Peter Hardy Hmmmm, think I have a toothache coming on.

Donald Dickson II Peter, the sharks mouth version will be up soon. Dont fret.

Kerry, I cant believe that guy thought this would look good.

Peter Hardy Donny, I am sure you are related to Mr Heimer!

Kerry COX I love it Donald. !!! I was making a tongue in cheek comment really. Leave it there.

Donald Dickson II Annnnnnd here we go with the puns. LOL

Donald Dickson II So, after putting the brackets on the MERS and the pylons I can confidently say I do NOT have the patience to do ships. About 100 times the small parts. NOPE.

So I got to work on the Revell kit. Now I know I have to cut off the catapult bar on the front landing gear. BUT, they made the part backwards! You can see in the pic the gear is in and it can only go in one way. And that way is backwards. So I have to cut off the pin and do a flat butt join. Yay.

Stephan Ryll Good looking bird Donald

Donald Dickson II OK, the Revell plane is to the same point. I am working on tanks, bombs and missiles, Oh my. Both will end up with canopies open. Couple other little things. Next pics will be of the end result.

See Peter? I didnt let you down.

Donald Dickson II They did indeed sir!

Roland Revolvermann Oldie but goldie. Great result I like the "metallic" shades!

Julian Herrero aka Yuri Very good retro-modelling ,,, like it , congratulations

Derek Huggett Lovely old 717 - nice job Donald.

Donald Dickson II Thank you gentlemen.

Stephan Ryll Nice looking bird Donald

Neuling Good presentation of this beautiful silver bird.

Donald Dickson II I am flattered by all of your comments. Thank you gents.

Donald Dickson II Every year the Air and Space museum has a Halloween event called Air and Scare. They invite our IPMS chapter to display our models. This is most of what showed up. More folks came later on and I failed to get more pics. The tables were PACKED.

Its a fun event and the 501st comes as do droid clubs and hundreds of families with their kids. A lot of great costumes. Its always a blast and we end up educating a lot of people on model building and the planes we display. More pics once my computer stops choking.

Łukasz Gliński Wow, the Disco pic is terrific Been there in the summer, but it must be a completely different impression during such an event

Stephan Ryll What a nice event - would have loved to be there Donald

Donald Dickson II It was and always is a blast. If you can make it, I highly encourage it next year

Alec K Looks like a great event

Bob Hall Looked like a blast ! Awesome !

Peter Hardy I take it Donny you are not lining up to buy the 1/24 scale Hawker Typhoon? ????

Donald Dickson II LOL Not at all

Donald Dickson II OK, so an update with info for my friends.

I always say that it will never fail that some pilot or nav or crew chief will turn up to tell you what you did wrong. Well, it turns out one of the mmebers of my IPMS chapter is a 111 pilot with over 1000 hours on them. And he was at the Halloween event we participated in at the Air and Space museum. Gonna put up a different thread for that.

Anyway, it turns out I screwed up and put the tail on upside down. LOL That aside, it seems that the E and F did not ever carry the fuel tanks on the inboards pylons. And that they only carried them on nuke missions. The inboards would be occupied by the nukes. Conventional missions they did not use the fuel tanks. Nor did they use TERs or MERs. He called it something else and I will be damned if I can remember what it was. He said they tried the TERs initially, but by the time they got into Nam they had ditched them.

And the last really big thing we were all talking about. He said they didnt use the third pylon. Like it wasnt even on the plane. And the mythical fourth pylon was just tested. It was never an in service thing.

Patrick Hagelstein Hah! Waddayaknow... Good info though! Always that ironical thing that you learn this kind of stuff AFTER a build is finished....

Stephan Ryll The MER should be the BRU-3A/As
„mounted on the outboard pylons, with single Mk 82 AIRs on the inboard

Donald Dickson II And that would be it Stephen!

Roland Revolvermann Oh, no tanks I want to mount them because it looks cool

Donald Dickson II Roland, then hang a couple nukes with the tanks.

Maciej Bellos That Brazilian thingie does wonders...

Erik Leijdens Looks like a biggie! Very nice subject

Stephan Ryll Nice progress Donald

Donald Dickson II LMAO, noooo, none of Slavos wax. That is how it looked right out of the packaging.

Donald Dickson II OK, fuselage is together. Seam is minimal. My mortal enemy, the intakes, was not fighting me this time. They went together rather nicely. They still required puttying inside, but given the size it was not too difficult. And they just snapped right in place. I actually used no glue to secure them.

Paul Moore Don: Cockpit looks great. That's how I remember it! Possibly subdue the green on the pilots ADI. My biggest suggestion would be when you get ready to paint it, use a varity of shades of paint colors. Unless the plane came out of rework or the paint shop, the Intruder around the ship was constantly leaking hydraulic fluid, having corrosion work done on it, repainting the corrosion work, etc. Just a lot of various shades of grey, grease, boot markings from sailors working on it, oil etc. If you think you've done too much ....it's probably about right. That's the input from an Intruder pilot anyway. Looking forward to seeing the progress.

Paul

Donald Dickson II Thank you Paul. I greatly appreciate that insight!

Hans Robben Wow, that are impressively clear parts! The nice cockpit will be very visible trough that.

Patrick Hagelstein No way! Come on Martin, let's join us on our journey for beautiful planes in exotic outfits!

Martin Oostrom *shuffles out the backdoor, whistling softly*
I hope to find some decals at SMC veldhoven, the 19th. It will be another F-16

Łukasz Gliński Don, I picked my Heller's boxing for the same reasons you took your HB - does it sound like a support?

Andy Ball Like-y, like-y!

Martin Oostrom I just ordered this one Camouflage Paint Masks for F..(DN Models 72/827-035, 1:72)
Are you happy now?

Donald Dickson II Yes, much better now. LOL

Patrick Hagelstein Yep! You're good now Martin! Welcome to the GB!

Martin Oostrom Actually, these are only masks. Now to find some decals or just use the kit's. Nobody will know

Donald Dickson II My father took this pic on 17Jan67. The one with the planes in it. LOL He identifies the C-47 as an AC-47. BUT, it has a white underside, leading me to think it is an EC-47. BUT, my dad was the one that was there, not I. And unfortunately, he is not with us, so I can get no clarification.

Anyway, I plan on building this as a diorama. I have the CH-3 and the two RF-101. Gotta figure the 47 out and get some revetments. This one is going to be long.

Donald Dickson II So. I have been doing a lot of research. I have found at least one pic from late 1966 of an AC-47 at Tan San Nhut with a white/light gray underside. I also have been looking at the pic until my eyes water, and I just dont see the antennae that were on the EC. So, I am going to go with an AC-47 with a white underside.

Opinions definitely welcome.

Michael Hickey This is going to be one massive dio, I'm defiantly in.

Donald Dickson II Yeah. I am waiting for a place in England to have more revetments. Then I will start on it I think.

Holger Kranich Whenever you start - I am in! Thats a really cool idea!

Donald Dickson II Welcome sir! I am pretty sure this one is gonna take a while. But truly a labor of love.

Holger Kranich Is modeling and love not always connected? I am looking forward!

Donald Dickson II So, I was going through the kits to see what I might need when I get to this build. I hadnt really perused the Valom kits yet. WOW! Resin seamless intakes, resin nose with all the camera windows, PE, seemingly well molded. I am REALLY itching to get at these now!

Nathan Dempsey Wow, this is going to be awesome.

Łukasz Gliński Very cool topic, will follow. Wondering how the Jolly Green Giant will turn out as I'm still afraid to re-rivet mine, hence it's still waiting in the stash.
Just in case - I have set of spare Dakota flaps from Eduard than I don't need

Donald Dickson II Lukas, I dont mess with rescribing and the like(unless I destroy stuff sanding). They actually got it pretty much right even back in 70. They are rivet monsters as you can see in the pic.

Donald Dickson II I have about 80% of what I will need. I believe I will be starting at least the AC here soon.

James C That's very cool Donald, I don't think I've ever seen a kit of one of these aircraft, let alone actually built. Awesome!

Donald Dickson II Thank you gentlemen for your kind words.

Nathan Dempsey Ahh nice! You fixed the pics.

Donald Dickson II Nathan, yep! LOL Thanks for the heads up.

Nathan Dempsey Just getting some inspiration for my HC-97G.

Donald Dickson II Ooooo, the SARs version. Doing the 1/72?

Nathan Dempsey 1:144 scale using the KC-97L as a base. I also have a Stratocruiser airliner I'll probably build at the same time.

Donald Dickson II Thats appropriate since they really were modified KCs. I look forward to seeing those builds!

Martin Oostrom I can't find an album on the C-97. Do you have pictures? Please?

Bryn Crandell If I see a C-5 for a decent price I'll let you know. I have the Yodel kit which is in a long line of same molds. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/170522-yodel-ysp-2-lockheed-c-5a-galaxy

Jozef Goos good job wel done

Stephan Ryll Very nice build Donald

Greg Baker Martin - I was wondering about that C-97 as well, so I second the request for pictures. I've got one in the stash that I don't really know what I want to do with it.

Donald Dickson II Martin, thank you sir. I like them as well. I was a Load Master on C-141s, so I have a special place in my heart for cargo planes. Without them, EVERY service would suffer. Thats why I always snicker when they sat Chair Force. My response has always been, Want your mail???? Want parts for your little Cobra or Hornet there??? Hmmmmm???? Want a free ride home from Rota???? (THAT one usually gets them. LOL)

Bryn, I would snag the Roden kit, BUT, it is no different than the 141 kit, and with the horrid decals they have, and the issues a brand new mold should NOT have, NO WAY I pay the 100.00+ price tag they put on it. You automatically have to add the cost of a set of the Caracal decals, or there is just no sense building it.

Jozef, Stephen, Greg thanks!

And I will have an album up momentarily for the C-97...

Donald Dickson II And here it is gents. C-97 | Album by smokeriderdon (1:144)

Donald Dickson II For some reason the images got broken. Had to re upload them.

Donald Dickson II This was just a quick build I started right before I got sucked into the 111 build. LOL Wasnt much left to do so I wrapped it up tonight. I totally screwed the pooch on lining the pilot side wing stripes up. Kind of hard to tell in the pics.

Martin Oostrom She looks great DD. 1/72?

Donald Dickson II Yeppers. Hasegawa. It's a kit I won in a raffle.

Stephan Ryll Very nice Donald

Slavo Hazucha Nice quick run!

I do not get which is the "pilot side" wing in a center-fuselage, single seater fighter Tried to check what stripe looks odd, did not bring me any further too

Donald Dickson II The left side. Like the drivers side. LOL

Martin Oostrom Peter will disagree on that one

Donald Dickson II Alright, I warned you it wasnt much. LOL I gotta go back and redo the white part. And rechrome the emblem. That should be fun.

Bob Hall Right On ! Guns and Hoses ! Killer Work as always !

Donald Dickson II OK, the cock pit is done. Not quite as impressive as a jet. Cab exterior done for what I will do for now. Now I need to figure the lighting.

*clears throat* Oh Greeeeeeggggggg...How would you go about doing the head lights and turn signals?

Greg Baker Uhm. Probably with lights.

Donald Dickson II The wisdom! I am blown away! LMAO I mean like would you use bulbs of some sort or fiber optics. That kind of thing.

Clint Mecham From first hand experience....good job on the truck. They are work trucks and as such are kept simple.

Donald Dickson II Yep. Every one I ever rode, even the show pieces the volunteers bought, were pretty basic. Though the ones I have seen lately are like Caddys in comparison.

Clint Mecham Very true. The newer Seagraves and Rosenbauers we use are sure not the old Crowns and Mack's I started with.....

Peter Hardy If the shoe fits Donny me boy, wear it with pride!

Donald Dickson II Hehehe

Tim Heimer LOL! Too cool dude!

Bob Hall [img1]

Martin Oostrom

Bob Hall Had to throw in a litte Texas Theme to it ! LOL !!

Peter Hardy Love it! Gotta pick that one up Don!

Donald Dickson II I will use that one later. LOL

Donald Dickson II So, I needed to take a break from "models". I was frustrated after total failure at the IPMS show back in April. I set goals, and when I fail to meet them, it truly bothers me. So I decided to do this little gem.

One of my friends at the show knows Gundam stuff. I mentioned I wanted to try one, but had no clue about them. He pointed me to this one and a couple others. I went with this one.

OK, so these kits are "snap together". No glue, no painting required. I did this literally straight out of the box. The only thing I used were snips and a blade and tweezers. The decals are actually stickers. Relatively thin ones considering. They require more precision in placing as you cant exactly slide them around to adjust.

Fit was superb. It is near impossible to put the wrong part in the wrong place. Even though directions are in Japanese, the pics are detailed. And you know what? Not a single freaking ejection pin mark to be found. The attachment points are small and easily smoothed out. I wish all plane kits were engineered as well as this "toy" kit is.

Donald Dickson II Thank you all for the kind words. Much appreciated.

Michael Hickey

Donald Dickson II For the record, USAF planes, outside of active war participants, are the nicest planes out there. ALL of them get jacked up in theatre.

Bryn Crandell Finished bird looks great Don! Yes AF birds tend to be the cleanest. They get to be put in shelters at night to keep dust and dirt off of them.

Donald Dickson II Bryn, we treat our ladies like the Queens they are.

Stephan Ryll very nice work Donald

Daniel very nice indeed ,I think the clean look fits the colorful finish very well

Donald Dickson II Thank you Strphen and Daniel.

Daniel, I like what you did with yours, but as you said, this one was just too bright and colorful to make it dirty.

Kerry COX A bird of prey, in all her glory.
Champion effort Donald, especially the exhaust covers and 'remove before flight' tags.

Donald Dickson II Thank you sir! I have to stop myself from fiddling with it more. Though if I manage to end up with an extra canopy along the way, I will replace it. I didnt do a great job on this one.

Kerry COX I have the same twitch mate.
Fiddling is what I do best, much of the time, repairing my last fiddle. hehehehe

Donald Dickson II I do it with almost everything I build. I look at it and I am like Oh, I can do this or this....

Clifford Keesler Looks great Donald, leave twitching fingers off. LOL.

Donald Dickson II Hey, I have managed to be good for over a year now and do nothing to it. LOL

Clifford Keesler I keep looking at that new decal sheet I found and my "Bone" thinking "you can make it better" but I am fighting hard not to mess with it other than the EL on the tail. Cause knowing my luck I would muck it up, and my wife is NOT going to let me spend 200.00 dollars for a new kit and all the goodies. LOL.

Donald Dickson II LOL Yeah, that would be an expensive screw up. BUT, we are only talking about replacing decals after all...

Donald Dickson II This is the old tool kit from the 80s. And it shows. You can see how bad seams were. And it lacked any kind of meaningful detail. Hence the after market stuff.

The decals are a mix of kit(mainly for stencils) and Super Scale decals. Not impressed with them. They look great on the backing, but the large tail decals were brittle. They cracked and tore at the drop of a hat and did not do well with micro sol or set. That being said, I managed to work with them and they ended up looking pretty good.

I decided to leave her clean, as ANG planes almost never get dirty.

Donald Dickson II So, I realized that the only pics I had of this one finished were craptastic. So I took better ones. During which I discovered the decals are flaking off. Dull coat be damned. *sigh* Oh, after I posted the original summary, I did make her a little dirty.

James C That's still pretty cool for an older build mate.
That kit was one of the first that I purchased when I got back into modelling a few years ago.
It's not too far off on my build list as well along with the similar vintage A-10

Donald Dickson II Thank you sir. The kit shows its age, but isnt totally awful.

David Taylor I know I meant 1/32 Lanc

Donald Dickson II I dont much do WWII stuff. Korea and up for the most part. But I am sure that sucker is huge too.

Michael Phillips What a beast! Well done Donald, she looks great!!!

Donald Dickson II Thank you Michael!

Bryn Crandell Amzing build. The final product is amazing. I agree with where do you put the big planes. I have KC-135 variants, a few 1/32 jets and the Monogram B-52, B-36s and a B-29. Looks like I will be hanging on the walls somewhere somehow.

Peter Hardy Bryn you have a medium sized country's Air Force! You must live on a football field to keep everything!

Donald Dickson II LOL Thanks Bryn. That 36 and the Buffs are really going to pose issues. Thankfully Im not doing them soon.

Tim Heimer uht oh, I think I need a bigger box/house! LOL

Patrick Hagelstein I feel you Wim. Sometimes when I enter my closet of doom, panic creeps up on me. So many kits, so few time...

Sarunas D Very good collection. Keep on adding more!

Wim van der Luijt exactly!

Tim Heimer Hey Don, you they make other awesome planes! Try something new! LOL

Patrick Hagelstein

Donald Dickson II LOL, oh I have plenty others. I have like 150 kits or so.

And if anyone feels they just must downsize, I will be more than happy to adopt any unwanted kits.

Patrick Hagelstein We knew we could count on you Donald!

Donald Dickson II Patrick, I am just that nice a guy. LMAO

Martin Oostrom Let me try and translate Rui. The leading edges suffer the most resistance from the airstream. As such the whitewash would have pealed off the most there. On your photos it looks like these edges are the most white on your plane.

I never have tried a whitewash myself, and I can only say that this build still looks very good to me

Donald Dickson II OK, I thought that might be what you were saying. Again part of that is my inability to do proper photography and light it correctly. Though I probably could have weathered it a little bit more. I did not actively think of that when I was doing it. So I will keep that in mind. Thank you for pointing that out. As Martin will tell you I have no problems at all taking pointers from people.

Rui S

Donald Dickson II Added a pic with the light not glaring on it.

Clifford Keesler I think it looks awesome Donald, well done.

Donald Dickson II Thank you sir!

Martin Oostrom

Rui S They look completly diferent now Very Nice

Augie IF they are the ones I think they are, they are indeed trim (Horiz stab etc)

Donald Dickson II Yep! Thats what they are. Just looked them up. Thanks guys!

Greg Baker Your cabinet pics made me track this baby down for a closer look. Wow... nice work

Donald Dickson II Greg, thank you sir! This is one of my favorites. I enjoyed the build, learned a lot, and I love how it turned out.

Greg Baker I suddenly started rifling through the Tintin albums to see if he ever flew in a DC-4...

Clifford Keesler Nice one Donald. My local Hobby Lobby never had any of those. They seem to only stock mainly 1/72 Acadmey stuff with the random Revell F-102A or F-18 thrown in. Though I did find the Revell Pro Modler ME-410 in the clearance isle once. I got both of my F-102's there though.

Donald Dickson II I do have one extra if either of you gents get interested.

Clifford Keesler Thanks Donald. I will try and remember that, if I get to where I can get one. Right now my Suv takes precedence(new tires and battery.) Bloody tires cost 2000.00 dollars apiece.

Donald Dickson II So, with my Goodwill grab of a cabinet for 5 bucks this weekend, I got places for all my completed models. They had shelves, but that does nothing to help them with dust. Now they are all snug.

Spanjaard 5 buck sfor this cabinet???

Donald Dickson II 5 bucks for the white one. The one with the F-15s and F-86s was actually free. The nice curio cabinet was a lot more. LOL

Konrad Limmer Ver nice collection

Paul Stubbs Nice work

Nikolaos Kouzinis Nice collection Donald

Donald Dickson II Thank you gentlemen.

Stephan Ryll Very nice collection Donald

Spanjaard sweet

Donald Dickson II So I moved the cabinet that was on its own in the living room to the computer room/den area with the rest of the cabinets. Had them all out on a table and liked how it looked.

Nikolaos Kouzinis Thank you Donald. Sometimes Ι concider challenge to make a kit with problems, sometimes and aftermarket (second hand) as one in my album the TU22 Backfire which had missed parts at half. If you see it in my album (scalemates), it is scratced all of it. But it has something good these situations. You put the mind to solve problems using strange materials for scratching.

Greg Baker I agree with that. That's why I love kitbashing, scratchbuilding and general WHIF projects. Figuring out how to successfully marry the front of Spad XIII with the bottom of a Me163B Komet and create the Pirate Flapter from the animated film Castle in the Sky is a very satisfying bit of work.

Donald Dickson II Oh, doing something like that is completely different Greg. There you are creating something unique and of interest to you. So the mindset is different. As are the goals.

And with Nikolaos point, yes, but ONLY if its a subject I have an interest in. Then I will gladly putwork into it. If this had been something like an F-15, F-4, Tornado or Jaguar then yeah, I will go all out. I might bitch about it, but thats only because I like bitching.

Greg Baker Good point. I was focused more on the idea of scratchbuilding vs. Hyperdetailing using aftermarket add-one. Both can be satisfying for different goals and reasons, as you say.

Donald Dickson II Yep. And this one was solely can I get it done in time and not look like an epileptic 12 year old did it.

Nikolaos Kouzinis It looks good Donald.

Martin Oostrom You're a magician Donald

Donald Dickson II Nikolaos and Martin, thank you! And you are far too kind Martin.