ClumsyDude Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 Hi Jim, I think your 'Cat is looking suberb and I'm loving all of the attention to detail that you're lavishing upon her. It's easy for us to be critical sat here looking at your work on our monitors but truthfully, I think the finish looks great. You're going to be the most important dude to convince however and if you don't feel it's right, you're the one who has to look at it on your shelf or in your cabinet. If you feel you have to, I like Chris's idea of using pastels to knock the sheen back a smidge. They are easy to control and can even give that uneven sheen so often seen on the full sized birds. I used pastels to create the grime sagging effect along the forward fuselage of my stalled Tomcat. Using a technique like that could give you the opportunity to soft mask along the sag line and dull down the gloss a bit, just like the full sized airframes. (Just thinking aloud and possibly planning for future projects ). I'm sure that whatever you choose to do will till look cool. Keep at it. Cheers. Thanks geedubelyer. Very much appreciate your thoughtful comments, and I will certainly go back over your post to see what you did with the pastels. I am going to wait a little before I do it though - will get the dio a bit more together and see how the bird looks in context. I'm probably a good couple of months away from that, but hey, it's been three and a half years to get to this point! Cheers Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClumsyDude Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 Looks stunning and the finish is just plain beautiful - but I agree with you, Jim - it's a TAD too glossy, but really just a tad. If you are not afraid of respraying it, do it, if you are, leave it as it is and I am sure the finish will grow on you. Glad you reworked the front landing gear - I also thought the Cat wasn't kneeling enough in the first pic. Great job! Thanks Starfighter, glad you like it! One day I'd like to have the guts to tackle a build like your Prowler ... one day ... ! Cheers Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClumsyDude Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 Ok, we have now fast-forwarded all the way to November 2014, for the final work on the missiles. The missiles, like everything else on this build, were a bit of an odyssey. It certainly helped that I don't have anywhere to put such a big diorama ... it means that if I have to spend a month or two reworking something, it just puts off the date where I have to find the space! And so it very much was with the missiles. I started out with the Hasegawa weapons sets. Of course, it's a total rort that they don't offer weapons with the kit - everyone else manages to do it - but I didn't have anything in the stash to match. Progress was pretty good, and then Eduard released a whole range of 1/48 aircraft weapons in resin. HOW COULD I LOSE?? It took all of about five minutes after the Eduard sets appeared on luckymodel before they were on their way to me. And in the end I decided not to use them. The sidewinders have very nice, crisp molding, with thin fins. But the little PE end caps are too big, and in the end it I damaged the fins on one of them. Could've started on another one - there are four in the set - but in the end I figured if my skills were good enough I could make the Hasegawa ones look good. It was a similar story with the sparrows, although it's a much simpler looking missile and not so much of an improvement on the Hasegawa weapon, so that was an easier choice. The Eduard phoenixes are to be avoided at all costs. Not only is it very difficult to align the two halves of the missile; but - far more worryingly - they feature fictional moulded-on rivets on the fins that are the size of scale tennis balls. I eventually got these sanded off, but broke the feathery fins off so many times in the process that I decided to pitch the phoenixes as well. After all of that, here are the Hasegawa sidewinders with decals and gloss coat on. I ended up using the Eduard PE caps on the back end ... much easier to sand down to fit than on the delicate resin missiles. And here's the full set: What you can't see on these is the assembly I did for the rocket motor on the Hasegawa Phoenix. The Hasegawa original just features a great empty cavern, which is almost the same diameter as the outside of the missile. The actual aperture for the rocket is much narrower, so I cut some slide-fit tubing to duplicate the effect. I'll try to take some shots of it if anyone is interested. Girlscanplay2 and A-10LOADER 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClumsyDude Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 And the glamour shots with missiles on ... more or less done except for future clear-coat adjustment, and adding the fiddly little probes on the front fuse under the cockpit. Thanks everyone for the comments. Next up - figures, tractor and diorama base! A-10LOADER, Scale_artisan, andromeda673 and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starfighter Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Beautiful! ClumsyDude 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClumsyDude Posted July 30, 2015 Author Share Posted July 30, 2015 Ok, time for another update. This one is all about the deck tractor, a project which I worked on over probably eighteen months (obviously it was pretty on-and-off, doing stuff in between tomcat work). The kit is the Skunkmodels one, which goes together so easily and simply that there's not a lot of point in documenting it. This leaves us with the assembled tractor, sprayed in Gunze off white, and with the non-slip on the top sprayed on (won't show the very tedious and involved masking required). I again used custom paint masks, these were done by Ian at Ad Astra based on scans of the original Skunkmodels decals. Seat cushions have been made with two-part epoxy putty. The indentation in the right side of the rear cushion is for the little dude driving the tractor, who will be sitting with his body twisted to the right. Here we are with the masked stripes painted on, and decals and a wash (pretty simple stuff with the little tractor). In the first shot you can see the scratch built side panel. I also scratch built the dashboard, punching out holes for the dials and using Airscale instrument decals. Don't have any shots for that, if people are interested I'll post some. And now some weathering. I used a tan enamel wash on the upside, which I was really happy with (used a couple of shades for variety). Chipping is Tamiya German grey enamel, applied with a sponge. And, if truth be told, wiped off and reapplied and wiped off and reapplied about six times before I was happy! You can see I've scuffed up the black on the upside a bit with some rough sandpaper so the white shows through round the edges, per reference photos. And here she is completed. These shots show the was on the top to much better effect. I've also scuffed up the diagonal stripes on the bumper bar with sandpaper. On the weathering: most of the photos I've seen of these tractors are clean, and I've seen plenty of comments posted to the effect that they're never allowed to get into a highly "weathered" state (although I'm sure a USN petty officer wouldn't use that term). But I wanted to do a bit of weathering, so I searched and searched and searched until I found a photo of a tractor with something like the weathering I've shown. Might not be accurate on average, but I'll claim that mine is the one that got away! Next up, the driver. Thanks for watching, and thanks for all the suggestions and comments. Cheers Jim andromeda673, A-10LOADER and Girlscanplay2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starfighter Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 Great looking tractor, Jim! I think the weathering looks spot on - they aren't always perfectly clean. Taking into account you are building a Tomcat as it appeared during the 1980s, I can offer you a probably nit-picking, rivet-counting comment about the tractor which has nothing to do with the building quality (which is just excellent!), but only if you want it! ClumsyDude and andromeda673 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClumsyDude Posted July 31, 2015 Author Share Posted July 31, 2015 Yeah, would love to hear it! Suspect you're going to tell me they were yellow in the 80s, which I discovered after the painting was done - so I decided to live with it! If it's something different, keen to hear that too. Really appreciate the comments, thanks for taking the time to post. Cheers Jim andromeda673 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starfighter Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 Jim, in fact, the only correct colour for this tractor is white (not taking into account a few custom 'Nascar' paintjobs). The point is - the tractor you are using (A/S32A-31A) is only in service since the early or mid-nineties. The correct one for the 1980s would be a MD-3 tractor - the obvious external difference being the A/S32A-31A is wider at the rear and has double tyres on the rear axle. Here's a link showing the differences between the tractors: http://f4models.blogspot.com/2013/11/us-navy-as32a-31a-flight-deck-tractor.html Again, your model looks stunning and is worth every minute looking at it and posting comments about it - can't wait so see it finished! andromeda673, ClumsyDude and Girlscanplay2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClumsyDude Posted July 31, 2015 Author Share Posted July 31, 2015 Thanks for the link starfighter, that's really interesting. Had I known that eighteen months ago, I reckon I would've tried to modify it - would've been an interesting project too. Oh well, live and learn! Cheers Jim andromeda673 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starfighter Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 Jim, Verlinden has the tractor you need - no need to modify this one. It might be an option to buy one of these and keep the A/S32A-31A for another project, but that's just a suggestion. No matter which choice you make, your diorama will look gorgeous! ClumsyDude, Out2gtcha and andromeda673 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andromeda673 Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 What a great amount of information, great looking build so far, and watching this come along is awesome! ClumsyDude 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomcat14 Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 Awsome Looking Tomcat Jim. Coming out real nice. ClumsyDude 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClumsyDude Posted August 2, 2015 Author Share Posted August 2, 2015 Jim, Verlinden has the tractor you need - no need to modify this one. It might be an option to buy one of these and keep the A/S32A-31A for another project, but that's just a suggestion. No matter which choice you make, your diorama will look gorgeous! Thanks Starfighter, didn't know that. I think I need to sleep on the info and see how much it bugs me, then I'll make a call as I get done with the rest of the dio. If history is any guide, it'll bug me enough to do it ... Cheers Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClumsyDude Posted August 2, 2015 Author Share Posted August 2, 2015 What a great amount of information, great looking build so far, and watching this come along is awesome! Thanks andromeda, appreciate you following along. Awsome Looking Tomcat Jim. Coming out real nice. Thanks Chris. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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