ScottsGT

I’ve been known to do worse. Remember the F-14 build with the upside down wings I discovered after painting?

Hard to make out in this pic, but the left side (facing it) is about a 1/4”-5/16” higher. Doing careful measurements, I really cannot tell if it’s a landing gear difference of wing dihedral difference with the way it went together. All I know is taking about 1/16”-1/8” off the bottom of the tire should fix it. Crap. I just figured it out and I did it stupidly. When I went to glue that side wing half on there was a gap at the bottom joint. Instead of forcing it in place and holding it while the glue set up I simply filled the gap with Evergreen stock. I think I can saw that out and correct it with a little work. Stupid stock filler

And it’s standing on its own legs now!

Well, this took about an hour of my life! Hopefully now that I’m experienced the right side will go quicker. Have to brush touch up the “keepers” that hold things in place. I’ve found that installing main legs and the actuator free floating makes it easier to get the rest of the parts installed. I then hit the hinge joints with CA to take out the slop and lock things in place. To hold the hinge part I had to use ticky-tack on the end of a swab stick. And strategically placed Tamiya tape too!

Ok, got some primer and RLM65 around the gear holes. Back in the body shop we called this “cutting in” or “trimming in” a panel so it could be installed. It will make taping around the landing gear easier when the all over paint work takes place. Yea, I’ve gotta agree with y’all about the unique shape the flaps provide. I positioned them partially down and it still looked great. But straight down like the one pic I found just took away from its bat wing look.

Just got the flaps aligned and glued in place. I almost went with dropped flaps, but the one pic I could find of an actual real plane with dropped flaps shows them straight down. Looks broken. Just wrong looking and so many pics of aircraft sitting and flaps were up. Man, this huge glob of styrene is a static bomb! It’s covered in cat hair and I’ve already wiped it down with Endust once already.

Ernie, that’s amazing!

This makes me happy! My favorite Sherman.

I’m gonna need a bigger bench! This is giving me flashbacks of my RC days because it so big.

And done! primered It grew feathers!

Just an update. Went in for my third adjustment yesterday morning. I’m no longer feeling like I was in a bar fight afterwards and each day I have progressively felt better. One of my measuring sticks is feeling the road bumps and how my body was reacting with shooting pains vs. pot hole repair size. Aren’t SC roads great? Idjits fill a pot holes and leave it sticking up like a speed bump or just halfway fill the holes. I’m actually starting to feel my older back pains before the SI flair up. Sleeping all night in the bed has not happened yet. Spend a couple hours in the middle of the night in my recliner.

Thanks! I’m actually putting a lot of thought into my next steps. I’ve got the wings ready to glue on already, even had to correct a mistake I made on the center section joint. But I decided it would be a lot easier to work the fuselage seams now before I’m spinning around a huge bird in my hands. When I walked away from the bench last night, in my head I was planning on wing attachment. Went to bed and started rethinking which would be easier and save time in the long run. I have decided with the complex landing gear attachment points that I’m going to paint the bottom of the airplane first, then install the legs. It’s just going to be too hard to tape that busy area up with the gear in place. I like to think of the instructions as a suggestion. But trying to halfway follow these would has been total chaos.

Ugh….sanded the seams smooth before adding the huge wingspan. Got a flat top fuselage now. Tamiya putty applied. Let’s hope I can work some “roundness” into this like I have with my belly.

Soon to be hidden forever. All those hours spent detailing. See? Gone. A little peaking through the windows. Current status.

Been playing in the bomb factory all day. Already got them in the crates and now about to tackle fitting them into the wing center section.

Awesome! I’m building a new fangled modern upper for my SBR AR right now. 7.5” barrel 300 AAC Blackout. The silencer I built a few years back was built for anything up to 7.63/.30 and it’s as long as the barrel is. And as big and round as the hand guard. Cannot wait to try out some subsonics in it. And we will get to see our son in the next few weeks also. He’s transitioning from Ft. Carson in CO to Virginia to start his Captains Quarters training for 6-9 months. He’s going to swing by here and spend a week with us. He was going to go on a cruise with us, but his CO highly suggested he did not leave the country.

But that’s my excuse! Oops! I guess I had one too many to drink.

That’s pretty cool! But not brave enough to do another! I’m now decaling the bombs before mounting them up inside the milk crates. This is where I get carried off to the funny farm.

As you can see, I pre-painted the black on the rad and inside the scoop and taped it up before installing. This probably saved me an hour + of exerting energy towards new curse words trying to tape up after the fact.

Ok, I feel like I came up with a work around on these “German engineering” cowls and radiator scoops. First, yank this crap out. Not needed and just adds to the confusion. Empty hole after useless crap extraction. Glue part #22 onto the radiator and not the back of the cowl assembly. You can see it locks under a tab on the bottom of the radiator. Align scoops and glue in place. The scoops are a tad bit narrow and will require some filling. I brushed on a bit of sprue goo for added strength. I’ll smooth out and add putty as needed.

Going Netherlands with this one.

Wow, just got finished wrestling with the lower cowl/radiator scoops. These parts just don’t want to fit. Got frustrated, ripped it back off before the glue set and I’m walking away for a few hours. This would be a great part for the AM industry to replace if it ever gets rereleased again. Edit to add, I think I see the problem. The real plane looks like crap in this area too. I might be trying to make it too nice.

Funny thing is, I posted my story after a guy binned a Trumpeter Avenger because his gun turret parts were missing or lost. I told him that was a shame because I have an Avenger kit I’m modifying as the guppy with an enclosed canopy.

Generosity strikes again….. I made a post on LSP about tossing projects in the bin where I have a 1/72 Concorde kit that is missing the windshield off the clear sprue. Heller won’t come through with a replacement after I’ve contacted them twice. I got a PM from a member that he has that extra sprue and is sending it to me.

Well the chiropractors adjustments yesterday worked a small miracle on my back. Although I do feel like I’ve been worked over in a bar brawl, I did manage to make it back to the bench comfortably. I jumped on the convoluted instructions covering the build up of the cowls and wing center section. My goodness, now I know where the Trumpeter B team came from. They got fired from Revell of Germany. Instructions show installing a bulkhead at the marked tabs in the instructions, but nothing on the plastic part to show where it glues in place. Another step shows the lower radiator cowls in place but they haven’t been built yet. Flip the page and they have you build the radiator cowls in the next step. Honestly, if the new Revell were to re-release this kit without a serious sprue numbering and lettering system and rework the instructions it would probably put them out of business again. Even the clear canopy parts are misleading. There’s a sliding window that sits above/forward of the pilot. Instructions show it mounted inside and not on the outside. This thing is a hot mess.