Posted
Looking for this sheet, shoot me a PM if you have one to sell.