Life in Plastic (Styrene, specifically)

Me and my little book had a good run.

Guest Post

Friend and master modeler Tory Mucaro will fill this space. Enjoy.

 

It has been ages since I sent out any photos of my latest creations, largely since I haven't really completed much in recent years. However last fall I did manage to finish two models. I built them simultaneously since they were nearly identical. However I have just now finally gotten around to photographing them. So here they are for your consideration:

Based on Monograms 1/72 scale Curtis F11C-2 Goshawk kit that was first produced in 1968. It was one of three between the wars models they did at the same time, the other two were the Curtis P-6E Hawk and the Boeing F4B-4. These were beautiful kits that hold up well even by current kit standards. They featured cabane and landing gear struts molded into the fuselage halves practically guaranteeing perfect wing alignment, something that anyone who has built a biplane model know can be difficult at best.

The white aircraft is basically the stock kit with aftermarket decals from Starfighter Decals. I also used their excellent photo-etched rigging set which made rigging the model a whole lot easier. I used the same markings that were intended in the original issue. The kit itself was purchased for $3 at a model show missing instructions and decals.

The blue aircraft is the same basic kit converted to a BFC-2. All of the F11C-2s were eventually converted to fighter bombers and re-designated. They received a higher turtle deck and a partial sliding canopy. The kit is a reissue of the Monogram kit by Starfighter Decals which included a resin turtle deck and photo-etch framing for the canopy. I used their excellent decal sheet for the markings and chose the blue scheme to reflect the 5 view illustration in the old Profile Publications Goshawk booklet. I always loved the way that color scheme looked on that airframe.

I have another two kits to do to add to this Goshawk collection, but don't have the time at the moment to build them, so they will have to patiently wait their turn. But for now these two look nice together in my display case and take up so much less room than their 1/48 scale counterpart in the case! I think I might be hooked on 1/72 scale! It is after all the "divine" scale!

Tory

1/67th F-106 Delta Dart

Revell F-106A from 1958

My dad built one of these when I was a little kid. I don't remember the model so much as I do the box art. With visits to Selfridge open houses in the early '60s, I saw F-106s and F-102s and they made a huge impression on me. As I became a plastic modeller, I dearly wanted an F-106 in my collection. For a long time, this Revell kit was the only option. They re-released it as one of their "Whip-Fly" line, but only for a short time, then it was gone.

In the late '60s, of course, Hasegawa released their Delta Dart in 1/72 scale and I finally could get my Six-fix. Not only that, it came with the red/white striped tail and 94th 'Hat-in-the-Ring" markings of the Selfridge based outfit I was familiar with and would've wanted on my model. I was over the moon.

Finally there was a pretty good F-106 kit readily available, but I still thought about that Revell effort. Was it any good? What exactly came in that box? How I would LOVE to get my hands on one of those, just to look at it. Just to see what my dad had to work with when he brought one home to stick together. In the mid-seventies I'd made friends with some of the model fans and critics who hung out at the Detroit area Squadron Shop. Not sure how the subject came up, but I let it be known that my personal Holy Grail model airplane kit was the Revell box scale F-106. There were members of the assembled group that didn't believe such a thing existed. I must be thinking of their F-102 -- big one with the retracting landing gear or the small short-tailed one. Revell never did an F-106. I told these guys there was one in my house as a kid. I knew the difference between a Six and a Deuce. They weren't convinced.

Sometime in the late seventies I traveled to an IPMS Regional in Ohio, I think it was. One of the vendors had a mountain of old, old kits, and I spotted my prize among them. It had a $60 price tag on it. I held the box (and probably opened it -- I don't remember) and thought of what I could do with $60. It was WAY too steep for me. I was happy enough I'd found and held such a rare item. With the advent of eBay, I started seeing them again occasionally. They did not sell at bargain prices. I bid on a couple, but was easily outbid by the time the auction ended. C'est la vie.

Then, unbelievably, around 2010, I was gifted a kit. My friend Tory Mucaro (you've seen some of his work here in the past) has a friend Andy Yanchus. Andy worked for Aurora when Aurora was one of the heavy-hitters of the plastic kit world. He's been into this stuff since the very early days and collected and hung on to all kinds of old kits. He decided to thin his collection some. I don't know how the conversation went between he and Tory, but it was established he had a Revell F-106 and I was really hot to own one of those.Well, Andy sent me his. Receiving it was one of those plastic model peak experiences. 

Andy had slightly started it ages ago, gluing the main gear doors closed (my kind of modeler!) and there was a little bit of acrylic paint to scrape off of some parts. No issue at all. Missing was the familiar Revell globe stand -- again, not an issue. The airplane and decal sheet was all there. For so old a kit, it featured exquisite recessed surface detail, much like their F-89. Unfortunately, to balance that plus, Revell decided to incorporate many moving parts, making it essentially an F-106 shaped toy. But hey, that was cool in those days. Also a throw-back to the old days was all the major decal locations embossed into the model's skin, the famous "Idiot Marks". Truly Andy had sent me a time capsule.

Naturally, the question came up: build it or don't build it. Were it a virgin kit, the question may have been a tougher one to answer. It had been started, after all. Started in a way that locked it into a gear-up configuration, which I'm more than partial to. If I didn't stick it together, it's unlikely I'd ever see one built. As mentioned previously, I have no memory of my dad's effort. So I decided yes, for my own entertainment/amusement, I'd build and finish it as close to stock as possible.

The biggest issues were the moving parts. The elevons in particular were a sloppy fit that I had to fill a bit with something. Everything else I glued in place as best I could and left alone. I wanted the Revell kit represented -- not a "corrected" version. Fit overall was OK, except for the canopy pieces. The fit of them to each other and to the rest of the airplane, was a horror. Clearly, this model was never intended to be built with the canopy glued shut. I did what I thought was the minimum amount of shimming and filling. Since I was never going to get a smooth fit between the windscreen piece and the rest of the canopy, I let it be as a tribute to what this kit was meant to be -- a toy.

Paint job was easy enough. The pre-production Darts flew out of Edwards with lots of day-glo orange. I opted for plain Testors orange out of the little quarter oz. bottle. Close enough for this job.

The gray was my own mix of mostly white with a touch of black and blue. All along I'd planned on using the kit decals. By an amazing stroke of luck, I had three sheets. One came with the kit and two more were part of a payment package Marty Isham (rest his soul) sent me for a model I built for him. With three sheets, I felt covered. But probably predictably, they were all in the same brittle condition. I hosed them with gloss coat, which helped, but unlike decal film, a cured layer of gloss coat doesn't want to conform to curves. So I used what I could use and made up the difference with 72nd items out of the decal collection.

I also planned on using the idiot marks for decal placement, but I didn't agree with those on the fuselage so used photo references instead. The marks on the tail and wings were good.

I HAD to give her a pitot tube. It just wouldn't be a proper F-106 without one.

Shape-wise, I'd rate it very, very good. The most obvious goof to my eyes is the size of the canopy side windows, which are about half of what they should be. There are also goofy bulges on the tops of the wings to accommodate the hinged movable (not on mine) elevons.

It was significantly more work than I expected. That is so often the case, in my experience.

1/72 F-4D Phantom II

December 2019 -- Fujimi F-4C



Pretty much out-of-the-box with the addition of the lump under the I/R sensor housing and a spine antenna.

A weak spot with nearly all F-4 models is the horizontal stab to fuselage joint. I experimented with some reinforcement on this one.

It's definitely added work, but there will be little chance of them snapping off at the least provocation.  When you send these things off to a new home, it's something to consider.

Decals were an extremely limited-run product given to me by Doug Barbier who flew F-4s and F-16s out of Selfridge for many years.

 

Young John Glenn

September 2019 -- 2dreamers Space Adventurer 5

Artist's oils on enamels and acrylics.

1/72 RB-57A

September 2019 -- Italeri & High Planes Models hybrid

Italeri and High Planes didn't agree on fuselage diameter. What a surprise.

Oh, the trials and tribulations. So it was all but finished and time to stick on the landing gear, and I had a bad feeling I didn't pack enough weight into the nose. I was right. I don't remember that stage of the project and why I didn't CONFIRM there was enough lead in her to do the job. Adding to the problem was that the best place to put the weight on this model is open crew compartment, so that was off limits. The clear parts were fastened to the fuselage forever so working through them was not an option. That left drilling holes in the bottom someplace. But that would cause debris that of COURSE was going to migrate to and cling to the insides of the clear parts. (Insert string of swear words.) So now what? I'd have to MELT holes and hope for the best. First attempt was to melt a hole in the nose gear well big enough for me to shove solder wire into. Unfortunately, it very quickly appeared snaking into the cockpit, all bright and shiny. (More swear words.) Plan B, and really the only plan other than putting some kind of rod in the belly to keep the nose down, was to open up the nose gear well properly. That meant enough to be able to add bits of lead, but not enough that I'd have to cobble new landing gear mounts. So I heated up a No.11 blade and started slicing. The only good news was there was plenty of empty fuselage behind the cockpit bulkhead to fill with chunks of lead and five-minute epoxy. Turns out I had originally put in only about 1/3 the weight necessary. Clearly I wasn't noticing how far forward a B-57's main gear struts are located. So raw rookie f*ck-up is fixed with minimal damage to the model. Got a new nose gear well ceiling piece of sheet styrene to cover the hole. Fortunately a contest judge will never pick this one up and inspect the underside. But what a crummy way to spend a chunk of a day.

The High Planes Models decal sheet was opaque enough to allow the red to stay red on top of the black. Hooray.

Selfridge used to have a tradition of opening the base on a Saturday in spring to host the local cub and boy scout groups. I had a go at being a cub scout in 3rd and 4th grades ('65 - '66) and was good pals with the son of my scout "den mother" who of course was tuned into this stuff. They were going...did I want to go with them? Stupid question. It was a very blustery gray morning. I doubt there were any significant visitors on the tarmac, just resident airplanes to be climbed on or through. I remember the place swarming with scouts. Flying consisted of one or two F-106s taking off and doing some toucn-and-goes. But shortly before they got in the air, two RB-57As from Battle Creek did a low gotcha pass from behind the crowd. My first awareness of them was this God-awful Banshee screech. My first impulse was to dive under a car. I DID manage to look over my shoulder (frozen in fear) to see this tight two-ship of Canberras in a slight bank, natural metal blending in with the gray clouds, SCREAM over us and disappear in the murk. WOW! Scare me like that ANY time.

I've since wondered if their mission was simply fly to Selfridge, make a low pass to scare the kids, then come home?

1/16th resin U-2 pilot

April 2019 -- Space Helmet Models U-2 Pilot.

Bass guitar string as oxygen hose.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Space-Helmet-Models-438055056281252/photos/?ref=page_internal

A-10A Thunderbolt II/Warthog

April 2019 -- 1/72 Hobbyboss A-10A Mostly out-of-the-box. Print Scale decals -- nicely printed, but not very flexible.

Birthday boy

I turned 63 a week ago. Birthdays are always a good time for evaluating the situation. For me, a January birthday is especially so, with New Years resolutions fresh in the air.

When I started this blog, I was a dedicated, true-believing model builder for hire. Twelve years to the month later, that's not the case. After 32 years of building other people's fancy-ass models, gotta say, I'm sick of it.

My chief concern when I started Hawx Planes was having enough work to pay bills. It turns out, until only very recently, I always, and I mean always had something on the bench for someone. In these last few years I'd begun to wonder if that was a blessing or a curse. It was a job, filled with fuss and worry. My enthusiasm for the whole business evaporated. (Because of a fear of no work, I said "yes" to many, many jobs I should have said "no way" to. They certainly stretched my abilities, but I made little if any money on those projects. They did nothing for positive attitude.)

Having to deliver the product intact to a point far away wore me down as well. When I started, I had no idea how much time (most of it donated to the cause) would be absorbed in packing and boxing the model for survival. The simple truth is that shipping a detailed plastic model airplane anyplace is a bad idea. With hundreds of models shipped, I think I've had three returned for damage incurred in shipping. Part of that is luck, but a bigger part is imagining all the things that might go wrong, then adding what I hope will be adequate protection against it. Then when I take the box to the shipping site, I'd try not to think about the fact that whatever the amount the client is paying to have the box delivered to his door, is money he's willing to pay for his new model that is not going into my pocket.

At the beginning of 2019, Hawx Planes is more a concept and a history than a reality, and I'm fine with that. The handful of guys who bought the vast majority of my models are either dead, lost interest in it all, ran out of money for expensive toys, or...who knows. The bottom line is they're gone, with no replacements. Not that I've actively looked for replacements. In the old days such a scenario would give me night terrors. Now, it means I'm free to do other things. More sensible things.

One of the things I'd really like to do is finish some models planes for myself, hang them from the ceiling of my modeling room and admire the shapes when I care to look up. I've figured out what I like best about model planes is admiring their various shapes in the air. At one point I was working on a collection of simple ones on stands for that purpose, but the stands took time. And when I had to move that collection of about 30 when we moved to the current address in 2006, they stayed in their shipping boxes for many months with nowhere to be displayed and not missed at all. I think I had a sense that was the wrong direction to be going in.

What started thinking in this "ceiling collection" direction was that recent He.219. I practiced the wacko camo on a few things, including a mostly intact Revell Ju.88 and Airfix Blenheim. They were part of a group of built and not too badly finished jobs I got off eBay a bunch of years ago. (They looked better on the computer screen than in my hands.) My original plan was to re-hab the better ones, but I decided none were worth the time. Maybe I could use them as guinea pigs somewhere up the road. And that's how the '88 and Bristol saw the light of day again. At some point I took a break from painting loops, swirls and squiggles and picked up the Blenheim and just held it at arms length and gazed. One of the first three models I bought at the Squadron Shop was an Airfix Blenheim. It was one of many childhood favorites. I didn't know a kit existed of the Blenheim until my first visit to the Squadron Shop. Talk about excitement! I hadn't had a finished one in my hands since the one I stuck together in 1968.

The current one was painted in relatively correct colors, had all the decals on in the right places, but the previous owner heated a nail or something and laced it with battle damage. Didn't matter. I got real pleasure out of turning and banking a "reasonable" representation of a Blenheim. Pleasure and model planes, together, at the same time, has not been something I've experienced in a bunch of years. It was nice. How to continue that? Try hanging some up -- just for the hell of it. Sure did it as a kid. My dad hung his up in his son's room. And that Blenheim showed me that "reasonable" was all that was required to please me. Detail isn't a concern. Just the basic shape in familiar markings should do the trick. Yes, they'll collect dust, but with no antenna wires or fragile to-scale other things sticking out, so what? Taking them down for a dust-off is a small chore.

On top of that, what an excellent way to make use of all the old, old kits I have on hand with their memories of experience when this model building thing was a carefree, delightful hobby. I've got so many that would be considered second or third-string representations by today's standards. They're good enough to provide a familiar shape and carry  a decent paint job and way better decals than they originally came with. We'll see what happens.

Destination: ceiling. Note the He.219 practice on the Junkers. The bulk of it has been sanded off. Like my model planes smooth.

120 mm Sabre pilot

Last "serious" effort for 2018.

Artist's oils over enamels.