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Miccara

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Posts posted by Miccara

    Maple Flag - Alberta

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    That would be me! Check your PM's sir, I messaged you days ago!

    What a fun trip- and very nice to meet you.

    Hi Chuck!

    Listen, it was great meeting and speaking to you. I've gone through your stuff and let me say... you are one of those sick bastards I could never compete with! lol!

    Maple Flag - Alberta

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Were you part of the 100 person tour last week? I use to help the PA with the media tours of the flightline during Flag.

    I retired in 2007, my last 6 months were with 409 Sqdn. My best 7 years were with 416.

    Yes... it was a blast!

    AMT 1:12 1937 Cord, Supercharged 812

    in Work in Progress

    Posted

    Jack, Jack, Jack my friend.... I forgot all about your part... it's in my desk drawer and I will start it this week and get it to you! lol! I was so happy to finish that friggin' F4, I forgot about it! Although I didn't finish the F4 until pretty much the end of February... about 3 months longer than I estimated.

    Larry

    How to do a good paintjob

    in Tools 'n' Tips

    Posted

    This is my good-intentioned, well meaning, friendly advice...

    If you have made the commitment to build then make the commitment to buy an airbrush. I recommend gravity fed dual action. There is going to be a lot of different opinions on this and you can make your own choice. Mine is dual action, gravity fed. You can get a decent one for $100 or less, of course now you need to buy a compressor. This is another story, cheap one $50 - $100. Good one, around $250. Save, save, save. They are worth it in the long run. If you plan on buying canned propellant to power your airbrush for the first few uses - well that I can understand. After that, if you are not saving for a compressor then you are a foolish person. Canned propellant is outrageously expensive, provides no control, and will run out at exactly the worst possible time. Compressor is (technically) FREE AIR, on-going, unrestricted, adjustable FREE air. Free air means cleaning your airbrush in 90 seconds.

    No, you don’t need an airbrush to paint a model. You just need an airbrush to make it look the best it can. You can if you like hand paint it, and get a pretty good looking kit. It will never look as good as an airbrushed one does (angry emails coming my way now), but I understand your apprehension. Maybe it will help if I point out a few things.

    (a) You do not need to be an artist or possess artist talent to use an airbrush successfully.

    (B) They are not really that expensive

    © It is easy to learn and use

    (d) I’ll bet you’ll be happy with the results the first time you use it

    (e) They are not messy

    (f) They clean easily

    The most important thing to come to grips with is; you do not need to be an artist or possess artist talent to use an airbrush successfully. It is just another tool in your toolbox, sitting there with your hammer and screwdriver or in this case, your art knife and glue. I am the most untalented artist in the world. I can’t draw stickmen with any believability. This doesn’t hinder my ability to airbrush a model. Really, you will never regret going that route.

    Painting parts

    in Tools 'n' Tips

    Posted

    I guess the part I find the most humorous about this is people are constantly say to me... "Wow, I just don't have the patience to build something that takes 3 months to do" or something like that... and all us here have probably heard the same thing... give or take. Yet when I think about all the patience it really does take to make a good model, it make me snicker when a guys here says "I'm too lazy to scrap the paint off" which AT BEST might take 30 seconds to do, and most likely 10 seconds! 4 hours to make seat belts out of tape and wire... no problem. Scrapping paint off... THAT's too much work... that's where I'm drawing the line!

    Thinning MM Acryl with laquer thinner

    in Tools 'n' Tips

    Posted

    Why are you using the Acrylics if you find MM enamels superior? Smell and toxicity?

    I don't find them superior, just easier. Enamels are really no problem, add a little thinner... spray away, no adhesion issues... never turn to a yogurt like goo on the end of your airbrush... I love them really. I use the acrylics for a few reasons... (a) Guilt-ed by the masses (B) I find the paint finish nicer © allows me to use enamels as washes, which I really, really like.

    Help needed with gluing long seams

    in Tools 'n' Tips

    Posted · Edited by Miccara

    Hi,

    I just got back into aircraft model building after stopping back in Primary school (36 now). I am starting off with the Trumpeter A-10A N/AW 1/32nd scale model and a Tamiya ME-262 1/48th scale, and I am basically almost as green as can be. I did a 1/48th MIG-29 halfway a few years ago with guidance from some old hands, so I learnt that there are more ways to attached parts than just superglue...

    So I was introduced to Tamiya Extra Thin Cement. Now, on the A-10 I am in the process of attaching the tail section parts, see pic attached and my question is, what is the best way to glue such a long seam (10 centimetres)?

    jsp0yp.jpg

    Hi Cobus,

    If I may suggest... you will get a lot out of this PDF download. Go to http://www.2shared.com/file/8704001/fd67e639/Master-P47PDF1.html type in 151555 as the password and click on the BLUE download button.

    Larry

    Let me know if you find it helpful...

    Elmers glue as a filler?

    in Tools 'n' Tips

    Posted

    I find it good to fill in wing filet gaps,providing they are not wide gaps.

    I used Blu-Tack to fill the wing root gaps on a plane about a year ago. After filling it, I used a piece of bamboo dipped in hot water to smooth over the gap. Painted the kit and to this day, you can't tell... no cracks, nothing... so far. But boy it was easy to do and hasn't shrunk.

    Spraying Future

    in Tools 'n' Tips

    Posted

    I stopped spraying Future a couple years ago.

    I found nothing beats a brush. 1" or so in with, top quality, very soft. There is a very small learning curve to brushing Future, but I find it to be by far, the best way. Just personal preference i guess.

    Hobbycraft Canada

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Opps... forgot my comments!

    I just could never drum up a sympathy for HC. To me they were the definition of corporate arrogance. I don't care how rare the subject was it was an embarrassment at how inaccurate and sloppy the kits were - and they did not care... as is evident by there total disregard of the complaints and inquires of hobbyists over the years. If you produce crap, you SHOULD go out of business. Some are not going to agree with me, and I'll probably get the usual "There are no bad kits, just bad builders" line... but really, it's not like their kits were $10. I paid some good cash for kits from them that were no joy to build. Listen, I don't mind a challenge - but some of them were just ridiculous.

    Hobbycraft Canada

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    This is too bad. It was Canada's one and only model kit manufacture (save for the garage kit folks). But also not at all unexpected. I'm more surprised they lasted as long as they did.

    I really don't think economy had anything to do with their demise. Because they were heavy with Canadian Content, there are government programmes available that would have helped them if it was truly an economic problem.

    It was the quality (or lack of) of their kits that killed them. The 1:48 Tutor screamed for a full detail cockpit and they gave us two armchairs and a stick. I spent more time building out the cockpit than I did building the rest of the kit. And gees do you think they could have had a bigger box? That Tutor box is massive and the parts trees take up barely half of it. The cost of shipping boxes that large alone would drive a company out of business.

    The Arrow kit, even after being retooled, was still inaccurate in so many places it boggled the mind. From the general profile, to the detail of the landing gear, to the shape of the nose, and all dimensions of the wing, there was just about nothing accurate with the kit.

    Really, it just proved to me that the Arrow product manager was some dude in Asia that just didn't care. The instructions looked like they were drawn by the 5 year old that lives next door. And lets face it, Hobbycraft was charging $50 for the kit because it was the Arrow. The kit was in no way worth that save for it being the only kit available of a subject that is iconic in this country. If that had been an F4 Phantom, it would have been about $25. As much of an ArrowHead as I am, I could just not justify spending over $50 on a kit I knew had so many flaws. I purchased one for $20 at a flea market (still shrinkwrapped) and proceeded to spend $50 on after-market resin parts to add some level of accuracy greater than zero. But I just could never bring myself to spend $50+ on the base kit more than once.

    The CF-100 was a great little kit in 1:72 but the 1:48 was lacking detail of any kind. I have one 1:48 kit Clunk and I'm really afraid now to build it because I know I'll never get another.

    In both cases there were vastly superior 1:72 scale CF-100 and CF-105 vacu-formed kits available, but hobbycraft flooded the market with cheap injection kits and forced Victoria Products and Astra out of business.

    The decals in all their kits are just junk. The F2H Banshee kit I have has the red maple leaf actually overlapping the blue of the roundel. That's how out of register those decals are. I'm sure 90% of CanMilAir's sales go to people needing to replace their kit decals.

    The Bluenose kit was not too bad if you stood way back. But it was not accurate and properly detailed for a ship model of that scale. The hull lines don't match up at all against scaled drawings and the only real detail provided by the kit is the ships wheel.

    If Hobbycraft had built kits that were compatible in quality to Hasegawa, or Academy, or heck, even Monogram, then I don't think we're having this conversation. But people bought one Arrow to say they built an icon, realized it was a very bad kit and never bought another. But how many Hasegawa F-18's have people built? I'm sure a heck of a lot more even though they are pretty pricey.

    Oh well, I guess I'm going to have to make a hobby shop run today and buy a couple of Tutors and hope there's a CF-100 left.

    Jet Exhaust

    in Jet Modeling

    Posted

    As a die hard prop guy, I'm lost when it comes to painting jet exhaust. I'm build a 1/32 F4 for a friend and have aftermarket exhausts for it. I need a build article that shows the painting process. Can you link me to one?

    Thanks folks!

    What paints to start with?

    in Tools 'n' Tips

    Posted

    I use three types, enamels, acrylics and water colours. My problem with acrylics is they can be much more difficult to use. They start drying on the end of your airbrush while spraying, creating a wonderful yogurt concoction. Also once dry they can be very hard to remove. That’s okay on a model but not so good for the inside of an airbrush. Folks will write in to say “just add a few drops of alcohol, distilled water, thinner, stabilizer, enhancer, cleaner, etc. etc.†and “you’ll have no problemsâ€. I’ve been on the ARC website for a long time and I can tell you with confidence that if you search for all the articles about “How do I solve my acrylics and airbrushing problem†you’d be reading for a week straight, and still not really know the answer. What I do like about acrylics is the fact they tend to cover much better. I find the prep work has to be much better as well with acrylics or the possibility of the paint coming off with your masking, is pretty real.

    With enamels the cleanup is easy and they dry quickly on the model - even though I can sit with a cup of paint in my airbrush, re-mask an area for 5 minutes then pick up the airbrush and continue, very difficult to do with most acrylics. Enamels smell a bit but acrylics can have a hell of an odor too, as far as I’m concerned. I have moved to Tamiya Acrylics for 95% of what I do but if your new, there are a lot of issues and things to learn. I can tackle acrylic problems because they are the only problems I have to deal with while building and painting a kit. I think you will lessen your grief factor substantially if you just start out with enamels in your airbrush. Model Master is the enamel brand I use.

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