Quest Force 5 build - may or may not be much followed up

Hey Y'all;

Working on a Quest Force 5 purchased a couple years ago. Build thread here - may or may not be much followed up. Sort of related to that, it seems the camera has been misplaced

Anyway, almost done with nose cone even though the fins aren't even on the body tube yet!
Paint job will be pseudo USAF 1950's natural metal over black night bomber style. Well, silver over dark metallic grey in this case. Will also have Air Defense Command arctic hi vis fluorescent red panels on top of wings and fuselage.

Anyway, here's the nose cone so far. A mix of plastic model airplane, model train lettering, and model Semi tractor decals. Red stripes, green anti glare, and a different tone of silver on side are Microscale Trim Film solid color decal material.
And with the photo discovered the ZZ is upside down. Miss Mizzou came about since I live in the region of Columbia MO where MU is: a few other important colleges are in this region too.


These pics were posted on Farce Book it wanted me to tag the semi cab art gal.
Do I know her?
Should I want to?
Eventually came up with a name for her, Irene Candace.

And, in a bit of humor, is interesting to have a bomber nose art gal with name Irene Candace because of meaning of names:
Irene: "From Greek Ειρηνη (Eirene), derived from a word meaning "peace"."
Candace: "From the hereditary title of the queens of Ethiopia, as mentioned in Acts in the New Testament. It is apparently derived from Cushitic kdke meaning "queen mother". "
Which makes the space bomber mascot The Queen of Peace :lol:
And for short can call her I. Candy.
Well, it amuses me.

Ahh, found camera
Decided to try something on this one, paint tube before attaching fins: mostly because filled, sanded and primed before remembering that, oh, fins need to be glued to bare tube, not paint. So, have marked locations, sanded through primer and have taped them off for spraying body color later today. Am also finishing fins off rocket.
We shall see if this works.
Sure hope that one fin which looks like a vertical stabilizer & rudder is centered.

modeltrains said:

Hey Y'all;

... Irene: "From Greek Ειρηνη (Eirene), derived from a word meaning "peace"."
Candace: "From the hereditary title of the queens of Ethiopia, as mentioned in Acts in the New Testament. It is apparently derived from Cushitic kdke meaning "queen mother". "
Which makes the space bomber mascot The Queen of Peace :lol: ...

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Actually, it kinda fits. Remember the old SAC motto?

No, didn't remember that. Could it have it something to do with coming from a USN family line?

The other Force 5 done a few years back is in a fanciful Navy paint scheme.
Squadron insignia is from a torpedo plane from Italy.
And, no, I can't offer a scientific explanation for painting the nose cones copper.
Pearlescent overcoat came out a bit yellowish on bottom, especially after end which gives it a re-entry weathering look, so I'm okay with that.

Is official, the lady has a name. Also overlaid upside down ZZ with right side up this time.


Lettering is from model train decals; chose these because MU's colors are black and gold.

Cookie the Dog's Owner said:

Actually, it kinda fits. Remember the old SAC motto?

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I like the bone handled revolver he's carrying. Kind of wild west-ish.

qquake2k said:

That looks great! I love all the detail!

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Aw, thanks! The "Navy" one has had some more done to it since those pics a couple years ago, gap in black leading edge has been painted in, most of black is Microscale decal trim film, sooo much easier to get straight edges. Has alos had NAVY added to wings and a short anti glare panel in fron to f cockpit. Eeek , my hands have been having coordnation issues all day, such is my health.

And calling the rockets 1/144 scale wich makes them a bit longer than a B-52 and allows for a crew of several. Have a fantasy about building a cockpit inside the nose cone but jolt of ejection would probably knock everything loose and blow out the windshield.

Okay, gotta run and do errands. Then, afternoon weather looks good for spray painting outdoors. Yea.

This is my fav. rocket and super impressed so far ,let's see more!

Sorry to hear Quest discontinued this rocket last year.

Well, okay, ya pushed me in to it, I'll make the sacrifice and show more.
Estes Fusion X-25 in background is going to be finished to look like an escort fighter. Has balsa nose cone so I made a little balsa canopy styled same as Force 5's to attach. The Navy Force 5 is going to have an Estes Equinox for its escort fighter.
Grey stripe under Air Force is bare primer where a bit of sanding will be done and a 1/8 x 1/8, about 2 inch long balsa bump to imply fold out canards for atmospheric use will be placed.
The 2 darker tones on hull/fuselage/body tube are Microscale trim film in silver and stainless steel.
Dark patch above end of side pod is gun metal, which serendipitously is a dead on match for Krylon color used on bottom.

And it is still finless - more sanding and priming required.

Okay, here we go, picture story, sort of, on how decals for windows were made.



Had a who knows how old sheet of Microscale plain clear decal film.
Here's how it got from there to window representations.
1. Per instructions, painted stripe of it with their liquid decal film before painting color on.
2. Masked sheet with blue tape, first stuck to glass to get a bit if the sticky off.
3. Taped sheet to board.
4. Sprayed with car paint.
5. After paint dried, removed masking & coated over paint with liquid decal film.
6. After that dried, drew ellipses on back of decal paper then cut out and applied.
7. Portholes were cut with punch seen on right.
Briefly thought about putting blue windows on a sheet of black the cutting close so windows would have an outline - decided more work than I wanted to do. Contributing to that decision was that paint came out much more translucent than expected for auto paint.

The big gambles on this were 1. would a 1998, or so, decal sheet still be good? 2. would the blue tape pull the fill off the carrier paper?

Like that guy on the BBC show Connections used to say, "And so, there you have it."

That's a pretty cool build. Love the colors/paint.

I'm dense and I didn't understand that bit above. Not that it matters.

I just found this build of yours ( I have not been visiting here as often as i would like) and think this is a very fine looking kit....nice work !

I did not realize this kit is OOP ,that too bad ,I hope I can get one for my collection.

Take care


Paul T

foamy said:

I'm dense and I didn't understand that bit above.

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Tell ya what, went back and edited to break up that paragraph in to a list of numbered steps, that should help everyone.

sodmeister said:

I did not realize this kit is OOP

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I hadn't either until someone on here said that. And thanks for the compliment. Am having a blast with the thing.
Huh, was that a pun?

modeltrains said:

No, didn't remember that. Could it have it something to do with coming from a USN family line?

The other Force 5 done a few years back is in a fanciful Navy paint scheme.
Squadron insignia is from a torpedo plane from Italy.
And, no, I can't offer a scientific explanation for painting the nose cones copper.
Pearlescent overcoat came out a bit yellowish on bottom, especially after end which gives it a re-entry weathering look, so I'm okay with that.

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I surely would like to copy this one to the gallery!

JAL3 said:

I surely would like to copy this one to the gallery!

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Okay by me, do it.