The Smoking Hole. A Publication of the Antelope Valley Group IPMS Volume 22, Number Club Officers

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1 The Smoking Hole A Publication of the Antelope Valley Group IPMS Volume 22, Number 3 avg_ipms@yahoo.com 2017 Club Officers President Vice President Treasurer Secretary Tracy Ackeret Jim Abercromby Niilo Lund Matt Graham silkinca@gmail.com jaber_23@sbcglobal.net niiloj7@verizon.net mgraham4@bak.rr.com

2 Club News and Business NEXT MEETING MARCH , 1:00 PM AT ROSAMOND LIBRARY General Meeting Notes: February was a project build meeting, and we discussed contest matters Contest Discussion VP Jim reported that the IPMS Regional Coordinator has approved our revised contest. We finalized our categories at the meeting. Jim has sent the list to the members. In January, we decided on a contest theme of Cuban Missile Crisis (subjects from 1959 to 1962). Upon further reflection, we decided this them was too narrow. We debated and concluded that the theme Swingin 60 s (ant subject from the 1970 s) was much more inclusive, and was selected by unanimous vote. The club agreed on a new fee schedule for the contest. The initial entry fee will be $12, and will include 3 entries. Each additional entry will be $2. Special Awards decided on to date are: Best in Show Theme Award Presidents Award Best X-Plane Best Weathered Finish Best Auto Paint and Finish Best Small Armed Forces Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy In-House Contests Hope you re working on you project for our first in-house contest in April. Subject is: 6 Day War (1967 Arab-Israeli Conflict).

3 2016 Meeting Schedule. Primary Activities Refreshments Demo Review 21 Jan Member Dues Collected 18 Feb Project Build Meeting Rich M. / Steve 18 Mar Matt/Niilo 15 Apr In-House Contest 6 Day War Mike O. / Rick 20 May Rich, Jay 17 June Jim 16 July 19 Aug In-House Contest Jurassic Plastic Things Under Wings ARM- US Things Under Wings ARM- Other (Tentative) 16 Sept 21 Oct 28 Oct 2017 Desert Classic 18 Nov 16 Dec 2018 Club Officer Nominations Christmas Potluck Gift Exchange 2018 Officer Elections Everyone!

4 The Tool Crib First, my apologies. I didn t take adequate notes at the January meeting. Steve was our Tool Man for January. For February, our usual Guru of Useful Devices, Rich the Tool Man had more new and useful stuff: Step Sanders. Very useful for tight places. They are available at Burbank House of Hobbies Beading set. Used by jewelry hobbyists. These sets are great for creating fastener representations (like Dzus). Available from Sprue Brothers or ebay, can sometimes be found at Michael s. $12 - $25.

5 Uschi Van der Rosten woodgrain decals. These are woodgrain patterns on very thin clear decal film. Different color undercoats can be used for different effects. Available in various scale and types of wood. There are also sets to intended for specific Wingnuts Wings kits. I ve used these personally and they are fantastic. Maybe the easiest way to produce a realistic wood finish. Available from Sprue Brothers, Victory Models, UMMI-USA and others. Uschi Van der Rosten Rig That Thing! rigging line. Elastic line intended for rigging, antennas, etc. Available in various sizes. Very elastic, so will withstand some abuse. Appears similar to Ez-Line. Only available in black, so may not be the best to depict metallic decals. Available from the same sources as the woodgrain decals.

6 Jim brought in a very nice dimmable LED desk light. Model is Daylight Natura and is available on Amazon for around $170. Club Demos Let me know if you d like to do a demo for the club and I ll highlight it in the newsletter. Henry has a new installment in his series Things Under Wings scheduled for April.

7 Member Show and Tell Name: Henry Blecha Time To Build: Don t recall. Maybe 3 to 4 months Kit & Scale: Hasegawa A-7B 1/72 nd scale Aftermarket Items: Don t recall. Possibly Microscale decals. Hasegawa weapons Paints Used: Probably Testors! Comments: Built about 40 years ago. Brush painted

8 Name: Rick Reinert Time To Build: About 60 days total Kit & Scale: Wingnut Wings OAW Albatross D.Va 1/32 nd scale Aftermarket Items: HGW belts Paints Used: Testors Red and Tamiya white. Wood is Tamiya Desert Yellow or XF-68 brown. Also used Prismacolor pencils on the propeller Comments: An enjoyable build, but, take your time kit fit is excellent. Patience is of the utmost importance. Follow the instructions and use hints & tips for Wingnuts website

9 Name: Nick Kiriokos Time To Build: 3 weeks or so Kit & Scale: Fine Molds A5M4 Claude 1/48 th scale Aftermarket Items: None Paints Used: AK Interactive Aluminum with Tamiya Clear Orange overcoat Comments: Excellent new kit. OOTB paper harness

10 Name: Nick Kiriokos Time To Build: 1 week Kit & Scale: Flyhawk FT-17 (2 kits in box) 1/72 nd scale Aftermarket Items: None Paints Used: Tamiya Acrylics Comments: OOTB. Build time 4 hours both kits. Painted, weathered with pastels applied with lacquer thinner

11 Name: Rich Ribado Time To Build: probably 30 hours (less the 20 years it aged in my stash) Kit & Scale: Tamiya F4U-1 Corsair 1/48 th scale Aftermarket Items: Ultracast resin seat. Aeromaster decals, Uschi Van der Rosten elastic thread Paints Used: All Model Master Enamels. Winsor & Newton artist oils used for washes and weathering. Comments: From Wikipedia The Vought F4U Corsair is an American fighter aircraft that saw service primarily in World War II and the Korean War. Corsairs were also built by Goodyear and Brewster: Goodyear-built Corsairs were designated FG and Brewsterbuilt aircraft F3A. From the first prototype delivery to the U.S. Navy in 1940, to final delivery in 1953 to the French, 12,571 F4U Corsairs were

12 manufactured in 16 separate models, in the longest production run of any piston-engined fighter in U.S. history ( ). The Corsair was designed as a carrier-based aircraft but its difficult carrier landing performance rendered it unsuitable for Navy use until the carrier landing issues were overcome by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. The Corsair thus came to and retained prominence in its area of greatest deployment: land based use by the U.S. Marines. The role of the dominant U.S. carrier based fighter in the second part of the war was thus filled by the Grumman F6F Hellcat, powered by the same Double Wasp engine first flown on the Corsair's first prototype in The Corsair served to a lesser degree in the U.S. Navy. In addition to its use by the U.S. and British, the Corsair was also used by the Royal New Zealand Air Force, the French Navy Aéronavale and other, smaller air forces until the 1960s. Some Japanese pilots regarded it as the most formidable American fighter of World War II, and the U.S. Navy counted an 11:1 kill ratio with the F4U Corsair. After the carrier landing issues had been tackled, it quickly became the most capable carrier-based fighterbomber of World War II. The Corsair served almost exclusively as a fighter-

13 bomber throughout the Korean War and during the French colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria. Oddly enough, this is the first 1/48 scale Corsair I ve built. Tamiya s F4U Birdcage Corsair (so named because of the heavily-framed canopy) was released in I ve had this one for about 20 years and it sat on my Shelf of Doom for the past 10 years at about the 75% completion level. It was high time to put this one in the books. This kit is everything you would expect from Tamiya; well rendered detail, good fit and little drama. Panel lines are restrained and sharp and the other surface details are well molded and convincing. Instructions are typical of Tamiya and two schemes are offered to the modeler. Tamiya decals are notoriously thick and a bit unruly, so I decided on a scheme offered by Aeromaster. My model would represent a land based Corsair flown by Major Robert Owens of VMF-215 during August of A picture of this well-worn Corsair can be found on page 8 of Squadron publications Corsair in Action. The kit was built with virtually no trouble (that I can remember) and the only major deviation from the instructions was substituting the kit seat for a resin one from Ultracast. The seat required a little care to blend it

14 into the aft bulkhead but nothing very dramatic about that; just a little old fashioned putty and polish work. As this aircraft was land based I built it without the tail hook. Speaking of the hook, I painted the tailwheel bay with the often discussed Salmon primer color. The subject of Salmon colored primer has been hashed over and dissected by modelers for a long time. My take-away from all that discussion is that the only place the Salmon primer would have been visible (if you stuck your head up there) would be in the tailwheel bay. It s just as nearly invisible on the model unless you turn it over and have a good look up into the bay. The rest of the model went together without incident and little more than some Mr. Surfacer along a seam line or two. As this aircraft looked rather shopworn in the In Action book I decided to give it a number of washes using Winsor-Newton blue, green, gray and umber artist oils thinned with turpentine. The demarcation line between the white underside and blue upper deviates from what most folks are used to seeing. I used Dana Bells excellent books to research the scheme (see below). Page 37 of Dana Bells Vol.1 shows the paint scheme to good advantage and the picture in the Squadron book seems to back that up. I recommend this kit to modelers of

15 Name: Rich Ribado Time To Build: probably 30 hours (less the 20 years it aged in my stash) Kit & Scale: Tamiya F4U-1 Corsair 1/48 th scale Aftermarket Items: Ultracast resin seat. Aeromaster decals, Uschi Van der Rosten elastic thread Paints Used: All Model Master Enamels. Winsor & Newton artist oils used for washes and weathering. Comments: From Wikipedia The Vought F4U Corsair is an American fighter aircraft that saw service primarily in World

16 Name: Rich Ribado Time To Build: Approximately 30 hours Kit & Scale: Kitty Hawk XF5U-1 Flying Flapjack 1/48 th scale Aftermarket Items: Vector Resin wheels, Usc hi Vander Rosten Woodgrain decals, Aeromaster decals Paints Used: Overall Gunze Midnight Blue, Model Master FS34151 Interior Green, FS34079 Dark green. Comments: From Wikipedia The Vought XF5U "Flying Flapjack" was an experimental U.S. Navy fighter aircraft designed by Charles H. Zimmerman for Vought during World War II. This unorthodox design consisted of a flat, somewhat disc-shaped body (hence its name) serving as the lifting surface.

17 Two piston engines buried in the body drove propellers located on the leading edge at the wingtips. Of all-metal construction, the XF5U had two 1,600 hp Pratt & Whitney R-2000 radial engines. The configuration was designed to create a low aspect ratio aircraft with low takeoff and landing speeds but high top speed. The propellers are arranged to rotate in the opposite direction to the tip vortices, with the aim of retaining the higher-pressure air below the wing. With this source of drag eliminated, the aircraft would fly with a much smaller wing area, and the small wing would yield high maneuverability with greater structural strength. The propellers of the XF5U were to have a built-in cyclic movement like a helicopter's main rotor, with a very limited ability to shift their center of lift up and down to aid the aircraft in maneuvering. An ejection seat was fitted to allow the pilot to clear the massive propellers in the event of an inflight emergency. Although the prototype was unarmed, a combination of machine guns and cannons would have been installed under the nose. The XF5U design was promising:

18 specifications given at the time promised great maneuverability and speeds up to 550 mph. However, it came at the time when the United States Navy was switching from propeller driven to jet propelled aircraft. By 1946, the XF5U-1 project was already long over its expected development time, and well over budget. With jet aircraft coming into service, the Navy finally canceled the project on 17 March 1947, and the prototype aircraft (V-173) was transferred to the Smithsonian Museum for display. Although two aircraft were constructed, a lone XF5U-1 underwent ground runs but never overcame vibration problems. Taxi trials at Vought's Connecticut factory culminated in short "hops" that were not true flights. The only completed XF5U- 1 proved to be so structurally solid that it had to be destroyed with a wrecking ball. Kitty Hawk has given us a mostly well thought out kit with nice details and well executed surface features. The panel lines are very restrained and crisp. A set of seat belts and harnesses is included on a small fret of photo-etched metal parts. There are a few construction anomalies in that the instructions have miss-numbered some of the parts with respect to being right

19 and left handed. However this is easily overcome by test fitting and examining the features of the parts. Another problem point (to me at least) is the engine cooling flaps. The flaps are engineered to be closed and that would be fine if they fit better. As molded, the flaps sit a bit too low on the surface and shimming/gluing them to match the outer mold line of the aircraft is a bit of a chore. I chose to work around this problem by vacuum forming new, thinner flaps and posing them in the open position, as seen on several photos of the real vehicle. The wheels were too skinny and anemic for my tastes. I replaced the kit wheels with resin ones available from Vector and it made a big difference. The XF5U had a very elaborate and complicated tail hook mechanism located on top of the airframe, not below it, and the model is no exception. All the tail hook parts must be assembled and installed on the model at the same time to get all the locations and geometries correct. This house of cards method of construction is tricky. Complicating the matter, if one built the tail hook system from the box the hook would hold the tail wheels about 3/8 off the ground. To remedy this I made

20 longer rods that would reach the main tail hook when positioned correctly. I cut the rod ends off the actuators and cemented them to some.010 styrene rod, then drilled the actuator bodies with a #77 drill bit to give me some float when installing the now longer rods. By assembling the whole affair dry I was able to align the parts correctly with the hook off the ground. I then applied liquid cement to all the connection points and let it dry overnight. Superglue would have also worked but I really wanted the strength a welded joint offers. Aside from the XF5U s disc shape, its propellers are an eye-catcher, looking more like the rotors of a V-22 Osprey than propeller blades. Care must be taken during assembly to make sure the blade pitch and handed rotation are observed. Fortunately, the instructions were spot-on labeling these parts correctly. The XF5U had wooden propeller blades handsomely finished in clear varnish. I used, and was very happy with wood grained decals from Ushi Vanderosten. These decals are superb in both appearance and behavior. As they are near transparent between the grain patterns I first painted the prop blades with Model Master

21 Gloss Ivory. These decals slid off the paper in room temperature water and adhered perfectly. Ushi offers a large selection of different wood grain decals, varying in size and wood species. They even make kit specific sheets for covering the bare wood fuselages of several WWI aircraft. In fact, if Woody Wagon vehicles is your thing they even make a set for the car s body panels. This is the first time I didn t use oil based paint on a model s overall finish. Matt Graham wisely recommended I try Gunze Midnight Blue reduced with Mr. Leveling Thinner. A 50/50 mix yielded a perfect recipe that laid down perfectly smooth, remained uniformly glossy and dried quickly. Touch ups blended invisibly even days after the first application. This is likely to be my go-to color for Dark Sea Blue Gloss paint jobs in the future. The kit decals behaved very well and laid down perfectly under Micro Sol solution. I gave the walkway decals a clear flat coat using Humbrol Clear Matt lacquer. The white stars and bars of the national insignia were a bit translucent so I carefully masked them with Post-It notes and painted them with testors white

22 enamel. Decals are included for a conjectural but attractive overall silver scheme and a very odd alternate fantasy scheme consisting of a full mural of the iconic Uncle Sam Want You poster for the upper surface. Its obvious KittyHawk had additional plans for another mural decal (perhaps aimed at the Anime Fans out there) with a Sailor Moon type girl character. Thankfully that never made it into the kit, but the scheme is visible in the parts map. The instruction pages for the anime scheme are glued shut, as I read that KittyHawk and the Comic Illustrator could not come to licensing terms in the end. No gripe from this modeler on the omission! Despite the unorthodox appearance of this aircraft I can recommend this kit to modelers of medium experience. Having experience after building a few complicated models with delicate parts that are easily damaged is recommended. The spindly landing gear and props require a bit of care to make sure alignment and attachment are properly addressed. The elaborate tail hook doesn t fit well and requires some planning and rework to install. Further, the assembly sequence as shown in the instructions lends itself, in a few

23 places, to delicate parts being broken off. Care must be taken when handling this model both during construction and once it is finished. But these considerations are not much of a stretch from what serious modelers are used to, so in the end I give the kit good marks for overall appeal. The Ginter Book Naval Fighters Number Twenty One Chance Vought V-173 and XF5U-1 Flying Pancakes was a great source of reference during my build. I ll be using it again very soon during my build of the Special Hobby V-173

24 Calendar 03/19/2017 Kit Collectors Exposition and Show 05/06/2017 Best of the West- Vegas-Con /09/2017 Kit Collectors Exposition and Show 07/26-29/2017 IPMS National Convention UFCW Local 324 Union Hall 8530 Stanton Ave., Buena Park, CA East Side Cannery Resort & Casino 5255 Boulder Highway, Las Vegas, NV UFCW Local 324 Union Hall 8530 Stanton Ave., Buena Park, CA LaVista Conference Center Westport Parkway, La Vista, NE 09/23/2017 REDCON 2017 Orleans Hotel and Casino 4500 W. Tropicana Ave., Las Vegas, NV 10/28/2017 Desert Classic XXI Antelope Valley College Cafeteria 3041 W Ave. K Lancaster, CA 11/12/2017 Kit Collectors Exposition and Show UFCW Local 324 Union Hall 8530 Stanton Ave., Buena Park, CA Page 24