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After multiple setbacks, un-cooperative decals and the joy that is Xtracolor enamel, here is Pilot Officer Abdul's mount, the lesser-spotted-not-sand-camo Spitfire ixc from the truly ‘orrible 1/72 Airfix kit (WIP here): Port Starboard Front: A touch heavy on the panel wash but all ended well if not exactly an IPMS show winner. The Begemot printed decals were truly terrifying as they actually decompose when using Microscale or Gunze solutions, it turns out you need near boiling water. My first ever finished model worked much better with OOB decals and Mr Softer. Had a bit of nastiness inside the canopy from when I stuffed it with it blutac while I masked. Also a lot of chipping when I removed the BMF masking, should have done the new scalpel blade releasing thing. Now some fun stuff: Teeny tiny nav lights made from 0.3mm stretched clear sprue and Tamiya clear. Even teenier rear light! A pointless scratched mirror with 1 mm BMF chrome reflector, note how 1mm thick canopy perfectly hides all the scratch building I lovingly did in the WIP. Over scale but fine looking but twangy Ezline aerial, yes it actually does go twang when you pluck it. Loved using Rustall to do the exhausts: So what have I learnt? Good modelling takes practise and patience: You don’t get be Mish or Nigey Heath overnight. Everything is fixable, even if you have to fix the fix. Xtracolor is nothing to be frightened of. Modelling is a hoot compared to abseiling or playing a blues gig in a pub full of well lubricated punters who have good throwing arms. And the most important thing , keep going till you finish: As Ray from Plastic Pastimes said to me on Friday, “there are no bad kits, only lazy modellers”. He also said a lot of other things which would lead to me being arrested if I tried to repeat them here. And finally, one of those lovingly Photoshopped-to-near-death beauty shots before I embark on my next wee styrene adventure; Good night and good riddance.

Here is my latest completion, it is the Finemolds 1/72 Messerschmitt Me 410B-1/U4, well that's what it says on the box anyway. The colour profile of it in the Yellow Series book on the Me 410 states that it is a A-1/U4. Built mostly OOB but with replacement aerials and pitot made out of fuse wire, brass tube and guitar string. The gun barrel is the Finemolds turned brass version. The fit of the fuselage halves and the engine nacelles weren't up to Finemold's normal standards, in fact the fuselage halves looked like they had been mastered by 2 different people in 2 different factories and the engine nacelles are well known to be oversized. Painted using Mr Hobby paints which normally work very well but I had a bit of "orange peel" appear and had to respray some parts. Decals are a mix of the kit's and from the spares box to make up the serial number and the small codes. This model took quite a long time to complete as my enthusiasm for it would wane at every step so it had many visits to the shelf of doom but I got there in the end. I didn't use my normal method for masking the canopy so it's a bit rough and the aerial is at an odd angle where it joins the fin but I just wanted to get it finished finally.

My fellow modellers, I present my first ever model in a Group Build. I built the Airfix Lightning F6 of 74 Sqn RAF. The only extras are a HUD from the spares box & a Model Master Pitot & refueling probe tip. Paint is Tamiya Aluminium from a rattle can & everything else is Humbrol enamals brush painted. The base is a bit of MDF covered in sandpaper & painted Tamiya Nato black & the model is mounted on a 6mm brass rod. I wanted to display her in a different way so instead of just on the deck, or going vertical as most Lightnings are, I decided to display her just after take off with the wheels retracting. Let me present Flt Lt FR Ightning in Tiger Take Off. Thanks for looking, comments are always welcomed.

Hello everyone!It's my first post here and I hope you will gentle with me So,this is HB kit plus eduard's zoom set and FighterTown's decalsheet....I hope you will like it Glad to be here with you guys...Greetings from rainy and windy (today) Lesvos Island (Hellenic Republic)

I wanted to do a subtle weathering for this build but due to the instructions not telling you that you can't build the engine if you want the engine covers on it took a bit of fiddling and filling to get them to fit and unfortunately that's not a strong point for me so to try and hide the errors I heavily weathered it Feel free to to comment/criticise:)

Back in March of this year I was in the middle of some practice builds to get my limited skills ready to build a 1/48 Eduard Mk.IXc, Spitfire. One of the practice kits I purchased was this 1/48 Mk.XVI from Revell - the first 1/48 kit I'd ever attempted. Before I'd started it Dreamcatcher began to build the very same kit and luckily he posted his build in the WIP section. This turned out to be brilliant because, once I'd started mine, it became like our own mini-group build with expert advice from numerous other Britmodellers. Miggers was especially helpful - he provided both Dreamcatcher and me with loads of information plus tips and tricks to help make this kit the best it could be. Thank you Miggers. I'd planned from the start that I'd build it with the engine on show so I purchased some Revell ground crew figures and made up a small base to display it on. The WIP for my Mk.XVI can be found here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234959827-another-revell-icm-148-mkxvi-spitfire-base-and-ground-crew-finished/ Dreamcatcher's excellent WIP can be found here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234959134-spitfire-mkxvi-revell-icm-molds-148/#entry1602360 Dreamcatcher's RFI for his brilliant Mk.XVI can be found here:http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234969551-revell-spitfire-mkxvi-icm-molds-148/ And here is my Mk.XVI: All comments and suggestions welcome. How my Eduard Mk.IXc turned out can be seen here:http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234967960-eduard-spitfire-lfmkixc-ml135-yod-no401-squadron-as-flown-by-jerry-billing-on-7th-june-1944-b-w-photos-added/ Kind regards, Stix

Hi folks here,s the third of my old Airfix 1/48 Hurricane,s.Factory fresh in Rumanian colours. Been a fun build but a bit of fatigue setting in towards the end so last one until next years GB.I managed to loose the two number 1 decals which should be present on each lower wing but they will turn up soon so will be added,decals were pretty good but I painted the red and yellow on the tail and only used the blue portion of the decal as the fit was poor as a one piece offering.thanks for looking and all the feedback over all my hurricane builds over the last few months.

I was offered this kit very cheaply and decided to have a go at redoing its slightly thin engine. Like Topsy it just growed from there. Some after market etch inside the cabin includes the floor and rear wall and the instrument and switch panels. Nothing else from the AIrwaves Wasp/Scout set was used, ah, except the seat belts on the scratch built seats. The missile launchers and missiles were scratch built and thanks to Steve (worm) I had lots of information to get the details right from. All the clear parts have been remade as Airfix didn't make all the bulgey out bits that the real machine had. The WIP is here http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234964193-airfix-scout-ah1/ Here is the Scout, good stuff courtesy of Steve and others, mistakes were all mine. I was told there should always be a money shot Apologies for the crappulous nature of the pictures, I'm not much of a photographer either .

. You can see the step-by-step here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234969290-172-alouette-ii-portuguese-air-force/ A lot of scratch, but a realy good fun Some photos with his successor the Alouette III

Hi all, This is my first post of a completed model on Britmodeller so please be gentle with me! It is also my first time using photobucket so I apologise in advance if you get lots of copies of the same picture. This is Italeri's CH-47 built and painted as a CH-47J of the JASDF. I think the camouflage makes it look completely different, which is what attracted me to it in the first place. I hope you all like the end result.

Hi, A second Ju-86 of my shelf. Together with high altitude recce version (Ju 86 R1, which I posted recently) I did also much smaller conversion of civil Z-2 into Z-7 converted then into bomber in South Africa. Depicted "647" was one of such machines. She served in 12 Sq of SAAF, Ethiopia 1941 acting against Italians, I guess. There are discrepencies in sources on top wing roundls ("A1" or "B" - I have chosen A1 roundels, since on some poor quality photos those marks has some bright fragments which can be interpreted as sight of white form A1 mark. Now there is a conversion by Kora, but I did it in 2002, and those days I did not know if there was any ready conversion, so it own work. The nose symbol is hand painting on decal, other decals are from a drawer. Brush painting. Please enjoy and comments are welcome Regards Jerzy-Wojtek

Hello ! It's time for me to publish some pictures of my last build, a 1:48 Spitfire Mk.XVI from Revell (ref.04661). The reproduced plane represent the Spitfire Mk.XVI serial TB247 - coded GW o W which belonged to the 340th RAF (Free)French Squadron near the end of 1945. This plane was piloted by Mister Jacques REMLINGER that i had the chance to meet many years ago. As there is no existing decals set to reproduce his plane, i had to create all the markings and to print them on water decal paper sheet. The genuine kit is designed to allows only two options : - All the engine cowl parts closed (and no engine in the plane) or - All the engine cowl parts removed and so, in this case... the plane is fitted with his Merlin engine. I was not satisfied with these choices, so i decided to modify many parts of the kit in the purpose of allowing the engine to be mounted in the plane's airframe AND to be able to be hidden behind a removable engine cowl pannel. The fate made that Plastix started to build the same Spitfire nearly at the same time. It's very nice to have another member building the same plane as the one you are building : This created a kind of positive emulation / challenge spirit thanks to which both of us had done his best to equal the work of the other builder and always in a friendly spirit. Thanks to Miggers that provided us a lot of very nice pictures of the Merlin, we could manage to do a lot of scratch work to improve the provided merlin that suffered a rather important lack of details, even if this Mk.XVI kit (a Revell roboxing of the ICM kit) is considerated as one of the best at this scale. THAT WAS WONDERFUL THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN MY FRIENDS FOR ALL THESE GOOD MOMENTS ! Well... Enough talking... This is the pictures : Engine cowl closed : Then Engine cowl opened : The underside of the Lady : And finally some pictures taken using a paper printed landscape i made from some IL2 Cliffs of Dovers Combat flight sim's mission editor screen shots: I hope you will enjoy as many as i enjoyed building this kit ! The W.I.P. of my Mk.XVI is available here : http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234959134-spitfire-mkxvi-revell-icm-molds-148/ Plastix's excellent W.I.P. is available here : http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234959827-another-revell-icm-148-mkxvi-spitfire-base-and-ground-crew-finished/ And the R.F.I. thread for his marvelous Spitfire Mk.XVI is available here : http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234969553-another-148-revell-icm-mkxvi-spitfire/ Have a nice evening !

Hey everyone, after some time i had just a bit of time to work on some kits again, so i decided to pick Airfix 1/72 P-40C and build it straight OOB. Only additions are rivets, wires on U/C and antena wires, which i managed to break like 10 times during taking the shots and my nerves were not strong enough in the end, so the wires are left a bit loose.. At first i wanted realy quick build, so the cockpit was quickly painted, washed and thats all.. As i changed my mind during the build and wanted to play a bit with the surface, the result is, the cockpit is now quite shiny compared to rest of the build. Well, happens. Also i managed to break one of the gun barrels during weathering Few shots from the build (there was no WIP this time on BM, because i did not have that much time) - i was using the hairspray technique, so silver base, hairspray, zinc chromate yellow primer (mix of ZCY + drop of green, both gunze), chipping where i wanted some later chips straight down to the bare metal. Next step was sealing all this with coat of varnish - do not do the same mistake as me and do NOT chose gloss varnish.. the next layer of hairspray/chipping fluid wont hold good enough on it and you llhave problems with spraying the next paint layers.. However, once the varnish was on and dried, i did apply layer of mig/ammo chipping fluid, followed with the camo paints - grey and green gunze (green was mix of US interrior green, RAF green and drop of ZCY), brown tamiya (mix of redbrown and dark yellow), airbrushed free hand, only the bottom/top line was done using tamiya tape, as i ran out of blue-tac. After that i did the chipping, using scalpel, brush and for the rivets enhancing i used waterproof sandpaper, pushing very gently on it. I then sealed this all with gloss varnish, for the next steps. Weathering was done as usualy, wash (top medium brown, bottom storm grey, both from ammo RAF PLW set), very gentle oil paints fading, to not destroy the chipping and next i did try pigments to give it dusty look (mix of dust, sand and earth pigments), mig dust fluid for the white-ish mark on fuselage behind cockpit (under the fuel caps), fresh oil leaks by ammo and brown/black oil paints for touches here and there. Exhaust staining is done by black and grey pigments. Exhausts weathering was done in few steps - metal base, followed by few washes of warious rust colours, next some brown and grey pigments dusting. I was not happy with that, so i gently drybrushed some dark steel paint here and there. Still not where i wanted to be, but i did not want to screwit even more Few images from the build here then - the next shots are after the paint job, before weathering. And here she is finished. I m sorry, the photos are a bit blurry and dark, i cannt make better with phone.. guess i ll have to write letter to Santa as the xmass are comming... As i said, one gun barrel was broken during weathering and the antenna wire is a bit loose, because i repeaired it so many times, the heat did not want to strain it anymore Thanks for watching guys and any tips or comments are welcome

Hello once again, with one of my old builds - I've just finished a lengthy photo session of these so expect more in the next few days! Here is my MPM X-15 in 1/72. The X-15 was a hypersonic test aircraft of the late 50's and early 60's, powered by a rocket engine that could burn through 15,000 pounds of fuel in 80 seconds, carried to altitude by a modified B-52. It still holds the official world speed record for a piloted aircraft, 4,520 mph, in 1967. Neil Armstrong was among the pilots who flew this beast, indeed some of them flew over the altitude officially recognised as being Space and earned astronauts wings. What a ride! I built this probably ten years ago - it's a bit dusty... this is an excellent kit, quite unlike MPM's earlier "cast in concrete moulds" short run efforts. However it only depicts an X-15 in landing configuration with the skids (yes, it only had a nosewheel...). I used the ground handling trolley from the old Monogram kit - in those days I had a proper spares box! I also seconded the pilot figure from that kit to give an idea of the scale of this plane - hard to tell its relative size as it had such tiny cockpit windows. There is an interior in there but I decided to keep it closed up. There were no decals for the hydrogen tanks - in fact not much detail at all - so I made the silver panels etc. from scrap decal. Hope you like!

Hi everyone ! This is my last completed model . The italeri kit is not that good but it gives a good model if you spent some time on it . Painted with AKAN ( the two greys ) and Gunze ( for the green ) . Weathering with artists oils . Hope you like it !!! PA260181 by nionios_v, on Flickr PA260184 by nionios_v, on Flickr PA260183 by nionios_v, on Flickr PA260180 by nionios_v, on Flickr PA260177 by nionios_v, on Flickr PA260176 by nionios_v, on Flickr PA260175 by nionios_v, on Flickr PA260191 by nionios_v, on Flickr PA260188 by nionios_v, on Flickr PA260185 by nionios_v, on Flickr

Day two of Nomore Shelfspace's posting blizzard. This is probably my best aircraft model, a Convair XFY-1 Pogo from the KP kit. This a/c was a VTOL concept designed to provide the fleet with a point interceptor that could be carried aboard a warship using only a helicopter type landing pad. In practice it was difficult to land and overpowered with its twin YT-40 turboprop engine! The pilots seat swivelled to give a better position for take off and landing. Despite some positive results the project was terminated in 1955. One example survives. This is actually the second Pogo I did - the first one was the KP kit built straight from the box. Then I bought the Naval Fighters Number 27 monograph... which proved the kit was only accurate in outline, more or less. So I got another one and started rebuilding it. Mods include totally new cockpit, reshaped spinner, re-scribed panel breaks, new air intake under the fuselage and a scratchbuilt lower landing gear structure - the fairing over this was removed for test flights. One material I used for this was Alteco, a cyano putty made by mixing slow-setting superglue and a white powder - it's Japanese and I no longer have any, but it was good for filling/rescribing because it was fairly thin in consistency, making it easy to apply to flat surfaces, and didn't crumble when worked on, although like all putties it needed a primer coat/sand before painting. I think the paint was straightforward Humbrol sliver, could be wrong - it was made over ten years ago! Decals were half kit, half from spares - the stars and bars on the sides were too big, as were the Convair logos - I had no Convair logos that were the right size so I hand painted them!!

Wingnut Wings Fokker D.VII The Seven Swabians. The Fokker D.VII probably needs no introduction, Germany's best fighter of WW1, and the only aircraft named in the Armistice as having to be turned over to the allies. Wingnut Wings have produced a brilliant range of D.VII's covering all three versions (Fokker, OAW, & Albatros) along with a superb range of aftermarket decals. Both were received and reviewed at Britmodeller, The kit here and The decals here It has taken a while to get this one on to the workbench, mainly because I just could not choose a colour scheme for it. All those in the box are very tempting, and I will do some of them, whist the aftermarket sheets offer more lovely ones! I have solved the problem by buying more kits, which enabled me to open the box and get started on this one without agonising about which one to do! This is 'The Seven Swabians' from the Brothers Grimm fairytail about a gang of seven foolish men who go hunting for a dragon, and terrify themselves by dicovering one in the forest which turns out to be a rabbit. Wilhelm Scheutzel of Jasta 65 had this design painted on his D.VII, and flew it in combat in late 1918, scoring 1 victory over a DH.4. The decal instructions point out that Scheutzel had a flare pistol mounted on the centre section in front of the cockpit, forunately it is one of the many extras that come in the standard kit. The kit is a joy to build, WIP Here On with the photos, I also bought a 'Wings cockpit' figure from MDC of a pilot taking a break with a mug of coffee, he seemd perfect as they guy looking at his aircraft and wondering what he was thinking when he ordered this scheme to be applied. What do you do when you finish such an enjoyable build? Get another D.VII out of the stash and start building it! D.VII (Albatros) engine and interior under way; Thanks for looking, John

Not sure if I posted pics of this one before. Its the Italeri kit and I built it back around the mid to late 1970s!!!!! Decals from generic sets by Microscale( now known as Superscale). A recent one from my deep storage built stash and due to go to another home soon as part of my thinning down of built models. C-47 CA-013: It had to undergo some essential repair to the undercart and that was no fun! Cyano refusing to grab after a few minutes or longer!! Cheers.

Hello, here is my new kit. Very nice kit. Minimal use of putty. Colors RLM70/71/65 from Agama.(alcohol based)

It's done, finally. A very frustrating build that took over a year with it being put aside on a number of occasions. The fit is ok but you need to be careful in some areas, most notably the nose section and the aft fuselage section. The worst thing was the damn slat rails, which were broken off on numerous occasions, very poor design there Hasegawa. Back to a prop next I reckon, and an easy one at that hopefully. Kit: Hasegawa 1/48 TA-4J Decals: Fightertown Decals Seats: True Details Paints: Gunze (of course!) Weathering: Heavily weathered with pastels of various shades along with preshading of panel lines and paint fading. These aircraft were dirty in service in the pics I had so I reckon the weathering was therefore warranted. Thanks for looking.

Hello modellers, as the weather is rather unfriendly today, i thought I could present you some of my latest models. I had decided to build some of my kits that had been in the stash for so long. The Gabreski P-47 is the Academy bubbletop P-47 combined with Hasegawa´s special edition decal sheet from 1994. The silver Thunderbolt is the Revell kit more or less straight from the box (only added Matchbox pilot, gun barrels from canules, antenna from hot sprue and some metal struts and wires at the landing gear). The Revell kit went together without problems. I found only the styrene a little bit too soft giving problems with the stability of the landing gear. The decals were very good. The Academy kit, which seems to be an upgraded Hasegawa kit by the way, is also very good. I liked even better than the Revell one as in my opinion it represents the shape of the P-47 somehow better (actually I´m no expert for these warbirds). The kit has with the Bazookas the better weapons options but lacks the centerline tank the Revell kit has. I made one from resine and metal wire and installed it to find a reference for the landing legs which had to be shortened. I also added a Matchbox pilot to this one and drilled up the gun barrels. Other detail work was the same as with the Revell version. When it came to decalling, the special edition decals didn´t work. Only some smaller ones and the numbers could be saved with a lot of Micro Sol, but the big invasion stripes were unusable. So they had to be sprayed onto the already finished model! I managed that by laying stripes of masking tape next to each other and only remove the stripes to be sprayed. In the end this worked very well and the result was even better than using decals. Paintwork of both models was done with enamels, weathering with oils, pastels and a silver pencil for minor chipping. Have a nice weekend Mario

Hello everyone, here is a montage I made there a year and a half. Still Hasegawa model I begin to know by heart. I leave make you appreciate. thank you to you didier

My First Attempt at a modern fighter/trainer: Red Arrows Hawk This is my red arrows hawk it is an old airfix kit that my boyfriend had laying around with new decals. The kit was a good kit it went together well and the only problem I had was decalling this is the part i find the hardest in modelling and i still needed help with these in particular the underneath ones and the royal air force cheat line along the sides. The red that was stated in the instructions was not the right match i brush painted revell 34 which seems to be the closest match to the real thing and a gloss coat was put on to finish. Any tips are welcome.

Hi everybody, Here is my new Suchoi T 49 from AMODEL, again a tricky kit, difficult to put together, but the result was worth the challenge : look at the plane !!! Putting the air intakes together was the hardest part of the kit, they must fit very nicely and be absolutely symetrical. A side view : We can recognize the SU-9 except for the long nose : View from the front : astonishing design !!! And a last pic showing the little family, from top to bottom : SU-11, T-49, SU-9U and SU-9 A bientot, Critics and comments always welcome Pierre

Here's one I've made a while ago. Great Tamiya kit with full Aires detail set and Aeromaster decals.

The MacRobertson Interceptor According to an American contemporary, the British Government will seriously consider the adoption of the winning machine in the England-Australia race for modification as an interceptor fighter. Flight, 7 June 1934, p.560. That race was won by de Havilland DH.88 Comet G-ACSS "Grosvenor House." The plane was later taken on by the Air Ministry, delivered to Martlesham Heath, repainted silver and serailled K5084. De Havilland proposed a fast bomber variant which was turned down (the idea would later emerge as the larger Mosquito). Contemporary with these events, new monoplane interceptors were taking shape powered by the Rolls-Royce PV-12 engine - to become familiar as the Merlin-powered Hurricane and Spitfire. I was walking past my local model shop one day when I spotted an Airfix 1:72 Comet kit in the window and it occurred to me just how similar in size it was to those famous beasts. I wondered "what-if"? went in and bought the kit. So here is the prototype DH.88A Meteor "MacRobertson Interceptor": K5084 with its two Gipsy Sixes replaced by a single Merlin - and a new wing because the middle spar had to be moved forward to both accommodate the repositioned inward-retracting undercarriage and to correctly position the engine firewall. Note the de Havilland-style chin intake for carburettor and oil cooler, the "pre-Mossie" style wing-mounted glycol radiators and faired-over rear seating position. Estimated top speed is slightly above that of the contemporary Spitfire prototype K5054 due in large part to the ruthless reduction of frontal area carried through from the racer to the interceptor. Manoeuvrability is less due to the higher wing loading and greater span. The propeller seen here is an early flying prototype of de Havilland's own variable-pitch type which would later grace many Spits and Hurries in three-bladed form. It is the other reason K5084 beat K5054 in the speed stakes. In the event, the Meteor came just too late and the early success of the Hurri and Spit meant that a third option was not needed and when its turn came it was canned. That chance thought of an old modeller has spawned a chain of what-if designs, the next one now half-built, and a half-written historical novel of 50,000 words to date and counting. I dream of "What-if" I not only finish the darned thing but actually find a publisher!

Before the Kinetic release hits the stores and there's Mirage IIIs everywhere, thought I'd get this one finished. This is a subject that I have a very fond affection for harping back to my favourite of all, the Cold War years. The build itself lasted 2 years on and off and the Heller base kit is perhaps not of today's standard shall we say. In addition to the Heller kit, I used...... PWMP's resin nose conversion Afterburner from the Academy Mirage IIIR The larger tanks were robbed from the Italeri Mirage III kit The underside fuel bump was a resin add on but cant remember whos! The personnel pod was scratched from a couple of Hawk wing tanks. and the decals are from the exceptional DACO set. Thanks for looking

Ok more Phantom obsession - this time the Revell 1:48 version! I decided to do this as FGR2 XV474 from RAF Wattisham in 1992. I used Xtradecals for this and they went on a treat. Otherwise it is OOB and it was quite an easy build. I used Gunze Mr Color for the greys, Alclad for the exhausts etc and Alcad Light Sheen varnish which I think works really well. I started this in the summer and realised recently that I had 5 kits at various stages so needed to get them finished off. I have also just finished a 1:72 Fujimi Phantom and hopefully this weekend I shall have finished off my Hasegawa 1:48 FAA Phantom which I will post up when done. Any comments welcome Chris

Hiya Folks, I was really looking forward to building the new Airfix Blenheim and really enjoyed it right up until I reached the canopy fitting stage,.....then I rapidly lost interest! Fitting the canopy last is an absolute nightmare and I ended up cracking mine which is why the lower right bomb aimers window is new faired over (which it was on some fighters anyway), plus the cockpit filled up with sanding dust! Anyway I`ve finished it using the new DK Decals sheet 72004 in markings for a 25 Sqn Blenheim Mk.If during the summer of 1940 and it was converted into a Mk.If by fitting the gun pack from a Frog kit. I managed to find a couple of photos of the real aircraft and although it has freshly applied Sky undersides the fabric control surfaces are still in the previous black and white halved colours as these would have to be re balanced if fresh dope was appied. Alongside is another Blenheim which still wears the full black and white colours underneath, hinting at an early summer 1940 time period. Cheers Tony Edit- Underside view added,........ I also meant to say that I`m currently reading Brian Cull`s excellent `Blenheim`s Over Greece & Crete' and I had not realised just how well the Blenheim Mk.If fighters actually did over there in the day fighter role against the Italians and Germans! Here is one of the photos of the real Blenheim used for reference; reproduced here under fair use rules. It could argued that it has a spare aileron fitted with the earlier colours applied but as the aircraft alongside still has black and white undersides the theory that the fabric surfaces have yet to be refinished seems more relevant to me so that is what I went for? I`ve also been asked why no gun troughs are fitted.....but I personally think that these were a later modification, which I`ve seen fitted to Mk.IVf`s. Cheers again, Tony

This is my interpretation of the Hobby Boss FM-1 Wildcat it's finished as an FAA 882 Squadron machine operating off HMS Searcher in the Mediterranean, summer 1944. Apart from difficulties with the undercarriage it's been a very enjoyable build. The issue with the kit is the somewhat vague drawings in the instructions which gave me problems with the undercarriage as some parts wouldn't fit. I then had to resort to dismantling and trimming in places that wouldn't show. Never the less all in all I think it looks the part and I've tried to replicate the freehand demarcation between lower surface and upper surface colours that seem to be so typical of the FAA. Hope you like it. Mike

Hi, Fameus Yakovlev constructed series of light airplanes - a small UT1 which was mostly acrobatic/sport machine and UT-2 trainer, which then was seriously improved into UT-2M (swept leading edge, new tail and modified fuselage with elevated second cabin). About 50 UT-1 was impressed into army in 1942 in Crimea and Caucasus front and they were equiped with two ShKAS machine guns and 4 RS 82 rockets - it was named UT-1b. My models are: UT-1b - vacu (scratch modified) by Russian company Aviastend, Sgt. V.V.Prozor, unit: 46 ShAP, Black See Fleet, Caucasus, 1942 UT-2 - Polish injection model by Aga company, unit unknown UT-2M - scratch conversion of UT-2 model by Aga, as far as I remeber Deblin Polish Aviation School in early 1945 (I have to check it) The latest conversion was based on plans like that one, for example: http://www.samolotypolskie.pl/samoloty/1368/126/Jakowlew-UT-22 BTW - there is a vacu of this version by Russian Aviastend, but I did not know it before I made model. Anyway the conversion was nice to do and I am happy with it. In all machines the engines are improved by my with camshaft elemets and exhaust pipes etc... I hope you will enjoy them. A family photo: UT-1: UT-2: UT-2M Regards Jerzy-Wojtek

Hi All this was my build for the Mustang STGB ,But ran out of time so here she is . Thanks for looking ,Les (wellzy)

Time for another update in the Frightening Tale Here you can see the blobs of softened Miliput (just add a little water) on the clingfilm ready to be squished into shape. A couple of minutes later and rather more effort than you'd think. Be careful about this if trying it as it is quite easy to distort the thinned wings surfaces The clingfilm stops too much oozing through the u/c leg opening and the like making clean up easier. Here are the wings glued together and having a rest The clingfilm is removed before the final assembly so the Miliput sticks properly. Note that, on my kit at least, one wing fit very well but on the other I needed to shim the outer end by 15thou to get it level with the upper wing return. Even so it will still need a smear of filler to blend everything in Next stage for the wings is a good micromeshing to smooth out the moulding flaws as I'm going to foil the under wing surfaces. Another first for me.... In other news the rear fuselage will be getting some lurve while I gird my loins for the cockpit and it's scratch-built instrument panel and other amendments to T.5 spec. I'll be making 3 or 4 and using the best 2, one here another for the Saudi T-Bird I feel I have to build. Oh, and a 19 Sqn T4 to keep the 92 Sqn build company. (Not all these (any of them?) may happen in the time frame of this STGB!!!) Until we meet again.....

I tried but I am a crappy tographiser I will try harder after Telford guys but so far not so good Here's a taste of the future I will be taking hundreds of shots in the vague hope of... (doc [dr_gn] gave me some hints, I just have to get it on better) .

Hi Next old Junkers: the G 24 he. This was late variant of G-24, a civil airplane, a precursor of Ju-52. Variant G 24 he was that one used in Greek (Hellenic) airlines.It was mobilized to army in 1941 and likely some must survived, since they are photos of it in Luftwaffe markings, so apparently after conquest of Greece by Germans in 1941. The model is a scratch conversion of early version: G 24 produced by GDR company Plasticard and then by Revell. I have difficulties with finding good drawing of this machine, there discrepencies between different scatech. Tha basis was an article in Small Airforces Observer and them I collected many photos in the net. Below are examples of materials I was able to gather mostly in net. {Edit 2017: I reduced to only two schemes, while swiching to Flickr. I cannot find in my comp 3 other photos now} I made this model in 2006, together with F13, K43 and W34. She looks like this: The conversion was about vertical tail, engines, propellers, canopy, u/c and some small things as well. There are two photos I made before painting: Silver is original kit, grey are parts made of Humbrol body-putty on pieces from plastic plates, light blue are some scratch parts and creamy colour are resin parts made by myself. From resin two side propellers and tail are made. The tail I made copying some surface in resin (by silica "negative") and then cutting it and forming into desired shape. The canopy was glued from separated flat windows. Best regards Jerzy-Wojtek

This is Ebbro's recently released Renault 4 Fourgonnette. I have built it as a -68 model as it could have looked when used by the local Renault dealer back then, with decals from my own printing and the scrap box. I also did some work in the engine bay to back date the kit parts correctly and created better Fourgonnette seats, discarding the kit parts. Apart from that it's more or less from the box. There is a build thread here.

On a mountain of skulls, in the castle of pain, I sat on a throne of blood! What was will be! What is will be no more! Now is the season of EVIL!"- '' (Quote Lord Vigo from Ghostbusters 2 ) That is one of the inspiration's for creating this Dio along with the early 90s computer game Quake, an a recent watch of one of my favorite films Robin Hood Prince of Thieves on tv recently which to my surprise was totally different and featured a many long and cool scenes some totally different to the original PG edit, Many of an adult nature, One scene was of Satanic Worship or Dark occult worship of the ruling men around a table humming a deep evil resonant hypnotic passage hand to hand with a map of England on the table with a pentagram over it and a cloth on top. This inspired and fascinated me as has old gothic buildings the medieval era and secret societies. I have been asked to make some models for Precision Ice and Snow for Telford so I have decided to just use my imagination and do some modelling of a different kind that is totally fictitious, The Idea is to create some place of Evil ritual, Possibly one abandoned,, For now at least.. On a distant world of coldness, Barron and empty with symbols such as the all seeing eye, pentagrams and alters made from skulls, with a vortex gate suspended in a frame to link to another place, This is the kind of place that will not only make you feel cold in temperature, but cold with fear from the symbols and sense of powerful magic, a place were the threat is quiet but applied effectively with a defined confidence that will make you want to run... Or just an interesting building that's going to be fun to make.. I was not sure were to post this but this is the closest outlet for this I could see. Cheers Rob

It´s another Airfix Hawker Typhoon Ib...i know a lot of people have done this subject, probably because its such a good model ! A great work from airfix on this one... I ´ve build this in a GB comemorating the 70 years of DDay, and i finish it last week...i just wanted to put the photos here also ! It was my first model using the airbrush...and what a diference...so much more you can do... First the small base: Used a cheap picture frame and used some powders and acessories...then i "invented" a fire extiguisher Here is the Typhoon alone: Final : I painted the DDay stips on the pic frame for "dramatic" effect... I loved doing this comemorative model, a very small tribute, for such an important day...

Quit.

Thought I'd post this, finished a while ago but never took any pics until recently. Tamiya's pretty aged but still excellent Phantom, completely OOB except for some tape belts, all finished with Xtracrylix outside and Tamiya pains inside, and pretty much not weathered at all... (I'd just come fresh from a weathering disaster which had obliterated weeks of work on another kit) so just a tiny light bit here and there. I must admit I like the look of these really loaded for bear... Hope you enjoy, all comments welcome as ever, Regards, Peter

This model is of one of the Nieuport fighters flown by Captain Albert Ball. According to ' Nieuports in RNAS, RFC and RAF Service' A134 was used by (then) 2nd LT Ball to shootdown two German aircraft in July 1916 when he was with 11 Sqn. It had quite a short service life, being delivered to 11Sqn in June 1916 and deleted with 41 hours after serving with 60 Sqn in August 1916. The kit is the old Toko offering that i thiink has re-surfaced under the Eastern Express brand. It has addtional detail from a PART etched brass fret and the engine, prop and gun come from my carefully hoarded stash of Aeroclub bits. Construction was reasonavly straightfoward, although the etch parts were challenging in places and some, e.g. detail for the undercarriage legs were too big to be useful. It was finished in acrylics, mainly hand mixed to match what little appears to be available on early French colours and the kit decals were used. These were a little brittle, but responded well to setting solutions. the model was rigged with invisible mending thread from a spool I first started using in 1980. I can laim a somewhat tenuous connection with Albert Ball as my paternal grandmother knew him when he was a boy and used to give him lifts on the front of her bike. Enjoy

Engine companionway/vents sorted. I originaly thought I'd have both open, then common sense prevailed I would of course have to have the space open The aft one would reveal the engines . . . . not going down that road. The fwd one only reveals the forward bulkhead So a bit of creative 'gizmology'and we have I can't get a pic with the canopy in place. . . . just how much can be seen . . . . not alot I guess I will now have to do something creative iwo of crew companionway. Thats all for now, thanks for looking Kev

You know how I said I was through with hacking lumps of plastic off of the SH-34 and the Tracker? Well I was wrong! On the ground, it is usual to see the Tracker with the escape hatches above the pilot's and co-pilot's seats slid back. This has the benefit of allowing more of the flight deck detail to be seen but also has the drawback of having to drill and cut into clear plastic without cracking it. Today I screwed up my courage and tackled this job. I started by outlining the hatches with Tamiya tape and the drilled a hole in each corner of the hatches to try and head off any cracks from starting. I then chain drilled, ground and filed the hatches open. Greatly to my amazement, nothing broke!! Deciding that, as my luck was in, I might as well cash in on it, I went ahead and glued the two canopy halves together and fitted the overhead consol. the assembly was then taped into position on the fuselage in order to ensure that the canopy set in the correct position. It does look as if the final fit of the canopy is going to be very good indeed. As usual, here are the pictures and thanks for looking Martin

With the rest of the family taking grandma away for half-term I'm 'home alone' for a week - and this is what I've been working on... Early in the wing construction I removed the rear section of each wing - above flap area. This was partly because I wanted to have flaps deployed, as they often are on parked Connie's, but also because I wanted a perfectly sharp and straight trailing edge. New rear sections have been made up - 20 thou polystyrene sheet over a balsa core - tapered in length and cross section. Yesterday I was feeling brave and lack of distractions meant I could have a crack at bonding these new rear sections to the wings. A 5 minute two-pack epoxy glue was used and the components laid on a flat surface with books used as weights whilst the glue went off - with baking foil used as a barrier to prevent books sticking to the wing. It was critical to get everything properly aligned and level whilst everything went off - and delighted to report it all worked beautifully! After initial bonding - upper is lower view of starboard wing - which will eventually have the flap bay detail added. Lower is upper surface of port wing: After initial sanding back with orbital sander the relevant areas were sprayed with high-build filler primer, imperfections were filled with polyester car body filler - allowed to go off and sanded back: After sanding - another coat of filler primer and a litter more filler - all now sanded back. Surface as smooth as and ready for shaping. There's 2mm over on trailing edges at present, the flap areas deliberately too long, the aileron end of the flap are needs angle adjusted and tip trailing edge re-shaping. Will do this later in week - and then a start can be made on the nacelle areas. Although it doesn't look like much - it's taken a large amount of time to get right - and is a big psychological hurdle crossed. BTW - curvature in photos is lens induced optical illusion - they are straight as a die! Working on tail feathers. With the lapped surface trials using filler primer on my Spitfire - I'm now confident I can get Connie's tail feathers sorted in short order. Was going to glue outer fins in place earlier - but they look a little thick in comparison to the tailplane (read 'clunky') so I'm currently removing about 2mm in cross-sectional thickness - a lot harder and more time-consuming than it sounds - even with power tools!!! Anyway - maybe later this week... Those following along that have long memories will remember my not being happy with position of front fuselage windows. Eureka moment earlier - they *don't* follow a smooth line on the real aeroplane! So - working out correct positions now... More later in the week (maybe...). Iain

I saw them before him. But my computer is out of red ink.

Hi again, here are some new pic of the progress. I did work on cockpit since last update quite regulary, but as you can see based on the progress pic, it was very time consuming. Still some work required on those MFD's, and especially on the middle part (a lot of work left there). I'll use those grill's (passive cooler?) on the MFD's from PE flightpath set, cuted to fit. Regarding the FP set, I'm not sure if I can say that I am satisfied with it. There is obviously something wrong with the size of the revell MFD's but also with the FP's ones. I understand that it is made for italeri kit, but some of the parts should fit any 1/48 scale Tornado, like those MFD and the middle console. Also, the FP ladder don't have holes on the standing platform (!?). However, I will use some FP parts, but they will be cuted out and fitted to the cockpit part. I've caculated that the FP set is more useful and econimc than eduard interior + eduard ladders, because of the large pe fret and resin parts, and you get ladders also. But from the instructions I couldn't see that there are no holes in ladders, and parts that should be "universal" are oversized, so my conclusion is questionable. The middle console is undersized in the revell kit, just as MFD's, so I've made it bigger by "dressing" it in 0.4mm styrene all around. Here are some fresh pic, bye for now :

Wingnut Wings 1:32 AMC DH.2 A Flight, 24 Sqn, October 1916 Here is my second contribution to the GB. Paints Tamiya, MiG, rigging thread and woodgrain decals from Uschi Build thread here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234967785-132-wingnut-wings-amc-dh2/

The poll has been done and Wolwe82 `s Shangri La is first , Jogen `s P51H a very close Second , thanks and well done for all that took part So till the next build Les

Sorry that you could not make it to the show today Col, I will be there tomorrow so hope to see you there then. All my models including the Stiletto are there, I left the lights on in the Flying Banana so it is blazing away as we speak. Rick and Vanja, I should mention that Col is a serious bike expert, you are in safe hands with his advice. This was our general set up at the Aberdeen Model Railway show: Prizes are available if you can spot the Flying Stiletto and its tractor and AA in the far distance. This was my personal build space area: One of the first things I did was to make a Milliput cushion for the seat and I also assembled the two bombs There were some gaps on the back of the bombs which I filled with some of the surplus Milliput: I then got to grips with the radial engine construction by drilling out the exhausts with a 0.4mm drill: While I was in drilling mode I also drilled out the gun ports at the front of the fuselage. I tidied up the radial engine which involved mainly sanding off the mould seams off the cylinder heads: In getting things ready for some paint I masked off the fuselage joint lines: I really need to get some paint on things soon. I was hoping to do that tonight but it is getting too late now to start mucking about with airbrushes so its bye from me for now, Nigel

Good evening F 86 F Hobbycraft 1/72 Flown by Capt Harold Fischer 39 Fis 51Fiw Korean War Superscale decals Humbrol Metalcote paints Patrice