Skyking

Hi Indian, I believe this is the aircraft you are refering to? The fuselage would have been "Curtiss Blue" which in essence is a lighter shade of Insignia Blue. It was the same blue used on the Page Racer and a few other Curtiss aircraft of that era. The scallops on the cowl I believe were White, with light blue pinstriping on the edges. The big mystery will be the wings and tail colors, but I believe they were Aluminum Dope or enamel. I have a few more resources at home I can check to see if there's any more info on it. Cheers Mike

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments. Jim it's 350th scale, YS Masterpieces kit. And I will probably enter it. I don't get many finished in a year so I am almost forced to, or else I won't have anything to put on the table...lol. 71RR thanks for the info on that. Philly isn't that far from me. I think I see a road trip in my future. Well she's definitely on the downhill side. From the last picture it really doesn't look like much was added, but there was a ton of stuff. All the lifeboats and launches, some .40 cals on the fly bridge, more railings and all of the gun turrets are now in place

Hi Mike, That's a great shot. What I like about this era is it was during the cross over from sail to steam, and the old and new were mixed together. Your picture illustrates it perfectly with the modern look of the hull and propulsion, yet there are two masts with crows nests, yards and rigging. It looks almost as the designer wasn't sure if he was building a steamer or a sailing ship. Tradition gives way slowly in any Navy. Thanks for posting and following along. Hello Holmes, Thank you also for following along. This has been a very enjoyable build so far. I've gotten quite a bit done o

Hi Holmes, Thnaks for stopping by and checking up. I'm also working on this in between the Oregon and the Boeing. I've got the wings attached and right now I'm doing all the boring stuff of filling seams and sanding filler. Stuff that's about as exciting to look at as watching grass grow. Once I get into the riveting and panel line making I'll post some updates. It won't be long. Cheers Mike

Thank you everyone, I appreciate the comments. Jim don't worry, I picked the base for that exact reason. I thought the red tinted cherry gave a nice contrast with the red hull bottom and white super structure. I'll just clean it up a bit, shoot a couple of more coats of clear gloss lacquer on it and it'll be done. What can I say? YS Masterpieces makes some kick-butt kits. These are simply, the BEST resin ship kits out there. This is not to diminish some of the others that are out there, but these are the best in my opinion. Everything fits. The PE fits, the resin fits, there's no fitting, tri

I'm hooked on ships. Since I finished Saratoga, I wanted to do another. I've always liked the Great White Fleet era, so I started looking around to see what was available. A friend of mine had this YS Masterpieces kit available, so we agreed on a price and I brought it home. I let it set for a couple months before I got to it, as I wanted to finish up Sara first. After that was finished and I got well along on the Devastator, I got this down and began work on it. It's a beauty of a kit, considering it's resin. I've done my share of resin kits - all airplanes - so I knew what I was in for, but

Lucien, As stated both Roll models and Aeroclub carry it. The struts come in varying thicknesses and widths in a pack. From previous experience you would be wise to get three or four packs and you should be set. Regarding shipping, although Alex makes a good point, I've had nothing but super service from Aeroclub. I live in Upstate NY, and I have had my order in as few as 4 days from the UK. John provides a great service at Roll Models, and I've ordered from him in the past, but (unless his business practices have changed recently) he doesn't carry stock, but orders the goods and ships as ne

Hi Holmes, Thanks for following along. The glue will be fine, as it was intended simply to hold everything in place until the cuffs, which are solid epoxy, cured and held everything in place. I have a feeling that the struts themselves would fail before the joints will, as they are all embedded in epoxy and are very strong. Hi Chuk, thanks for stopping by. The maddening thing about this whole project is the references are skimpy at best. I have four decent pictures to work from, a line profile drawing, and that's it. There were no drawings or references of the specific floats, but I do have

Beautiful results Chuk, and a fascinating and educational tutorial. Seeing how you do your weathering techniques has answered a lot of questions I've had. I'd say of all the tutorials I've read, yours has been far and away the best. Thanks for sharing your techniques. I hope my Devastator turns out 1/10th as nice as your Beast. Cheers Mike

Hi Tim, Can I say DUH now? I never put two and three together, with your name being Tim and the photos being labeled the"Hortman Collection", but when I saw where you were from it all added up. Only one person I know that lives in the thriving Metropolis of Hop Bottom Pennsylvania (Yes people, the name of the town is for real)named Tim Hortman. Any chance of bringing some of these to Syrcon or NOREASTCON in Buffalo? I'd love to see them myself. By the way, one of the Stinson Tri-Motors like the one in the picture, that American Airlines flew has been restored and is still flying. Cheers

Hiya Holmes, thanks for following along. The rear struts are kind of the same, but they have the added brace strut going forward from the base, forming a vee. It wasn't that much more difficult to make as the fronts. And speaking of struts, the hard part of this build is over. I've been dreading the struts from the day I started, always having that nagging little doubt in the back of my mind if I would actually be able to do them or not. Turns out it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be, the hardest part being getting my fat fingers under the wing to measure and cut them. I had assume

Wow it's really been a long time since I've posted anything on this, what with the holidays being here there hasn't been much modeling time until this week. I had to dig a bit to find the thread, and then I thought perhaps it might be best to either let it die on the vine, or start a new thread, but I was finally able to locate it and continue from the last post. I've spent 3 days working on the float struts. After measuring the struts to length, I center drilled the strut ends and Superglued lengths of .020 brass wire into the ends. After they cured, I punched out plastic disks from .010 she

Jaw droppingly beautiful Guy. I'd swear it's photos of an actual Viper. Between you and Pete I think the Viper bar has been raised to the point of being un-toppable. Simply one of the nicest models I've seen, period. Verywell done. By the way where's the promised walkaround?.. Cheers Mike

You know what Guy? When you did the PE petals on your last jet I suspected you might be considered certifiable, but this only confirms it. Not only are you making some very convincing looking burner cans, you are doing so by using your own handmade parts without relying on PE aftermarket stuff. I don't mean to demean anyone that uses resin or PE aftermarket parts, I use them myself, but to make your own parts from raw materials in my opinion is the ultimate peak in modeling. I have the utmost respect for you and Pete and Timmy and a few of the other guys around here that can do what you do wit

Hi Tom You are correct that the first group is a gaggle of Waco's (and I can't identify the different types for beans either) but I believe the second airplane in the picture is a Stearman C3, not a Waco. That would be an interesting subject to do in 32nd scale. Aha. After I submitted this I did a quick Google search and found this. I'm not as dumb as I thought..lol. I know where I will be headed in September. http://www.antiqueairfield.com/flyin_2008.html Cheers Mike

Cheers Mike

Question Fish, was the Tamiya also acrylic, or was it lacquer or enamel? What you may have experienced is disimilar paints shrinking at different rates, and the fact that the white is a gloss, didn't give your blue enough "tooth" to have something to hang onto, therefore the cracks. Personally if it was mine, I'd strip it and redo it, and make sure I used the same type of paint for the white and the blue, and use a flat for both. Give the white a few days to fully cure, then go over it with the blue, but lightly mist the first coat of blue, then go over it with a heavier coat for coverage. Th

Hey Fish I tip my hat to you. I fumbled around with Sara in 350th, I couldn't imagine even attempting 700th. I'll be watching this one. Cheers Mike

HI Rick, I finished the entire boat and there's a post over in the "Non-Aircraft" thread. It's probably buried pretty deep by now, so here's a couple of shots of the adt deck showing the aircraft in place. Thanks for inquiring. I had forgotten about this thread..lol Cheers Mike

Thanks everyone for the comments. I've been flogging the floats, sanding them and getting them ready for paint, cutting the float struts and a few other boring steps that aren't worth the effort to photograph. Once I get ready for final assembly I'll put up some more pictures. Hi Dekon. Yes I knew that. The picture I have at the beginning of the thread was taken on the seaplane ramp there. Nice little bit of trivia regarding the testing though. Too bad she was scrapped. After loosing all of them at Midway it would have been nice to have one survivor. Cheers Mike

Way cool Mike. What are your plans as far as covering? It would be a shame to hide all your work, yet it would be cool to see it done as Songbird too. Cheers Mike (note my screen nic )

OK. It's official. I'm an idiot... or a klutz, whichever is more approprate. :D I had just gotten the wings glued to the fuselage Saturday evening and all was going well. I began filling the gaps with thick Superglue to fill some of the monsterous seams, when it happened. I'm not sure if I was holding it too gingerly or just not paying attention, but it just tumbled out of my hands, hit my chair, did a cartwheel and landed right wingtip first onto the cement floor. The impact snapped off the right wingtip, taking the front hinge pin and sending it to oblivion, and putting a major crack a

Hiya Guy, Chappie, thanks for stopping by. and Wellllllllll.... that was what I opted for however in practical terms I just couldn't get the wingfold to look "right" The kit tabs for the hinges were too big and clunky, and without massive rebuilding of the outter wing panels, along with the risk of damaging corrugations, I decided it just wasn't what I wanted to do. Not to mention to make scale appearing attachment points would have made the wings very flimsy and subject to damage or outright breaking off. So I decided to leave them extended. I think just the fact it's the floatplane ve

Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback. Guy I have decided to fold the wings, mainly for two reasons, to reduce the overall size of the model so it'll fit in my display case easier, and second, because it looks cool. Not to mention I'll have less issues with dihedral, alignment, etc. (OK I admit I'm lazy) Plus it gives me more "stuff" to detail out for the wing fold, an added plus. One of the biggest challenges in this kit is the corrugations on the wing, mainly when it comes time to sand and fill the joint in between them without destroying them. I devised a tool to aid that, and I'll let you

Hi Holmes, Yes you're right, all of my attention was set on the Sara for the last month or so. I am off work for 2 weeks of vacation for the US Turkey-day next week, so I should be able to make some progress. Thanks for bumping this thread up near the top again too. It made it easy to find. I thought I was going to be digging back 15 pages for it. :lol: I decided now would be the time to begin the fixture for fitting the floats, before I had a complete airplane. To make the jig I used two pieces of 3/4 inch MDF sandwiched together to make a block 1.5 inches thick, screwed and glued to a pie