It is at these times I do mundane stuff like removing a Trumpeter 1/72 TU-95MS "Bear" from the sprues. This is on my short list. A large kit with weird proportions and hard to find good data on. It's the challenge that makes it. And it's not all about the building.
Back to work on the almost shelf of doom ridden Victor. When I get frustrated, I put everything down, do a little cleaning and think about all the other kits that are started but not finished. This time it worked. Here are under wing pod things, they need the areas where they mate up with the wing hollowed out. This way the outer edge of the mating surface can snuggle up to the wing. I use a thin scalpel-like tool to shave away the plastic.
The pod pushed up under the wing. Lowering the non edge interior surface allows the edge to meet the wing more easily.
This is Foam Core, it's a material easily cut. I will be using as a clamp.
The Foam Core clamp can be better than traditional ones in certain cases. Th Foam Core is "grabby", so it will conform just enough to stick in place. Sometimes the clamps you have are too strong, the Foam Core clamp won't crush the wing.
I cut this one, eyeballed from the other side. It was a hair bit loose, I added a couple of layers of tape to get the tight fit I needed.
A shot with both in place. They are light, so it's easier for the model to rest easy.
Meanwhile, here is a distraction. Came across this extraordinarily ugly kit of a "Spice Scout". The plastic is literally worse than Bakelite. All that is missing is the smell. The interior of this kit is a horrible plug. I cut out the seats, filled the empty space with hexagonal tile from a doll house. The front wind screen is supposed to tilt up to open, but this is just dumb. A vehicle purpose built for conditions on Arrakis would be designed so that the door would be much smaller (letting in a little dust as possible) and also be less likely to get caught in the wind. Additionally, the vehicle has a high and awkward stance, so there should be some hand rails to facilitate use by the operators.
It is finally time to not do any more work on filling gaps on the Victor. For my own sanity and love of the hobby it is time to just let this thing be what it is. This means forcibly moving to the next step, finishing the control panel, so the canopy can be fixed in place. Airfix has this part go in after the fuse is sealed.
Additionally, the wheels need to all be punished by putting each one on a tiny pungi stick and then painting them.
Here is another distraction. This is a racer that I built for the Nats a few years back. I worked on it the night before just to get it finished. Needless to say I will never do that again. So it has sat, waiting until I was ready to finish it properly. To be enjoyable, this takes time. First thing, I removed from it's original ugly base (in the lower right).
A lot of it is screwed together, some has those vinyl cap things in the wheel hubs, some is just pried apart. Now that it's in pieces, I can start to think about doing it right.
To paint the inner hubs of the many, many Victor wheels I make a mask. I punch a hole into a thin sheet of brass. I then take a cone shaped object and press into the opening to give it a bent inward lip.
I double stick the wheel on a block.
Stick on the mask and spray silver.
Remove, repeat.
I test fitted the instrument panel much earlier, but now it doesn't fit. Here you can see that I added a strip to glue it to.
In place. The cockpit is pretty simple, but painted up is correct for the scale and size of the kit. Much of it will be completely unseen on the finished model.
OMG, we are really finally getting to the end. Canopy glued in place.
This was about an hour ago. In the next post we (the royal "we") will be putting on the upper camo.
That's it for now. Keep building in an uncertain world.
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