MechTech

@electric indigo COOL!!! - MT

@electric indigo This? @Urashiman GREAT looking sculpt and a clean print too! - MT

@pengbuzz Your Robocop mods look AWESOME! You can tell its a work of love! @505thAirborne Your '23 is looking great! Still hard to believe that plane didn't win the fighter competition. @Rock That is a cool looking cockpit. The new details look MUCH better. @Thom Your plumbing is a GREAT touch! it adds a bunch of detail that normally gets missed. - MT

OOoooh! 400th page of this thread (for this version). - MT

Looks like the elves have been busy in their workshops!😁 Merry Christmas everyone! - MT

@derex3592 BEAUTIFUL Bone! I don't see the decal flaws!? Looks cool fully loaded as well! That DOES look like a nice kit. @Big s Lion O🤣! That's funny! You can still paint her. Those dark shadows will mellow out with highlighting paint over it. The eyes are the difficult part! - MT

@Urashiman OK, the kit gets an ENORMOUS F, but you get AWESOME "A" for courage and craftsmanship!👍 Nice cleanup of flash on that thing besides the putty work. - MT

@Urashiman Whoo hoo! Another R/C boat! You DID take on a tough subject! But I KNOW you can do it! Anyone need an interesting theme for your F/A-18C model? Here's an idea and more photos linked. DVIDS is another good source for US military photos and video in general. Free account needed for full sized downloads. - MT https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7487368/vmfa-312-flies-armed-teeth

@electric indigo Those colors came out really nice! If you guys haven't seen these, Hobby Lobby has them. They make great eyes or sensors and are translucent (light shows through them). Nice price too! I've gotten a little further on the Oto Melara diorama. Polishing the shell casings using a reamer to hold them and a Dremmel tool with a buffing "wheel" (what's left of it). The projectile drive bands were "painted" using an orange fine-tipped Sharpie. Fast and furious! The individual shell carrier cases were made with styrene dowel and that punch I made from a Torx bit. The ammo shelves are made from Tichy Train Group's grating. They are FINELY molded and clean with no flash. I then "butchered" them to make this. The next step is to make the coiled cable shock absorber springs that the bottom mounts to. Also modify the Hasegawa ground crews to be ammo crews. Thanks for checking in guys! - MT

@Urashiman Those bubbles are inside the resin somehow. Looks like its mostly just at the bottom too!? Weird! In Europe, the floor wax is Pledge, last I heard. It MAY fill in some of the bubbles better and it has a great translucent effect to it in certain light. @Bronze Knight You're making that nightmare kit look great! Lots of parts not fitting well with that kit. Great looking, vibrant paint colors too! - MT

Thanks @Big s! I'll have to try it out. I'm trying to avoid the "Brock" look from Pokemon and the "Little Orphan Annie" look of just white eyes. I try to avoid using figures because of those reasons, but they need to be in this for reference of size and to show function. @derex3592 That's a COOL shot! I didn't know they putting pods on them too. That's the first I've seen of them. Probably to add optics that weren't put on the craft from the design stages. -MT

@SteveTheFish Your custom articulation will make that a MUCH better model for posing. The stock styrene joints just don't last. @wm cheng Your Valk cockpit and figures look fantastic! I think you'll see more detail than expected. Your "pinpoint pupil was a good idea! I'm hoping there's a GOOD tutorial on painting 1/72nd scale figures. Having "little Orphan Annie eye's" can be distracting from all the great work on the rest of the figure. I have a LOT to do in the coming months or so. Three now for my gun turret model. @Urashiman Nice and smooth prints! @derex3592 Clean coating! - MT

@Urashiman Your valk is looking beautiful! That is A LOT of decal work to be careful with. The details are looking great on it! Maybe dipping the canopy in Pledge floor polish will help (or whatever they call it in Europe these days). Not the bubbles, but you're next canopy. @pengbuzz Grumpy Cat looks GREAT man! You can't tell you did all that work to him - which is good! He looks like he came in the box like that. I look forward to the rest of the gang being done. @derex3592 WOW! Somebody was busy! Great looking finishes. I forgot, for the Cat's Eye, were you just trying to strip the paint off it? If so, the "LA's Totally Awesome" (Dollar Tree) is cheap, totally safe and does a great job. Tamiya's paint comes off in minutes. Enamels maybe a couple of hours depending on thickness. A scrub brush helps speed things up. You just need to clean the residue off with soap and water. - MT

ALL: Superglue AND Baking soda will fill just about any Grand Canyon sized gap in a model or scratch build project. Baking soda is also an AWESOME accelerator that's not toxic like those spray-on types. The baking soda also adds strength to the CA. I've made whole parts out of it 😁! @Thom That Tomcat cockpit looks BEAUTIFUL! Have you added any clear UV or epoxy resign to any of the gauges to build them up? It looks like the Sparviero is being a modeling pain as it was a real pain to the allies in the war😄 @Urashiman Your cockpit improvements are AWESOME! Hopefully the canopy can be opened on it to reveal them better. @pengbuzz First off, I'm glad your not a real orthopedic surgeon😉 HOWEVER, you're an A-W-E-S-O-M-E plastic surgeon!!! When you add Roy's 80's hair to him, his height may be just right 😁 His proportions look good. If you need more height, it would probably have to be in his torso - what a pain! Then again, there's always those clear platform shoes with goldfish in them🤣 -MT

@Chronocidal Your model came out great! The canopy is not that bad either. DON'T buy a vacuum form machine. They're way too expensive and limit what you can do. Just get a wooden box and a couple of frames to fit snug over it. There's ton's of "How to's" out there. Then hook it up to your vacuum cleaner. Save the money for more models😄. @Urashiman That's one of the newer dazzling camouflage schemes!😁 @Chas Now that's going old school! Your mods look cool so far. @pengbuzz You are AWESOME with figures man! People would be looking at my sculpt and be asking, "Is that Mary Poppins?"🤣 He looks GREAT and accurate too! Photo 5: "The man's always keeping me under foot!" @derex3592 Your pilots look accurate and nicely painted! @Thom Wow! Talk about night and day! Two completely different builds! They're BOTH looking great, though. @electric indigo Bummer! Already looks like it needs a lot of putty work. I've been slacking with doing posts - sorry. One complaint: I don't have enough "likes" for each day to appreciate all the work you guys are doing! Under the Oto Melara on most ships is some kind of walkway to cover cables and installation hardware. It's also some kind of diamond tread plate or open grated material. So I went with the open grated material. Like I say, save cool looking bits for later on. This aluminum grated mesh went to some house decor we no longer have. But I KNEW it would be great for something later on... The white HO tread grating pattern SHOULD be smaller than 1/72nd scale, but as you can see here, it is WAAAAaaay out of scale with the figure. Thankfully the aluminum mesh is just right. A chrome paint marker made all the pieces go together. The gun magazine has a guard rail around it so people don't get into the carousel while it rotates. I've tried machining MANY shapes to make this, but they all failed! Too small to be strong enough. Thank God I got this ring machined correctly! To this I added "spokes" and soldered them in place. A TINY piece of solder was placed ON TOP of the joint and the flame's heat gently melts it into place. Then the spokes were bent upward. Note the marks on the pliers for bending and cutting the spokes. I used a pastry stone to do this work. Its FLAT and is also heat proof. "What can I use to hold the pieces down while I solder them together? A WWII 30mm training round!" It worked! Test fitting the guard rail... And a coat of silver on them to stand out against the black magazine. The other guard rail goes around the spinning part at the bottom. That's it for now. Thanks for checking in! - MT

@Thom The Asuka looks BEAUTIFUL! Clean paint and just the right weathering too. @pengbuzz Your fighter AND base look very menacing! COOL design of the fighter AND the base too! Great imagination! - MT

@Urashiman In the last photo, that cat is eyeing up the bowl! 😎

@pengbuzz The Pilgrims are rolling over in their graves!🤣 That's a REALLY COOL looking design! It would definitely bust up some asteroids! - MT

@arbit This is one of those times when two VERY different words sound so similar 😁 @pengbuzz Yeah, big guns! Go big, or go home!😄

@505thAirborne That will be a BIG lady! Would be cool to see a "what if" it actually entered service like the -22. @Thom Looking good! What gloss coat did you use? @Kurt That is a BEAUTIFUL (but muddy) M-1! GREAT details including optics glass, shell casings, and links! Nice chipping too! @pengbuzz Your design is looking COOL!!! Lots of thrusters and PLENTY of stabilizing surfaces 😁 Everything you need to go fast and go straight! - MT

How about the "Air-Viper"? Looks like 2 F-16s plus? - MT

@Big s Thanks for the heads up! I've heard about the reactions. Now that I read the contents, I understand better why. It works awesome though! Tried it on some resin parts. @Chas Thank you, I appreciate it! LOVE to see your Phoenix build! I didn't watch it eating sugary cereal, but I tried to make one out of wood. Imagine a kid flying around 30lbs (guessing) of lumber! Probably my first scratch build too🤣 @electric indigo After doing A LOT of judging at the show this past weekend, I would DEFINITELY class your model (so far) as a GOLD winner! - MT

@pengbuzz I'm glad you finally got moved in! Keep going with the building ideas - you never know what will turn up! @Urashiman Your print looks fantastic! I JUST got a bottle of the Tamiya panel liner this weekend. I have yo get used to how it works and reacts to stuff. NEARLY - BUT NOT completely finished with the turret display. Here's some photos... I needed 4mm nuts angled correctly for the shell to have a nice display look. So two were machined. The rear of the projectile is "boat tailed", so it had to have a different angle too - of course!🥲 Openings were carefully made that the nuts fit into with superglue. I noticed the stand parts floated around the threaded rods, so spacers were made keep everything uniform too. I mapped out the oak board to make the stand out of. Then cut the stand out and made sure everything fir together. The problem with dynamic poses is that they make dynamic fit problems too😉 Routing this with a Roman Ogee was crazy, but you see what a difference it makes. Radio Shack had a COOL safety switch! But the actual switch was too big to fit into the base (of course), so I found a smaller one, and made spacers so it would work with it. Then the name / data plate was cut and milled out, along with the base to fit the wires in. Then I got everything together JUST IN TIME for the convention this weekend. The best way to say it, God helped me get things together at an incredible rate! I STILL need to add details to the build. I'll update as I get them done along with video of it running. Thanks for checking it out! - MT

@electric indigo AWESOME details on that chopper! @Chas That Cordoba looks beautiful! You did a good job of bringing out the details. @derex3592 Cool 'ole pilot work! Have you seen the SR-71 flying AGAIN in people's social media posts? They occasionally resurrect it for special missions. Looks like they did it again. @Chronocidal You ARE pushing the limits of FDM, but it looks COOL! @HWR MKII Long time, no see! That Enterprise came out beautiful! GREAT finish and the lighting effects REALLY make it come alive! - MT

@Thom Thank you! That paint is looking sweet! @pengbuzz BOTH! 😁😄