Cloud in the Wind

Hi all, I’ve heard many modelers post about blue-tac or “blue tacky“ or a putty that they use to hold parts for paint, masking, or assembly work. is there a particular brand I should shop for? I don’t want to be mistaken and buy something that won’t release or will leave a residue.

I’m afraid the 30 year-old decals of my Shanghai Dragon F-117 has discolored and probably won’t survive the water bath. So I’m looking for options to replace them on my current build.

Well, I was warned and I tried to adjust, but when I went to apply the kit decals to my Attack Squadron RQ-8B firescout the color of the decals blended right into my lightened gull grey paint. Not only that, but two of the first four decals disintegrated as I transferred them. I feel that I’m left With the only option to scan/recreate the sheet - with a darker coloring and print them myself. So I’d like your advice on decal paper. I’ve been burnt by false ratings on amazon, so I’d rather trust fellow modelers when I can.

Wow thanks a lot DNL! That was way faster than I expected. Truthfully I got my kit off eBay and along with no instructions, the kit had lots of damage. But with few options now that they aren’t in production any longer, I worked with what I had. PM sent.

I could really use some guidance on the rotor assembly of Attack Squadron's Hunter UAV drone. If anyone has gone down the road to build this before, hopefully you can lend some help. From what I can tell from this photo of the instructions, the 3D printed part is the central hub to which the rotors attach. This part fits onto the rotor shaft which drops into the fuselage. Except, my rotor shaft has this three pointed structure on the top, and I have this extra piece which looks like the collective pitch control. Do the directions skip a part/step? I think the shaft attaches to the collective then to the hub. Am I right?

I’m struggling with my build of the MQ-8b Fire Scout from Attack Squadron. The flimsiness of some of the resin bits are sending me ‘round the bend. Im hoping someone is sitting on a kit, or has one they started and gave up on building. Let me know what you’ve got so I can have a parts kit or maybe start over from scratch now that I know what-not-to-do.

Nudge.

That’s a reasonable idea Cruiz. I’m going to give it a shot with a could layers of Elmer’s white clue.

Hey all, I'm building my 48th scale RQ-4b and I noticed in my reference photos that the main gear oleo is actually filled in. It is modeled by Stealth Models with an empty space as shown in the picture below. This is a small part, so I'm not convinced that putty is the best solution to fill the gap. What are your recommendations?

I’m hunting the internet for an MQ-1C Gray Eagle. The fuselage is just different enough from a Predator that I don’t think I could scratch one into existence. And the name is to close to the predator and the F15 to google successfully. Anyone know where I can look or have a Gray Eagle for me to buy?

Has anyone seen or heard of a kit of the MQ-5 Hunter? The only thing I've found - other than the outrageous wooden kits on ebay - is a resin kit designed by unicraft (http://www.unicraft.biz/on/hunter/hunter.htm) and available on an ebay store called "Scotts Model's here in the USA. But, that kit is in 72nd scale and I'd kind of like to stay consistent with my other builds of UAVs. I even dug around in shapeways to see if someone had sent them a design but got nowhere.

Hey Rob, thanks for the interest. It looks like your building Italeri's version. It's coming along nice. Most of my model building is in paper card models - in fact mostly unmanned satellites and spacecraft. I found a designer who designed an RQ-170 in 72nd scale, probably modeled off of Italeri's. His kit can be found as a free download via paper-replika.com and on the designers BlogSpot. Anyhow its easier to upscale a paper model than a plastic so that's what I've been working on. However, his design wasn't as I'mcoming along as easily as I'd liked and the increase in size was creating some blurred graphics. So I began to redesign the model on my own. I've gathered graphics from youtube videos and images - trying hard to stay away from the Iranians as I'm not convinced that what they're showing is an unaltered craft. I've gotten enough that I can feel more comfortable about the position of most parts and graphics. By the way, a reply by a fellow member and a digital caliper have confirmed a 1" height or approximately 100pt Font in Arial Black or 2.5pt in 1/48th scale. Arial black looks best when printed on my setup. I've yet to find the font type, but that's fine, the scale and printer settings limits what looks good in real life. I'm still tweaking the inner support structure, wing spars a plenty. This is an early prototype. Obviously I'm savings on details of other exterior parts and ink until I've things better dialed in.

I’m curious if anyone is familiar with the font and size of USAF aircraft stencils. Especially the NO STEP stencils on many aircraft including my subject ... the RQ170 I’m creating my own at 1/48th scale and want to be sure that I’m in the right ballpark size.

Thanks DNL! The Center Finder and Jig are definitely going on my Valentines wish list. For the small diameter or this piece and the fact that its already somewhat assembled, I needed a different approach. What worked best (not perfect mind you) for me this time was the following. I started by drilling a hole smaller than the dia of my part in a block of wood. I didn't have a 7/16" drill bit. Then I swapped to a reamer to chamfer that hole large enough to fit my part. Then I strapped my part into the shaped hole and stabbed away. Video will be forthcoming of the result. I needed to get the motor mounted in its cowling to make the final micro adjustments. Hope it all holds together.