FriedClams

Dan and OC. - Thank you for stopping by and for the kind comments. It is always appreciated. Gary

Really fine work on the Fiat jet Dan! Re-scribing must be a somewhat tedious and nerve-wracking process, but your results are excellent. I would be on edge about slipping and laying down a nasty scratch. Beautiful paint work as always. Gary

Ras, this an interesting looking build - good luck putting it together. I'll be following along. Gary

Thanks JD, I'll be sure to check that out. I subscribed to Wooden Boat for years - it's such a great magazine. Actually, I don't know why I stopped getting it. Maybe time to re-subscribe. Thanks again. Gary

Andy and EG - Thank you both very much. And thanks to all for smashing down on the "like" button. Gary

Never thought I'd be saying this, but your tentacle and suckers look great. Gary

Thanks for the nice comment Wefalck. Yes, shadows can be a problem, but it was one that I didn't consider until I saw it. I too like the "looking under" figure, but no I didn't make it - it is from Preiser #28156. Thank you CDW, Keith, Kurt, Mark, Edward, Paul and Ken for your wonderful comments. It is always so truly appreciated. Thank you for the nice words, Jack. An N scale scene would be very cool I think, maybe a steam locomotive taking on water at a tower/tank or sitting in front of a station. Limitless possibilities. You better get started so we can all follow along! Mike and Andrew - thank you so much. And thanks to everyone for the "likes" and for taking a look. Be safe and stay well. Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers, After a few weeks of being sidetracked, I finally put in the time to finish this shadowbox display. Because the main door is partially open, a surface that extends beyond the wall to the “outside” is needed. I decided that surface would be concrete and is made of hydrocal smeared on a piece of basswood. This extension is 7/8” wide which is all the space available between the display module and the inside of the case. The doorway needed two doors that swing out from the center. I drew up what I thought looked appropriate and made them up. The outside lights are white 5050 surface mount LEDs. I started out thinking four would be enough, but then added two more and then another two. They were mounted to a rectangle of styrene which was then bend downward over the doorway. I lowered the lights up the point where they could almost be seen by the viewer looking out the doorway. The two sticks of basswood were glued together at their crossing once the optimum downward bend was found. The doors were positioned to minimize what could be viewed beyond the doorway. I don't want the inside of the shadowbox to be seen. The rear window presented some difficulties due to the background image being so close to the window. In fact, the image is 1/8” (3mm) from the back of the window. I boxed off the window with 1/8” basswood strips and painted the surrounding area with a silver chrome for added reflectivity. I then positioned five 5730 LEDs around the perimeter of the window with the side LEDs pointing inward toward the center. Back when I installed the window, I had placed a grating over it and dirtied up the glazing so the view through it would be obscured. This didn't work and just looked muddy and grubby, so I removed both and replaced it with clean clear acetate. A background image was attached to a piece of styrene and the window box was closed up. I placed clips inside the box to hold the display in and to make it easier to remove for swapping out the vehicle in the future. Also, an image was glued to the inside wall of the box outside the doorway. I spent considerable time balancing the lighting to get the look I was after. Not a complete success by any stretch, but I'm satisfied with the result just the same. The first three photos are with both interior and exterior lights on. Then the exterior lights only. The problem with having the interior lights only on, is that you can see the shadow cast by the window muntins on the background image. This is because the image is so close. My other displays don't have this problem because the images are set back much further. And that's it. Thanks to everyone for taking a look and for all the likes. And a special thank you to those who left comments of support and encouragement – I appreciate it very much. Be safe and stay well. Gary

One can never have too many jars of paint. I have a few Floquil left myself. Had many once - Polly S also. Great paints, but they gave me a headache in short order. Gary

Congrats on extracting the offending planks Edward. They would have bothered you every time you looked at it. Gary

It’s true, very little is square, plumb or level on anything that floats. So many odd compound angles. It is certainly one of the challenges of this hobby, but I find it’s one aspect that makes modeling boats/ships so entertaining. In a deranged sort of way of course. I’ve not heard of the petroleum jelly trick - thanks for sharing that. It’s going into my notes folder. As always, beautiful work Marc. Gary

Such a beautiful model Keith and I have enjoyed every posting from the beginning. Thanks for the extra effort of sharing your process and techniques. I’m looking forward to the final photos and anxiously awaiting your next project. Gary

Very interesting build you have going here Greg, and I’m really enjoying your log. Like the round modeling vice. Gary

Me too Mark - good to see you back and watching for future updates. Gary

Very nice progress Jack. I too like your glueing jig, and I’m jealous of your model paint collection. Gary

Wonderful work Siggi! Just superb! Gary

A clever approach for the tentacles. Such an interesting build. Gary

Beautiful crazy small sub-miniature work. Excellent result. Gary

Beautiful work Tom! Congratulations on its completion. Gary

Beautiful job Mike, looks absolutely fantastic. Congratulations on it’s completion. Gary

Two steps forward and one step back is still progress. Looking very good to me. Gary

Hey Paul. That’s not the easiest hull shape to plank. If it’s your intention to fill and sand, I think you should be fine. You can fill the gaps and build up material where needed to obtain smooth fair lines. You probably already know this, but the NRG has a couple of great articles on hull planking. Being new to this, you may find them helpful in better understanding the process more completely. I found them invaluable. Gary

Hello Colin. I use pigment powders quite often and they work great, but they do have their limitations. They will not stick to smooth surfaces without some sort of carrier. Also, the powder is ground very fine, much finer than chalk or pastels and they are crazy messy. Be sure to check out some of the many great YouTube videos on how to use them and the different ways in which they can be worked before you take the plunge – they are not for everyone and I know people who hate them. Thanks for stopping and the nice words. The manufacturer was able to get some very smooth and crisp details on the parts, especially considering the medium and scale. Thanks Mark. Thanks for the kind words Paul. But I'm far from a master, and I I've picked up many tips and techniques from our fellow builders here at MSW. Any progress on Mighty Mite? Hello EG, and thanks. There is just something about an old Mack truck that's special. Here's a gentleman who restored a tandem wheel FK. In part one he talks about the restoration. In part two he drives it around town, but it's difficult to make out what he's saying over the engine. A beast of a truck. Hello Keith. Yes, I added the grease and here's a closer look at the plate. I painted the plate acrylic flat black and added rust-colored pigments while it was still wet. Once dry I gobbed ivory black oil paint on top. I've not found anything that looks more like grease than black oil – after all, it is oil paint. Thanks Keith. Thanks for looking in and for the compliment Andy. Do you think I need to add more grease? Hello Charles, thanks for following my builds and for the nice comment. Your question is a good one and I'm glad you asked. I should have done what you suggested and sanded a slight flat on each tire so (as you stated) it looks like the vehicle has some weight to it. That's one of those details that is often forgotten about (like I did here) but adds to the model's realism. I don't know what could be done with resin tires, but I've seen modelers produce very convincing sidewall bulge on injection molded tires by warming up the material and smushing it down a bit. The wheels on this model are already glued on, but I might try dragging it across a flat piece a sandpaper and see how that goes. Hello Ken. Yea the tires in this kit are quite good although they did require some clean up. There was even some mold rubber stuck between the treads. I've never made a Sylvan kit, but I see they have quite an extensive product line and I find their early/midcentury cab-over tractors tempting. Gallery Glass is a pretty handy product and I use their Crystal Clear quite often. What I don't like about the stuff is that it shrinks as it dries so you often have to apply it a second time to fill in where it has sunk. And it doesn't dry hard like a clear epoxy does, more like rubber. Useful stuff just the same and I've been using the same 2oz squeeze bottle for about 5 years. Thanks for the comment. Thanks to all for looking and the "likes". Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers, Thanks to all for the comments, "likes" and for taking the time to look. The whole purpose of the shadowbox display is to provide a stage for interchangeable 1/87 vehicles. The first vehicle to take the stage is the Mack FK. Five different “F” series models were built from 1937 to 1947, and with a gross vehicle weight of 23 tons, the FK was built from 1938 - 1941. Trucksplanet.com tells me only 123 units of this vehicle were produced, so they don't show up at truck shows very often. This model kit comes from Ralph Ratcliffe Models and is cast in resin. The owner individually casts each kit himself by hand and consequently the kits are expensive. I bought this kit on eBay some years ago for a fraction of the current list price of around $50 U.S. The company's products are unique in the sense that you can buy truck and fire engine parts À la carte - cab sets, frame and suspension kits, engines, transmissions, wheel sets, etc. And the castings are very good and considering they are in HO scale, I would say they are excellent. The instructions for building the kit are, let's say simple. Here's the entirety of the kit and although the assembly is easy, the size and fragility of the model requires patience. The suspension and drive train goes together quickly. Everything is primed with Stynylrez gray then the cab and hood are airbrushed with a mixture of Tamiya primary flat colors to give me this orangish-red. I leaned orange because I'm going to fade the paint and faded red often reads pink, which I certainly don't want. The frame is painted black. The model is assembled - tanks, steps, chain drives, radiator, 5th wheel parts, steering wheel and other stuff. The model seemed incomplete to me, so I scratched a few additions. First, an exhaust stack made of brass wire with two different sizes of brass tubing soldered to it. And support bracketry adapted from an example I found on-line. I replaced the kit supplied rear-view mirrors with these made of .010” stainless wire and thin slices of styrene rod. The rod was warmed over a candle flame and stretched to gain the diameter required. Extras were made to replace the ones that would surely jump from my tweezers. In the center you can see one of the kit supplied mirrors. A couple of tow hooks for the front bumper were fashioned from brass wire. Slices of thin-wall brass tube were cut to represent fender mounted directional signals. These things are about 1.5mm in diameter and less than a .5mm thick and boy were they ever fun to cut from the tubing. They would collapse and required reforming into a ring by slipping them onto a sewing needle. They were filled with a tiny drop of amber Gallery Glass. I modified the kit supplied headlights. The lower piece in the image below shows the original with a flat featureless face and the upper one that was drilled out to provide a little interest. The pieces were painted with a steel-colored enamel while the cavities were painted in chrome and filled with clear Gallery Glass. In full disclosure, and as far as I can tell, most of the Mack trucks of this era were painted with red frames and I have never seen an FK painted in the way that I have here. But, I'm not claiming the truck is original and the decision on colors as well as the add-on items simply reflects my personal taste. Because the model is so light (.423oz or 12 grams), I did have to torque the frame a tad to get all the wheels to sit on the ground, but overall the model went together well. I didn't want to turn the thing into a rusty pile of junk, so I used a light hand putting some age on it, using only oil paints and pigment powders. Here's a good look at the headlights. The chrome paint in the cavity with the Gallery Glass on top, catches the light in a decent way. I think the radiator and mirrors need dulled down a bit. And finally, the obligatory gigantic spectacles photo. Thanks for stopping. Be safe and stay well. Gary

That is one aggressive looking piece of equipment. Looks like fun to build. Gary