gene1

I know you all know how to mask , but I did it this way to paint my inside green & leave the parts that get glued free of paint. I mixed the green a little light & when I was done I scraped the window frame edges free of paint so my outside paint would cover better, especially red. Them I masked the inside windows to spray outside. Worked great.

Love your posts denis & after my wife saw my last post to you, she is now an Admiral. Either that or I visit you for food & lodging. Tough little woman. By the way Nino , on this forum, sent me the picture to make the decals. They came, I believe, from Frank Leidek's post. It was tough to get them sized right, but with nino's help we did it . nino is a true computer expert from IBM. Gene

egilman, That is a Walker replica. Back in the late 1950's &60's I had a big collection of Civil War guns, all types Carbines & revolvers. That was when you could buy a walker for 2500 & a colt 44 Army fo 90 & up. I had a chance at a mint 51 Navy for 200. I sold them back then .

Popeye, denis, I have some advice for you. #1 you made your wife an Admiral, after over 50 years my wife is an ensign & she had to earn it. She will be 84 in a month & I think thats high enough. Now show these to your Admiral & tell her you are going to dress up your home a bit. The Ferraris are in the foyer, the big case of fighters are in the Living Roomthe Robt. E Lee & Ferraris in Living room, the wall of cars downstairs hall .then downstair to my big den with at least 20 big sailing ships, my trains & 1/72 planes. The Kingfisher is at Dulles & is hanging over the Enola Gay & is the EXACT same plane my brother flew in off the Indiana. It was from the Indiana. He got a kick out of that. Now I hope this straightens your Admiral out. If not I have a spare bedroom. Gene

Yves, thanks a lot, I was just getting ready to put on some more Pictures. Thee first ones are of my General I built with a lot of help from denis. The second batch are my building of the 2 1869 locos. I used a piece of 3/64 brass wire & some plastic tube & some brass eyebolts that fit the brass rail. I then used the kit parts that hold the wire rail. It worked well. On the tender a made a pattern of the tender lnside & cut a light piece of plastic sheet to build up the tender floor so it would not need so much wood or coal. I used HO coal & sticks of wood from my oak trees. These were super fun to build & at 90 my language changed describing things. I also showed how I redid the front of the smoke box on the U.P. coal burner. I had to cut off the 2 General name plate raised section on the boiler sides. Then fill them in. I also always put spme wood in all my models for weight & this time to be able to nail the bottom ends of the brass strips on the boilers. They are 1/64 x 1/8" brass strips ,polished & lacquered. I had to get them from England. The front wheels were spoked on the kit & I filled them in like the real loco's. I also used some paint pens on a lot of fine lines' My hands shake quite a bit from nearly 80 years of model building . Not the building , but the years. I will add some more later. Gene

When I first saw Popeyes Civil War General engine, I knew I had to build it. He did such a beautiful job on it & gave me a lot of Pointers I talked to him a lot & avoided a lot of problems & got a lot of ideas. My General turned out nice & I was very happy with it. I have built every kind of static model made I think & I will be 90 this year & still love building models. Then I saw another train article on building the 2 locomotives that met at Promontory, Utah in 1869. They are real beauties & can be built from the MPC 1/25 General kit. There are a lot of changes, but not too hard. I will show a bunch of finished pictures of them first & then some building pictures. It took me less than 4 months to do them both. I will also put some of my General in too. More to follow as I am just relearning how to post pictures again.

Denis, (Popeye) You gave me a lot of help & the best building post ever on building the General, Now I would like to give you some ideas to get back on the General kit again. Old Model Kits has a small forum & a good post on building the 2 Loco's that met in Utah in 1869. It was by a man ,I believe named Frank Leidek & he did a super job. I did them both & had a super fun 4 months doing both. I learned a lot & added even more than he did ,I will do a post after this on this Forum today or tomorrow. Here are a couple pictures. I will have to relearn how to post pictures. Gene

Javlin, I bet you are really proud of him. Fighter planes are really fun to be around. We went to the Titusville Fla. Warbirds show every year & it was great. We saw some really great flying of every kindof planes. Even a P 38 flew. We got to meet & talk to a lot of WW2 pilots, a bunch of Flying Tigers , including R T Smith who had 10 kills. We talked to George Gay, who had a book for sale & Gen. Boots Blesse 10 kills in Korea, even Gabreski was there. I see you live in Biloxi, my brother in law, ages ago, was base commander there.

Javlin, That is a great story. Your planes are beautiful. I go back & forth between everything. I was on HO train layouts for over 40 years, but love everything to build. There are some great builders on this site. I graduated from high school with a kid who was flying F86E's over t he Yalu river & caught fire & tried to make the yellow sea & disappeared in a cloud rom his wingman. No Javlin , I wasn't flying P51's, I had a chance at cadets, but didn't take it. When I got out I went right into construction & spent 40 years designing & building. I am 89 in 2 days & still love to build models. I enjoyed the Air Force & met some really great WW2 pilots that stayed in.

Thanks Jim & you & denis have been a great help & both of you are fun to read. denis, is this the big Revell kit you were asking about. I had the sails all painted, weathered & decaled & they looked good, but seemed to hide too much, so I sixxed them. It is getting harder for me to rig, so I do make it easy as possible. I even used Imai's plastic shrouds on their Spanish Galleon. They are so good that the ones I make did not seem worth doing. Imai's are the only ones I will use sometimes. I do use the rigging tool a lot & I have mastered it. I might be one of the few that have. I even used it on my big 1/100 Victory.

Javlin, That is a great story. Your planes are beautiful. I go back & forth between everything. I was on HO train layouts for over 40 years, but love everything to build. There are some great builders on this site. A kid I graduated high school with flew F 86E's in Korea & was the last 86 lost in the war in summer 1953. I was just starting my building business then. He caught fire over the Yalu river & tried to make the yellow sea & disappeared in a cloud rom his wingman.

denis, This is the big Revell Spanish Galleon & it is big, as big as the big Constitution. It makes a pretty model d Merry Christmas Gene

CDW, I'm like Popeye, waiting to see you build your Enzo. I love Ferraris & watched Phil Hill & Pedro Rodriquez drive at Daytona & Sebring back in 1962 or so. I must have at least 60 Ferrari models built. Mine would have to be red. My wife & I would stop at the Ferrari dealer over in Greensboro NC & photograph everything they had. Even tho I drove up in a Subaru, they were real nice & let me have fun. They had Porsche & Ferrari & Maserati Bentley & Aston Martin, nothing cheap. Needless to say, I didn't trade my Subaru. I took this of Lorenzo Bandini at Daytona in 1967, he won. Gene

Javlin, beautiful model & really great weathering. I have always loved P-51's & we had 4 or so in our squadron for mostly towing targets. That was back in the late 1940's & we had Col. Glenn Eagleston as our C.O. He was a great guy & the top ace in the 9th AF during WW2. I have his P-51 D in 1/32 & 1/48. I love fighters & have over 150 from 1910 to modern. Have you done any 1930's fighters like the P-26?

I want to thank all you guys for all the nice things you said about my General. I want to thank Popeye again for all the help he was on the build. His log was beyond super.All I prove with one of my models is that you can keep building way into the future & still have fun doing it. I have all kinds of problems, but they don't seem to matter, just slows me down. My right hand shakes bad, but I just hold it on the desk & do fine painting. I fell backwards down the hill when a rock slipped under my foot & broke my left wrist 6 weeks ago.I finished the General with a wrist brace & a shaky right hand. Still lots of fun & always has been. denis, I want to do another log on one of my favorite plastic ship kits. It is a 1/100 Imai/ Ertl Spanish Galleon. Merry Christmas to all you guys & Happy New Year too. Gene

denis, it is so good to have you as the first one on my first log. You are a great guy & a great modeler, & better yet the best logger ever. I want to find some of my model train layout pictures & put them on for you. I have built about 30 sailing ships in the last 3 years & a bunch of subs & carriers. I just don't know how to work a computer very well.I can screw up a one car funeral with a computer. Gene

My name is gene1 on the site & my name is Gene. This is my first log on this site although I have done a lot on another forum. I told Popeye, denis that I thought his log on this engine was the best I had ever seen & I think that more than ever now. I used his very well done log & read many parts a lot. He did a beautiful job on his General. I will be 89 in a couple days & enjoy building models as much ,or more, than I did back before World War 2. I have built most everything except flying models. I hated to see them crash. My log will not be complete like denis's is, but I will try to remark on some things that might be of interest. I have built at least 6 pretty complete train layouts too & my first engine was an HO General, so I have always loved the General & have seen the original several times. Here are a few of my first pictures & I will show more because mine is finished ,nearly. I started it on Nov. 2 & stayed with it until a week ago when I finished it. The first thing I do on ships or other models is glue a dowel or 1x2 into the hull to screw into if needed. The first thing I did was to glue the tender together backwards, so much for building for nearly 80 years, you still screw up. It didn't fit together quite as well the second time, but filler helped. When I glued my walkways onto the engine I had to take about 1/16" out of the rear of the part that goes into the glue slot to get it to fit to the rear. With the walkway I brushed 2 coats of Tamiya Wood Deck Tan onto them & then masked them to paint the black engine. When it was dry I brushed several coats of Raw Umber very thin oil wash on them. You will have to clean the oil off to get the Cab to stick. I brush painted the inside of the Cab with a green mix & then masked it off all over to paint the red. I was careful to scrape any green off the window frames because red does not cover good. I use 95% Tamiya Acrylic because it does not peel like MM does & Tamiya most often does not need a primer. I always let my paint dry for at least a day before i mask & often times I will put a thin coat of MM glosscoat on the edge of the mask to prevent runs. I will be back & add more things to the build or answer any questions. I am sure you can see I am not Popeye, denis, because I am not great with a computer. Old people ,I think, are computer dumb. I will add a few of my latest sailing ship pictures because CDW asked me to Here are some of my sailing ships. I did do a lot of wood kits, but at my age I stick with plastic now. I figure I have time to finish them. At least you can see you can build models until 90 or so. I will try to make a 100. This is a1/100 wood Constitution I built 35 or 40 years ago & it is still in my living room. Revell 1/95 Spanish Galleon My 1/100 Victory under const. Flagstaff 1/200 Cairo ironclad 1/600 Academy Big E Beautiful kit easy. I have a million more if you want to see more let me know.

CDW, Thanks for the compliment, I would be glad to put on pictures. I really meant what I said about Denis's General post. It was great all the way thru. I read everything and was very happy to learn a whole lot for my build of the General. I really loved train models all my life. I will even put some pictures of them on if that is ok. I built a lot of wood ships & riverboat back some years ago. I was big on Riverboats too I was scratch building the Betsy Ann from plans I got from an architect in California. His grandfather owned & was Captain on the Betsy. She is a neat little sternwheeler from 1898. I will have to learn how to post pictures tho. I have to say again Thanks to Popeye for such a great post on the General. I know it will save me a bunch of time. His build & pictures were both super. I am back to using super & great because old people forget words quicker than anything. Gene

Denis, Your General build is the best I have ever seen. I am going to be 89 in 2 months & still am building models. I started before Dec. 7 1941 and still love it. My general I just bought arrives tomorrow. My first HO engine back in 1954 was the Mantua General & I still have a newspaper clipping of the layout I built to run it on. I am excited to start the big General. I built at least 5 more big layouts , & about everything else. Right now I am doing the big HMS Victory & some Carriers from Midway. I had a friend in school, older then me , who joined the navy right after Pearl Harbor & was on the Yorktown at Midway. He made it thru the war OK. I would love to talk to you sometime as you are really a great builder. I have a lot of questions for you. Thanks again, Gene