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zZUMmmm, zZUMmmm zZUMmmm zZUMmmm zZUMmmm (uneven hum of unsynchronised engines approaching) – hear that? It must be a one of theirs! “…Messerschmitt!...’Einkel!…. Messerschmitt!...No, it aint, it’s an ’Einkel!….”argue two small boys, knee deep in the river below (remember the scene from the film B of B?) Dornier Pilot “Teufel - ve are lost! That looks like the wrong river down there. Where is the iconic Forth Rail Bridge (mit der painters) that we were told about? I can only see a bridge which looks like it has taken two attempts to build.” Dornier Co-pilot “Kapitan, the compass is kaput, not that I can see much of it from this new seat position! Or through these big goggles!” Controller “Bandit, Angels Zero, over the River Tay. Johnny, you are nearest – can you please intercept?” JE-J “What?? I’m at 25,000 feet over the Channel! Where did you learn your Geography?” Controller “Sorry Johnny. The only other aircraft available is a ‘Lizzie’ and he has been out all night on a spy mission. You’re all we’ve got. From your height, you should be able to see him from there?” JE-J “OK Control, but it will leave me short on fuel and I don’t know how much ammo I’ve got left…….I see him….going down now………..(VVvvvvrrrrrrooooooowwwmm …..sound of loud Merlin) ……attacking from port…..BRP…..!?!?” Dornier Observer “Achtung, Spitfeur!!” Dornier Pilot “Hans, your aircraft recognition is excellent but now the guns man!!” Dornier Top Gunner “Kapitan, I can’t move – I’m stuck to the seat and can’t reach the turret or the guns!!” Dornier lower gunner “Kapitan, I can reach my gun but you are flying too low – the Englander is above us!!” Dornier Pilot “Donner und Blitzen! No compass and no guns! Men, if we make it, it is half a bottle of beer for each!” (my favourite line from ‘Das Boot’). Wry smiles from the German Crew, each thinking of a gallon of Alt Bier or even some of the local Tennants ‘Export’. JE-J “Blast! Out of ammo. I might have got one shot away though! He’s not dropping bombs and he’s not firing back – let’s take a closer look!” Dornier Co-pilot “Verdammit, we are hit! A small .303 bullet has bounced off our under-deck armour plate and hit the compass – but it is working again!” Dornier Top Gunner “Mein Gott, the Spitfire is flying alongside – look at that shape! Now he is looping over the top and back again!” JE-J I thought that victory roll would impress them. Super splinter camouflage job, though. Love the greens and those swastikas on the tail really make that Dornier look the business! Dornier pilot This reconnaissance mission is a washout! I’m waggling my wings to let the Englander know that we are packing up out of it! Look at that speed……I wish we had Spitfires in our squadron! That’s funny, he has a green maple leaf under the cockpit – the ones I’ve seen before are red – I wonder why? Drop long range fuel tanks and set course for home! Dornier Co-pilot Jawohl Kapitan! Tanks away! Heading East! Two small boys, still knee deep in the river below “Fuel tanks… mini-subs!…fuel tanks… mini-subs!” Dornier Top Gunner Next stop Norway! Wait until I get my hands on our ground crew – the modifications to the flight deck are great but the paint still wasn’t dry when we climbed in. It must have been done by Helpie Helperson, the world’s most helpful Norwegian (On the intercom…”Hello!”) – Not now, Helpie! (That Plusnet radio ad always has me in stiches!) Dornier Co-pilot Kapitan, I need steak and Guinness but since there is a war on, I’ll settle for Zigeuner Schnitzel mit Pommes und Mayo! Dornier crew (in unison) …and a half bottle of Alt Bier!! Controller Bandit moving away. Divert to the nearest landing field in Dundee, Johnny. JE-J Roger, Control. Breaking off…..out of fuel…I see a patch of grass in front of a house down there and there is a boy giving me the thumbs up from a window. Home for tea….what’s on the menu in the frozen North? Controller It may be Wallaces’ ‘Peh’s’ or even Forfar Bridies! JE-J Good egg! I believe I’ll ha’e an ingan ane an’ aw! (Only a Dundonian will understand this!) Controller Eh? You are breaking up, Johnny! Boy at window in 1969 Wooowww!! What are they dad? Dad Let’s check these aircraft recognition cards, son… Boy Whoa…. Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IX – that’s got a 1600hp Merlin engine, two 20mm cannons and can do 410mph! It’s squadron letters are ‘JE-J’ so it must be Johnny Johnson (all useful info from the Airfix Header Card!) - but that twin-engined aircraft doesn’t match this card for a Heinkel He111! What is it? Dad It’s a Dornier Do217, known as the ‘Flying Pencil’. I learned that when I was your age! zZUMmmm, zZUMmmm zZUMmmm zZUMmmm zZUMmmm zZUMmmm…... The undercarriage did come down again after all but it looks like the aerial wire took a hit! The whole point of the build was to 're-construct' the photo from 1969 (see the middle of this sequence). Original photo is in the build thread here: The build was great fun, re-creating the picture was a stretch and I got carried away in making up the story but I was really keen to incorporate all the input from Britmodellers from the build thread! Many thanks to all!

Hello all! With this post I will have finished with my Fairey aircrafts! The "Stringbag" is the most famous of them all and the Tamiya model is a breathe. The specific photo etch from Tam was used for the rigging and they work like a charm!Best regards from france an again thanks for your very encouraging comments on both the Fireflies and Albacores! DSC_0010 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0011 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0012 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0013 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0014 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0015 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0008 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0009 by jean Barby, sur Flickr DSC_0010 by jean Barby, sur Flickr

Just finished Takom's FV432. Great to finally see some British modern armour available other than tanks. It's a great kit which was a joy to build with an excellent instruction booklet with some good colour photos. The separate link tracks were a first for me but the jig supplied with the kit was brilliant and they are much easier to paint than the standard rubber types. This was a number of firsts for me. My first outing with Hataka paints using their Modern British Army & RAF AFV paint set. In the past I've used Tamiya, Vallejo and AK colours on modern British vehicles, but without doubt they have to be the most accurate NATO green and NATO black I have seen by far. Also the first time masking with White Tac ( a big thank you to The Salisbury Model centre for that tip). Also a first attempt at weathering with pigments and still some learning to do there but I tried to replicate a 432 on exercise somewhere in Salisbury plain, which for those who are familiar with being sent to play there will know, in summer everything gets a nice coat of dirty white chalk dust. The Gimpy is the kit one (which is actually pretty spot on) with a Accurate Armour ammo box and belt and the cam net is one I had in the spares box with the addition of some oregano and chopped chives (don't tell the wife) Still need to add ariels but I've got the time to post now so here it is, hope you like it? WT

Hello all , I recently finished my first (well first one with airbrush ) spitfire after building over 50 models ! I am now trying my best to correct this travesty by assembling another couple of eduard spits . This is a weird little model from airfix - the landing gear legs are molded with the doors and I am not sure what purpose this serves ; the panel lines are also on the heavier side though acceptable . I weathered the model to replicate a sun bleached airplane and intentionally exaggerated the colour fading than I usually do . BTW , the decal sheet didn't provide any roundel for the lower wing surface even though it had an extensive selection of stencils including a dozen for the lower surface . Is this true for the real thing as well or a glaring omission from airfix ? This model is part of the dogfight duel boxing , the other kit being the bf109e . ps: I painted the camo freehand as I didn't feel like masking and spraying ; the weathering was done with airbrush only laying down different tones of the base paint . Regards , Basuroy

Hi mates, here I am with an update. Let's get started with a couple of pictures of the fuselage. Once the wings were mostly rigged, it was time to add the rudder and elevators' assembly, together with the side frames linking it to the fuselage, then the rigging went on. The all thing was really shaky, and flexed a lot during the rigging process. I think the real thing must have been the same. I then assembled the engine, which was then paintedblack and dry-brushed metal. Once fitted to the back of the fuselage, this is what it looked like. The wheels and tank over the top wing were painted separately and added at this stage, together with the ammunition side pokets. PE parts were added to the machine gun, followed by painting and then it was fitted to fuselage's front. It was now time for the propeller, painted light brown and brushed with Bruno oil paint (basically a darker brown). Then Eduard pre-cut masks were applied before painting them brass. ...ok, I cheated, but wanted to represent some sort of tie beam, this I made some out of wire turned around a needle and glued to the rigging ends.On the model they aren't bad even if the macro pictures aren't really...forgiving. To hold this delicate model I restored an old wooden base. Nothing special, but I'll add a pilot. I bought a pilot by Alley Cat, which is superb, but I still haven't painted it!May be I'll do it this weekend, if I can't do any progress to the Jags. I really enjoied this build, which didn't even take too long ( quite unusual for me!!!) There isn't much to be said about the build...I added to the process the scratching to create the canvas effect and I cut and re-positioned oll moveng surfaces to give the model a bit of life.For the first time I experienced the wooden effect on the interiors and the propeller and the rigging process. The wire I used was a bit of a challange , as the wires weren't all perfectly tensioned. Anyway its rigidity gave me the opportunity to tighten them at the end with a toothpick , simply pressing it close to their attachements to the wings. Now a few pictures of the finished model. Ok, I'd say that's all! I'm going home tomorrow and hope to be able to do some modelling. See you guys!!! Ciao Massimo

Hey All, The last week or so has been fun with family and model building, and in this part of the build, I got to try a new thing for me. I had to make my own "piano hinge" for the hood of the winch. This always go slower than expected, and I had a few days off with family, but I got to a point where I should show what the heck I did. Building the cover for the winch was a combo of straight sheets, with the first of many curved surfaces and the hinges. I first built the basic frame that this cover hangs on. You can see that this is made of thin strips... Test fit onto the winch once I got the size correct, then I had to build up the sides to get everything level for the hoods... testing, testing... Next was making the hoods. These were simple to make, just some bending to do... Once I got all the pieces to fit relatively well, I started adding the details. Making the piano hinge was easy enough, just very tedious with all the small cutting to do. more testing and fitting... So, it's off to the paint shop, and back again... I'm going to live with it like this for a bit. I still have hardware to install and I want to barrow Richards brass hood locks from his Willy's jeep project. At the moment I'm excited to see the frame work for the Fuel Tank Cage and the sheet work for that part of the build. I'll be back with more exciting "stuff" later. Thanks All!

Thanks Simon, Keith, Giorgio, Johnny and Joe - almost done (see below) so time for a Spitfire soon Thanks TT - don't be afraid to agree! Thanks Benedikt - is it the colours that are 'Norm 72' do you think? Thanks John, Nigel, Giorgio, Keith and Jaime for comments about me in the bath (as opposed to in Bath, where I live). For those that have met me I can only assume that the image is causing envy rather than nausea... for those that haven't I'll understand any peculiar looks I get when we first meet Thanks Jon Some progress today (hoorah!). Apart from switching the Broadband to another line and supplier (nervousness not required as it turned out) I have done some things on the Ju... The matt coat has caused silvering on the idents: Slivering - gaaaah by Ced Bufton, on Flickr I sorted it on that side by cutting away the carrier film, but the corrugations made this hard so on the other side I've just pricked it and applied Micro Sol. Engines next. The main ones were easy, but the front engine is, er, complex: ... so I thought I'd share my 'method' - please feel free to add copious amounts of Anglo-Saxon as you go through. The lug on the nose obviously goes into the slot in the engine back: ... but there's no indication where the exhausts fit. After several dry fits with bits falling off all over the place, I think they go like this: Yes, there is lots of glue. No it wasn't my first try. I also replaced the knocked-off sticky-up thing in front of the canopy and fitted the engine cover: The rear gunner, gun and mount and windscreen got stuck in: Note that the gunner's hands go under the mount, not on the gun. Sensible I guess. Ladders fitted to drilled out holes and here we are: Canopy framing and touch ups tomorrow (including repainting the ladders 'upper colour') and then she's done. I'm out to the pub with an old colleague tonight so, actually, it may be later tomorrow or even Saturday. To be safe.

Finished at last! My Wingnut Wings 1/32 Bristol F.2b Fighter, converted into a Sunbeam Arab-engined version and painted in the colours of 37 Training Depot Station, RAF Yatesbury December 1918. Build progress in the WIP section. The model is a combination of the WNW kit, with various scratch-built bits to turn it from a graceful V12 Falcon-engined machine into a pug-nosed V8 Arab boneshaker. Scratch-built parts: - Sunbeam Arab engine & cowlings - Exhaust headers & exhaust pipes; associated brackets etc - Trailing aerial - Gun camera - Spent shell case container - Reversed propeller rotation (modified kit part) Hardware: Taurus Models: - M0002 0.35mm Round Head Screws - M0003 0.42mm Round Head Screws - M0044 Wingnuts with Threaded Rods - M0510 0.9mm Bolts with Hex Nuts Bob’s Buckles (rigging): - 0.5 OD x 2.5mm tube - 1/32 eyelets Uschi van der Rosten (rigging): - Item Code 4005 (UvdR-3 Standard) 0.005 OD “Rig That Thing” Elastic Rigging Paint: Mr Color acrylic: various Decals: Ventura Decals: - VA 4898: RAF and Commonwealth 1919-1939 serials. 8" b&w with white outline. - VA3279: RAF and RAAF 8” Serial Letters white

Hi All, Finished up my Tamiya 1/32 scale Mosquito. Had loads of fun building this kit and the precision of Tamiya is amazing. Had some aftermarket extras on the kit, namely Eduards interior and exterior photo etched parts, resin wheels, Nose and Belly guns. Decals are from EagleCal Hope you like it

Now, I'm presenting you a model for this week. It's a Bloch MB152 aircraft model, Smer, or Heller. I note that the cabin glass is not finely glued, but is only fixed with a white glue. The complete glass in the box was full of flashes, and the middle part of the cabin lid and the windshield were quite twisted. After cleaning the flush with the same, I tried to fix the lid by heating, but poorly. Overall, I am happy that the model looks in the shelf. Here's the picture.

KP Kit (comes with resin and etched cockpit) Extended the chord of the tailplanes with plastic card Some Eduard etched used (mainly the panel under the front fuselage) Resin wheels Intake & exhaust covers from some chap via Britmodeller (you know who you are!) Aftermarket pitot tubes Painted with a mix of Gunze, Tamiya and Akan Flory wash for weathering (the light in the pics has bleached this out - sorry) Not an easy kit! SU-25UBK by bryn robinson, on Flickr SU-25UBK by bryn robinson, on Flickr SU-25UBK by bryn robinson, on Flickr SU-25UBK by bryn robinson, on Flickr SU-25UBK by bryn robinson, on Flickr SU-25UBK by bryn robinson, on Flickr SU-25UBK by bryn robinson, on Flickr

I managed to grab a couple of personal days during a trip to the east coast last month and visited the Steven F Udvar Hazy Centre. The lighting sucks but the content is superb as are the raised walkways. More pics here if you're interested: https://www.hanger51.org/aircraft-museums/us-museums-collections/steven-f-udvar-hazy-centre/ Coast Guard rescue by tony_inkster, on Flickr F-14 Tomcat by tony_inkster, on Flickr Big yellow by tony_inkster, on Flickr F4U Corsair by tony_inkster, on Flickr Sikorsky HNS-1 by tony_inkster, on Flickr Dornier Do 335 by tony_inkster, on Flickr P-61 Blackwidow by tony_inkster, on Flickr B-26 Marauder Flak Bait by tony_inkster, on Flickr Mig 15 by tony_inkster, on Flickr Arado Ar 234 Blitz by tony_inkster, on Flickr USAAF P-40 by tony_inkster, on Flickr F-4S Phantom by tony_inkster, on Flickr USS Discovery by tony_inkster, on Flickr

We have now reached the qualifying number of 30 nominations. Airfix The Golden Years (unless I have made any mistakes) will now be included within the ballot to decide the 2018 group build season, the ballot starting this November. Thanks all. 1) Old Thumper 2) Ventora3300 3) Rob G 4) Arniec 5) Theplasicsurgeon 6) Malpaso 7) Stevehnz 8) Caerbannog 9) CliffB 10) Zebra 11) Big X 12) Lawzer 13) Greg Destec 14) Adrianmf 15) Antb 16) Paul J 17) Avreda 18) Nigel Heath 19) Rafalbert 20) Jb65rams 21) 825 22) Rick Brown 23) Grandboof 24) Plasto 25) Ray S 26) PLC1966 27) Tonytiger66 28) Rabbit Leader 29) Romeo Alpha Yankee 30) Mad_djg 31) Moggy 32) Tony W 33) PhantomBigStu 34) 1903Flight 35) Threadbear

In 1938 Vultee were engaged in developing a range of aircraft that shared some common components (eg rear fuselage, wing panels) and tooling. One of these aircraft became the Vultee BT13 Valiant trainer and another, the model 48, eventually became the Vanguard fighter. The Model 48 first flew in September 1939 and seemed to be aimed at the export market. Performance wise it was a bit faster than the Hurricane, but had a lower ceiling. 140 of a modified version were ordered by Sweden to bolster its obsolescent fighter forces in 1940, but before deliveries began the US Government embargoed them. It was then proposed that the British could use them as fighter trainers in Canada and about four were allegedly finished in British markings. This also fell through and a handful were used as trainers by the US with 129 being sent to China, where they saw some combat. Information on the web or in print is limited to a handful of photos that seem to crop up all over the place and some fairly short pieces of text. The model is from the 1/72nd Sword kit that was released as a short run kit in 1998 and I think I bought it at that years Scale Model World, which shows the speed at which I work through my stash and is the same kit that AZ Models released in 2008 so far as I am aware. The kit has is mostly injection moulded with reasonably fine surface detail with a resin interior and exhaust and some photoetch for u/c doors, instrument panel (with film instruments) etc. and two vacform canopies with well-defined frames. Like most sort run of the time there is a lack of finesse in some of the moulding of the smaller parts with some flash. The prop hub suffered badly in this respect and rather than try cleaning it up to attach the separate blades, I found a suitable prop in the spares box and shortened the blades to match those in the kit. Building the kit did not produce any real difficulties for me. Being short run there were no locating pins so holes were drilled in the fuselage and tail surfaces to accept brass rodding to give some strength to the butt joints, the trailing edges of the wings and tail needed a bit of thinning. The wings being a three-part affair with a one-piece lower wing tip to tip and two upper halves. The wheel wells needed boxing in and the location hole for the undercarriage legs was just a shallow dimple that needed drilling out. The fuselage edges sanded to produce a good join and amazingly the resin cockpit interior fitted with only a bit of fettling. The only part that needed some serious work was the wing fuselage joint, but I have built mainstream kits that were a worse fit. The vacform canopy once trimmed went on alright, helped by very clear frame lines. I am convinced that the way to deal with vacform canopies is to make sure they are cut with a new blade and are masked to a) protect the canopy and to give a clearly defined cutting line. They also need patience as I have found that even a relatively small amount of trimming can make a big difference in the fit. The paint work caused some difficulties in terms of interior colours. I found one colour phot of the prototype being assembled that seemed to show a dark green colour being used and went with that. The undercarriage doors and wheel wells were painted in Zinc Chromate Yellow as that looked a possibility from the photos. The camouflage colours were a lightened version of Tamiya Sky and Humbrol acrylic 29 for the Dark Earth and 116 for the Dark Green. Looks slightly different if you place it next to something in MAP Temperate Land Scheme, but not very. Decals came from old Modeldecal sheets as the kit decals were out of register and a bit bright and the serials fell to pieces. Hope you like it

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

You are very kind for saying so Mr.P, and such sentiments are one of the things that drives me on to try and do better each time. Fear not dear hendie. I'm in the throes of a full-blooded addiction to the process.... I too recognize such proclivities. Since acquiring a decent range of files however any subsequent 'clean-up' procedure has in my case become decidedly more disciplined of late than some of my early cringe-worth attempts. An odd time at the moment (I'll explain more in a bit) but just to keep you up-to-date with the last couple of days. Firstly, the motor-room floor: Adjusted for fit, I then added some basic framing around the doorways on either side. Before proceeding any further I remembered to use the openings in order to sketch out the required dimensions of the doors to be built later: There's only two of course but as an insurance against clumsy cutting I added an extra. Somebody asked a while back about the directions these door open: I can confirm that they open outwards. Once that was done, I CA'd the diagonal truss into place: With that in place now the floor was glued to provide a datum for the other parts: You can see in that shot I've got the upright ladder section propped up on some White Tak as an aid to gluing it into place at the correct angle. In order for this part to to fit I had to nip out the corners to accommodate the raised frame running along each side of the floor: With the glued dried, it's safe to show the resulting structure up to the camera at a different angle: My attention next needs to turn to the kuhler (coolant radiators) at the front of this compartment. Here's the part that Matchbox gave for this: Whilst the horizontal radiator lines are't too bad at all, the diagonals are actually an unsatifsfactory attempt at portraying on a flat surface the narrow arms which reach out to support the curved doors which can be closed to protect this region. As such I'll bin this kit part and build my own. The doors themselves? 'Big-boned' and not to my liking, so I'll build these in two halves from some thin card later too. In other news. An envelope from Italy dropped through the letterbox yesterday containing an 1800-page parts manual for the C-119 (G to J variants). This will be well-thumbed between now and the time I return to this build and has already cleared up some minor mysteries regarding operation and structure of the rear door. In connection with the Boxcar build, I remain unhappy with some of my scratching of parts for some of the hydraulics so finally got in to the CAD facility at work today to suss out the 3D printer tucked away. It's a decent looking CubePro: https://www.3dsystems.com/shop/cubepro and my intention is to try and 3D print the necessary parts for the C-119 once this Dornier has been safely taken care of. I'll report back with any results at a later date over in that thread. Finally, updates over the next few days may or may not happen with any frequency or depth. We got a phone call about 3am this morning to say that Mrs. B's mother had been taken quite ill at the nursing home where she resides. The old girl is in her late 80s and this morning the doctor indicated this may be the end game kicking-in. Cycle of life and all that, but things may be up in the air for a few days. Take care of yourselves compadres. Tony

Armour is new frontier for me, apology for any errors here is my Tamiya Type-97 Chi Ha late model, Thanks for peek, cheers

This will be my entry into this Group Build Our 1948 MGTC has been a member of our family long before I was born, being my parents first car. It's been off the road since 1969 but hopefully later this year will be back to full health. The picture below is yours truly next to the car when I was about 18 months old I hope to build this kit to look as simular to our TC as I can and dedicate this build to my dad who I lost a few years ago and who fortunately kept the car to allow me to have it after all these years Good luck to everyone in this GB Cheers Pat

Cheers lads made me feel like a right drama queen Sorry for moaning... Anyways whilst I decide what to do about the varnish situation I did a bit of weathering, trying out something new (for me anyways) so if it goes wrong (sorry) then no biggie. So these are water based acrylic washes, having used enamel/oils for the past 5 years this is alien. I bought these two a while back but not got around to using them yet (scared?) I bought a dark grey and dark brown, two colours which should prove versatile and/or generic enough for most applications and if I like them can get more shades... They are surprisingly thick out of the bottle, (compared to enamel panel liners say) and don’t flow nicely untill thinned with a touch of water. For the bays I brushed it over the whole area, then using a fine brush drew and swiped it away from the flat areas as it was drying to avoid tide marks. Strange working in small sections at a time with this as opposed to oil washes where you can do the whole model inside and out then go back at your leisure and blend it in. Guess its all down to the drying times. On the exterior I only used the washes here and there to bring out certain filler ports and bolts etc, as the main panel lines are prominent enough, apart from the undersides of the tail planes which are surprisingly shallow, and in the exhaust flow, so these were darkened. Another area I used the dark grey was along all the hinge lines of the control surfaces top and bottom, as they were quite wide and showed alot of green in them. The dark brown was used on the U/C legs, with the dark grey on the oleos. A few pics to expand on all that waffle: U/C bits. Bays. Control surface hinge lines along topside of wing: Thanks for looking. Ps got an idea to fix the finish, will try out later/tomorrow and go old school with some alclad enamel clear coats 👍🏿

...and the underside now primed in white (Alclad again). There will now be a pause for a few days, because we are going away. I'll no doubt be posting, but there won't be any modelling! Laters Crisp

Thank you Corsaircorp. Thanks Z. You've made a great start on your Walrus. The port and starboard wings just pushed together on the main spar. The underneath of the lower wing showing wheel bay detail and weapons bays. In the next day or so, I'll start to glue the interior parts together. That will give some support to the structure, so I can then dry fit the four fuselage sections to see what the join is like. I still intend to paint them separately before gluing them together. Because of the shape, I'm sure I will have to adjust the fit slightly. I can then just spray paint the seams all being well.

This is a very, very nice kit. I'm progressing very quickly (for me) to the point where I'm really going to have to make up my mind about the colour scheme soon. Everything seems to fit together very well indeed although that comes with the usual Airfix caveat that you do seem to need to clean the parts up well as some of the tolerances are tight. There's a little cleaning up to do - there were mould seams on the engine struts, which were removed easily enough, and of course the injector pin marks that have been mentioned elsewhere. But these are very easily dealt with. So far I've got most of the fuselage components assembled and painted, prior to bringing the four main fuselage parts together, which may well happen tomorrow. Alongside this I've been assembling other components - engine nacelle and upper wings so far - and have been drilling holes for the rigging along the way. Airfoil provides rigging diagrams and fairings where the rigging wires attach to the wings and struts. Airfix has missed out some of the wires around the engine though - the wires that form an X between the front and rear struts are marked on the diagram, and fairings are provided, but not the ones that go across between struts. There's an X going across the front and across the rear of the lower struts, and two wires that form a V between the upper wing and the front of the nacelle (between the upper front struts). You can see them in my photos of the RAF Museum's Seagull V here and here. So I've drilled holes for these as well. Here's how it's looking so far:

I’ve been focusing on my Fairey Firefly build the last few weeks but managed to get some Wessex time in the last few days whilst on holiday. I cleaned up the rotor blades and parts and added a few more details including the (lubrication?) hoses and approximations to other bits and pieces from a series of rotor head photos. A slight mis-alignment in the molding meant a fair bit of sanding was required. I umm-ed and arr-ed about folding the blades and even experimented building a rotor hinge from plastic card and rod, but in the end settled on spreading the wings for simplicity and sanity. This isn’t glued together yet (to allow easier transport home from the beach) but you get the idea. There’s still some small etch circles to sit atop the rotor head and I’m replacing the crude linkages between the swash plate(?) and the blades. I should spend more time learning about the components. Interesting things, helicopters.

I finally have the feeling of seeing light at the end of the tunnel with this build. 1) Airbrushed the wingtips and tail with Humbrol insignia yellow over white primer. Humbrol insignia yellow has the consistency of ink, very poor coverage. 2) Added the landing lights, another pain, much to small needed filler. 3) Masked off the yellow painted areas, and then airbrushed the whole kit with alclad grey primer. 4) Added the first layer of polished aluminium alclad.

OK, here we go again: Alclad Black Primer & Microfiller - I love this stuff! The underside will receive a similar squirt of white tomorrow, then I can get back to painting yer actual colours. Crisp

I will be in with this. Greg in OK

Hello! Finally I've finished this project, my Dominican OH-6 is ready, please wellcome it. The vuilding was not an easy ride, no parts were fitting and the details were a li'l bit sci-fi. You can read further h e r e . First I show you some shots about the progress. Lots of slef made parts was required to make myself setisfied. Almost totally new tail rotor: Seat : Somehow they writen ID insted of FAD. Just... how come?? Anyway I found two A-s and converted two E-s to F: The liquid mask was too old maybe and it was too thin, gooey and easy to tear. Sometimes it made such a thin film that i had to look up photos, where is it. So more and more layers needed to picking it off. Anyway I won, this is it:

Hello Dears, Here's one of the RFI, Aaaaand one more Spitfire (Should have changed my alias) A legend or not ?? I don't know but seemingly, these Aircraft is not registered as a Spitfire ! It is said that she has been built with parts from différents aircrafts, and was not armed. This I will not believe... An unarmed Spitfire, not a recce one over the channel and Normandy ??? So I let the cannon on. Eduard Spitfire kit are pretty good, I really like it Unless, the engine cowling and exhaust ... Invasion Stripes are painted with Kife Color There once again has been a chemical reaction with the Tamiya flat varnish.

Very well done Olivier !! actually now seeing the comparison, indeed Italeri could have done a much better job with not too much efforts in research before making the moulds... Olivier, You did a marvellous job for both the real version and the OBB

I’m now not afraid to say that I like this a lot Ced ! With the crew in, engines on and the engine cover, it now looks ready to be flown around the room by hand. Then landed on a blue bit of carpet (sea) and incorporated into any random childhood battle scene Why did the spellchecker suggest ‘beagle’ when I wrote ‘battle’ 🐶? Have a good night at the pub Ced; if it’s going to be a long one, take a ball of wool. Attach it to your home front door handle. Unwind it on the way to the pub. Using this method, on your return journey you will just need to follow the wool, perhaps by hand only, involving only very minimal use of any normal directional systems ! Best regards TonyT

Just wanted to share some pics of one of my latest finished models. Supermarine Seafire FR.46, LA546 / 600 LM, RNAS Lossiemouth, 1948. From the Special Hobby kit #72231, just added a few details in scratch, a new instrument panel, scribed some lost panel lines and rivetted the whole airframe. Here's the model: And a picture of the real thing... Hope you like it! UnCarlitosModelista

I see in an email Mig Ammo are bringing out an RAF day fighter set.... What with the mission paints hopefully bringing out the same too in November (only brown and sky to go with their dark green for an early scheme at the moment) May just spur me on to revive this and get cracking with the next few in the above paints. Or at least get the decals on the first six... Forgot what schemes/decals they are going to wear need to read through all this lot again and check my notes! Tony

This is the Bronco kit of the SdKfz 142, Sturmgeschutz IIID. This model represents one of three Stug IIIDs used in North Africa by Sonder Verband 288, which were tropicalized for use in Africa. The Bronco kit goes together with no dramas at all. The jerry cans are supplied in the kit, and I added a few other stowage items. Tracks are individual, working links, as provided in the kit I replaced the kit's etched light brush guards with ones made from wire. The crew are Dragon figures, fitted with Hornet heads. Painted with Humbrol enamels. Thanks for looking Angelo

That's exactly what I had in mind - those boys were evacuees! It's just that that scene in the Battle of Britain Film sticks in my mind when thinking of the pulsing drone of the Luftwaffe coming in. The pies keep popping up - I remember a TV report years ago when a visiting politician was pelted with a pie - you could see a couple of bites had been taken out. The TV Reporter said " and XXX was treated to that great Dundee delicacy, the Bean Pie!"

I sympathise! About a year ago I got really enthusiastic on ebay in buying old Airfix kits (had to be 'red stripe'), delivered to my place of work (of course) but arrived home one evening to find that my own SWMBO had gone through my latest credit card statement and highlighted all the paypal type entries - lines highlighted in yellow and helpfully totalled up at the bottom to the sum of around £350! I found myself 'on the carpet' and trying desperately to explain the attributes of modelling and that an average of approx. £10 a kit wasn't unreasonable. What do you think happened when I felt so hard pressed that I felt duty bound to remind SWMBO that she would happily spend that amount on one pair of shoes....? Heavy flak / limped back to the hangar on one engine!

Great news - but thanks must surely go to the host, who had the vision and perseverance to put this GB proposal up in the first place. Good one Old Thumper.. lets now hope it gets voted up. Cheers.. Dave

Here is the final result of the 're-construction' photo - what do you think? Many thanks to all the Britmodellers who commented during the builds and if you go to the RFI thread, you should see that most comments made the imagined narrative behind the photo from 1969.

The Ju looks great and nearly finished, good job! I'm relying on my mental toughness not be disturbed by those terrible images involving bath tubes mentioned above... (I've also met Ced in Lisbon last year...) Cheers Jaime

Fox Two.....! Just the bases to go then it`s done.

with all this dog talk I think someone feels left out (or at very least doesn't look too happy )....

A Bloodhound A Basset A Bulldog ...sounds more like Crufts What kind of exotic breed is a Canberra - working dog / utility or maybe in this context a 'toy'

Thanks guys! So far so good, I dare say. I completed the aileron masters Following Steve's ( @Fritag ) advice, I glued a 0.5mm plastic strip to the ailerons then I sandwiched it with two other strips Mould base with plasticine The whole mould prior to pouring RTV rubber in it and right afterwards Quite some bubbles there; I then did several degassing cycles putting the mould inside a chamber vacuum machine, and then let cure at room temperature for 24 hours. This is what I got Not very visible, but there are a lot more micro-bubbles on the surface - which made me worry a bit ... But I was then quite relieved when I saw that on the mould side walls there were none So here's the mould, after removing the masters and plasticine (I did a bit more of clean up after this shot). Ready to pour resin in now, which is probably going to happen tonight - so I should hopefully be able to post the result tomorrow. Comments welcome Ciao

Thank you dear friends, I will never say enough this result is not only mine but yours too. If you don't mind, my last post on this thread could be a summarize of the important steps of my build, showing the essential role of the thread in this result. But we are not yet here. As I said above, I will do first comparisons (individual photos same angle of view) of both builds with our best documents. Then I will focus on details. I begin now with the photo 28 (in my personal library, it is numbered "0" because of its fundamental importance and I recall it is Roy who brought it to us, as many of our best docs). Profile view right side (the camera has not been moved, using a tripod, so distance and view angle are exactly the same, and so for the reframing) Without vertical lines: With vertical lines: Conclusion: 1) it is not a surprise, the tail of the OOB is much too long, probably inspired by the Drawing 2 that is wrong on that point 2) the cockpit is much too roomy on the OOB 3) the tyres are obviously much too big. Notice that even on the partial scratch version, they are a bit too big, what I had noticed and said above 4) the vertical steering connector 28B should be more frontal 5) the shape of the fairing is wrong. As you know, I spent a lot of time on this complex part to get the good shape. 6) the OOB car is not only too long, it is also much too height, not representing the low body of the 806 and giving a massive aspect. 7) on the OOB, I have placed the digits decals exactly following the instructions, they should be more frontal 8) the steering column angle is wrong on the OOB and the massive part 123D (step 15) is a pure invention of the kit 9) 33E (step 3) is totally invisible (and not at its right place, anyway) on the OOB. etc.

New Baidu thread with two pics from a test build. This time I've copied the pics! Anyway It's now just a matter of days to see pics of the sprues, schemes & decals online in the Trumpeter homepage. Source: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5355927547 V.P.

Tonight I did some touch ups on the silver and added sprayed clear gloss over the decals. This eliminated some marks left by the Gunze Mr Mark Softener. As I mentioned before, this is a very "hot" solution. You do not want to let it puddle on the decal; even though it wants to. Keep spreading it with a paintbrush as much as possible. Despite my best efforts, there were some spots but the Gunze GX-100, well thinned (6/1), made them disappear nicely. I've also started the oil wash process. This will probably take up to three sessions. I don't want over accentuate the panel lines, since they are practically invisible in photos. I have seen some photos however, that do show some distinct panels, probably after the planes have spent some time in the field. These very early 109s seem to have been repainted frequently. In fact there seems to be no standardization to them at all. The same airframe will show different sized codes during its service, prop changes from fixed pitch wooden to variable pitch metal, and cowl panels showing variations of vents that just shouldn't be. Then there is the temptation for some artistic license... Anyway, here's where she stands at the moment.

Hi all. I'd like to show my latest build. This time it's the 1/48 Revell Eurofighter Typhoon. Quite a nice kit with very nice details like the ejection seat and the rest of the cockpit. With a rivet wheel I added rivets on the wings and tail. The main coclor gray is from Akan and the other colors from Gunze. All over a black primer from Alcad. The metals on the exhausts are also from Alclad. Thank you for watching. René

tell me about it... ...I had to explain to my good lady that 109's could only fly if they were in 5's - otherwise they got scared BTW - luckily she hasn't seen all that 1/72 stuff that has appeared in the last month - though she has enquired as to why there are ladder prints in the carpet under the loft hatch Who do I think I'm kidding - it's like living with Miss Marple...

Mental image of Ced in bath playing with float plane flashes through my mind (I have met him you know). Now tragically refuses to go away.

Well, took the plunge - touched up and re-worked the band with some paint rather than to strip it off and start again. So - out with the tamiya basics. White to lighten the blue and yellow for the red. (Red looks better faded to orange than pink to me) In the pic you can just make out the white bits of the decal where it has been sanded through and smoothed out. Blue being done. Mixed by eye, first shade was a tad dark and thick to cover the white. After each pass it was rubbed back with some 4k micromesh. Beauty of enamels and cellulose thinner. Next a thinner and lighter shade of blue afterwards to fade and blend. Masked off for the red - And done! Tidy enough I think. The zoomed in pics show every mistake Next was adding some of the 81 & 82 camo shades over the edges of the band, as stated on the airfix sheet, so it was back out with the colourcoats. Again thinned with cellulose for the touch ups. Just need to micromesh the stripes to clean them up from the green. Quite pleased with it now - Thanks for looking 👍🏿