Search the Community

I've been beavering away on the KUTA XII GB for the past three months, finishing off the Airfix Avro Vulcan kit I started a few years ago. It was essentially built, but needed finishing and was the first model I have painted using an airbrush. The thread for this build is here: It was finished (in a bit of a hurry!) last night, 90 minutes before the deadline for the GB closed. Here a few images showing Avro's finest in all its glory: Plenty of mistakes along the way, but overall I'm happy with this model. Two minor annoyances though - I accidentally ripped two decals off the fin, which I thought were sealed behind a layer of varnish - they weren't! Also, regarding varnish, I was not happy with the finish in some areas. For example, the undercarriage door where the registration decal is placed - the finish is opaque, not clear. Not too sure why that happened? Please be gentle, this is my first RFI! 😁

I built the Fly rebox of the Hasegawa Hurricane IIa and a Hasegawa boxing of their Hurricane IIc, the latter with a Quickboost prop and one of Fly's paint masks that I purchased separately. For the Hurricane IIa, I built the aircraft flown by Pilot Officer William "Bill" Dunn of 71 (Eagle) Squadron, later Lt Colonel William Dunn USAAF, and later still Warrant Officer Bill Dunn USAF. Long story. The Fly decals for this aircraft are all screwy, and seem to be in part based on a Canadian Hurricane restoration from the 1980s (G-HURI). There's also some trouble with the coding of XR-T, as the Hurricane in question, Z3781, was photographed at one point coded XR-A and was flown by Flight Lieutenant George Brown. Initially, at least, Dunn appears to have flown XR-D, which he refers to in his autobiography as "my Hurricane". Also, here's where it starts to get messy. He says "Hurricane XR-T belonged to 71 Squadron, B Flight", but all of his combat reports indicate he was flying with "A" Flight. During 1941, he also flew at least two different Hurricanes which he scored in: Z3781 (claiming one 109F each on 2 July and 21 July), and Z3267(claiming one shared 109F probable in conjunction with a 306 Squadron pilot on 6 July, and a 109E on 9 August). Presumably a photo of him in front of a Hurricane with Eagle Squadron nose art and four kill markings dates from between 9 August and later in the month when the squadron re-equipped with Spitfire IIas. Per John Dibbs, Z3781 was transferred to 131 Squadron in August, so perhaps this nose art was on Z3267. Some other comments by him seem to suggest the 71 Squadron ORB is of use in reconciling codes with serials, so off to the National Archives I went, and seven pounds later... July 1941 August 1941 Dunn seems to have primarily flown Z3267 during July and August (Z3828 is the final Hurricane II he flew, on the afternoon of 16 August (after flying Z3679 in the morning). This leads me to believe that XR-D was Z3267, which also means, in all probability, XR-D/Z3679 bore the pugilistic eagle and his kill markings on the starboard side of the nose. As no Eagle Squadron Hurricane had an airframe score of four aircraft, Dunn did, and was the squadron high-scorer at the time, and Z3267 was his regular aircraft (though also flown sometimes by others), this seems to be the most likely solution. This makes me believe that XR-T was indeed Z3781, but lacked the nose art. The serial number was probably overpainted by the Sky band as well, as with other Eagle Squadron aircraft. Whew, a lot of work to figure out the markings. TL;DR: Do not use the Eagle Squadron nose art decal if you build this Hurricane. I also used Owl's photoetched exhaust glare shields, since some photos show them fitted to this aircraft, and Colourcoats enamels along with some Alclad and AK Extreme Metals for metallic colours (and curiously, exhaust staining), along with some pigments and a Prismacolor pencil. 20180917_212251 by Edward IX, on Flickr 20180917_212300 by Edward IX, on Flickr 20180917_212307 by Edward IX, on Flickr 20180917_212318 by Edward IX, on Flickr I can't help but feel I overdid the chipping and exhaust staining, but there's nobody but me to blame on that one. The Hasegawa IIc was a much more straightforward affair. I used Xtradecals from the Malta sheet, but opted to go with DE/DG over Sky with a Black spinner with a Sky baseplate, per a suggestion of @tonyot in a thread I stumbled upon, rather than the arguably cooler DE/MS over Azure Blue with a Red spinner/Sky baseplate proposed by the decal sheet. 20180917_212358 by Edward IX, on Flickr 20180917_212422 by Edward IX, on Flickr 20180917_212404 by Edward IX, on Flickr Overall, I think I didn't do my best work on the canopies and overdid some of the chipping and exhaust staining, but I'm really happy with how the exhaust stacks turned out: 20180916_225635 by Edward IX, on Flickr

So after a long-ish break from the hobby i finished my first model in A year . This is the Eduard Hellcat MKII from the FAA dual combo set. I built the first one last may and started this one a few weeks later, but it got to the printshop and then stalled. after getting back into the hobby i wanted to do a easy build to ease myself back in, and this was perfect as it was almost finished! i primed it, and did pre shading (my first ever time). i then painted it Humbrol 25 with an airbrush, but sadly when painting the white stripes i got some overspray on the model which made the pre shading less visible and also made some parts a lighter colour than others. i kept having issues with lumps of pigment from the white paint blocking the nozzle so ended up brush painting the stripes. also, during the recalling i knocked over my micro sol onto several decals so some of them broke up and wrinkled . This is the first time i have ever airbrushed a model and overall i am pretty happy with it. On another note, how do you stop micro-sol and micro-set staining the paint? Will