1to1scale

I’m on day 16

Hubert, there is a saying about “ifs”.... If “ifs” and “but’s” were candy and nuts, everyday would be Christmas. I understand what you are saying, there was no way anyone could have known what was going on until it was too late. The doctors and leaders just could not grasp how contagious and invasive this virus was, and some still don’t, but “ifs” don’t get us anywhere now. I see that people are taking this seriously. My wife and I were discussing this morning about until 4 weeks ago, doctors here were not even ordering tests for people that had all the worst symptoms. But now that the shit hit the fan outside of Asia, they are finally getting serious. Hopefully we will see a decline here in a few weeks. But now the even more serious issue for parents of school age children...when will we get out sanity back?

I was discussing with my wife last night what we think the lockdown will be. We came to the conclusion that it will last another 2-3 months, that will be about the time it will take for a vaccine to come on the market, or the virus to naturally die out. So, my wife and I made the decision last night, since she is unhappy with her job, and I can’t find work right now, we are both going to go back to school for some online classes. We both signed up late last night. As we most likely will be on lockdown for the next two months, we are going to take online classes. I am going for my Agile, PM, and RFP certifications in contracting. She is going for software coding. No reason for us to just sit on our asses when we can be bettering ourselves.

Beautiful work sir!

Tamiya armor are pretty easy, I am just finishing up the Marder, and I won 2nd in Armor at a local show with my Tiger.

Spent the last couple nights masking canopies, I have four completely done, last one needs the center slider completed and that’s it for masking clear parts. Next it will be masking off cockpits, intakes, and wheel wells. Some days it feels like a never ending grind.

Don’t worry, the baby will take any build time for the next two years. I suggest putting a crib in your build room...good excuse to get some build time while the baby is sleeping. As for your job, I wish you luck, it’s a tough time to be in aviation and I’m last person to give job advice. All I can say, make yourself useful, find something you can do with your company while you are not flying. If am under no dillusions that the big “B” will be rehiring me anytime soon.

That would be really nice!

My thoughts are truly with those of you who are in financial trouble. Right now my wife is a fairly well paid healthcare IT person, and with hospitals the way they are, she has zero chance of loosing her job. However, with me losing my job last year and currently unable to find anything, we lost 40% of our income, but cost cutting has got us to already have been in budget mode since last year. So this current situation has actually helped us save money, we have been using almost no gas, and no schooling expenses for my son, and thankfully, the weather is warming up, so lower heating costs are welcome. But not a day goes by where I don’t worry about family, friends, and neighbors. I am making sure to tip everyone extra whenever I can. I have already decided we will not be applying for any additional Govt money they are offering, we are just hoping those in need can get some help.

Do you know something we don’t?

Where did you get this from? I have not seen any in the US yet, and EBay is warning about long delivery times (understandable). I guess I’ll have to wait.

So my latest acquisitions have not been models, but paint. I had been using Vallejo for brush painting details, but was not happy with the effort it took to airbrush them. I switched to Tamiya a few years ago for airbrushing, but was unhappy with them for brush painting. Then I had an opportunity to buy a small collection of USN and RLM (most) colors in the MRP range. I then decided that GSI/MR Color could be used for both brush and airbrushing. So I now have invested n about 30 bottles of MRP and about 15 of GSI so far. I really hate the smell of lacquer paint, but love the effect. I’ll probably still retain all my Vallejo for figures, and Tamiya for some weathering effects and armor.

Oops, there was talk about 1/32 a few months ago.

Guess what John, time to build another!

My vote too...

Then again, there is always this scheme...

Working on the P-40’s again, I have learned one thing, if you decide to build 8 models at once, please for the love of god...don’t try it with the Hasegawa kits! Actually, one of them was a trumpeter. But, when I decided to dust off the shelf of doom, I took the 5 that were the furthest along and work on them. I did have a commission job that got postponed due to the shutdowns, so the two helos will now be completed in October. So, back to work on the P-40’s. My biggest hindrance, I only have a couple colors for the batch of 5 planes, all I have is Gray 41 and White, so I had to do two orders for paint. By the weekend, I should have all the paint I need for now. Once I am done with these, I’ll do the other three. And after I’m done with those, I will be doing a P-40C AVG. These is the flock, getting final details, canopy masks, and sitting on temporary sprue legs. Another one is off to the left. (Edit: this is actually a week ago, I am actually farther along than this picture shows)

I just ordered from Scalehobbyist.com, I got shipment notice this morning...and they used UPS, so there IS hope I will get my paint! I have an order in my Spruebros cart too, need to place it today. I also got my SB order shipped!

Something to think about, the Japanese Hinomaru was very unpopular after the war. However, the Japanese are always nature/animal lovers, so flowing/swooping lines, feathers, dragons, etc. would have been more likely.

Beautiful engine!

Normally, I would say many places, but it’s getting hard to source anything. You can get it off eBay easily, but some hobby shops carry it, however, the ones I deal with are out right now. I just checked Scalehobbyist.com, it looks like they just got a fresh resupply, because when I ordered paint a few days ago, they were out of black and gray. FYI, Black, Gray, and White are the original colors, they do make colors now, but stay away from silver, the metal flake in it make a slightly rough texture. Also, I have never tested the gloss black, not sure if it levels like the others do as it’s a slightly different formula.

Ernie, try using Stynilrez primer, it can level out sanding scratches and pebbly surfaces. It’s clear that IBG used 3D printing for these parts, you can see the printing artifacts on them. However, a self leveling primer will probably fix 75% of that, and spraying heavier coat of paint will probably take care of the rest. I used it on the floor of my UH-60 and sprayed paint directly on the roof, I saw sanding scratches from 400 grit on the roof, but it completely filled the scratches on floor without killing any detail. One warning, make sure the Stynilrez is fresh, as it gets to the bottom of the bottle and gets old, it’s leveling ability decreases. I heavily sanded the floor on these, they came out beautiful. This was their gray flavor.

Many of us are dealing with various disruptions due to the quarantine, so it would be interesting to hear how this is affecting people across the world. I’ll start with the important stuff, I have a stash of a few hundred kits and a ton of AM, I have 2 1/2 bottles of Tamiya extra thin, and a bottle of Plastiweld, plenty of paint and thinners, and a fresh pair of sprue cutters. Just kidding! In reality, I believe I already had Covid-19 In the third week of March and made it through it, I contracted it a week before any test kits were available in my area, any right about the time they started reporting it here. I did go to the doctor (actually RN), they told me that at the time they did not have any kits to test with. So they told me to self quarantine and follow procedures not to spread whatever I had. Thankfully, I did not spread it to my family, I used lots of disinfecting wipes and did a lot of hand washing. It was the worst sickness I ever had. I had a fever over 103 for three days, no amount of Tylenol or Ibuprofen would affect the fever, I had ice packs on my head for days, on days 3-6, slowly my fever went down a degree or two per day. The headaches were paralyzing, I spent the first two days in bed, unable to do anything requiring thought. I didn’t read, model, drive, cook, watch TV, nothing. I was a jellyfish. The headaches stayed constant for 6 days, they they gradually started to lessen over the next week. I was still getting occasional headaches over the next week. I had extreme chills and cold feet that I could never warm up, this was unusual, because I always sleep with my feet sticking out of the blankets. Except for the coughing, I am about two weeks symptom free now, and have never felt like that in my life. I truly hope nobody get it. It is easy to see how the disease could kill someone if they didn’t have a strong immune system and the ability to fight it. I truly hope I did not spread it to anyone around me, as I most likely was carrying it for a few days before and didn’t know it, I only started to feel funny the day before the fever hit, I actually joked with my wife about it. When it hit, the fever went to 103F within a few hours. as far as home life, my son’s school has been closed since the 13th, and my wife has been working from home since then. I am not working right now, so I am my son’s new teacher, head chef, and laundry lady. So, my advice is to to follow the quarantine and stay healthy if you can!

It’s been over 20 years since i used model master paints, but, You can test paints by following a procedure. Put a few drops of the paint in a couple cups or paint tray, and add a drop of water to one and a drop of alcohol to another. Mix them and see what the paint does, if you can swish it around and it stays mixed, then it should be fine. If it clumps and congeals, it’s not compatible. You can also try lacquer thinner and any other prepared thinners. Next step would be to brush some on a scrap from each test, let it dry and see if it dries, and see if it is scratch resistant.

No changes, I have finished this build and it has moved on to its new owner.