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The Mother Child ReUnion

I had recently finished the 1/72 XF-85 “Goblin”, by PK, and was wondering how I would display this little plane, and convey to those unfamiliar with it how it came to be.

I had actually posted a photo in the Forums, while working on the “Goblin”, and someone had remarked “Is that a real or ‘what if’ aircraft?” This prompted me to go ahead with a larger project, the Mother Child Reunion, to show the concept and reason for its existence. I freely admit, having long been a fan of this aircraft, that it may well have been the inspiration for the ‘Egg Plane’ models.

This was one of those “projects” where, you work on a particular component until you get the shakes, then you that a break. You then get nervous, because you want to see how things are going to turn out so you go back to work on it. Every step in the process is another chance to really screw it up.

First The “Child” The XF-85 “Goblin” kit by KP

The “Goblin” was a fairly straightforward build. Not a lot of parts, but some nice “extras”. The PE included was frankly wasted on me, as I don’t have the proper tools to work with it, and I don’t do enough PE to justify getting the proper tools. The kit was finely molded and detailed, but being a “short run” with no locator pins, it required some filling, filing, and fitting.

As this was to be a Natural Metal Finish I was concerned that worked areas not stand out. I’d done several NMF’s in the past, but none that required much rework. Some experimentation was in order. As you can see in some of the photos, particularly those showing the area aft of the cockpit, after fitting was complete I buffed the areas with SnF Metalizer Powder. The purpose was two fold, one to show if additional work was needed, and two to provide a smooth metalized underlayment.
(If you think you have gotten an area really smooth, try polishing it with Metalizer Powder, you’ll find out if it’s smooth or not.)

Note to Self: Go back to painting Camo schemes, NMF shows EVERYTHING. Unfortunately I don’t see it happening, as most of my upcoming projects are NMF, just can’t seem to get away from them.