John's Whatever Bench Returns ...

[JohnRatzenberger]

Thanks, guys - I should be unveiling the turrets this weekend.

[JohnRatzenberger]

OK, the turrets are really close to done, promise, this afternoon maybe ?

However, I have grown tired with paint, repaint, touchup, and want to have a small interlude doing something else for a bit, or maybe better, alongside the two ships. Anyway, here's one of my favorite aircraft in a kit I've never done before.



Two options, one OD, one silver, with the kit decals looking good so I will probably do each and as I have a 3rd kit, I have some a/m decals with another silver aircraft I like. Some of this will be a test bed for me to actually do a presentable silver aircraft - my usual style is to slop on OD/NG to hide the flaws.



Parts look good. All 3 are original boxings and have been well preserved, so decals are good, etc.





And off we go, showing just one. The other two will follow along - no pressure - and I'll not extend the thread showing same parts, same build. I am planning to get all 3 built, cleaned up, etc, then select the two best for silver finish.

I cannot say the molded two colors are appropriate to a Thunderbolt, but moving along, it most fits very well.



The one place that was "trouble" was adding the wings to the fuselage. The instructions clearly show a tab on the top half of the wing fitting into a slot on the fuselage root, but there is no such thing. The difficulty is that the rear part of the wing and flaps needed a bit of sanding down to eliminate a gap on the top part of the wing-fuselage join.



Excuse the bluriness, but here you can see the very minimal amount of filler (Vallejo) needed along the joins - should be easy to clean up.




Now, the one big problem I have, that I just cannot let go. Ignoring the engine has little detail such as push rods, wiring harness, and thingies on the housing, the lower part of the cowl is nothing but a gaping hole. There are two round ducts and a oval/rectangular one in the real aircraft and a nice piece of aluminum to guide air into them, hide the ducts, etc. So my goal is to fake that with a "vanity skirt" so we don't have the big gaping hole - and I have already started on that.



But all that is for another post, I have SD turrets to get done.

[PaulBradley]

Gosh, I remember that P-47 kit from all those years ago..... i certainly wasn't brave enough for a NMF finish back then, and I don't recall doing the D-Day stripes, so I'm assuming I just did a plain Jane OD/NG finish.

Good start on a cool kit!

[iggie]

I too remember this kit from some years ago; mine got covered in Humbrol silver enamel so thick that any flaws were well hidden anyway!

[JamesPerrin]

Great colours for a Corsair! That aside looks like it should be a straight forward build, just keep that mod to the cowling intakes simple!

[JohnRatzenberger]

First, the turrets are on San Diego - a milestone.





On to detailing things ...

I also received several Coastal Kits water bases (Thanks Ratch!!) from Sprue Brothers who carries some of the line here in the US. I'll show them later when my 3 ships are done and we discuss SIG display needs.

Back to the Thunderbolt.

Here are the 4 parts - the kit cowling, the kit firewall (with happy face because it's getting a vanity skirt ), and a small block of Evergreen which looks like the center air duct but is really there to support the "vanity skirt" which is a hand-fitted trapezoid which I'll wedge in there.



So, here's the duct/support glued in place.



Then the "vanity skirt".



And the finished product -- it should look quite nice when painted up.




My 1st cut vanity skirt was a bit long so I had to whittle a bit off the backside after gluing it in, but no problem. I have already adjusted the other pre-cut ones. I'll probably build but other cowls now but won't reshow the process. This went much quicker than I thought and I'm quite happy with it. And I had another long talk with myself about NOT needing to do connecting rods, wiring harness, etc ...

[PaulBradley]

Looks much better, John.

[iggie]

I like the blast bags on San Diego, they've turned out very nicely indeed

[JamesPerrin]

Simple and effective solution.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Ok, as you might suspect, my hemoglobin tanked last week just after my 4 weeks without transfusion milestone. Unfortunately a weekend intervened so transfusion wasn’t until Tuesday and in effort to address problems possibly caused by too many transfusions I only got 1 unit of blood and I don’t feel as chipper as usual. We shall see Monday when I get labs, see the Doc, and start next round of chemo. There’s more, but ….

So, on Thunderbolt, I got other 2 cowls built up - look like 1st one so no pix.

On San Diego, I got 4-5 steam pipes placed, more by guesswork than anything, also got all life rafts on, I think that is it. Then in a test of mail-worthiness, I dropped it sideways into my lap, loosening both structures but fortunately not all the bits I had just put on. These are going to be hard to glue back and clamp w/o damaging stuff, so it might take a day or so of thinking & prep work.

And in all this I spent a bunch of time helping Paul & Shaun get the Splash Memorial GB. Regardless if you can participate, do your self a favor and read through his Workbench and the GBs he participated in. I am glad I did.

[gnomemeansgnome]

Thanks for the Splash news, John. I do wish you well with the hemoglobin issues, geesh! The Razorback and the San Diego look very smart.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Get that out of the way up front ...

Usual problems, needed a transfusion a couple weeks ago. They decided to only give me 1 unit to bring down my high ferritin (one cause is transfusions). I asked if it made sense to give me more transfusions of less than fewer of more, to no avail. Until a week later when I was right back in again, this time for the usual 2 unit transfusion and I have been doing just great since. My last good transfusion lasted 4 weeks, I hope this does also or longer - that's the goal. Meanwhile I'm having some talks with them about which is more important - my MDS/hemoglobin or some non-specific ferritin thing.

Anyway, not much has happened on the WW.

I have one of the two superstructures back on the SD and drying; if it is OK, we'll do the other one today or tomorrow.

The Thunderbolts are in progress, but I had forgotten how poorly Tamiya brush-painted so the yellow-green isn't working. Today I'll mix up some Vallejo to look like it and try again.

But with the Splash Memorial due to kick off soon, my real focus has been getting tools and supplies ready for that - I'll be doing a card model and that sort of stuff tends to wander around in all the "normal" modeling stuff in the room

Anyway, since I have given my wife fair warning (begged on bended knees) that I will be using the quilt room table for card work (one reason is to avoid all the junk on my workbench) I'll be able to continue a little work here while card glue and laminated sheets of paper are drying.

[iggie]

I'm looking forward to seeing the card model hit your bench John

[JohnRatzenberger]

Back again after the Splash Memorial GB, my portion of which is the Scale Scenes Clyde Puffer card model .







I finished a couple hours short of deadline on Saturday, had a nice day Sunday, and my hemoglobin tanked on Monday, so here we go again.

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I have started cleaning up the battlefield Workbench, but am only about half-done.

I must get back to the SMW Matchbox display and revise my plans because I am now 10 weeks behind. The other problem is that I have been staring at the DoY and SD and really don't like what I have done so far - that must be addressed.

My goal was to have everything finished by early October so I could mail in plenty of time. That only leaves me about 10 weeks.

But first, a transfusion then more clean-up of the hobby room.

[skypirate]

Lovely Clyde Puffer, John! Splash would be chuffed!

Cheers,

David