ScottsGT

Carl, Thats one of those kits I keep looking at thinking I should buy, but then I ask myself will I really build it? I already have two choppers on the SOD. Do I need to add to it? Helo’s seem like a good idea to me, but I cannot seem to follow through. I have the highly sought after 1/48 Academy/MRC CH-53E in the stash and I’m afraid to break the seal thinking it too will wind up on the the SOD.

You want my early design Aerocraft brass leg? Once the new one arrives I’ll be glad to send it your way. I have no need for two of them.

Might throw the pressures off? I know I destroyed the pump in my 1990 F-250 by using off the shelf “Power steering fluid” from the auto parts store. All the seals went out and leaked everywhere. Once I figured it out, I sucked it all out with an oil pump, refilled with Type F ATF and ran it then pumped it again several times to flush the steering box then swapped the pump and old lines. I’d ask Ernie since he’s in the transmission business and a true Ford man. Shoot him a message.

Yea, I’m starting to feel that way myself. I forgot how much work is involved when I jumped on this one. Let’s just say the PTSD will have the Panther and fat face Skyraider sitting in the stash a bit longer. Oh, forgot about one. The PT-22 as well.

Taking shape!!

Interesting. I just opened the kit for the first time. When I placed the order , Sprue Bros had the HKM metal landing gear as an option. I passed since I had Ali’s brass nose gear. Went to Ali’s website and he was offering an updated nose gear and now he has mains. So I ordered them. Upon opening the new kit, I discovered that it now comes with the metal legs! Nose gear is still that half leg design you have to glue on. So glad I went with Ali’s gear.

It is a little grainy. First couple of primer coats get sucked right into it like a sponge. I just shot 3 coats and I’ll let it cure overnight and reprime it tomorrow. But some of that look is just the way the phone camera processed the odd color.

Sanded to shape leaving the tape in place using various grits of sanding sticks. Remove tape, use fine stick to sand to a finish. Recut panel line using tape as a guide. I use a combination of a very fine and coarse X-acto saws I’ve had for probably 36 years. Off to prime!

Carve to a close shape when it gets firm. In the body shop this is when we would take the “cheese grater “ to it to get close to the final contours.

Tape off at the panel line…. mix up a dab of Bondo…. And apply carefully.

Wing hole was an easy fix with the bondo. Tiny pinhole left I filled with Tamiya putty. I sanded all my putty and was doing a close inspection of my work where the front half of the fuselage meets the rear half at the bottom. It had a significant gap and I slowly over days filled it with Tamiya putty. Well I just noticed a tiny area that had a small crack. Picking at it with my X-acto, it turned into a big flake where the first layer of putty lifted because the primer under it didn’t stick. I’ve had several spots that the primer just didn’t want to bond until I sanded it throughly. I keep forgetting I’m working with resin sometimes.

He says designed around the Tamiya kit. But I have two Academy kits and they include parts for large or small intake. I’m hoping to use my Academy kit for this as well as the previous Viper scheme they had for the last few years.

Are going to be released by Caracal. Limited run of 250 sets. ARC forum link

Sweet! couple interesting points I see. 1). The brick design is completely different than the brick style made here in the US. Are the outside walls going to be made of brick only or studded walls with brick attached? Here we use a much larger concrete block if solid brick without studded walls. 2) metal door frames. Here those are mainly used in commercial/industrial applications. Housing 99.9% of the time always get wood door frames and doors. Nicer builds get solid wood doors but hollow doors are common as well for interior doors. Semi-related story. A close friend helped (financially, not putting his back into it) build a school/orphanage in Liberia. Due to corruption within the entire county and not having trust in anyone, they made their own cement blocks. If the bought them half would have broken during delivery due to low cement content. Mostly “mud blocks” because mud is cheaper than cement. So you make your own. But they bought the block molds and a cement mixer and all the supplies and produced their own. Now here’s the catch. They had to hire an armed guard to keep them secure from theft since walking away with a block in each had is equal to a weeks pay. Building materials getting delivered had to be almost doubled due to loaded trucks going through check points by local police. Each check point they had to give them a few sheets of plywood or lumber to be allowed to pass through. Corruption runs so deep in that country. That was the biggest hurdle my friend had to overcome when he started assisting with the project. He even had to pay off the public education officials just to get a meeting with them.

Just went back to the website to look around. Even their regular price is great. I did see they are in Australia. How’s the shipping charges to the CONUS?

Looks good for retail display where you have rows of the same color, but bench use looks like it would be a PITA to sort through all the bottles in the back looking for a particular color. Looks exactly like the hobby shop racks but smaller.

Well after 9 days away from the bench from grand kid sitting for a week, I just got a few minutes time in to fill the crater with body filler. Took all of five minutes work to fill it and trim it down close enough for sanding once it’s cured all the way. And I’m done for the day. 😢 Maybe I can get more done tomorrow. And of course the daughter is showing up with the three monsters again as well.

Good to see you back on it. I just discovered that Ali (Aerocraft models) sells brass landing gear for this kit. Ordered a set today for mine.

Interesting. Dad was in MAC. Military Airlift Command, a Loadmaster. He actually helped work on the design and testing of the C-5 Galaxy. I remember him saying something about helping redesign the nose gear so it wasn’t in the way of the front loading abilities. I remember when the first C-5 flew into Charleston AFB and it lost a few wheels on landing. When it parked we got to go in it and Dad was showing us the huge box in the middle of the front loading ramp. He said he worked with the Lockheed engineers to eliminate it. It housed the nose gear. I still have one of the C-5 Test team patches and a small Zippo lighter with the C-5 on it Lockheed gave everyone involved with the project. I also have a Nat Geo from ‘58 with him in it down at McMurdo station in Antarctica when they built it. Lots of great stories we got from him. It was kind of cool walking through the USAF Museum and him pointing out airplanes he actually spent time on. Not the type of plane, but the actual plane. He lit up like a kid on Christmas morning when we walked up to the C-124. As he put it, hundreds of hours in that plane. The “Yeager” MIG on display? He crated it up (after the wings were removed) and flew it back to Wright-Patterson on a C-something after the pilot defected out of North Korea.

I’ve heard nothing.

That’s awesome! I come from a military family as well, but I skipped it after growing up an Air Force brat. Having a dad that was an E-9 that couldn’t separate home life from work really turned me off to the military lifestyle. I kid around and tell everyone I served 15 years until Dad retired in ‘77. My son is now an Army Captain. Grand dad was an enlisted man in WWI and got called back to duty for WWII as an officer. Bird Colonel under McArther.

Thanks for clarifying, I cannot figure out y’all’s funny rank insignias! LOL! Almost as confusing at the US NAVY. Congrats big time! Quite the achievement she’s made there. Edit: I just noticed it’s served up in a bag like Canadian milk. What’s with all the plastic bags?

Yea, but if you could re-engineer that top center section where the wings join and correct the wing root air foil and make resin replacements, I’m sure we could figure out how to make one show up on your door step!

One of my more memorable parenting outings was a grocery store run. It was a weekend, wife was working and we needed groceries. So I loaded all my rugrats up in my minivan and headed to Kroger. In one of the very rare moments of parenthood all the kids behaving and being wonderful, this was it. The youngest was just big enough to sit up in the shopping cart seat, second youngest was sitting in the actual cart and not jumping around this time. Oldest two were following behind me being perfect pre-teens. I was on cloud 9. As we walked down an aisle there was a coupe with two kids around the ages of mine. Dad was doing his best to wrangle his little monsters into behaving. The kids were obviously winning that day. The wife had her back to the disaster scene unfolding behind her as she was reading the food packaging. As we casually strolled past them, I looked at the Dad and called him a light weight. That was it. Just looked at him and said it. Didn’t slow down, didn’t miss a beat. His wife spun around and saw my 4 perfect “angels” and burst out hysterically laughing at her better half looking like it was a scene from the WWF Wrestlemania. My kids got treated to lunch on the McDonalds playground that day.

I wasn’t asked. I was voluntold. 🙁