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A beautiful nightmare! After a disastrous glas shell crash and the truth about my error of wrong decal settings (see WIP thread http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234937136-mirage-iii-cz;-148-hobbyboss/page-4 ) I proudly presents my nightmare Mirage! Enjoy and feel free for criticism!

I'd reached a bit of a block when I lost the canopy windscreen for my Revell Gannet so I threw this wee beastie together quickly to stop the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It went together with a little filing and some filler but not much. It wasn't a proper build, like I said, just a quickie to save my anguish. By the way, whilst I was raiding the (50 kit) stash for a quickie to build, this was all I could find. My comment to the wife of "I need a bigger stash" was met with howls of derision and "Why don't you just finish some of those on the Shelf of Shame!" She just doesn't get it does she? I need a bigger stash and the Shelf of Shame is there because I need a bigger stash! I need more kits to build whilst I contemplate the Shelf of Shame and what I'm going to do about it. I'm sure you lot will understand.

Accurate Miniatures’ Avengers, along with their SBD Dauntless and F3F series, are among the best 1/48 scale aircraft kits ever produced. Everything – from surface and interior detail to fit of the parts – is about as good as it gets in injected molded plastic. The fact that almost no aftermarket parts were made for these kits is a testament to how good they were out of the box. The only drawback to the Avenger kits were the instructions – the drawings were crudely done and hard to follow, but this was rectified in the SBD and F3F kits. Aside from some True Details photo-etched seatbelts and an antenna wire, this kit was an out-of-the-box build, including decals. I used no filler – just careful assembly and seam sanding resulted in a near-perfect fit of the main airframe parts. I did find that the lower dorsal gunner’s clear part didn’t fit very well, but that’s probably as much my fault as the kit’s. The rudder is a seperate piece, so I installed it offset to the left for a more candid appearance. I armed my TBF with a standard anti-submarine load of two 500-lb. general purpose bombs and two aerial depth charges. I also cut out and dropped the flaps. For the Atlantic anti-submarine paint scheme, I used Model Master Dark Gull Grey and Floquil Reefer White enamels. (I really hate that Floquil is now out of business – Reefer White was the BEST!) I used kit decals to depict a TBF-1C from VC-55, deployed aboard USS Block Island in the North Atlantic during the summer of 1944.

Just finished building the Revell 1-144 Eurofigter Typhoon. A nice wee kit that went together well. The panel lines are a bit too deep as the Typhoon seems to be quite a smooth aircraft. I still haven't decided whether to leave the canopy open or closed. Hope you like it. Here's the cockpit first: Bang Seat with straps from foil (I think) The kit had no ASRAAMs so I scratched some from sprue and styrene and added bands from printer coloured decal paper. Body pics With some N Scale figgies This is the three 1-144 kits I've built so far: Revell Typhoon, Revell Tornado and Airco De Havilland DH-2 (fully rigged too - very proud of that one). I must admit that (to my great surprise) I'm really enjoying building in this scale.

My latest build for the year is the Hasegawa 1/48th CF-188A Hornet which needs no introduction. It's a great kit with a few fiddly areas to deal with but builds into a great looking aircraft. Like most of us I guess, I have seen many aircraft over the years that were always destined to be modeled by me soon. Well this is one but it's taken 21 years to finally come to fruition and if I keep going at this rate I may as well not bother buying decals for anything after 1999, forget the post millenium, I'll never reach it in modelling terms. I'm glad that I got around to it though as it was a great looking CF-188A and worthy of taking on the challenge. I added the Aires F/A-18A cockpit set and exhausts, some metal AOA probes, Royale Resins beautifully cast wheels and, of course, the Leading Edge 'Tiger Scheme 92' decals. All painting was achieved using Xtracrylix, Humbrol and Valejo acrylics with Future gloss coats and Xtracrylix Matt to finish. Weathering was Florymodels Dark Dirt and Mig Productions Dark Wash. The highlight for me was getting to the end of 10-11 hours of decals with a successful result because it took a fair amount of concentration to get those on, as anyone who has done a tiger scheme would testify. Enough waffle, onto some pictures: - Apologies for the number of pictures but, as usual, I couldn't decide which ones to leave out. Comments and critique also welcome, hope you like it, Pete

Just finished these 2. Hasegawa 1/72 P-51D's finished as 352nd FG a/c. Hope you like.

Hello All, Here's my Academy Airacobra. More or less out of the box, except: * Open out nose wheel fork * Box in nose wheel well * Add a nose weight * Replace moulded in fuselage guns * Foil and wire belts and buckles * Move rudder * Vac-form front half of canopy after unfortunate accident! Humbrol 155 over Hu34+Hu27 with dirtied Hu34 white bits. Weathering was by drybrushing lighter shades, followed by acrylic brown/grey wash. It's a really nice kit with no problems that I didn't create for myself... Thanks for looking, Adrian

Dear Fellow Modellers Touch of nice weather gave me a chance to take some more photos of my 1/72 Trumpy Wimpy. Wanted to make the shots look like you were looking up at the real thing... A close up of the Bristol Pegasus Can't get this photo the right way round sorry! Finally an overhead view Hope you like it Regards to all Andrew

I thought it may be an idea to consolidate all the shop status information in one place as the Modelzone page doesn't show closing dates (here; http://image2.e-msg.co.uk/modelzone/store_locator.html ) I'll try and keep it up to date an new intel arrives; Basingstoke: Unit 56 Festival Place, Hampshire, RG21 7BF CLOSES 12/9 Birmingham: S26 Martineau Place, 89/90 Bull St, Birmingham, West Midlands, B4 7AA Brighton: 37 West St, Brighton, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 2RE Bristol: The Galleries, Unit BG22 Broadmead Gallery, Bristol, Avon, BS1 3XB CLOSED 29/8 Bromley: 272 The Glades Shopping Centre, High St, Bromley, Kent, BR1 1DN Cambridge: 15 Fitzroy St, Cambridgeshire, CB1 1ER Chester: 71-73 Bridge St Row East, Cheshire, CH1 1NW Crawley: Unit 97, County Mall Shopping Centre, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 1FD CLOSED 29/8 Croydon: Unit 31 Centrale Shopping Centre, North End, Croydon, Surrey, CR0 1TY Derby: Level 1 South Mall, Shopping Centre, Westfield, Derby,DE1 2PG Eastbourne: 68 Seaside Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN21 3PD Gateshead: 75 Russell Way, Metro Centre, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, NE11 9XX Glasgow: Unit 69/70, St. Enoch Centre, St, Enoch Square, Glasgow, G1 4BW Harrogate: Unit 30 Victoria Centre, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG1 1AE Kingston: 30/32 Eden St, Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey, KT1 1EP Lakeside: Unit 96 Lakeside Shopping Centre, Thurrock, Essex, RM20 2ZG London - Stratford: Unit SU0061, Westfield Stratford City, 2 Stratford Place, Stratford, London, E20 1EJ CLOSED 29/8 Manchester: 209 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3NW CLOSED 29/8 Merry Hill: 59 Upper Mall, Merry Hill Centre, Dudley, DY5 1SR CLOSED 29/8 Milton Keynes: 17 Acorn Walk, The Centre : MK, Milton Keynes, MK9 3AD Newcastle: 129 Grainger St, Newcastle, NE1 5AE Norwich: 54/55 Castle Mall, Norwich, Norfolk, NR1 3DD CLOSED 29/8 Nottingham: 149 Upper Boardwalk, Broadmarsh Centre, Nottingham, NG1 7LQ CLOSED 29/8 Plymouth: 22 Frankfort Gate, City Centre, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 1QD CLOSED 29/8 Portsmouth: 105D Commercial Road, Portsmouth, Hampshire,PO1 1BQ CLOSED 29/8 Reading: Unit 65/66, Broad St Mall, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 7QE Rochester: The Signal Box, 382-386 High Street, Rochester, Kent, ME1 1DJ CLOSES 12/9 Southampton: 85 Above Bar St, Southampton, Hampshire, SO14 7FG CLOSED 29/8 Hope this helps people plan visits and avoid unnecessary journeys and/or upset! EDIT: Rochester Signal Box added (Missed off MZ list at administrators) this shop closes earlier than the rest which Deloitte WILL be closing on the 14/9.

OK diorama might be a bit grand for it but you know what I mean. Here is the link to my build thread: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234943450-148-revell-natter/page-1 I think that says it all so will just put the pictures here: I rotated that one in photobucket but it has not translated here for some reason, perhaps someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong. Oh, Now its magically the right way round - more computer spookyness. Well that's it - es todos. I hope you liked. Nigel

This is the tiny little 1:144 Dragon Rapide from Aeroclub in AA colours. It's a little jewel of a kit, injection moulded with etched details like struts and propellers. Constuction was fairly simple - it's the colour scheme that complicates things! I assembled all the plastic parts. including both wings but not the struts, then painted it yellow. A lot of masking later, it was sprayed black to give the basic scheme. Note that this version does not have the extra cabin windows on both sides behind the wing, you'll need to remove them from the decal sheet. I toned my windows down a touch with paynes grey oil paint thinned down, to darken the windows a little. Rigging is stretched sprue. Not very big! 35 years between first flights. You can still fly on one of these aircraft, but not the other! Cheers John

Hi gang, I'm not getting much time at the old modelling bench at the mo' so my big projects are on hold. The itch is still there though so I'm trying to satisfy it by building less involved models. This one resulted from a trip to the NAM and an unsuccessful search for a little Tiger Moth. I saw this Fury on the shelf for a reasonable £5:99 and since it fits in with my own "Icons of British aviation through the eras" theme I plumped for it. The kit was reasonable for the money. The usual Revell exploded view instructions, basic detail with a neat pilot figure and a single decal option. Fit was ok in some places, less so in others. One area that could be improved was the prop and spinner. The way the kit part is molded leaves it mishapen around the circumference of the spinner. Although it would have made the rigging easier I decided not to shell out for EZ line. Instead I rigged the model using fishing line threaded through loops of wire glued into the wings and fuselage. Some lines were ok, others less so... For the paint I used Alclad II polished aluminium for the metal areas but my airbrush gave out half way through so I had to finish it off with buffable Humbrol metalcote for the front cowling and radiator. The linen is brush painted Citadel Miniatures Mistril silver and the yellow is also Games Workshop acrylic over a white undercoat. I used floor polish to get a gloss coat before decalling. The kit decals are tough and reasonably thin although the blue of the roundels looks somewhat light to me. They seem to have settled down neatly over the surface detail though. MicroSol or Set was used sparingly in places just to ease the process. I've enjoyed this build and think it represents good value for money. The surface detail is sensible and the finished article resembles a Fury to my eyes. Perhaps I'll look for an SE5a for my next subject or perhaps a Sopwith Camel in 1/72nd scale All comments or criticism welcome. Edit* I've just noticed that in my haste to get out in the sunshine for the photography session I've completely forgotten to fix the tail skid. I'll get it done tomorrow.

Hi all, here is my hawk. Hope you like it.

Hobby Boss Corsair Mk V, HMS Implacable, Operation Olympic, late 1945: regards, Martin

finally gaining its original size

While building this project i was following a couple of other Alley Cat Bf109 builds on other forums and both came to an abrupt halt around the same point of construction ,that being attaching the nose to the fuselage to the wings. When i got to this stage i decided to go with a mix of the other methods and it worked for me . I recon it must have taken over 50 dry fits and many nights of sanding and cutting. Love the process of seeing the parts slowly come together and trying to work out which areas to trim. Here is my Messerschmitt Bf109B-1 in factory fresh finish

G'day David, Thanks for the heads up. I will have to have a look at my wings and see what shape they are in (no pun intended!) G'day Rich, I have been watching yours and other people's builds and they are all stunning. I think mine will be the stripey D-Day machine. I have basically been cherry picking bits from everyone else's builds, after all, that isn't one of the reasons we all come here? What colours (brand) are you using on your build, I lie the look of the green especially, olive drab? I have taken some better pics of the innards, Front office A quick dry fit to make sure everything will fit, The fit of all the internals is good, but you do need to make sure the edges of all the sub assemblies (in particular the gun turret) line up and that can be a little fiddly. I think the gun turret is designed to be dropped into place after the fuselage is closed. This would make masking and painting much simpler but the tapered fuselage opening suggest that this may not be possible? The bit that makes it go forwards, The bit which goes around the bit that makes it go forwards, The fit of the three piece engine cowl was superb. I had to restore the fastener detail at the lower centre seam as this was mostly sanded away, but otherwise the fit was almost flawless. The cowl ring was dropped into place and a bead of Tamiya extra thin cement run around the edge. Once dry, I simply buffed with a nail buffer and the results are as you see them, cheers, Pappy

This is amazing......... http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/30/mars-eclipse_n_3841449.html?ncid=webmail18 Graham

Techno trousers! Ex NASA!

Decals are on, it's starting to look like Pavlov's bird! Still need to slice/poke the decals and apply more solvent, but at least it's pretty now! Once the decals are settled, I can do an oil wash and some weathering so I can get a flat coat on this thing so it won't look like a toy anymore

After quite a long break from modelling I thought I'd better post some pic's of my Hawk that was finished in Febuary, I lost interest and life got in the way. Anyway for those that are interested heres the WIP And the finished article... Cheers Rich

That is about as good as it gets.

Great work there

Lovely kit and well built (got an unbuilt one in the loft but just put my foot through the ceiling so its staying there!!) cool palm trees a diorama always puts finished models in context superb effort

Your Bearcat is just superb - the weathered finish is among the very best I've ever seen. Bravo, Sir!

Done the Frankenfire bit: Aeroclub Seaf.XVII conversion fuselage,radiators and main u/c, Airfix Spit Vb wing,Matchbox tailplanes, Pegasus Spitful spinner and prop blades. I know,I ought to change the wheels for three spokes to be correct on SX336.

Yes clear is just a varnish, it can gloss up the finish and act a protective film over the paint, that is if you use the gloss one as opposed to the matt or satin, gets confusing doesn't it

Good work. Nice to see the atlantic scheme!

Awesome work, cracking build Si

WOW! Nice one mate... Looks great!

fantastic build the paint looks great and detailing , and perfect weathering looks great

Beautiful modelling! Put it in a diorama setting, take a low angle photo with a good depth of field and it could pass for the real thing. Impressed, and inspired… Kind regards, Joachim

I know id be burnt at the stake for this but I like your choice of markings!

lovely lovely work, that aircraft was made for that colour scheme.

Can't see the picture, but did you shake the can and keep shaking it during the spraying process. The metal flakes tend to sink to the bottom of the can. I don't mean shake as you spray but when you stop spraying give the can another shake before the next spray.

Really great job and in 1/32 scale no one can accuse you of doing things by half ! Can I ask who the kubelwagen is made by. I have a Heller one, yours looks great, what are you going to build next ? Cheers Pat

Looks great Alistair, been looking forwards to seeing this one come together since the GB and you've done a really neat job of it. All the dry fitting and sanding has worked a treat cos you cant see any evidence of it - will have to keep that in mind as im just starting to fit the DACO on nose on the academy spitfire mk XIV I have (got to do it before someone brings out a decent mk XIV!). Glad to see your back in the swing of things, whats next on the bench? Stu

Since I raised it: First, I wasn't talking about the GR1 kit, but the GR3 and the sprue shots and, second, I was merely saying that the AIM-9s seem an odd choice, not least given that bombs were a key part of Harrier GR3 weaponry. I hardly think that counts as complaining about the quality of the kit or making Airfix wonder why they bothered. But it makes me wonder why I bothered. I'll keep my thoughts on such matters to myself in future.

80 grit! Isn't that broadly the same as road chippings?

Get it to Bruntingthorpe, I know it's not central for everyone (even me so I'm not biased), but they will do a great job of looking after her and maybe even return it to fast taxi condition.

Only one kind of guided missiles could be used as I remember.

That's very fine work there Alan, makes me want to pull mine out...so to speak!

Got up early this morning so did some more before work Decided to do the defelctor plates. Ummed and aarred about hoe to do them and decided on wine bottle foil. So, using Nick Greenhall's excellent build notes, fashioned a couple. Used small hex head bit from the "big" tool box to scribe the lines on the plates, my scriber to add the rivets and foil strips CA'd across the back of the plates to act as the fastner brackets when the time comes to fit them in place. They are quite flimsy so may add plasticard to the back to reinforce. Best go to work now!!!!

I knew something like this will happen....I was hunting high and low for the CMK pit for the Hasegawa kit and when I finally paid a bomb for it, walla a new tool Komet........ Hmmm ...I am getting too old for this Rgds Mr B

Fingers crossed they don't screw it up as is their custom...

Thanks a lot guys. It feels really good working on her again and making progress. I promise I will do my best to complete her this time round. I think I will soon go visit the real ship again too, it's good for the motivation. The brown wood came out way better than I dared hope. No doubt it can be done even better, but it's not the type of paintwork I have done much in my years of model building, so I'm more than satisfied. The approach I used was quite simple; The base colour on the hull is Humbrol 110 and the decks and masts are Humbrol 63. The 110 was then lightly dry brushed with Humbrol 93, and the rivets/bolts picked out with a thin black marker pen. Everything was then given an acrylic gloss coat, and then I brushed on thinned dark brown oil paint all over, like a heavier wash, the colour is Brown Madder Aliz. When this began to dry a bit I used a flat wider makeup brush to work it in a slightly diagonally but more horizontal direction, and removing some excess. This was followed with some horizontal wiping off with a tissue cloth. A coat of matt acrylic varnish finished it off. If you try, do some practise first to learn how large areas you can do at one time depending on how fast your oil wash is drying. A little comparison with Revell's new tooling have been unavoidable of course. I picked up two of these as soon as they came out. The problem areas on Airfix, some very complicated to fix, are of course more correct on the new Revell tooling, which should be expected of something created 2011. However, the old Airfix kit, 40 years older than Revell, is actually sharper in the very fine details of the sculpting. Again, for it's age and with the limited knowledge of the ship around that kit's creation I think it was very well done.

Thank you all. I loved all the compliments and comments. I selected this question because I considered very interesting and important. In addition to the KC-10, I'm also building a C-17 and the procedure will be the same in the cabin. Perhaps I can best explain presenting photos:

Ok I finally get to start this, seems like ages since the build began and I'm just starting!! As usual I’m getting all they modification bit done first as they normally give me the most grief!! I also received the correct Eduard detail set for the TBF-1C (had the TBM-3 set), which was lucky as I have need bits from both sets, additional seat, rudder pedals (carpet monster got the first set!!). The hardest part has been getting good info on the Observers cockpit, good photos of this area seem to be almost as common rocking horse ....... From the research I’ve done these mods to add the additional seat were performed by Blackburn and no two batches of mods were the same, which sort of helps. So I’ll use a mix of all the info I can find to produce something that looks the part. So off with most of the detail in this section then a new floor, new cover for the control column linkage. Not sure about the block in front of it, there needs to be two oxygen cylinders there. Will do a bit more digging for info before I get back to this section. Opened up cooling flaps around engine cowling plus reshaped the observation windows. The AM model is great as it includes the correct windows saving time in making new ones.. Landing flaps, ok things were going great until now! This has to have been the most time consuming and frustrating part so far. Have spent close to 8 hours on these parts so far and have pulled a couple of them apart twice. The section cut outs in the wing were easy but the PE bits.... Anyway have just about finished and they look ok, nothing a good coat of paint and weathering won’t fix or hide! and yes on the RH lower flap one of the braces is bent, came loose again! Now the wings are pretty much done I’ll hit the interior and complete that for painting, plus start detailing the engine a little, have stolen some ideas from someone else’s build!

What? No rifling in the barrels??? So disappointed But seriously.. Looking forward to the rest..