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Afternoon everyone. I’m not one for posting WIP’s or RFI’s on here as I don’t build very often (In fact it’s mainly July and August when I get time) with other things taking up any free time and there’s never a guarantee I’ll finish something or it be good enough to share. However my confidence got a slight boost when Airfix put my K2Y up on their social media pages so I figured what the hell. Let’s get one done on here for a change. I’ve had a little Academy A6M5c Zero in the cupboard for a few years and having just built the first of the Eduard “Tora Tora Tora” set, and having a bit of a Pacific War thing going on this summer, now is as good a time as any to do this. As you can see there’s not massive amount to do and as this will be strictly OOB It’s easily doable within the timeframe. The plan is to start one morning and just work through. I brush paint everything (The big scale stuff is F.U.N) so the plan is to use AK’s 3rd Generation IJN Paint set. I’m slowly swapping out all my old Tamiya acrylics with AK’s as they’re just beautiful to paint with

Hello! No WIP thread for this build unfortunately. I started this build earlier in the year and then abandoned it. Yesterday I had a burst of inspiration and I decided to finish it. By that I mean fully paint it and all the other stuff, In one day! Anyway, here she is, XA322: And here she is with my Bucc S.2C XV336 I had a lot of fun building this kit and I'm very happy with the result, hope you all enjoy it too!

I have finally arrived home after a refreshing and very fun trip to Hungary. Back to the workbench! I've decided to attempt more speedbuilds and I've definitely caught a helicopter fever because this is my third helicopter in a row! (1st was Sea King, 2nd was Merlin). Done quite a lot today considering the age of this kit (1976 tool), the fit is surprisingly good but there are a lot of gaps. I'm aware the seats are inaccurate but the navy lynx version of the seats airfix provided were shocking so I decided to go with the normal version. Seatbelts were added later. It never really struck me just how small the lynx is until now, quite awesome! As I'm writing this, I'm currently filling and sanding everything. Shouldn't take too long hopefully, school starts again on Wednesday!

Here is a little project I've been working on, on the side. My photos don't do this kit justice, but I seem utterly incapable of capturing a good shot, so these will have to do for now. The kit is Fine Mold's excellent F-4D in 1:72nd scale. The kit has wonderful details, is generally easy to build (but don't expect flawless fit like their Star Wars models), and comes with a few interesting options. The F-4D comes with several tail antenna arangements, optional early and late fuel tanks, and a nose with or without anenna bulges. Sadly, there is no LORAN towel rack antenna, and no weapons. I added an old set of True Details resin seats, and an even older set of Microscale decals, and still older Hasegawa weapons sets. Paint comes from the AK Real Colors USAF Europe set, modified with some Tamiya whites and yellows where necessary. I strongly recommend the Fine Molds kit, but I learned a few lessons during this build, which I'll be applying in future FM Phantoms (and I already have two more in the stash) 1. glue the metallic bottom tail part, the flanges around the engine exhausts and the vertical rudder before painting. FM supplies these as seperate parts to ease in masking, but none of them fit all that well. Your call, but I prefer to mask than to have to fettle with painted pieces, which leads to a mess and requires masking for retouch in the end. 2. The horizontal tails interlock in in just ONE correct way. You have to keep at it many times until the tabs slide over one another just right. But it will happen, and then they will line up correctly. Be patient. 3. The sidewinder rails can be added at the very end And lessons from the additional parts and paints 4. AK Real Colors medium green is REALLY BRIGHT but stands out well from their Forest Green, in scale. So leave it be 5. Old Microscale decals silver even with a gloss undercoat. They silver where the adhesive has dried out. Silverving has more to do with poor adhesion than with a smooth substrate. 6. The Old Esci and Italeri Phantom kits has slightly shorter (chordwise) tails, and the old Microscale decals sized for them need a little paint touch up to fit this kit 7. Invest in a Fine Molds weopons set. The old Hasegawa sets really haven't aged well. 8. I miss True Details. Anyhow. This aircraft represents an F-4D flown by the Alabama Air National Guard around 1985/1986. At the time, some of the Alabama and Georgia ANG units were deployed to West Germany. I don't know if they trained in dropping LGBs, but I love assymetrical loadouts, and the blue training munitions look really great against the drab scheme, and so I could not resist a bit of artistic license.

I have been following @AliGauld's Airfix Hurricane build and saw the discussion on the Arma Hobby Hurricane. I built a couple of Airfix Hurricane's a few years back, converting them from fabric wings to metal wings but I then remembered I had one of these in the stash. So out it has been dug and put on the top of the lets get started pile. I do recall following a @Procopius build a few years back and there's a bit of care needed with fitting the undercarriage which happens right at the beginning. Anyways the boxing isn't a Sea Hurricane as I originally thought but the options are for two former RAF Hurricanes transferred to the Naval Fighter School, and a bit of an oddity, a former Sea Hurricane 'Hurricat' provided to a Polish RAF Squadron for training. And left in Temperate Sea Scheme. I think I'll go for W -D2 with Popeye on it. Two beautifully moulded sprues in grey plastic. Crisp and fine. and a transparent sprue with options for an open and closed canopy. Nice transfer sheet with a fair amount of stencils And what looks like a comprehensive set of instructions. This is my my first Armato Hobby build and I'm looking forward to it. I will have to think about how to distress the paintwork. I don't have airbrush facilities, or skills, to do filters, shading, etc.. But that's a fair bit off

Kit - Airfix A05010 Paint - All acrylics Decals - Xtradecal & Kit Extras - none Dornier 17Z 10 (Croatian) / KG3 Central Front, Russia. Winter 1941/42. So after just over fifty years of slapping together pieces of injected plastic, I've finally attempted an aircraft in a chipped & faded winter finish. So after the 70/71 was masked & sprayed, I sealed it with a coat of gloss, then decalled and sealed again this time with two good coats of gloss. I left that for a week before decanting & spraying the hairspray in two coats, allowing that to go-off overnight then mottling the (Tamiya) white. I let that settle for around four hours then began picking, scratching and brushing it away in the high wear areas. Later on I applied a light brownish grey overall wash using/mixing Flory washes which slightly toned the white and took-the-edge-off the finish. I sealed that with a coat of Tamiya lacquer satin clear. After a couple of days I broke-out the W & N oils and dirtied-up around the nacelles and added the exhaust streaks. After that was all sealed away, the last step was the streaks on the underside, again with W & N oils. Last job was two overall coats of Tamiya lacquer matt clear, a little pigment work on the tyres and final assembly. As a first-attempt I'm fairly pleased with what I've ended-up with. If I do this finish again, I won't leave the hairspray as long to dry as it was quite stubborn to remove in some areas. So there t'is, please feel free to ask any questions, make any comments or criticisms. Going to take a break from aircraft building for a while as I've completed six builds in about four months, so time for an AFV build next I think. All the best from NZ. Ian.

Another filler kit to fill the Canberra paint drying time the Academy F4f-4. No real period pictures of the Wildcat with the star and bar roundel scheme so opted to use a few pics from life magazine with the star and bar and reference material. It’s a very simple kit if almost say starter kit but goes together well. Grand total of 8 decals although 4 where no use to my example. (Aircraft number) As always I look forward to your comments/tips/suggestions.

Hello everyone. This is the last of a pair of Sea Vixen FAW.1s that I started building as a project in 1/72 scale back in 2019 in order to go beyond what was available in kit form in terms of quality and detail. The first of these aircraft - XJ481 - was completed last October in her Martel trials livery and can be seen here. The aircraft represented here - XN708 from 890 NAS - crashed into Lyme bay killing both crew on the night of 25th Nov, 1964. A fuller history of both aircraft, as well as the build log for designing and printing them, can be found here: Source materials used in developing the CAD designs comprised of the Sea Vixen maintenance manuals cross-referenced with photographic imagery, a combination I've come to rely on in terms indexing what you see against its actual function. Aside from printed resin, the build also required the use of vacforming for the pilot's canopy and the production of homebrew PE for a range of internal and external features. All markings are painted using custom mask sets. Walkaround: Wingfold: Radar and nose area. (Yes, the scanner dish moves...) Engines: I've a list of people already who want a copy of this to make a FAW.1 for themselves so I'm going to be producing it as a multimedia kit in resin, brass and vacform over the coming months, to include all the details shown here. If you like what you see and want to register an interest in having a a copy as well, please feel free to drop a PM. As ever I'd like to finish simply by thanking all those forum members who gave so generously of their time, humour and expertise in following along with this project: it's always chastening to realize that no matter how certifiable my ramblings, there are other equally disturbed individuals out there prepared to read them. All power to you, and of course, peace. Tony Ps. The pair of them together...

As seems to be my habit recently I came across this when looking for something else. and one of the options is for 826 Squadron of the RCN. The kit is an early Special Hobby kit (2003 according to Scalemates) and has a real 'limited release' look about it. There's a lot of flash on the three grey sprues and the surface is a little rough. But the transparencies look nice. There's a lot of resin, which is much more delicately and finely moulded than the Injection plastic. Good selection of transfers and some film for the IP. And a small bit of etch. Reasonable instructions and although they do suffer from the usual SH mode of 'stick this piece somewhere round here' there are some detail drawings. And decent colour call outs and transfer application guides.

It's been a while! I had a week off work so I've decided to spend the time the best possible way, that means doing some modelling! This is a very nice little kit by Trumpeter on my preferred scale (1:72) perhaps the only low was the decals but nothing too bad really. I hope you guys like it and all comments are welcomed! Ukrainian Air Force, Gostomoel airport, MIG-29C (Izdeliye 9.13) "White 44" Thanks for looking! Jorge

Looking for something else I came across this in the stash. The inside of the fuselage says 1981 but I am sure it's a lot older as I recall making one of these as a kid in the late 60s. I could find it in Scalemates as my navigation wasn't working well. There are two buff coloured sprues and the fuselage halves separate, and the moulding although nice, the detail says 1960s to me and certainly not 1980s. However, it is within the 1989 cut off so I'm assuming it'll be good to go. The transfers are for a single aircraft of 111 Squadron RFC in Palestine and are definitely of a much more recent era. Straghtforward Revell instructions and although not on these two pages the usual set of Revell paint mixes.

It is inevitable that when I join a group build with a big 1/48 project, I'll at some point begin pining for something smaller and simpler to work on as well. And let's face it, when it comes to aircraft, 1/72 is my preferred scale, even if I try to convince myself otherwise. And so here we go with Meng's F-106. Its much nicer than their F-102 (which I built for the Vietnam GB in 2020), and I have some really interesting decals to go with it. You've all seen this kit on several other excellent build threads here already, so I won't waste my time or yours with sprue shots and the like. Right now I'm working on the innards. Keeping it simple. Glued the wing together. Fit was a bit "meh". Test fit the fuselage, and it's also a tad meh. But easy as pie after the Monogram dagger.

Hello guys and girls. I present you my latest finished model.The Iraqi Air force MiG-25rb in 72 scale made from the ICM kit. The kit has awesome details but the fit of the front and back fuselages is a bit tricky. This is my 4th ICM mig-25 and on every kit I had the same problem. Nothing that cant be sorted out but still .Added homemade seatbelts and pittotube. Painted with gunze acrylics. Regards,Dragan

Hello, Britmodellers! 👋 This kit was started some time ago as a quick background build alongside with Mi-24A, but some issues were revealed soon and all slowed down... I bought the box during sale and it’ll be a great addition to my Century Series kits. As always, I want to start from a little in-box «review». The box is a modern Italeri cardboard box with an excellent artwork: There are four painting schemes presented on the back of a box: Maybe I’ll choose this one: The box content: The decal sheet is large and beautifully printed, looks like there will be no issues on applying the transfers: Runner A with the port fuselage half: Two (early and late) types of afterburners here: The quality of these moulds is a spot on, even for this kit from 80s: I like these pipelines on the MLG struts: Runner B with another fuselage half, lower wing surface and other bits: Looks good: Runner C with the clear parts (one-piece canopy and gun sight): I started from filling an ejector pin marks with the Sprue Goo: Also I’ve done some subassemblies: That’s all for today, thanks for looking at and have a nice modelling week! 😉

This group build seemed like the perfect time to get round to building this one. Been hankering after one for years, finally bit the bullet a few years ago and bought it, but hadn't summoned up the courage to try a non-injection kit.... until now. I mean, So, the kit - unstarted, still the plastic bag: Looks like there aren't too many major pieces....fingers crossed.

On Thursday night, with the upcoming long weekend, I had decided I could no longer hold back the urge to start another lightning. I'll be honest, not many photos of this one so far, been making excellent, fast progress the past few days. I digress, here's the few photos I do have of the build so far. As always, I started off by redoing the shockingly poorly detailed ejection seat. This is my finest work yet, I am very proud. I then threw the cockpit and engines together and got working on the painting. This afternoon she looked like this: And here she is next to my other two, with dry-fitted gear to make it more presentable. She still needs paint touch-ups in areas but this is definitely feeling like a speed build. Hopefully more updates soon.

Tu-128 'Fiddler' Kit: Trumpeter Tu-128M Fiddler (#01687) Scale: 1/72 Paints: Vallejo Model Air, Metal Color & Model Color Aftermarket: Eduard PE- parts, CMK figure, DIY base with Noch & Vallejo basing materials Weathering: Oil paints, Flory Models, Vallejo, Tamiya & Ammo Mig Trumpeters huge Tu-128 'Fiddler' had a little accident - it didn't like the enamel thinner I used to remove Tamiya panel liner. I've found out that Ammo Mig enamel thinner is much more gentle, Revell makes the paint surface all flat and has a risk of removing paint. And of course I picked up the wrong bottle. But it was a happy accident as it goes - I decided not to waste all the hard work I've made with the model - I had a moment of inspiration to go all in with the weathering and tell a s tory of a neglected museum bird. The guy with the bucket and cloth seems to be woefully unprepared for the cleaning task at hand! Tu-128, the largest and heaviest fighter ever in service was purpose built by Soviets to defend the 5000km long northern air front. Huge size meant it could fit huge fuel tanks which led to over 3 hour endurance and 1500km range. Armed with four heavy R-4 missiles, usually a mix of radar guided and IR versions. Tu-128 was a two seater plane, radar operator sitting in the back. Despite being a 'fighter' - or interceptor to be more precise - 'Fiddler' flew like a bomber. It was certainly not meant for manouvering but to engage targets at a distance and turn away. Maximum G-limit while loaded with missiles was only 2.5G's. Tu-128 came operational in the late 60's and remained in service until 1990. I'm not quite sure where one draws a line between a display base and a diorama - but I hope this is in the right place. If not, moderators feel free to pop this in the right place Anyway, here's the model with the base - hope you like it!

Reini's Century Series - F-106A Delta Dart Meng's F-106 comes in a box twice the size of the same manufacturer's F-102 box - and it's stull packed full with plastic! And if possible, it also looks even better than the F-102 kit. As can be seen, the kit is started, but I think I'm safe to say that I'm still under the 25% rule? Kit comes with really nice looking decal sheet and excellent instruction manual. But I will be using Expert Choice decals - and I will be doing a Massachusetts Air National Guard F-106. The PE-set comes with the kit so in addition to the decals, pitot tube is the only thing I've bought extra for this kit. And twice, as it seems! So if anyone needs a 1:72 F-106 pitot tube, send me a PM The Six is the only Century Series fighter that I have not built before so this will be interesting

Reini's Century Series - F-105G Thunderchief Trumpeter kit. I've built the single seater years ago, but this is the two seater SAM-hunting 'Wild Weasel' variant. Pile-o-plastic - it's a decent looking kit. I'm not really happy with the Trumpeter decals, I've had issues where they are just the wrong size, usually too large. Like the ejection seat warning markings. They are quite prominent in the real thing, but these look just way too big! Caracal seems to be making a decent looking decal sheet, so I might pick that up. Wheels and pitot tube. I do have some items still missing from this kit, mainly related to the loadout. Trumpeter's AGM-45 Shrike and AGM-78 Standard ARM that come with the kit are apparently wrong size, But I have yet succeeded in finding replacements for them. This is my earlier work on the Trumpeter F-105 kit. From years back, brush painted and all.

Reini's Century Series - F-104G Starfighter One of the many Hasegawa's Starfighter boxings. Here's the box contest. Hasegawa is my favourite F-104 kit in this scale. Some aftermarket is a must. These 3D printed ladders just seemed so nice that I couldn't resist. I usually make mask clear parts myself but for this I have ready made masks. Master pitot tube is a must, some PE to add some cockpit detail and resin wheels. I might still add a resin ejection seat, a Lockheed C2 seat in this case. And then this little innocent 'special' bomb. I think this is from Trumpeter's Vigilante kit. I won't be using the kit decals, I have Xtradecal set for Netherlands F-104. And as the decal set is lacking all the small markings, I'll be using a set from Armycast. This is my reference, a Dutch F-104 in 1984, carrying a dummy B43 nuclear bomb. Photo is taken from here: https://nimh-beeldbank.defensie.nl/foto-s/detail/edb2f47b-9a02-85e1-56ea-8b23609cc71e/media/00a62de9-dfb8-db2c-7679-10d4fcab765a I've made several F-104 in different scales already, here's one of them - a Norwegian CF-104 made from Hasegawa kit: I like all the Century Series fighters - but it's not hard to pick a favourite, it has to be the F-104

Reini's Century Series - F-100D Super Sabre Italeri's (ESCI) old and trusty F-100 is still a decent kit I think. Sure, it's lacking on some details (like the cockpit) and the wing slats are closed but despite being little dated, I like the kit. Box contents. I've built two of these before and for this build I'm going all in with the aftermarket items so I won't be using much of these parts 3D printed ladder, really fine looking thing. I just hope I won't break it... Some of the aftermarket parts. Upgrade for the cockpit as the kit one is quite spartan. Ejection seat is good upgrade but this is my fist try on the full Aires resin cockpit. Exhaust nozzle, another good upgrade, really adds details. Full napalm loadout, as I will be doing a vietnam era strike fighter. Tyres and a Master pitot tube, finding it really hard to do a build without Master pitot tube. Decals that I will be using. And then this beauty. The wing slats are closed in the Italeri kit and this will correct that. It also adds landing gear bay details. I've built couple Italeri Hun's before. This is my first kit since I re-started my hobby several years ago. This was my second attempt few years later with some experience and airbrush etc. For this build I modified the original wings to have open slats. But it's nice to have ready made part for that now. Let's see how this goes - welcome aboard

Back in April 2020 I started building an old tool Airfix Stirling Mk III. Progress was made for a number of months and then I lost interest. Interest rekindled, work restarted in Dec 22 and I finally think it's finished. Aftermarket was restricted to some etch intended for the Italeri beast, DK decals and some internet-purchased Paragon engines and coals intended for a Lanc Mk II. I also used parts from the new tool Airfix Lanc to improve the kit turrets. Apart from that, the major ingredients were filler, sprue goop and styrene sheet n' rod. Build thread here: Excuse the cr*ppy glamour shots.

Hello to all. This is my latest finished model.The Zvezda MiG-31.I have installed the Extratech Pe in the cockpit and added a pair of Resin K-36 seats.The rest is oob.I painted the kit in gunze and tamiya acryclis.The decals came from the spares box. Regards,Dragan

This seems like an opportune time to open this box : Will start off with the Shar, and if time permits make a start on the Wessex.

Hello lads, And Now for Something Completely Different ... you can check my latest model - small agricultural plane Z-37A Cmelak from Eduard. It's very nice little plane that everyone can build between Spit or F-16, detail level is very satisfying and even without any aftermarkets it will look outstanding straight OOB. Although in this build I used brassins from Eduard, but as I said above they aren't necessary. If you interested how I make it step by step, you can check the build here https://www.kfs-miniatures.com/1-72-z-37a-cmelak-budowa-cz-1/ and painting here: https://www.kfs-miniatures.com/1-72-z-37a-cmelak-budowa-cz-2/ Hope you will like it.