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SchizophrenicMC

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  1. SchizophrenicMC
    I'll have to put that on the backlog behind the kitbash the first season inspired me to do, but that I haven't gathered funding for yet. I do like the color scheme on the Strike, the more I look at it. Actually, I like most colorschemes that break up from the red-white-blue norm of most Gundams.
  2. SchizophrenicMC
    So, a bunch of mentions of Aile Strike in the gunpla thread, combined with me being somewhat tired and incapable of reading, gave me an idea:
  3. SchizophrenicMC
    I recall reading that the pilot wanted to land in that configuration, but the higher-ups administering the test decided against it and had him land in the normal configuration, though it is true that the Navy performed full-sweep landing tests. I don't know whether or not they actually performed asymmetric-sweep landing trials or not- stuff like that hasn't made itself forthcoming. I will say, regardless, they probably didn't need to coax the test pilot with drinks. Based on the few I've met, and the many more my grandfather met in his long career in the USN, Navy fighter pilots are all basically Isamu with slightly better manners toward their superiors. I guess they'd have to be, to try stunts like those.
  4. SchizophrenicMC
    It's never too soon. And yeah, I'd look for anything marketed as a silicone grease for moving parts. There should be a few options at places like that, so compare them, see what you think will be best.
  5. SchizophrenicMC
    All this talk of Aile Strikes gave me an idea:
  6. SchizophrenicMC
    By the way, I found a shot from the F-14 variable sweep trials:
  7. SchizophrenicMC
    Dielectric grease is just a specific silicone grease. You can lubricate any rubber parts with silicone grease, and any silicone parts with oil. Also, some rubbers can be lubricated with petroleum lubricants, such as oil, power steering, or transmission fluid. Use discretion. DE grease is a bit expensive and it doesn't provide as good lubrication, being primarily a dielectric filler and hydrophobic agent. Probably not a very big deal in an airbrush, and in America you can buy a tiny packet that'll service a brush for a considerable time for about $1 at auto parts stores, but I don't know about wherever GU-11 is from. It's my understanding syndicated parts chains aren't very big outside of North America.
  8. SchizophrenicMC
    Fusion doesn't produce much in the way of radioactive byproducts or ionizing radiation. It does, however, require very high input energy to maintain the necessary pressure and thermal state for atoms to overcome nuclear repulsion and fuse. It's also prone to neutron bombardment, where free neutrons, which aren't magnetically charged, slam into the inner wall of the reactor, deteriorating it and potentially making it radioactive (albeit with a very short half-life). (H + H -> He + neutrons) Fission, on the other hand, is the use of neutron bombardment to cause an unstable radioactive isotope to undergo rapid nuclear decay, which produces a ton of heat, is self-sustaining, and produces lots of radioactive byproducts, including the half-baked waste of its fuel, which has a long half-life, in spite of a high activity level. It's very dirty, but it's very easy to do by today's standards. It's actually not all that dangerous, given modern design and safety protocols. But it's not suitable for small applications, or applications where protocol cannot be strictly administered. There have only been four nuclear plant failures in about 60 years of nuclear power, but each has been significant enough to drive policy and the development of protocol. While fission is a self-sustaining process, fusion actually isn't. Atoms really don't want to bump into each other, so you need tons of force to make them. Ignoring all of the material concerns of the reactor wall, the input energy is so massive that reactors haven't historically been able to even match it, let alone surpass it meaningfully. The only reason stars can feed fusion reactions is because they weigh so much. Stars shrink when they die because their mass finally overcomes the energy of the fusing atoms pushing back outward, trying to escape each other. And the sun is so heavy, its gravity drags along objects farther out than Pluto. So that's the kind of energy you're looking at putting in to make a fusion reactor work. Which is why I'm skeptical about anyone's claims of a practical fusion reactor in the foreseeable future. Eventually, somebody will figure out how to make one work, and from there, somebody will make them affordable and scale them. But I don't think it's going to be any time soon. It's just not all there yet.
  9. SchizophrenicMC
    Based on the build video, I think they did pretty well with the stickers on the head. Nearly all of them are stickers that would be very difficult to have as separate parts, even in MG scale. The forehead jewel is a red piece that's part of the chin and eye surround, and there's a sticker over it. I haven't been able to find out whether there's an alternate sticker that's just the blue and black bits, but Bandai's printing tolerances are close enough that you could cut out the red spot and put it on around the actual red part. Kawaguchi recommends that technique, especially on RG kits. And would you look at the color separation on that torso? And the number of clear blue parts (including on the codpiece where we all too often just get a sticker) was impressive. My only complaints with stickers, based on that build video are the white section of the glove, and the blue semicircles on the sides of the legs. Even HGs can usually afford to have a a white part there, and the rings go on a separate part of the leg! They really could have done those as parts. Though maybe Bandai spent most of its budget on the color separation in the torso. That's a lot of parts for an HG torso. I've built MGs with fewer. I have noticed, Bandai has been including a lot more stickers, lately, but they seem to have bumped up the quality a bit too. Bear in mind, these kits are built to a very low price point. I think the HG G-Self is something like $17 US. They're packing in a lot more detail now, for not much more money, and the price of these kits is not keeping up with inflation. If I want super detail, I'll buy a marginally-more-expensive RG or a much larger, much more expensive MG. The level of detail in HGs today is astounding, even if they have to use stickers to make it so. All in all, I think I would buy the HG G-Self, if I didn't have a ton of other things on my backlog already.
  10. SchizophrenicMC
    You don't need to lubricate teflon. The point of teflon is it has a very low friction coefficient as it is.
  11. SchizophrenicMC
    Whoop. I read "8th ms team" when you said "8th gunpla battle tournament" and pictured the poster from the Gunpla Battle Club room. David, what are you going on about?
  12. SchizophrenicMC
    Everyone has different things to say, and every brush is different. The trigger mechanism on my brush isn't sealed any special way. A brass knob drops into a brass port, with the chrome trigger attached to it with a pin. No seals, no nothing. So for my case, I used some leftover brass instrument valve oil that I had lying around. I'm not convinced it's fine to use on rubber o-rings or gaskets, but it's made to stay on trumpet, french horn, and euphonium valves, and trombone slides, and provide consistent lubrication in an environment full of moist, blowy air, so for my trigger I felt it was fine to use. Some people suggest WD40, but I don't like using penetrating oil as a lubricant.
  13. SchizophrenicMC
    I'm still hesitant to believe anyone's claims of an energy-positive fusion reactor "in 10 years". They said that 10 years ago, and 10 years before that, and 30 years before that.
  14. SchizophrenicMC
    Fun fact: the F-14's wings could be manually swept, within certain parameters, and the aircraft was extensively tested with one wing swept back during flight, including several full-sweep landings.
  15. SchizophrenicMC
    It was a poster at one point, I think, but it definitely exists in super high resolution:
  16. SchizophrenicMC
    Having seen an F-22 demonstrator perform aerobatics, I can say it will do maneuvers that aren't possible from, say, an F-15, thanks to thrust vectoring. This is especially true at low airspeed, where the added capability makes the F-22 appear to defy gravity. However, the same technology could allow it to perform the same maneuvers, without the need for a large elevator structure. For everyone that likes to talk about all-aspect stealth, *ahem*. For that matter, the F-22 is still considered a hyper-maneuverability aircraft. Its performance actually requires the use of computer-implemented limiters to prevent over-g effects on pilots and the airframe. (Which does carry a higher g-rating than most pilots) As I understand it, the requirements are in effect as a redundancy factor, and for similar reasons that the FAA bans cell phones on aircraft. (You can't prove it can't be dangerous) Even still, for people who claim that military spending drives technological innovation, it is kind of strange. NASA has built several prototype aircraft that use fly-by-wire thrust vectoring in place of various control surfaces, to great effect. Even the B-2 lacks v-stabs. I'm just looking at all of this from an economics perspective: if you're going to give the aircraft thrust vectoring, why not extract the maximum advantage from it?
  17. SchizophrenicMC
    I dig it, but I have a hard time taking cherry blossom scenes seriously, especially when the characters are 14 or so. I'm still excited for more. Hooray for China cameo.
  18. SchizophrenicMC
    I stick to acrylics due to cost, familiarity, and the fact that I do my painting in my room, and even with this makeshift paintbooth (it is literally a rubbermaid bin with a range hood fan pushing air into a dryer exhaust tube) I'd need a respirator to paint with more pungent pigments. This setup will probably suffice for enamel painting, but the materials cost is higher and I'm not as familiar with airbrushing enamels. I'd like to add lacquer painting to my repertoire because Alclad makes some really fantastic-looking metallics, but other than that I'm fine with acrylics. And I only needed the hot pink for a gunpla project I was doing for a friend who's into My Little Ponies. It is a good example, however, of where you sometimes have to diversify your paint stock. Tamiya is good for a lot of things, but they don't make it easy to mix some colors. I think the best you could probably manage with Tamiya paint mixing is fuchsia. Not bright enough for my purposes.
  19. SchizophrenicMC
    Complete waste. Added weight, unit cost, development cost, maintenance cost, and no improvement in overall capability. Damned bureaucrats.
  20. SchizophrenicMC
    I mean MM acrylics. I paint primarily with acrylic paints- they work better for my methods, situation, and budget. I was having a lot of trouble with MM acrylic lavender, thinned with MM Aztek thinner as per the instructions, so I mixed up an identical color with Tamiya acrylic, thinned it out similarly, and the difference in coverage was just fantastic. Tamiya acrylics really do airbrush very well. Plus they're cheap and I can mix most colors with them. It's only for things like hot pink that I have to go to MM acrylic, because you can't mix hot pink from other colors. I haven't airbrushed with MM enamel. I've only used it for lining wash.
  21. SchizophrenicMC
    The problems I've had are from paint drying on the bottle threads. That's not due to my 007 method of agitating paint, it's because I neglect to use a toothpick or stir rod to channel paint into mixing cups, and paint ends up on the sides of the jars all willy-nilly. I should wipe my bottles, but at this point, for all the paints I have now it's too late. It's all crusty on the sides and I just don't have enough rags to clean all of those. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get it in the US. Because you can't ship paints via parcel carrier, only companies who get their stock via their own trucks, and can order via shipped bulk, rather than airfreight, can get their hands on it. Good luck finding a hobby store who will go through the effort. I feel your pain, fellow Tarrant County resident. Nobody has Gunze in D/FW. Basically our only paint options are Tamiya and ModelMaster, though you can special-order the larger Vallejo bottles through HobbyTown USA- at least the Arlington and Dallas locations. However, beware that HTUSA is franchised, so your results between stores will vary significantly. I do have to agree about Tamiya airbrushing well, and MM brushing more consistently than Tamiya. That's why I mostly have my solid colors as Tamiya acrylics, and most of my MM is metallic for details like piping and hydraulics. I also use MM enamel for panel lining wash. The MM Aztek acrylic thinner also works pretty well with Tamiya for airbrush work, in my experience. But I have noticed MM doesn't airbrush very well. You need lots of coats to get a good, even consistency, and while they offer a wider range of colors than Tamiya, I'd only go to them for colors I can't mix from other Tamiya paints. (like hot pink)
  22. SchizophrenicMC
    I don't think it's been an issue since approximately 1984. Turbos aren't really all that maintenance intensive- not the modern ones anyway. My grandma has a '13 Fusion, with the 1.6l turbo engine. It has all the get-up-and-go of an engine slightly over twice its size, but a lot less fuel consumption and Ford recommends oil changes at 10,000 mile intervals. Ford also recommends changing the coolant every 100,000 miles, or every 7 years, whichever is first, so cooling isn't an issue there either. I haven't heard of any sensor or fuel system problems with the lineup, and the only problem we've ever had with the car was a loose intercooler pipe, but that was the fault of the technician who performed a recall service on it and didn't properly reconnect the pipe. We're past 30,000 miles now, and still going very nicely. Bumper-to-bumper warranty's about to end, but we've got plenty of time left on the powertrain warranty. Similarly, my cousin drives a Focus ST. The 2.0l turbo in that has been perfectly reliable for him, albeit less economical than ours has been for us. Because of all the choo-choo, Martin. Actually, the last time I knew anybody who had turbo-related problems with his car was when that same cousin had a heavily-modified Eclipse GSX. Too fast, too furious bro.
  23. SchizophrenicMC
    That's not to say it's a design impossibility. Nor is it to say thrust vectoring can't be a substitute for horizontal stabilizers on a plane where h-stabs only stabilize because the computer is constantly twitching them.
  24. SchizophrenicMC
    I really like HLJ. I've never had anything come from them damaged, and their prices work out pretty good when you consider that shipping is a fair bit cheaper than a lot of the competition, not to mention their Private Warehouse offering. They also have really good customer service, and lots of market coverage. Even at a slight premium, I'd go HLJ every time, just because the service is so much better. I'd be preordering my VF-0D from them if I hadn't already promised myself years ago that I'd buy the PG Unicorn when it came out. It helps that the Unicorn is marginally cheaper with LEDs than the Arcadia 0D.
  25. SchizophrenicMC
    None of my Tamiya paints have gone bad, and some of them are going on 6 years old now. The one problem I've had consistently with them is the lids not wanting to come off- paint buildup along the threads. But the glass is pretty thick, so I don't feel too bad about bashing the lid into something to break the seal. If you're having trouble with your thinner evaporating, just thin the paint back out with an appropriate thinner. Shake your paints before use, you should get good results.
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