SPA Modeler

Really looking forward to that Saturn V !
The DC-6 looks also great!

- Kari

Awesome updates about the Dc-6 but my favourite is the red and metal opel bus

Thanks guys! There really is a lot of issues with the DC-6, but I'm hoping to be done with it soon. That Saturn V is taking longer than I like too; it is a real fun kit to work on, despite Dragon's difficult instructions and some ill fitting parts. I also recently started (again) a 1/72 scale Space Shuttle with Boosters that I'd gotten from a friend in my IPMS club. He had already done the main fuel tank, so I'm working on the rest. I should have pics soon.

Silvio, that red and chrome bus is already finished. You can see it in the Armor Forum where I have it posted with my other bus and the British Staff Car. Feel free to check it out.

Thanks again everyone for the great replies.

Well, here's another small update, only because I don't know when I'll be able to get back to the bench again.

I'll start with the pics of the work I started on the 1/72 scale Space Shuttle with Boosters. Here is what I got done on that so far:



This Space Shuttle will be almost three feet tall when it's done!

Remember this RAF Rescue Launch that had the deck popped up on the bow? Well, I found a way to hold it down while I glued it in place.This also served to expand the sides of the hull to meet the edge of the deck so that this looks right when done:



Next I decided to do a bit more on the C-46 since I'd been trying to get this all closed up for awhile now. I finally succeeded, after first adding the interior and cementing in the fuselage windows:



Now the hull sides are together, but not before I had to do some selective sanding along the edge of the interior so this would close. I also only glued the top of the fuselage and the tail because I found that one of the fuselage sides was warped underneath:



Here you can see the gap from the warpage. Once the rest of the fuselage dries adequately, this will be easier to close:



After awhile, I decided to dry-fit the wings to the fuselage to see how big this monster is going to be:



The wings themselves have a lot of sanding and filling to be done to fix the many gaps and ill fitting edges that need attention. I already added some gap filling CA glue to the areas in question. They will be taken care of later.

Now on to the DC-6. This beastie took a lot of work. First off, here's a shot of all the broken parts of the landing gear.



There's actually a few parts still missing; if I can't find them, I'll have to get replacements cast from a C-118 kit I recently got.

Here are the two main landing gear bays where most of these parts go:





Here are the two main landing gear bays after the parts I did have were re-installed:





You can see the missing pieces I'm going to need to replace if I cannot find them. I didn't stop to look; that's what I get for letting this thing languish on my bench for so long. Moving on....

I added the landing gear doors to this model, sans the missing one...



There always seems to be just one missing....

Next I added the nose gear and nose gear doors:



Yes, the nose gear looks like hell. I had lost the original landing gear fork that is supposed to hold the nose wheel. What you see is my poor attempt to scratch build one just so I could move on with this instead of leaving it unfinished indefinitely. I had already given up on making this a 'contest worthy' model; too much went wrong from the beginning. I tried to do things that were beyond me for something of this magnitude, but hey, lessons learned....


Finally, here is a couple shots of this thing with all the parts on it. Yes, assembly is completed on this; all that is left is some touch-up painting and I'll be able to call this done:





I have it sitting up on "jacks" so that the landing gear and the gear doors all glue in the proper position. I can only hope that they do and that the landing gear will hold this beastie when I finally place it on a table for the finishing pics.

Okay, that is my small update for now. It might be awhile before I have anything else to show so I figured I should just post this now. This weekend I'll be going to the Pasadena Valleycon being held at the Ronald Reagan Library. I doubt I'll bring home any awards, but I will definitely have a blast, especially since it's happening on my birthday! Until next time, thanks everyone for looking in, comments are welcome.

"Small" update? Uh huh. A three foot tall Shuttle, big DC-6 and the C-46......I do enjoy watching your builds!

"Small" is relative in Duke's world... having seen many of his builds up close and personal, and knowing that he works mostly in 1/72, I have seen some pretty dang large "small" builds of his... That "Dora" railroad gun of his is larger than anything I have built in the past 40+ years, if not ever! Then there are those Cold War bombers of his... Bear, Blackjack, Badger, Vulcan.... Each as large as anything in 1/48 I have ever tackled...

Thanks Lyle! Throw in the Saturn V rocket and the Vicker's Valiant bomber I'm also doing and you'll see I have no more room on the workbench.

LOL! Thanks Carlos! I have yet to tackle the Bear and the Blackjack, but I am hoping to get to those this year.

Stay tuned guys! More to come....

Okay, here's another small update. It seems I can't ever find time to make any significant progress lately.

I'll start with this 1/72 scale Airfix RAF Rescue Launch. I mostly just tried to refine the seams along the deck and deckhouse. I need a few more applications here I guess:



Just for fun while it was drying, I dry-fit some of the extra parts on it, including the pilot house which is why it has such large seams:



Moving on, I took this F-4 Phantom to Hobby Day to finally get the decals on it. Seeing all the tiny stencils made me realize why I waited so long! Well, I buckled down and three and a half hours later, here is the final result:





Now all I have to do is apply another clearcoat, then a dullcoat and then I can add the landing gear and extra detail parts to this and call it done. This will then be another of the Modeling New Year's Resolution builds.

After that ordeal though, I was ready for something simple, so I pulled out this old Eastern European kit of another Czech biplane whose name escapes me at this time. This is the biplane I recently got and I started it by painting the cockpit interior black. There is no cockpit, and the seat that I was going to put the pilot in was missing so I painted everything black so that there would be nothing visible through the canopy. I then built it up, adding the wings, landing gear and tail surfaces to it. I then started to sand the atrocious seams and steps; you can see some of the sanding residue still on this little beast:





I'll be applying WWII German Luftwaffe markings on this since the decals are unrecoverable. It's the easiest thing to do since the Luftwaffe assimilated these into the Luftwaffe after the annexation of Czechoslovakia.


After all that, it was time to step it up a notch. I got the last of the structure of my Saturn V done: the escape tower. This was a tough little assembly since everything was molded in clear plastic. I was quite surprised when I got everything more or less aligned. In this pic, I raised the dark contrast significantly so you could see it; otherwise this all but disappeared in the pic. No, it is not singed at the top:



Here it is sitting on top of the fully (dry-fit) assembled rocket:



Just to give this a size reference, I took this next pic with my friend Frank standing next to it. He's 6'2" and the rocket is sitting on a three-and-half to four-foot tall table:



He didn't know I'd snapped that pic I told him later. Later on I assembled this rocket on the floor and stood next to it while someone else snapped a pic. Silly me, I didn't get the same pic with my own camera. The model comes up to my nose though.


That's all I have for this week. As I said, small update, but at least I'm crawling along. Enjoy this trip through the Factory, and as always, comments are welcome. Thanks for looking in.

This week was good to me so now I have a not-so-small update.

I'll start out with the model of the Italeri Italian Heavy artillery piece made from soft plastic. I found a Plastic Primer spray similar to one recommended by someone else. I couldn't find the Krylon brand. I shot a coat of this primer on so that I could move on and paint this thing:



Here is a shot of the crew that I also primered:



Another small thing I did: I filled a lot of the seams and other issues on the C-46 Commando and set it aside for sanding later:



Moving on to other models, I figured that I should move on with that little FT-17 now that it is fully built. I shot a coat of Olive Drab over it first:





Next I took the tracks and dry-brushed some Humbrol Gun Metal paint over them:



It is a dark grey metallic that looked pretty good on this. It looked so good, I dry-brushed some on the flat-black exhausts on the F-4 Phantom:



Getting back to the FT-17, I added the tracks to this little model. I was quite surprised at how well they looked; at least to me:





Just for fun, I tucked it into the back of the Mack truck that will be holding it:



Now all I have to do is decal that and weather it and it'll be done.

Now back to the Phantom. I had shot a gloss coat over it in preparation for decals. On Friday last, I spent 3 and 1/2 hours applying all the stencils and other decals. Here it is after I shot a dullcoat and removed the masking from the canopy:





I also dry-brushed a little copper paint on the exhaust to give it a bit more of a burnt metal effect.

This Phantom is now done; you can see the finished pics in the Aircraft Forums.

Moving along again, I decided to start one of my Russian armored trains for a couple railroad-themed Group Builds I joined. This model is gonna be a tough one.

First of all, they have you assemble all the wheels to the axles. So, to make sure they lined up, I put them between two thick sanding sticks that were set parallel to each other:



I competed the two sets of wheels and set them aside to dry. Meanwhile, I figured I'd build the turrets that go on this car. Trouble struck from the start. Trying to remove two parts from the sprues resulted in them, breaking. The gun barrel end snapped off and flew into oblivion, and the mantlet section snapped in half. You can see them indicated by the two arrows:



This is going to be a long build.....

I cut a section of plastic rod that was closest to the size of the third part of the gun barrel; cut the broken part off and replaced it with the styrene rod:



Eventually I got the two turrets assembled that go on this car:



Finally, a fun shot of the car as it will mostly look like with the turrets on. the top half is only snapped in place and the turrets are also just placed in place:



I'd had enough of that so I called it a day by then. Hopefully soon I'll have more to show. Until then, comments are welcome, thanks for looking in.

Excellent updates Maddog
the unknow plane could be the Avia B.534, recently eduard proposed an ultra deluxe box with four kits and toons of decals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avia_B-534

http://www.eduard.com/avia-b534/