No Sleep Til Sufa

This is one of the few instances where I am happy that I have not been able to find full time work around here. This thing has absolutely consumed every waking hour over the last few days. I have learned a trick to speed things up though. I read on the packaging for my kneadatite that if you have it under a warm lamp it speeds up the curing process and if you freeze it it stops the curing process. So now any time I make something and don't feel like waiting, I toss the model and or part I made into the toaster oven, set it to convection, and have the temperature setting set to about 100°F to 120°F. After 10-20 minutes in the toaster oven, the part is ready to be sanded, cut, drilled, fed to my cat, whatever and since the melting point of pewter is around 450°F there is no chance of anything melting. I would obviously not recommend this for plastic miniatures since even a lamp gets hot enough to melt it but this is a non-issue for me since everything GHQ makes is pewter or whatever white metals they use.

Anyway I did some more fine sanding to the plane and trimmed up the nose part just a little bit. I stuck on the AIM-9 missiles and the GBU-16 LGBs and that's when I realized that trying to fit a pair of Amraam-120s in might be folley. GHQs ordnance is kind of chunky so there isn't much space under the wings to fit the 4th hardpoint. Unfortunate but I might just have to scrap the idea of adding Amraam-120s or HARMs to this model.

The ordnance also comes with some Mk82 dumb bombs in clusters of 3. I had no intention of using these so I cut the bombs off of the pylon in order to use the pylon to attach  the drop tanks. As I tossed the scrap metal aside I realized that I had cut off one perfect bomb from each pylon. I had a eureka moment and realized that these would be useful. I cut the tails off and glued them to either side of the engine intake. BAM. Instant optics. TAG and whatever the other one is. Looks pretty cool if you ask me.

On to the drop tanks themselves! I took more scrap metal and glued two nails to it. I then coated the nails in the lubricant I've been using, grapeseed oil I happened to have already for cooking, and then I stuck kneadatite on them. I coated my fingers in oil and gently massaged the putty into the shape I needed. After baking the drop tanks for 20 minutes they were ready to be sanded. One turned out perfectly. The other looked like it had been hit by a bus. I pitched the shitty one and did some fine sanding on the good one which you can see in the pics below. Rather than attempt to make another perfect one, I think I am going to make a mold of it and cast two drop tanks from the mold instead. I havn't decided whether I will cast them in kneadatite or two part casting resin but both are an option for me. In retrospect maybe I should have made molds of all the parts I made for this plane? I doubt I'll ever want to make another one again unless I had the parts readily available.