Whats Lying on your Workbench MK IV

[mickyg]

Nice work!  These are classics and there have been countless buildups of them all over the place but I always find new ways of doing it better.  Yours are a real help!

[MechTech]

Looking great guys! Great Star Wars and some Macross rising from the dead.

I saw an original Defiant at the thrift store for like $32 (USD). It looked bad so I dismissed it. But first I saw an original Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea flying sub and was interested until I saw it was poorly assembled and obviously opened. Also too expensive. That put me off the first one. I think someone got rid of their childhood models. Just not good when you want to build it before they do.

I gotta put down my work and post some pictures!

[electric indigo]

Some parts of this kit were apparently designed to test your patience.

[MechTech]

"Some parts of this kit were apparently designed to test your patience." Because filling gaps and sanding is so much fun - not! That's a bad fit. - MT

[electric indigo]

To be fair, the part fit pretty well on the underside...

[mickyg]

Yeah, I hate those "you can only choose good fit on one side or the other" dilemmas in a lot of kits.  Still, you're progressing well with it.  Keep those pictures coming.

I've been working on a modification to allow the Hasegawa 1/48 VF-1 Missiles to work on the Bandai DX toy.  I didn't want to shell out the big bucks for the Missile set from Bandai so went this route of modifying the model kit parts.  It'll have a bit better "realism" and give me complete control on the finish of the parts but that's about it.

The effort so far on my first pylon alone is sitting at about an hour.  To do the 4 required, that's 4 hours.  And that's just to make the cuts to fit everything together.  If you can put money against your time, the Missile set from Bandai is an absolute steal!

Here's where I'm at:

The pylon has been glued together and the yellow 3d printed piece just wedged in there for testing the fit.  I'll glue it in properly and add some detail over the cutout so it looks a little more interesting when finished.

I experimented with holes to help attach the missiles and actually purchased some 1mm x 1.5mm neodymium magnets for this specific purpose.  Unfortunately the method for attaching the missiles is so tricky, the magnets just aren't going to work.

Here's how I'd planned to mount them:

The sad thing is that the holes were nearly perfectly aligned and straight - something I almost never get right.  Oh well...

The bit I've cut out is shown here:

Just a simple rectangle, marked out and then cut with some very thin photo etch saws.

[mickyg]

I just realised the 3d printed part is sitting too high for the pylon to but up against the underside of the wing.  Bummer...

Looks like I'll need to move it down a bit more - maybe to the tops of the side rails instead.

[joscasle]

I started a 1/72 Hasegawa VF-25F Mesiah

 

 

[electric indigo]

Everything puttied and smoothed out for the nth time and it's starting to look like a Tomcat.

Usually, I'd start painting the fuselage now and finish the cockpit later, but the fit of the canopy is a bit problematic and may require additional putty & surgery.

[arbit]

12 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Everything puttied and smoothed out for the nth time and it's starting to look like a Tomcat.

Usually, I'd start painting the fuselage now and finish the cockpit later, but the fit of the canopy is a bit problematic and may require additional putty & surgery.

I guess you like the challenge of this old cast.

How does the canopy look on it now?

[electric indigo]

It's difficult to catch in a photo - the canopy is 1 mm too wide in the middle section, so you get a very visible step against the fuselage. I guess that's why most builds have the canopy open. Since the material is so thin at the edge and I don't want super glue on clear parts, there's no hope to force the canopy into the correct width.

My approach is to glue strips of 0.25 mm styrene onto the RIO's console to widen the fuselage and solve the rest with sanding & putty.

If that doesn't work I'll make it fit on one side and put the kit in a shelf with the other side facing the wall...

[arbit]

7 minutes ago, electric indigo said:

the canopy is 1 mm too wide in the middle section

Ahhhh Hasegawa...

If it is 0.5 mm too wide on each side, I would live with it, rather than risk damaging the canopy or displaying it only on one side.

[Lt. Z0mBe]

Finished all the scribing and got some primer on the Mk I Viper.  There's actually only a few surface problems needing cleanup and then I can preshade and color coat.  The engines will get a coat of black before Alclad.  Now it's off to the races to see if I can make Wonderfest.

Comments and criticisms welcome.

Kenny

[MechTech]

Looking good Zombie! I remember building the original kit. You can make it! - MT

[MechTech]

Speaking of races... I almost forgot to post these. Our club build for the upcoming shows - NASPLANES. Its NASCAR, only planes. Rules: 1/48th scale, no clear canopies, no detailing and everything must be WWII era. So the guys made a 12 foot long track and we made mounts on our planes for 1/4" acrylic rods. I used an old large ploycap to hold mine up.

Guess which one is mine?

Being weird, I just happened to build the only pusher, the Shinden. I wanted a shiny spinner so I lathed it in steel and polished up. I had to make my own decals since there are none available in 1/24th which is what everyone else used. Sorry, no close ups yet. I had to rush so much I forgot to get photos of mine! I'll have to wait until our build finishes the tour circuit. - MT

[Sanity is Optional]

Looks great, big fan of the Shinden (canard/pusher) aesthetic in general.

[arbit]

1 hour ago, MechTech said:

Guess which one is mine?

Don't know. Can't find the UN Spacey kite 

[Bolt]

2 hours ago, MechTech said:

Guess which one is mine?

The black & white one that looks like it’s going backwards..

[Thom]

That's a great dio! Love your plane too. Clearly you are about to dive to the inside and go for the win!

Edited May 2, 2019 by Thom

[arbit]

A little progress made. Still need to trim the fibre to the edge of the thrusters so they are not sticking out.

 

[MechTech]

Thanks guys!

Those LEDs are looking great! - MT

[mickyg]

Lots of great things being built here!

I've managed to make some progress on my little DX VF-1J Missile project with whatever "workbench" space I can find.  Lately that's been the kitchen table or the small space in front of my keyboard on my desk at home.

At any rate, I've gone from this:

 

To this:

 

And in hindsight, that pic shows almost nothing of my progress! So until I take some more well thought out ones, the written word will have to serve as a substitute.

I'm experimenting with 1mm x 1.5mm neodymium magnets.  They didn't seem appropriate for holding the pylons to the wing.  I think I might've been able to make it work but the 3D printed adapters seemed to be a stronger option and so I went with them instead.  The magnets seemed more appropriate for holding the missiles onto the pylons.

Of course that meant drilling tiny holes into the missile bodies and attempting to use the missiles as guides for the holes in the pylons.  That worked, but only just.  You people who drill perfect holes in plastic have a gift.  In the end, the guides that Hasegawa built into the parts seem to work OK for locating the ordnance and the magnets seem to hold everything in place as planned.

I still may just glue at least one batch, given how much effort was required to do one pylon.  That's 12 holes required for each pylon.  And why do they need to be removable again?

[Thom]

14 hours ago, mickyg said:

 And why do they need to be removable again?

For the pure genius of it, of course!

 

For me, I'm done building and moving onto weathering and 'damage' for my wee-Defiant.

 

Edited May 9, 2019 by Thom

[arbit]

14 hours ago, mickyg said:

You people who drill perfect holes in plastic have a gift. 

No one drills perfect holes. There is usually some error.

[mickyg]

Thanks for the ray of hope arbit!  Yeah, I think the key is to drill a bit oversize and then glue the connection method (wire, rod, magnets, etc) into each side while fitting it "perfectly."  I didn't have that extra measure because of course I drilled the holes almost exactly the right size for the magnets.

I managed to glue the missile halves together last night and take some new photos.  So there's some small progress happening.

I'm using Gorilla Glue for holding the magnets in and also for the 3D printed part to the PS plastic on the model parts.  Super glue would work too, I'm sure but I am fresh out.  Plus, glue that activates in the presence of moisture and bubbles up like that polyfoam insulation in a can, is cool! 

I used it to create a level surface on the 3D printed part by applying some to the part that I'd previously glued, sprayed water on two pieces of thick plastic sheet, then using a bulldog clip to hold the plastic level with the pylon.  After removing the plastic sheet, the result is a smooth surface that is slightly transparent.  It looks porous but isn't.  Under primer and paint, it should look like the rest of the plastic when I'm done.

The yet to be primed and painted, finished assembly:

And fitted.  As you can see, the flaps still work and don't foul on the pylon or the missiles.  I don't know how the Reaction Missiles or the Micro Missile boxes would look but don't plan to fit these anyway.

[arbit]

11 hours ago, mickyg said:

I'm using Gorilla Glue for holding the magnets in and also for the 3D printed part to the PS plastic on the model parts

I recommend 5 minute epoxy. Gorilla glue is hard to control because it expands.

But epoxy is perfect for this stuff in terms of strength and control.

[pengbuzz]

Well, I'm back after a considerable hiatus (and a cross-country move that was the move from hell!) I recently found another valk (a Bandai reissue of Imai's original, 90's vintage)-

Aside from missing the pilot (thankfully, the only thing), the kit is complete. I plan on printing actual decals in my printer to replace the old ones that came with this kit. They're pretty yellowed and I tested one that shattered when i did so. I think I'll attempt Roy's valk one more time.

Stay tuned...

[pengbuzz]

On 4/18/2019 at 2:17 PM, electric indigo said:

It's difficult to catch in a photo - the canopy is 1 mm too wide in the middle section, so you get a very visible step against the fuselage. I guess that's why most builds have the canopy open. Since the material is so thin at the edge and I don't want super glue on clear parts, there's no hope to force the canopy into the correct width.

My approach is to glue strips of 0.25 mm styrene onto the RIO's console to widen the fuselage and solve the rest with sanding & putty.

If that doesn't work I'll make it fit on one side and put the kit in a shelf with the other side facing the wall...

I've had this issue on my tomcat builds: after gluing the canopy in place, I scraped the plastic do match the level of the clear canopy. You probably don't want to try that, but I'm nuts anyways (just ask folks here! :P )

 

[mickyg]

On 5/10/2019 at 8:34 PM, arbit said:

I recommend 5 minute epoxy. Gorilla glue is hard to control because it expands.

But epoxy is perfect for this stuff in terms of strength and control.

Agreed. I mainly used it because it's less effort for where I had it. I literally used a dab from a toothpick on the magnets, since the void inside the missile bodies is plenty to hold the expanding glue. For the printed part, it was perfect to let it expand and fill the step between it and the pylon. That's why I used the plastic "form" clipped over it, while it expanded and set. The expansion was forced into the gap and excess went out the top of the pylon, where I just trimmed it off after. 

[Gabe Q]

On 5/10/2019 at 11:35 PM, pengbuzz said:

Well, I'm back after a considerable hiatus (and a cross-country move that was the move from hell!) I recently found another valk (a Bandai reissue of Imai's original, 90's vintage)-

Aside from missing the pilot (thankfully, the only thing), the kit is complete. I plan on printing actual decals in my printer to replace the old ones that came with this kit. They're pretty yellowed and I tested one that shattered when i did so. I think I'll attempt Roy's valk one more time.

Stay tuned...

Hey pengbuzz! Welcome back! Just curious, where did you pick up that kit? I've been looking for one to build at a reasonable price. 

[derex3592]

Last time I did an old Imai Macross kit, Bandai came out with the Hi Metal R Monster like a month later..

Let's see if I can get that situation to happen again... LOL!... Prepare the putty and the sanding tools! 

[derex3592]

Ohh and I finished this finally.. Great LITTLE kit, but the stickers were horrible on this one. 

[pengbuzz]

On 5/12/2019 at 11:02 AM, Gabe Q said:

Hey pengbuzz! Welcome back! Just curious, where did you pick up that kit? I've been looking for one to build at a reasonable price. 

Thanks! I found it on Ebay; ended up paying 40 bucks including shipping (was 10 but someone decided to mess with me in a bidding war and i got tired of their crap). It was also missing the missiles, but I really didn't care so much about that.

[pengbuzz]

On 5/12/2019 at 6:16 PM, derex3592 said:

Ohh and I finished this finally.. Great LITTLE kit, but the stickers were horrible on this one. 

Really nice job there! I like th gold on the stand, it brings out the plaque and the wording on it.

 

[derex3592]

Thanks Pengbuzz, I decided a tacky 70's gold stand kinda went with it.. haha.