Youngtiger1 Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Oh yeah, lets slap some paint on it. Lookin' good Chuck. Lookin' good!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marcel111 Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Chuck, great to see paint on watch her coming to life! Scott's top-wing pics are worth a thousand words... perferct weathering reference. Marcel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chuck540z3 Posted January 12, 2012 Author Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) Thanks again Guys! I don't want to be a Drama Queen, but something happened last night that I think only you modelers would understand so I thought I'd share, even if it's not build related and a little gory. :P Tonight my wife went out with her friends for dinner. PERFECT!, I think, so I can model all night long without so much as a whimper that I'm ignoring her! So anyway, once she has left I attack those red stripes behind the slatted wings as indicated earlier. For this step I'm using red paint and not decals for 2 reasons: 1) I need to paint a whitish band forward of the red line for the inboard slats anyway 2) There is no red stripe decal option for the outboard slats (decal suppliers dropped the ball on this one) and with the slat actuators in the way for most of it, decaling would be almost impossible without making a big mess. The solution is to use very thin, fine and STRAIGHT masking tape to mark the edges of this red stripe, so I used some special tape I had for just this purpose, which I cut into thin strips with my #11 knife and masked off what I thought would be the right position and thickness for this feature. After painting, I proceeded to remove the masking tape while the paint was still a bit wet to avoid a dried mess later. You never know what's up underneath masking tape until you pull it off. To do this I used the tip of this same knife to carefully slip under the tape at the ends and pull it off without scratching the paint. Now I'm not sure exactly what happened, but during this procedure I heard something roll off my desk/workbench towards my lap, so like a thousand times like I’ve done before, I very quickly closed my legs to catch the object before it hit the floor. BIG MISTAKE!!! The object, as it tuned out, was that very same #11 knife which I caught squarely between my legs at 90 degrees, jamming the entire pointy (VERY POINTY!!) end into my right thigh. THIS, I immediately thought, is not good! After the shock of what I had done had passed (~ 20 seconds), my jeans became very red as the blood started to gush out of the new hole I had formed with my stupidity. I held it tight and got to the bathroom where I was able to access the damage. Apparently I didn’t hit a main artery or I would have called an ambulance, so with some pressure and one of those “Breathe Right” nose strips cut into a sort of “butterfly stitch”, I was able to stop the bleeding. Good thing my wife wasn't around or we would have gone straight to the hospital, which in Canada means 8 hours of waiting for a doctor to even look at it. Man I feel dumb and today I have a baseball sized bruise around a tiny cut and a very sore leg. Moral of the story? If you hear a knife rolling down to the ground, get out of the way and let it fall! I must admit I’ve caught this same rolling knife in my lap a few other times in the past, but the tip was always pointed forward and no harm was done. Based upon the general location of where the knife fell, things could have been a LOT worse, hey Guys?!! Anyway, not all was lost last night, because the red stripes turned out terrific after a lot of work masking and re-painting touch-ups. When I get the rest of the slatted wings painted, I'll post an update. Until then, here’s a sneak peak of the red stripes behind some other red stuff. :o Edited January 12, 2012 by chuck540z3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
coneheadff Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Ouch, that hurts! Those reflex actions are sometimes real killers. I remember being in the kitchen on crutches after my ACL surgery and the knife felt of the table. Well, that damn reflex "told" me to stretch my leg (as my hands were holding the crutches)...the injured one...to stop the knife from hitting the ground!?!?!? How stupid is that?! So, you're not the only one with such injuries Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TripleP Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) Now I'm not sure exactly what happened, but during this procedure I heard something roll off my desk/workbench towards my lap, so like a thousand times like Ive done before, I very quickly closed my legs to catch the object before it hit the floor. BIG MISTAKE!!! The object, as it tuned out, was that very same #11 knife which I caught squarely between my legs at 90 degrees, jamming the entire pointy (VERY POINTY!!) end into my right thigh. THIS, I immediately thought, is not good! Why this never happens to me... ... just wrap a piece of masking tape around the end of the shaft and leave halve of an inch 'out side'. The knife will never roll off your desk again....straight towards your private artillery. Cheers, Peter Edited January 12, 2012 by TripleP Quote Link to post Share on other sites
geedubelyer Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) Ooer,........blood...... ~thud~ :wacko: Oops, sorry. :blush: Your story made me shudder Chuck, glad it was n't worse. On a side note, lovely job on the paint so far p.s. No pain, no gain, right? ;) Edit: Just thought, do you need to get a tetanus shot or at least get a Doc to take a look to make sure you don't get an infection? Edited January 12, 2012 by geedubelyer Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chuck540z3 Posted January 12, 2012 Author Share Posted January 12, 2012 Why this never happens to me... ... just wrap a piece of masking tape around the end of the shaft and leave halve of an inch 'out side'. The knife will never roll off your desk again....straight towards your private artillery. Cheers, Peter GREAT Idea! I'm sticking some tape on my knives tonight. They're always rolling somewhere dangerous. p.s. No pain, no gain, right? ;) Yeah, no kidding! At the end of this build I'll be able to say that it took ~300 hours over 14 months and one stab wound. :lol: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JohnS Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Ouch! Thanks for taking one for the team, Chuck. Glad it wasn't more serious. BTW, my jeans looked like that last week, only they were blue and not red. The cuff of my shirt hit an open bottle of blue enamel. I thought I had caught the bottle before it spilled over the edge of my work table, but when I looked down my right leg was covered in blue paint. Luckily, my wife had made me put a plastic chair mat on the floor under my table, so clean-up was easy - except for my jeans. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erikztm Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 That's odd. I had the exact same knife thing happening to me three weeks ago. Same knife, same roll, same stabwound. No doctor for me either :) I now have a hex nut glued to the tip of the handle. I'd have to push it along for it to roll from the table again. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 That´s why I prefer my flat sided blade handle. I've also had a round handled knife rolling towards my thighs, but so far I have managed to avoid serious injury. I have been following this thread for a long while now, and it´s been great "infotainment". I have so far learned more than I thought possible regarding the F-4, and I've also got my fair share of modelling inspiration/tips. All I can say, and I thing if it should be said at any time, it is regarding this build: PHABULOUS PHANTOM! Sometimes when I build nowadays I think "what would that Pantom-dude do" when I think about going the extra mile or not to fix a seamline or adding detail. Unfortunately I´m often to lazy. :D /E Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Eastern Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Oh Chuck, what a cr@ppy experience, that damn knife incident! My true condolences on the indecent but... Have you ever considered using an apron? First it would protect your nice jeans from what had happened and yet an apron is a very nice thing to keep those carpet monsters on a heavy diet. ;) Cheers and take care! Alexander Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Santtu Pikkarainen Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 (edited) The Toom gets better and better!!! really very nice! Regarding the knife: Now you can paint one kill-mark on the Phantom ;) Edited January 13, 2012 by Santtu Pikkarainen Quote Link to post Share on other sites
VA-115EFR Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 GOD SAKES MAN BE CAREFUL!!!! Thank God you're OK. Not sure about the sweat, but you sure put a lot of blood and I'm sure tears into your model! The Phantoms looking beautiful by the way! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RiderFan Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Welcome to the Club Chuck. Every model I've ever built has taken its pound of flesh. :) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
blunce Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Well, that proves it, you are human after all. I was convinced you were some kind of robot machine designed by Tamiya to build amazing models and sell more of their product. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
spook_zachos Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Amazing job my friend... this aircraft after it's service with the USAF/USAFE become part of the Hellenic air force inventory ;) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marcel111 Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Chuck, what can I say, it's a bloodsport The exact same thing happened to me two weeks ago! The cut wasn't as deep, still a worry though. Cheers, Marcel Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ChernayaAkula Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 You know things are getting out of hand when the carpet monster demands bloods sacrifices! :blink: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rogier77 Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 Get well soon. Your blood looks like a drawing in a old cave. So you cane do more than building aircraft, your a artist GR Rogiér Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 More blood spill on the altar of the plastic gods :P Such sacrifices will be looked upon favourably by the plastic gods and your build will not suffer from any mistakes! Fantastic work BTW :D Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chuck540z3 Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 (edited) That's odd. I had the exact same knife thing happening to me three weeks ago. Same knife, same roll, same stabwound. No doctor for me either :) I now have a hex nut glued to the tip of the handle. I'd have to push it along for it to roll from the table again. It would appear that I'm not the only one to suffer this injury, but the "fix" is so darn easy!... Why this never happens to me... ... just wrap a piece of masking tape around the end of the shaft and leave halve of an inch 'out side'. The knife will never roll off your desk again....straight towards your private artillery. Cheers, Peter Thank you Guys very much for all the kind words and feedback. To be honest, I wasn't sure what the response would be, but I am trying to provide a little "infotainment", as erik_g described above. Based upon all the responses, I should stab myself more often and report it! :P Anyway, I could hardly walk at all the first day and my leg swelled up like a balloon, but I'm on the mend now with no signs of infection. As deep as the cut was, it was super clean in terms of the actual slice, but you never know about germs on the knife getting in there and I could have hit the Femoral Artery, in which case things could have been a LOT worse. All my knives now have masking tape on the end of the shaft! Take it from me, DO THE SAME! Now for an update on what the heck I was doing before I tried to stab myself. <_< Based upon some very difficult pictures to find under the leading edge slats for a SEA camo painted F-4E that Scott Wilson has supplied me with off-line and many other photographs I used for for comparison, I have come to the following conclusions: 1) There is camo paint under the slats to the very front edge of the wing. 2) Beyond the front edge of the wing on the outboard slats, the paint is the same color as the underside on the top of the fork-like actuators/hinges, or "camo grey", which is fairly white. 3) For the inboard slats that are usually in the closed position when parked, the red line is directly behind the slat, with a small bit of white showing forward of the red. When the slat is raised, this white stripe is approximately 2.5-3 X the width of the red stripe. 4) The outboard slats do not have this white stripe at all. 5) The red stripe on both the inboard and outboard slats varies in thickness, from very thin of about 3/4" to as much as twice that width, or about 1.5". 6) The slats themselves (inboard and outboard) and all actuators/hinges, are camo grey from underneath. The Cutting Edge resin kit is the best out there if you want to convert the Tamiya wings to the slatted version (discontinued and very rare), but the quality of the kit I received was fairly bad with multiple colored resin pieces and lots of flaws and bubbles (See Post 221 for details). Once the resin pieces were installed, they wouldn't fit the slats very well, so I cut off the hinges from the slats and installed them on the bottom actuator, so what you see is heavily modified already. As mentioned earlier, there are decals available for the red stripe of the inboard slat, but not for the outboard slat- and nothing for the white band forward of the red stripe on the inboard slat, so since I had to paint something anyway, I chose to paint all of the stripes. These very thin and fine stripes were fairly hard to do, because thin paint leaked underneath the masking tape, no matter how much I made sure the tape was securely pushed down into the wings beforehand. The "fix" was to use fairly thick paint, which I did for the white stripe after experimenting with the red one. This pic is after a gentle sanding using 2000# grit sandpaper to remove any paint ridges and prepare the rest of the model for a good coat of Future, decal application and further salt weathering and more paint. Yes, the colors are too bright. Yes, they will be toned down a lot with the weathering procedure..... Try and put that stripe down over all that relief with a decal!... Leading edge slats temporarily installed. How do you like the NEW look of the end of my #11 knife! ;) Another angle..... Before I shoot this bird with a sealing coat of Future, those walkways need to be roughed up with sandpaper. Don't worry, it won't wind up looking exactly like this when finished.... I also painted the radome gloss black, using decanted Krylon lacquer which is dry in about 5 minutes. This paint sure beats waiting for Model Master gloss black enamel to dry, which takes about 2 weeks! The excellent metal petitot tube is made by HobbyDecal and it needs a coat of yellow at the base, so I plan on adding this feature at the very end including using putty to remove the seam and a coat of flat black/grey at the very front of the radome to replicate a rubberized coating that is found there..... Overall, things are going well and this big bird is started to look like an F-4E Phantom! Getting back to my puncture wound earlier and the photo of my blood stained jeans, my dear wife thought she'd help out and wash my jeans while I was making a big baby out of myself and my wound. Unfortunately those same jeans had my Iwata HP-C airbrush in the right pocket, which she neglected to remove. I have a paint booth in my garage, so I always take the airbrush inside after a painting session and stuff it in my jeans for ease of handling as I carry my model inside. Rolling around in agony, I completely forgot about the airbrush, so it went through a wash cycle and totally ruined both the needle and the air nozzle because the front cap fell off, which is there primarily to protect such things.... I have a spare needle, but the damaged nozzle now sprays all over the place, so both a new needle (another spare) and nozzle have been ordered as replacements. Although I won't be painting for a few weeks while I await their arrival, this isn't all bad because I think I it's time to graduate to a new and more all precise instrument. I just ordered an Iwata Custom Micron CM-C Plus airbrush for all the fine and tiny details I plan on spraying on this bad boy during salt weathering. In the meantime, I have other things to play with other than painting. Here's a sneak peak at one of the new additions, which is a SUU-21 bomb dispenser made for the F-104 Starfighter, but with a few modifications, it will be perfect for this particular F-4E in 1980. Thanks again guys for all the support! Edited January 15, 2012 by chuck540z3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
nimrod77 Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 As always Chuck, amazingly beautiful work :) Hope the leg feels better! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jester292 Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 I wish I could build a 1/32 F-4E. Someday! Until then, I will enjoy watching your progress, Chuck! Thanks for sharing, as always! It's really starting to look the part. Aaron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
zaxos345 Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Sorry to hear about your accident Chuck, happy to hear that it was a minor one. I hope you get well soon my friend. I am looking forward for the rest of the weathering and painting procedure as i have a lot to learn here!!! All the best Chuck John Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Youngtiger1 Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Chuck, do you ever do anything normal? :D That thing is looking awesome!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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