WildBill50

Very nice. Oldies but goodies. Great job on the vac. Bill

I agree with you Gil. I think that's why I've been building them lately too. Nice kits overall with great value. Build it, Kevin! Bill

Yeah, you know you did it right. Looked great at the meeting Friday. Bill

Thank you sir. The building shall commence. Bill

Good day all, Since I started building some of the older kits in my collection lately, Revell, Monogram stuff and such I've been having some real fun. Which brings me to the next thing on a long list of things to build. I have started on the 1/48 Revell F-89D/H kit and got caught up looking for what color the wheel wells are painted. I have not been able to find a shot looking into the main gear bays. The Detail and Scale and Squadron books don't show it either. There was picture that looked like the nose gear bay was maybe a chromate or olive or even gray color but it is black and white. The doors look like they are natural metal but the bays themselves I can't be sure. Anyone have that secret locked away so I can continue on this journey? The kit is really nice so far even with horror of horrors, raised panel lines. I put a lot of weight in the nose so I won't be stung with a tail dragger. The interior is workable and the detail a mixed bag. This is a large aircraft. Pictures to follow. Thanks. Bill

One of your best Duke. Looks great. Bill

I like it. Looks very typical of the era that it was modeled. Nice job on it. Bill

You did a great job on that thing Ed. All it took was some time. The flames look even better in person. Bill

I finally got around to downloading some pictures. Here are some of the aircraft, one of each type represented for the kit. I will have one of each in the hangar deck. These were all an experiment in building them. I tried different colors for the "glass" on them to see what looked the best. Choosing the colors for the airframes was also a challenge as the decals matched the colors that were advised. So here they are with some changes on some of them to make them look the part of folded up and stored below deck. CH-53E: I cut the tail off and folded it for stowage. The rotors were also bent to better simulate the areas where they are stowed. I am not a masochist so I will not be adding the rotor holders to the aircraft. V-22 Osprey: Folded the rotors and engines along with turning the wing to facilitate deck space storage. I painted the backs of of the the engines red along with the front intakes to simulate FOD covers. CH-46: I bent the rotors down to match photos. AV-8: I left the canopy clear to see how that looked. I will be adding pylons to the wings on some of them. 6 Harriers will be on board as that is the normal complement. UH-1N: AH-1 Cobra: Added rocket pods. That's it for now. I am now onto getting the beast onto its base along with the lighting wired up for good. Then the building of the outside can commence. Questions, comments, funny stories all welcome. Thanks for looking. Bill

Keep 'em coming Mark. They are looking good. Quite the array of different subjects. Bill

Time is a wasting. Some pics soon of some things starting to stir for this thing. I think I have a plan for this going forward now. After not building anything at all last year, this is what I really want to get finished up this year. Stay tuned for some updates. Bill

Cool looking Locomotive. It reminds me of "Thomas the Tank Engine", when watching it with my son 20 yrs ago. We used to collect the ERTL metal ones. I just had a nice trip down memory lane...Thanks. Bill

Do it! It built up really well...except for those rear parts of the side panels. This was one of the fastest models I have completed.

Outstanding sir! Bill

Nice! Gil, do those red stripes continue under the elevators or are they just on the upper surfaces? Did any of the silver get pulled up afterward? Love the scheme. Bill

Hey Mark, That is really nice. When I looked at that first picture I could see The lines of a ME-109 if you take off the top wing and fixed gear. The cowling is a little different but to me it captures the look. Anyway, keep 'em coming. Bill

Thanks guys When a kit comes along every once in a while that grabs you and is not beating you up at every turn, even I can make something look half way presentable. This to me was one of those kits; a pretty easy build that kept me engaged to finish it. I just got home from the Indianapolis contest/show. I brought this down there for some table eye wear basically and came home with a third place trophy. Talk about surprised.

Thanks Gil. A double dip in Future was all I did on the "glass". It seems that this canopy was pretty clear and shiny to start, so the Future added to it. I don't know about about those decals as I just used warm water at first and watched the curl and basically fall off. In fact I ended up taking off what I could and just had it on the shelf au natural. I ended up using what I could. With the camo pattern and the color of the decals it almost looks like there is nothing there anyway. Thanks for the inspiration from your build. Bill

After seeing Gil's A-4 and a couple of more from a club member, it got me thinking of building one also. I was going to use the Hasegawa A-4M but I didn't feel like messing around with so many parts. I looked around some more and almost did the CA TA-4J; nope still too many pieces. I finally came across the Monogram OA-4M. There were just the right amount of pieces for what I was looking for. It feels like "The Three Bears" right now. Anyway, I tried getting this done by last year just to say I built one model last year. I couldn't even get this done by then. So here it is now completed. Not much to say about it except that the decal were the worst part of the build. I got some to stick by using Future as an adhesive for them. Three colors of gray made for a pretty dull bird, but I think it looks kind of cool now that it's finished. I went old school on it for weathering. I used pastels for the panel lines to break up the grayness. This was a quick build when I finally got around to actually spending time building it. Comments welcomed. Enjoy! Bill

Hi guys, I thought I forgot how to model. I been looking at everyone's builds and finally got back in the game. I started this in January while I was away for a few days and just kept up the momentum when I got back. I really liked this kit, very easy to put together with no real faults except the attachment of the side fuselage pieces. Take your time and you will be rewarded. I deviated from the instructions by adding the front fuselage before putting on the upper section with the wings. I was able to mate the pieces a lot better this way without a gap. It was built out of the box using MM Acryls and Enamels. Gloss coated with Future stuff (whatever they are calling it this week). I decaled and another coat of clear was put on. I used a Payne's gray oil wash then with another Future coat and finally a clear flat coat of MM Acryl. Hope you like it and all comments are appreciated.

Great job Gil. Love the paint scheme. I'm doing a OA-4M now and hope to get it done soon. Keep up the the inspiring work. Bill

Way cool Gil! Nicely done. It definately does look like a Seasprite. Bill

After building my AMT B-35 it was time for a nice what-if paint scheme. I decided to paint a bare metal scheme which would look cool with B-36 squadron markings. I was going to put red and yellow stripes on the wing-tips and nose gear doors and SAC badges and such...then I had to paint the metal color first. The first time I used some Testors Metallizers; that came off too easily. Stripped that off and found a can of Krylon Nickel colored metal spray paint. It went on great on most of the model. As it dried, the shards of silver in it started poking up all along the area near the canopy area. It looked like it had a buzz cut from the barber. I sanded that off and repaired damaged areas from the sanding and ended up giving the plane a different scheme all together. I converted it to an AB-35(H) gunship in Viet Nam colors and a black underside. Silk purse from a sow's ear. On another note, I got a call from my local model shop asking if someone in our club could repair a damaged wing on a model that a customer brought to him. The guy picked up the model at work and tilted it on its side and the wing fell out and broke...his boss was not happy. I went over to look at it and told him I could fix it for him. From the looks of it it was from a travel agency model of a 747 (about 1/72 scale) All he brought were the two wings, the good one to show what it should look like and the other one, missing the winglet and chunks of the wing. The winglet was split in two and part of the wing was broken off. As I started repairs I noticed that there were more pieces of the wing missing. I broke out the epoxy sculpt and filled in the blank areas and sanded it smooth. I found exact matches for the gray wing (Testors light gray). The blue winglet was another story. It had this purple cast to it. I found an exact match for that in a Games workshop color called Stormy Blue. A Gloss coat sealed up everthing and it was delivered back to the customer. Everyone was very happy with the out come. Even me, as i received the Kitty Hawk UH-1Y for the effort. Happy, happy, happy. Bill

Nice job Mark. What color did you use for the sand color. I like how your tracks came out also. Bill

Ed, This came out really looking great. Better in person. The scale like trees give it a sense of the size of the ship. Nice job. Bill