AREA 88: "McCoy Express"

Spanjaard
of course, I am in

Nils Steyaert
im definatly following this one 🙂

Greg Baker Autor
Thanks guys. You two always have reserved seats in the VIP section.

@Nils - I've only ever found one, relatively obscure, full-colour picture of McCoy's C-130. All the available decals seem to get the colour scheme wrong (mainly the gold/yellow coloured dollar sign), so I'm looking to correct that.

Greg Baker Autor
Got some of the insides painted. Given that you won't see all that much of it, I'm skimping on some of the details I might otherwise have attempted. I must be getting lazy. Don't tell Spanjaard.

Greg Baker Autor
After having painted the interior and assembled the fuselage, I think my choice to skip some details was justified. Trying to fish the wires through the small hole I made in the bottom, I had my workbench spotlight shining right down the back cargo door... and I still could barely see anything. Getting the motors wired up was a bit of a challenge, but I think I might need to add some more resistance to the circuit under the base. Sometimes, especially when dealing with multiple motors, the individual resistors will create a rotation speed that perfectly vibrates the plastic that it will buzz. The more motors, the greater the chance. I added a small (10 ohm) resistor to the circuit and they all seemed to calm down nicely.

Alec K
Smoking'! That'll take some shelf space… Following, of course 👍

Greg Baker Autor
Thanks Alec. Now comes everyone's favourite part... putty and sanding!

Peter Hardy
Got a bit of both there Greg!

Denis Dogadov
Hello, Greg!
I'm watching your work with interest.
The question about electric motors: which ones and where to buy?

Greg Baker Autor
Good to see you hanging around, Peter!

Dennis - Thanks. I don't have a specific motor that I use, but I usually get them off eBay or AliExpress. What you want to look for is the size. The best ones I've found are 4mm wide by 8mm long and run on power between DC 1.5V to 3V. One thing to consider is the length of the shaft as well. I buy some that have a short (2-3mm) shaft, and some with a longer shaft. This gives you a bit of flexibility in where you can put them inside the model. For example. If you stick a motor into a P-51 Mustang, there's lots of room for the motor to hid in the engine area. It's nice and round. But I built a 1/144 scale Cessna and the short triangular shaped engine cowl meant I needed to push the motor back into the cockpit area. I didn't have a motor with a long enough shaft that time, but it sure would've been handy. 🙂

Greg Baker Autor
If you find any that are smaller than 4mm wide... let me know. I've got a project idea that needs an even smaller motor than that!

Greg Baker Autor
So far so good on the decals.you can't even tell that I screwed up while inverting the money bag marking for the other side. The bag needed to be flipped… but not the dollar sign. Luckily I had a backup decal and a very sharp knife. 😉

Greg Baker Autor
Some CAREFUL masking of the decals. Hopefully this is going to work. 🙂

Greg Baker Autor
Masked off the grey undercarriage coat and got some desert yellow on. It's starting to look like a thing.

Alec K
Nice progress. I am FREAKIN' about that tape lifting those awesome decals up… 😅

Greg Baker Autor
Yeah, me too... but I put a significant coat of Future both under AND over them. They seem pretty sturdy. We shall see though...

Nils Steyaert
im kinda nervous, im afraid that the tape migth tear those decals off.
keeping my fingers crossed for this.

Greg Baker Autor
It was a bit dicey removing some of the camouflage tape, but so far so good, I think.

Greg Baker Autor
Not 100% happy with my job on the camouflage, but I'm super glad the decals seemed to have survived... and worked even better than I expected. Might just quit while I'm ahead on this one. 🙂

Alec K
Glad the decals made it. It looks very good Greg 👍

Greg Baker Autor
Thanks Alec. I was a bit worried that she was a tail sitter, but the open cargo bay seems to have mostly remedied that. She'll be glued down on the base, so it shouldn't really matter, but less stress on the glue is probably helpful.

Spanjaard
she looks very good

Greg Baker Autor
Why is it that it's not until I printed off the decal for the base that I discovered that I applied the decals to the fuselage backwards? What sense does it make to have the coins spilling out of the money bag on the right side? The plane is flying and the coins should go the other way... right? RIGHT!!? Well, that's my story... and I'm sticking to it...

bughunter
Looks very nice so far 👍 Is that your biggest comic model?

S M
Brilliant!

Greg Baker Autor
@bughunter - Not even close! My biggest Area 88 model is for sure the B747 vs F-5E (AREA 88 : “A Close Save” | Project by strobez (1:144))

My biggest Tintin related model... harder... it's either the Short Sunderland (The Seven Crystal Balls (Short Sunderland) | Project by strobez (1:72)) or the L-749 Constellation (Tintin in Tibet (L-749 Constellation) | Project by strobez (1:72)) .

Both of those will look like children's toys next to a couple of projects I've got planned though... 🙂

Alec K
I fully support you finding a logical reason to justifying your mistake 👍 😄. Done it meeself…

Greg Baker Autor
Thank god the propellers still actually spin! I still need to do a bit of masking/painting for the F-14 nose, but the C-130 is basically done. Just need to add a few small clear bits, a tiny bit of rigging for the antenna and then a coat of Future and some panel line washing and we'll be done.