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Finish with this one.
Now to complete final on Little willy..
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My knee replacement is getting better. I can put on my pants without sitting down for the first time in 15 years, maybe twenty years. I’m losing interest in model building as I’m up to doing other things. I’ll have to force myself to finish it. I should be good to go bicycling wise by February. It’s strange not having to go down steps backwards. I sometimes go down backwards or hop down because I forget it’s better now. I’m throwing away my Donjoy knee brace. I’ve had other similar knee braces for 44 years. Seven more days of quarantine from my Covid exposure when I was at PT.
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My molding stuff is very late from Amazon. It won’t be here until early December. The plan was to make the top of the model engine into a V 8 by molding the top. The Rommel’s Rod is painted, which was no easy task for an old guy with big time shakes. I attach the model parts to my table. By not holding it eliminates half the shaking. I have a set of very fine detail brushes. I hold the brush over small stuff like skeleton eyes or goggle lenses and watch the shake. When it looks like it’s going to shake over the spot that needs paint I quickly dab, guessing the shake will have the brush in the right place. My shaking is so bad that it takes a long time to put a screwdriver in place, and then it shakes out right away. I can’t sight in my rifle, others do it for me, good enough. To shoot a deer I use the method I learned in the US Army for a quick off-hand shot. Start at the hoof, pull the gun quickly up to the heart, stop and immediately jerk off the round. None of this holding your breath or gently squeezing the trigger until the shot is a surprise. Gotta adapt. This plastic model is probably the fourth one I ever built. I remember buying a plastic plane when plastic models first came out. I put loads of glue all over the seams and melted finger prints into the plastic. I was done in a half hour and you could see the seams. I never cared for plastic models and never learned to make them properly. I think I may finish in some fashion by December 15. I might have to ditch the hot Rod engine though. Progress, I moved my construction place from the bed to a TV Table and chair beside the bed.
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These bulsa models are fragile. They can break during assembly. The nose was damaged fitting the front cowel. There rear landing gear that came with the model was a bulsa circle. That’s crazy, it breaks from the weight of the model. I use a popsicle stick and a wheel from a matchbox car. I got several of these cars cheap from a kid level big circular bin at the grocery store. Perfect wheel donors.
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Hey @KJV , will the Twins make another appearance? I see a pair of pick-ups...
 
I’m having problems. My molding stuff from Amazon might be lost. I can reorder or get a refund. Tracking shows it arrived in Escanaba (65 miles away) yesterday so I’m going to wait to see if it gets here this week. I ordered a small plastic skeleton for the pilot but now that’s lathe. It won’t be here until January 22. I got some very cheap plastic toy soldiers at the dollar store. I cut groves in the legs and head to help bend one in a sitting position and cut away the foot base and the rifle. I then painted it. He looks Chinese. I made a template from the plans and used a paint stir stick to cut out the prop. A piece of bulsa is sandwiched between the heavy birch stir sticks amd will be used to cut and sand the bulsa prop blades so they are all uniform.
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My knee replacement is getting better. I can put on my pants without sitting down for the first time in 15 years, maybe twenty years. I’m losing interest in model building as I’m up to doing other things. I’ll have to force myself to finish it. I should be good to go bicycling wise by February. It’s strange not having to go down steps backwards. I sometimes go down backwards or hop down because I forget it’s better now. I’m throwing away my Donjoy knee brace. I’ve had other similar knee braces for 44 years. Seven more days of quarantine from my Covid exposure when I was at PT.View attachment 144730
Huge congrats on the new knee. Both of knees were wrecked at a young age, then years of strongman competitions forced me to get my knee replaced at age 37 which was a little less than two years ago and it changed my whole life. I was at the point that I couldn’t bike anymore either. This new knee should give you a new lease on life. Best wishes
 
Boiling water soak on the bulsa prop blades, clamped to the TV table for the fan twists and then dried. Hopefully the twists will stay, like they did on my previous model. I started on the paper mache covering using watered down white glue and shiny paper from an old magazine. It will take rougher handling and survive a drop. The wheel struts and the wing dihedral are reinforced under the bulsa sheet covering with pieces cut from a tin can.
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My molding stuff finally came yesterday so I made my valve covers. I was going to use a seat from the plastic model to make one for the plane but I lost it. I used spray cooking oil for a mold release agent. That worked great. The molding medium is 5 minute epoxy.
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I don't have any weird caracature stuff to build, but I have a Citroen 2CV kit, and might be able to find some spare parts to modify it. Does that count?
 

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