dswoofie

Hi, I am looking for some more pictures and possibly reference on the 1976 Bicentennial scheme A-7D. The only pic that I can find anywhere is the boxtop shot on the Hasegawa kit. Has anyone got any other shots of this aircraft please?? Ideally any from the same 'show' that this one was taken at... I am trying to work out what the opposite wing loadout was, amongst other things... Karl.

Thanks... the Avatar is a rolling set of 5 different Stranraers, no ideas of which ones though! Karl.

Build that Walrus!! You know you want to... I have the Revell re-release to work on next. Karl.

Some slight progress on the Stranraer... I now have joined the top wing together. When dry fitting it I found that there was no positivity to the wings joining the centre section, and they could fit anywhere from a +20 degree dihedral, down to a -20 degree one they were that loose! So, I figured the only way to get it right was to temporarily attach all of the struts and then balance the whole lot on top, and glue them then. After many, many attempts at setting this up, and using a whole vocabulary of swears, I got them balanced and quickly splotted some glue in there. Once the wing was all dried, I took it off again and removed all the struts. There were some pretty prominent join gaps that required some superglue/talc filler, and plenty of rubbing down. I did lose a little of the scalloping detail in that area, but there was nothing I could do about that, and will have to live with it. There was also a fiddly little fault in the top of one wing. It looks like the plastic had an air bubble, or didn't flow properly into one point, and this left a divot that sat right on a scalloped shaping on the wing. In order to sort it out I used some Mr Surfacer and applied several coats to fill it up. I then carefully rubbed it down and did my best not to alter or lose the surrounding shaping. Luckily as it sands very easily it did the job nicely. Here's the divot. It doesn't look like much in the pic, but would have stuck out like a sore thumb if left... And filled in with Mr Surfacer... And finally rubbed down and smoothed out... job done! And the top wing all filled and sanded ready to move onto the next steps. More soon! Karl.

It'll be a pre-war one in either overall silver, or with a grey fuselage. I'm not using the Mushroom models reference no, I don't have a copy of it. Would have liked one, but I couldn't justify the cost at the moment Karl.

OK, it is time for me to take the plunge and start on my first proper flying boat model! I've only ever attempted one before as a kid, that was the Matchbox Norseman, and I'm not sure I ever actually finished it as it required yellow and I was a brush painter then! Yellow never seemed to work properly with brushes Anyway, my next (and hopefully far more successful!) seaplane model is the Matchbox 1/72 Supermarine Stranraer. Looking it over it looks a surprisingly nice little kit and seems to all fit together nicely, so I'm looking forward to finally getting on with it. My first decision on the kit came with the gun placements and the side door, did I want them open or closed? Well, closed meant a whole lot less work (very appealing!), but the door was an awful fit, so I decided on that being open. To add a little detail in there I decided to add some ribbing to the interior where it could be seen opposite the door. While doing this I was still trying to make up my mind about the gun placements. Then I wondered if any other areas would be visible through the windows and stuff like that... one thing lead to another and before I knew it I had gone and added ribbing to the entire thing nearly. I still don't know why I did it, but for some weird reason I actually enjoyed it!!? :suspect: Completely ficticious, but has something other than a smooth interior in there anyway! Gun placements finally decided as open It's all painted up now and ready to close up, including a pilot too. I thought he'd look good in there if he can be seen through the thick canopy glass! Here I've dealt with all the seams on the fuselage and rubbed them down properly now. The canopy has been dipped in klear and fitted, with the small gaps around it sealed with some gator glue as they we pretty small. The side windows have been filled in with some Humbrol clearfix that will act as a mask when spraying. I will remove them and do it all again at the end, saves having to plug up the small gaps. The lower wings and tail are also added now, and the necessary filling has been done. Don't those colours look cool!! And work is now progressing on the top wing and engines... just filling in the gaps around them. More very soon!!! Karl.

I'm glad you mentioned this... I thought there was a replacement available, but was beginning to think I'd dreamed it up!! Unfortunately I found out about it too late though. Karl.

A truly lovely build indeedy! My firm favourite by quite a way. Spectacular result I have had the pleasure of seeing this one a few times along it's way, and it is even better in the flesh. The wood finish is superb and, and really does bring it to life. 11 out of 10 bow down smilies from me!! Karl.

Yes, there is quite a few shape issues at the front end IMO. The join between the cockpit section and the main fuselage was pretty vague and does result in a sort of bent look to the whole thing! Karl. Oh, and Shaun, yes it will come along for the Avon show

Here's my Xtrakit 1/72 Sea Harrier that I have recently finished. To say it was a battle was an understatement! I fought every step of the way, and nearly defeated me when it came to the canopy. Plently of filling. sanding and re-scribing was required all round to make anything near decent. It is done straight out of the box apart from some scratchbuilt intake blanks which were easier to make that sorting out the insides of the intakes Anyway, here's a very brief idea of the main issues encountered along the way... First up is the above mentioned intakes. They were lumpy and bumpy with sink marks all over the insides, and there was a reasonable gap when fitted which would have needed lots of filling to smooth out. Then there was the canopy which was too large for the kit!? It was about 1-2mm too long, and about 2-3mm too wide to fit on there. It needed quite a lot of encouragement to be squeezed together to meet up with the fuselage sides. CA was needed to get the thing to stick on there properly with the pressure involved. This caused some crazing in the windscreen on the left hand side, but I'll put that down to a bird strike The length issues were resolved by filling in the gap under the windscreen and re-shaping it out. A real nasty job overall that nearly ended up binning the entire thing. Here's the canopy parts lined up on the left hand side... and the overhang on the right hand side... (you can see the fuselage edge inside the frame painted black... and look at it over the intakes ) There were quite a few other niggly bits as well, but were easy enough to put right... just very time consuming! The build was done for the Promodeller.com site, and there is a complete photo build available on the home page there. Here's the finished article. The intake blanks were scratchbuilt and then cast up in resin. These will soon be available in the Jenesis Designs range that will be available from modelsforsale.com Let me know what you think! Karl.

Some really nice work with the camera there!! My fave of those has to be the Vulcan banking with the 4 hawks behind it... you could pass that one off as an air to air shot! Once again I have missed this show... I have meant to come and take a look for the last 2 years now! Next year is a must for the photo opportunites there. Karl.

I only know of one, and that's Modelsforsale.com. They will be there, don't know about any others. Karl.

I've been a bit quiet on the modelling front lately, but have just finished off this Italeri 1/72 Mirage 2000D which I picked up for a bargain £2. It is built out of the box with no added extras. Usually I would close up the canopies but the fit was so bad I had to have them open, which is a shame as it ruins the lovely lines of the aircraft! The rest of the build was fairly trouble free. The decals look a little light to me, but were the only ones I had. Karl.

There you go, told you to take your time and it'd come out alright Now repeat after me... I must not drop models again I must not drop models again I must not drop models again.... Karl.

Nice colours! Karl.