Go Flight
Member
- Joined
- May 11, 2009
- Messages
- 174
This was a kit I got at one of the IPMS Nats while Muroc Models was still in business.
An AD-1 was an experimental plane where NASA were looking into the feasibility of oblique wing flight during the late 70s - early 80s.
Being a resin kit it came in a minimum of parts with no PE and 1 vac formed canopy. What was cool is that Muroc also gave you a resin plug for the canopy in case you fudged the first one.
I've been tinkering with this one on and off for a few weeks now. It's a fairly simple kit, and it all goes together nicely --
until I came across my nemesis - the dreaded Vac form canopy!!
This kit is no different. Measure 2x and cut 1X, and measure and cut again. Until I cut too much then it's filler time. Well it's filler time. The problem was at the back it looked like molded in hinges to raise the canopy from the rear like you see on the box. So my thinking was the canopy fit over the edges of the fuselage... No... I puttied a little then sanded a little - a few times.
It just wouldn't look right so I too the nuclear approach in that I just putty the crap out of it and then when dry I went at it like a buzz saw made of sandpaper. Grrr
Finally I got to a point were it didn't look terrible.
It was time to hide some ugliness with some decals. For the first few flights, the jet didn't have the blue stripe that you saw on the later ones. Nope, Haha I needed that stripe. So I started decaling. I left the wing off b/c I thought it would be a real nightmare to fit the stripe on under the wing and over the engines. Even without the wing, it was pretty difficult to get them on. No matter how much water I used, the decal still wanted to settle down. Finally I got them all on and then hit it with a little Micro Sol.
Once the Micro Sol dries the satin clear coat, and the wing will go on and I'll call this one done.
Oh yeah, the blue dot on top is just sticky tack where I pushed the wing on so it wouldn't get lost.
Final pics to follow.
Thanks for looking.
An AD-1 was an experimental plane where NASA were looking into the feasibility of oblique wing flight during the late 70s - early 80s.
Being a resin kit it came in a minimum of parts with no PE and 1 vac formed canopy. What was cool is that Muroc also gave you a resin plug for the canopy in case you fudged the first one.
I've been tinkering with this one on and off for a few weeks now. It's a fairly simple kit, and it all goes together nicely --
until I came across my nemesis - the dreaded Vac form canopy!!
This kit is no different. Measure 2x and cut 1X, and measure and cut again. Until I cut too much then it's filler time. Well it's filler time. The problem was at the back it looked like molded in hinges to raise the canopy from the rear like you see on the box. So my thinking was the canopy fit over the edges of the fuselage... No... I puttied a little then sanded a little - a few times.
It just wouldn't look right so I too the nuclear approach in that I just putty the crap out of it and then when dry I went at it like a buzz saw made of sandpaper. Grrr
Finally I got to a point were it didn't look terrible.
It was time to hide some ugliness with some decals. For the first few flights, the jet didn't have the blue stripe that you saw on the later ones. Nope, Haha I needed that stripe. So I started decaling. I left the wing off b/c I thought it would be a real nightmare to fit the stripe on under the wing and over the engines. Even without the wing, it was pretty difficult to get them on. No matter how much water I used, the decal still wanted to settle down. Finally I got them all on and then hit it with a little Micro Sol.
Once the Micro Sol dries the satin clear coat, and the wing will go on and I'll call this one done.
Oh yeah, the blue dot on top is just sticky tack where I pushed the wing on so it wouldn't get lost.
Final pics to follow.
Thanks for looking.
