Stikpusher

The past couple of days I was working on the panel line wash and getting those sealed up Now I have just a bite more detail painting to do, the last small bits glued on, the masks removed, and adding an antenna wire. Tomorrow…

Well today was working on the gloss clear coat prior to panel line wash, and on my flight deck base. I painted that up in pre war colors for now… I also painted up and test fitted the wheels & prop… almost to the finish line!

Today was the decal session, and now this sucker is really colorful. I used a combination of kit decals, which looked a bit questionable, some Microscale decals for national cockades and the squadron badge, and some Yellow Wings Decals for the propeller markings Now to get this bird all wrapped up

Chip, that’s an awesome find! Aurora had some great subjects back in the day. I do hope that Atlantis Models may have those molds in their inventory somewhere. I’ve had a few items come in over the past week or two. First up, a set of Falcon vacuform canopies for post WWII USAF jets. I needed the one for an F-80 that I bought off of eBay that was missing it’s canopy. Most of the others will come in handy as well. Then I picked up these two decal sets secondhand from Squadron, of all places… they’ll work great for some chopper kits I have where I don’t care for the kit decals, or the kit decals suck (Academy… cough cough)

Gil & Mark, thank you! Well, todays airbrush session was good, but, as always, there were complications…. The aluminum coat went on just fine on the fuselage and underside of the wings Unfortunately when removing the masking, some of the paint on the tail area came up, so I need to do a touch up there, plus on the blue fuselage band. So a day of touch up paint, then dry time before the gloss coat. But at least now all the base colors are on…

Today, after lots of masking, I airbrushed on the True Blue section leaders band, cowling, and wing chevron Next up is lots more masking, then airbrushing all of the aluminum lacquer areas of the fuselage and wing undersides…

That’s a real beauty of a build Gil! Bravo! 👍🏻👍🏻 I’ll have to remember your upgrades when I tackle the B-29 in my stash one day.

Very impressive work! Especially in a 1/72 figure!

In between bouts of working on my F2A today, I was doing detail painting in the cockpit here. I also installed the machine gun receivers onto the decking Now it just needs a wash in there to make the details stand out better

Just a bit of progress today… First up, I added the life raft canister/headrest and the rollover bar onto the rear deck Then I masked off the canopy and cemented that into place. Masking took quite a while…. I also glued the forward antenna mast into place then cut it off, as VF-2 did that and instead mounted the antenna wire running from the tail to a stub mast on the left wing. Tomorrow I will resume painting on this one…

Hmmmm, they show up just fine on my end.

So this weekend I finally was able to attend a Phoenix AMPS meeting. During the meetings, the club also encourages working on a model to pass the time, so I started this one that I’ve had in my stash for awhile. Academy’s 1/35 M981 Fire Support Team Vehicle, aka FISTV. These things are extremely similar to the M901 ITVs that I served on once upon a time, although instead of TOW missiles, they are full of radios, a laser designator, observation gear, and other tools for the trade for artillery forward observers. Anyways, here is the kit box A photo of the real thing during Desert Shield/Desert Storm that I’ll be using for reference. Not many photos to be found of these things there. and how much I assembled during the meeting I’ll be taking this one slow for now, as I have several other higher priority projects to wrap up first.

I’ve also been working on this bird a bit. I primed the cockpit area (along with other selected parts that will need that later) in Tamiya White Liquid Surface Primer. Then after allowing that to dry overnite, this morning i painted that area in Vallejo Model Air Aluminum. I’ll let this all dry overnite before I begin detail painting.

So I’ve been back to work on the colors of my Buffalo, but it took a couple of days… First up I airbrushed some Tamiya White Liquid Surface Primer onto the upper wing to help give a more vivid top color of the yellow After letting that dry overnite, this morning I airbrushed on a coat of Model Master Flat Insignia Yellow onto the upper wings. With the white base it gave a nice rich color. Then after lunch and giving the flat base time to air dry, I airbrushed on a coat of Model Master Chrome Yellow I’ll have to go back and hit the wing walks again, as the masking bled a tad bit, but otherwise, it’s all good so far. I’m quite happy with the yellow now. Next color will be the True Blue fuselage band, cowling, and wing chevron…

Thanks Gil. I should have some more progress on this later in the week.

These came in the mail yesterday. I had ordered this decal set for my F-14D kit that I will be converting to an F-14B, I just needed the markings to get the last items needed.

Another day, another project begins. I’m starting this one in slight trail of my F2A Buffalo, since it is a kindred Yellow Wings aircraft type. The Boeing P-26A, the US Army Air Corps’ first monoplane fighter. This is the Hobbycraft 1/48 kit I’ll be building it in the markings of the 34th Pursuit Squadron, 17th Pursuit Group, out of March Field, California, circa 1934/35 As usual, construction starts in the cockpit. I added a seat belt using some Toms Modelworks PE buckles and dental floss as the webbing material I also added the sidewalls parts of a pamphlet bag on one side and the throttle quadrant on the opposite side Next up will be painting, which will be in aluminum color, as the interiors were done in aluminum lacquer.

You’re quite right about the Air Group ID tail colors. That was a brain fart on my part. This one is going to be VF-2 Flying Chiefs, not a Felix the Cat F2A. I don’t know why I boned that part up on my narrative. Most of the bad press the Buffalo gets is due to Midway. At least here in the USA. And when you look at the fact that the Buffalo was outperformed, outnumbered, and flown by mostly junior inexperienced pilots against the most experienced Naval fighter pilots in the world, flying the hottest carrier based fighter of that time. It’s hard to expect any other outcome could have been possible. In the East Indies and at Singapore, the Buffalo did give a better account of itself, but again the odds were quite against them in the long run. The Finns on the other hand showed that it could be quite the agile killer that it was originally designed to be when flown by well trained pilots and not overloaded.

Well I’ve finally started slinging some paint onto this bird. First up I tried out Tamiya Lacquer Flat Aluminum on the fuselage, empennage, and wing lower surfaces. I also airbrushed on some Tamiya Flat Black Lacquer in the wing walk areas. Then after letting that dry and cure over 24 hours I airbrushed on a coat of Tamiya Acrylic Lemon Yellow on the empennage for the Saratoga Air Group ID color I’ll have to mask off the wing walks before I do the Chrome Yellow on the wing upper surfaces. I then airbrushed the propellor with AK Real Color Aluminum, which is brighter and shinier than the spinner in Tamiya Flat Aluminum. I like the contrast between the two More to come in a few days…

Thank you for your kind complements on this build Rodolfo.

Yeah, it’s not like I have a lack of projects or stash…. but I still keep looking for those gaps in the collection to be filled… speaking of which…. Found this one on eBay last week for auction at about half off the best shop prices. And NOBODY else bid on it. Since the Thunderbirds started here at Luke AFB in 1953 flying these, it’s going to my Luke collection. Something of a new and old kit, as it is metal plated like the old Hawk F-84 that I built decades ago.

I love it! I wonder if there is a 54mm scale figure available?

Mark, it’s gonna be great to get another sideliner completed. As well as resuming work on my Buffalo, I also resumed work on my P-40. First up was drilling out the exhausts after that I installed the exhaust stacks and from portion of the nose, as well as the nose gun fairings I also figured out a way to add some sheet styrene after closing up the wing into the wheel wells to fill the gap and replicate the missing skin and wing spar in there. I also filled the mount point for the drop tank, as AVG Hawks we’re not able to mount drop tanks lastly I had previously added the horizontal stabilizers Just about ready for some basic painting…

Due to a steady stream of houseguests here since the Labor Day weekend, I haven’t had much bench time. Until this weekend. I resumed work on my F2A. First up I installed and drilled out the exhaust stubs, and then glued the landing gear struts in place. Since all of this will be aluminum lacquer, there is no worries about adding those parts at this point next I detail painted, added a wash, then installed the engine lastly I have added the horizontal stabilizers and the engine cowling front. I’m just about ready to start some paint soon!

This past weekend, I went with a friend out to the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson located next to Davis Monathan AFB. I really have to say “WOW” about that place. It has one of the most comprehensive collections that I have yet seen in an air museum. I’ll share a few photos here some air team aircraft a Tomcat in one of my favorite marking schemes an original Phantom An overview of some of the outdoor displays This C-130 I had to photograph, as it was from the Tennessee ANG, who flew support for my class in Jump School at Ft Benning once upon a time. I had to wonder if I had jumped from this particular Herky Bird. There is even a museum within the museum, dedicated to the 390th Bomb Group, that has a complete WWII history of that Group in WWII. Long story short, I took slightly over 100 photos, and would have taken far more, until my phone battery was on its last legs. Here is a link to my postimage album with the rest of the photos https://postimg.cc/gallery/kXb8R8G If you’re ever in the Tucson area, make it a goal to see this place! It’s an all day affair.