MechTech

Thanks @CrossAir I'm still thinking about it... @Ignacio Ocamica Your figure is looking great! The primer helps fit it all together. @electric indigo That pilot figure looks fantastic! Great detail in that scale. @derex3592 Your lighting looks just right! I think the colors are spot on! This weekend I started on the top part of the ammo magazine / base of the Oto Melara gun mount. It's the upper part that the turret will attach to. More photos later. - MT

@Thom Looking good, Thom! Looks like you're improving on the details too? @Ignacio Ocamica Your details look good and I like the wrinkle you put in the shirt, it adds realism. Originally I spent all that time on the Mk-45 5" gun turret. It just looked huge when I was done. Plus, it's heavy! Mine and the real one! The actual Mk-45 Mod 4 is something like 53,000 pounds - before you add in the magazine and feed mechanism, then ammo. The Oto Melara/Leonardo 76mm Super Rapid is about 16,000 pounds ready to go minus ammo. It also has a rate of fire of 120 RPM - but of course shorter range. With the vertical launch cells up front, the lighter gun is more realistic. I thought two would be cool, so I'm messing around with the idea. I've been undecided and that's why I made a cap mechanism and two turret cases for the 76mm earlier on. What do you guys think of the ROUGH MOCKUP? - MT

At 12 volts...

@arbit Thanks Arbit! @derex3592 Great work on your lighting! It looks like the kit seam fit is atrocious. I don't envy the fixes you'll have to do. - MT

@derex3592 Ha ha, thanks Derex! My annual styrene budget is VERY low! A lot of the sheet stock goes back to the 1/200 Daedalus build. On the rare occasion I actually buy some Evergreen or Plastruct. In fact, one of the pieces I used this week was about 15 years old judging by the hobby store price tag I removed. Thankfully Hobby Lobby started carry some Evergreen stuff. My favorite place to buy in bulk, when I do, is U.S. Plastics: https://www.usplastic.com/search/?it=item&keyword=styrene This is the cheapest way to get huge sheets. You can buy one or in bulk. They also cut to order for a fee. Shipping may be more than the styrene, it depends. Thin sheets can be rolled into a cheap box. A .040" thick x 40" x 72" long sheet is only $15.56, but you can't roll that up! So it may need to go by truck if you want the sheet intact. - MT

Sorry if this post is image intense, some people like to see process on how you did something. This week we dive into the exciting world of bitts/mooring bollards and chocks! For those non-nautical, here's something new for you (it was for me!). The photos below show how the mooring bitts (or bollards) are used to tie up the ship when docked. Chocks (not airplane wheel chocks) are what the rope goes through. How the two have the same name is beyond me! First the bitts. I used a hole punch to make the top pieces. Then lathed a bunch of tube pieces the same length. When cut-off, they had a flange left over. What I thought was a pain to clean off, ended up being a blessing. I drilled holes in a strip of plastic the same diameter as the flange and used that to keep the tubes aligned on the base piece instead of just gluing them on loose and having to guess alignment. It took me almost as long to engineer the chocks as to make them! They are internally compound curved and I needed 8 identical ones. You just don't get them from Plastruct or Evergreen stock. A set is $40 on Shapeways! Forget all of that! I modified Dremel bit by narrowing the waist and milled a length of 1/4" x 3/4" Evergreen strip. You can just see the double-sided tape holding it down. Then I glued a strip of styrene over the length and milled the sides to slope. Then I used a common router bit to round off the top like a "D." Then the same bit to angle the sides was used to open up the interior. A ball bit and a lot of funky hand-sanding was used to round-out the opening. Two days later all I got was this! Actually 9 bitts and 8 chocks. I did manage to do a little deck work too. The interior flight deck level got tie-downs stamped into it. The lower deck area was made from the old flight deck piece to recycle all that work. I added some access panels to the flight deck area for detail. And here's the whole length of flight deck including the hangar area with bitts and chocks glued down. Now you know more than you ever wanted to about stuff to moor (tie-up) a ship! Thanks for checking in guys! - MT

@Rock Your Tomcat is looking good! @Angesdad Anasazi's decals make that look much better! @derex3592 So does the table get cable TV? The interior is looking good! You can include these too: - MT

That looks nice and clean! Now you won't be able to look at without that stuff bending! - MT

Ha ha! Does the model come with under-wing radioactive meteor ordnance? - MT

@vsim You definitely need to get back on the boards again! Looking good! Stripes on white are tough. @electric indigo AWESOME paint! It looks nice and clean! @derex3592 Did you get the feeling they should have just made the whole top one piece of photoetch!? Great gluing all the same. Cat hugs are cool! - MT

@Rock The guys who have built that kit in my club say you just throw it in a bag with some glue and it goes together by itself! I got the padeyes (tie downs) punched into the flight deck. Same method as before. I machined a die and used a drill press as an arbor to stamp them in place. It still needs some hatches and other deck details in there before it gets glues to the side rails on the hull. The holes are for future landing light lenses. - MT

@derex3592 That sucks about the Rona, but good it's only minor and that you get a paid "vacation." I built the LCS-2 and it just needed soaked joints and when dried, needed a slight sand and no putty. Hopefully yours is the same. The kit looks good! - MT

It's not Macross, but the 1/72 Harpy looks great and it's only about $20. - MT

Your paint is looking great! - MT

@derex3592 Nooo, don't go to the dark side! Cool work all the same! @neptunesurvey Thanks! Those look cool with your SSD and help put it in scale. @Convectuoso That's looking great! I never could understand the stickers thing either except that what they do with Gundam for the amateur builders. They're probably cheaper to produce too - MT

@Urashiman Nice catch! Is that the 1/48th VF-1S (the box top doesn't say). This weekend I tackled the task I feared most of all on my ship build, cutting the holes out for the waterjet intakes. Taking a perfectly good boat hull and cutting holes into it is counter-intuitive, but necessary. The waterjets are only sitting in the rails I made for them, they are not sealed and mounted yet. Thank God it's done now! The plastic is fairly thin, but there is a bit of a ramp running into the intakes to help guide the water flow. The trailing edges were smoothed to reduce vortex drag. I am completely redoing the flight deck. It is cracking in places on the slide rails because of how thin it is. Also something else I overlooked. When I punched out all those tie-downs into the deck plate, it was the same as flattening dough when making a tortilla. The deck expanded making it bow up and add further stress to the thin plastic rail problem. This time around I'm doing the rails THEN punching the deck and THEN cutting it to fit onto the rails. So this weekend I started new beefier rails which are now drying. I used Plastruct "C" channel. One side of the channel is too long because of the slope of the hull side, so it had to be trimmed. How do you trim 2 feet of channel and make it look professional? You get jiggy with it! So I modified a jig for cutting square tubing I made and used that to make several passes and cut it (before and after below). The photo below shows the side slope of the ship, the "I" beam the rails slide on and an un-trimmed view of the cut "C" channel with a smaller "C" channel glued into it as a rail. All of this is to make a splash-proof seal on the rear of the ship and make it easy to just slide it off. Thanks for checking in! - MT

@pengbuzz Thanks Pengbuzz! @arbit Thanks Arbit. Some of my paint isn't the cleanest, especially the door and F-86. The wash kept washing out of the door instead of sticking in the recesses. I should have sealed it first. @Gabe Q Thanks Gabe! You are Soooo punny! Your paint is looking good! @Thom Thanks Thom! Lighthouse fetish is a funny way of putting it! I forgot to say the Testors window maker/glue worked great! It just has to be used in low humidity. - MT

@electric indigo More coolness on your workbench! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! May this next year be a brighter one! Here is something FINALLY completed to help light up the new year (pun TOTALLY intended). It's not going to win any awards, but will still look cool next to our club Godzilla build display. This is an iron, Victorian style lighthouse. So I got generous with the rust (real rust). Side notes: Pushing the roof down on the small outside plant building is the main on/off button. The final GIF is hard to see because of frame rate, but pushing the finial on the roof triggers the flashing F-86 machine guns. Thanks for checking in everyone! - MT

That's a cool idea! - MT

That's cool!!! - MT

I keep my paints in an old ammo can. They are well sealed, out of the light, and STILL some paints get jacked up. Yes, my stash of Model Master paints are too.You can't win them all. @Chronocidal I agree. The Model Master paints were much better. Several guys in my club are buying out what they can get before they're gone. I loved their metalizers that you could buff to a shine. @pengbuzz I didn't know Superman was related to Little Orphan Annie!? Where's the original figure's pupils? You made him look MUCH better AND gave him pupils too! @arbit You are right. I think we're losing a lot of the traditional modeling subjects. My children getting Minecraft and Star Wars Christmas ornaments says it all! @derex3592 It's just not you. Acrylics are tough to brush paint, I just did a bunch of it - ONLY- because it didn't have to be smooth. It seems they dry quickly and then the fresh coat picks up the older coat. Enamels like a little thinner and level out better with it. Acrylics only like to be thinned for airbrushing. Sometime you just can't win. Watching NHK Japan on cable TV (its in English, or online below) it looks like the virus may be slowing anything going on in Japan. Their news is every hour on the hour. Maybe Bandai will release some new Star Wars stuff post pandemic. By the way, if you missed the Hayao Miyazake biography on PBS, NHK has it (they were the content creators). - MT https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/

@arbit I agree. The Testors paints don't last long even unopened. I STILL have Tamiya paints from 20+ years ago! That's just ONE reason Testors is failing. Enamels are also less "convenient" needing thinner for cleanup. They also have more competition than ever. The hobby industries main problem is less people building models. The hobby industry has actually been shrinking since the 80's. We had issues when I was working in a hobby shop back then. Virtual reality is replacing reality - sadly. As an example, we decided to carry Legend of Zelda game cartridges even though we didn't sell video games. We had people coming in out of the wood work for them. But an R/C car or even a model kit was a hard sell! Fewer people buying models today. You KNOW I build models with my children on occasion, but they spend most of their free time on video games even though they do like models. @pengbuzz Yeah, They were bought out a while ago. I personally think they are making a mistake. Testors is a decades old American name, but the Model Master Line usually had better quality and selection. They also had nice innovations. I STILL have a cool Model Master hobby knife from the 80's that also had blade storage in the handle. We'll see... I commented earlier on buying the window maker/glue like @derex3592 bought. His has the Model Master label on it, mine has the Testors label on it - same exact package and glue. Maybe there is STILL hope for Testors! Just so no one thinks I'm anti-Testors or anti-American hobby industry... - MT

@pengbuzz @arbit Thanks guys! I'll have to put something together, maybe a pictorial with drawings to show everything. @derex3592 Nice catch! Funny, I just got the clear window cement earlier today to put windows on the lighthouse. Hope it works good! Speaking of Model Master, for all of you Model Master Fans, they're goin' bye bye! - MT "As a manufacturer of paint products, we have a long history of producing hobby kits and supplies. To that, we are evolving our strategy to focus more keenly on Testors, our flagship brand and are discontinuing our Pactra, Aztek, and Model Master Brands as the demand for these products continue to decline".

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! For those in the Commonwealth, HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!! Have you ever finished building something and it didn't work like it was supposed to? I put the compressor all back together and it was WAY more noisy than before I hacked it. I was really confused. Went to sleep on it and the next day realized the air filter somehow disconnected which makes it totally noisy! Thank God it works great now! Here is what I started with, a PM-7 Nebulizer (from Picclick). Here are the tanks with the bracket I made to support them in the case with the valve rounded out to easily fit in a round hole in the case. I took the original case front, cut out/moved the air filter (because it will get in the way), then I cut everything out but the "frame" going around it. That was covered with metal screen. You can see here where the filter was moved to the side and glued in place (Acetone is awesome ABS glue). Then the tanks and screened cover all fit into place. The updated and "tactical" version (because it has a handle). The handle also helps protect the air bleed valve. The power switch was moved to the top and the air bleed valve is easy to get to. Two partial holes were drilled around the switch and filled in with red/green permanent pen for stop and go. It actually works! Now the air flows smooth and there is a little buffer under load between triggering the brush. Now I can finish the lighthouse. If you guys are interested, I can do a tutorial for other machines too. Thanks for checking in guys! - MT

@Ignacio Ocamica Your sculpt is looking awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing the completed model. @electric indigo The color change looks good. - MT