eyup, Paul that is excellent!

Never mind hogging the thread, you are carrying this campaign on your back by your self! where is everyone else?!?

I hope to have an update worth showing on my Neptunes this week. I need to design and print some control panels for the cockpits, and I need to scratch up observers' seats for the noses, now I know they will be clearly visible.

As promised, an update on started projects - so far we have these types represented










far from complete. Nine of 26 entrants have started or proposed a project to date...hoping to see some more campaigners soon

Thanks for the encouragement guys, much appreciated !
I'm hoping to get the nose attached, gap filled, and an overall coat of primer applied in the next few days.

And the line-up is looking great isn't it?

Just joined. Got Monogram's F-80 cheapo on Ebay. When I started modelling seriously the Monogram 1/48 kits were the mutts nuts, so a trip down memory lane too........

Weekend was used for rough assembly. Here, first fitting problems were obvious.



Rather annoying are the misfitting canopies, that have to be filled and sanded.




What is best to have no fogging on the canopy: Putty or CA?


Oliver

white glue, or "window maker" works well.

Cement for watch crystals is also an excellent option for clear parts. No fogging and can be tidied up with rubbing alcohol before it hardens. I find it bonds stronger than clear parts cement but is not as easy to work with, so I go back and forth between them depending on the particular application.

Hi everyone,
My entry is the 1/72 Lockheed U-2, like Rob's, but from the Seminar Co., Korea.




Regards,
K.

Welcome Dave Cox and Mr.K good to see more boxes opened!

Oliver: nice progress - and again a canopy problem...

Also shaked my box and opened it. After a bit of cleaning those parts now like to come together...

Thomas

Excellent to see more campaigners!
Oliver, those canopies look like hard work... i feel your pain.

Jonathan and Paul: Thanks a lot. I will try this with white glue!

Thomas and Paul: Yes, again a canopy problem! I do not know if this sticks to me or to Revell canopies . I definitely have to check the fitting more carefully. The F-104 TF should be easier to correct, as it has to be just to sand down. But the G-version has an evil horizontally run at its end and additionally a larger gap .

Okay, nobody said 1/144 would be easy

Oliver

I've achieved less than I hoped over the last couple of days, had a plastic tragedy when masking one of the tiny clear parts on the underbelly - it popped out and went into the fuselage. (If you've ever lost a pick inside an acoustic guitar you know the feeling ! )
I managed to pry open the tail and shake it out. Bit of a messy fix getting it back in place though as the part has a lip round the edge to facilitate it sticking to the inside of the kit. Not easy to do when the whole thing is sealed up !

Anyhow.... i've now got an SR71 Greybird

Second coat after the first primer showed up all my bad filler spots

I'm realising that I may have been a little heavy handed with the brake chute door scribing but hey ho.

or a hand hole cap dropped inside a firetube boiler...




a completed airframe! Looks great from here. you are out in front now bud, take care!

@ Mr.K, I built that kit years ago. Not a bad one at all, plenty of options, don't get lost in it.

Paul: What an impressive bird !

This week I had some more improvement with my starfigthers. The grinding of the TF-104 was no problem, but grinding the canopy of the single-seater, I ruined it beyond the possibility of repair (Thomas: some kind of dejavu compared to my experience in the swallow campaign). So I wanted to by a new vac-formed canopy, but I did not find any suitable. I was very lucky to find the superb report of Magnus Fridsell about moulding new canopies (Thanks from here Magnus ). I mainly followed the guidance, but I did not use a vac-form tool. I just made a new tool of my old canopy



and pulled some plastic sheet over it. Of ten to twelve canopies, two were quite useful.



I cut them out and sanded them for fitting and the better one was used.

.

Subsequently after using putty, the seam was sanded again.



I am quite happy with this result. The birds are now primed and are waiting for their new outfit.



Oliver

Oliver, that forming method has worked very nicely!
the super clear thin part looks so much nicer than the massive kit part!
Can you provide a link to the report of Magnus? I want to do that too.

Jonathan, this is the link for the report:
http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2002/08/stuff_eng_tech_moulding_canopies.htm

The important thing, as Magnus mentioned, this method only makes sense, if You can´t buy a vac-formed canopy elsewhere. The amount of work You invest into a self-made form is rather high.

Oliver

Nice work Oliver 😃
It does indeed look more in scale compared to a thicker kit part.

Oliver: superb effort on this canopy-remake with these limited tools

Paul: You made big progress and memories come to my mind as I build the Revell Kit in the seventies.

Thomas

Starting photo and first WIP pics. Decals are useless (I knew this was a risk when I bought it) so it'll be a fictitious bird using odds-n-sods from the spares bag



the pit


we have a problem.......loads of glue and tape needed

oh yeah, that's a classic!

If you can scan that decal and make a 300dpi png file, and e-mail it to me, I can reprint it for you on Microscale paper, if thats of interest.

Thanks for the offer, but at the speed I work the post wouldn't have got back here before I'd finished!

Go man!

here's my Ventura, it's a little more started than I thought it was.

If it's OK I'd like to finish it in this campaign. If not, I've got a few other Lockheed kits I could use.