Skyking

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Looking great so far Pete. I can see this is definaltey the way to go on complex shapes. Just a small sugestion, when you apply your bondo, get yourself a few small rubber squeegees and use those to smooth on the bondo. It'll squish out most of the air bubbles,plus you can get it close to the final shape and it'll save you a ton of sanding. (and dust, which I'm sure will make Ms. Pete very happy) Keep up the great work Pete. Cheers Mike

Hi Rocky thanks for stopping by. Yep I agree, however I think if I had the means to afford the new GT, I'd spend it instead on one of the top grade GT-40 replicas and go for a '66 MkII, which I think are the essence of the '40's. The new ones are still a great car, and I think of all the retro styling, Ford does it better than anyone, although the Dodge Challenger looks pretty good too. I was a bit dissapointed at the new Camaro. IMHO I think Chevrolet could have done better in the styling of that one. The front looks weird to me, and the sides are way too high in relation to the roofline.

I've started the engine nacelles and the supporting strut work that suspends them under the wings. To make sure everything is the same dimension and uniform with each other, I made a jig to hold everything in place while I cut struts to fit. The jig is nothing more than a hunk of birch ply scrap (no expensive hardwood this time Bob ;)) with reference lines drawn on for my Main Center Line, the wing edges and Lead Edge, centerline of each nacelle, and strut locating holes. These were squared off with a small Tee Square to ensure accuracy and parallelism. Once I had the lines drawn, I had to mo

Wow I really had to blow the dust off this one..lol. *Sneeze* Timmy, Guy, Rocky, Mareku, Thanks for the comments guys. I hope to have the PE back done in about a week so I can begin putting the interior bits together and get this flying garden shed together. I've begun the jig to rig the outter nacelles and get the struts cut to length and I've taken some pictures along the way. I'll post a few later this weekend as time allows. Thanks for following along. Admittedly this part of the build is pretty ho-hum, but there's better stuff coming on the horizon. Cheers Mike

You know Guy... at one point in time I used to like you.. . Seriously this is great stuff. If one didn't know better you'd swear your looking at the real deal, or at least a much bigger scale. Your attention to the most minutre detail is what really sets your models apart. Cheers Mike

Great work Pete. Love the idea of tracing that ridge out before sanding so you have a visial reference. I'll keep that in mind for my next project. Scrap the idea of expandable foam. Been there done that got the tee shirt and it don't fit for beans. The stuff never really stops expanding for a long time, and eventually will "grow" bigger than you want it and push your master completely out of proportion. It's not controllable either. Your approach is sure thing and like you say, bulletproof. I think you'll find you may have to go over the bondo with a glaze putty to fill pinholes and give a

In between bits and pieces of the Ford I've managed to throw this little beast together - Planet Models resin 1/48th scale Hughes H1 Racer, the Long Wing version. I built it straight from the box, the only addition I made was the cover over the instrument panel, as the kit part didn't fit for beans. Paint is Insignia Blue Model Master enamel with 4 coats of clear, wet sanded then polished, and I used Alclad Chrome for the fuselage, as the real aircraft was a very highly polished airplane. I used Silvaire Aluminum dope on the rudder and elevators, as they were fabric covered. This li

HUGE improvement over the kit parts Guy. Your attention to the minutest detail is what sets your builds apart. Great work. Cheers Mike

Great work Pete, although I don't see anything wrong with your first attempt either..lol. Cheers Mike

BOC, Pete, thanks for the comments. I have the Master completed and ready for casting, which I hope to get accomplished this weekend. On to some other areas, I have the artwork done for the PE, and I will be making the trip to beautiful downtown Erieville NY to deliver it to the Master of PE himself, Fred at Foto-cut. I think Fred's PE is the easiest to work with. It doesn't come on a fret like the others, but adhered to a rubber carrier film. A little lacquer thinner dabbed on with a brush instantly releases it from the carrier, and theres none of those annoying little nubs to deal with from

Wow that's fantastic work Timmy. That crunching sound you hear in the background is me stepping on every model I've ever built in the last 10 years..lol. (kidding) The tabs on the bottoms of the wing in stabs I am assuming are "built - in" alignment and dihedral tabs that will get trimmed off when skinning commences? Great idea. That'll ensure spot on alignment. I notice the templates for the interior for the side panels and Instrument panel. Will you be rendering them also? This is so cool to watch come together. Cheers Mike

Way cool Pete. Unfortunately I do not have an eye phone but a phone named after a small berry that is black in color. (Stupid SPAM filters) There's also a scale conversion calculator for PC based applications you can load directly to your PC, called Scale-Calc. I use it fairly often, although it doesn't go into the same amount of detail this does, you can "size" different parts on the Scale Values tab. The Author is Frank Crenshaw and you can email him directly at: crenshaw@bresnan.net . Looking great on the Talon Pete. Cheers Mike

Well the exhaust collector didn't tun out to be as bad as I thought it would be. As I was sitting at my bench I glanced at one of the extra sprues that my engines came on, and had a minor brain Low Pressure Area. The rear of the crankcase is molded with intake tubes in place. I said to myself "Self... why not take that part, flip it around 180 degrees and do some minor reshaping and turn it into an exhaust collector?" Not knowing if it would work or not, I began whacking plastic. Here is the part I am referring to. It's actually the rear of the crankcase. I thinned it down by removing that

Great work Guy. What I really appreciate about your work is that it's consistent. You don't have a couple of areas that are extremely detailed and well painted, while others look like they got just a brush over. Everything is detailed, everything is well painted and decaled, and when it all comes together it looks uniform and consistent. That's where the realism comes in and sets your builds apart. In one of your posts above you were debating about adding more weathering. My suggestion would be to wait until the bird is mostly together, then weather the areas that look anemic, and perhaps ton

Great work Pete. You can really see the shape of the airframe coming alive as you add more formers. I would still reccomend Ren-Shape instead of wood to fill in the voids. It's sands easier than the plastic, so you can sand right to your formers with minimal risk of removing too much material and altering the shape of the former. I think I might have enough leftovers from the Tri I could send you if you want to try it. I assume you will whack the wings and flying surfaces out of solid plastic and then skin them? They look to be pretty thin. Cheers Mike

Hey Pete, Thanks for stopping by. Yeah that's the way I'm leaning but we'll see. I'm thinking of vac-forming the ring in two halves to get the flange on the inner part, then adding solder for the individual pipes, and filling it in with Mr. Surfacer. Do it three times and I'll have them. It's going to be a ton of work no matter what I do though, so I'll jump in and git er done. Hi FL. That certainly is an interesting idea. I could make a crash test dummy and try it and see how it works before I commit my final pieces. It might save me a ton of time in finishing. Thanks for the suggesti

Looks great John. Very hard to believe this is a vac kit. Your paintwork is very convincing. As Guy said the SS on the intake looks the real deal. I'm looking forward to the next install. Cheers Mike

Hey Guy thanks for the visit. Here's what I am faced with on the exhaust: The exhaust collector is a large donut on the front of the engine. My plan at this point is to turn a master from Renshape and vacuform it in two halves, then add individual pipes from solder of appropriate diameter. If you have other suggestions I am all ears. (eyes?) Thanks Pete. You know after looking at your T-38 and how you are going together with that, that is just the bees knees. I thought of scrapping what I have on this so far and redoing it, but I am so far along on it now it would be a waste, so I'll plo

Aha. I see how you are doing it now. When we spoke on the phone I was under the assumption you were having the plastic laser cut, but it's a template. I will be following along on this one Pete. If it turns out as great as it looks like it's going, I may be tempted to scrap what I have done on the Ford so far and give it another go this way. Old School techniques are OK, but there's no way they give the results that CAD technology can do. This is modeling at its finest. I would still recommend RenShape for the filler blocks Pete. Depending on how much you need I might have some extra I can spa

Pete, Guy, Holmes, Gregg and Karl, thanks for the comments. Pete I will get your drawings out tomorrow. I went to the PO today, forgetting it was Presidents day here in the US, and they were closed, so I'll head over tomorrow. Hiya Anthony. Yep I'll give you a call in March for the next meeting, which I think is Monday March 1st. Welcome back to Rochester, hope you had a nice holiday back home. Hi Mike. Yes it is. I have two others of his also, the smaller B Mustang and the Corsair, the same size as the large Mustang. They will get hung over in my study when I get that finished. It's be

Hey Jim, Frank and Rocky, thanks for stopping by and the well wishes. The last 6 weeks have been spent doing a makeover on my modeling room. I had to take a couple of weeks off with the pulled groin muscles, so after I was up and around I spent pretty much every spare minute after work and on weekends to get caught up and get it done. That's the main reason I have been pretty much absent from the Forum, but I have been keeping track of all the great builds over the past few weeks. It's not 100% finished yet, I have to hang the bifold doors on the one closet, plus do some final painting on t

Oh sure Timmy. Where were you when I started my Trimotor?.. Seriously this is great stuff, as the drawback to drawings I have worked with in the past is that the cross section profiles are pretty scant, if there at all. With this tool it appears you can create them from any point of the airframe you want. Between your wizzardry with this program and Pete's bulding skills, this T-38 should be a show stopper. Cheers Mike

OK the bar is raised even higher. Wow I thought I went "hi-tech" by converting over to Ren-Shape from basswood. I believe I will convert the Tri-motor to kindling after seeing this... Very interesting procedure Pete. I will be following this one with great interest. Cheers Mike

Thanks for the comments everyone. My apologies for not acknowledging them sooner. I had a minor accident at home thanks to black ice in the driveway. My right foot went one direction, my left when 180 in the other, and my legs spread as far as my old tight muscles would let them plus a little more. Scott Hamilton I am not, (thankfully) and since the male anatomy was never designed to do a proper split, it's a little difficult walking around right now. Thank goodness "the boys" are fine, but you never realize how much you use your groin muscles until they hurt..lol. Hi Jim. Good question. I