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Showing results for tags 'tamiya 1:20'.
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My last kit was actually in 1994 when I built a micro model (1/72 ?) of a Cessna 152 (or 172, can't remember). That was to commemorate getting my primary ticket some years earlier, with the tail number from the plane I used for my check ride. Before that, in 1980, I built a Tamiya Lotus 78 Mk III, hastily put together as a gift for my father. And a year before that I built an Entex 1/8 scale McLaren M23. And in neither of those was there even a hint of not including the tobacco sponsor's logo decals with the kit. For both kits, I hand painted all the detail stuff, but used the decals on unaltered bodies. How I wish I had that M23 kit now. And how I wish I'd had access to an airbrush. Back when I bought the Cessna kit, I also bought a 1/24 Porsche 959 and a 1/20 Benetton B192. Along with the various paints needed, and some tools, I bought a Paasche H. Well, I started building the B192 a couple of weeks ago and I'm spray painting it! I've wanted to know how to do that back when I regularly built models, mostly military aircraft, up to the ripe old age of 13. Then nary a model until the large, very large scale M23. That was 7 years later and I built it in a week.* And it was nice! And the Lotus, I still have that one, as it was preserved by my parents. LOL. Man could it have used a nice coat of gloss black and clear. Bare black plastic just doesn't cut it, even if it do have them purdy JPS decals. So here I am into my third week with the B192 that I'm using as a learning mule. I have 1/12 Jägermeister 934 and Williams FW14B, with all the PE goodies, on the deck. To get a feel for PE detail pieces, nothing I'd ever heard of or seen, I installed a 6-point harness on the Lotus. I never lost interest in building models. I thought often throughout life the past 30-40 years about building one right, which to me means fixing sprue issues, puttying in mold dimples, back scribing panels, etc., etc., and, last and absolutely most important, airbrushing! Never used one of those things until earlier this month. Too bad I'm having a hard time reminding myself that the B192 was meant to be a learning device because it would be finished by now with many lessons learned. Instead, I'm waiting on some replacement paint so I can try correcting the damage I've done with the airbrush. Some of it from simply not noticing some things, and others from ignoring what I saw until seeing the ugliness that not attending to them had wrought. So, in the meantime, I'm going to post some pictures and narrative to cover what's transpired with my humble B192. I'm hoping for some pointers where my solution was the hard way and/or the wrong way. A nice word when you think you've found something that deserves one would be appreciated, as well. First, this is where I'm at on the Benetton while I wait for the paint (about 10 days out). When I first opened the box I discovered that, back when I bought the kit, I had painted and built out rear-of-the-bulkhead and the cockpit. So this really is a painting project — an airbrush education project. * I bought the M23 to exorcise demons of my adolescence. It was literally the thought of those demons that drove me to use what little money I had those days on this very big box of plastic pieces. Those demons that had prevented me from building three 1/12 scale F1 models when I was 13/14 years old. The F1 models of my youth just sat there, in my bedroom, terrorizing me. I thought there was no way I would finish one if I started it and, if I did, I would screw it up so badly it would haunt me nonetheless. And while completion of the M23 to plaudits from all who saw it helped, it wasn't a 100% cure. As I've learned, those demons are still pestering. So now I'm going to fight them off with a gun... a paint gun... an airbrush, LOL.