Diamondback's Build Blog

[Diamondback]

It was suggested that I start a Build Blog, so here goes... some of these are gunsmithing WHIFs too rather than modeling, but I would ask that discussion of them be kept firmly to technical, craftsmanship and the concepts behind them and not touch cultural or political matters.

Discussion HERE, please: https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=54269.0

THE GRAVEYARD - Projects on long-term or indefinite hiatus

• "Blackout" - MH-53N Pave Low V prototype/Pave ASTER Advanced Stealth TEchnology Rotorcraft
• "Skywarp" and "Thundercracker" - NF-15SE(s) Advanced F-15 Technology Demonstrators
• "FrankenProwler II" - NEA-6B Carrier Strike/Electronic Warfare Testbed
• "Death Card" - Tomcat 21  Advanced Fleet Strike/Interceptor Testbed
• "Big Ugly" - WWII GI-inspired 7" Longslide M1911A1 .450SMC Pistol

CURRENTLY ACTIVE:

• "Operation Fast Forward" - YB-36 prototype c/n 42-13571, accelerated to Fall 1944 combat-test readiness
• "Athena" - 7" Longslide M1911A1 .450SMC Pistol
• [non-WHIF] (throttles cracked, barely so but MOVING!) New York Central 1927 Twentieth Century Limited

IN RESEARCH:

CONSIDERING - No plans but gathering ideas just in case

• SS Oregon - modern-day Q-ship/spy vessel disguised as tramp freighter, from Clive Cussler novels

[Diamondback]

Blackout" - MH-53N Pave Low V prototype/Pave ASTER Advanced Stealth TEchnology Rotorcraft

One of four from a former fiction forum where I was once a contributor many years ago, inspired by the "Pave Hulk" CH-53E/Pave Low hybrid on ARC and a conept Sikorsky had pitched as an interim V-22 stopgap installing the Pave Low package onto new-build Super Stallion airframes. Blackout would have been a CH-53E refitted with a Pave Low nose and a fourth engine, completely shaved of all possible external bulges and blades except the addition of four blister-mount M2 .50BMG's under the nose like the sides of a B-25 or B-26, and a pair of fuel/gun pods based on GPU-5 Pave Claws mounted on the batwings, along with advanced defensive lasers and acoustic, radar and optical cloaking systems.

[Diamondback]

"Skywarp" and "Thundercracker" - NF-15SE(s) Advanced F-15 Technology Demonstrators

What happens if the NF-15 ACTIVE knocks up a Silent Eagle? You get these two - ACTIVE front half, Silent Eagle back half, with the biggest damn engines that will fit and low-observable 3d-vectoring nozzles shoved up their backsides and the combined best features of the entire F-15 family stuffed into their guts.

[Diamondback]

"FrankenProwler II" - NEA-6B Carrier Strike/Electronic Warfare Testbed

EA-6B VEP + A-6F Intruder II + Centennial of Naval Aviation WWII 3-tone paint = this bird. Special thanks to Richard Dann, the officer behind the entire CONA "retro schemes" program and a modeller himself, for his help developing the 1944 scheme this bird will wear if work ever resumes.

[Diamondback]

"Death Card" - Tomcat 21  Advanced Fleet Strike/Interceptor Testbed

A little bit inspired by Vandy 1, a little bit Tomcat 21, a little bit Firefox. "What if the Iranians had reconditioned a bird too good for them to be allowed to keep and an enterprising cloak-and-dagger type with an engineering side-hustle ripped it off to use as his own testbed instead of destroying it?"

[Diamondback]

"Big Ugly" - WWII GI-inspired 7" Longslide M1911A1 .450SMC Pistol

My first gunsmithing project started in college. I wanted a hands-on lesson in how craftsmanship was done in my grandfather's pre-WWII master machinist days when hand work was cheap and machine time was expensive. (Lesson: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR - EVERY piece of a 1911 has to be hand-filed to fit every other.) The WHIF here was, "If my Uncle Frank had to go back to 1944 and hunt the worst the SS had to offer for Patton again, could I build a 1911 that not only would I consider it worthy of entrusting his life to but one that would actually redeem the big Colt in legendary 1911-hater Old Blood & Guts's eyes?"

At this time I was socially acquainted with a bunch of old-time gunwriters (if you were a shooter in the 1970s to 1990s you'd recognize some names) on one particular forum and our host was Fernando Coelho, inventor of the .450 SMC cartridge. My read is Patton's beef with the 1911 was he didn't think it powerful enough, so I figured a switch to the more powerful SMC (it's the same dimensions as an ACP round, but the case is much thicker so you can actually use more of its volume with modern powders - the XM1911 munition was designed for turn of the century "ball" powders that are much less efficient in their energy for volume than modern powder. And then I figured, as Emeril would say "Just To Kick It Up A Notch," I wonder what the .450 SMC would do with two inches more barrel? The reason you get so much muzzle flash with a 5" 1911 is that the powder is still burning as the bullet leaves the muzzle - by extending to a 7" longslide you gain 40% more combustion volume plus the extra front-end weight helps tame recoil. Catch is, this means a pistol as long as my forearm...

Big Ugly was sidelined by my girlfriend, who insisted that if I expected her to fight with the paperwork taking custody of my "magnum opus" the beginning and end of my student-gunsmith career the result had to be not just functional but beautiful, so Old Ugly's engineering data and gathered components were repurposed to build Athena in support of that requirement. Perhaps, should the climate change for another build to become feasible again, Big Ugly will get a second chance forming a His & Hers pair someday... but I'm not going to hold my breath on it. These beasts take a great deal of custom-cut parts, which ain't cheap... the slide alone on this monster costs more than some complete rifles.

[Diamondback]

"Operation Fast Forward" - YB-36 prototype c/n 42-13571, accelerated to Fall 1944 combat-test readiness

Fast Forward is something to square an old and big favor for an old buddy who likes trying to do "Luftwaffe 1946" stuff in Wings of War/Wings of Glory tabletop miniatures wargaming. Actually, there are two B-36s being built... before I tackle his I'm building a prototype of my own. And since I'm building a prototype, why not THE prototype of the B-36 as we know it?

WHAT-IF divergence from reality: In history, many of the improvement ideas between the XB and YB, and between later models, came from Convair chief test pilot Beryl Erickson. I'm thinking that Erickson has a "Doc Brown falls off toilet and hits his head" vision showing what the plane needs to be, and work on the XB gets put on hold with all efforts getting the YB ready in the form we know today, sidestepping the problems with our timeline's troublesome twin-20mm turrets by replacing each with a quad-.50 from the top front of one of LeMay's stripped B-29's, leaving twin-20s at nose and tail.

Project threads:
https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53801.0
https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=54149.0

[Diamondback]

"Athena" - 7" Longslide M1911A1 .450SMC Pistol

Athena actually started as an offshoot of Big Ugly... a writer friend asked me to spec out a pistol for one of her characters, giving me the requirements of "elegant, sophisticated, sinister and classic - a pistol befitting the kind of woman who an evening with her could with equal ease be the best night of your life or the last - or both." So, because I'm an efficiency-minded (okay, lazy) SOB who'd rather build on prior work than start from scratch wherever possible, I took the spec for Big Ugly and seized on the classic Tiffany Blue '57 Bel Air for retro inspiration, trading the white for pearl and swapping the Tiffany Blue for a dark metallic teal. A friend on a 1920s-'60s forum thought the concept and design study would've well fit a few female spies in literature of that time like Modesty Blaise...

So here's the part where Big Ugly goes to the Graveyard... my gal inserting her requirement that the thing be made 'artistic'. Since I'm more Henry Dreyfuss "function first, form follows after" (see the ten streamlined steamers Dreyfuss teamed up with Paul Kiefer to build for the 1938 20th Century Limited) that put me at a loss, so she suggested, "well why don't you ask yourself, 'WHAT IF one of the classic noir femme-fatales like Ava Gardner had retained you to build her a signature pistol combining great beauty with equal power?" Okay... I took that thought to one of my neighbors who's a shooter too--she actually makes earrings and stuff out of her shot-out brass b lopping the case-heads off and mounting Swarovski crystals in the primer pockets--and she suggested, "Why don't you dust off that design study you did for your writer friend? And you should call the big b*tch Athena, after the Greek goddess, because like her namesake she will be beautiful and the century's continuous refinement on the 1911 will make her wise beyond her years--but when fired her wrath will be a thing of terrible awe to behold."

Rough conceptual render for my writer friend, done as a six-inch Longslide:


Size comparison with a regular 5" 1911 (in this case Old Ugly, my old duty sidearm) before the slide was cut:


Fitting the mechanicals aside from misplaced trigger, not long before the accident that sidelined me:


Mocking up the general color palette as I slap a coat of paint on to preserve the components for storage - bare carbon steel rusts in a matter of days in the humid PacNW air:


And this is the intended final color:


Twenty years getting here... most of it on standby waiting for seven-inch slides and barrels to become available again and finding somebody willing to do the unique radius cut at the front of the slide for me. (A traditional Longslide is radiused all the way back to the frame, this is radiused only to the same depth from muzzle as a regular Government - to make a movie comparison, if you took the slide off one of the Silver Heat pistols used by Alec Baldwin in 1994's The Shadow and slapped it onto the frame of the 1984 Terminator's laser-sighted AMT Longslide. Technically Silver Heat is a LAR Grizzly not a true 1911, but you get the point...)

[Diamondback]

1927 New York Central 20th Century Limited

This non-WHIF train project is in memory of my grandmother, targeted to commemorate what would have been her 100th birthday - a former boardmember of the New York Central System Historical Society found a list of train equipment dated two days after my grandmother's birth so we're basing things on that. The good news is most of the components ARE commercially available *if* you can work the swap-meet circuit, the bad news is some ain't cheap - especially needing TWO locomotives of a type made only in brass.

• NYC class K-3 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive (one) - the really nasty part. Rare and expensive, long unobtainium. IF I can find a model, despite it being a month later I'm thinking about substituting "first of the thoroughbreds" J-1 4-6-4 #5200 because for some reason Grandma had really latched onto the NYC Hudsons and that one in particular seeing them highball down the Water Level Route as a girl. Either way, because of how badly underpowered model steamers are I'm going to have to either scratchbuild a whole new tender frame with a second motor and powertrain assembly or gut the RPO and turn it into a "stealth booster-unit". Obviously I'd rather keep it all in the locomotive so I only need to worry about adding one decoder board for DCC train control...
• Railway Post Office car (one) - Not as nasty but still a nuisance. A kit USED to be commercially available.
• Baggage-club car, Pullman plan 3951 (one) - Another only-in-brass pain in the *cough*. I have a contact who designs 3d-print models of Pullman cars as a hobby and I'm trying to persuade him to do one of these. Walthers made a mixed-media kit of thee cars when my parents were kids - wood majority with tinplate sides and plastic roof.
• 12 section-1 drawing-room sleeper, Pullman plan 3410 or 3410A (one) - Readily available from both the major makers of model "heavyweight" railcars. One just arrived and unless I find decals for an NYC-specific car it's ging in as "pool car" Red Oak. (A "pool car" was a Pullman sleeper not assigned to a specific road or train, available when an extra car was needed or to be a last-minute pinch hitter for cars down for maintenance.
• 14-section sleeper, Pullman plan 3958 (two) - Same story as the 12-1 above.
• Dining car (one) - Another sticky bit... the only kit I know of was an exclusive for New York Central System Historical Society, and it's a design that came online in 1930. Supposedly it and the "premiere" diners on the system in 1927 were both what's called NYC Specification 701 despite the 1930 cars being a foot longer, so I'll need to break out the NYC Passenger Car Diagram Book and compare them side by side to see if the NYCSHS kit works should it ever reenter production.
• 6-compartment 3-drawing room sleeper, Pullman plan 3523A (two) - Have to get the Atlas/Branchline 6-3 here; the version Walthers did is the later 3523C with a different arrangement of rooms and thus windows. One is unlettered Pullman Green, the other I'd really rather not strip and repaint if I can replace and rehome.
• 10-section 1-drawing room 2-compartment sleeper, Pullman plan 3585A (need FOUR) - both of the biggies made these but finding 'em's starting to get tricky.
• 3-compartment 2-drawing room observation, Pullman plan 3959 - Annoying but doable. Only Walthers made these and they've been discontinued for years. UPDATE: Pullman Green replacement on the way for the in-hand PRR red car

And then there's the fun part... ALL of these cars are modeled with air-conditioning, which I have to figure out how to remove the ducts on the roofs and rearrange the equipment underneath the frame into "as built" configuration because Pullman didn't start installing A/C on railcars until 1932... a full five years after my target. And that's not even getting into the nightmare of finding metallic-gold car name decals in the right font... hopefully I have enough on the way with enough of the right word-salad to piece together two correct NYC car numbers and eleven correct Pullman names. My original goal was to model Central Park, the only surviving heavyweight Twentieth Century Limited in as-built configuration, but if I switch to Central City built at the same time for TCL service I can just cut that car-name out of the decal sheet with no loathsome splicing.

[Diamondback]

Joel Chandler Harris is going to be stripped of its PRR Tuscan Red and repainted Pullman Green to become Central City or Central Park; Glen Echo will also get a full rename - I misremembered, the real Glen Echo was a 3523C (same numbers and types of rooms, different arrangement of them and thus their windows in the carbody.

Unless I find Pullman Green with gold lettering replacements that only need name changes first. (Update: an unlettered Pullman Green 3523A 6-3 just arrived and a similar 3959 obs on the way.)

Harris is ready to roll straight from the box; Glen Echo is more like a full model kit with an astounding array of tiny little parts to assemble. Only the underframe/ends, interior floor with the seats in the sleeping compartments and sides are here; too many other things looked ready to fall off the sprues.

[Diamondback]

UPDATE: "Party Like It's 1927" is picking up steam and slowly starting out of the station...
LOCOMOTIVE - Old Alco Models brass NYC K-3q 4-6-2. Northwest Short Line is working with me to try to make this "a new locomotive wearing the shell of an old."
RAILWAY POST OFFICE - Walthers Trainline. Needs a Chop-N-Swap where I split the car sides into three pieces then swap the middle from each side to the other. Am writing an article about this for the NYCS Historical Society magazine and if they opt out another model-RR mag has expressed interest.[/b]
CLUB CAR - old Walthers craftsman "insurance policy." Would prefer something modern rather than this three-feet-too-short old wood-and-tinplate relic, so it's "last in line" for build.
12-1 SLEEPER - Have in hand, correct Pullman Green and unlettered.
4x 10-1-2 SLEEPERS - These are all going to need de- and re-lettering to change names.
2x 14-section SLEEPERS - Same work needed as the 10-1-2's.
DINER - an ongoing problem. Very few RR's ever shared dining car designs, and the only kits ever made of NYC diners are all the two designs after the one I need.
2x 6-3 SLEEPERS - One Pullman Green unlettered and one Undecorated in hand, with plenty of matching Pullman Green paint custom mixed. Still wish I could find the ONE specifically 20th Century Ltd 6-3 made at less than scalper prices, since nobody makes decals for the "Painter/Composer/Writer" group of these cars.
OBS -  Pullman Green in-hand. Previous "insurance" Walthers PRR Joel Chandler Harris has been released for sale.
AGGREGATED: 13 out of 14 either Work Ready, Awaiting Parts or Insurance Policy. 2 Spares available for surplus.

Other problems: All 12 "main" cars will need roof replacements to do away with the "too new" air-conditioning. A/C wasn't a thing on trains until about 1934. I've decided that since Bronze Gold lettering decals tend to deteriorate quickly, barring a miracle I'll just live with the later "Dulux Gold" as presently applied.

[Diamondback]

And now all that's left on Athena before First Fire is to cut 1/16" off a stop on the rear of the trigger, then reassemble and get her greased up - after a screwup my first try at filing a safety to fit, the replacement fits tight and works right, lets the hammer fall when it's supposed to and doesn't when it's not.

Comparison pic with a standard 5" Government Model, Old Ugly freshly retrieved from police property room where it was being stored after the accident...

[Diamondback]

Updated with the last two arrivals for the Century - with a "Thin It Out" being imposed by my mother's doctor because she thinks anyone who has hobbies or owns stuff is a hoarder combined with declining finances, declining health and a need to look ahead to the day when I must sell the house, aside from 1/200 planes and small ships for Wings it's looking like the Century will be the last major modeling project I take on and finish.

To the point that I'm starting to try to put out feelers in what's left of the local hobby scene and see if anyone's interested in heling turn the stash into cash.

[Diamondback]

Just found a deal on an Alco Models K-3q Pacific locomotive - these would have been the latest in New York Central passenger haulers as of January 1927, four-year-old steamers with the first of the iconic NYC Hudsons that replaced them still a month into the future.

Catch is, I'll need to replace the driveline and learn how to paint on brass...

[Diamondback]

And the loco just arrived! This Alco-Brooks builder's photo from the New York Central System Historical Society shows the goal - this photo was as NYC 3267 rolled out of the works about the time my grandfather was born, adding another little bit of family symbolism to the project.


And this is what I have to work with...




In addition to the known powertrain issue, I have to source and mount my own couplers and their draft-gear mounting boxes. All the way down to the drilling-and-tapping for the mounting screws.