Leaderboard

Afternoon all, Here is the belated write-up and RFI of Airfix's Handley Page Victor B2 in 1:72 scale. (WIP here for anyone interested) So let's get started! Vigilant Victor Kit: -Airfix 1:72 Handley Page Victor B.Mk.2[BS] Paints: -Vallejo "Model Air" paints Weathering: -AK Interactive washes and UMP dark dirt wash The Build: As you can see from the WIP (linked above), the build followed the standard procedure of constructing the cockpit and any fuselage internals such as the airbrakes and nose gear bay, this was followed by the joining of the fuselage halves. It should be noted that a lot of filler was used to try and close the various gaps but having said that, Airfix have used a somewhat ingenious construction technique of using a flat "plate" that slotted into place of a built-in recess along the top of the fuselage to mitigate any potential seam issues. Following on from that were the wings, tail and main gear bays. Again, the construction of the spars, bays and intakes were noteworthy and added a lot of structural integrity to the wings when fully assembled- the intakes utilised a "drop in" method for the intake vanes where slots had been cut into the upper and lower intake halves and the vanes were simply slotted in (no more worrying about removing intake seams, I hear you cry! Huzzah!). Finally the Blue Steel fairing, antennae, aerials, gear, crew door and other such details were added; with all but the Blue Steel door being added after the main paintwork had been completed. Talking of painting, I always seem to have a devil of a job trying to paint white (dust tends to stick to the painted surface with almost reckless abandon!) but I persisted with painting, sanding, painting, sanding until I was satisfied. The venerable Blu-Tack sausages came in handy- as did many, many feet of cheap masking tape (imagine the expense of using Tamiya tape for all of the underside and the demarcation lines!)- when it came to painting the camo. Gloss coats were quickly followed by the exceptional decals (which I think were printed by Cartograf) and then I moved onto weathering. I had a dabble with streaking some AK washes down from the cockpit windows and some of the fittings lining the radar fairing, furthermore the exhaust streaking on the underside of the wings was done by several light spraying passes of diluted Vallejo paint -Edit: a UMP dark dirt wash was used on the panel lines and rivets. Cue the pictures! : (Centre console decal stolen from a Revell Victor K2 ) Conclusion: All in all it has been a great kit to work on (except for painting the white underside! ); the decals were a dream, the surface detailing was top-notch and the Blue Steel is by far the most comprehensively detailed and decaled piece of kit ordnance that I have ever had the pleasure to build. Thanks for having a look! Kind regards, Sam

Hi guys, I finished this one for the made in Britain group build. Was looking for some constructive criticism before move onto the next one! Here's some of the photos of her. Any comments suggestions welcome Regards Joss

hi all, Here's a warning for you. If a work colleague says i've got a present for you and it's a model, turn it down. By not doing that, i ended up with a Frog 1/72 Buccaneer S2 that had been in his loft for decades, had curly brown decals and was missing a main undercarriage door. All of that was eclipsed by poor, clumpy mouldings and a cloudy canopy (which actually cleaned up well with Klear). Fast forward to a conversation with another work-mate, who is a modeller too, regarding the Japanese air force (my favourite subject) and their use of American aircraft since the year dot. If the Japanese had liked the Vampire they bought instead of the T-33, that would have led to Hunters, Lightnings, Buccaneers, Hawks, Tornados and Typhoons. I mentioned the Bucc and he suggested a blue one ala the Mitsubishi F-2 would look good. The challenge was down and i did have a kit and the correct Mr Hobby paints to try out too. The result is below. This is by far the worst kit i have ever made. There is almost as much filler as plastic but at least the tailplane and canopy fitted well. Even the Fujimi decals from the spares box refused release from their backing paper it was that bad!! Overall, it's come out quite well but just nowhere near my normal standard, c'est la vie. However, it does look right doesn't it? Andy

Hi, everybody! Let me present you my next, but first model in 1/32 scale.

Not a 109! But two Fairey Albacores. One is gone when my shelves tumbled down some years ago destroying about half of my collection! So here is a mix of both models! Cheers. DSC_0006-1 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0001-5 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0008 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0007 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0006 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0005 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0003 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0002 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0001 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0005-2 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0004-4 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0003-2 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0002-2 by jean Barby, sur Flickr

and so shall it be again. I got some more piping done, tidied up a few odds and ends and added the fish plates. At this stage I had to add the windows and I managed to mess up both... urghh. There are no location features for the windows and they merely push into the provided openings. They were a bit tight and ended up being recessed from the outer skin - not good. A little bit of filing was called for, and of course, the file slipped. Nothing major but it will call for a little bit of micro-meshing later. Then, on the second window, I managed to gte a little bit of glue on the outer surface due only to my cack-handedness. Again, nothing major and can be fixed relatively easily, but annoying nonetheless. A coat of primer was thrown on. I'll need to sort out some interior color (suggestions welcome) as I only have two greys - mid, and light, and they both look almost white to me, so I guess I'll be perusing ebay this evening. It definitely needs some color to break up the monotony. The top end of the ducting is still to be added but I want the interior color on before I do that part. The starboard side was started, and there's a lot less pipery going on with this side. I think a few more pipes and this side can also get a coat of primer. (and a window) It looks terrible in this photo so some cleanup is required Once that done, and I have some interior grey in place, I can begin adding the electrical cables and assorted boxes and controls. Then I'll need to start thinking about the seats and how I'm going to approach them. I'm not too impressed with the kit seat frames so I can see some soldering action in the near future.

hello again folks Having finished my 1/18 Spitfire XIV, I am hooked on the scale as it allows me to go nuts on detailing and get a scale effect through skinning with metal, so after a bit of deliberation I have settled on my next victim... ...you don't see many of these, in fact none in large scale (yet) and I like UK prop aircraft so I settled on the Fairey Firefly - they don't come in natural metal finishes which I like as it shows off the metalwork, so the nearest I could find is this bird a TT5 VX376 seen on 29th Feb 1956 - Pilot: S/Lt Mike Thorne, Observer: Lt Jones, Duty: Townsville to Cairns & target towing for the 1st Frigate Squadron... ..it is near enough NMF for me, this one, sister ship VX388 is in Steve Long's care in Oz and shows the sort of anodised looking finish - it is probably paint, but either way I still think I can work with it, and if worst come to worst I will just paint it . I may well do VX388 as you can't have better references than a real, and more importantly unrestored example.. ..the first step in any project like this is good plans. I intend to scratchbuild it using traditional methods so a good outline & section plan is a must. I found some fantastic 3 views with sections by Jumpei Temma whom I trust as I used his work on my 1/24 F7F Tigercat... ..I had these scaled to 1/18 - here seen with my laptop - as you can see she is a big girl - 64cm span and about a third bigger than my Spit... I have two more sheets not shown that detail the undersurfaces & the fuselage & sections... ..the next step is getting repetitive strain injury by right click & saving every image on the internet I can find - some are real quality shots like this of VX388 - I can reproduce everything you see here, but cut some corners as will be seen.. ..once references have been started I can start to work up a Photo-Etch sheet for the model - I did thsi for my Spit and F7F and it means many, many parts that would be difficult or time consuming to make can be 'drawn' in at about 5 - 10 minutes an item - some are obviously more complicated, but simple things like hatches, brackets, instruments, radiators all sorts of stuff can be made. It just takes a bit of basic PC skills with a drawing program like CorelDraw (subscription @£22 a month, drop in & drop out whenever you need it) - I learned all I know with this and Rhino 3D modelling from Youtube videos - it really is straightforward.. making a PE fret has a couple of rules I may well do a quick tutorial on, but basically you just draw things in layers - things you want full thickness & things you want part etched - anywhere you can see through is just dissolved away. You also need to tag things to a frame so they don't just float away on theor own.. ..so here is a bulkhead where I have started to trace it's outline and add detail to.. anything in blue is half etched - that is to say it disolves away half the thickness of the sheet, anything in yellow is full thickness - the metal is left untouched.. you can see I set the shapes to be transparent so I can see what is going on in the original pic - it is just like tracing... ..while this kick-off post doesn't have any actual building yet, I have spent about a week so far drawing up structures & components that will be used later on.. ..for example the instrument panel - there are two as one is a backplate the detailed one fits onto, as they are copies of each other they always fit perfectly ..lots of assorted parts including throttle & prop controls, compass mount and loads of internal / external hatches & brackets.. ..the Observers station - bulkheads & surrounding structure.. ..the pilot's bulkhead is actually three layers of structure to get the best level of base detail before all the framework is added... ..another cheat for complicated or uniform parts when scratchbuilding or converting is 3D modelling - this is a wheel from my Spitfire done on Rhino -again a 3 month trial is available with the software which is enough to learn the basics, and get a few parts done - I will likely repurpose this for the Firefly as it has four cut-outs in the middle not 3 and has block tread not diamonds, but wheels & the prop spinner are pretty straightforward parts to design using a 'revolve' surface tool.. so that's it for day one - I think it's about a 2 year build and it is an aircraft I think will really have presence when completed. I am always looking for close up internal reference pics, or drawings so please, if you find anything drop it in here or PM me I look forward to your company on the way, and while it is not as beautiful as a low back Griffon Spitfire, I hope it is engaging enough to keep us entertained TTFN Peter

No, not a Mosquito, a Sea Hornet. I had to take a double look too!

That is a real insult to the Sea Fury! The Firecrest was a classic example of the adage about not throwing good money after bad - it was an attempt to get something out of the years wasted in trying to get the Firebrand to work properly by changing the wing to a laminar flow version. It didn’t work. Too big, too heavy, a terrible view over the nose when deck landing (better than the Firebrand, but still awful), too ponderous. The Firecrest was well over a ton heavier than the Sea Fury, had broadly the same engine and was a tad slower. OK, I lied: a lot slower. 20%, in fact. 80 kts is a big margin in air combat - and remember that had this gone into service it might have ended up in combat against MiG 15s & 17s... I guess it superficially resembles a Sea Fury because of the Centaurus nose, but whereas Hawker’s aircraft was a thoroughbred, Blackburn’s was a nag. The fact that it lost out to the Wyvern - itself a deeply flawed aircraft - probably tells you everything. There was even a proposal to turn the Firecrest into a turbopprop, but that never happened. For all that, I have a strange affection for both Firebrand and Firecrest. Two wheezing donkeys left well behind in an era of incredbly rapid development.

Hi, I was announcing that my next finished will be Potez 29 but it is "29", but B 29. I started this model in Christams 2014 and then it was in a kind of freeze... Now I finished (intending to present "Bockscar" while made his atom mission over Nagasaki - so without nose art etc. ): I made both bombs included in box ( abit reshaped and upgrated): "Fat man" and "Little boy" I have to do a kind of stand, but not done yet. Perhaps a trolley, but I do not have drawings for it... Comments welcome Regards Jerzy-Wojtek

1/32 mig 29 n Royal Malaysian Airforce Delivery Scheme thanks n regards brian

Hello Johnny, great progress. You've put me to shame. I've got one on the back burner, and just started another as you so kindly noticed. The interior looks very good with some rather nice highlights. I love your 🐶. Hope you don't mind me putting a photo of my best mate Max on your WIP. He's short, fat and eats whatever is put in front of him. They say dogs get like their owners.

As the host I can't stay behind with what I want to build. So out came the stash of Matchbox kits. And then I found it. The Dornier Do-18G-1. I bought it for about 15 quid a few years ago. As I will build it also for the Water and floatplane GB. This will be needed to be started first. The top cover the back cover. I have chosen to do scheme 1. Here is the content of the box. The decals still looks very decent with their protective sheet of paper on it. Here is the manual and something extra to replace the mg's. So here it is. Cheers,

Dear Fellow Modellers Here is the Chinese CA-30 truck which is a clone of the Soviet Zil-151. The design owes much to the lend-lease Studebacker trucks from WWII. It was in service in China from 1960s to 1980s and I believe some still serve in the Bangladesh army. In the Vietnam war they chugged down the Ho chi Minh trail and so made a major part in the eventual victory of the Communists. It is dressed up with Miniarm resin wheels and SKP lamps and lenses. Trumpeter provide a canvas tilt but omit the cover on the front so this was added from tissue. Hope you like it? Andrew

After all the time and effort I put into my last build (see that WIP here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235022860-old-dog-new-tricks-part-deux-172-trumpeter-f-105d-thunderchief/ ) I felt a need to replenish my modeling juices with something relatively quick and simple. I let my gf select a kit from my stash and this is what she pulled out: Having recently returned to the hobby, I'm stretching myself by learning new techniques. For this one, I concentrated on painting and weathering for modern US Navy aircraft. My original plan was to finish in two weeks... two became four (funny how that always happens). OOB with exception of aftermarket bang seats, bombs from Hasegawa weapon set #1, Eduard PE, and minor detailing on the landing gear. On to the show! Link to WIP: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235026081-mojo-building-build-172-italeri-a6e-intruder/ Thanks for viewing!

thanks for all the comments folks. Just a quick blast for this evening I'm afraid. I got back from my trip a hour or two early so took the opportunity to hide down stairs before SWMBO got home. A few more pipes 'n' bits 'n' bobs 'n' nubbins added. I also removed and redid the last two pipes at the rear of the cabin as no rigger in their right mind would have made such a hash of the pipes as it was. It's all looking a bit better now, though not completely finished. The ducting was added using some milliput for the vertical section as it lies against the outer skin then curves over the stringer just above the window line. Again, still more to be added there, but I need the milliput to harden before continuing there. and without clamps... (I hope I have left enough room to get the floor in place) Then the starboard side got their share of ribs and stringers, so I can make a start on adding the pipework tomorrow, if I can slink away for a while So, nothing earth shattering but small progress

Calling this one done, still a couple of little touch ups but it's finished. Tamiya 1/32 Tamiya F4U-1 built OOB with the exception of the decals which are from EagleCal and painted with Bombshell Brew.

I'd like to share a few pics of my latest build. This is Academy's kit of the P-47D from the special "Gabreski" boxing (which also includes Francis Gabreski's F-86). The kit itself is typical of Academy's mid-1990s releases - meaning nice but simple surface detailing, and some soft and perhaps spurious landing gear and cockpit details. The decals; however, are by Cartograph and are really very nice. I used the supplied invasion stripe decals, and they fit perfectly. Apply with confidence! The kit is painted with Tamiya's RAF colors. Along with flat red, flat yellow. Details were painted with Vallejo paints. I kept weathering to a minimum, as I didn't want to take away from the camouflage, which I think came out pretty nicely. I gave the model a wash of burnt umber oil, added a few paint chips, and that was about it. The camouflage was done by thinning the paint to an almost watery consistency, setting the PSI as low as it could go, and then detaching the paint bottle once some paint got inside the brush nozzle. Then I just lightly misted it on. It was really fun. I used my old Paasche VL brush with the fine line attachment. The story behind this aircraft. Francis Gabreski (28 kills) had finished his tour of duty in England in July of 1944. Shortly before he was return to the States, he asked to fly JUST ONE MORE mission. The escort mission was uneventful, but on the return leg, Gabreski decided to hit the dirt and went down to strafe an airfield. During his attack run he literally hit the dirt, and bent his propeller. He was forced to crash land and was made a POW.

Thanks for watching;)

Nothing much to see here, you might think: ...until you turn her over, that is: I think we can say that the masking point of no return has been passed. The metallic surrounds to certain panels (Vallejo Metal Color Duraluminium, to be precise - and whatever I may or may not think about Model Air, I LOVE Vallejo's metallic paints) are not pre-shading, @abat; I am not a great fan of pre-shading, to be honest - I just don't think it looks right. It will effectively be hairspray technique, yes - though using AK Worn Effects fluid, which is basically the same thing. That will be sprayed tomorrow morning, and then once dry I'll bang on the base coat of EDSG. Oh, one other thing coming close to being done: The yellow-tipped blades (anti-clockwise in this picture) are done and glued in place - though still to be weathered - but the others are just dry-fitted so droop a tad. You get the gist, though. More tomorrow Crisp

Hello all! Here is my latest completed model, the Revell (ex-ICM) Bf109F-4/z in the markings of Hptm Kurt Brandle, 5/JG53 based in Sicily during early 1942. I can't deny this is a challenging kit with regards to the fit of the nose, but thanks to a build report I saw on the internet I managed to get it to fit OK. The colour scheme was based on a number of profiles and an old FSM article from a few years back so I have no idea how accurate it is. The prop is the skinnier F-2 version from the Eduard kit, I figured the wrong prop looked better than the abomination supplied by ICM! Head armour from a Hasegawa kit as I lost the original...and the radio mast is a cut-down Spitfire one from the spares box, same reason!!! Paints were by a mixture of Mr Hobby, Vallejo and Xtracrylix, decals were from the spares box. Hope you like it! cheers, Chris

I've had a one-step-forward-two-back sort of day. I decided not to bother with stencils. The photographs of 65Sqn aircraft that I've found show none anyway. I did however realise I hadn't painted the yellow ID leading edges before decals. I applied enamel matt clearcoat to try to protect the decals and carefully masked off taking care not to press the tape down. The yellow was obviously my own which was squirted on quickly and then I went to remove the tape immediately. I still managed to lift an upper wing roundel. Idiot boy ... I decided this aircraft was a bit beat up. If anyone produces a photograph to prove me wrong then so be it - but it would have been more useful when asked for at the beginning of the thread! I just touched in the missing bit with a brush... Once re-matted I think I'll just about get away with it. I've opted to fit the radiator shutter in the closed position. This time (as opposed to my many previous Mustangs on the shelves) I remembered to add a pushrod! The undercarriage legs and doors are now on too I needed to cut the Vector pushrods from the inner door hydraulic rams and add longer ones to reach the horns on the doors The main wheels are painted. I'm just giving the paint a bit of time to harden up properly before rough handling / sawing from the casting blocks. The Ultracast propeller blades are currently stuck in a blob of Blutac with yellow tips too.

Whilst things are drying I've turned my attention to the undercarriage. The u/c as it comes with the kit is quite good, but like Airfix CA have not modified the nose wheel unit to represent the Martin version one, luckily I got the SAC white metal set which does have the correct nose wheel unit. Another issue with the Martin Canberra's concerns the main wheel hub's, none of the kit or the aftermarket kits have a true representation of the hub, CA have had a go at it but it's very flat and not very accurate, so I've made my own which a fellow SIG member cast for me, the following photo shows the unpainted CA wheels and my wheels. The next wheel related job are the taxi lights in the main gear fairings, these replace the single wing mounted unit in the B.57A and B and the three wing mounted ones on the E. The RB.57D and RB.57F use the same set up. The modified unit is on the right. John

I always liked Eric Moody's message to the passengers when BA Flight 9 ran into difficulties: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."

Today - my first go at doing an oil wash.

Some recent builds for my RAF Station diorama (1/3 builds) All Airfix 08002 versions 'C Flight' 100 Squadron -- G - George Q - Queenie K - King Thanks for looking in. Ian

So there is a market for all these weirdo British subjects then? Kind of reminds me of the good old days when Matchbox released all those off beat models that we all loved both then and now - Heyford, Stranraer, Wellesley, Norseman, 32nd scale Lysander... etc etc. (too many to mention). Good on you Airfix - please keep these esoteric subjects happening. Cheers.. Dave

Thanks, all. Great set of pictures there, Mark. I went to Vancouver when I was much younger but certainly didn't get to ride in a floatplane! However, I must try to find that livery for my MilViz Beaver, it's rather magnificent. Limited progress this week. I really want to push this to the finish line, so I've decided to postpone the scratch-build of a ladder until after painting. A coat of primer really showed up the seam along the top of the fuselage, and I've had real difficulty in getting the nacelles to look smooth (i.e., I've failed completely). Some sanding action and a blast of Halford's Honda Polar White, and I'm a lot happier with the fuselage. The filler is still visible from some angles, but by my standards that's a very good finish I do really wish that I'd tried to vary the control surfaces, though. Anyway, now waiting for a bottle of VMA Deep Sky Blue to arrive, since I forgot to buy one last weekend. I'm slightly worried in that Vallejo have previously used the same code for Blue Angels Blue, which is far too light for this scheme. We'll see...

Holy moley. What a week. I had to move floor at work. I had a meet up with some old friends. Charity bake day at work for Macmillan. (Ultimate onion tart. 1:1 scale) Secondary school visits for my eldest. Getting ready for Hospital next week. (Nothing bad) needless to say the plastic has taken a back seat. I haven't even checked the site much, for shame. I have been at a Go Ape thing with the kids (scouts and cubs) all day today even though I put my back out yesterday. To be fair a 30 ft wall climb and obstacle course high up in the trees was good for the old spine. Any way I'll stop jabbering and show you what I did with my spare hour. (Before dinner arrives) The weight arrived. I weighed out 17g of de ballz and painted them green baby. Then popped them through the turret. I'd planned on cutting the front out but this seems like the neater option. Now it's kinda like I've made a float plane shaped maracca so I had to some how stick them in place. Gator glue! I watered it down and squeezed it through the hole with a pipette. et voila, no more tail sitting. I took the dry fit wings apart and and fitted these vents. then glued the wings proper. they are a bit big. the engines got a blast of primer. some nice detail there. The cowls got sanded. They look a right mess, I'm not a fan of black plastic. but with a blast they're fine. Aaaand that's kinda where we're at. Hopefully I'll get a. It more done tomorrow. hope you're all having a lovely weekend. Thanks for taking time out on the Cat. Paint soon. Ish.

Not had much time this week to really do anything on the build, I did manage some detailing on the winch, its plumbed in now and its as far as i'll go for this area. I crash moulded the small spotlight next to winch, its not perfect but it will do, I think I have a lens that's small enough to fit. More soon hopefully Dan

Hi folk's,hoping it's third time lucky after m issing the deadline on the last two GB,s I'm gonna have a go at Revell's re-pop of the Matchbox Spitfire. apologies for it not being an original but at just over a tenner at a recent sale it had to be worth a punt.I know I had a crack at this kit many moons ago when new and can guess at what would have been for the younger me an over complicated build never got far! So a nice relaxed OOB build on the card's don't care about the fault's or innaccuracies I need after a five week lay off a mojo kickstart,see you soon.

I'll start with something easy-peasy; the Hawker Tempest II I'll do it in an RAF scheme [now; them] Photos; The kit makes a Mk.VI of the RAF or a Mk.II of the Indian Air force I'll be doing an RAF Mk.II Loverly; mustard and green plastic The decals are rough

Decals going on... Band was tricky. Not perfect. But then these always are. If doing this scheme again I would mask and spray them I reckon.

A Sunday night up-date. No photographs but the MkVII and MkIX are ready to be masked before painting the PRU Blue underside. The MkVI has had it's wings attached and the glue is setting. The MkVb has had the transfers applied: I'll give it another coat of gloss and finish the canopy before a Matt coat and a black poster paint wash. I'm closing the ballot and will anounce the result in the next update. Thanks for looking.

Revells 1/72 mig 21 f13. my brother got my this for my birthday, cause i like migs with red stars!!! i have only one. painted with my normal mix of tamiya and valljo paints. used eduard zoom for the cockpit. decals are begemot, the 2 options in the kit where plain silver and boring. Used mig ammo 'lucky' gloss varnish for the first time, i was unlucky, didn't airbrush well, i had to strip it and use games workshop gloss instead!. thanks for looking.

With work commitments very much the main recently it seems like an age since I did any work on this. But today I `weathered` both models before starting work on adding the fiddly bits. I also started work on the bases. Both models will have it`s own individual base so that they can each be displayed separately if required. More soon.

Hello all. I have tried to create the droop at the trailing edge of the wings. I got some spare plastic from the carrier sheet, cut it to an upper wing profile and thinned the 'trailing edge', and did my experiment. I had a lit tea light candle, and just wafted the 'wing' about 2-3 inches above the heat source for about 5 seconds, and found that the plastic had become pliable and was able to fold it down onto the V shape curtain required: Feeling quite happy about proceeding, I marked up the lower upper wing for the wing ribs, and upon checking the images I had of the replica from Canada, I dutifully remembered the span-wise ribs too! Then, heart in mouth, I tackled the heat-attack on the wings proper. The two lower wings went really well, but the upper wing needed quite a bit of coaxing to get into shape, but it went okay in the end: I will need to thin the edges just a little on the drapes to make it look a bit better, but I am very pleased with what could have been a bit of a disaster! Ian, thanks for that tip. I have sprayed some Halfords White Primer onto the lower surfaces, I have given them a couple of coats each and it has toned down the ribs quite well, so hopefully I should not need too many linen coats. I also checked out Small Stuff for the engine, and their 1/72 Gnome 80 hp engine looks to be a beauty. I am going to still try and scratch an engine though, as I do not think that this will really benefit from such a superb moulding, the difference between my work and Small Stuff's would be too great! I will bear them in mind though if I am unable to produce this myself! Thanks for watching and for the comments and suggestions, always appreciated. Ray

This has been a bit of a challenge . Turning the ESCI model into something a bit presentable. First model I have rescribed (so much damage to details during construction)..Not a habit I want to continue. Resin Interior(may not be as accurate as some would like), and Master Gun barrels and Pitot (Beautiful parts) Lots of modifications to backdate this kit closer to AD-4N. I did take a few liberties with some antennas and aircraft ID numbers, but still focused on the VMA-211 concept. Colors are Vallejo with Gunze GX-100 Clear Gloss over-coating. This model is part of an ongoing Wake Island Avengers theme. Thanks for looking Comments Welcome Cheers Bill

The Illusion of depth Sometimes it is necessary to create the illusion of depth. Generally when I have do this I just say something like 'It's the rhythm of Shakespeare's language that is the real root of it's power' and that seems to do the trick. Making holes in a submarine's hull 'look deep' however, is not quite so easy. Here's how I've finally done it. On 11th of August 2017 - I left you with this picture. It's probably taken a bit too far away to show clearly but suffice to say there is no depth to the flood-vent holes at all, except in a couple of spots that fortuitously lined up with some spots where I had drilled a whole heap of holes for a mid-war configuration. The first step is to fix the plastic sheeting that the revised flood vent holes are cut in - into the correct location. Just drill holes so that the new sheet is held in the right spot by the same dowels that hold the other components together. See - all lined up nice and straight. But as you can see there's just wood showing through beneath the plastic - we want to make it look like these flood / vent holes lead somewhere. Mark onto the 'centre bit' where the flood / vent holes sit. Take a scoop chisel and remove the wood that was sitting directly under the surficial holes. Pretty ugly bit of woodwork this - especially with the blobs of plastic wood filling the old holes. Clean up the gouges with some sandpaper - not looking quite so dreadful now. This is the basic idea - now you can look into the flood / vent holes and see a deeper hole beneath. Note that there is a good reason why this has not been done to the square hole on the left - you will see why in a later post. Now slap some black paint on the gouges... and stick the submarine back together again. As you can see, each of the flood / vent holes are now nice and deep-looking even though they are actually quite shallow. Just like my personality... Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve

Clearly someone who spent about a year saying 'Ill just do that bit as well while I'm at it...' That is some serious structuralization and paintification gone on there isn't it? Still haven't gotten round to taking the boys to the Nat. Maritime Museum over at Greenwich - I'm a sucker for those 17th to 19th C naval architect's scale models, all those lovely structural breakdowns and nary a Dremel in sight... Surely the Sangreal of scratch-building; these are the guys I look up to as defining the edges of possibility. Surely a misguided shape to post on this forum but this is the footprint of the motor room floor / tank room ceiling, contour-gauged onto paper: Of all the approaches I've tried, simply trimming paper templates to size has come to be my standard for getting straight to an acuurate result: You do have to bear in mind the thin-ness of the paper compared to the thickness of the card you transfer the outline too - here for example the plastic of the floor shape would need some slight bevelling along its sides with the sihrsc, in order to match the curve of the motor room walls at that point. Here's the floor cut out now, some framing along the sides with plastic strip, and the access hatch leading down into the motor room cut out: The rectangular shape below it is one of the diagonal uprights inside the motor room, leading from the hatchway up to the base of the forward engine. Those holes in it were an absolute swine to get done without warping the thin plastic. Mostly it was a case of drilling very s_____________________________l___________________o______________________w__________________l_____________________y so as to avoid the drill bit tearing ans stretching the surrounding area. Ladder rungs were added using a straightforward process of adapting small staples, which were fortuitously in scale for the job in question: These two parts need testing at this stage to make sure they fit three-dimensionally together in the restrictive space available: Yup: Enough to be going on with now. Even with just those two bits in place you can see just how quickly that space will get filled up with various bits and pieces. The big issue is not so much one of length but breadth - the thickness of the kit walls in this region will definitely stay my hand with incorporating some of the smaller stuff like plumbing, due to the likelihood of it simply getting in the way of the larger parts fitting. I had considered thinning the kit walls here (as I had previously for the tank room walls below), but in the end deemed it inadvisable given the weight of the wings etc. on this region when the bird is fully-assembled.

Tamiya MiG-29 1/72 MiG-29 Ukrainian Airforce, Ozyernye 2006

Thank you guys for all the help with this. I popped it off last night. Saw the new pic @Howlindawg posted and glued it on again before work . Got to work, read posts , got home and snapped it off again. eventually after much fiddling and balancing this happened. aaand its not 100% perfect but it's at the right orientation at least and I'm a happy penguin. I've covered it back up ready for weight and paint. listening to @CedB I popped the wings on and tried a balance. doh! this tape reel. knocked her even. 17gramms. blimey!!! Hopefully it'll be heavy shot. by the way does any one have an idea about what I should do with the tail/ wing flaps if I cut em out? thanks for dropping by and taking an interest in the Cat. Happy Modelling guys. Johnny 90 degrees

1/48 GWH Mig-29A Hungarian Air Force, 2009 Build thread here Dave

9 Squadron Lancaster WS-J -- NG206 (Matchbox 1/72)

It's been a while but a quick burst this afternoon and some progress has been made. The nose is just about there now and I'm starting to get something looking like a Halifax.

With some collapsed struts on a 1/144 bi-plane, I decided that I had to do something which had a bit more substance. This morning I took this off the shelf and continued work by adding the last few parts before closing the fuselage up. One of the bits that caused me an issue was fitting the seat in the left half of the rear fuselage as per the kit instructions, the locating pegs for this are a bit sketchy and I found it easier to close up the fuselage and fit this item through the rear door opening. Once again the fit is excellent, providing you take the time to check for any alignment issues before joining the fuselage halves, and the only problem I had was getting the bomb bay roof to sit properly in the correct location. A bit of pressure at the right point clicked this into position, I still have to clean up the seam but I will wait a couple of days for everything to harden up properly. Meanwhile, Stage 3 in the instructions is for the Engine and Cowling assembly and this work is now in progress.

Thanks, Martian - I have seen other similar warnings, so I plan to replace the major ones; I have plenty of spare roundels of the right type & size, and have acquired masks for the yellow CH / 104 & black under-wing LA461 marks. That just leaves stencils, and I should be able to live with any of those that are less than wonderful. Given their age, the Airfix transfers look pretty reasonable. Masks off now, and they seem to have done their job nicely. You will detect that I plan to do a bit of weathering at the wing roots and on the edge of a few key panels (based on the evidence of the "aircrew team photo" shot at Culham already posted). ...and here is the very aircraft I am modelling. Mine won't have a drop tank or rocket rail fittings. Crisp

Managed to get a bit more time in on the Dornier and things are going okay. The yellow was sprayed with no problem, in fact it almost seemed pre-thinned and didn't even attempt to clog the airbrush, not like Aeromaster at all! Here is a shot of one of the theatre markings under one of the wings; The blutak is there because I have masked off the undersides and made a start on the upper surfaces, starting with the green. Finnish olive green is a matter of much discussion but I have settled on Gunze H320 (mostly because I have some) and it looks okay to my eye. I have roughly sprayed the areas which will remain green and given the panel lines a bit of post shading by simply applying more of the same colour to them than the rest of the panels, some of them need going over again but hopefully you get the idea from the picture below; And a closer look at the port wing; I will have another go tomorrow and then mask up ready for the black areas, which I plan to use Tamiya NATO black for so that I can get some tone variation and a similar panel line effect as I have with the green. Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received. Craig.

Good news! I won first in category at the contest this weekend! I've also posted the RFI for this build. Enjoy! -Bill