ScottsGT

Yay! Another tool I must have! Wide variety of blade types. I’ve got to seriously look into this. Wife being a nurse and now a CRNA, I bet she has some handles stashed somewhere.

Nope. They were marked #11 blades. But good info to have.

Digging deep into the stash for an old classic!

Yea, winds are starting to get sporty right now! Just looked at radar and the worst rain band is going to hit us in about 30 min. Looks like the eye will come in at Georgetown, just south of Myrtle Beach. I rode out Hugo in ‘89 down in Summerville, outside of Charleston. Bad mistake!

All garbage. Sorry, need to vent. Sometime back I was ordering supplies. Don’t remember where it was. But I added a generic pack of 100 #11 “X-acto” blades since I was running low. Fast forward a few years and I finally had to open said pack. They look sharp, feel sharp by touch. Damned things won’t even cut Tamiya tape. 🤬 Tried to tape off a canopy to paint it and the friggin blade slides over the top of the tape. More pressure you say? It just tears the tape. I’ve got another 100 in my Amazon cart that are labeled X-acto brand, but with all the counterfeit crap on Amazon these days I’m going to hold off and buy the X-acto brand in the little black plastic holders. Yea, I’ll pay more. But I want good, sharp blades. I’d run to Hobby Lobby that’s 20 miles up the road but we have Ian causing an issue now and trees love to go to sleep in the middle of the roads in my area when the winds pick up. Besides, last time I was at a HL it seems that they like to swap out a lot of name brand stuff with generics as well. Hmmm…might check out Sprue Bros. Of course that’s going to cost me a lot too because they are like a bag of Lay’s chips. Can’t just get one thing. Update: Techni-Edge from Amazon. Just left a very negative review after I got back from dodging branches in the road and these “extreme” 15 MPH winds were already getting to make a Hobby Lobby run. It’s been so long since we’ve had rain I almost forgot where my wiper switch was on my car. But HL carries several different brands of #11 blades. X-acto also has some Z Series blades. Zirconium Nitride coated. Supposed to be twice as sharp and last twice as long. I guess that means I’ll cut off twice my fingers now? What the heck, I’m giving them a try.

Ours managed to dunk a C. https://news.usni.org/2022/03/03/navy-recovers-crashed-f-35c-from-depths-of-south-china-sea

Anything that gets wet? Does my new Trumpeter 1/32 F-35C count??

Of course!

Less than 1 month build time. I honestly believe that’s a record for me. I will add, ever since I got back into plastic, this has always been one of my grail kits. Just something about the T-6 I’ve always loved. Kind of ironic that a close friend lost his life in one back in 2004 when he was a passenger at a community fair and a guy was giving rides. My buddy cut in line because he had to get to work and during takeoff, the engine died because the pilot didn’t check his fuel knowing the fuel gauge was bad. It stalled and pancaked right into the ground. I have a second kit in the stash and hopefully lessons learned from this build will make the next even easier and better. But I’ve got to learn the aluminum foil trick first. I’ve got a few kits screaming for a real aluminum skin. Including Texan #2.

Well, she’s done! Sneak peek. Putting more pics on Finished Work page.

Yea, I’ve learned the hard way that driving a buffer is a young man’s game. Last time I did it, it took three days for me to be able to walk standing up straight again. Have you ever tried Southern Polyurethanes Inc (SPI) yet? I did my ‘66 with their clear. Stuff is amazing. Owner of the company is available by phone 24/7 for questions.

Yea, I think it’s why it took me 4 months of building to get it done. Several times I asked myself why was it on my bench. But I was damned and determined it would not wind up on the SOD.

The Cougar fuselage sits down into the wing, so no real gap issues there. Now the speed brakes, yes. I did build mine open but I still had to add some styrene strip to square it up. The worst was the inner landing gear doors. They are only open during gear cycling, so I built them closed. Not only was it out of square but doors didn’t sit flush. Maybe my doors were warped over time, not sure. Here’s a pic of the wing to fuse fit you can see the tiny bit of filler that was needed FWIW, my flaps were warped pretty bad too.

Tomorrow we decal!

Thinking you needed another Skyraider?

Just dropped off by the big brown toy box.

Still confused about John having a SOD. He builds so fast, he’s a machine. Good to see some human in him! id never attempt at playing chess with him. But then again, it’s been so long I forgot how to play.

Wow! Talk about being nervous about saving a part that cannot be replaced. My Cougar canopy was the first I have ever dipped in future and could not believe the difference it made. Although it is quite dusty here

Untaped and a few parts added. antenna in front of the football is just a dry fit. Should have dry fit these before paint since I discovered the layout of the two holes are too close for both to fit correctly. Had to shorten the tab on the football and slot the opening a little.

Thanks Hubert. I’ll give that a try.

I know that name. I read his book on the 1911 and built this for my Dad using parts from an old Colt he had with a bad frame. it was a Caspian frame I had made with his initials DOB as the SN. Jerry knew his stuff. Since Dad passed I got this one back and it’s now sporting a set of real ivory grips.

John, you’re absolutely correct. I have experimented around with yellows in the past and had a surprising discovery. I cannot take credit for it since it was on another modeling website. I read it and had that “Idontbelieveit” reaction. But a white base under yellow actually came out a shade darker than a light gray base. I took a sheet of plastic and painted one half gray, other half white. Using Tamiya yellow rattle cans, painted the panel. There was an obvious difference and I even scratched off the yellow on one side to make sure I didn’t turn the test panel upside down during painting. I keep a few cans of Tamiya white primer just for those times I have to paint something white. I need to use them up and just buy the bottle of white primer. FWIW, I hate spraying white. Hardest thing I ever painted was a white VW. Can’t tell shadows from light areas. You learn to trust your spray patterns quickly or live with removing runs in the finished product We use to match the primer under paint on cars too when I first got in the business since red oxide primer use to be a big thing on ‘60 and ‘70’s cars. But hey, that white VW turned out great. This was around 1986. It’s a digital pic of an old Polaroid photo.

Yep. It’s what we did back in the autobody days when we would shoot lacquer paints. We actually went a step further by spraying the blend area with straight thinner before paint to soften up the surrounding original paint. After spot painting was done we would blend the edges again with straight thinner to “melt” the new into the old. Leveling thinner is a slower drying thinner that lets the paint sit on the surface longer while still wet. Solids fall to the bottom and the clear carriers rise to the top for a deeper gloss. It will also melt in any dry edges like I had doing my touch ups 3 hours later. Paint was still soft enough to not need the pre spray of thinner. Think of it as Micro-Sol on decals. I have not tried it yet on something like a SEA camo job, but it will make the color transitions much smoother. Best tip I can give is to have great lighting and watch the spray pattern as it hits the model and make sure you don’t get too carried away because thinner runs very easy. You’ve got to find that happy place between dry and too wet, oh crap it’s running. The tops of my wings were actually puddled up between all the rivet details until it started absorbing and then evaporating. Another tip is if you are using a paint booth that draws fresh air across the model is to leave the fan on a few minutes to evacuate the fumes, but then turn it off and let the rest of the solvents slowly evaporate from the surface. Slower the better. I had to pile on a LOT of paint to get the full coverage of yellow. In all honesty I should have broken this job up over two days to let the first 5 coats cure all the way before piling more on. Back in the day we had issues with “solvent popping” which was something that happened a few weeks after the car left the shop. You would get little blisters about 1/16” popping up and eventually coming off leaving a freckled appearance where you could see the primer below. It’s a sign that the job was rushed by piling the paint on too fast. Remember hearing the old show car stories of “48 coats of hand rubbed lacquer”? What was being done was 2 or 3 coats of lacquer was applied. Car sat over night and was wet sanded very lightly the next morning and two or three more coats applied and sat over night for the same thing to happen the next day. Plenty of time for solvents to escape and surface smoothed out again for more build up. I’m very curious to see if I have similar issues with all the paint I had to put on this Texan. Probably not since it won’t be out in the hot sun and elements like a car is

Looks like it’s time to section the bottom of that canopy. Oh boy. Figure this out so I don’t have to when I build mine.

Happy Birthday you two!