I'll start with my F-14 Tomcat that I'm doing for my review here. It was the only aircraft I worked on yesterday and here is the progress I made. First off, I assembled the second fuselage for the F-14B since I'd already done the F-14A fuselage some time ago. Once that was done, I assembled all four of the engine intake trunks. There were six parts to each one and when you assembled the inside truck tube and inserted it inside the intake you need to clamp it shut since the sides of the intake part are slightly separated:
The intake trunks were designed to snap right into place in the fuselage assemblies and they do go in fairly well as you can see here on Tomcat B:
However, installation on each of these fuselages revealed a couple issues. I don't know whether it was because I mixed up sprues when building these or what, but when I installed the intake trunks to the Tomcat B, I had a gap on the inside of the fuselage where the trunks joined to the fuselage:
That gap did not occur on the outside and the intake trunks were installed on the correct sides; otherwise they would have never snapped right in due to the shape of the intake trunks. When I installed the trunks to Tomcat A, I had a different set of issues. The trunks didn't snap all the way in and the intake openings curved inward. I had to press down the front of the intake to cement them in place; as well as clamp the sides of the intake to conform properly to the fuselage:
Yet despite all this, the intakes on Tomcat A had no gaps at the joint; even after all that clamping:
Just some extra things to look out for when building these models.
These last two pics show the cockpit modules dry-fit to the fuselage sections to get an idea how they will fit. On the underside, they seem to fit smoothly with a flush joint:
However, if you flush out the bottom, you have a step along the joint on top. I apologize that it isn't seen too well here in this pic:
Right now, I'm not sure what is the best way to fix that issue, so I put these away to figure it out another day. I should have some ideas in a future update.
Moving along, I was getting tired of my Russian aircraft carrier languishing on my workbench. It was time to get the rest of the decals laid down on the deck. After two and a half hours, I finally succeeded in getting 98% of the deals laid down on this deck:
There are still a few more that need to go on. Since the last decals need to be placed on top of existing decals, I need to let these dry and clearcoat them to seal them before I finish this deck. More to come on that later; once these decals are done, this model will start to move a lot faster.
Finally, here is my latest progress on a lot of the armor I've started.
I'll start with this crazy Sherman from UM. I managed to install that bolt strip on the forward hull over the strip styrene parts I glued in to hold it:
Gator Grip Glue is perfect for this. After that it was time to do the photo-etch on the bogies. Fortunately, this kit gives you a plastic template piece to use to bend the photo-etch into shape. This is one of the smartest and only good thing about this kit:
I was told afterward that if I had annealed these parts, they would have bent better. Oh well, lesson learned. They still turned out well and were simple to do:
Finally all the photo-etch parts were installed and this was ready to close up:
In this pic you can still see one of the shortcomings of this kit yet again. When I dry-fit the top hull onto the lower hull; it showed that the P/E bolt strip was too narrow so I'll have to do some fancy filling there above it:
After that I'd had enough of this so I moved on. It was time for something easy. The decals for the Military Wheels Russian Fuel Truck were unmitigated crap that shattered into tiny shards, so I had to find alternates from my spares box. These new decals look quite good in my opinion:
I just have to dullcoat this and weather it and this truck will be done.
Speaking of easy, I added the decals I wanted to use on the T-14 Armata:
After that, I added the machine gun on the top of the turret and then installed the photo-etch bar armor to the hull:
I'll be brush painting the camouflage pattern on that bar armor once it is fully set. After that will be some light weathering and then this tank will be done.
Finally, it was time to buckle down and get the roadwheels done on at least one of my Type 89 Japanese tanks. Here you can see two of the bogie assemblies. These go on only one side of the tank. The Exacto blade is there to show you how truly small those 16 little wheels are that I had to install one at a time on the suspension parts:
Once all 32 wheels were cemented to the suspension parts, I installed the completed bogies and the completed rear sprocket wheel in place:
Later I had to build the drive sprocket and add it to the outside suspension cover. These were then installed on the tank:
These are some funky little tanks. That's where I stopped on this to prevent myself from getting permanently cross-eyed. One down, one to go.
Last but not least, I wanted something simple and fun to build. Out came the USAAF re-supply set. Even though the axle on the bomb trailer is still broken, I decided to finish off the bomb trailer assembly. That way I can just fix the axle and get it painted. Here it is fully assembled:
Next I moved on to the Tanker tractor. I assembled the suspension, engine, drive train and other parts onto the chassis. This is incredibly detailed:
I finished off with some of the parts on the top of this chassis:
Next I finished up the cab and hood to the extent that I could before painting:
The rest of this will be finished once the interior is painted up. Now that I had the cab finished, it was time to build the tank trailer:
I'll be leaving the doors open to show that nice hose and pump assembly inside. This is one big truck:
Finally I had all the vehicles in this set almost all ready for paint. I do still need to add a few more parts to the bomb tractor. I hope to get that done soon and be shooting some paint this coming week:
Okay, that's all I managed to get done yesterday. It's amazing what I can do when I have a whole day to myself just to build; especially when I also have the room to spread out. What a great, productive day!
Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome.
How many of us here can read Russian in the Cyrillic alphabet? Those Russian decal makers could be playing some serious jokes on us western modelers.... 