Thieves took my name!

And it did exactly what I thought it would. Bad joins and a putty that soaks up paint. Going to try scribing a bit of it out and refilling with Poly putty.

BTW, the use of progressively finer grain sand paper is a *must*. I start out with the Testors sandpaper pack, which goes from 150 gr to 600 gr, then start using a polishing pack from Model Makers. It starts at 3200 gr and progresses to 12000 gr. By then, the paper feels more like suede than sandpaper. Don't skip a grain level! It will show badly when painted. Progressing on up and using the polishing compound will create a surface that is mirror smooth.

This is the area between the nacelle pylons and on the secondary hull. While a superior fit as compared to the original AMT model (Pylons and nacelles secured by pins!) and better than a subsequent version (Slots for the plyons and nacelles, which were single pieces), it does create a very bad join area that is a bitch to fill and sand.

I switched to the Tamiya Poly putty during this build, but I decided to leave this one alone as I had done a lot of work to it and fixing anything would be relatively easy.

Just before painting on the second coat. The nacelle domes are clear with part of the nacelle ends also clear. They were painted stoplight red metallic, per instructions for the Pilot verison. The interior dome was painted chrome silver, to help give a backing to the clear outer dome. I would have rather painted the inside of the interior dome chrome, but I'd already sealed and puttyed the nacelles.

More here.

Started building on a Polar Lights TOS Enterprise. Yes, this is geeky as hell, but the big E was one of the first models I ever put together and I try it out every now and then. This kit is smaller, but very lovingly detailed to look like the real deal from the show. You can make one of 4 (!) versions, the "Original" pilot "The Cage", the second pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before", the shooting version from the series, and the alternate universe one with the evil Mr Spock.

Why SF models? Well, I get the chance to really let my imagination run. These to me are more of a challenge to build and paint and I can try out details that don't work right on a, say, P-31. Not to say that I don't build aircraft, I've got a Delta 777 on the bench right now, and it's going to be more complex to build than the Enterprise. Because it's a commercial airliner, I have to make sure that the paint is all glossy, the metal looks like metal, and the finish is mirror smooth. Major pain.

Anyway, go here to take a look.

Gonna try this for a while. Maybe I'll keep up, maybe not...