Whats Lying on your Workbench MK IV

[Chronocidal]

That glow is just beautiful, bravo!  Can't wait to see how the whole thing looks when it's together.

[CrossAir]

18 hours ago, MechTech said:

@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

Two turrets look cool, but I think it is a bit too much for the size of your ship. IMHO one light gun is the most realistic setup.

[Ignacio Ocamica]

Happy with how this project is turning out. The torso is now primered too. Will wetsand everything when finished.

[electric indigo]

Very nice finish, looking forward to see the completed work!

_

After failing to find convincing aftermarket eastern bloc pilots, I decided to fire up my clone factory again. Did some gene splicing first by removing the voluptuos vest from a Hasegawa F-14 pilot and building up the iconic soviet harness pattern with adhesive foil strips and leftover etch parts. The first cast was painted for the croatian MiG.

[derex3592]

I unmasked my impulse grills today...window screen mesh and orange lighting gel did the trick to get a nice honeycomb effect! 

[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

 

[Urashiman]

On 1/30/2021 at 4:49 PM, electric indigo said:

Very nice finish, looking forward to see the completed work!

_

After failing to find convincing aftermarket eastern bloc pilots, I decided to fire up my clone factory again. Did some gene splicing first by removing the voluptuos vest from a Hasegawa F-14 pilot and building up the iconic soviet harness pattern with adhesive foil strips and leftover etch parts. The first cast was painted for the croatian MiG.

Whoa! Awesome! I need one of those for my newest member on my modelkit stack of shame.

I will probably take the Hasegawa F-14 pilots as well. Thanks for the idea!

PS: What do you use for the molds and what kind of resin are you using for casting?

Edited January 31, 2021 by Urashiman

[electric indigo]

I bought Trollfactory Kautschuk Typ 2 & PU resin from their Amazon shop. Both come in affordable 2 x 250g bottles. The new pilot is 1/48 scale, but I have also copied Hasegawa pilots from their 1/72 figures set. The mold looks like this:

The 1/48 mold has pouring and venting channels, but for the smaller figures I built open molds; I fill both halves with resin, let it cure until it gets viscous and then squash the molds together. 

To make the molds, I first embed the figure in plasticine and push a short tube into this, resulting in what you see in the middle of the pic above. The tube is filled with silicone, after this is cured, you turn the tube around, remove the plasticine and brush some talcum powder on the silicone to keep the mold halves from sticking together, then pour the second part.

 

[Urashiman]

20 hours ago, electric indigo said:

I bought Trollfactory Kautschuk Typ 2 & PU resin from their Amazon shop. Both come in affordable 2 x 250g bottles. The new pilot is 1/48 scale, but I have also copied Hasegawa pilots from their 1/72 figures set. The mold looks like this:

The 1/48 mold has pouring and venting channels, but for the smaller figures I built open molds; I fill both halves with resin, let it cure until it gets viscous and then squash the molds together. 

To make the molds, I first embed the figure in plasticine and push a short tube into this, resulting in what you see in the middle of the pic above. The tube is filled with silicone, after this is cured, you turn the tube around, remove the plasticine and brush some talcum powder on the silicone to keep the mold halves from sticking together, then pour the second part.

 

Thanks a lot man! Time to make some clones

 

edit:

just checked the trollfactory site:

https://trollfactory.de/anwendungen/modellbau/tabletop-spiele/7042/tfc-troll-factory-silikon-kautschuk-typ-2-abformsilikon-mittelhart-1-1-rtv-nv?number=

Their products are much cheaper compared to amazon. 22,90€ compared to 28,90€.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Urashiman

[electric indigo]

2 hours ago, Urashiman said:

Their products are much cheaper compared to amazon

Good to know! 

While you're ordering, get some of their Modelliermasse. I had a bad experience with plasticine reacting with the silicone and preventing the surface from curing.

Good luck!

[peter]

Hey guys, been a while, but I started working on those K'Tingas again, lol, remember those smelly things? 

These things had been sitting outside for maybe 25 years or so and they were a bit funky.

I tried Simple Green to remove the old paint, which didn't work as well as I'd hoped.

Then instead of smelling like BO, they smelled like Simple Green.

I spent a little time filling in some seam lines...

But some parts of these kits were just too far gone to get a precision build out of them.

 

And I had to McGuyver some of the parts back together.

 

[peter]

Anyway, I finally got off my @$$ and starting working on them again.

I mocked them up and they were a bit of a mess.  I used to think the 537 Refit was a badly engineered kit, well the K'tinga kits aren't much better, lol!

The way it fits together makes filling in seams a collosal pain in the buttocks.  It's like they decided to cut a line down a pile of panel (nacelle pylons).  The bulkhead where the spindly stem of a neck is also a bit gross.

Anyway, I decided that these kits were pretty far gone so they'll be basically repaints with a bit of weathering and battle damage to cover up the poor assembly from when I was a kid.

Please don't zoom in, lol!

hiand laid down some FDE then some masking over top.

Since both stands were nowhere to be seen, I found a board, drilled two holes in it, and stucl a steel rod in one, and an old hex key in the other.

Oh, I'm not sure if I mentioned, apart from new decals ordered from HDA, I planned to refurbish these kits with only what I had on hand, so whatever paint I have on the rack is all I have to work with.

As you can see, the base coat is already off to a bad start.  Nowhere near screen accurate is the Krylon OD green rattle can.  I had tons of this stuff on the shelf because I painted my kid's Power wheels Jeep (can provide pics of that project if requested).

Lol, it's WAY to dark, but I'm fine with it....screen accuracy right out the window.  Not to mention the Krylon FDE (from painting my rifles) came out way too bright.

 

So, I decided to mask some of it, then I made the dumb decision to hand paint the rest, thinking it would be less work.

I'm not so sure now.  It took me forever to get this far, just the bottom of the cruisers, and again, don't zoom in because it looks horrendous.

The colors are clashing hard, but I still have a lot more painting to do.

Also, once I do a wash, hopefully it will blend some of it together and it won't contrast so badly.

 

[Urashiman]

14 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Good to know! 

While you're ordering, get some of their Modelliermasse. I had a bad experience with plasticine reacting with the silicone and preventing the surface from curing.

Good luck!

Ah ... good advise. Will get some as well.

[MechTech]

@peter Your Krylon Kamo colors actually look cool! Especially after raiding the stove top Seriously, they do look good, even though not canon colors. - MT

[Thom]

12 hours ago, peter said:

Anyway, I finally got off my @$$ and starting working on them again.

I mocked them up and they were a bit of a mess.  I used to think the 537 Refit was a badly engineered kit, well the K'tinga kits aren't much better, lol!

The way it fits together makes filling in seams a collosal pain in the buttocks.  It's like they decided to cut a line down a pile of panel (nacelle pylons).  The bulkhead where the spindly stem of a neck is also a bit gross.

Anyway, I decided that these kits were pretty far gone so they'll be basically repaints with a bit of weathering and battle damage to cover up the poor assembly from when I was a kid.

Please don't zoom in, lol!

hiand laid down some FDE then some masking over top.

Since both stands were nowhere to be seen, I found a board, drilled two holes in it, and stucl a steel rod in one, and an old hex key in the other.

Oh, I'm not sure if I mentioned, apart from new decals ordered from HDA, I planned to refurbish these kits with only what I had on hand, so whatever paint I have on the rack is all I have to work with.

As you can see, the base coat is already off to a bad start.  Nowhere near screen accurate is the Krylon OD green rattle can.  I had tons of this stuff on the shelf because I painted my kid's Power wheels Jeep (can provide pics of that project if requested).

Lol, it's WAY to dark, but I'm fine with it....screen accuracy right out the window.  Not to mention the Krylon FDE (from painting my rifles) came out way too bright.

 

So, I decided to mask some of it, then I made the dumb decision to hand paint the rest, thinking it would be less work.

I'm not so sure now.  It took me forever to get this far, just the bottom of the cruisers, and again, don't zoom in because it looks horrendous.

The colors are clashing hard, but I still have a lot more painting to do.

Also, once I do a wash, hopefully it will blend some of it together and it won't contrast so badly.

 

I zoomed, and I find no regret in that.

Some nice work rebuilding these old girls. They'll be a little battle scarred, but that's the way the Klingons like them.

[peter]

On 02/02/2021 at 1:55 PM, MechTech said:

@peter Your Krylon Kamo colors actually look cool! Especially after raiding the stove top Seriously, they do look good, even though not canon colors. - MT

@MechTech

Lol, thanks!  Yeah, pretty far from screen accurate, but I made the decision to refurbish these guys on the cheap with whatever I had, so I will be happy as long as they look a little better than they did before.

@Thom

Oh man, if you zoom in, you can totally see the shaky hands and the fact I was too lazy to mask a million feather plates.

I worked on the K'Tingas a bit more, just more paint.

I wasn't going to mask any of the rest, but some parts just didn't have a clear line on where the paint had to begin so I broke down and masked a bit.

In retrospect, I think I spent just as much time hand brushing everything and cleaning up edges as I would have spent on masking and spraying (which would have looked a lot cleaner)

For the Klingon symbol on the bottom of the ship, I decided to leave the circle unpainted on one of them because I saw another build like that and it didn't look too bad.  Besides, the circle barely visible on that one, lol!  Remember, these are refurbish builds, and I wasn't able to get all of the old paint off these things.

Anyway, need to take a break, hands are shaking from all the hand painting, lol!  Next step probably a bit of touch up, battle damage paint and weathering.  

 

[derex3592]

I think those birds look awesome! Great job with the restoration! I have an old crappy Star Destroyer kit I will someday redo.  Back as a kid I airbrushed it neutral grey and dotted yellow paint around it for lights. 

[electric indigo]

Final steps on the MiG, maybe I can finish it over the weekend.

[Thom]

3 minutes ago, electric indigo said:

Final steps on the MiG, maybe I can finish it over the weekend.

Your pilot looks ready to go!

[MechTech]

@peter Your K'Tingas look great! Wait, that sounds wrong... Nice models dude!

@electric indigo Looks like if I waived at him, he'd wave back! Nice n clean gun site too! - MT

[peter]

Lol, @MechTech Twigs and Berries instead of K'Tingas?

I don't have an airbrush yet, so I painted some of the damaged parts with a rattle can.  Just masked off a thin strip, then moved the mask further out and pulled the rattle can further back and sprayed again.

Ok, greeblies was a complete after thought on these two.  The photon torpedo tube always looked unfinished on these kits and I probably should have addressed this way before, but at the last minute, I decided to add some detail.  Should be easy to recognize for anyone who's built a Hasegawa 1/72 Valk.

For one of the K'Tingas, I was left with a gaping hole because I was missing parts, added a bit of damage around the area and was just going to leave it black, but figured I should put something in the hole.  Hopefully it draws attention away from the gaping seam line between the front bulkhead and the rest of the hull, lol!

I also decided to add some repair plating to make it look like some attempt of repairs were done. One of the nacelles broke at the stem/slot so it's held together with nails, lol!

Then onto the decals.  Clearly I forgot a step because I tried to apply the decals straight to the Krylon - a textured matte paint, lol!  Left them on over night and the next day they came right off. 

Anyway, I tried to rescue the decals (HDA so pretty robust) and then hosed the cruisers down with gloss clear.  Will reapply the decals and post pics later 

Edited February 6, 2021 by peter

[MechTech]

@peter Great improvements! Nice use of a wheel, I usually toss 'em! Another method of using matt paints is to buff them smooth if you want to skip using a clear coating. Then clear coat after the decals are. As usual, great work of incorporating a hardware store into your models . - MT

[Thom]

@peter Looking good! Nice use of materials for details and damage.

I could imagine the Klingons going into the next battle with the ship as-is.

And thinking about it, the color may be explained away as being from a minor noble House, and the damage could be from an inter-House war.

 

[Convectuoso]

 

 

On 1/9/2021 at 11:12 PM, Rock said:

@Convectuoso

There is a fixed resin fighter form conversion for the 1/72 Bandai vf-25f. Your still going to have to paint stripes though

Thanks.

I decided to try to make some decals to replace the stickers included with the kit.

I started by peeling off the mask of the stickers

Then I scanned and printed them on decal paper. But unfortunately I just have a basic inkjet printer, so the resulting decals worked well only if they were black or if they had to be applied on white surfaces.

[Rock]

Most inkjets will do better by telling the printer your printing onto glossy photo paper and selecting the best print quality at a minimum 360dpi. ig your jusy doing stripes you can grab white decal paper instead of transparent too.

[electric indigo]

12 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

I started by peeling off the mask of the stickers

Can't you use the film as a paint mask for the stripes?

[MechTech]

Well, all  the work I did last week was ruined when somehow the glue also melted the plastic around the bolt that was holding it for machining. What a drag! It had to be placed in a vice to unscrew the bolt - it was that bad! I redid it though and with more experience, made it more accurate before having to add in details later. I also made the rings to fit around it and then using existing parts, made the planar panels to go on the mast. - MT

[derex3592]

USS Fort Worth Update :  

This weekend I learned that you CAN put parts glued with Tamiya cement in the freezer overnight and with a little gentle xcto knife prying, you can get them apart without any damage to said parts! So I was able to fix my mistakes (don't model when you're sick) on the gun battery sub assembly! I also got the bridge painted and assembled, the hanger painted assembled, dirtied up and installed, lower hull primed and started on paint, and also started putting in the microscopic photoetch brass tie downs on the flight deck! Man that's stressful! Here's the pics! 

[Convectuoso]

On 2/7/2021 at 9:15 AM, electric indigo said:

Can't you use the film as a paint mask for the stripes?

I'm considering that for the white parts

[derex3592]

Small Runabout update: 

Figure painting is getting close, it takes sooo long to do this with acrylics nowadays, miss my Model Master enamels for this.  Tan/grey front section painted on the ship. Decided to pop out my custom windows and remake them later to make my life easier for painting, also I had the clear plastic slightly mar/look icky from superglue fumes when I put it all back in the box one night and left it a few days.  That may present a big problem when it comes time to assemble the two halves....  May have to bust out the good old Testors orange tube  glue...

[peter]

Ok, calling these guys done.  

Before

After

Just a quick Recap:  Two AMT 1/537 Klingon K'Tinga class Battlecruisers, originally built about 25 years ago by my brother and I (and possibly some rando because I think we got one of them at a garage sale already built...badly).  We broke them both from wooshing them around and then they sat outside in a cardboard box for about 2 decades.  When I dug them out last summer, they smelled like really bad BO (and later on Simple Green), and covered in creepy crawlies.

Gutted them, tried to strip the paint off with Simple Green (unsuccessfully) and cobbled them back together.  They were missing parts so I ended up adding "battle damage" to compensate for gaping holes and missing pieces.  Some of the gaps were so far gone from glue build-up that I didn't bother filling in some of the seams.

Did not buy any new materials to refurbish them, just used whatever I had on the shelf, so color matching and screen accuracy right out the window.  The only thing I put into these were decals from HDA.  I did minimal masking so the feathers/plates were all hand brush painted (badly) so please don't zoom in to the pics.  No airbrush so I made do with rattle cans.

Just a heads up, Krylon and Rustoleum are not ideal for models you care about.  And Rustoleum Matte Clear is not a substitute for Tamiya Flat Clear.  The Rustoleum is more of a Semi-gloss.  Also, they don't like decals or Tamiya panel lining, and they especially don't like thinner to clean the panel lines.  Go easy guys, I know these are nasty, but I think they are improved over what I dug out of that box.

With my Refit build

 

With my Auto Destruct build

That Tamiya Weather Master is great for adding soot.  Please ignore the decal silvering....I just gave up after a few days and even poking holes and cutting the decals didn't help much....I should have smoothed out the textured Krylon and sealed it with a better quality Clear Gloss.

 

 

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by peter
Edited for spelling

[electric indigo]

Almost there...

@peterThat's some archeological restoration skill on display.

[peter]

On 2/8/2021 at 8:02 AM, derex3592 said:

Small Runabout update: 

Figure painting is getting close, it takes sooo long to do this with acrylics nowadays, miss my Model Master enamels for this.  Tan/grey front section painted on the ship. Decided to pop out my custom windows and remake them later to make my life easier for painting, also I had the clear plastic slightly mar/look icky from superglue fumes when I put it all back in the box one night and left it a few days.  That may present a big problem when it comes time to assemble the two halves....  May have to bust out the good old Testors orange tube  glue...

 

 

Is it me, or do those female figures have really nice proportions?

 Lol, I know, it sounds like I've been in the field for a few days.

[peter]

5 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Almost there...

@peterThat's some archeological restoration skill on display.

Thanks! 

Though I wish the finish would look as smooth as that fighter, just wow.

Finally broke down and ordered an airbrush and compressor.  I think I've gone as far as I can with rattle cans and a brush.......will have to learn a whole new set of skills.

[peter]

On 2/7/2021 at 6:56 AM, MechTech said:

Well, all  the work I did last week was ruined when somehow the glue also melted the plastic around the bolt that was holding it for machining. 

Hey, I've melted stuff with glue before!

Lol, when I was building that 537 Refit, I filled the tail end of the secondary hull with nuts and bolts to counterweight the saucer......and the glue started to melt the hull.