Blue Gemini Part 2

I managed a few more hours in the hobby room and continued with the Blue Gemini. Taking a good look at the clear parts that are the Gemini doors, I decided they needed a dip in Future.

Anigrand's Blue Gemini

Finishing the X-19, and still having some free time I picked out another kit that I thought would go quickly. So I chose Anigrand's 1/72 Blue Gemini. 

From Anigrand's site:   In 1961, after success of the Mercury spacecraft launch, NASA contracted McDonnell to design a larger two-man Mercury mark II for longer periods in orbit. This bigger spacecraft which soon renamed Gemini that require a larger launch vehicle, a Titan II missile. The Titan II was Air Force missile and naturally required close coordination with the Air Force. The Air Force was interested in the Gemini program because it would be ready much earlier than the Dyna-Soar space plane while Russians already had men in orbit possibly carrying nuclear bombs. In 1962, the Air Force had designated the spacecraft as Blue Gemini. It would essentially be an off-the-shelf NASA Gemini vehicle. In January 1963, Air Force and NASA officials went to Pentagon to propose DoD participation in Blue Gemini, but was rejected and cancelled by Secretary of Defense. 

X-19 Done

I finally got around to putting the decals on the X-19 and I'm calling this one done. The decals didn't line up exactly with the drawing on the directions. I don't know if some of the decals were too big or the guy drawing the illustration was doing so out of scale. But they went mostly where they belong. ;)

One thing I learned was that I should have left the nacelles with the propellers OFF until the decals were complete ...

One other thing I learned is that I put some of the decals over the windows to get them in place before cutting them.  These windows was the Microscale Kristal Clear. Once the wet decal went over the window, the moisture instantly re-wetted the glue and turned it White.  OH NO! But not to fear as the water dried that "glass turned clear again.  Here's the pics - -  

 

Rocketship XM Finished

This time will be a short post, The only thing that had to be completed was the decal. I ruined two of them but the third time was the charm. 
This time I started with the same image, but instead of just changing the color of the text from gray to an orange color,  I also made the black - blacker. 
After printing I let dry and gave it two coats of Krylon Crystal Clear Gloss allowing 24 hrs drying between each coat. 
I had no problems this time. Here it is - 

The decal looks a little wavy especially on top, but somehow that's an optical illusion. It's perfectly flat.  Thanks for lookin'.

Finishing up The Rocketship XM

I already had two tries at the decal. The first problem was my fault, the second one... I don't know what happened. As soon as I put the decal in place there was a little chunk taken out of it where the "e" is in Rocketship. Not noticing it right away I went to move the decal into place and where it bent it cracked, and a crack that couldn't be hidden. :(
I'm gong to give the home made decal one more shot before ordering a real one from Fantastic Plastic.

But I moved on to painting the ship itself. I had previous given it a coat of V's black gloss primer. Then today, not having the Titanium color that is called for in the directions, and Vallejo not having that in their inventory, I decided to use the color DurAluminum.  It's darker than Aluminum, but not as dark as the Steel appears to be. 

Here's the almost final image. I'll be back with just a finished image when I get the decal sorted out. Thanks for lookin' - -

Tried a Decal

Having never made a decal before, I was a little nervous to try. Then thinking "Hey, it's only a piece of paper and some ink." I decided to give it a shot.
I found an image of the "Rocketship XM logo" and brought it into my favorite viewer - Irfanview. 
There I changed the black and white image by bringing in some color to the letters, close to what the original decal looked like. I sharpened a little and after finding out the size of the decal I needed, I told Irfanview to print the logo out 2.2cm X 4.4cm, and voila, I had a decal.

It's not perfect as the black background as a few flaws, but I think because the part of the base where the decal will be is painted black - it'll be all right. I sprayed the decal with a clear coat and tomorrow will give it a shot putting it on the base.  Thanks for lookin'.

 

While I was waiting - RocketShip XM

As the title says - while I was waiting for the clear coat on the X-19 to dry I was looking thru my stack of kits. Part of a stack started to fall and when I straightened things up I discovered I had two stacks, one in front of another. I looked thru the kits that I haven't seen in a while and rediscovered Fantastic Plastic's Rocketship XM.  This looks to be a super simple build being only 8 parts, plus the base, plus the decal. 

From IMDB's entry on Rocketship XM : Astronauts (Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery, Noah Beery, Jr., and Hugh O'Brien) blast off to explore the moon. Because of craft malfunction and some fuel calculations, they end up landing on Mars. On Mars, evidence of a once powerful civilization is found. The scientists determine that an atomic war destroyed most of the Martians (who surprisingly look like humans). Those that survived reverted to a caveman-like existence. 

On to the kit. As I mentioned a super simple build. It took only a few minutes to rid the side fins of little pour stubs and a tiny amount of flash. Then it was already time to start gluing the parts together - - 

A Step closer to Finishing the X-19

Whew we're getting close to the end. I painted a few details on the plane, after redoing the canopy frames, I got those to look - OK. My next step was to paint the transparent green on top of the canopy. Not having ever painted transparent colors, I didn't know what to expect. Spraying it went from not enuff paint to too much in a fraction of a moment. >:-( 
I was going to redo it, but with the troubles I had, I decided to leave well enuff alone. Next time, I'll do better. After painting the green and attaching the canopy to the plane all that's left is to add the decals.  As a prototype, I can't see it getting really weathered, so I'll just leave it clean.

X-19 - Moving Along

I got so more time in the hobby room and continued with the X-19. First thing I had to do was get the plane on some sort of base. The easiest thing I could think of was to just insert a rod ino the plane and then have another rod attached to a base.  I bought a bag of different size rods at a hobby shop a long time ago, so I went looking about found two the went into each other fairly tightly, those were installed.

Moving along, I wanted to use the new Vallejo Aluminum paint. That needs to be based with some of V's Gloss black primer. It sprayed of effortlessly. This is going too well. Once dry the Aluminum was next. I have to admit that V's metallic paint is terrific. It went on effortlessly with no additional thinner added to the airbrush cup. (I spray at ~ 18-20 psi), and went on nice and smooth. 

Finally I had to tackle the canopy. Typical for Anigrand, the frame marking s are barely there - I guess that makes sense for the scale - but Whoo boy they are difficult to mask. On spec I bought some Humbrol Maskol to try. While it went on fine, not being able to see where the edges are, I had a hard time with the lines.  The last shot is the canopy painted and masked removed. Its just sitting on top of the fuselage for now. I'm going to need to do some touch ups to get it to look a little more realistic. Here's the pics, and as always -- thanks for looking.

 

More of the X-19 and a Snag

I made it up to the attic and quickly became aggravated. I have been using those rectangular plastic Chinese take out containers to hold all the parts of kits I'm building. We'll, one container per model. So I go in to the container because I wanted to get the landing gear doors on before I painted. The doors were right out in the open, but ... one wheel, one landing gear and ...  the other is gone. Both the wheel and gear is gone. Then I look for the front one and that wheel is gone too. I go to the box where I still have the clear parts and the decals, and that's all that's in there. CRAP!! 

I tear apart my desk, cursing all the way that I never went out to buy more shelves to get the stuff off my desk -- no parts. I crawl underneath the desk - and no parts. 

The only thing left for me to do is to show the plane with the landing doors closed. I really don't like that look, b/c to me "The door is closed because the modeler f##ked something up."  But now here I am with the doors closed. The first door went on with a little difficulty. It was slightly warped, but once I got it glued in place I was quickly able to even things off with a sanding stick.  The other door was put in place and Holy Moley it is TOO warped. I could have taken the part down and did the hot water dip, but in my state of mind I tossed it in the garbage and got out the Aves. I mixed up a ball of it and pushed it into the opening. I went in fine and with a wet finger and toothpick it looked fine. When dry I'll go at it with some wet superfine sandpaper and it will look good.
 

The resin door is on the right, the Aves door to the left.

 Same for the front gear. A little press to the edges with the Xact-o knife to insinuate the panel edge and I'm done. Sorry for th blurry pic. Here we have the front door Aves'd closed. 

Now I have to let it dry. Which is good b/c it's time for me to get some lunch. Now what to have? 
Thanks for looking.
 

Cleaning up My Desk with the C-W X-19

I don't even remember why I pushed X-19 aside. But I think it's time to get back to it. Today I started off easy by dipping the canopy in Future and setting aside under a cover.
Then I turned to installing the props. There must have been a little problem with the mould as the two front nacelles had the locator holes already drilled. The back ones, however, were covered over with resin.  I just simply eye balled the location and drilled away.