The AD-1 and the F5-D coming to the end

I managed another hour or so in the room today and managed to get the decals on the AD-1. As seen in the pic, the wing isn't on yet. As I imagined - rightly so - that putting the blue strip decal was difficult. But I did get them on and put some micro-sol to get it snugged down. It puckered and while it was drying I moved on the the decals of the F5-D. 
As you may remember these were homemade decals. As you can see I still have a lot to learn about home made decals, but I don't think it's terrible. Here's where I am.
Thanks for looking.
 

 

Busy Day With A few Projects

Since I haven't really been up in my hobby area in a while, I was happy to the opportunity get get up there for a few hours this afternoon and then again after dinner. This afternoon I took another look at the AD-1 I was working on a few weeks back. The problem was that the vac canopy didn't sit right, and no matter what I did, didn't help. Finally,  I just puttied the crap out of it, sanded it down and called it a day and put it aside. Looking at it today, I thought it wasn't the worst thing I ever built and went to put the decals on. Thats when I realized I never glossed it.  After putting the gloss coat on,  I also glossed Armstrong's F5-D, that's been sitting for a few months. I guess subconsciously I'm trying to finish off all outstanding kits for this year. While I was at it, did I think to gloss coat the Blue Gemini for it's decals? No... Doh! :-P

Back to the F5-D

Okay, enough is enough.  I have to get this model off my desk already.  ;)

It was just a fair kit and I need to get it finished.  

The first step was to mask off all the white parts in prep for the "red" paint. I have read" because in all photographs of the jet in front of the Armstrong air and space Museum it is distinctly orange. Going to NASA's own website and looking up the plane, they mention a couple of times, and have images of the plane and it is distinctly red. So I decided to split the difference. Vallejo paint- Scarlet color looks like a happy medium of red and orange (a little to the red side).

F5-D One Step Back, One Ahead

Since I have Drac drying, I turned my attention back to the F5-D once again. I took a look at the mask and ... NO! It never dried. It was like the tacky glue that holds on an address label to a magazine. If you're like me and *have* to peel those labels off, you know. ;)

So now I have to invent a Plan B. I decided Plan B would be that I remove the masking goop (naturally), but leave the *template* tape. I then took another piece of Tamiya tape, put it over the exposed glass and burnished it down. Then I cut around the newly placed tape and removed the original layer of tape -- 

F5-D Masking and a Memory from my Childhood

Well, I made it to my LHS today and in addition to buying some Vallejo equivalents to the RLM colors - Yep I have a two WW2 German "x-planes" (Luft '46?) and a soviet  plane that's pretty weird. More on them as I get to them. Anyway, I picked up Vallejo's Liquid Mask in addition to the aforementioned colors. Not knowing how to work with the stuff didn't stop me. After a good mixing and removing a big blob of semi congealed rubber, I applied a layer of the masking to the exposed windows of the F5-D.  One thing I did notice was that as it dried it went from opaque to semitransparent. I'll have to check a You Tube video to see if that's whats supposed to happen and when I'm able to cut away the tape to leave just the windows covered. 

Return to Armstrong's F5-D

I turned my attention today back to Neil Armstrong's F5 Skylancer.
Where we left off I was having problems with making all the seams disappear. I ended up with letting things go as being good enough. The next step was me adding the interior to the cockpit. This was just the seat and the stick. I didn't put too much effort into the interior as I thought you wouldn't be able to see much once the canopy went on. I was partly right. Thankfully I gave a little more attention to the seat.

F5D Moving Along

Put the fuselage together and hit it with some sandable primer. The seams are going to be a problem in some spots. There's lots of tiny problems that just make the kit "Meh." Looking forward to finishing this up and then moving on to the next kit. Thanks for looking.

F5D Moving Forward

This time around I started working on putting some weights in the front of the plane. Not knowing if this is a tail sitter or not, I played it safe. Here's a few 1/4-20 nuts glued in with PVA glue - - 

While I was waiting I turned my attention to the smaller parts. Ooh boy did they need clean up work. The stick was almost indistinguishable from the parts runners. Thankfully after watching a few miniature painting videos, I "learned" that you can prime with a brush. To me this is A LOT easier than setting up the parts for an airbrush or rattle can for small parts - 

As last thing for tonight,  I did the seams along the wing roots, and the jet intakes. I had recently bought some Tamiya putty after not having a great time with the Vallejo Plastic Putty. I decided to give them both a test. On top of the plane I used the Tamiya Putty, and underneath I used the Vallejo Putty.  My feeling now is the Vallejo is the way to go for very thin seam lines. As you see on the right the Vallejo cleaned up right away with good results. I'll have to wait for the Tamiya Putty to dry and then start sanding tomorrow.

Looks like after I get these seams cleaned up I'll be able to close up the fuselage, install the seat and stick and then work on some of the other parts like reinforce wheel and tail hook. Thanks for looking. 

Armstrong's XF5-D Started

Been a while but I had a few minutes to start the 5D. The larger parts are pretty good but the smaller ones are a little hurting. When I originally ordered this kit from Anigrand, they must have seen the the moulds were shot - took it out of the catalog - and sent me something else... :-/  I managed to find this one on eBay, and it too must have been close to the end of the run. A lot of the smaller details had bubbles but thanks goodness as I mentioned the larger pieces were fine. I washed the kit and then primed the interior. Not knowing if this was a tail sitter I went to put some weights in the nose and behind the cockpit area... only to find out I didn't have any left. I'll be heading out to the fishing supply tomorrow. Ha.  

So the next thing I did to move forward was to glue the wings on. There is a little seam that needs to be filled but it's nothing to what I was expecting. Only when they were both on did I notice a little discrepency. The pins and holes are not lined up correctly and one wings is a mm or 2 off from the other side. Normally I wouldn't have noticed it. But I did. Now, do I take the chance of muffing it by trying to sand off a little bit where it shows or should I leave it. The next pic show where it's off - - 

 LOL,  find out next time what I decided. Thanks for looking. 

New On the Bench

Next up I just got two kits in the mail recently. One is Anigrand's Douglas XF5D-1. I was inspired to do this kit because my friend Rob S. visited the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio (about 1 hr. north of Dayton). I've never been, but Rob generously sent me a number of images of the F5D that Armstrong flew which is also on display out in front of the museum - 
http://vva649.org/gallery/2013/neilarmstrong/A/IMG_0028.JPG .  

and here's the kit - 

I have to note that sadly this kit is no longer part of Anigrand's catalog. Anyone looking for it will probably have to go to eBay or someone like Rare Plane Dectective .  

Next up is a sort of throw back to my kiddy days when Aurora was releasing all those Monster kits. After all the kits were released and then version 2 with parts of the kit in glow-in-the-dark plastic, they released Monster Scenes. These kits would help you create your own "movie sets."  Long story short one of the smaller kits was the Saber Tooth Rabbit!  Thinking about Monty Python's Holy Grail and the killer bunny, I had to have it! 

I may do them concurrently or consecutively. I don't know yet. I'm doing both OOB, so things should go smoothly. 

And don't forget,  I still have MoonDevil studio's Abominable Snowman about 90% done and just waiting for my fake snow to show up. That may be back on the bench too. We'll see. Thanks for looking in.