Project completed.

It is with great pleasure that I announce that I am done with this project.  It was challenging in it's own respects, but I like to think that I often thrive more when I'm up against the wall with modeling.  I knew that the second phase of this project was going to be new ground for me, but I met it with great enthusiasm, and like to think that it came through in the final product. 

 

Out of the box, the carrier deck itself appeared to be very straight forward.  There was not a whole lot of parts, and the parts that were there simply kind of fell together like a puzzle.  However, my biggest dilemma was trying to establish a good starting point.  With that came other questions such as how do put it together.  Did I want to make it where it could be broken down later?  Was I about to do something that would require more work further down the road?  I just simply didn't know.  So...I did what I always do in these moments, which was just start.  Start anywhere.  I started with the JBD itself, since it was a removable partition of the display.  I wanted to make sure I was going to be able to paint it and have it set to the side to where I wouldn't be going back later and having to mask a whole lot.  This turned into a bit more of a process than I first anticipated.  While the concept of the JBD was very nice in theory...the quality of the parts required to make it happen was not.  The plastic was very soft, which made the actuators not very easy to work with.  I had to go back and actually repair about three or four pieces that just snapped in half throughout the process.  Fortunately, they were all clean breaks, so I was able to salvage them.  If I could recommend anything to the company, it would be to make these parts out of soft white metal, as I honestly believe that it would help reinforce them better. 

 

Once I got the basic premise figured out, I did a bit of test fitting, only to come to the horrible realization that I had mistakenly inserted all of the actuator wells backwards...as well as the interior arms.  Dyslexia must have snuck in the back door at some point during that whole process....or perhaps the very bare instruction manual finally caught up to me.  Either way, they were both quick fixes, as I was able to pop off the well caps and extension arms, and flip them all around as they should be.  At this rate, the JBD did open and close, which was a nice feature with the exception of the fact that some of the arms would randomly come off of the piston, and just start flapping around.  Having already experienced many of them breaking, I knew that the more I handled them, the more I ran the risk of this becoming a common reoccurance.  Armed with that information, I elected to go ahead and glue all the joints to hold it in place.  In the end, that was the most durable, and safe decision to ensure the longevity of the display. 

 

Once the construction portion was understood, I needed to figure out how to accurately portray the deck to look like a modern carrier, without going overboard.  My spidey senses were constantly reminding me that it wouldn't take much to screw this up if I went overboard with weathering.  While I did want to portray some good tone variations and contrasts, I didn't want to trash the overall look, or take away from the weathered look of the plane, which in my opinion, was still the lead actor in this play.  I did want to make it accurate, and have good scale effect, but I wanted to keep it in the supporting actor role.  For a project this size, I knew it was simply not feasible to even entertain the airbrush for a base coat, so I picked up a can of Rustoleum primer that was a charcoal gray.  Very nice color for the overall appearance, and it looked great when scaled down.  After that settled, I went ahead and surfed the web for some reference shots of the JBD to accurately portray the exhaust, tonal variations, and if you look close enough....a couple of tire tracks from tractors.  Again, I didn't want to nuke the project, just help sell the fact that yes, this was an aircraft carrier, but also not to the point to where there was no added detail or interesting offset of color. 

 

Once the JBD was wrapped up, I had to make the decision to use decals around it, or try my hand at painting cautionary barber stripes.  The instructions required that you at least paint a yellow stripe around it, and then use red decals.  I didn't like that idea, so I used a strip of the decals to make a stencil, and just went ahead and painted the entire thing.  Oddly enough, the instructions made zero mention of the white and red striping on the sides of the JBD themselves, only the yellow and red surrounding the well on the deck.  So I went ahead and painted those too.  At this rate, I figured since I'd already come this far with masking and painting, that I may as well work that angle with the rest of the carrier markings, so that's what I did.  I used the photo provided for decal layout to get the basic idea, measured how long the decals were, and just converted those measurements into where to mask on the flight deck. This was time consuming, but the results look much better to me than I think the decals would have.  It's one of those things where sometimes the additional work is worth it. 

 

Next in the spectrum of things were figures.  This was a part of the project that had me perplexed.  I was confident in my ability to build, and portray the figures, but I didn't know exactly which ones needed to be designated for what.  There's four figures, and essentially, three of them look as though they were molded to be yellow shirts, or aircraft directors and handlers.  It doesn't take a brilliant person to realize that three people trying to tell one jet where to go would simply equate to mass confusion, so I had to get creative.  The first figure that I had free reign with was the ordnanceman.  He was posed in such a way that he could have either been running away from the plane, giving a thumbs up or all clear, or that he could be reaching for something.  I stood him next to the plane to see how he would work out, and it looked perfect for him to be final checking the missile.  The green shirt was probably supposed to be another handler who was taxiing an aircraft with both hands, but again...didn't want three directors so I posed him like he was a final checker doing a once over around the nose of the plane prior to high power.  The other two were kind of unavoidable, since it was very obvious that they're marshaling aircraft.  I did what I could, and have even gone back and found a more convincing way than is shown in the picture to convey them. 

 

If you'll notice in the picture, the yellow shirt to the back seems to be giving hand signals to a phantom aircraft while the shooter is about to launch a jet that will most certainly suck the green shirt down the intake.  What I've since done is taken the aft yellow shirt, and put him up towards the nose, and made the "shooter" appear as though he's handing off control of the aircraft to the other director - not giving the all clear to shoot.  In the end, it's a creative balance that you have to overcome sometimes. 

 

Last but not least, I had to fabricate a hold-back bar for the final display to be somewhat more accurate.  This turned into a rather interesting project, but I was finally able to get what I needed using stretched sprue and foil tape.  You can watch that process unfold here.  All in all, I couldn't be happier with the results.  I guess this technically classifies at my first attempt at "ship modeling", and I'm proud of the results.  The customer is extremely happy about it as well, and I look forward to getting some good looks at it in an upcoming model contest here in North Texas in the next couple of weeks. 

 

But for the moment, I'm happy to reflect back on it, and know that it's done. 

 

Check out the rest of the photos of the final project here.

 

 

 

 

Phase one Complete!

Finally made a big push over the past couple of days to get the plane wrapped up.  Usually, this is a time of celebration the completion of another project, and shipping it out to another anticipating customer, however, I still have the second half of this project, which will be the flight deck display. 

Being that this was my first try at the Hasegawa legacy Hornet, I now have enough information to compare it to other relevant Hornet kits that I've put together thus far.  For starters, I'd compare it to the Hobby Boss A/C kits, which are virtually identical.  The engineering on the two kits is strikingly similar in almost every essence of the build.  If I had to choose to do another tomorrow, I would hands down reach for the Hobby Boss kit.  I'm disappointed in the fact that Hasegawa continues their neverending pattern of stuffing new decals in a new box, and calling it new.  The molds could stand to be brought up to date, especially if you're still going to charge me 70 dollars.  You can get the HB kit for about 15-20 dollars cheaper, and lets not forget that with the HB offering, you get a full compliment of weapons, which Hasegawa has also grown notorious for.  To my dismay, I was shocked to find that they didn't even offer missiles in this kit, which is one thing that they usually do in an attempt to throw you a bone weapons wise.  I understand their notion for wanting to make additional revenue by selling weapons sets individually, but again...I'll refer back to the point that they're charging modelers extreme high end prices for next to nothing.  So lesson learned, stick with what works.  And if it's cheaper, nearly a spitting image, and comes with weapons...it's not hard to figure out which one is the easy choice. 

 

Anyhow, decals went on without a hitch.  Had a couple of issues with the rainbow decals that go across the tails..I believe the decals were a little old, and perhaps brittle.  I didn't panic, and I let Mr. Mark Softener do it's work, and they laid down nicely over the tails, which fit very well. 

 

Performed additional weathering with oils, and Tamiya powders, and was ready to seal everything off with a flat clear coat, and move onto gear.  I did like the fact that the stock gear were metal.  Saves you a little bit of headache with having to wonder if the model is going to get limp in a few years, and start sagging on it's plastic gear.  Is it worth the ridiculous price??  I don't think even metal gear justifies it, but that's simply a side thought.  The went in very well, and built up nicely.  Gear doors on the other hand weren't as friendly to work with . It's a very delicate thing when working with plastic that has a lot of flash, because you're never sure if the plastic that you're sanding off is required, or just left over injected plastic.  There was tons of evidence of flash along the mating surfaces of the gear doors, which by the way are usually always my least favorite part of modeling.  Don't know why, but gear doors just annoy the hell out of me.  Especially when they were like they were in this kit, and unwilling to cooperate.  I essentially had to sand off flash on all the door pieces before I could get a solid flat surface to help get a good bond.  With that also came having to go back and touch up the red trim around the doors.  But with some patience, and lots of test fitting, everything fell into place as advertised. 

 

All I had left at that rate was the final install of weapons, probes, and lights.  I drilled and pinned the GBU's and Centerline tank as I normally do to help reinforce the weapons.  The bombs went off without a hitch, but as usual, the centerline pylon wanted to be the problem student.  I wound up having to glue, and remove, and sand and drill, and reglue just to get it back in place as it should be.  I think this is one area that far too many companies overlook, as I don't think that I've ever had a really nicely engineered centerline pylon on ANY model of ANY subject that requires one.  Perhaps that's always the last thing on their list, and they try to come up with how it's supposed to go at ten minutes til' closing time.  Nevertheless, the tank went on without a hitch, and moved onto lights.  The anti collision lights over the LEX didn't fit anything like they were supposed to, so I threw them in the garbage and filled in the light housing with Krystal Klear.  I prefer that method anytime I can use it anyhow.  The strobes on the vertical stabs went in with very minimal effort, and everything else from there was a wrap. 

 

In the end, just had to come back over a couple of spots with some further flat clear to take some of the glint off of a few spots that required glue that had hardened with a shiny finish.  Pulled the masks and was slightly disappointed to see that the micro mask had shrunk slightly around the contact area with the masking tape, so a few slivers of paint made it's way onto the aft portion of the canopy and the forward part of the windscreen.  Using a wooden tooth pick, I just gently scraped until the paint came loose.  Once I had it all off, a quick swipe of future over the clear parts again with a Q-tip brought out the clarity again.  I really do like the overall look of the kit, but there were more moments of frustration than I usually encounter - even with more complex builds. 

 

I am hopeful that this carrier display will work together with me better than the plane.  I'm excited at the opportunity to be able to bring a piece of carrier aviation together.  This is my first attempt at this carrier deck, so it'll be nice to be able to spin an artistic touch to it and see how well it all comes together. 

 

 

Ready for decals.

After not being 100 percent happy with the results last night, I went back today and put some fresh eyes on it, realizing that the weathering was a bit too dark, and stood up more than I was happy with.  Ran a thin coat of base colors back over the top to blend it all back in, and it came out much better than I anticipated.  With finally having a good solid product with paint, I went ahead and ran a 12000 grit sanding cloth over the paint job to knock off some of the dust and grit, and had a nice surface to start clear coating on.  Masked off the engine exhausts on the plane itself in order to shoot some steel paint around the outer rings in order for them to mate up once I get the engines installed.  Also masked and painted off the APU, which can also be seen below. Also managed to glue the photo etch chaff/flare buckets in place.  I'll be ready to get decals started tomorrow as well as getting engine cans fully painted, and assembled.  With the gear being pretty much built up (they're white metal, which is a nice touch) I don't anticipate a whole lot of headaches on the downhill portion of this project.  Still have to get the weapons and targeting equipment dressed up, but all else is rolling along pretty smooth.  Also took the time to go ahead and paint the red trim around the gear doors.  This is one of the very few times that I myself will paint anything on the sprue.  Typically I'll cut everything off the tree before painting, since parts simply have to be cleaned up to have a good appearance to them.  To paint and then clip usually means that you're having to go back and touch up paint, which to me comes across like double work....which I'm not a fan of in any situation.  However, in this instance, the risk outweighs the alternative, and it truly is more time consuming to try to cut them out, then hold them, and paint them than it is to just touch them up after clean up.  Again, this is the exception for me, and not the rule.  Still helping my family with a move this weekend, so it may be later in the day tomorrow before I can get any further updates, but my objective is to have decals done and sealed in by Monday afternoon. 

 

 

Corrosion and Weathering Progress

Didn't get around to the bench until later this evening, but did want to make a push to get corrosion touch ups, and  some wear and tear added to the paint job.  Not sure if I'm 100% happy with the end result as of now, so I'll probably take a look at it tomorrow with a fresh set of eyes and see what needs to be tweaked to get it just right.  Did a bit of experimenting on the horizontal stabs to try and simulate foot traffic from maintainers as it appears on the real deal.  Probably some bit of refinement with it, but for the most part I was really happy with the results.  Hoping tomorrow to be able to get all the paint sealed in, and ready for decals either tomorrow night, or Saturday by mid day.  Hoping to have the plane done by Tuesday or Wednesday and move onto phase two of this project which will be the flight deck display that we'll be mounting this bad boy onto. 

 

 

 

Base colors and post shade completion

Another pretty productive day of work, with the plane taking base colors.  I did have to go back and fix a hiccup after the initial base coats after noticing a pretty prominent overhang of the canopy on the port side.  Required a bit of grinding, sanding and polishing to get it back up to par, but it looks much better now.  Pretty simple scheme on the body itself with no issues.  I do lighten the light ghost gray required on the belly, as you simply cant tell a difference between the light and dark ghost grays in this color.  The demarcation line that runs across the aft fuselage, and from the forward part of the canopy to the nose is practically invisible without lightening or darkening one of the two.  Seeing as how the dark ghost gray is the most notable color that will be seen, I opt to make the enhancement on the belly side to lighten the LGG in order to sell the demarcation lines better.  Post shading went off without a hitch, and the tails took on rudders and paint today.  Naturally, the rudders are position in the toed in position for the setup on the catapult.  Nothing too hard was required in that, just making sure that both rudders were symmetrical during the welding process.  Reinforcement support braces next to the vertical tails were added earlier this morning before paint .  Best way I can recommend to do this is to soft install the tails as they will be positioned, and install each brace to where it touches up to the vert. tail flush.  Once it's in place, hit it with some weld, and you can remove the tail to be installed later.  Al\l in all a pretty productive day. While painting the tails gloss black, I went ahead and took a moment to also prime the burner cans to take on Alclad paints in the next day or so.  Always good to give yourself a few days for that gloss black to dry a bit, even though it never seems to fully cure.  Rushing it can sometimes result in nasty cracks in the Alclad finish due to the gloss black shrinking during drying.  Better to play it safe than to have to go back and fix it all over again.  Tomorrow I'll be spending a good portion of the day dirtying her up with corrosion fixes, tonal variations, and wear and tear.  Hoping to have her gloss coated and ready for decals by the end of tomorrow. 

 

 

 

 

Preparing for paint.

Finally got the canopy installed.  Since I'm using liquid cement, I've opted to leave the windscreen off over night to ensure that everything hardens on the canopy side without having to worry about the fumes crazing any of the plastic.  I dip all my clear parts in Future to ensure that this doesn't happen, but you can never be too safe, as I've still had issues in the past where crazy reared it's head.  As many of you may have heard, I'm not a real fan of this kit.  Not to say that it's not a good kit, I just don't think the price tag is relevant to what's in the box.  I've built several legacy hornets in the past year using Hobby Boss A and C hornets, and I'm rather satisfied with those kits.  Granted, there's a bit of an issue with how the nose fits on those kits, which I didn't have any issue with here...however, the wing joins on the HB kit are far superior to the Hasegawa kit in my opinion.  Today didn't seem very productive, although I did get a lot done in regards to a lot of the smaller stuff that's tedious but necessary.  Wheels have been painted, burner cans are painted and assembled, and I've got A/G ordnance build up, as well as centerline fuel tank.  Many ask what my secret is to working so fast, but there's really no secret at all..if you can always find something to do to keep you engaged, then you will constantly be making progress, even if you "plane" itself doesn't seem to change shape for several days.  Modeling is a patient man's game, which is unfortunate for me because I'm not a patient person by trade.  How I've learned to combat this is to keep my hands busy while paint is drying.  There's always something that can be done.  The awesome benefit of this is that one day your plane will be sitting there looking like it's maybe a third of the way done, and the next day or so, it's finished.  That's because all of the little things were getting knocked out in the background while you were letting other pertinent items cure, dry, etc..  Always be thinking a step ahead, and you'll see progression very quickly once you get everything about where it's supposed to be.  Nothing better than getting to the gear and knowing that they're already built up, and just waiting to be installed.  Same goes with weapons.  Nice to know they've been done for days, and now you simply have to plug them in.  Good planning goes a long way in this hobby, especially to be efficient with your time.  Cheers for now. 

 

Nick

 

 

 

Let's give this a try....

So after talking to some folks, I've been talked into starting a "website".  Sure, it's not got all the glitz and glamour that you may find elsewhere, but it's a place to where I can start driving further traffic in conjunction with my Facebook page.  I'll still be posting most of the photo updates as I usually do to the FB page, but will be going a bit more in depth here in the blog portion so that I can provide a bit more insight into builds, and my thoughts on some of the kits that I commonly work with, and any challenges that arise, and how I overcome them.  I try to keep most of that stuff minimalized on FB so as not to overpost, or eat up folks time reading redundant in depth posts.  This will be a good place for those who are further interested into a bit more of the detail analysis that goes into my work.  I will be starting new blogs for each build so that they'll be broken down, similar to how I have each plane categorized into it's own photo album on the FB page.  Anyhow, hope folks find this to be informative, and as always thanks for following what it is that I do. 

Nick