Disaster Area: 2021

Sunday, November 07, 2021

Some thoughts so far

About three months since I started this blog, and the two models I committed to have made sporadic progress due to family and medical issues, but I'm committed to getting them done on time, even if it means forcing the pace a little.

What I've learned so far:

Airbrushing is great when it works, and awful when it doesn't. I tried to put a gloss coat on the Stuka a while back I tried a few different makes and I might as well have poured glue in my airbrushes. I thinned them I thought a reasonable amount, but it was all pretty awful. And it took ages to get all the gunk out of the airbrushes. It didn't totally ruin the Stuka, but it didn't do it any favors.

Airbrushing metallic paints is the same. I've had a couple of really successful sessions with metallic paint, but then some bad ones too - and the problem is metallic paints show up evey single flaw in a model's surface finish. But the results look great when it works.

I really like the building part -s seeing the shapes come together. The Citroen staff car that came with the D520 was a surprise - a really delicate little model, but really well designed and goes together like a dream.

Looking ahead to future builds, Britmodeller is looking at an Avro Vulcan build in 2023, which will give me just enough time to get ready to build my newly acquired 1/72 Airfix Vulcan. I now have all three V-bombers in 1/72 and 1/144 scale, so that's a lot of British cold war nuclear bombers.

There's also a Classic Revellogram (Revell & Monogram) build that has a tone of possibilities for 2022. I might be inclined to do a Grumman Wildcat with its folding wing - a crazily elegant design that has been featured on many Grumman aircraft and remains in service today on the Grumman E2-C Hawkeye. The Trumpeter 1/32 scale Wildcat has an accurate looking wing fold modeled, so I'm looking forward to building this eventually.

For a really good look at the mechanism, this youtube video of the Avenger wing unfolding after engine start,

I think that's enough for now...

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Revell Cutlass 1953

Now, I need you to know I love this airplane. One of the more out there configurations of the late 40s/early 50s, it suffered from poor engines, lacking both thrust and reliability, and it just missed the introduction of steam catapults, both of which contributed greatly to its lackluster performance.

This is a reissue of a vintage 1953 kit in 1/57.7 scale or something like that. Maybe they did in half-metric or something?