Oldbaldguy

Looking forward to learning what you think of the Reskit gear.

Very nice. I have never in my life been able to turn out a respectable model car no matter how hard I tried. Have no idea how you guys do it.

As I mentioned in other posts, contractors are swarming my house on the odd days they actually show up and I consider it my sacred duty to constantly be in their way, offering advice and opinions, unwanted chats, etc., so I am familiar with their stuff. These guys are BIG fans of lime green battery powered hand tools and have bushels of them for various jobs. I noticed two in particular: a battery powered flat bladed oscillating saw and a small battery powered portable compressor with tank that drives their nailers. The saw is imminently useable for all sorts of things and I found myself wondering if anyone makes an LSP sized version. What an essential tool that would be and much more useful for cutting plastic (I would think) than something like a Dremel. And the little compressor is a marvel in itself. It is quiet-ish, small, light enough to be carried anywhere, has a tank pressure and adjustable hose pressure gauges, and is also battery powered. Neither is particularly expensive. Even if a model-sized version of the saw had to be wall-socket powered, it would be very useful. If such a thing already exists, I would very much like to know.

A couple of gin and tonics drove me to do much the same thing as you are doing when converting a Revell F-4G to a USMC RF-4. Then I discovered a distillery in the mountains near here that puts up a decent rye and now I’m convinced that I can hammer Revell’s old OLD J model into a B. Don’t know if there is a connection or not. Just to be safe, I’m avoiding the local moonshine place at all costs.

Bummer. Shoulda listed my KH kits on traders row already.

Yer right. Decal stripe was grim at best while your painted version is obviously much better, not to overstate the obvious.

It’s good to see that at least one of the USAF’s three new airplanes is moving forward. The new trainer and the KC-46 seem to be stuck in one step forward, two or three steps back mode due to industrial lethargy.

It was years before I learned that you could paint any model. I thought all 109s were maroon and all FW -190s were eggplant purple and all Zeros were yellow because that’s the way Aurora made ‘em.

My only solace is that I will eventually end up with a functional kitchen I can live with and a dedicated space for modeling. Beyond that, it’s daily chaos that likely will go on into the new year. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m constantly requiring a re-do of the re-dos.

Is clear resin really clear? Your example seems to have a dingy cast to it but that could be a by product of the photo. Looks like it has been sitting out in the sun and weather for decades. Seems to me that if your machine could poop out a canopy of the right shape that was more a constant pour and less a layer cake, you might be able to make it work. While the surface seems smooth enough, I’m not convinced you will ever be able to sand and polish your way past the internal structure of the part. Vac may be your only option if you want a part that is acceptably clear for your scale.

Ha! Two steps forward; one step back.

Y’all did really good! In some of those shots you can’t tell it from the real thing. Everybody seems to like choo-choos whether they want to admit it or not. If they could figure out a way to put a tailhook on ‘em, even I might be tempted.

Very, very nicely done. I read years ago an article in a major flying magazine that opined that the F.2b may very well be the best airplane ever built. No idea why the writer claimed that, but he did. I always liked ‘em, myself. One question: It has been said that cows will lick the surfaces of airplanes painted with butyrate dope if left unattended in pastures. I wonder if the same can be said about camels?

Looks like a very pampered Beaver and a good kit of it could easily find a home with my other Navy models, but why on earth would they use something this big to tow gliders?? Just about any piston ag plane could do the job just as well or better at a fraction of the operating costs.

Well, that’s a pretty dang nifty fix, that there is. Gotta remember this.

My house is currently awash in contractors whose sole job on earth is to take all my money while leaving nothing behind to show for it. Since all my modeling stash and stuff is lost somewhere behind a large stack of building materials, I have a lot of spare time to spend thinking mundane thoughts. Most recently I wondered why in time of war when stocks of ammunition and such cycled in and out of existence at warp speed do militaries bother to paint things like bombs and other short-lived, single-use things at all? I understand why we started coating bombs with thermal barrier material after the Forrestal fiasco, but why did we bother to paint all the 500 pounders used during WW2? They hardly laid around long enough to corrode and why would we care if they did? One would think a rusty bomb would do as much damage as a freshly painted one and would cost less per round. And nothing says you couldn’t stencil whatever you needed to directly onto the bare casing. So was it poor form to bomb your enemies with rusty pig iron? Were we stuck in a rut and slaves to milspec convention back then the same as we are now? Did all the participants paint their ordnance during WW2 or was it just the rich guys? I am genuinely curious and would like to know. With the many variations on the color "Rust” available to us from any and all of the model paint makers, it would be nice to have something to paint with it besides tanks and old cars.

Beautifully model and a very handsome airplane, but where are the guns on the real one?

I’ve always held that there are/were certain airplanes that look “correct.” For me, the Hunter is one of a shortish list. I have no idea how it flew - it just looks elegant. My Elegant Airplane list includes the aforementioned Hunter, the Seahawk, the Grumman Tiger and maybe one or two others that I can’t remember right now. Even the dreadful Scimitar had very nice lines. I think the B-1 is the last elegant airplane in the US Air Force and the F11F was the last classy looking thing to grace a Navy flight deck. Your Hunter has turned into quite the project. That seat alone is worth the price of admission.

While exceedingly basic, the old, old, maybe ancient Aurora kit ain’t all that bad, but you’d likely have to mortgage your house to pay for one, assuming any exist. I think 1/72 is a good scale for this airplane. Vac kit maybe? Or 3D it like all the youngsters are doing these days.

I’m amazed that such beauty and grace could ever be the result of the ugliness of war. Nicely done.

Wow! This is a lot of information and photos! Definitely a keeper. Seems I was mostly wrong in what I remembered. I saw it not long after Foote acquired the airplane and I could have sworn he told me it was a bespoke build by Grumman. At least I got the foreign owner part right although the timing was wrong. Very interesting. Thanks to all! I’m tempted to take a saw to my old Revell kit and…..

Grandpa Pettibone says,”BZ” and Hatlo sends a hat tip.

Hunh. Using clues supplied above, I let my fingers do the walking and discovered that I was only about half right in what I remembered about Dick Foote’s airplane. Time will do that. Another weird warbird I remember seeing in the flesh some six decades ago - this time somewhere in South Carolina - was a T-28 someone had converted into a four-seat sedan. Painfully homely contraption that thankfully never caught on. Then there were those B-17 and PV-2 fire ant sprayers….

At the risk of repeating myself, this is another Revell kit?? I have one of these somewhere as well and will be very interested to see how this build goes.

So glad to hear that it found a good home!