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Hi everyone This is my second “COVID Season” build, the venerable Tamiya Aichi Seiran, a kit I had in the stash for some 23 years. I had great fun building it, even more since I had not build a plane in clogs for a looong time, so it was kinda out of my comfort zone. This is a OOB build, where all markings were painted, the exception being the small manufacturer stencil below the horizontal spar, which came from the kit decals. Did some more or less spurious riveting and added a few scratch items, mostly inside the cockpit. Used Eduard seatbelts. Painted with Tamiya acrylics and inside the cockpit I used AK real colours but with some mixes, to create the green and grey shades I was looking for. All is purely my “artistic view” of the thing. The dolly was painted with oils for the wood effects and Hull Red for the body frame. A great fun build all in all, hope you like it!

So this will be my entry: It will be another OOB build, in the scheme shown below: Work is not starting on this until at least one of my current builds gets finished! Hopefully that will coincide nicely with the start date for this GB! 🤣

Hi all, now that the July issue of Airfix Model World issue has finished selling, I can finally show this... Last year whilst on holiday in Australia, I finally managed to get a jet in my flying log book. It's an L-39C Albatros belonging to a company at Archerfield Airport in Brisbane, and I managed to hire it for a while along with a pilot to keep an eye on it while I played with it. Returning home, I built a copy of it as a keepsake, using the Trumpeter 1/48 kit as a base, but incorporating scratch built parts, self made decals, and masks for some of the markings cut by my mate Nige. Hope you like it. Photos from the day: It's all good fun. Cheers, Dean

When people ask me what my favourite Spitfire version is, I usually reply something along the lines of "whichever one I've built a model of most recently". I do have a particular fondness for the late-model Griffon Spits, though, so this GB seems like a good opportunity to bring out my Grand Phoenix "Ultimate Seafire" - which as I'm sure everyone here knows, is a reboxing of the well-regarded Airfix kit with extra resin, etch and decals. I must confess to being slightly apprehensive about doing this one in public, so to speak, especially as it's been a while since I did anything with so much aftermarket gubbins. A couple of shots of box and bits to start with. I was lucky enough to get this kit for a good price on ebay a few years ago. It does look like an awful lot of plastic, resin and metal! I just hope all the bits are there. Oh well, here we go...

As the title alludes to the limited number built, my offering for this GB is the Airfix 1/48 Spitfire XII. It seems this mark is a favourite of many of you out there in BM World, so I hope I can do her some justice. Now I've not finished a kit since New Year's Eve, but that doesn't mean I have been away from the workbench. I have had trials and tribulations with a few kits that have had the unfortunate pleasure of crossing my path lately. I was working on a 1/48 Lightning F6 that I was hoping to build as a "wooooooooo shiny" NMF 74 Sqn Tengah version but I foolishly used Vallejo Metallics for the airframe and it looked like a bag of nails. I therefore bit the bullet and tried to strip it back to bare plastic which was a real trial by itself, that in the process melted the cockpit and undercarriage bay resin that I had painstakingly added. This led to the mojo taking a good shoeing!! I set the Frightning aside and thought, "how about a lovely simple build, what about a Trumpeter Vampire?" Well that was all a good idea until I fell upon @Jon Kunac-Tabinor's build which showed what a PoS that kit was and although I only followed 80-90% of Jon's refinements it could hardly be described as a nice easy build. This has been progressed to the stickering stage which as the mojo was still on the lowish side got set aside and the Frightning picked up again. New undercarriage and cockpit were fitted to the already complete but now fully stripped back airframe, and trust me this is not the order you want to be constructing this in!!! To add to the woes the paint stripper used (BioStrip 20) whilst it was effective in stripping everything back, made the kit plastic very brittle so flaps and trailing edges cracked and shattered and had to be rebuilt using gloop and PPP. OK, a weaker person may have buckled and hurled this pig of an abomination squarely at the nearest wall, but I'm stubborn (not always in the good way!) and wasn't prepared to lose out to an inanimate object!!! I think I have done a passable job of the repairs (bar one tiny crack in the port wing trailing edge), and this too is stalled at the stickering stage. This is a quick insight as to where they stand: So here I stand, pretty much fed up to the back teeth with kits that fight back so really really need a good palate cleanser, a sorbet to refresh between such overpowering courses, a kit that will build up well OOB (less seatbelts and stickers), so here I present my entry into this GB. Some sprue shots to keep us legal and decent....... Well not quite 100% legal and decent as I had also managed to pick up an unboxed version of this kit with no instructions or decals, Airfix Overtrees if you like, that may or may not get built alongside this kit. My thinking is that the early XII's that were based on Mk.V airframes subtly differ from the later Mk.VIII based ones so once I select some not in the box markings options (Squadrons! No.5 is winging it's way to me from La Belle France as I type to help me choose), I may be drawn into building one of each. This is the unboxed plastic, which seems to be of a slightly different consistency and colour to the one in the box. I've nipped the cockpit parts off the runners, knocked up a couple of sub-assemblies, primed the propeller and spinner which I'll photograph later as the battery on my DSLR has given up the ghost! I did managed to get a shot of the hollowing out of the exhaust stacks before it bought the farm. Comparison shot of the first side done vs the kit parts. Two holes drilled in each stack and then joined by a sharp 10A SM scalpel. A dab of Tet was dolloped in to clean up the rough edges. 5 minutes charging gave us enough juice to upload these pics to the PC/Flikr but I'll leave it on an overnight charge so I won't have to worry about it for the rest of the build. Anyways so far so good. No meltdowns (physical or mental) like the previous builds so far is a good sign I'm sure. Best wishes to all you out there in Lockdown; stay safe and stay well. Speak soon, Chris

No matter how many ongoing projects I have, there is always room for a Spitfire! For this GB I'll pry open this box (picture shamefully stolen from Eduards website) Just to show that I haven't started it, here are the sprues: It's the standard Mk IXx kit, but with some resin added, in the form of wheels and exhausts: One gets both rounded and fishtail ones as well as the main wheels, so that's a plus. The unused exhausts will surely fit another IX that hides in my stash... A very tiny etch fret and masks are also supplied, as usual. The decal sheet is big an colourful, and to save my sanity I've bought a Barracuda engine cowl to help things along. I intend to do this one It's 1/48 - LF Mk.IXe, 2003 (ex TE531), 105th Tajeset, Ramat David Air Base, Israel, September 1953 Now, I know my way around Spitfires but Israeli ones are a bit of a mystery! For instance, when they were repainted in the proto-IAF colors how did they paint the wheel wells? Have the cockpit been repainted as well? Tricky questions, and so far my Google-fu hasn't yielded any good results, but perhaps the Britmodeller Hivemind has some more insight?

Hallo again This time I did a break on vehicles, and I am back on a/c. This particular a/c is a good example of learning aerodynamics. The area rule is applied, to reduce drag by flying speeds exceeding Mach 1. The angle of intersection of fuselage and wing surface is more than 90°. As the Me 262. This also reduces drag. The delta wing concept also reduces drag, because the surface of the elevator is omitted. The kit is an old one, with all the negative accounts, but something else after the newest plastic tank kits with interior. Now I start the F-102. Happy modelling

Hi all Been working on this for a while, it's a nice Kit with only the odd way in which the undercarriage is moulded which lets it down, I did the AB264 option the aircraft of Buck Mcnair that played a part in the defence of Malta . Built OIOB apart from a set of PE Seatbelts and Eduard replacement exhausts. Brush painted with Humbrol enamels and Oil paint wash and paint chips with various coloured pencils. Hope you enjoy All the best Chris

North American F-51D Mustang Korean War 1/48 Special Hobby 48102 Supermarine Seafire Mk.II Torch & Avalanche 1/48

Hi guys, I will be building the Airfix 1/48 Buccaneer in Royal Navy colors. There will be some extra decals for it from Xtra decals and a few foto etch sets plus 2 resin bangseats from Neomega and some resin intakes. I will put on some pictures at a later date. Cheers,

Having a break from regular Luftwaffe schemes (if there is such as thing as a 'regular' Luftwaffe scheme) to build this Eduard kit as an all-over light blue night fighter from NJG 11... The 'target' for this build is NJG 11's 'white 4' - no hard photo evidence exists, aside from one or two pics of the alleged 'white 4' taken from the front quarter, so the only guide I have to go on this this questionable representation from a Hannants decal sheet - but I like the look of it regardless of the veracity of it's existence, so let's go... If anyone has any thoughts on what the second colour on the engine cowl might be, then I'd like to hear it. I'm guessing either RLM 02 or RLM 84 (or '76a' or whatever you prefer to call it) Cockpit done, fuselage almost ready to close up. I used the kit decal seatbelts (first time I've done that). I mean they're ok, - they'll probably look fine when the fuselage is buttoned up and the canopy is on, but I think maybe I'll stick to home-made or PE next time... Until next time

I had been looking around for a while for a C-130H kit in 1/48, and before Christmas I finally got a result on eBay. Going for the H as I wanted to build an RAF grey / green Hercules that I remember from the early 80s. I had an Airfix Herc hanging from my bedroom ceiling as a kid, which was upgraded with an in- flight refuelling probe after the Falklands, and I wanted to build the big brother with either the grey / green with light grey underside or wrap around camo. So here it is. It’s going to be big.... And with a couple of 1/48 kits for size comparison Then fellow forumite @Kirk started suggesting ‘improvements’ - I had thought maybe port & starboard lights, anti collision, etc. Next thing I know I am looking at internal lights, taxi lights, exterior lights, four powered props and a working rear ramp. All controlled by an external programmable Arduino unit. Complete with light up & start up engine sequence. Now that may not all happen - the ramp operation looks a bit flimsy & likely to break - but it is definitely not going to be a standard build. Other build plans include separating the rudder & horizontal rear stabilisers - surprisingly all moulded in place & not separate items. Also fancy opening the flaps & scratch building the inside. Budget won’t stretch to resin bits. Also need to stretch the engines that are too short & modelled on the early AC-130 kit ones. Again nice resin parts available but would cost more than the kit did. There is enough here to go wrong without buying tons of after market resin. Anyway some work has started & will keep things updated.

Almost/possibly/maybe a 'what if'. The Ta-152H definitely saw service, but it's less certain that the Ta-152C saw any action before the end of the war, although the story goes that two of them were indeed delivered to JG301 in time to see combat. Who knows. Anyway, this is my take on the Ta-152C, using the 'C-11' kit from Hobby Boss and painted in JG301 colours. The kit went together pretty well and was painted with Vallejo model air colours - RLM 82/83 upper, RLM 76 lower surfaces and matt clear. All the markings/insignia are Montex masks, so no decals apart from on the undercarriage legs. Light panel line wash and some light exhaust smoke with oils. Could probably have gone heavier on the oil smoke, given the quality of German aviation fuel supplies at the time, but there's always next time. Hope you like - comments welcome

Just made a start on this Hobby Boss 1/48 Ta 152 C-11. The 152 'C' was not thought to have reached front line service before the end of WW2 (at least one commentator believes that two of them did see action before the end of hostilities), but even if they did see action then it would have been very limited. I've also got the Italeri/Dragon 1/48 'H' model in the pile, but I'd like to see how this turns out first, before making a start on that. So this is almost - but not quite - a 'what if'. Needless to say, decal and unit options are limited for the Ta 152 in general, but especially for the 'C' versions, but the box decals look ok, so I'm happy to use them. The kit comes complete with the 'back half' of the engine, which can be seen through the wheel wells. I don't plan on looking in there much, so the parts just got a coat of black and some dry brushing.. Cockpit in RLM 66 following by some dry brushing and random black, red & yellow detailing. The kit came with some PE belts, which do look a bit over-scale, but I used them anyway.. That's it for now

Another build started while waiting for the clear coat to dry on my Hellcat. Sorry no pictures during the main building time.

Two JU87As were sold to the Japanese for evaluation. This is pretty much an out of box build of the Special hobby, but with a scratchbuilt canopy because I managed to wreck the kit one and lots of scratchbuilt bits and pieces because I lost most of the small resin parts .

Time to bite the bullet. Back in May I was asked by a friend of mine to build a Tonka for him. There was one on 56Sqn that he worked on regularly and that's the one he wants built, but could I actually do 2. 1 for him, 1 for someone else on the Sqn. "Not a problem" Said I. "What scale??" Errrrrrr. I'd like So big, Right, 1/48. Never having built that scale, this is going to be fun. I managed to track down 2 and was about to go extras shopping when the offer of the Eduard kit happened, so now, I have 3 - 1 for me! So, here we go! The last Revell I build was their 1/72 Lancaster, and I was mighty disappointed, but I had been advised that this was a good kit (and fell within budget) and looking through the boxes, I was nicely impressed with the detail and mould quality  Starting with the seats, as you do. I was quite happy until I'd finished and looked into the Warpaint book (and the GR4 at Duxford) Great Reference - Working on the cockpit, going to be the kit one. and only the one done on day 1 (as I was off to play with the Southend Vulcan) I sanded down all the raised controls on the sides and screens, because I wanted the decals provided to sit flat. Sadly, I'm not great on the fine detail, so rather than muck it up. I decided onto a flat part would be better. Hopefully its not too bad;  I then couldn't resist adding the seats for a quick idea of how it would look (Still need to be de-blacked)

I've been clearing out my shelf of doom during lockdown and have finished the Buccaneer. The build thread is here if interested. Any comments are welcome!

Hi all, The Australian Capital Territory Scale Model Society (ACTSMS) here in Canberra runs an annual competition called "The Kittyhawk Cup", where all participants must build the same kit, out of the box. This year, the kit selected is the series of Airfix 1/48 Mustangs (any of the boxings). Kits must be built OOB, with the option to utilise other decals. I haven't entered the competition for a very long time, and have no real idea about Mustangs (being mainly a WW1 aircraft guy), but I decided to enter anyways. Not only that, but I also foolishly decided to build not one, but two Mustangs, both at the same time.... eek! I selected their P-51D and Mustang IV. The Airfix kit really is lovely, with few vices. The cockpit and wheels wells are a treat out of the box. The complex fuselage / inserts presented no problems. I had some problems with the fit of the undercarriage bay, which messed with the fit of the under-nose / inboard lower leading edge piece; this was probably my fault, but it did necessitate the use of some filler, some sanding and some re-scribing. The let down with this kit are the wheels – the diamond tread stops well short of the centre of the wheel halves, and this area requires a bit of clean up and re-scribing (which I did a rubbish job on). The only other slightly odd thing in this kit is the canopy – no amount of mucking about could get it to sit right, so I settled for “good enough”. Anyway, the two ponies are now across the line! Onto the final results… The P-51D was originally going to be an OD / Grey camouflaged machine, but eventually was built to represent “Contrary Mary”, 44-474251, flown by Lt.Col Roy Blair Caviness, Commander of the 78th Fighter Group, Duxford, England, August 1945. The decals came from the Lifelike Decals set 48-052. These decals were fantastic, conforming nicely and responding very positively to decal softener. All of the checkerboard markings were masked and sprayed… though I now have a new-found appreciation for compound curves, the result was less than perfect, but it’ll do. The NMF was attempted by using Alclads (6 or 7 different shades in total), which looked lovely, but various clear coats dulled them down a little so it all now just looks ‘silver’. Oh well. There is only one known photograph of this machine, and it wasn’t heavily weathered, so I kept it relatively clean. The Mustang IV was built to represent KH745 “BAE”, flown by Group Captain Brian A Eaton, previously of 3SQN, Royal Australian Air Force. This was his personal aircraft while the head of Number 239 Wing, based in Cervia, Italy, April 1945. He flew this aircraft frequently with 3SQN, RAAF. This machine carried the perforated engine grills, similar to US machines. The decals came from the Freightdog Models “Keeping the Peace Pt.I” set, FSD48009. Again, these decals were lovely. NMF was again Alclads. The pictures of this machine also show relatively little weathering, so I dirtied her up a little, but not too much. So, the two ponies are done. Apologies to all of the Mustang aficionados out there – I know very little about Mustangs so there is no doubt I mucked up plenty of things. I feel the need to paint something drab now…! Thanks for looking, and all feedback welcomed! Cheers, BC

Airfix 1/48 Defiant NF1, I really enjoyed this build, like all the "new" Airfix I've built, everything fitted together well with very little filler required. As I was going to build it with the canopy open I splashed out on a set of Eduard seat belts and as the was a lot of clear stuff to be painted a set of Eduard masks as well. These fitted really well but tended to "leak" a little where two pieces overlapped, ultimately this was not a problem as 5 mins with a cocktail stick tidied everything up. As always painted with Vallejo air paints with just a little weathering to break up the overall black and to make things a little more "interesting"

Squadron is taking pre-orders on a Tamiya 1/48 P-38H due for release in the US in July/August https://www.squadron.com/P-38-H-Lightning-p/tm25199.htm

Dear all, this is my first installment here, on Britmodeller, and I thought that building a Spitfire would be an appropriate choice for this circumstance. The kit is the very well known Tamiya offering of the Spitfire Mk I in 1/48 scale of which several other builds can be found in this forum, surely all very well done. I am impatient to start mine to verify in person the reported high standard of the kit and also because this will be my first Spitfire model. Because the kit is so well documented, I will skip any presentation of it and start immediately with the pictures of the build. Nothing special was done so far, I just started with the fuselage sides adding some fictional wiring. I was addressed to a lot of interesting discussions, especially here, about which color would be the most appropriate for an early Spitfire. I learnt that a clearer shade of green might have been used, but eventually no certain color code could be given. The ubiquitous XF-71 indicated in the instructions looks dark in comparison with the few pictures available, hence I decided to lighten it up and arbitrarily went for a mix of 50% XF-71 and 50% XF-21. The first subassemblies are prepared, painted and highlighted with a wash. The parts left aluminium, are sprayed with Humbrol metallic 'polished aluminium' which in my view reproduces well an aluminium paint. Here the cockpit tub and two frames are posed with half fuselage to get a first impression of the interior. Indeed, the quality of the Tamiya parts is really good and a careful planning of the painting and of assembling is needed not to risk spoiling the nice level of detail. Finally, the tub with the frame that support the instrument panel and the assembly of the rudder pedals linkages is fit checked. That is all for now, thanks for any feedback, Daniele

G'day people, I will join in with this one I cracked the bags on this one yesterday. I am still awaiting some PE for the internals so I have busied myself with prepping the exterior and working on whatever sub-assemblies that I can in the meantime. Typically, most chopper kits are about 50% cabin, so this will severely limit my progress once al the external bits are done, but there is still a fair bit to to before I have to come to a complete stop. The engine and transmission housing is divided into three major assemblies Some of these are simple one piece affairs like the forward housing above, but others are multi-part affairs than benefit from a tidy up and some dry-fitting before committing to glue The nose section seems to have a lot of people flustered and I can understand why, the four part assembly needs constant attention to avoid unsightly gaps. I am using a resin tail but this requires the kit tail rotor transmission unit. These fit each other without any issues - winning The dash prepped for some PE It is a bit sad that all Airfix can manage in 1/48 is decals but it does make the prep easy, all I did was remove the molded on comings but I decided to keep the video screen details as they are raised and will look nice once painted. The seats will be getting some PE belts so the molded on belts were scraped off and the basic frames assembled The seat pan cushions/survival packs were also prepared With the seats set aside to dry the fuselage lumps and bumps could be attended to. The exhaust fairings were added to each fuselage half as I though this would allow for a better join and hope this would avoid any nasty 'steps'. Remedial sanding in this area will obliterate the delicate rivet detail so it is best to take your time and do it right the first time cheers Pappy

Hello all, Here is my recently completed Airfix 1/48 Hurricane MK.1, marked as N2359 of 17 Squadron, based at Debden in June 1940. Built as part of my 'RAF QRA through the years' project, the build can be viewed on page9 here Extras used included Sky decals, Eduard canopy mask, AML camouflage mask and a CMK resin seat. Paints are from MRP and the weathering was done with a mixture of Abteilung oils, AK pencils and Tamiya pigments. This is my first Hurricane in over 16 years of modelling. Quite happy with how it turned out. Beside Tamiya's Spitfire MK1. Thanks for looking. Dave

Afternoon All! Second entry into this GB. I'll be a bit slow at making a start on this one - working on a few other bits too at the mow. Have the Eduard mask set already and some pre painted etched belts on their way over in the post. I'll be doing the box art markings so that it fits within the time frame needed for the GB I've been having a read over some the previous WIPs on this kit on here. From what I can gather based on what I've read here and on the IMPS link that has popped up a lot - I'm thinking it should be interior green through, with no bronze green around the pilot area? Couldn't find any info on the bomb bay colour - interior green is called out in the AM instructions or should it be zinc yellow / insignia white etc? Any thoughts? This will the first time I've build any of the re-boxed Accurate Miniatures kits so looking forwards to it. Aaron