Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/02/17 in all areas

  1. Hi mates, You know, for a guy who has the audacity to call himself Navy Bird it's amazing that I didn't have a Sea Harrier in my collection. However, I had a couple of kits in the stash, so it was time to get to work. As this project progressed, it quickly became a kitbash between the Fujimi and Hasegawa Sea Harrier kits. Fujimi supplied the fuselage and wings, while Hasegawa provided the canopy, nose landing gear strut, tyres, Aden gun pods, Sidewinder missiles, anti-collision light, drop tanks, and miscellaneous sundries. I scratch built the intake blow-in doors, nose gear well, and the canopy detonator box. The aftermarket supplied a resin cockpit, resin outriggers, resin nozzles, turned metal pitot probe and AoA sensor, and a whole bunch of photoetch. Oddly, none of the aftermarket accessories were designed for either of the two kits. I also happened to still have a Microscale sheet from ages ago with the colourful markings of 800 Squadron prior to the Falklands conflict. I had to do that! Here is my executive summary: Project: Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm BAe Sea Harrier FRS.1 Kits: Fujimi (kit number F-30) and Hasegawa (kit number D19) Scale: 1:72 (please leave fumble thumbs at the door) Decals: Microscale Sheet 72-393, representing XZ454, No. 800 Squadron, 1980 Photoetch: Eduard 73384 (for Airfix), primarily for the cockpit, ejection seat details, detonator cord, mirror, antennae, windscreen wiper, landing gear doors, heat shields, vents Resin: Pavla cockpit C72092 (for Airfix), Pavla nozzles U72118 (for Airfix), Quickboost outriggers 72385 (for Airfix), Scale Resin 1,000 lb. bomb (from Buccaneer S.1 kit) Turned metal: Master AM-72-052 Vacuform: None! Joy in Mudville! Scratchbuilt: Intake blow-in doors, canopy detonator box, nose gear well, APU intake Paint: Gunze H333 Extra Dark Sea Grey, H331 Dark Sea Grey, H335 Medium Sea Grey, H417 RLM76, H11 Flat White, H12 Flat Black, H77 Tyre Black, H25 Sky Blue, H309 FS34079, H28 Metal Black, H95 Smoke Grey, H90 Clear Red, H94 Clear Green; Alclad 111 Magnesium, 314 Klear Kote Flat Weathering: Post shading with Gunze H95 Smoke Grey, some panel line work with pencil. Improvements/Corrections 1 - Shortened air brake 2 - Scratch built nose gear well, intake blow-in doors, APU intake, canopy detonator box 3 - All that aftermarket stuff Build thread: Link Pictures! FAA Family Reunion: Cheers, Bill
    42 points
  2. Hi all, a slightly misleading title in that only one of these Spits is a desert bird but the meaning will become clear momentarily! I used to post here until about 5 years ago when I took up a new job in the middle east and modelling had to take a back seat. Having recently moved into a bigger place and my stash grown to excessive proportions I decided it was time to get building (and posting) again. Here are my first few across the bench! Eduard Spitfire IXc early (weekend edition), EN354 of the 4th FS, 52nd FG based in Tunisia 1943. What a beautiful kit, so good I went out and bought two more IXs and three VIIIs! Built OOB. Hasegawa Spitfire VI, BS111 of 616 Squadron 1942. A nice kit but not the best fitting. I added some Eduard seatbelts, scratch built pressure bulkhead and DV window. Since the canopy on this version was removable and did not slide I had no idea where to put it(!), so I tacked it to the wing with some white glue as if the erks had placed it there. ICM Spitfire VII, MD187 of 131 Squadron 1944. This one fought me a lot of the way! Scratch built pressure bulkhead/canopy rails, Falcon transparencies and decals from the spares box. Spare Eduard elevators and Airfix tailwheel plus shortened oleos to improve the sit. Had a lot of trouble painting the invasion stripes, I'm passing their resulting roughness off as being hurriedly applied!!! Tamiya Spitfire I N3290 of 92 Squadron, May 1940. What else to say about this beautiful kit? OOB with Xtradecals markings. And I should have removed the crowbar and the seat should be green and not plastic! Academy (Hobbycraft) Hispano Buchon, Spanish AF. Have to say I love this scheme! Looking at photos these aircraft seemed to be immaculate hence no weathering. I added a Eduard Bf109 cockpit set. Paints used were a mix of Vallejo, Tamiya and Model master. Flat finish by Windsor and Newton. I've decided to build one last Spitfire before I decide to change subject for a while. I've never been a fan of the Airfix Spitfire XII, to my eye it seems too chubby and does not capture the hot-rod look of the real thing. I had a spare Hasegawa IX fuselage in the spares box so I corrected the length and grafted the Airfix nose onto it, reduced the Airfix wing chord using an Eduard wing as a guide and added a spare Eduard rudder. Although I still wonder why I did this (especially as the Airfix bits fit together so well!) the result looks OK to me. Its currently waiting on some paint masks for the codes, which I should receive this weekend. I am at the end of a fairly long supply chain!!! I hope you've enjoyed looking at these as much as I have enjoyed looking at and being inspired by the work on this site over the last few years. Please do let me know what you think and also any constructive criticism is most welcome! cheers, Chris
    24 points
  3. Hi all, here are a few pics of a kit I completed last year: It is the Seafire XV from Special Hobby. I used the marking of some FAA squadron stationed on Trincomalee in 1945. I read on the web that the reinforcing plates that were molded on the fuselage sides are absent on this mark, so I sanded them off. I also replaced the kit landing legs by leftovers from a Eduard Spit VIII kit. Judging from pictures the kit sits to high with the Special Hobby legs. I also decided to fold one wing, the wingfold details were scratchbuild with palsticard and fuse wire. I used piano wire to assemble the wing parts. The FAA colors are Tamiya and Gunze paint mixes, I used the mixes given by Roy Sutherland for the extra dark sea grey and dark slate grey. The weathering was done with Mig ammo washes and ink pens. Not surprisingly, after completing the kit, I found a picture of this plane which shows that he was kept in pristine conditions ! I hope you will enjoy it, best, Christian.
    23 points
  4. Finished this today - the HobbyBoss A-10 with Authentic Decals aftermarket transfers and Eduard bombs and missiles. I'm visiting a friend in England tomorrow and her son James asked me specifically for a model of this type of aircraft - he requested 'wheels-up' so he can hang it from his ceiling, which required a bit of modification but the kit gear doors fortunately fitted very well. I added an Airfix pilot from the Vampire. I got the transfers because the kit transfers looked a bit ropey and didn't include a sharkmouth(!) and was a bit dismayed to find the kit didn't include any external stores either which meant I promptly spent twice what I had paid for the kit on Eduard resin bombs (Mk.82, Mk.83, Paveway II and HoBoS, if I recall correctly). I'm not sure if the aircraft would have carried all these stores at the same time but the model is for a 14-year old so I reasoned moar dakka. Thanks to Jamie at Sovereign Hobbies for sorting me out the colours (ACUS03 Light Ghost Gray and ACUS40 Dark Ghost Gray) - the kit instructions show a much greater contrast between the two greys (grays) but this is for clarity, the real colours are pretty hard to tell apart - not quite as hard as my photos indicate but that is my fault. Anyway it's my first completion of the year, here it is: Cheers, Stew
    22 points
  5. Hi All, another finished. the kit is beautiful, unfortunaly i then went and built it so sorry about that! All tamiya paints brushed and weathered using different shades and pre and post shading mixed with pastels... hope you like her (oh and it should have two little r's on the landing gear but i lost the transfers) Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr cheers all! Rob
    18 points
  6. Great little kit. Straight out of the box with aftermarket decals for LCDR Thach from the Midway timeframe. Typical Tamiya, falls together. Careful painting with multiple flavors of early war Navy/Grey gave me something close to what I think that color "should" be(?). If you are in the mood for a nice relaxing build that won't take up that much room on the shelf, it's a winner. Cheers Collin
    17 points
  7. above is the build thread for this one, and its still on going with a wild cat and p-40 that dips in and out! she was painted using tamiya paints and a brush other than HU 90 on the undersides, weathering was citadel washes in areas but mainly pastels to fade and add variation! very nice kit but watch the internal tolerances...here she is Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr Untitled by robert mulvey, on Flickr cheers all! Rob
    15 points
  8. Hello friends, here's another completed models this year. The plane used in the Yugoslav Air Force after World War II, until the beginning of the 60s.
    12 points
  9. Hi to all I have now returned back home from UK after attending my Fathers funeral and after a long break its time to get back at the bench and continue with this B17G project! I t took me a couple of days to gather my thoughts and work out what I had to do next but after a while got into the swing of it!.....last post I was detailing the top half of the Bomb bay....and so this post will show the detail I have added to the bottom half. Studying photos and diagrams of the real aircraft I think I have done as much as I can with the detail and I think its time to add a little colour to the proceedings so to speak! ...but until then here is where I am at ...Photo time! Of course there is still yet much much more to do with the detailing...EG the Bomb racks have to be scratched but will do the rest of the detailing after the two halves are together. Hope you like the progress so far......cheers....Fozzy
    12 points
  10. Ok so I'm a big fan of the Phantom and decided a few months ago to do a joint build of Israeli and Japanese F4's. I used the Hasegawa kits for both builds with aftermarket decals from Isra Decal and DXM (stencils). I used the original decals for the JASDF Phantom in the main and considering they were printed in 1986 they came out well. Eduard cockpit aftermarket was also used and Ised Mr Color, Tamiya and Alclad paints for both. I got a lot of help form members on here during the build so thanks for that. The Israeli F4 has a temporary 'load out' as I am awaiting some of the Hasegawa sets. Overall I enjoyed the builds and even more so that the kits costs me £16 and £24 respectively which is great value considering I just paid £60 for the Hasegawa re-hash of the FGR1!!
    11 points
  11. Got this done late last night but I'm sure there will be a couple of bits I missed that I'll return to but it's "finished". Superb kit from Tamiya fit like a dream and very impressive detail at this scale. The build is OOB with only a couple strips of newspaper for seat belts and the girlfriends hair for Arieal wire (horrendously fiddly may I add). Very enjoyable 👍🏻
    9 points
  12. At the present I am unable to model (not the catwalk variety!!) due to recovering from an operation on my hand, nothing too serious I'm glad to say. The last project before this was the build of 4 Bf109s, all 1/48 (my scale), 2 x Eduard new tool, 1 x Eduard original tooling, 1 x Hasegawa and I've also included another Eduard original tooling that I built when first released. Can you identify the kits? No prizes I'm afraid ( living on a pension!!). (1) Messerschmitt Bf109G-6 (sub type unknown) Red 1 2./JG300 26/6/44 Germany This is one of the Eduard 1/48 new tool kits built with the addition of Brassin cockpit, Eduard photo etch and Eagle Editions decals. All these models were painted with the Vallejo model air paints which give a very good match to the RLM colour reference I use by Michael Ullman. This particular aircraft was painted in one of the many schemes trialed by JG300. The main upper airframe colour was a 50/50mix of RLM 74 & 75 to which was added mottle of a mixed grey in my case RLM 66 toned down with white. Undersurfaces RLM76, fuselage band I painted RLM 45 Rotbraun (primer). I do not add an awful lot of weathering to my models as their service life was probably not that long. I really found these new tool Eduard Bf109s a joy to build especially with the brassin cockpit, my only criticism being the exhausts and openings which are very slightly oversize but can be reduced with a little work. I did not make this alteration to the two new tool builds here as the exhausts are covered. (2) Messerschmitt Bf109G-6 White 7 W. Nr163269 4./JG51 June1944 Bulgaria Again the new tool Eduard kit finished with same accessories as Red 1 above. Typical RLM 74/75/76 scheme with full stencil markings, again machine in fairly clean state. (3) Messerschmitt Bf109G-2/R-6 Yellow 10 W. Nr.14800 6./JG5 April-May 1943 Russia This is the first of the Eduard original tooled 109s. This is the 109G-2 from the Royal Class boxing,as the main problems with this kit was fuselage too long, wings overspan, u/c at incorrect angle.I modified all the problems (my article over on Aeroscale a year or two ago described the methods used http://www.aeroscale.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=features&file=view&artid=5612 . The cockpit was detailed using the kit components plus a few extra details, the underwing gondolas were the Brassin parts that were included in the Royal boxing with barrels from a hypodermic syringe. Colour scheme for this machine was very interesting, originally intended for topical operations the paint scheme was RLM 78/79. It was however delivered to JG5 operating in a northern theatre of operations where it received a coat of washable white paint and RLM 70 mottle. However patches of the original 79 still showed through giving the aircraft a tri colour scheme. Decals were sourced from several different sheets. I note that Eduard have just released the Bf109G-2 and that one of the schemes is the aircraft that this one replaced!! (4) Messerschmitt Bf109G-5 Yellow 11 W. Nr.27119 9./JG54 Spring 1944 Germany This is the original tooling of the Eduard Bf109G-6 and the kit I modified shown over on Aeroscale. I built it as a G-5 version simply because of the scheme in the Eagle Editions decal sheet I had. Scheme is originally standard RLM74/75/76 uppersurfaces were then sprayed over with RLM 76 leaving the original colours showing through. (5) Messerschmitt Bf109G-2 White 2 4.JG/54 Autumn 1942 Russia Now for the odd one out, this is the old Hasegawa G-2 released way back and purchased when Hasegawa kits were reasonably priced and not the stupidly outrageous prices they now charge even for kits this old and way below the standards that we have come to expect from manufacturers these days.If Eduard can retool!! Mind you if Hasegawa did retool their 109 family what PRICES enough of my thoughts on 'Hasedearer' pricing. These 109s when first released were the most accurate around even though they suffered with incorrectly shaped spinners, short fuselages and incorrect profile on the rear fuselage, they were the best around. I added a fair few to my stash over the years, some I actually built I replaced the spinners with the Fusion resin replacements but attempted no other modifications other than adding Aires resin cockpits. Then recently after the first tool Eduard kit and my fix thereof, I decided to re-examine the Hasegawa offerings. I decided the incorrect rear fuselage I could live with, however I decided to add the missing 2mm of length in front of the cockpit with plastic card and sand to shape after reattaching the nose I had previously removed with a saw. I then proceeded to add detail to the kit using the large amount of spares from the Eduard kits;- I used the wheel well walls with a little surgery, the wheels (far superior to Hasegawa's) replaced the nose intake (because I could!!) spruced up the intakes rubbish on the Hasegawa kit and used the Eduard tail wheel. Then added Fusion spinner & blades and Aires G-2 resin cockpit. You see above the end result, thus modified I don't think it looks too out of place with the Eduard 109 family! The colour scheme for this machine was easy to choose as I wanted to show the varied schemes used by JG54 especially the use of the mixed browns they used, mine was mixed from the various recognition colours red,blue,yellow,green & white eventually almost coming out similar to RLM 79. other colours used were RLM 70/71/76. Decals came again from a variety of sources. Well that was my last pre-op project now waiting for my hand (right one had to be didn't it) to be able to hold a scalpel again I've been thinking about future projects. One I'm considering is bringing all my Hasegawa 109s up to standard, we shall see. Hope you enjoyed perusing my post. Regards Andy
    9 points
  13. I picked up the dual NATO/Bundesfighter F-104G boxing at Telford as a bit of a bargain. The plan was to build a NASA F-104 but in the end I decided to finish it as a West German Navy example from MFG1. Finished as usual with a brush and Xtracrylix, an enjoyable kit to build. A bit fiddly in places and the instrument panel doesn't fit if you follow the instructions but nice nonetheless.
    9 points
  14. It's really looking good now Ced. All of the filler has vanished leaving us with the smooth forceful lines of a Griffon engined Spitfire . I also agree with the others on Lifecolor. It varies, like other manufacturer's paints, from colour to colour regarding the thinning ratio. It's very good for brush painting. In this case the first couple of coats often look fearsome, like thick felt tip pen, but it dries quickly and once the coats are built up (often up to five), it levels and looks very nice. I have sprayed over Stinylrez and the results were good. I use their own thinner. I accidentally bought four half-litre bottles of it from BNA ModelWorld over here. I only meant to buy one, but something obviously went wrong at (online) checkout. The half-litre bottles are so heavy there was no point in returning them, so that's it, I have more than a lifetime's (well, a sensible estimation of what's left of mine) supply of Lifecolor thinner, and it works a treat. Whilst picking up the Pug (a 600km/approx 373 miles round trip) Mrs. T. and I decided to make a little holiday out of it; went for a dip in the ocean at a beautiful spot called 'Seven Mile Beach'. There is a Charles Kingsford Smith memorial lookout above. I won't hijack your thread with holiday snaps, but the beach is just lovely, so here's a picture of it from the memorial lookout, to warm away any Northern Hemisphere winter blues: Unfortunately, whilst enjoying this beach and associated ocean, I managed to succumb to the worst case of sunburn I have ever had in my life. I normally use known brands, but on this occasion we used a 'Chemist's Own' 'Factor 50'. Nope. Useless. Completely lobstered . Never again will we use cheap sunblock. No sympathy required; all our own fault. As a result I have been resting in bed with oodles of Calamine lotion, very light sheets and a book of H.M. Bateman cartoons. I found one cartoon that made me think of you Ced; "The Man Who Asked For A Double-Scotch In The Grand Pump Room In Bath" Pilot Ginger looks in charge Ced, I'm looking forward to camoflage once the old masking mojo is back. All the best Fried Tiger of the Antipodes.
    8 points
  15. Getting closer; this is not glued, but it could be later today...
    8 points
  16. Making a fair bit of progress with this, my first model in about 5 years. I find armour a sod of a lot easier than aircraft. The finish is less demanding and the parts less fiddly for my shaky hands. First two were taken straight after the initial painting and chipping was done. The others are at 90% complete. The whole idea was to do something "straight out of the box", instead of adding a turned barrel and photo etch. What I didn't know was that the Academy kit comes with a couple of photo etch parts. I had some reservations about these, not least because of some reviews I had read which said it was too hard to bend. I certainly had no problems and that part ended up being a small triumph for me. The first job on the road to completion is the open hatch. I think the colour is not too bad but the finish is pants so I'm actually going to put a small piece of card over it with a handle. That should help and give a rim to the edge. The jack needs some work and still requires the hold down straps. I think I will also have to go over the rusty bits again. I'm not going to love it but, in spite of not clear coating the pastels, they seem to have lost their edge. This was also my first attempt with artist's oils and I'm surprised how easy it was. Anyone considering a Hetzer (I don't really like big tanks) should look at this one. It's a lot cheaper than some of the others and has some excellent detail. The only complaint I have is that the exhaust was too short to lead to the muffler. I had to extend it by about 1.5 mm to make it fit but that seems to have worked. The "link and length" track system worked moderately well but it was fortunate that I had found a YouTube clip explaining the assembly or I would have been all at sea.
    7 points
  17. Tonight it was just low-grade stuff. Last night I did the props, and tonight I did the wing leading edge on the Colourcoats Spit, painted and added the bomb pylons, assembled the two part tires (lame, Eduard), and used EXTREEEEEEEEEME METAL to paint the gear legs and wheel hubs, as well as using it for a base for the exhaust stacks, which I am telling myself I want to weather and make look nice, but ha ha you know how life is. 20170201_230037 by Edward IX, on Flickr 20170201_230508 by Edward IX, on Flickr I keep accidentally touching the drying yellow enamel and messing it up. Would that it were a lacquer or I were less clumsy! By the by, masking for the stripes is a PAIN. I see why I never did it before the days of the curvy Tamiya tape. Apparently, our earliest ancestors were essentially toothy sacks full of poop, and many of us have failed to advance much further than this, despite millennia in which to try. It's 1/48, so I'm afraid not. Would that it were not, I've seen a Sea Fury in flight, and very lovely it was, too. I almost mistook it for a late Spitfire with the wing planform. Well where's the fun in that? One of my fondest teenage memories is my father angrily shouting "why can't you be normal?" at me. It's a question I've struggled to answer myself many times since. Why struggle with one when you can struggle with three? That's my philosophy. I have a vague recollection that eventually the distinctive markings were painted on at the factory/MU level and got a little snappier, but as all of my books are in storage, I think we can turn a Nelsonian eye upon that.
    7 points
  18. For my next project I've chosen the English Electric Canberra PR.9, specifically XH134 in her retirement scheme (not the operational scheme shown on the Airfix box). It's a lovely scheme designed by Ashley Keates of RAF Marham. I found a bunch of stuff in my stash that I can use for this project, and I suspect this will end up being another bit of a kitbash. Let's have a look at the inventory - first, I have the Airfix kit, one of the early new tooling efforts from Hornby. Unfortunately, it's not one of their best. In addition to the overdone panel lines, the blend of the tail into the fuselage is misshapen, and the rudder is off as well. Nevertheless, it may be the basis for this build. On the aftermarket side, I have a beautiful cockpit and open nose from Pavla, highly detailed wheel wells from Pavla, a very nice tyre set from CMK, some Eduard colour photoetch, flaps from CMK, and a proper rudder from SBS. I also have some photoetch and resin flaps from Heritage (not shown) so I'll have to figure out which set I like. The Pavla cockpit looks quite nice, but I think the detail painting might be a bit of a chore! And the Pavla wheel wells and doors are considerably more detailed than what comes with the Airfix kit. Here is XH134 in her retirement scheme, isn't she a beauty? Model Alliance provide these markings, although I was a bit flummoxed after paying full price for an aftermarket decal sheet and finding only these two small bits in the package. Stencils and other markings will need to come from the kit. Now, here is where my little dilemma comes in. I've also got this kit in the stash: Comparing the two kits, I would say that the Xtrakit model (which appears to have been moulded by Sword) has much nicer surface detail, but has no vortex generators on the wings (really - they're supplied as decals) and a suspect cockpit opening (at least it's very different than Airfix). However, the tail and rudder seem to be reasonably good. I'm going to take some time and see if the aftermarket stuff will fit the Xtrakit model. If it does, then I have to decide if I like decals instead of actual three dimensional vortex generators. I suspect I won't, but I really prefer the other surface detail on the Xtrakit offering compared to the Airfix kit. Ugh - a man who has one watch knows what time it is. A man who has two is never quite sure. To be honest, I know next to nothing about the Canberra. I'm hoping that @canberra kid will stop by and make sure I stay on the righteous path. He may be able to tell me some things about these two kits that will guide my decisions. Cheers, Bill
    6 points
  19. Hi, Next old and odd German of my current "production": Dornier Wal J II named also Do 16 in markings of Royal Yugoslavian Air Forces. Basic kit by Huma witha scratch modification to version with two Gnome-Rhone 480 HP radial engines. Besides engines the scratch work was also done with bomb racks, small control units to rudders (not present in kit for some reasons - unlike similar units in elevators and ailerons) and to single rear gunner position (Huma kit has two of them on rear deck, on sides from top). Decals by Serbian company Lift Here provided by my friend Zora from Beograd (many thanks!). Following info on Lift-Here decals leaflet the RYAF exploited one early Wal JI with number 200, and ten JII of late production, with rounded wingtips all. initially they were six J II with G-R Jupiters (numbers 251-256) one with BMW in-line engines (No 257) and three with Hispano-Suiza engines (No 258-260). Just before war Nos 251,252 and 253 were upgrated to much more powerfull HS engines. Machnes were based on south coast of Yu, namely the Kotor bay, and were used for patrol flights. No machine survived war in April 1941. She looks like this: And some play with photos... Comments welcome Regards, Jerzy-Wojtek
    6 points
  20. Hi Guys at the last Scots Nats in Perth I got a book from John Adams with a picture of a B24 of the 36th Bomb Squadron named Beast of Bourbon. It had the best nose art I can remember seeing and so I decided to go for it and build it. I looked it up on the net and found several pictures of it plus a model of it on some tribute forum, not sure which. Anyhow, I purchased an Academy B24H from a friend and contacted another mate, who is big into 8th Air Force, for help with the noseart. He had some information for me and as he is a bit of an artist he said he'd do the decals for it. Some may know Rob Gray from several 48th scale assembly ships he built several years ago that appeared at the Donnington Nationals, In fact I think he won a catagory with his 'Pete the pom inspector'. He also supplied some colour information from the B/W photos as he's colour blind and sees in greyscale I presume. Not that I ended up painting the upper nose surface in Post Office red as he originally instructed me to. I changed the Academy front turret for one out of an Hasegawa kit and pinched the forked antenna on top of the fuselage from the same kit plus the two antenna on the nose. I was going to use the rear turret from the same kit but it was too large so went with the Academy offering. The wheels are resin from True Details and I also bought a set of Aviaeology stencil decals. The kit was sprayed with Humbrol Aluminium (56) from a can. I originally didn't like it as I thought it was too dark but it's grown on me. I sprayed the control surfaces with matt varnish, masked them off and sprayed the whole kit with clear Laquer from Halfords. I also bought a Squadron canopy set mainly for the bulged blisters as the Academy set doesn't have them, at this point I didn't know I had the Hasegawa kit in stock but in fact that had the blisters as part of a complete panel. The rest went in the spares. Having never used a set of Robs decals I was unaware how they'd behave but apart from one little annoying bit they were fine. The annoying bit was the hole for the little blister windows. Rob had sealed the decals with decal coat and I applied them as supplied. I then had to cut the window out and the coat acted a bit rubbery, in hindsight I should have cut them out before I applied them to the kit. The model was finished using pastel chalks for a light weathering, still might add to that at some point. I bought a copy of Squadron of Deception by Steven Hutton and it has all manner of information about the aircraft of the 36th including details of radio fits. It seems Beast of Bourbon had several types fitted but I couldn't figure out when so I went with 8 Mandrel antenna, 3 under each wing and 1 under each tailplane. B24H 42-50385 R4-H 'Beast of Bourbon' joined the 36th Bomb Squadron on 4th July 1944 at RAF Cheddington and served until crashing on take off on 19th February 1945 at Long Marston. Of the crew S/Sgt. Carl E Lindquist (21) Pvt. Fred K Becker (20) and Pvt. Howard F Haley (20) were killed. RIP [URL=http://s82.photobucket.com/user/Honeybee_02/media/20170123_164311_zpshtytyeaj.jpg.html][/URL] Hope it meets with approval. A very big thanks go to Rob Gray without whom I doubt my version would look so good. Now about that 48scale set........ Regards Paul
    6 points
  21. Hello folks , this is the excellent 72nd scale weekend edition from eduard , a kit that fit as well as detail wise , is on par with tamiya's 72nd scale zero - the tyres actually have "dunlop" moulded on them and the ribs have very very fine stitching details that only naked eye can discern ! . This is the first model to be entirely completed in 2017. The model depicts a Bulgarian airplane , the white curly s were sprayed freehand and the rigging done with stretched sprue . Model was weathered using oil , for the chipping , I first painted it aluminium and then applied white glue using a sponge randomly . The glue was later lifted using a pin to reveal the NMF base. Hope you liked the photos , I really enjoyed building this remarkable kit from eduard
    6 points
  22. Another quick update. I've got the wings together, and the engine nacelles in place, but beware the part of the instructions that shows that you have to drop the mainwheel legs in through the top of the wing, before adding the upper parts of the cowlings. The cowlings were a reasonable fit to the wings, with a smidge of filler required, but the fit of the four upper parts can best be described as 'relaxed'...! The outer ones I fixed with some filler, but I thought I'd add a shim of plastic strip to the inner ones to close the gap at the rear: It need sanding flush, but a better option that filler, I.M.H.O. More soon... Simon
    6 points
  23. Thanks Cookie and Giorgio - thin the Lifecolor, got it! I've been planning to mix up some 'Cookie thinner' so now may be the time. I'm using Stynylrez primer which is nice and matt so should work - we'll see on the top. Thanks Alex Thanks John - I'm not sure if painters and philosophers mix but if you see the other guy don't take him to the stables - you should never put Descartes before the horse
    6 points
  24. Hello all, Here is a side project to my current (and next) aircraft builds - A 1/35 diorama with a SAS jeep and LRDG Chevrolet truck. Two classic Tamiya kits, ones which i've built in the past. These will be OOB with a few additions from the spares: Been wanting to do this for a while as these old Tamiya kits remind me of my youth. I've always been interested in the history of the SAS and LRDG but only recently have I read up in more detail about the units during the Second World War. Looking forward to it! Dave
    5 points
  25. This was a real fun build, only a few minor issues with the plastic which defies poly cement due to some sort of glaze. A good scraping usually sorted it out. Thanks for looking. Steve.
    5 points
  26. had this kit sat on a shelf for 2-3 years now so thought get on and build it, but when was building it i knew couldent just have it sat there and it would need a base to go on....so just wanted do something basic but that would make it look good. with that in mind i put a small scene together as if it was on a routine patrol, felt had to add the tree or would look to flat and boring ....am tryting think on something to do with edges in time!!.. and now brings this years total to 5 so far lol, with 5 others on the bench...
    5 points
  27. Cheers Ced. I've contacted them officially through Paypal tonight as predictably they didn't keep their promise to get back to me today. I'll give it a couple of days more and if nothing then I'll escalate to a full-blown complaint. Failing that it's over to the Bath Brigade! I found that Alclad stuff dries quickly TT, but oddly if you hold it in your hand for over 30 seconds it starts to feel tacky - as if it is reacting to heat. Most odd? I'm not going to get round to paint until Sunday probably now so it'll have another couple of days. Well I never! For the last decade of his life, my grandad used to paint his beloved VW Beetle by hand once a year. With household gloss paint! By the time he died the Beetle had grown about an inch in size and probably weighed and extra 1/4 ton with all the paint. He was something of a celebrity at the garage where he got it serviced....It's my mother's 73rd birthday this year so I'm secretly going to build her the Airfix VW Beetle done up like grandad's as a present. Damn that lying supplier - I hope that their train set has a really big crash and their shop is filled with killer bees and all their socks disappear and their favourite marmalade becomes permanently unavailable... I don't know if anyone's ever built a woman on BM before but damned if I'm not going to have a go at making Ms.Dunlop from scratch. I've just begun the armature this evening: I remember your lovely idea Tony about having a 'worry build' around, so this will be my 'worry Maureen' that I can keep to the side of the bench in tandem with the Barra. She's a bit Giacometti at present but will become more Rubenseque with the addition of Milliput over time....
    5 points
  28. Source: https://www.facebook.com/pg/MirageHobbyOfficial/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1323214324368655 V.P.
    5 points
  29. Thanks Tony Sorry to hear about your sun burn - that beach looks gorgeous and suspiciously like the one near Cairns with the crocodiles and jelly fish. Dangerous place Australia eh? Hope it clears up soon... and hopefully Mrs T is applying the Calamine for you, accompanied by the now mandatory "Poor Bunny" mantra? Love the cartoon too - Scotch in the Pump Room? Outrageous! Thanks Benedikt and Giorgio - a bit warmer here too, at least the rain is warm... Still no mojo, damn these pension regulations... I have, however, mixed up some 'Cookie's thinners' to use for the next coat so I'm more confident. Pub tonight but hopefully masking tomorrow.
    5 points
  30. This is my 1/72 Airfix Grumman F4F-4 built oob, no extras, All comments and thoughts welcome.
    5 points
  31. I feel as though I have headrests coming out of my ears ...... I'll keep an eye out for your progress, Simon . 1. Separated 0.6 mm ring and 0.4 mm tube. Still threaded on the 0.2 nickel silver rod Separated 0.6 mm ring and 0.4 mm tube by Alex1N, on Flickr 2. Ring and tube together - and off the rod Ring and tube together by Alex1N, on Flickr 3. Ring and tube - sitting on the wide end Ring and tube - sitting on the wide end by Alex1N, on Flickr I decided to make some more casts: 4. Bubbles! More than a few... Bubbles! by Alex1N, on Flickr 5. Bubbles here too. Epoxy resin without filler powders, etc., since I thought that I would get a more resilient, less friable end-product (I've made small test items from cured resin before, very easy) Bubbles here too by Alex1N, on Flickr 6. Newly-cast items for the Seafire, plus the excess resin left in the milk bottle lid used to mix it in Newly-cast items for the Seafire by Alex1N, on Flickr 7. Closer-up view of seat support frame and Frame 12. The many small bubbles coalesced under squeezing the mould parts together into a few larger ones - as can be seen here Closer-up view of seat support frame and Frame 12 by Alex1N, on Flickr 8. Almost cleaned-up cast items: really easy to do with neat resin Cleaned-up cast items by Alex1N, on Flickr I was reading @CedB's lovely Spitfire Mk IX thread yesterday morning, and paid specific attention to his use of Plasticine as a support for spacing the blades of his five-balded propeller. I realised that something of the sort (vide also the use of a support for the seat centre section some pages back in this thread) was what was needed for supporting F11 for drilling the holes for the head armour plate supports. Ced's post linked to here (it's a habit from my 'research' days to refgerence everything...): So, out with the FIMO, not having Plasticine at the moment - and FIMO, when baked, doesn't stick to things quite as much: 9. Support for drilling armour plate bolt holes in Frame 11: F11 pressed into a piece of kneaded FIMO Support for drill.ojng armour plate bolt holes in Frame 11 by Alex1N, on Flickr 10. Frame 12 removed from FIMO pad Frame 12 removed from FIMO pad by Alex1N, on Flickr 11. F11 back on the FIMO pad after baking the pad (without the frame) at 110 ℃. I had to carve some bits out to get the part to lie flat after distortion from removing the part prior to baking (should have used cling wrap or something as a release agent) and possibly from baking. Sticky tape still used to positively locate and steady the part... F11 back on the FIMO pad by Alex1N, on Flickr 12. Double-sided tape for holding the armour plate part in place, preventing the plate from skating about all over the place when placed over F11 Double-sided tape for holding the armour plate part in place by Alex1N, on Flickr 13. Prodding the armour plate into position: not quite there yet. Note the damage to the armour plate caused by careless handling Prodding the armour plate into position by Alex1N, on Flickr 14. Holes drilled- but were they in the right place? Holes drilled by Alex1N, on Flickr 15. Bolt-holes drilled in F11, plate/template removed. The top pair are perilously close to the edges of F11 - a bit of tinkering will probably be in order in due course. This is a result of trying to retro-fit a aprt from another kit that was never meant to be in this one - and with quite a different shape to the other kit's F11 too boot... Bolt-holes drilled in F11, plate/template removed by Alex1N, on Flickr 16. Pieces of 0.4 mm tube in the drilled holes - a sort of test-fit. Using tweezers with unaligned points is a recipe for - feeding the carpet monster! Which is why I used tubes without rings for this escercise Pieces of 0.4 mm tube in the drilled holes by Alex1N, on Flickr Follow the following link to my Seafire flickr album... Given the hybrid nature of F11 by now, I am reasonably happy with progress on it, given the scale. When I'm at the bench these days, I seem to spend more time sitting there pondering, than actually doing anything to the bits and pieces - most of it is trying out alternative assembly sequences in my head. And when away from the bench, too. Which a rather prevaricating way of saying thatI may not get anything done today, either. Cheers, Alex.
    5 points
  32. Time for an update from today, which has been relatively short but mostly spent working on the tail so I can button up the fuselage. But first a photo I forgot to show over the weekend, namely what the inside of the window with the seat looks like... You can also see the work that has gone into the weapon carrier; the large triangle of thicker rod (upper right, by the window and the larger piece of Tamiya tape) is the three pointing brackets for the weapon hoist (complete with two plugged false starts just below, where I got the measurement wrong - D'oh!). The trail of smaller plugs is the mounting points for the cabling - I was originally planning to do them in brass rod, but changed my mind to plastic because it's much easier to work (not least inside, where several of the plugs run along the line of the cockpit floor). Anyway - the tail. First up, I have mounted a blanking plate in the TR drive shaft tunnel; once it's cured fully I will drill a hole in it, into which the drive shaft will fit; this is to give the other disconnect gear something to be mounted on, the companion of the one in the tail pylon. Experience with the PE plate for the pylon suggests that it's easier to work when mounted on some plastic - FlightPath's brass is much thicker than Eduard's, which can make fixing things securely (especially by the edge) harder in some circumstances. So here it is seen from behind (holes cut to match up to the holes in the PE): ...and here from the front (bloomin' auto-focus!): Lastly for today, I have been measuring up for the brass rod that I am planning to use to bear the weight of the (folded) tail pylon; the hinges are far too delicate now to take the strain (having been thinned down to something approaching scale). Regular readers might remember that I drilled a mirror image of the tail fold bracket (which on the real aircraft is only visible on the port side of the tail), into which I plan to fit a thick brass rod which in turn will slide into place in the fuselage. Here is the hole, finally drilled: Here the brass rod used to measure, fitted into the socket - the actual mounting rod will be thicker than this: ...and here a dry fit of what I mean: All this is much easier to sort out before the tail is closed up. More soon Crisp
    5 points
  33. Thanks Matt I had intended to keep the feet fairly simple, but on a whim I decided to show the foot to have two parts for flexibility when walking. So started by marking out the design, then began carving out material with a ball stylus 20170201_131014 by Nick Frost, on Flickr 20170201_131024 by Nick Frost, on Flickr 20170201_131223 by Nick Frost, on Flickr Then i thought the bit sticking out needs a recess (just felt like the right thing to do) so i marked another area and resumed removing the sculpey in that area with various tools, being careful to preserve my straight edges. 20170201_131342 by Nick Frost, on Flickr 20170201_131428 by Nick Frost, on Flickr 20170201_131729 by Nick Frost, on Flickr 20170201_131941 by Nick Frost, on Flickr 20170201_132410 by Nick Frost, on Flickr 20170201_132416 by Nick Frost, on Flickr 20170201_132659 by Nick Frost, on Flickr Then once I'd removed enough I evened out the area by rubbing a ball stylus over it. 20170201_132730 by Nick Frost, on Flickr And then i used a spatula tool to smooth it all over. 20170201_133354 by Nick Frost, on Flickr 20170201_134148 by Nick Frost, on Flickr 20170201_135118 by Nick Frost, on Flickr I did blend the heel rim in a bit more but its not really noticeable in these pics. Next up i need to work on the heel a bit more to square it up where i smoothed the edge. Thanks for looking, more soon
    5 points
  34. Finally I got my latest build finished. I had been running her along side the FJ-4 Fury that I posted recently. She is a Super Mystere B2 “Sa’ar” as operated by the Fuerza Aerea Hondurena from La Ceiba air base. This machine, with others, took part in Operacion Danto ’88 against the Sandinistas when they crossed the Honduras-Nicaragua border to chase the Contras. It was a fairly large scale US-FAH operation. She is the latest in a line of models I’ve built that depict South or Central American operators and, in fact, follows on from a Honduran Sabre that I completed a few months ago. She has taken three months or so, on and off. I am a bit slow. It is the AZ kit – an easy build. Of course, my start of this kit has spurred Special Hobby to announce a new moulding! Hey ho, I was too far down the line by the time that news came out. So what did I do to her? Well: Added the wired ducting along the port side with Plastruct half-moon rod Added a UHF aerial to the fin and another ahead of the cockpit Added the pressure sensor under the rear fuselage with Plastruct .8mm round rod Added the small bullet fairing at the rear of the fin I removed the moulded plate on the fin where the elevons/tailplane were to be fixed and made two new plates from plastic card and hinged the tailplane on a rod through the fin. The tailplane always sat tilted backwards when at rest. Made plastic card weapons pylons Used Heller Etendard wing tanks Inserted cannons using Plastruct .8mm round rod Cut the canopy so that I could mount it open. The supporting fairing was made using rectangular section plastic rod Installed a MB seat as the Hondurans had (a Mk5, or as close as I could find) Used stencilling from Isrdecals I opted not to cut out the NACA inlets and instead used home printed decals. Serials and flag from the kit, although the flag isn’t entirely accurate (no stars). Printed the Armament panel on the port nose I think that was it ;). The paint scheme is standard US two-greens/tan and underside of grey. All Humbrol enamels (116/117/118/28) I painted a number of subtle stains in the various colours by simply adding a spot of a darker shade to each and painted them on using a fine brush. The rear section has two distinct darker tan patches where the squadron marks were removed. I then dirtied her up with Flory Dirt and finished with a matt cote. I hope you like her. Martin …. Next is a C-Model Super Sabre to keep my Sabre line going. I have an Obscureco wing and fin set to incorporate after I’ve figured out the Aires cockpit set and jet pipe set J . She’s going to be a Turk based on an Esci kit!
    4 points
  35. Hey guys, Welp, 2016 was some year, ended up doing GCSEs, not getting any modelling done over summer and then straight out of the frying pan and into the fire that is Sixth Form... With this in mind I have managed to have around 4 projects on the go, with this one being started in the November and well finished right about now-ish... It's Takom's Mark V Male (or female) tank and I must say, the detail's a beaut. However its sorta ruined by overly large and thick sprue gates which means you end up lobbing the detail off or spend an age trying to get it off intact. Apart from this the kit is a fun, challenging build with some weird stages where you have to mangle an interior wall to make it a mark V - every little helps i guess. There's also the part when you have to do around 20 too many road wheels that wont be seen that much and two very repetitive sponsons. One bit I did find equally find fun and stressful was this little stowage rack at the back between the horns (which I've neglected to photo) where a length of chain no bigger than a fine necklace example has to have a link the size of a sesame seed wrapped round a bit of plastic, then a bit of photo etch on the other end wrapped to the stowage rack. Good times.. For painting I used tamiya acrylics mixed to a ratio i found in the back of their Cromwell instruction manual and it fitted the 'moss green' takom suggested pretty well. On this went a near disastrous first attempt at post-shading followed with wash upon wash & filter of thinned down raw umber oil paint. The entire thing was then stripped back with a good drybrushing of the base colour lightened with khaki (also tamiya). From this I began chipping (with the colour i used for drybrushing) filled in with Humbrol's metal cote 'Gunmetal' which did the trick quite nicely I think. Upon this I was curious as to apply a matte coat but did so anyway with Xtracolour's enamel. Then with lighter chipping I went back in with gunmetal this time on a sponge around hatches etc. After which i went in there with a graphite stick and did the rest. Tracks were the good quality clip together variant and I painted them Tamiya NATO Black then washed back with raw umber and finished with AK Interactive's 'European Earth' Pigment. Of which I rubbed it back in places with cotton buds only to attack it with graphite sticks once more. I know I may of forgotten the unditching beam, i know, but I couldn't quite face the dreaded chains again so let's just assume that the crew lost it somewhere and are currently off on a recce to nick a railway sleeper nearby as a substitute (which was how they came about in the first place). Thanks for looking! Sam
    4 points
  36. Started this last summer. When I heard about this new Jaguar Kit I was very excited to buy it, Unfortunately the kit is a let down for a new tool kit. The fit of parts was a joke, a lot of fettling and sanding was needed. I brought the Eduard big ed (which was on special offer). I didn't use all of the photo etch extras but used the bits which added to the model. The big ed also had remove before flight tags which I decided to add to make the model look a bit different. I replace the seat with a resin replacement (not the correct seat I think, but it looks better than the kit on (although had to cut a large section off from the bottom to make it fit the shallow cockpit. I decided to jazz up the engine with some spare parts and lead wire. I made intake covers from bits from my spare box and the engine exhaust cover is tamiya tape I lost the nose probe so used a bit of brass tube covered with remove before flight bag (saw a pic of something similar online. 20170130_203315 by Richard Page, on Flickr 20170130_203255 by Richard Page, on Flickr 20170130_203343 by Richard Page, on Flickr 20170130_203422 by Richard Page, on Flickr 20170130_203322 by Richard Page, on Flickr 20170130_203547 by Richard Page, on Flickr 20170130_203610 by Richard Page, on Flickr 20170130_203916 by Richard Page, on Flickr 20170130_203329 by Richard Page, on Flickr 20170130_203503 by Richard Page, on Flickr 20170130_203520 by Richard Page, on Flickr
    4 points
  37. Chaps, Conscience got the better of me. Here are versions of the pictures which I think are undistorted. Hopefully this is now right. Regards Nick
    4 points
  38. Thanks again for all your lovely input into this build. Super quick update. we have a mat top coat which seems to have dulled the scratches much to i'm sure the Joy of the Red planets inhabitants. and some of the canopy masking off. Looking pretty good, luckily no under spray. look the map!!annnd. Some glass. the mat still has a shine at this scale but not too much. Also Just for Mr Barron. I've put the bars on. Paint next! gotta dash before I get caught. Thanks for popping in. Johnny covert ops.
    4 points
  39. A momentous day; we have a fuselage! But first, the final piece of Modelling Smoke and MirrorsTM (as Alex puts it) - this time with the tail rotor drive shaft and disconnect coupling to match the one already fitted to the pylon. I've already shown you the blanking plate I put in yesterday, so here is the TR drive shaft in situ: Looks simple enough, and is, essentially, though shimming it to get the alignment right was something of a pain. Here you are (though the alignment was adjusted once more after this shot, for reasons that will be clear): Once more I am impressed with Vallejo's "Metal Color" paints - this is Steel - they are pretty convincing, and SOOO much less of a faff than Alclad. I'm sure I'd use Alclad for a NMF Sabre, or whatever, but for these purposes this stuff is excellent. I then needed to exercise some patience while everything cured properly, so to distract myself I did some masking: Eduard die-cut masks; the business! And then, finally... .Ta-Daaaahhhh! A glued fuselage: The fit is not exactly Tamiya standard, but with some clamping and persuasion I think the major things are aligned well enough. The nose is the worst bit, and is going to need some work to make it look seamless. I am not sure about that gaping hole at the top of the cockpit - clearly it shouldn't be there, but I will have to do some dry fitting of canopy & Barn Door to see how much will be visible and therefore needs filling. Incidentally, note the fact that I have hacked the Hasegawa ECU exhausts off entirely. The front of the part helps to join everything together and maintain alignment, but the exhausts are pretty nasty and have horrible seam lines running down them. Since this aircraft is going to be modelled with FOD covers in place, there seems little point in wasting much time getting the exhausts to look any better, so off they came. And speaking of dry fitting, I did a swift test with the boat hull before everything cured too solid, just incase there was some horrible misalignment: That won't be glued until tomorrow at the earliest. Still, I hope you will agree that the semblance of a Sea King is starting to emerge... More soon (though I am up in London all day tomorrow). Crisp P.S. Don't think the gap at the top of the cockpit is going to be a huge problem, cos I doubt it's going to be very visible: Dry fitting the canopy has shown that the Ornage Crop controller fouls the windscreen slightly - should be easy enough to fix.
    4 points
  40. Hi, all! I think I sent a link to the Boscombe Down photos earlier, but I thought many of you might find the other photo topics of interest or of use for future modeling projects. Most of the photos seem to be from WW2, so I have posted them here. (Site Adm. Please feel free to move elsewhere if you deem appropriate.) I hope you enjoy these! If this link is redundant, I apologize! Mike https://www.flickr.com/photos/133697406@N05/albums
    4 points
  41. Probably 'cos it's taking longer than the real thing to build! 'My eyes are pies' Paint it black......
    4 points
  42. Cookie's method with Lifecolor also works for me, I think the secret is the matt primer coat, I use Halfords grey acrylic primer.. Was that Degas bloke related to the one who said " I drink therefor I am" ? John
    4 points
  43. Hi Graham, From the sprue shots of the 1/72 Mk.VIII that I have seen, the wing under surfaces are correct for the MK.VIII, and incorporate the two raised fairings and the chutes under the cannon bay that were standard on production A/C. However, the chutes for the outer cannon bay are moulded closed and will need to be opened up if doing a version fitted with four cannon. The alternate wing upper surfaces, with the wide fairings, that Eduard mention in their mag would be good for the very early production aircraft, without need to open the outer chutes. For the record, attached are extracts from the m/s I gave to Eduard. I assume that they used this with little change. Cheers, Peter M "The wing on the Spitfire MK.VIII is often called a ‘C’ or universal wing. This is not strictly correct. The Mk. VIII wing was structurally different to the ‘C’ wing fitted to Spitfire VC and IX aircraft, and also incorporated fuel tanks in the leading edge. Supermarine had always intended that the Spitfire VIII would be a four-cannon aircraft. To better accommodate the extra cannon, the wings were strengthened and, all fittings, including mountings, fairings, link and shell ejection chutes were fitted to production aircraft. In 1942, the RAF decided to fit all Spitfires with a standard armament of two 20 mm cannon and four 0.303-inch machine guns. Production of the Spitfire VIII, (and possibly the Seafire II), with four-cannon wings would introduce yet another production difficulty for Supermarine. The decision was taken to standardise production, and all Spitfire VIII aircraft would also be produced with two cannon and four machine guns. Early production Spitfire VIII aircraft retained the wide two-cannon blister but, as production got under way, it was replaced with the narrow single-cannon blister. Hover, the fittings required for mounting the outer cannon were retained and the panels under the cannon bay remained configured for the four cannon fit. --------------------------------------------------- The first Spitfire VIII to be fitted with four cannons was one for the Commanding Officer of No. 54 Squadron RAF, S/L Sidney Linnard. (It has been written elsewhere that the aircraft was for S/L Eric Gibbs, but he left the squadron before they started receiving the Spitfire VIII). This Spitfire was also fitted with extended wingtips, and the role of the aircraft was quite clear – to intercept high-flying reconnaissance aircraft over Darwin. The aircraft’s ID is not known with certainty, but the author’s research leads him to believe that it was probably A58-355, which was delivered by No. 54 Sqn to No 7 RSU in August 1944 for incorporation of Modification DTS Inst/42, which covered the fitting of extended wingtips. This work was classified as a modification, as the end of the main spar had to be modified to allow the fitting of a larger diameter bolt to carry the higher loads imposed by the extended wingtip. On the other hand, the adding of two 20 mm cannon was not regarded as a modification. The aircraft had been designed with the mountings and fittings required for the installation of the additional cannon. Other items, such as ammunition boxes and hatches incorporating the wide cannon blisters, were held in RAAF stores. The RSU described that work as “Four cannon installation fitted”, indicating that there was no specific modification work required. The next aircraft to be fitted with four cannons were A58-431 and A58-482. No. 7 RSU carried out the work in December 1944. A58-431 was the aircraft held by No. 7 RSU for the use of No. 1 Fighter Wing’s Wing leader, Wing Commander R.C. Wilkinson. A58-482 was the aircraft of Squadron Leader R.A. Watts, CO of No. 548 Sqn. It is not known why these two were fitted with four cannon, or if any tests were done. It would appear that it was not long before they were restored to their original state. The last known RAAF Spitfire VIII to be fitted with four cannon was Group Captain Clive Caldwell’s A58-484. Caldwell was interested in assessing the increased firepower for use against hardened Japanese ground targets in the forthcoming invasions of Borneo. No. 9 RSU at Morotai carried out the work in February 1945. Caldwell had little chance to fly it after the extra cannon were fitted, but he told the author that, although he believed the extra weight of fire would be useful, he believed that the degraded handling meant that the aircraft could prove to be dangerous to fly at low level in the hands of less experienced pilots. One other drawback of fitting the extra cannon was that the under-wing bomb racks could not be fitted, as the second cannon prevented the mounting of the bomb release which was partly inside the outer cannon bay."
    4 points
  44. Splendid stuff Alex. Makes you realize how much mass there is in one of those things when you see it swinging back like that. Coming up.... Cheers Jamie! I'll tuck that up my sleeve for a metallic build coming up in the near future. Thanks for your comments lads. The beast is now primed. I tested out the Alclad stuff on some sprue pieces first, just to get a feel for the medium before committing to the aircraft itself: Alclad reckon 15psi on the bottle so I stuck with that, the MAC valve on the brush open about halfway for a generous flush: I have to say that this stuff wafts on rather deliciously. Being black, I expected it to give rather thick instant coverage but it is in fact suprisingly 'light' on application, letting you build up the required thickness of pigment in a very controlled manner: They recommend a light micromeshing afterwards, but even in the raw state I found it very smooth. The black it produces is so nice at bringing out detail that you're almost reluctant to go on and paint over it! I'd say a gentle rub-down at most is all that is needed: It actually looks a lot more mottled in the photos than it does in the flesh as I over-exposed the shots slightly so it didn't just make the aircraft look like a recognition silhouette: Verdict: after a single use I'm sold on this Alclad primer and will be using it again. Clean-up of the brush was a tad clumsy as I'd forgotten Keith's earlier nudge about cellulose - my homebrew airbrush cleaner sort of cleaned it up but seemed to curdle slightlywith the primer, so I simply switched to cellulose thinner to clean it all out, which seemed to work fine. I'm going to get some of Alclad's cleaner for next time though, just to be sure. Oh. And for the second time this build I forgot to mask the TAGs windows. Back out with the C-thinner once that's all dried... Tony
    4 points
  45. I stand to be corrected but there is a nagging doubt at the back of my mind that at the time the Xtrakit PR9 was released there was some question in reviews as to the cross section of the kit's fuselage. Martian
    3 points
  46. Hello Ced, I've run out of likes again. I'll be back to pop some more here later. I l know the Beach you mean near Port Douglas with the Jellyfish Ced. Beautiful, but quite useless. Almost as far north from our last location as this one is South. The distances involved in this country still often leave me lost for words. That beach has a few less miles in the name. I got sunburned walking along that one in 1997 with the late first Mrs. T. Just my legs. There seems to be a common theme with me and beaches; burning ! Im glad to have moved further south; this one is in good old New South Wales, and is, as Benedikt suggested, ridiculously close to being a slice of paradise . No crocs or jellyfish etc for a change. Wikipedia; "In 1933 Seven Mile Beach was used by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith as the runway for the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. It also has a little river/lake." The lake just behind is freshwater, people were fly-fishing there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Mile_Beach_(New_South_Wales) God seems to have decided to put it all in one spot here, as there's a tropical rainforest there too, replete with wild budgies, Cockatoo looking winged thingies etc. The Charles Kingsford Smith lookout has a 2/3 scale imprint of a Fokker VII/3M on the ground. It's very difficult to take a photograph of it, but a fun thing to walk along and ponder those pioneering days of aviation exploration. Over the last 8 years QLD quite wore me down with all the jellyfish etc, so Mrs T. and I were very grateful of NSW last weekend. No insult to QLD, but I'm just not hardy enough for all that, too much of a 'Brit' Modeller! First holiday in 8 years too. Very welcome. Of course, now there's that small matter of sun-block that I have to remember - doh! British rain and rolling hills, nice German sunshine and forests, Italian Apennini (and lakes and beaches) would make me equally if not more happy; I do miss Europe. Have a good night at the pub Ced, still no decent beer here; I like a good pint of decent bitter (the dark stuff!). Shame the tech boffins haven't found out how to put beer in a zip file that can be moved across the internet. What use is the web without that ? All best regards The mildly grillled TonyT
    3 points
  47. I´m not one of the mods but I think I can answer on their behalf that it´s common practice to do like you suggested above. And when you add a link to your build thread in the RFI post (why not?), that may also attract non-group builders to come and take a look at what´s happening down here. V-P
    3 points
  48. I repeated these two photos to bolster the following remark: what an excellent example of Modelling Smoke and MirrorsTM! Fantastic! I have been doing my own FAA researches researches recently - albeit of a much earlier and very different time, and for a non-existent detail - and have a much greater appreciation of the FAA. I also recently discovered via @TonyTiger66 that the Aus FAA Museum at Nowra on the NSW South Coast has a Mk 50 on display . A trip beckons. During my researches I remembered that the father of one of my doctoral supervisors (which he let slip in conversation) was the Big Boss of the RAN FAA for a time. I wish that I had hasked more questions about it, now! Enjoying this encyclopaedic thread immensly! Cheers, Alex. is enjoying it, too.
    3 points
×
×
  • Create New...