2002p51

Excellent.

I've got everything mounted inside. And it looks pretty cool, until . . . . . . . you close it all up! I caught myself picking out some of the small details on a side panel with a paint brush and I stopped myself. "What are you doing? You'll never see this stuff!" And even worse, this thing is too big to sit on any of the shelves I have and for sure won't ever see an IPMS contest room so, from the beginning, the plan has been to hang it from the ceiling in the model room. So you'll see even less detail! I have to stop sweating the small things.

I started working on the Revell B-17G in 1/48 scale. This is a huge model. I spent 4 or 5 hours on the interior parts, mostly detail painting. I think it came out pretty nice, maybe not to IPMS standards but I like it. The shame of it all is that, once the fuselage is closed up, you won't be able to see 90% of this work!

Very nice!

Nice work on the model. Those specs of dust you're seeing when shooting at small apertures like f-32 are really dirt on the sensor inside the camera, not the lens. It can be cleaned but you must be very careful because its extremely delicate.

I never use clear coats over decals on race car models.

I agree and, just for the record, my wife and I are both non-smokers. What really surprised me about this particular model was the speed with which those decals turned yellow. I've got models on the shelf built in the late '60s and early '70s that have exhibited some degree of yellowing. But this model was built and these decals used LESS than two years ago!

This is, indeed, a very old trick that's been around for a long time. Wouldn't have helped in the case of the Ford I posted above however. Those decals looked fine on the sheet and didn't start to yellow until more than a year on the model. It seems very strange to me.

Feel free to jump in Louie, I had no questions and wasn't looking for answers, specifically, just wanting to start a discussion.

I recently had an issue with a couple of aftermarket decal sheets that I've had for years and just recently wanted to use. First let me say that I store my decals the way they always tell you is the right way. They are kept in the original packaging, inside sleeves, in a loose leaf binder, in my work room which is inside the house. So it's not humid, not too hot, not too cold, etc. etc. It's possible that the sheets in question (and I'm not going to mention any brand names) were around 20 years old, always stored as described above. When I tried to use them just recently they proved to be very brittle and, upon application, they cracked in several places, and broke into several fragments, and they were impossible to salvage. The other issue I've noticed is yellowing after application. I built this car and photographed it in February of 2014. These are aftermarket decals that were more than 20 years old, again, stored as described above. There were no problems with these, they went on easily and looked good. Less than two years later, they look like this: This model is not subject to direct sunlight or extreme temperatures or anything like that, and still these old decals are yellowing pretty badly. So, I'm not looking for a solution from any one, just wondering if any of you are experiencing these or any other problems with long term storage of aftermarket decals? You may want to check your stock and/or re-evaluate your storage methods.

I know that, I was merely pointing out that the song had been introduced long before the cover version that was mentioned.

The Shirelles had the original hit with this song in 1961: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKgkDxnG9Z8 This thread reminds me of the Tom Hanks movie, "The Wonders", a fairly realistic account of a fictional one hit wonder band of the sixties.

No thanks!

All done. I don't know why, but I had a much tougher time with the rigging on this one.

Pretty amazing.

Well done.

No such thing as a stupid question, Harry. That's the gas tank. The instructions called for it to be painted aluminum although some of the photos I saw on the net showed that many had the tank painted the same color as the wing. The instructions for the air show version don't call for the tank to be painted separately.

This one was so much fun I decided to do another. This is the air show version we mentioned above. I just happened to see it on the shelf at a local hobby shop and couldn't resist it. Paint is Testors Model Master Light Ivory and all the scallops are kit decals. You can see the main differences between this one and the military version, the full cowling around the engine and the wheel pants. The wings are different too. The military version has large ailerons on the lower wing only while this version has smaller ailerons on both wings.

Everything previously said about this kit is true. But for guys like me who built these when it was new and I was in that 12-15 year old group, I'm willing to overlook it's short comings and just take it for it is and have fun with it. I built this one just a couple of years ago.

I'm calling it done! You may notice one wire missing from the tail above. I noticed after I shot these photos. It was laying on the workbench right where it fell off and it's back on now. Well, it will never make the grade at an IPMS show but that's okay with me. It was a nice change of pace from cars and it was fun.

More progress. Well, it certainly is colorful. Still got a ways to go. The biggest problem right now is that the top wing has a very slight upward bend and so those outboard struts don't reach. I'm letting the central struts dry and then I'll try to figure out some way to pull the wings and struts together. I knew things were going too easy!

Kind of a long story but many years ago I built a multi-media model that had wire wheels that had to laced by hand. The kit included miles more wire than was needed to do the wheels. It's .010" diameter and looks like stainless steel but is much softer and cuts easily. I've been using it for detail stuff for years.

It actually does. I was in a local Hobbytown USA the other day and there was an "airshow" version. Full cowl over the engine and a nice color scheme. Search on-line sources and you might be able to find it.

Matt, be sure to look at Caracal decals when you get your kit. http://www.caracalmodels.com/cd48063.html