Modeling during COVID

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I haven't built a model in decades.

It's easy. It's like falling off a bicycle, you never forget!!!!

It's also therapeutic; quite a few people here should try building more models.

[chuck]

I just realized I have a second, much older version of the kit, somewhere (Monogram label). I found the original insert on diorama construction but I haven't located the kit itself. It's probably in a storage box in the basement! I could build that one as in flight and close up the bomb bay (and the landing gear doors as well) and rotate it with the airliners on the magnetic in flight stand.

I have to find the fuselage halves for the 1/72 scale 737. I took those out to see if I could kit bash one of the Boeing plane carrying flat cars and I have no idea where they wound up. I have all of the other parts including the windshield, landing gear, ... Just missing the two largest pieces of the model!

[chuck]

This is the second heavy duty olive drab kit I am working on. It is an Atlantis re-pop of a Nike Hercules originally issued by Revel in the late 50’s, box scale (1/40). Renwal had issued a Nike Ajax kit back in 1955 at 1/32 scale. The Ajax is the immediate predecessor to the Hercules and was a much shorter range missile with a limited warhead. The Hercules had three times the range and could deliver a 20KT warhead. This was the most widely deployed SAM system in the US. The last batteries were pulled in 1969.



There was a Nike base about 4.5 miles from my home in suburban NYC. We could see the main search radome up on “Mt. Nebo” which was just an outcrop of the Palisades overlooking the Hudson. In the winter when the tree’s dropped their leaves you could see some of the tracking/illuminating radomes as well. Everyone assumed the missile batteries were up there as well. Nope. They were down in the valley below in a corner of Camp Shanks off of Route 303. They were about three hundred feet from the highway and “hidden” behind a stand of trees.

The camp was the largest Army disembarkation base in WW2. After the war the barracks were converted to veterans housing to support the military personnel and their families that participated in the GI Bill and who were attending the various higher education institutions in the greater NY metropolitan area. Shanks village closed down and most of the land was sold off for commercial development. The last little corner is now a National Guard facility and the big army trucks routinely park on top of the old bunkers where the missiles were stored.

The kit is pretty well done considering the tooling is over 50 years old. There are some issues with mold sinks on the first stage.



I have tried filling and sanding and sanding and filling repeatedly and I am now tired of sanding and filling and I hope the first stage decals will cover the blemishes.

This is the launch ramp in its raised position.



The bigger issue with the kit is the launch ramp. It’s meant to be positionable. They made it such that its articulating parts are “snap fit”. That didn’t go too well for a secondary pivot and I had to perform some surgery to drill out the pivot and scratch build a “pin”. If you don’ care about the ramp being movable you can glue it in the raised or lowered position.



Next step is to touch up the paint on the launch platform, attach the walk ways and the overcoat with satin finish to apply the decals. The missile needs its final coats of white, decals and satin overcoat. I’ll post the finished pictures shortly (I hope).

[chuck]

Finished it.



Missile and launcher completed but not mated.





I figured out how to fix the putty blobs. I had started using the micro chisels to carve/smooth stuff down on some other models and realized I hadn't tried this on the Nike. You need to use a light touch but it worked great. The spot putty is holding up well in the former Prego Spaghetti Sauce jar and I didn't even need to sand the carved areas. They were as smooth as the surrounding plastic.

One more thing. This kit was molded in white styrene. I would strongly recommend that ANY kit molded in white styrene get the interior painted flat black to prevent bleed through and possible issues with reflected light off the back side/inside. Most model car kits are white plastic but they are significantly thicker and less prone to this issue. Some of the things I was trying to "correct" were actually issues with alignment pins or "tabs", not problems on the surface of the kit.

I can now return to the Type 7 U-boat and I did figure out how to do the deck. I needed to go old school and combine techniques like I did as a kid on model car kits. A wash (gray) for the "see through" parts and then dry brush the actual deck. Worked great! Hav some tough up work to do but I should be able to start posting photo's soon.

[Rufus T. Firefly]