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chuck540z3

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chuck540z3 last won the day on December 15 2022

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About chuck540z3

  • Birthday 08/18/1954

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    Calgary, Alberta

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  1. You are a modeling (manufacturing) machine Peter! Great subject. If it is of any assistance, we have Hawker Sea Fury here in a Calgary military museum that I could take reference pics of. It used to sit outside for years which made me cry, but it has since been cleaned up and brought inside for at least 10 years. While it's roped off and I can't climb all over it and take pics of the cockpit, I can certainly take pics of just about anything on the outside. According to what little I can glean from the 'net, its FB11, WG565 if that makes any sense to you. Just send me a PM if you're interested. Cheers, Chuck
  2. March 27, 2024 Since I’m now trying to make sure my model is as accurate as possible for a Block 25 in every way possible, I found another change I need to make since this Thunderbirds kit is for a Block 32. Apparently Block 25’s only have 2 flare/chaff dispensers on either side at the rear, and don’t have the extra 2 added on the left hand side as shown below. Eliminating them was easy by gluing in the cover Part C16 plates, then filling the recesses with CA glue and sanding everything smooth. For the 2 dispensers at the back, however, this kit doesn’t have any since the Thunderbirds have cover plates on them. Thankfully I have a few spares from the Block 50 kit, which has 8 of them. This is confirmed by a pic I took of my subject in November 2022 at Nellis AFB. Note that the forward 2 dispensers are missing as they should be for a Block 25. Next, I decided to get into the ResKit F100 PW engine I bought for this build, but it doesn’t indicate if it’s the original 200 version, or the more modern 220 or 220E version. No matter, because this is the one I’m stuck with. This engine is super detailed like the ResKit J-79 engine I used on my CF-104 build, that turned out looking pretty good if I do say so myself….. Like the J-79 engine, unfortunately, the instructions just show you how to put the engine together, with absolutely no guide as to how it should fit with the kit parts. You are left to figure that out on your own, so I came up with a plan as you will see below. Like all ResKit resin, there are large casting blocks to cut off with a razor saw, which is tricky to do without damaging the fine details of the delicate parts. Here is the main nozzle part and the approximate location of the cut line on the instructions. The best way to smooth out the cut line is to rub it on a rough sponge sanding block to get off the biggest chunks. Unlike what the instructions call for, I’m sanding off the entire bottom of the nozzle, which removes a few millimeters of interior detail, in order to get a stronger fit with the kit parts as you'll see below. This small detail will not be missed once the engine assembly is assembled and painted. Here I’m using a flat sanding belt on a flat plastic holder, to keep the bottom of the nozzle as flat as possible. On the sponge sanding block, the rocking motion and flexible surface creates a rounded edge, which you don’t want for final sanding. The sanding is complete with a light buff with a 1000 grit sandpaper sponge. This is the main goal when the ResKit resin and kit parts are glued together. You want this fit to be as flat and flush as possible and it looks like the nozzle diameter is perfect. Here is the top of the flame-holder with the recess and notch, that the nozzle fits into. With the base of the nozzle sanded off, I sanded off this recess as well. In order to fit the KesKit flame-holder into the engine fairing, I glued into place a thin strip of 0.5 X 4mm styrene into the kit parts P10 and P11, which turned out to be perfect. And this is the reason for my departure from the ResKit instructions, in order to get a tight and very strong fit of the resin engine to the rear of the fuselage. With this wide and flat surface, the engine nozzle can be glued on at the end of the build easily, with no fuss with finicky recesses or notches in the resin parts, which are not as strong. Further, you can glue the “best side” of the nozzle upwards as you choose, without the need to lock it into a specific notch on the flame-holder. The last resin block I cut was across the very detailed circular grid at the front of the flame-holder. I dreaded doing this, because breaking the delicate parts seemed inevitable, but at least I had the kit Part P25 to fall back on if I made a mess. There are 4 tabs that are a bit longer than the rest that I marked with red dots, that fit into slots of the engine duct. The reason I noted the 4 longer tabs is because 3 out of the 4 broke off when I cut the assembly off the block, with the only remaining one marked with a red dot. I’m guessing it’s because they flexed more with the saw and due to the extra stress, broke more easily than the shorter tabs? At this point, I was fairly certain that I would be using Part P25 instead! Much to my surprise, I was able to cut off the extra backing from all of the tabs and glue the broken parts back on with CA glue, without any more drama. Using styrene cutters, the key to cutting the backing was to cut horizontally with the assembly to the base of the tab, which broke the vertical portion of the backing naturally, snapping it off. From there, a #11 knife was used to clean everything up. The repaired tabs are quite strong, with a fairly large amount of CA glue applied from the rear where it can’t be seen. Here it is dry fit into the base of the engine assembly. My kit came with a broken rim on this part, which isn’t a big deal because it will not be seen when fully assembled. There are 3 more brass parts that need to be added below the resin assembly. Final dry fit assembly, compared to the kit part. Pretty impressive engineering by ResKit! So now it was time to deal with how the front of the KesKit engine was going to fit into the fuselage. I had the same problem and solution with my CF-104 build, so I sort of knew already what to do. Using the front part of the kit engine that slides into a groove in the engine bay, I cut off about 1” of it and the front tabs. I then cut off two pin locks in the engine bay that normally hold the kit engine. Before I glued any engine parts together, it’s important to figure out which way is up and which way is down in the engine compartment. I looked at several pics of PW100 engine pics from the rear and came up with all sorts of angles that I found confusing, but most of them were for F-15’s which appear to have the engines installed a few degrees out from what I finally settled on, like the pic below from an actual F-16. Note the flat top to the heptagon with longer arms coming from the corners. So I set the “Top” accordingly and marked it with a pen, which coincides with the deepest tab of the resin assembly, which is no doubt there on purpose. The front portion of the kit engine I cut off was then glued to the base accordingly. The sub-assemblies indicating which portions go to the top. While the assembly on the right is glued together, the rest are only dry fit at this point. The groove at the top of the engine bay is quite long, thanks to it sharing the same part as the Block 50 kit, which has an entire engine that can be removed for display. This kit only uses the rear of the groove, which is all I need. The Engine sub-assemblies now just slide into place with ease, after trimming the side pins of the kit parts to allow clearance, while still remaining snug. This fit is solid, so once everything is glued into place, the engine will be very secure when bounced around. With fuselage Part B20 dry fit into place, the engine fairing fits fairly flush on the bottom. Same thing on the top, showing that the hole of the fairing lines up with the hole in the fuselage top perfectly. And the candle on this engine cake, the rear nozzle, which can be glued on at the end of the build with no fit issues later- and no gaps. So the current game plan is to paint and detail all of the engine parts, then install the engine with the kit fairing and other fuselage parts to ensure that everything is smooth and looks natural on the outside, which will take a little light sanding. From there, I’ll mask off the rear of the engine and attend to the other kit assemblies on the tail. One might ask why I worry so much about the interior of an engine that I'll rarely see again, even with a flashlight. The answer is, "It's Fun!", at least to me, which is a big part of what modeling is all about. Thanks for checking in. Cheers, Chuck
  3. What a beautiful jet! Tight cockpit work and the exhaust staining looks perfect. Cheers, Chuck
  4. Another masterpiece from Guy! Just awesome and all the special little details you added really show through. Again, I really love the paint chipping, because you nailed that realistic look that is so hard to replicate. Cheers, Chuck
  5. Really nice work Duane and I must say, very different than most Viper builds due to your unique and really cool looking subject. I'd like to steal some of your ideas but everything is so different than mine, there aren't many that would apply. Good catch on adding a cap to the intake navigation lights which is often missed and here's another tip if you don't know already: The panel lines around the pitot tube on the nose cone aren't real, so they should be filled and sanded smooth. The pitot covers when the jet is one the ground (red with a RBF flag) often leaves a mark, which is what Tamiya was apparently trying to replicate, which they also did on their F-15 kits. Cheers, Chuck
  6. March 24, 2024 I’ve been doing some more research on what differences there are between my subject, a Block 25 and the other Viper block variants. One thing I found was that the so-called reinforcement plate (#7 of Cross Delta set above) around the radar blisters behind the nose cone are actually RAM panels (Radar Absorbent Material) instead, so I have edited my post accordingly. Apparently these items are being added to older Vipers, but they aren’t on the Ghost Scheme ones I have pics of so far, so I won’t be adding them. Another very small item I found was that Block 25’s have a small reinforcement plate which I’ll call a strap because it's long and thin, right behind the canopy hinge. I don’t have a great picture of this area on my subject, so the one below will have to do, but sure enough I can see that it’s there. The other Viper I have pics of above, 86-0299 which is a Block 32, doesn’t have them as expected. So I’ll be adding this small strap along with the other reinforcement plates to make my model as accurate as possible, which begs the question: “If you’re so worried about tiny accuracy, why not alter those 3 fingered front flap hinges to 2 like you should have all along!” Well, after this complicated modification was bugging me with all sorts of justifications for not doing so as described earlier, I finally caved and got on with it. Deep down I knew I would eventually, as maybe a few of you did as well. As they say, "No Guts no Glory"! After lots of thought about how to do this effectively but still allow the flaps to be left off for ease of painting later, this is what I did. First, the outboard finger was cut off very carefully with a #11 knife, to retain the surface detail of the flap, while also retaining a concave surface to the flap/wing boundary. The remnants of the “flaps down” tab that was cut off beside it on the right was retained, since it provides a good glue anchor join when the flaps are cemented into place. The “Flaps up” tab as I’m using is to the right of that again, are unaltered. After carefully cutting the finger off of the flap, I then filled the recess where it used to fit with CA glue. I prefer CA glue for almost all my filling, because it’s strong, dries almost immediately and I can sand and shape it quickly, in this case to conform to the adjacent contours of the wing/flap surface. A very iterative procedure of applying CA glue and accelerator was used to achieve the end result. The other side, which is a bit hard to see since the CA glue is clear. While the surface under the flap can look like almost anything as long as it doesn’t impede the fit of the flap, the top portion that you can see must be flush with the rest of the wing. The top fit is pretty darn good now, knowing that it will be even tighter after the application of glue when the flaps are glued into place permanently near the end of the build. The bottom of the wing/flap join was a bit trickier with all of the complex adjacent detail here, but I’m sure it will look fairly natural after a coat of paint. There, I finally caved on the flap hinge to make this Viper as close to a real Block 25 as possible. The exact lateral location of the 2 vs 3 fingered hinge is not clear, but based upon pics in Jake's Viper Guide, I think it looks close enough by just deleting the outboard finger. Now maybe I can finally sleep at night. Cheers, Chuck
  7. Much like "Pig" with his F-16 advice to me that I very much appreciate, there's nothing better than having a real F-18 (CF-18) pilot who knows what he's talking about if you are building a Hornet. Go with ALF18's recommendations and you will be fine. Cheers, Chuck
  8. Be careful of the rear flaps angle with this kit. The flaps rest downward, but not beyond the bottom of the fuselage. The lowest flap hinges have them rest much lower which is wrong. The solution is to alter the hinges before attaching them to the flaps. Here's a few examples: Cheers, Chuck
  9. Hi Mel, you are doing a really nice job on one of my favorite jets. As for the anti-skid surfaces, I would sand them down a bit so that the rough bits are knocked down a bit for scale. This will also make the surface look worn, which is what you want. I would then dirty them up with pastels, like Tamiya "OIl Stain", which I use on almost everything I want to make dirty. Here's some reference pics I took of the anti-skid surfaces on an F-18A, albeit a Canadian CF-18 version, which should be similar to the American F-18C. Note that small details like screws and fasteners still show through the rough surface. Also note that the surface isn't as dirty towards the rear, where foot traffic is much less than the cockpit sides. Cheers, Chuck
  10. Thank you Gents! It's tricky but very doable, especially with practice. I use a new super sharp #11 blade and try to cut 90 degrees to the face of the tape, using the side of the plastic against the side of the blade as a guide when I cut. Good question. My build threads are usually a step by step chronology of how I create a model, so that when/if a magazine article or eBook is ever written, most of the work is already done. I still need to finish this model (2 more months, a year?) and if it's a success and I'm happy with the end result, documentation of the build may occur in some form. Let's see how things go and if Kevin is even interested, because he's got a lot on his plate already. Cheers, Chuck
  11. Thanks Guys! Thanks Duane, While the wet Kleenex method works just fine, it leaves tiny particulate crap behind that might get into future paint coats and if you have any decals, like I do in the gear bay and cockpit, wet tissue can lift them. Small bits of foam have none of that and they compress nicely under tape. Every time I unpack something with foam I try to keep a few pieces for future projects. As for "gluing" the canopy with liquid mask and painting it with the rest of the model, I never do that because if you have any leaks, you contaminate both the cockpit AND the canopy. On my F-4E and F-15C that both have camo paint jobs, I just painted the fuselage as I saw fit, then placed the canopies in place and noted the demarcation lines and painted them separately. That way you can get a good paint job on the inside and outside with no over-spray, assuming you mask them properly. The canopies are almost always in the upright position anyway, so if the lines are off a bit, nobody will ever notice. HTH. Thanks. I often show things in my builds that are basically "Modeling 101" and not very unique, because we aren't all at the same skill level, so I'm glad this mini "tutorial" was of some help. When I finally get to the digital paint job, I will be showing how I did it, because at this stage I just have some ideas that I hope will work out. One thing I contemplated before I glued the intake to the lower fuselage was to paint the area between them first to reduce paint spray turbulence in a tight area and the negative effects of that. On a grey jet it would have been smart and easy, but on this very complex digital scheme with lots of little squares in this exact same area, I'm better off masking it along with the rest of the fuselage and taking my chances later. One thing that would help reduce turbulence is to spray at very low pressures with extra thinned paint, which I've done before. It takes several light coats, but you don't get that "dusty" look and feel of tiny paint balls drying in the air then sticking to the rest of the paint. We'll see how this works in the future. Cheers, Chuck
  12. Thanks Bevan! March 21/24 Another quick update while a few things are still clear in my old mind. Whether to delete one of the front flap “fingers” has bugged me since I made my post above last night. While I always strive to make my models as accurate as possible, sometimes the effort isn’t worth the reward and in some cases, altering things can look worse, so you wish you hadn’t bothered. One thing that I wanted to do was to leave off the front flaps until after painting, so that I could easily mask off and paint a few small things like the RHAW “beer cans”. If I just glued them on permanently now, however, filling in the gap for the third finger would be fairly easy and I could re-scribe the panel lines. I came very close to doing so…. Before I did that, I thankfully flipped the model over to see what exists for detail underneath. Here there is a lot more detail and none of it would be easy to fill and recreate, because the kit parts are made so that the flaps can be either raised or lowered, leaving a big gap. The real wing doesn’t look like this at all and is almost identical to the top. If it did, I would just fill it, but since it would be a real PITA to modify the kit wing, I’m going to punt and Fuhgeddaboutit! For years I have been a bit intimidated by all the F-16 Block variants and what specific details they should all have, including the reinforcement plates that many of them have. Apparently Block 50 and up variants don’t have them, because they are internal. I have the super thin stick-on set that came with the kit in the upper right, but I also have the thicker Cross Delta set on the left, which thankfully comes with accurate instructions as shown below. This indicates that I should be using the large fuel tank plate which is actually made from 5 parts (1), the “lawnmower blades” around the front of the vertical stabilizer (2), and a fairly big panel around the nose radar blisters (7), which are RAM panels (Radar Absorbant Material). Surprisingly to me, the more modern Block 40/42 Vipers have a lot more reinforcement plates as shown. My subject, 84-1220, nor 86-1229 have the front plates, which are RAM panels, so it looks like I’m good with using just #1 and #2. While digging around for reference photos, I stumbled upon pics of a THIRD F-16 Aggressor painted in the digital Ghost Scheme. It’s another Block 25, 84-1301, and since none of the pics are mine, you can see it here at Jet Photos: F-16 "Ghost" Aggressor, 84-1301 Pretty cool. Cheers, Chuck
  13. Thanks Guys! Thanks Mike, it's great to see you follow along again. Sorry to hear about your friend. That's brutal. Thankfully after lots of CT Scans and the like, I don't have anything sinister going on, but without going into too much detail, I do have lots of scar tissue due to multiple stomach surgeries after an ordinary appendix removal 3 years ago. Just bad luck I guess, so we'll see what the future holds for more trips. I liked your "work smarter, not harder" comment, which I used again at the end of this update. March 21/24 First a little housekeeping. I showed above that there are 3 blue hydraulic lines that stick out a bit at the front of the main landing gear, so I tried to create something that was close. It turns out I have a pic of them, so here they are below. Duane (chaos07) pointed out above some slight depressions near the canopy hinge, so here’s a pic of the one on the left. It has since been filled, along with the one on the right. Thanks Duane! The kit parts share many with the Block 50 kit, so some of them need to be modified. Although the blister removal on the wing roots is in the instructions, here they are again, since they are easily missed. Here’s a tip that helped me a lot. The instructions have you join the upper fuselage Part B28 to the rear upper fuselage Part A1 in Step 19 first, then glue the entire upper assembly to the lower fuselage in Step 20. While this kit is generally excellent, gluing such large mating surfaces all at once is asking for trouble in my mind. Instead, I glued the rear Part A1 to the lower fuselage first, got things sorted out, allowing the glue to dry and cleaned up, then glued the front Part B-28 to the rest later. This procedure allowed me to glue all the complicated fitments in a reasonable amount of time without being rushed. Gluing one big upper assembly to the lower assembly as instructed, would have been very hard to do cleanly. I find masking off cockpits and landing gear to be a real PITA, partly because its hard to do cleanly, but also because it must be done right if you want a successful outcome. There are no real shortcuts, but I have developed a procedure that I’m sure a lot of you guys use as well. Note that this model is now sitting on the same cardboard box I’ve used for at least 6 different models, using pipe insulation as a soft platform. The yellow paint is from my Harvard/Texan build 4 years ago, followed by my Special Hobby Tempest Mk V, Italeri CF-104 and my last build of the big 1/24 Airfix F6F-5 Hellcat, which all sat on this same box for much of their assembly and painting. More on that in a bit. I used a small block of foam to fill the cockpit cavity, then ordinary masking tape for the rest, followed by a liberal coat of liquid mask. The mask holds everything together strongly and covers small edges that tape won’t adhere to. When the liquid mask has dried, I apply a few pieces of masking tape, since the liquid mask is tacky and you don’t want it to stick to anything and come off. The landing gear bays were a lot harder to do, but I did have the advantage of having a central beam to attach masking materials to, since Part C27 will not be installed until the end of the build, right after the landing gear is installed. Again, the voids were filled with custom cut little pieces of foam, followed by masking tape. Everything was then toughened up with liquid mask, in this case “Mr Masking Sol neo”, made by Mr. Hobby in Japan. This is the very best liquid mask I have found, because it’s easy to apply but more importantly, easy to remove as well. You can’t say that about Micro Mask, which can be almost impossible to remove from small cavities after it dries. Again, cover tape to keep the gear bays from sticking to stuff, like my fingers, arms and elbows as I handle the model. As much as my cardboard modeling box has served me well for a long time, it was time to “upgrade to a new model”. This was created with a small acrylic storage container that was 6 ½” X 12”, cut down to 2 ½” high, then foam pipe insulation was added to the top, for a total cost of about $3. While I see that many of you use all sorts of contraptions to hold your models, I like this simple box a lot better. There are no pressure points to rub paint, I don’t have to adjust anything and I can carry my model around safely to and from my paint booth without fear of it falling off something. I just cover the box with a microfiber towel and paint away. You can flip the model around from top to bottom with ease, because there’s always a position somewhere that fits. One thing I’ve noticed in my pics above is that the leading edge flaps are usually up a bit when parked. According to Jake’s book, this is normal for parked Vipers, which are up about 2 degrees, so I will be gluing the flaps accordingly. Right now they are just dry fit. The other thing I found in Jake’s book and pointed out by Pete Fleischmann earlier, is that Block 25/30/32 jets have only 2 “fingers” that connect the flaps to the wing at the most inboard position. This kit has 3 fingers, just like the Block 50 kit, so it’s obviously a holdover not easily cut off like the blisters. If I filled the outboard finger it would be more accurate, but I’m not sure if this is “working smarter or harder”, since I kind of like the look of it, even if it’s wrong. I’ll think about it. Any thoughts? One thing that I did add was the so-called “ECS Exhaust”, which was basically missing from this kit. What prompted me to look for it, was because there was a small depression at this location, that I thought might be a flaw of the plastic. Checking my Block 50 kit, it’s much more pronounced, although quite small. There’s a great picture of it on Page 65 of Jake’s book with a half shroud forward from the hole in the fuselage, so I fashioned something similar out of styrene. So that’s about it for now. I still have lots to do and then there’s that super complicated paint job! I sure hope it turns out OK. Cheers, Chuck
  14. Wow Marcel, you really hit this one out of the park- again! I love all the subject specific details and paint "flaws" that match the real deal. Congrats! Cheers, Chuck
  15. Fantastic result with a very difficult kit. Congratulations, Miloslav, this P-38 is a beauty! Cheers, Chuck
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