1/144 Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, - PSA -

[RayS]

Nice progress Brad, as Uros says, take care masking over the decals. I have tried it thinking they were really well sealed under a gloss coat (or three) and still managed to lift parts of them. Ended up getting another decal sheet to try again.

[TheChronicOne]

Will do! Going to gloss clear over them first to ensure they stay well in place. I'll do that and let it air out a couple days before I mask then proceed. I've done it a time or two before and I'm pretty confident in it working out again. I've "unlocked" the "secret" so to speak.

[TheChronicOne]

This one has been up and down. Had a bit of a crazing problem but I've since refinished and repainted the areas. Still lots of sanding and painting to go but I'm trying to get myself into a position to mask. I've shifted my "mask over the cheatlines" experiment to the 737 and decided to try this one masking first as a direct comparison to see which method I like better. I've built a few of these things so far but I've managed to not have to deal with this particular problem until now. Many of the other ones I made the livery myself or things like the ATR-72 where all around white. These old birds, however, have the typical "white on top, grey and silver stuff on the bottom" and I'm only just now learning how to deal with it. Like I said... I'm trying different approaches to see what I like the most.


ANYWAY.. I COULD change my mind on this at some point but for now the idea is to make templates of the cheatlines and get them situated. In order to help this along, I've applied the windscreen and and the diamond shaped thingies at the back.

Someone needs to school me on what that's all about... can the whole rear stabs rotate up and down within the range of those markings or something? When would this occur? I don't recall ever SEEING one with the stabs in any other position than what appears to be "level" or "level with the air stream" or whatever the correct terminology may be.... just curious.



So here she is for now. Next up I need to do some good old fashioned wet sanding and polishing. I may need to touch up the white in places but after all that I'm going to throw a gloss clear coat at least where I put those transfers then I'll use my decal templates to start masking.

I have also since done a lot of work repairing the disastrous crazing on the engines and I've even managed to get the first coat of metal colored paint on. Here they are prior to that.

[TheChronicOne]

I've had some paint problems. I got ahold of a rattle can that had "whatever" wrong with it and for about the first 30 seconds of spray shot out dry powder plaster looking crap. I did everything I was supposed to including shooting spray into the air to "clear the lines" but still go hit with this mess. It looked like this:



I won't bore you with the details (of which I DID go into on our Facebook page) but suffice to say I rectified the situation and Mother Grinningbird is back on track.






And there we are! Things are going well again. I decided to let her sit for a few days first, though, before I pick back up. I'll do a "once over" on the finish again and then it'll be time to get the white back on and soon after gloss it.

I've reverted to the "put the cheatlines on, clear over them for protection, then mask the rest so the alignment is straight" approach again because I realized that I started this thing with this in mind and if I break from this plan now, it will mean a bunch of un neccessary masking. The wings, for example, were planned on being painted after the fuselage was done and masked over. It's too late now to change my mind so.... like I said.. it's back to the original plan which should work fine! In fact... it probably won't be too awfully lone before transfers are going on. Should be fun!

[TheChronicOne]

Alright, we're completely recovered from the spackling incident and the next thing up is to start getting the pretty colors on!!! All the fuselage transfers will go on then I'll be able to mask along the bottom of the cheatlines so I'm not just guessing where to place my tape. I'll get the bottom and wings primed and get to painting!!! I have glorious Nazca detail decal set which includes billions of little decals for every little thing but most helpful might be the corogard (no one can agree how to spell this or even what the proper brand is so silly some say it's the same as stuff applied to cars and spelled the same then others say, no, this is different stuff, made by a different company just for aviation, and it's spelled THIS way!! blah blah blah ).

BUT ANYHOW... here she is. PSA cheatlines tomorrow, I hope. I don't have much else planned for the day because it should be nasty and rainy so I get to skip out on my outside house projects and spend an afternoon tinkering.

[Ansett A330]

... but most helpful might be the corogard (no one can agree how to spell this or even what the proper brand is so silly some say it's the same as stuff applied to cars and spelled the same then others say, no, this is different stuff, made by a different company just for aviation, and it's spelled THIS way!! blah blah blah ).

From our Lord Jennings Sermon on another website on December 4 :

https://www.airlinercafe.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=11200

[TheChronicOne]

Ha! Chuffed. My preferred spelling turns out to be the correct one!

Been cutting out transfers for the last hour. About to try to get them on! all the cheatlines and names so far then I'll fill in around them.

[TheChronicOne]

Back to work on Mother Grinningbrid. I decided to start in on the ~~~~~ULTRA MEGA DETAIL SET WOOOO!!!! ~~~~~ From Nazca. Everything North of the cheatlines should go on. I could do it later, but I'm going to gloss over this all anyway so I can mask so I may as well get it out of the way. Most of the details are tiny things like little circles and dots and stuff but there were some vents and hatches that went on... 1/144 scale pitot tubes, etc. Speaking of.... these are some of the tiniest decals I've bothered applying.





There was another one about half the size of those. Thankfully it was just one. Some green dot that went on the stbd. nose with a bit of text beneath it. No clue what it is. I don't know what these little circles are, either, but 4 went on each side about a meter below windows and most were close to doors.

I've also done other things like getting back to painting the engines. Insides of the exhaust painted black and using reference pictures I've started painting the darker bands of the tips. I'm going to try to achieve a bit of variation on the outboard engines using tricks with the final clear coats and using a chrome pen for the heated ring stuff at the front.

[RayS]

looking the biz now Brad.

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks!!! I'm going to try to get it glossed today. Not so sure about that... I paint either outside or open up a window in the opposite side the wind is blowing but this thing is so large that might not be possible so my only option would be to go outside but it's very cold and the wind is up around 25 MPH so I'm not sure it'll be done or not. Once I get the top masked, things ought to start moving quickly I hope.