Archives
I was excited to see in the extra kit I bought to get a replacement canopy, it had the old decal set I remembered from the kit when I did it in the 80s. Lots more selection and definitely crisper, cleaner text and graphics. That said, I didn’t want to put all the decals on I did back then. Wow, every single “no step” is there and more. When you put that… Read More
With the cockpit assembly finished and the nightmare of fuselage and intakes complete, the really fun stuff comes to complete. Getting the wings, missiles, tail, engines and decals on so we can put things together and get a dull cote on! Wing pre-paint Lots of clothes pins for clean wings!
Success! Seams cleaned up, pieces levered and reset, triangle piece added to get more sticking power. I also made a new foil jig to hold the opening wide for the fuselage after the horrible experience last time. It was still a darn tight fit. Really tight. I tried using the cockpit assembly as a level to further pry open the fuselage while getting it snapped in there. In the end, I realized… Read More
You might remember the last time that I’d put together the arrow piece with the foil jigs and Tamiya tape to pull things together into shape. Man, did it set well, Really firmly and pretty clean considering the warped nature of the fuselage in this kit. It was all well and good until I tried to fit the canopy assembly. Even with the center foil jig prying things open (and I will… Read More
You’ll remember from last time, I got a piece of narrow gauge railroad rail that I can balance right to push down the arrow shapes into place. I was hoping that would hold things so I can move on to the next step. It went surprisingly well. There are gaps, but ones that should be hidden when the cockpit goes in. So now I’m going to use aluminum foil to create some custom… Read More
Oh boy, talk about bringing back memories! I remember now how very poorly the jet intakes fit on this old Monogram mold. Yikes ahootie. It’s a serious balancing act to make these come together. I’m going to be doing well if I get them lined up at all, nevermind clean joints. The main fuselage of the jet from behind the cockpit back to the exhaust is split between the top and bottom… Read More
Started in on the cockpit, one of my fav parts of any aircraft model. It’s really fun to make a detailed cockpit, even knowing that if you have it displayed closed, you won’t see the detail later on. It’s not only hard for me to see the details on scale models unaided, but after I’m done, the details I’ve worked on I can’t really see anymore either. I’m finding that taking pictures… Read More
I did the model that got away first, the one back in the 80s I thought I might finish as my last. Now I’m revisiting and old friend with an old kit I bought off eBay. This kit isn’t the really old one pictured above, but a 90s one. As I inspected what I bought, I see I failed to notice the canopy was missing from the pictures of the kit. So… Read More
Scale Model Wings 