Updated Dog House

I realized 2 days ago that the dog house I built was not large enough so I added a 1.5mm strip of styrene to the side and redid the supporting structure.

Radar

Having stopped modelling for a week due to a summer trip to Cuba I came back and continued where I left off building the photo-etched radar for the tower I build back on August 5th.

Radar Tower

Using photo-etched after market parts I built the radar tower to be eventually installed onto the dog house structure of the island. The fence on the top was particular challenging and ended up doing it twice.

Dog House

While the kit has a nice island structure it of course is not accurate to the Midway I visited. In the very early 80’s the island was extended with what was nick named the dog house. I used various types of styrene sheets to reproduce this structure using reference photos I had taken ok my trip to San Diego.

Yellow E

Depending on the reference photos the Midway has a yellow E painted on its deck during the 80’s. The style of the E appears to change slightly every time the deck was repainted which initially was a bit of a headache as to how I should paint it… In the end I chose a thicker style which was easier to mask using Tamiya tape. I really like how this turned out and am glad that the letter was simple to mask and paint.

Redoing the V Line for a 4th Time

My third attempt at creating the V line still did not satisfy me and despite starting to become a bit sick of this part of the project I decided to once again redo them! So for my fourth attempt at creating the V lines plus the runway security lines I decided to return to my custom printed decal sheet but this time to cut them with my exacto with more precision to get very straight lines. The results look good so this will be it, finally!  

Redoing the V Line for a 3rd Time

After examining the results of the V line in decal form I was not satisfied in how it came out and decided to remove them using masking tape. I then proceeded in masking and restarting the paint job while also starting to paint the security line along the runway. Hopefully this third attempt will be much better than the previous ones...

Redoing the V Line for a 2nd Time

After noticing on some Midway reference photos that the V lines and runway security lines are red/white dashes I decided to redo the V lines using white decal printer paper. I used Adobe Photoshop to create a red/white dashes that are 1mm wide and each dash it 3.3mm long. To remove the existing white V lines I opened an old can of Tamiya TS-48 Gunship Grey spray paint using a can opener (found a quick how to on YouTube) to extract its contents as I could not use it to spray such a small area without risking damaging the surrounding areas and a bottled version does not exist of this color.

Completed the Remaining Elevator Warning Markings

Completed installing the remaining elevator warning decals tonight along with the application of Micro Sol Setting Solution.

Elevator Warning Markings

Added to the elevator that will be in the low position warning marking decals. Tested a new technique by applying Micro Sol Setting Solution once the decals have been applied to soften the decal and make sure it follows the surface of the plastic properly.