SPA Modeler

Looks like a great day - 1 day boat? Down in Mexican waters? Heck of a yellow tail!

EDIT: just read back a few posts - 3 day trip. Nice.

jkim wrote: From dock to dinner table...

Holy Neptune, that is food porn!!!

I’ll be over! Oh wait, too late. I never had tuna steaks before. Nor Salmon and swordfish

Thanks for the comments! The Shiden-Kai is still resting upside down on my modeling jig. I feel the initial sensations of the modeling bug starting to kick in but I'm still too lazy to commit to bench time.

keavdog wrote:Looks like a great day - 1 day boat? Down in Mexican waters? Heck of a yellow tail!

EDIT: just read back a few posts - 3 day trip. Nice.

We spent most of our time straight west at the Tanner Bank. Pretty cool sitting on anchor all day and hooking up on bluefin tuna! No time wasted on looking for fish... let them come to you!

Greetings fellow modelers! It's been a few months since I've sat at the modeling bench with an actual model in front of me. The loss of momentum in my building activity makes re-starting that much harder. I've lost track of where I was at on my builds and my desktop needs to be transitioned from fishing reel repair back to model building. But I finally reached the end of the procrastination rope last night and made some progress into building again. First step was to clear off the desktop. Servicing fishing reels involves lots of different lubricants... different oils for ball bearings and thicker greases for the gears. These are bad for model building... as you know even the sweat from fingertips can mar a paint finish. So I put all of my fishing tools away and put a fresh paper cover on my desktop.


Looking over the Shiden Kai in its present state, I've noticed that there are some unsanded applications of Mr Surfacer putty on the wing bottom/fuseage joints. These have to be sanded down and it looks like I have to wrap up the scribing and riveting in this area. So not quite ready for painting just yet.



On the upper side, there is an clear window that has been glued into place. I've placed the mask, supplied by the Eduard mask set, into place.


This made me think about the other clear parts and I remembered that the Brengun photoetch set included a small piece to be added on to the front base of the windshield.


The Small Shop Bug is my tool of choice for most of my photoetch bending needs.


The folded brass part fits completely over the solid tab.


So instead of completely removing the tab, I snip off only half of it and can use the remaining stub as an attachment mount.


The photoetch upgrade replaces the solid tab with a more representative hollow shroud. I'm planning on attaching this after the windshield is glued into place but before painting.


It looks like we are getting closer to the painting stage. The undersides are going to be natural metal but I have some thoughts on how this will be accomplished. I want a little more depth/variation than my normal black base/Alclad on top metal finish but I have quite worked out how. The next immediate steps will be to finish the scribing and riveting along the bottom and attachment of the clear parts to the fuselage.

Glad you are back! I’m sure the tuna as good!

Glad to see you back building! Only one work bench for two totally different hobbies can be tough.

It feels good to be back building again. The mojo is not full-bore yet though but I can feel my interest coming back more each day.

I've yet to finish the scribing and riveting on the bottom so I thought it would be a good time to test some ideas for the metal finish on the metal stabilizers. These parts are large enough where I'll be able to lay down some pre-shading texture but are small enough to be easily wiped if the paint test goes awry.


First, I applied my customary black pre-shading onto the stabilizer bottoms using a mix of freehand and scrubbing pad masks. I'm not aiming for high shine finish so I'm not too concerned with a perfect glossy finish for the preshading.


Using Alclad White Aluminum for the base metallic shade and found that, shot straight from the bottle, the color is translucent enough to allow the preshading to peek through.


Carefully modulating the application, I want to get rid of any hint of black color of the preshading underneath but leave behind some depth within the metal shade. It's hard to capture with a photograph but this effect is very interesting and promising.


I'm going to let this cure and then see how stable this coat is. I want to try and buff/Micromesh the surface and see how it reacts to a clear coat.

Very nice!