phasephantomphixer

IPMS Seattle is proud to host the IPMS Pacific Northwest Region 7 Show.

Event Details
The IPMS Seattle Spring Show is the largest scale model contest on the west coast. We will have 81 tables for the model contest. See the website for contest entry forms, categories, and rules.  There will be 70 vendor tables stacked high with kits, tools, paints, books, and accessories. Our raffle will be bigger than ever with hundreds of kits.

When
April 27, 2024
·         9:00am -- Doors Open
·         12:00 noon -- Model contest registration closes
·         3:30pm -- Contest awards ceremony
Location
Renton Community Center
1715 Maple Valley Highway, Renton, WA 98057

Entrance Fees
·         Model Contest - $20 USD for unlimited models
·         Junior Model Contest - $5 USD for unlimited models
·         Spectator Admission - $5 USD
For more information see our website at:
https://www.ipms-seattle.org/springshow/
 

Progress continues to creep along.  I finished the main topmast shrouds and ratlines and have rigged the fore topmast shrouds.  Below are a few shots showing the work.  The ratlines are a challenge to get right, and I am not quite there yet, but the finished one are not too awful - far from perfect though.
 
Starboard side shot of the main topmast shrouds/ratlines.  Again they
are far from perfect but look better then the kit part.
 
Another view of the shrouds/ratlines.  I managed to tension the shrouds
so that the top mast is both straight and very stable.  You can also see
the main topgallant shrouds; these also firmed up the main topgallant
mast very nicely.
 
Starboard side of the fore top mast.  Like the main top, I managed to tension 
the shrouds so that the top mast is both true and firm.  The next step
will be tying off what feels like several hundred clove hitch knots to
make the ratlines.
 

Progress continues and I am beginning to understand why tall ships take so long to build when you try to get the rigging fairly accurate - it is a very time intensive process.  I am keeping my fingers firmly crossed that I don't end up making a real mess of the rigging.  My lack of experience is really showing now as I have to keep referring to sources and triple checking to make sure I am running and tying of line right; but I am getting more efficent and, hopefully, better.
 
The mizzen topgallant shrouds are finished.  I made a couple of slight changes to how the line are run based on the sources I have reviewed.  These turned out to look ok.
 
You can see how crowded some of the areas on the mast gets with line and blocks.
 
I finished running the main topmast shrouds as well.  Like the mizzen mast shrouds they go a long way towards stabilizing the masts.  Running actual shroud lines is a fair amount of work, but I can't imagine that the flimsy plastic shrouds/ratlines the kit provides either look better or provide any sort of support.
 
 
 
The shroud lines ran nicely on both sides and I managed to get the deadeyes pretty even with good spacing.
 
This photo really shows how crowed and complex the rigging lines get - and this is just the standing rigging.  Once the lines are run and tightened things should look much more shipshape. 
 
Wrong photo above, the correct one is below.
 

There was a 1/24 Lancaster once. It was a vacform. I know because I had one. The vendor who was selling them at Telford called the stack “The Divorce Maker” 
 
Kind regards,
Paul

That WOULD be something now wouldn't it! Nothing would surprise me much anymore .

I think it was called a MER-200 or MER-2000 but it never went into production as the CFT got pylons to carry enough bombs. Here is another F-15 with the MERs:
 

 
Jari

I saw them as sorta like but not the same as F-111 MER's where they held the munitions closer to the body.
I plan to just go with the Revell ones when my build is a go.

A combination of work, yard projects and cycling reduced progress on the build to a crawl the last week and a half, but I have been plugging away on the ship.  I have been working on the shrouds, ensuring they are the correct lengths and getting the lower shrouds prepared to attach them to the deadeyes on the channels.  This involved a lot of repetitive and not very photo worthy work, but the lower shrouds are all prepped and ready to be attached to the deadeyes when the time comes.  I have also started to run the top mast shrouds for all three masts.  This again requires a bunch of repetitive tasks that look pretty much the same, so I'll only show the Mizzen Top Mast shrouds to spare all of you the experience of looking at a series of photos showing much the same thing. 
 
The lower main mast shrouds attached to the mast and hanging free.  What looks like an ungodly mess is actually fairly organized and I should be able to sort the lines for attachment without too much trouble.

   
And here are the lower fore mast shrouds.  Slightly out of focus is the fore stay with it's mouse in place ready for final attachment and adjustment.  I will have to wait until I have stepped the mast and rigged the lower shrouds to place the fore preventer stay as I'll have to align it with the fore stay where both attach to the bowsprit.

 
Not the best photo, but you can make out all the lower shrouds hanging down as well as some of the stays.

 
The Mizzen Topmast shrouds have been rigged.  I learned some new techniques while rigging these shrouds.  Overall they turned out respectable and a managed to get them properly tensioned so that the Topmast is true.  The lanyards that run between the upper and lower deadeyes were actually used to tension the lines, just as on the actual ship.  There is a lot of debate among both maritime historians and experienced sailing ship modellers as to the color of the lanyards.  Some say only the lanyards for the lower shrouds were left natural rope with the rest being greased, others claim all lanyards were greased, making them all very dark brown to almost black in color,  I went with the first group.

 
I double seized the lines attached to the upper deadeyes and ran the lanyards following the rigging instructions in one of the books a have.  I kept the distance between the top and bottom deadeyes close, but I did not try to get them perfectly aligned.  Most tall ship experts agree that it was common for the space between the upper and lower deadeyes to vary slightly as each line was adjusted as required.

 
You can see the the topmast is true.  It is also now quite stable, the shrouds are doing their job even at 1:96 scale.

 
Not a huge update, but you can see that a fair amount of progress has been made.  You can also see that there are a lot of lines, with more to come - and this is only the standing rigging.  On a final note, the sails I had made should be here this coming week and I am very interested to see what they look like!
 
Ernest

Was going to mention the one at McClellan since you'd said you were in Calif. earlier.
I will check old photos I took of it back when I was stationed there. Hope I have some of use.

Looks great.  I have the same kit and plan to make it Iron Maiden Ed Force One

Great job!
Our family flew in BA 747's to and from the UK when we visited England and Scotland. Two great flights. I had no idea they retired them, too bad, the 747's were comfy.

Cheers, Kev. Here in the UK we have a store called Halfords that does car accessories including paints. They’re aerosols but I use them regularly for my airliners. The blue is ‘Fiat Capri Blue’ which is an exact match for the current BA blue. It’s designed for cars but I usually find the right(ish) colour - they even mix paint for you if you have a sample. They did a fantastic effort with KLM blue for a 1/72nd 747 I did a few years ago. 

I’ve always enjoyed building civil aircraft and usually have one or two on the go alongside my longer term LSP builds. So here’s the latest civvy completion from me - Revell’s 1/144th scale Boeing 747-400 with DrawDecal’s British Airways decals. 
 
It’s been built out of the box, other than my usual mod to these kits in adding some height on the cockpit crown area with some Milliput to correct the profile. 
 
Although it’s getting a little long in the tooth now, the kit still builds reasonably well once excess flash is removed!
 
I was really sad when BA retired the 747 - not only is it one of my favourite commercial aircraft but I’d flown long-haul on them more than any other type and thought I’d do my own little tribute to ‘The Queen of the Skies’. The real thing was my last 747 flight when she brought me back from Australia once… the ‘Kangaroo Route’ is now 777 or 787 and it’s not quite the same. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Long live the Queen!
 
All the best,
Tom

Lovely work, Tom! Got a few of these in the stash myself. What did you use for the blue on the engines?
 
Kev

From the F-4E set which, I suspect, has much in common with their F-4D offering…

 

 

 
Hope this helps a little,
 
Rich

Excellent problem-solving, Chuck!
 
Kev

Today's update:
 
I decided to tackle a couple items today.  First, I wanted to fill the holes in the nose as mentioned yesterday.  I left plenty of extra material on the outside of the fuselage so I'd have plenty to sand and feather.  The inside of the fuselage will not be visible, so I wasn't as worried about getting that as smooth. 
 

 


 
While I was/am waiting for that epoxy putty to cure, I decided to start looking into the turret question.  As expected, the internal components for the A6C (of which this a/c has 2) are nothing like those in the Emerson front turret.  So, with no other options, I'm going to have to do my best to scratch build the internals for one of them. 
 
These are the parts in question.

 
To be fair, I did check eBay for a parted out kit, but alas no Z-sprue is available.  I don't have a 3d printer either, or I'd probably build these in there.  I had started the build expecting it to be a pretty simple, straightforward thing.  Surprisingly, it's already throwing up a challenge for my scratch building skills.
 
The good news is, I'm already making some pretty good progress.

The main armor plating/framework roughed in.


I recreated the bend by carefully cutting partway through the plastic sheet, then back-filling the new gap with stretched sprue.


A compass helped cutout the ring.


And here you can see the fit of the factory part vs the blank of the scratch part.  I will use the scratch parts in the tail turret along with the kit-supplied split turret.  The factory turret innards will go in the CWS single-piece turret.  I've got the other side plate started, but it's very rough at this point.  Still, it's off to a good start.  I'll add details like the control boxes and wiring after I get the rest of the main structures together, but I'm pretty sure that once the turret is closed up and painted, nothing will really be visible of the interior.
 

Wow !!  

Hello, all.  For this group build, I decided to do something a little off the beaten path.  I'd considered a couple different fighters in the stash that would be applicable, but ended up deciding on the B-24J that'd been sitting on my shelf of doom for years.  I think I originally bought it as a COVID project and, to the SoD it went after something else happened to catch my attention.
 
I typically don't like to do any of the markings included with kits as they often tend to be overdone.  And, with access to a mask cutter and decal printing paper, I usually like to try to do something unique.  To that effect, I've spent the better part of the evening scouring Joe Baugher's USAF serial number lists and b24bestweb.com trying to determine which ship to build and have ultimately landed on Nan.
 
If you're at all familiar with the B-24, you know that it still holds the title of the most produced heavy bomber aircraft in history.  As such, the modeler is left with a dizzying array of options and combinations as to what may or may not be appropriate for a particular build.  Best I can tell - and I make no claims to be a B-24 expert - the kit really won't make any B-24 correctly.  (This is, of course, ignoring the wing shape and other form issues.)  My primary criteria in my search were the nose window and turret configurations, and nothing I could find quite matched the layout of this kit.  Either a ship would have the right window layout with the wrong turret, or vice versa.
 
So, we're going to grit our teeth and do the best we can with what we've got.
 
Here's the subject ship.  She's B-24J-55-CO s/n 42-99949, nicknamed Naughty Nan.  On the right side of the nose, there's a Vargas pinup girl whose head has been chopped off in favor of ad hoc armor plating (See here).  She was lost in a mid-air collision with another B-24 on September 21st, 1944 over Belgium.  According to the Missing Air Crew Report, 5 of the 9 crew went down with the ship.

 
The most glaring issues between this a/c and the kit are the facts that the kit calls for an Emerson forward turret and also has side windows next to the bombardier's windows.  The latter are easy enough to smooth over.  The former, however, is a bit of a twist... but I think I have a halfway acceptable plan.
 
Here's what I'm working with so far.


 
Obviously, I haven't done a whole lot yet, but the build has been pain free.  It's a huge, chunky kit, but it seems to be going together fairly well.



 
As you can see, I have oodles of aftermarket to lipstick up this pig, including both an Emerson nose turret and a A6C turret from Cold War Studios.  Our subject ship has an A6C in the nose as well as the tail.  Technically, I have two A6Cs if I include the split-down-the-middle tail turret from the kit.  So, in an effort not to spend more money on more lipstick, I'm going to try to use the kit turret for the tail and the CWS A6C for the nose.  Crossing my fingers here that everything works out because I'm not yet sure if the guts of the Emerson turret from the kit will fit the A6C turret.  (See here for a lengthy discussion.  Bonus points for my giddy naivete in the 3rd post)

 
For Naughty Nan, the window aft of the bombardier's sighting glass will need to go.

 
And so it shall be done.  Plated off with a little plastic card.



 
Rivets around the area are filled with liquid sprue.  Once that's cured, I'll fill the recesses for the windows inside and out with epoxy putty and sand them smooth.

 
So, that's where we're at.  Time to finally get this going.  As I'm not doing any figures or ground work, I expect this build to go pretty quickly, so stay tuned!

Yeah I still haven't done much research on the B-57 and Canberra yet but I believe the general shape and components should be pretty similar, being a licensed built

Hi Thai,
 
I think that it is very important that you produce a very accurate first kit, so please take your time to study the material and pictures available on the internet and in real life. There is a real A-1E (not AD-5W) at the Aerospace Museum of California in McClellan AFB, Sacramento.
Aerospace Museum of California
(916) 643-3192
https://g.co/kgs/JSgDaEZ
You may want to come out to take pictures and measurements of it before you commit yourself to mass production. 
 


 
There is also a Vought A-7 on display, among others, and we badly need a SLUF in 1/32 scale (the only kit in existence is the Trumpeter one which is awful!)

No. Both of the Hasegawa Zero kits offered for 40% off the listed price are both new-took kits:
A6M5c - https://spruebrothers.com/has08257-1-32-hasegawa-mitsubishi-a6m5c-zero-fighter-type-52-hei-252nd-flying-group-with-air-to-air-bombs/
A6M5b - https://spruebrothers.com/has08259-1-32-hasegawa-mitsubishi-a6m5b-zero-fighter-type-52-otsu-653rd-flying-group-/
 
This is the old-tool (ancient-tool?) Hasegawa Zero kit, and it is NOT part of that "clearance sale":
https://spruebrothers.com/has08054-1-32-hasegawa-mitsubishi-a6m5c-zero-fighter/
 
This is exactly why those new-tool Hasegawa Zero kit don't sell as well as they should - people don't know what they're looking at, especially when the new-tool and old-tool kits are being sold side by side. Hasegawa really shot themselves in the foot with that strategy. 
 
D
 
Adding a link to the entire 40% off sale items at Sprue Brothers:
https://spruebrothers.com/special-categories/clearance/
 

OK, this topic is veering in a completely different direction, so I am locking it! 

About an hour after I posted I would be pausing the build while awaiting the sails, one of the experienced sailing ship builders I have been corresponding with emailed me and asked why I was pausing.  He pointed out that I could rig the shrouds and lower stays on the masts, and in fact most sailing ship modellers did that kind of work before stepping the masts.  He also wrote that very often guys would fix one end of the stays and rig the upper ratlines as well while the masts were off the ship and before the sails were installed.  When I wrote back telling him I was seriously considering using the kit shrouds/ratlines as I was not sure my skills were up to rigging the actual shrouds and getting them positioned and tensioned correctly he basically told me to stop worrying as based on the build log he was sure I was more than skillful enough to do those tasks so I should get cracking! 
 
I took his words to heart and just finished installing the shrouds and the main stay/preventer stay to the main mast.  Following are some photos of either the end results or the process.
 
First up are the upper parts of the shrouds in position.  On actual ships shrouds were rigged in pairs wherever possible beginning with a pair or, if required, a single line on the starboard side followed by the same pair or line on the port side, and that is the process I followed.  The model has 9 lines for the shrouds for the fore and main masts and 5 for the mizzen mast.  Normally the single line would be towards the stern side of a channels, but due to how the shrouds have to be run on the model I put the single line forward.  On sailing ships the foremost shroud was thicker than the others because it had been what was called, wormed, parceled and served along its entire length, so I used a 1mm line for the foremost shroud to replicate that look and .75mm lines for the remaining 8 shrouds.

 
I also worked on and positioned the main stay and main preventer stay.  These were very large heavy lines and I used 1.3mm line to replicate them.  The end that looped around the mast had what was called a Mouse installed on the line, the purpose being to prevent the line from sliding upwards towards the fighting top thereby loosing the line.  The end was worked into an eye and seized, and the other end passed through the eye and run to its terminus point on the deck.  Believe it or not, the 1/96 scale Constitution is considered fairly small and things like a Mouse normally would not be installed, but I wanted to try make them anyway. 
 
First I selected a small wooden dowel.  

 
I drilled a hole in the dowel that would allow the line to be run through it and slightly beveled the end.

 
The dowel was cut to length and the other end beveled.

 
I then used the sticky part of one of those heavy band-aid type bandages to wrap around the wooden part.  The texture looks close to the actual thing at this scale.

 
The Mouse has been shaped.  In the early 1800's a Mouse on the Constitution looked more like a cylinder than a tear drop and I tried to get that look here.  Once the stays are in there final positions I will do some minor shaping work, but they look fairly close now.

 
The two ends of the main stay ready to be installed on the mast.

 
Both the main stay and preventer stay have been wrapped around the mast, checked for correct length and position on the mast and now await final rigging once the mast is fixed in place later.  I have about 2-3mm of play to make any final adjustments and once the stays have been rigged in place and tensioned I will glue the "mice" to fix them in place and paint them.

 
View of the lines positioned on the mast.  I will have to make some minor adjustments once I start the rigging process for these lines, but I got the look I was after.

 
And of course I posted the wrong photo above, below is the right one.

 
Here is how the shrouds and lower stays look in the Marquardt book.  I did not get a perfect look, but I think I got close enough.

 
Again a goof with the pictures, very vexing!

 

With the two booms finished I had to make the mounting hardware for them.  Due to the nature of the two mounting pieces I chose to use both brass and plastic to make the parts.  Below is a photo out of Marquardt's book showing the mounting hardware numbered 35 (Turning Iron) and 36 (Resting Iron) on the page.  
 
I used brass make the resting iron by cutting a strip to size and punching several .6mm disks out of brass to replicate the mounting bolts.  The shots below show the shortened process from start to finish.
 
Next was to make the Turning Iron.  Here I chose to use plastic and took a leftover piece from one of my previous aircraft builds to first rough cut a piece and then cut and sand it into final shape.  The first photo shows the leftover part with a section already cut off it with the final product next to it.  I could not replicate the actual part exactly, but I got a reasonable representation of it.
 
Here that part is dry fit on the channel ready to be glued
 
And painted, you can hardly make it out.
 
The Resting Iron in place.
 
I dry fit the boom to check the fit and the look which were both pretty good.  I will not place the boom until the end of the build to avoid potential breakage.  THough the boom appears to be bowed in the photo that is an optical trick due to how it sits in place and the angle I photgraphed it.
 
To finish a couple of close ups.
 
The kit does not have the modeller make what were known as "crowsfeet".  These were small lines the ran from the forward part of the fighting tops of the fore and main masts to a small piece of wood pierced with holes that rested on top of the stay known as a "Euphroe".  I am not sure what the purpose of this was but all sailing ships of at least frigate size and larger had them.  I have to assess whether I can drill the 10 holes through the fighting tops without damaging anything now that I have fixed them in place and installed the yards.  This is a spot where my inexperience in building sailing really shows.  Had I known about the above I could have fairly easily done the work to replicate it early in the process of making the fighting tops.  Now it is going to be much more difficult - should I choose to do it.
 
Ernest