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'Gaboon Viper' of VAL-4 - Bin Thuy - 1971-1972


karimb

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Karim,

   I've been patiently waiting for your next WNW kit to appear.  Little did I realize you were working your mastery here.  My fault for only going through a few of the forums.

 

That cockpit is stunning...  I mean like jaw-hanging-open stunning.

 

Gaz

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Karim,

   I've been patiently waiting for your next WNW kit to appear.  Little did I realize you were working your mastery here.  My fault for only going through a few of the forums.

 

That cockpit is stunning...  I mean like jaw-hanging-open stunning.

 

Gaz

 

You've started to dribble...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Absolutely fantastic work on that ‘pit. Seat looks great and the wiring looms really add to the realism. If you don't mind me asking,what did you use for the wiring. Lead wire? And the seats are just brilliant. Especially that detail on the belts

 

...Tim

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  • 2 weeks later...

Karim,

   I've been patiently waiting for your next WNW kit to appear.  Little did I realize you were working your mastery here.  My fault for only going through a few of the forums.

 

That cockpit is stunning...  I mean like jaw-hanging-open stunning.

 

Gaz

 

 

Gaz my friend!

well you didnt have to wait long for me to go back to wnw... i have shelved the kit two days ago, long story short i haven't been able to find enough energy or desire to continue working on it any longer. I have tried and tried but it fizzes away after a couple of minutes. I have finished some stuff and will write an update here, and yes, i will start a new work in progress on the main work in progress part of the forum and you guessed it, i am back building what i love most, ww1 subjects!

Hope to see you on that thread buddy!

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Absolutely fantastic work on that ‘pit. Seat looks great and the wiring looms really add to the realism. If you don't mind me asking,what did you use for the wiring. Lead wire? And the seats are just brilliant. Especially that detail on the belts

 

...Tim

 

Hey Tim,

wire bundles are bundles of EZLine that i bundled up using a jig and then tied up!

Thanks for your kind words and dropping by!

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Thanks everyone for kind comments and for following this build up to now. 

I have to initially apologize for not having really done any updates as i have gone through quite a rough patch lately. My 5 year old daughter had to be admitted to hospital for ten days due to a rare immune system disease brought on by a common infection. We are now in the clear thank God and everything is slowly getting back on track and that period is behind us. I had to take unplanned leave and flew out of doha as soon as i had received the phone call and stayed back home for ten days.

Back on to the build, just prior to that i had managed to squeeze three days at the bench, and i spent those whole three days working on finishing one tail sponson and the left outer wing.

I had promised not to complain anymore but oh well what can i say. The panel lines don't line up, the fit is stellar (in a bad way!) specially the fit of the components that make up the sponson. I spent the first half day at the bench sanding and reriveting the wing halves before inserting a styrene tubing sandwiched between the two halves. This time around i have actually found that KH had molded on locator pins, but unfortunately they didnt line up even close to where the locator holes were so i promptly snipped them off as they were making the alignment harder than it would have been without them there. The fuel tank port on the top of the wing is much shallower than the other two (now three) that are on the center section of the wing but i left it as is.

The horror story starts when you have to assemble the pylon.

The gear bay was dressed up with the photoetch from the eduard set after having filled all the ejector pinmarks that were there. I also (and very much regrettably, since once something is seen it cannot be unseen) found in my reference material photos of the pylons that distinctly show raised rivets all around the booms and below them. I could not feel things were accurate enough with me not adding the them. The more digging i made the more i realized the molded on recessed rivet line were in the wrong position or missing.

In order to tackle all those issues i initially started with building the boom assembly as is in order to blend everything into a coherent unit. The top horizontal piece was a real bear to get to smooth in. I had to use styrene shims to try blending in the back of that part with the fillet at the bottom of the vertical stabilizer. rounds and rounds and rounds of filling and sanding to get the part to a point that was satisfactory. I used initially ca with microballoons, then mr dissolved putty then some ms500, then polished with micromesh. It just drained the hell out of me. Filled some of the rivet engraved lins with ms500 then sanded those clean and redrew the correct rivet lines for either reriveting with RB riveter or using the micromark resin rivet freelines to add some variation to the rivets between raised and recessed. The most prominent lines i have done with the resin rivets!

At that point i also had decided maybe for some variety it was time for me to get done with the cockpit so i polished the glassware using the tamiya compound treatment using my proxxon rotary tool which has a really super slow setting, and a cotton buffing wheel. Once the parts were slick and shiny i dunked them in the usual future bath. Once dry and to my surprise i noticed there were some stress marks in the middle of the top canopy which i hadn't seen before. At that point i had figured out where this build was going to go. Straight to the shelf. I had lost all desire and incentive to continue working on the bronco.

I had a long chat with Jaroslav as i have a tendency to usually plod on and finish something i have started but what he recommended made sense. At the rate things were going i would probably push on hating every second of working on the kit considering the little time available for modeling lately, cut corners (which is something i mentally had started doing at that point) and just not get the finish i wanted or had the mental image of having. I carefully packed the kit back in the box with all the subassemblies labelled and a handwritten note on exactly here i had stopped and what were the items and things to do in the correct order to restart the build someday and placed the box in the 'paint storage' closet away from dust and sunlight, awaiting better days.

I must apologize to everyone who has followed the build up to this point and who was expecting some sort of better news in this update...

I am going to post some pictures below of where we have got at the point before boxing back the kit.

I have since started work on what i keep realizing i love most, a WW1 aircraft! I will be putting up a work in progress in the main section as it doesn;t have bombs and unfortunately cannot be entered in the group build...

Again thank you everyone for all the encouragement and support you have brought during the bronco debacle, below some photos for your enjoyment!

 

Stay safe and happy modeling!

Karim

 

65C2A256-1B97-48E7-8A56-D0CBC78814EA-XL.

 

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IMG_1312-XL.jpg

 

IMG_1313-XL.jpg

 

IMG_1316-XL.jpg

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Sorry to hear that your daughter has been so unwell, Karim. Family has to come first, and you've probably made the right decision to put this build aside for the time being. Hopefully you can return to it later.

 

Kev

 

 

Thanks Kev for your kind words!

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Karim,

   I'm glad your daughter has gotten past the infection! 

 

As for this model...  I find it hard to throw away something I paid good money for.  But the you have to figure that aggravation costs your spirit more than the few dollars a kit costs.

 

Have fun, build WNW!

 

Gaz

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