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pjman792

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pjman792 last won the day on June 5 2013

pjman792 had the most liked content!

About pjman792

  • Birthday 29/02/1960

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Biloxi, Mississippi, USA
  • Interests
    1/48 scale US Navy and Marine Corps aircraft

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  1. Here’s my rendition of the Arii (originally produced by Otaki?) 1:48 scale F4U-1A Corsair. Even though it was first issued in 1972, the Arii kit builds into a nice Corsair. The good points are very accurate outline and shapes, finely recessed panel lines, and great parts fit. Drawbacks are a simple and inacurate cockpit and wheels, and an engine that doesen’t remotely resemble any engine used in any aircraft. Here’s how I upgraded the kit: I replaced the cartoonish engine with with a resin R-2800, updated the cockpit with Eduard photoetched insturment panel, seat and sidewall details, and used seatbelts and wheels from True Details. I replaced ther kit tail wheel with a more accurate-looking one from the spares box, and attached it at an angle for a more candid appearance. I also cut away the flaps and dropped them, added exhaust stacks made from drilled-out styrene rod, and added a small whip antenna to the fuselage spine. I couldn’t determine if this plane had the tail hook removed or not, so I left it on. VF-17’s Corsairs didn’t have the usual antenna mast, and some had unusual field-modified antennas. Based on photos, I built an antenna that runs fron the top if the vertical fin down to the tip of the right horizontal stabilizer. From there, it runs into the usual antenna lead-in on the right side of the fuselage, behind the cockpit. I don’t know for certain if it’s accurate, but that’s how I interpreted the antenna arrangment in photos. I used a Pasche VL airbrush to apply the three-toned camouflage scheme, though most photos of the actual aircraft indicate it was very weathered, with almost no distiction between the non-specular sea blue upper surfaces and the intermidiate blue sides. For markings, I used an old SuperScale sheet to portray “White 29”, the plane flown by Lt. Ira Kepford of VF-17 while based at Ondonga, New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands in late 1943. I made a mistake in not placing the kill markings at the correct angle to the tape covering the seams of the forward fuselage cell. VF-17 was the first navy squadron to be equipped with the Corsair. Assigned briefly to USS Bunker Hill, the squadron was soon transferred to the Solomon Islands to serve as a land-based squadron. In its two tours of duty in the Solomons, VF-17 was credited 156 aerial victories and produced 12 aces, the most of any squadron in the Navy. Kepford was the U.S. Navy’s 6th highest ranking ace with 16 victories and 8 probables.
  2. Beautiful SLUFF! Your finish and weathering are incredibly well done and realistic.
  3. A stunning build - and your weathering is just superb! Bravo, Sir!
  4. Outstanding work! The weathering is just spot-on - extremely realistic. I need to master the techniques you do so well when it comes to weathering and aging an aircraft's finish.
  5. Your Bearcat is just superb - the weathered finish is among the very best I've ever seen. Bravo, Sir!
  6. I love jets from the late '50's and 1960's, and your builds are superb!
  7. Accurate Miniatures’ Avengers, along with their SBD Dauntless and F3F series, are among the best 1/48 scale aircraft kits ever produced. Everything – from surface and interior detail to fit of the parts – is about as good as it gets in injected molded plastic. The fact that almost no aftermarket parts were made for these kits is a testament to how good they were out of the box. The only drawback to the Avenger kits were the instructions – the drawings were crudely done and hard to follow, but this was rectified in the SBD and F3F kits. Aside from some True Details photo-etched seatbelts and an antenna wire, this kit was an out-of-the-box build, including decals. I used no filler – just careful assembly and seam sanding resulted in a near-perfect fit of the main airframe parts. I did find that the lower dorsal gunner’s clear part didn’t fit very well, but that’s probably as much my fault as the kit’s. The rudder is a seperate piece, so I installed it offset to the left for a more candid appearance. I armed my TBF with a standard anti-submarine load of two 500-lb. general purpose bombs and two aerial depth charges. I also cut out and dropped the flaps. For the Atlantic anti-submarine paint scheme, I used Model Master Dark Gull Grey and Floquil Reefer White enamels. (I really hate that Floquil is now out of business – Reefer White was the BEST!) I used kit decals to depict a TBF-1C from VC-55, deployed aboard USS Block Island in the North Atlantic during the summer of 1944.
  8. Thanks, Andrew! It usually takes me a few months to finish a kit, so I don't have much recent work to post, which is why I submitted pics of the older Monogram Skyhawk. Thanks again for your comments! Cheers, Drew
  9. Thanks very much for your constructive comments! You're right about the wash being too stark - this is one of my older builds, completed about ten years ago, and I have since altered my wash technique using the methods you suggest. Take a look at my 1/48 Hasegawa A-4C Skyhawk I posted on here and see if you think the wash I applied looks any better. Best regards, and thanks again, Drew
  10. Here’s one of my older builds, the Monogram 1/48 A-4E Skyhawk, that I converted to an -F. I think the Monogram Skyhawk is is second only to the Hasegawa A-4′s, and is probably the best A-4 for the money. The biggest drawbacks are a very basic cockpit with the seat molded as part of the cockpit tub, and a too-wide forward fuselage, which makes the canopy and windscreen too flat and squashed-looking. My model was Monogram’s ‘high-tech’ boxing of the Skyhawk, which came with a small fret of photo-etched parts to help dress things up some. I replaced the windscreen with a vacu-formed replacement, and cut away the integrally molded seat and added a True Details ESCAPAC replacement seat. The kit’s photo-etched parts provided canopy locks, catapult bridle hooks, pitot probe, and an AOA indicator (which I have since lost!). The AGM-12B Bullpup guided missiles came from the HobbyBoss FJ-4B Fury kit, which replaced some less-accurate examples I had scrounged from an old Monogram F-100 kit. I added an in-flight refuleing probe light to the right intake, and tried to make it more resemble -F configuration by adding a UHF antenna to the upper spine and nosewheel steering mechanisim from a Hasegawa A-4 kit. The -F version also had wing spoilers and armor plate around the cockpit, but I didn’t try to recreate those. The markings came from a long out-of-production sheet from Third Group Decals, which depict an A-4F from VA-144 ‘Roadrunners’, deployed aboard USS Bonne Homme Richard in 1969.
  11. Outstanding work! I really like your finish and weathering. I have two Tamiya 1/48 A-1H kits, and plan to use the same VA-25 markings you used, and the 'bumblebee' markings of VA-176 for the other kit, since both aircraft are MiG-killers.
  12. Thanks for your comments, Jonners. I used Model Master enamel Flat Gull Grey, FS 36440 for the topside color.
  13. Thanks for your comments, David! You are correct, the wing and flaps of the Hasegawa Crusader can be demanding. This was my first Hasegawa F-8, and I had such a difficult time with fit on the wing and flaps that on the second one I built, I decided to go with flap/droops up, and wing down.
  14. Thanks, Jonners! I used Model Master Flat Gull Grey, FS # 36440
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