Here Comes Santa

 I remember buying this kit last Fall, and then it promptly got lost in my stash pile. I found it again, and thought before I lose it once more, I'd just build it. 

The 54mm kit is from Aradia Miniatures, and is casted very well. 

First thing to do is clean the parts off the pour tabs, and then start painting. 

Taking a break from the painting I decided to put Santa in a snowy scene. I was going to do a roof scene, but I already did one of those with my Krampus miniature a year or two ago.  so I cut some pieces of foam, and went to work sanding it smooth.

 After the base was painted, I added the figure and I was done. But I did learn an important lesson. With these kits that are seemingly designed on a computer and then printed, the tolerances are extremely small. The kit gives no instructions, but it MUST be assembled in a certain order.  This time I should have added the reindeer's reins *before* I sat Santa in the seat. Once Santa was glued in place there was no way to slip the reins past his belly.  The second oops was I should have put the stick and presents on his should *before* I put his hat on. I thought I could slip the stick over the shoulder and under the hat - - no way.  

So, from now on I'm going to dry fit the entire kit together *before* I start gluing anything. 

I couldn't figure out what the droopy thing was hanging out of the bag. Turns out to be a sock with coal in it.  LOL

 

Small Updates: Nuclear Powered Bomber

 As the title says, small updates. I can't seem to get my act together, and time at the hobby bench has been minimal. In my latest session, I taped up the Bomber to paint different panels on the fuselage and the rear of the pilot pod. 

The entirety of the ship was painted in V's aluminum, and these sections were painted with Steel. I plan another larger area which I will hit with a slightly less dark Duraluminum.  But that's for next time.

After painting the real of the flight deck with Steel, I realized that I have to put on a black decal. So the Steel most likely is too dark.  It will be re-masked and painted over with duraluminum - dark but not that dark.

Northrup Nuclear Powered Flying Wing.

 Another oldie but goodie is Fantastic Plastic's Northrup Nuclear Powered Flying Wing.

From their site:

In the mid-1950s, the U.S. Air Force flirted seriously with the idea of producing long-range strategic bombers powered by atomic energy.  The main advantage of such a weapon would be its ability to stay aloft for weeks at a time, thus serving as the aerial counterpart to the Navy's fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

Jack Northrop, America's number-one proponent of "flying wing" aircraft, proposed several configurations for such an atomic-powered bomber.  The most exotic of these was an asymmetrical design that positioned the cockpit at the end of the port wing.  (German engineers had proved that asymmetrical designs were  completely airworthy more than a decade before.)  This configuration, while highly unconventional, had the advantage of putting the flight crew as far away from the nuclear reactor as possible while minimizing weight. 

None of Northrop's concepts got farther than the concept stage.

The kit comes in  15 white resin parts and a clear resin canopy. A nice set of decals is also included. 

This kit came deep out of the stash as the date on the instructions says 2007! The first thing I noticed was that one side of the wing was warped.  So after it received its wash, I boiled a pot of water, took it off the heat and dipped the wing. I only took a few seconds for the wing to become pliable and what I do is press it to the flat bottom of the sink and then turn on the cold water.  Now we're back in action.

Somewhere along the way there is an engine section that needs to be glued on. Being that was already done way back whenever, it was time to look at the jet nozzles. Eight need to be glued on and FP gives you another 3 in case of mistakes. I like that. ;) They come individual and you need to sand a small tab off the bottom. After, they they were just butt jointed to the fuselage. the next was the two vertical wings. They will also need a little sanding so they will mate up nicely. Finally, the cockpit pod needed to be attached. I dremeled out the slot a little bit so the tab went all the way, and a little Vallejo putty made a nice join. That was it, the model was built.

 

The jet is featured in it's wheels up position with no landing gear, so that's one less thing to worry about. There is also no features in the cockpit so I will tint the glass and just glue it in place. Since the jet never existed in real life the two color options mentioned was for a metalized body, or the typical gray upper and white lower color as the bombers of the day had.  But that's for next time. Thanks for looking.

Ae 607 and LRV Update

Wow, what a few weeks it's been Between the incoming Tropical storm coming up the east coast and then after the storm had gone by, we THEN had on and off brown and black outs for days. Ugh.  But in between I did make it to the hobby desk. 

The Ae607 continued to fight me to the very end but I declared victory.  This is the last time I quickly look that the parts fit - paint both halves -  only to find out that when the times comes, they really don't. Turns out the front needed just as much sanding down as did the cockpit area and the rear by the exhaust. 

Once the parts fit and glued down, then it came time to repair the paint job.  I think in the end it became a decent 3ft. model. 

Another one that turned into a fight was the LRV. In the end I had to rip the entire interior out. I was just tied of having to sand away most of it because the fit was perfect - no one will see inside anyway. 

I got the two  halves together after sanding away a bit of where the fuselage meets the wings. Then the slot where the starboard vertical fin goes was about 1/2 the size of the port one (which fit perfectly) and I needed to take a dremel and then some files to it to get the opening to accept the fin. 

The top and the bottom are together but you can see I'm still having problem with the g d white color. I needed to sand out a spot visible in the middle of the top and after 3 or 4 coats it's still visible! I think I'm about to go to the hardware store and get some serious can of white paint!  But at least the fins are on and the small gaps filled in nicely. Check back to see if I get this painted or does it get bounced off the wall.  Thanks for looking.

 

 

Ae 607 part 2

All big plans to make head way on this kit, until I got stopped dead. But first the good news.  I picked a color pattern using RLM 81 and 82.

I painted the entire topside in a lightened 82. Then it took some silly putty to create the thin lines. I had my first bit of trouble here. I made all the silly putty "islands", and then evened the out the spaces in between with a coffee stirrer. Once I started painting on the 81, I noticed that the paint was moving away from the edges! One coat...two coats... three coats. WTF. Finally it looked not bad. Was it the Silly Putty? I never saw that reaction before.

After the 81 dried I took some RLM 65 and free handed the stripes wither side of the 81. This by the way was the same color I painted the underside.

I sprayed on some V gloss, and then without thinking and letting the gloss dry, I started washing the very well done panel lines with V's dark gray wash - - which immediately made the gloss to start coming up.  I bit the bullet and just wiped off what I could. It's only the one color - I would have been throwing it off the wall if I did that to the topside - and decided to call it a day. 

Somewhere in between those steps I free handed canopy.  Here's a pic of the topside and the canopy. Thanks for looking.

Blohm & Voss Ae 607

After working on the Sam-13, I was in the mood for another prototype vehicle.

The Ae 607 was a jet-powered flying wing design conceived by Blohm & Voss in 1945. As it was conceived only shortly before the end of World War II there is not a great deal of available information on it, and for many years it was not included in the known list of late-war Luftwaffe development projects.

This was another of my

All the parts comes on 2 gray sprues, plus one clear one for the canopy. It's very well detailed.

Like most planes this kit also starts with the  cockpit and the intake and exhaust ports. 

  The cockpit gets installed along with the ports and the landing gear bays. Just to be on the safe side I added some Liquid Gravity pellets.

Finally, a small size cockpit that actually fits in it's intended spot...

Trying the top of the fuselage on for size I noticed one big problem. Gluing everything into the bottom, you noticed a curve in the parts. Only when I tried the top on and things not fitting that I realized, yes the interior is curved, but the top is flat!  A lot of dremeling ensued.  The plastic need to be taken down - a lot, and I went thru in two spots, but thankfully the cockpit tub was thick enough that nothing was seen.

After the dremeling, I took a break and assembled and painted the landing gear and wheels. 

The top goes on and the painting starts next time. Thanks for looking.

LRV part 2

Session two was extremely short. Most of the session was me sanding that one hatch to get it a little more level. I didn't want it to completely blend in, but wanted it a bit closer.

After that I painted the bottom black and top white. But as has been my eternal problem, white never seems to be white with me - just some sort of light gray. As with my other white vehicles, after a number of coats, I gave up and it is white "enough."

Also painted white are the top fins and the separate pod.
The final for today was adding the the two nozzles after painting them gunmetal and gluing them to the top of the craft.  More later. Thanks for looking.