Peterpools

Rob I can only imagine that feeling - must be grand. Just an amazing story and adventure as to the work and creative portion of your life. Mine is as dull as it gets compared to yours. Funny but I would never think your all-time favorite car would be the Citroen DS - doesn't look 'cool' to my generation. We grew up with 'Vettes. Cobras, Sportcars and the GTO. (1964). My all-time favorite is the 1967 427 'Vette' roadster. So, with the Cobra in your stash, I'll be waiting and waiting for it to hit your bench.

Carl Looking mighty good in the spray booth - you're now in the fun painting / finishing stages - my favorite part of any build.

Rob And here I sit wining about pending a few hundred dollars for detail sets ... my apologies. What an awesome choice for your just ending MFH buying spree; the Ferrari 250 TRI/61. I am in absolute envy and can't wait for you to start and bringing us along on each of your journeys. Of course, I'll be hoping the Cobra is your next adventure. Quite a story on your career evolution and how you found the path to follow. 🏆

Paul, now that's a plan for sure.

Thanks, Mike for the information and ideas. You're also correct in the addons have gotten to be very expensive and out of hand; The kit: $35 Eduard PE; $45 with shipping Infinity Set with shipping" $133 Paints $? I never dreamed such an inexpensive kit would turn into a bottomless hole for all the details needed. At this point, I just have no desire to keep spending money on the kit and will build it OOB, best as I can.

Carl catching up and some amazing progress. Front office looks mighty good and with all the alignment and fit issues correcting at this stage of the build, I tip my cap more then a few times, as all is looking incredibly good. Just seems the project has stored up a lot of these little hidden gems and which are keeping you from the paint booth. Terrific work

Nice work on the Airscale seat belts - they look great. Glad time and the mojo is back I've been suffering the same with my mojo and looks as if it's finally returning.

Mark So glad Reskit is sending you the replacement rudder. Nice work on the Aires gear bay - looks tremendous and the detail is amazing.

Rob Surely some nice progress and some very delicate and precise work at the. Fingers crossed but my money is riding on you.🤞

Paul Nice group of supplies and more DSPIAE fine tools. They should surely give you a huge discount as you have become their number one fan and after we have seen some much of their tools through your update, You're a great ambassador for sure.

Full Armor ... great question - I'm going to be doing some research on it today myself. At 76, I tend to be a lot less steady these days and any that will help would be a mega improvement when working with such tiny parts and even brush painting as well.

Thanks Chris As we use to say in the old day - what a bummer! Just bit off way more then I could chew but I'll finish the Fletcher after my donor kit arrives in a bit - just going to do the build within my abilities at this stage of the game, going mostly OOB.

Thanks Kev I right with you and Mike and will be finishing the Fletcher over the next month or so, just a lot less PE and mostly OOB. Ordering a donor kit and then I get her back on the bench. My goal is to finish with adding all the handrails and anything else is a huge plus for me.

Mike Glad you bought the ANZY tweezers, they are awesome. I've only used them a few times and found them to work much better then I originally though as they are so pointy and sharp. My workhorse tweezers are all Tamiya and coupled with the ANZY tweezers, have everything covered. I'm going to check out the Dumont tweezers and see what I can use.

Thanks John It's up and running and in what us seniors surely would call; Hight Gear.

Thanks Chris I've was a model railroad for decades and actually built a few model railroads back in the day. The hobby encompasses so many disciplines and you learn so many skills from woodworking, electronics, wiring, building the actual railroad, motive power, rolling stock scenery, to of course mt favorite part: structure building. When my interests changed and I moved onto scale modeling, most of the skills I had learned over the years seemed to transfer well. Now, I'm back to doing what I enjoyed most in model railroading: structures and diorama, which mesh so well with my modeling. Best of all, my mojo is back and I'm enjoying bench time again. Hydrocal is a plaster that is used in model railroad for scenery and craftsman structure kits. Resin is replacing the hydrocal in a good portion of those type of kits today for numerous reasons is used for brick and masonry walls. Downside of hydrocal: messy and very fragile. I'm doing cartwheels that the guys are interested in my structure builds and I'll go a bit more into techniques as I proceed with the Yard Offcie. . BTW, I have my eye open and I'm waiting for the new Arma 1/48 P-39 - going to be my next aircraft build for sure.

Thanks so much Rob. Feels good to add something new to the forum and learn new tricks along the way. I've always been a weathering guy when it came to model railroading and just the opposite with aircraft modeling. Maybe my structure modeling will work its way over to future aircraft builds and I'll start to add some weathering to them now. I normally never take nor use cell phone photographs for my updates but just wanted to do this update asap. The images are a bit on the light side and the walls are actually a bit more weathered then then appear in the photos. Next update, I'll be back to shooting with my Nikon, focus stacking for sharpness and getting the images to better reflect the actual work. 🚂

Thanks Mike. You hit the nail right on the head and I dove in thinking the PE couldn't be that hard and I was so wrong. I'm going to pick up the Fletcher again not too far down the road and finish it, but a lot closer to OOB with railings and some PE. Agree 100% about the tools and over the years, I have collected a nice assortment of the better level of tools and excellent tweezers including the new ANZY tweezers. Will be following Robs and your advice about the Tamiya PE benders.

Thanks Dennis - terrific advice for sure.

Thanks, Rob for the advice and all the how to's techniques. A big part of my problems is just plain old age and just not able to do what I use to do, plus thinking the PE work couldn't be that difficult and I was dead wrong. I'll also be buying both of the Tamiya PE Bending tools to supplement the folding tool I now have and see how that goes once I pick up the build again. I decided to buy another Fletcher as a donor kit and slowly get back to the Fletcher, building it mainly OOB with PE railings, some PE and brass - just going to take time and go slow. Deciding to start building HO scale model railroad structures and share my bench time with these builds has they have re-kindled my mojo. Some of what I plan on building will go on my brothers model railroad and the balance will be dioramas for the display case and could be in O scale, not sure yet. I do have one of the O scale kit now in the stash and as a general rule, they are a bit pricey but incredibly detailed and very heavily multimedia. Just see how it goes.

Thanks Dennis, and very much appreciated. I've always had a soft spot for trains and model railroad and now I hope to combine it with my modeling. Since the structure is destined to be located on my brother's layout, I won't do a base or weathering now but rather on the railroad itself, once the structure is in place and its new home.

Thanks, Mike, sure looks like we're cut from the same mold. After months of knocking myself out, trying to find and alternate build and a way of getting the mojo working again, it was in my stash and 'past' all the time. So far, a ball of fun and can't stay away from the bench - just finishing this amount of work in such a short period amazes me. After the structure is competed, there will be more light weathering, looking for the used but not abused look railroads worked to keep their equipment, rolling stock and buildings in good shape. 🚂

Scott A model railroader at heart for sure. Love O scale myself and my last layout was On30 - O scale narrow gauge - long time ago. The outdoor handing railroad sounds pretty cool and you never know what or where it will lead - same with the Christmas layout. 🚂

THE YARD OFFICE FOS SCALE MODELS HO SCALE With the Fletcher turning into another mojo killer and my mojo floundering more and more, I was at my whist’s end and almost out of any hope of rekindling it. My brother a few years back started to build a model railroad and asked for my help in building some structures for his pike. Before coming back to scale modeling, I also was also a long time model railroader and loved building craftsman structure kits. I purchased a few kits and all just sat in the stash for a good long while. While feeling sorry for myself, my brother got me off my rump and to start cracking on a structure kit for him and so I did. I first needed remember how to actually build multi media structure kit in HO scale and decided the best way was to just get going and work things out as I went – and so I did. The Yard Office is a small kit and after hours of work and weathering the basic wood wall portion of the structure is done, in CSX colors for my brother pike. Next up is working on the hydrocal plaster walls and then when completed, joining the two major assemblies together and then getting to work on the roof. So far, my mojo is back and I’m looking forward to bench time and not an ounce of frustration. Since most of the forum members aren’t into structures, I’ll just post a few cell phone images of my progress. BTW, the loading dock is only being test fitted to make sure it actually fits up against the office walls correctly – posts and framework are up next on my build schedule. THE KIT SHOWN ON THE FOS SCALE MODEL WEBSITE Now my progress to date: The basswood walls built, castings added, weathered and assembled: Cleaning up the four hydrocal walls. A few nasty air bubble being dealt with and then is time to get down to construction, painting, castings, details and weathering. .

LITERALLY DEAD IN THE WATER The Fletcher has been nothing but frustration and my zeal to build a ship to rekindle my building mojo worked for less then a very short spell, plummeting as I struggled with the intricate PE. Following Tamiya’s instructions for the build sequence and trying to cross reference each step to the Infinity and Eduard instructions turned out to be a lot more difficult then I originally bargained for. At my stage of the game the delicate PE pieces are just too small and way too delicate to work with plus a fair share has already been fed to the carpet monster. My PE success rate with the PE has been dismal, even with the simple flat pieces – locating them accurately and squarely in place on the deck has been a challenge and frustration at best. I have finally realized that both my eyesight and hand-eye coordination, isn’t what it once was and unfortunately isn’t getting any better with time. The Hull The kit was first released in 1996 and now 28 years old, it’s not quite the precise engineering marvel we have grown to expect from Tamiya, as there are thin mold and seam lines, some visible injector pin marks, all needing to be removed. Hull Red – what color is it actually? Tamiya calls out for XF9 Hull Red but unfortunately that is for the Japanese Imperial Navy and not the USN. After discussing it with Kevin and doing a lot of research, the correct color is: USN Navy Anti Fouling Norfolk 65. I settled on buying the correct color from Mission Models Paints as my main online vendor carries it in stock. The Infinity instructions showed the 22 ‘rope guides” needed to be removed and when done, then the deck was glued in place. I decided to just leave the Tamiya molded anchor chains on as I would avoid a lot of damage to the deck removing them, a concession to my newbie status. Dealing with the 1/350 delicate and tiny PE has proven to be something I just can’t handle and decided to bite the bullet and not use a good deal of the expensive PE I bought. I’ll concentrate on the railings and see how that goes at the appointed time. Photos to follow a bit later. I ruined a number of molded parts trying to either substitute PE for them or removing all the details for PE details as well. Now I need to see if I can replace those parts through Tamiya Customer Service or will need to buy a donor kit. Until I resolve the replacement part issue, the Fletcher will sit on the sidelines.