CheshireGap

Excellent finish! Would be pleased to be anywhere near your standard

I received November, December, January now, just February to go , if they can get the March issue in before the end of the month they are back on schedule. Nice to see that tropical 109 build finally made it in after being in the "in next month's issue" spread for the better part of six months...

Thanks Mike; the canopy is a bit distorted, I have masked it up for painting, but have also bought the Aerocraft replacement set, which I am going to have a go at polishing up, though to be honest it also looks like quite a lot of work, to the extent that I have already glued in place the kit windscreen which is fine. It does seem unfortunately that the distorted hood is a feature of this kit.

Some progress, everything is together and some Mr Surfacer 1500 black is down to see how everything looks Top wing to fuselage joint has worked well with a little dry-fitting and adjustment - no real putty work required I rescribed the panel line on the top cowl after filling and sanding the join, but went to far, that panel in front of the windscreen was one piece so will need to that panel line The blended step on the intake needs a little more refining and the line re-scribing The step that was blended out here has worked pretty well Once these are done the first layer of natural metal will go down, followed by the painted silver for the wings; then I can start on the camouflage and that yellow nose.

Honestly, this hobby is about YOUR enjoyment, so you paint it how you want it! There are plenty of builds out there depicting current warbirds, so go for it!

Had this one for a while, and thought I would run it up so I could practice an NMF before tackling a more serious build, the Hasegawa Ki-61 (which I have failed to take many pictures of, so no WiP there). Only AM additions are belts and some QuickBoost radio boxes, though tbh you could add some wires to the kit versions and they would look pretty much as good So bear with me on this one...as with all kits there are two basic elements to the manufacture, the design and the mould-making. On the former, Revell have done, I think a fine job; the designer (Radu Brinzan?) has done some really clever stuff with the internals to ensure a good level of detail with no ambiguity in the fit, and each section locks into the other with no simple butt joins to spoil things with their sloppy fit. So Revell played a blinder in the first half. Where it goes wrong is with the mould itself. I would be fairly sure that Revell contract out the mould-making, and my advice - find another company. The similarities with Airfix of a couple of years ago here are notable, nice design but slightly rough moulds coupled with soft plastic result in a slightly disappointing build given the initial promise of the parts. Recently, Airfix have taken steps to resolve this - I don't know if they have changed their mould-maker (though they definitely did for the 1/24th Spit as the moulds were done in the UK not India) but the plastic in recent kits is definitely harder resulting in crisper detail. And this is where Revell have their problem: the detail has been designed in, but comes out rather soft, and there are prominent mould lines everywhere, and some small amounts of flash. Joining edges can be a bit rough and need a light pass just to improve the fit, indeed every part needs a bit of fettle, and after a while this becomes a bit wearing, not to mention the amount of plastic dust and scrapings being generated. Some examples: - soft detail and mould seams on the side consoles (I have already scraped the seams off the tops of the knobs in this photo) - seams on the gear legs - soft detail on the pedals and steps inside the frames - and after clean-up This is not say everything does not go together well - it does, it paints up nicely, and Revell have provided plenty of decals for the cockpit to spice things up (albeit they are a bit bright); as mentioned I only added belts and the radio boxes, and the odd wiring loom. Pleased with the wood effect I must say. Now the instrument panel; I did buy the Eduard LOOK panel, but the white elements were really not well printed and the whole thing did not look good as a result, so I used the kit part with decal, and after a fair amount of setting solution and careful touching up it looked OK - better than the LOOK panel anyway. Then it's on to construction - no impossibly major issues here just some fettling. I did opt to add the tail sections to their respective fuselage halves to try and reduce the step that is apparent here, but it will need some sanding out. There is also a step between the intake lips and the main cowling, and the red glazing putty comes into it own here. Some shims reduce the step for the cowing underside I opted to paint the framing in the wheel well i zinc chromate as per some references And I decided to commit fully and do some rivetting (not on the wings you will be pleased to hear) I do think rivets add something to a model, even if you then choose not to highlight them too much in the painting and weathering; just compare the unrivetted and rivetted fuselage sides to see how it is brought to life Yes the wash (so I could see where I had done) does help, but when there are a few layers of silver on there it will look less blank than would otherwise be the case. Now the wings and the tail feathers are on it is ready for priming; I will be likely doing the box art scheme Lou IV, or maybe Jolie Helene if I can pick up some decals. I am afraid I do not subscribe to the "blue camo" theory arising from the famous colour picture, rather as a former printer I see an old Kodachrome transparency where the dyes have deteriorated unevenly. Classically in older transparencies certain dyes will deteriorate ahead of others, usually greens followed by reds; as any colour in the picture comprises more than one dye, the remaining colour then dominates. I think what we are looking at is a bronze green, possibly a dark green, in which the green dyes have faded leaving a more blue appearance. Hence also the olive drab doesn't really look right, and the landscape below is blue not green, the yellows are a bit washed out, and even the red of the nose art is a bit dull. So I will be doing a bronze green/olive drab mix on the upper fuselage, and dark green/olive drab on the wings/tailplanes.

FWIW, according to their website the December issue of MAI is on sale, but I have not even received the November issue yet, and WH Smiths near me still only has the October issue. Sister magazine Military Illustrated Modeller (Aircraft edition) December issue should also be in the shops but isn't. They have some big problems, previously the December issues came out mid-November, we are now mid-December and they are two issues behind a week away from the point where normally you expect the January 2025 issue to hit the shops...

Some of the best, most realistic weathering I have seen - you should think about creating a tutorial to show us how you did it!

superb work, and love the last two "outdoor" photos as well!

Brilliantly weathered, very realistic final result!

That is excellent, and the smoke rings decals do look painted on - nice to know as I have this one in the stash as well.

Seems a long time since I posted, and it is, and I am behind on putting up some RFI pictures but I wanted to posted the only work in progress photos I took of the Wingsy Kits 1/48 109 E-3, because it is such a great kit they deserve the praise, particularly under the horrible circumstances this small Ukrainian company is working under. I bought this one from the Hannants stand at Telford, I think 3 years ago, I forget such things as dates and years now. So first off, this kit has some flaws, I won't hide that, but they are very few: the main one for me is that you have no choice in many places but to use PE, there are no plastic alternatives for parts like the pilot's headrest and radiator flaps. In my books there should always be a plastic alternative, but Wingsy are not the only people to do this, Italeri have done the same with their large scale Folgore. The only other real flaw is that the exhausts will not fit at all as they stand, you will have to carve off some chunks to get them in, but once they are in they are great. Apart from that the detail is first class and the fit of parts is outstanding; I only had to finesse the gun cowl cover a little to improve the fit of the keyhole-shaped section at the front, and some minor work around the flaps around where the radiator area. Aside from that, no problems, to the point that I could do this: Yup, all the major parts got all their major painting before they were put together! How many kits can you say that about? Was it a problem later? Er, NO! You see an obvious join there? Or here? And look at the surface detail, its as good as anyone else you might care to mention. I will post some RFI pics when I get round to taking them, but I can say the decals are fine, they look a little glossy but they work well. I did buy a Microscale sheet because I wanted to do a different scheme, but ended up using the Wingsy stencils because the Microscale versions were way over the scale - even the squadron and gruppe insignia look too large but will have to do. I haven't seen many builds of this 109 E- series on here, but I have to highly recommend them, these are genuinely great kits from a tiny company with a small range, and they deserve the praise for no other reason than the great quality of their output. We need companies like this supporting our hobby, so we should support them back by occasionally not buying Hasegawa/Tamiya/Eduard and giving the little guys the rewards they have earned.

Told you I slow...this one is within an ace of the finish line now so this post will finish the WiP. We left it with the primer down and various shades of the light blue, time to follow up with the top colours: this is a RLM17/74 scheme, and not having the wings attached yet makes things a lot easier After dealing with some overspray, lightened versions of the colours were used to add variation, perhaps a bit too subtle as most of this seem to vanish after the gloss went down Decals were an issue, the larger ones proved too fragile to use, so I had to source the main insignia from other sheets; I just about got away with the codes and most of the stencils, but all the decals were somewhat too bright and would need toning down. Finally some main assembly, and there is indeed no gap to worry about - full marks Monogram! A wash follows and then some streaking and weathering A shot of the underside also shows nothing worth worrying about at the wing roots; more weathering and its nearly done There is a queue of finished models needing their pictures taken as Ready for Inspection, I will add this to the end and post a bundle when get time!

I am big believer in keeping the learning curve simple; its hard enough getting paint mixes, air pressures, distance from the model and general technique right without also having to master the double action; I do recommend starting with a continuous double action brush, usually identified by a trigger, such as the Mr Hobby PS-275 Procon Boy. There are others like the Hansa 310 and the H&S Grafo series that use a conventional button but are still continuous double action. Personally I feel I am still grappling with paint and pressure even after all this time, so am still using my Hansa in preference to the H&S Infinity, and do not feel I am missing out at all.

Those shots of the cockpit with its fictional seat finish it for me, I'm out!