ChocksAway Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 It's that time of year again to show off my plastic shelf fillers for 2014. If you're browsing this thread, you must be looking for a cure for insomnia, so I hope this helps … The start of the year saw the "finish" of my "Harrier 20/20 Vision" project, completing the remaining four Harriers. Next year the new phase begins! First up was the Spanish Navy Harrier EAV-8B II (Monogram 1/48th) … … and the other variant flown now by the Spanish Navy, the Harrier EAV-8B II Plus (Hasegawa, 1/48th) … … crossing the Atlantic, here's a Harrier AV-8B II Plus with the USMC (Hasegawa, 1/48th) … … and to complete the set, the Naval Strike Wing Harrier GR.7 (Hasegawa, 1/48th). You can see the complete set (to-date) here. What to do next? Well, it was the 100th Anniversary of the start of the Great War, so it made sense to build some more models of that era and after all, I am a member of the IPMS Great War SIG. First was the RAF SE5a w/Wolsey Viper (Roden 1/48th) ... … and then an Italian Nieuport Ni-17 (Eduard, 1/48th) … … followed by a Fokker D.VII, one of the mounts of Herman Goerring (Monogram, 1/48th) … … and to complete the series, a LVG Roland C.II in a very-unlikely-to-be-accurate rendition of the "Western Front, Summer 1917" scheme in the weekend edition kit (Eduard, 1/48th). Finding the need to escape from the rigours of rigging and super-glueing everything but the right thing, I thought I'd go for some very light relief. Yes, I went to work on an egg! Building one from the box contents was dismissed as being a little boring, so I went for eggsageration with some light scrambling and poached a few ideas from other people's builds ... (right, that's enough of that ). First of all I built "Lady Angela", the name given to the P-47 Thunderbolts flown by Lt William C Diman whilst with the 395th Fighter Squadron ... (Hasegawa Egg Plane) … the next egg was the TBF Avenger which I "converted" into a TBM-3E Avenger "Fire Bomber" with the Californian Hemet Valley Fire Service. A change to the rear cockpit and a facsimilie of the front of the bomb / torpedo bay to represent the water tank completed the customisation ... (Hasegawa Egg Plane) … and the last in this three minute egg mini series was a captured butcher bird, a Focke-Wulf Fw190 flown by Major Jim Dalglish, wearing a suitably bright colour scheme of red and lemon yellow, presumably in the hopes that his fellow air force pilots would not shoot him down? … (Hasegawa Egg Plane) A pick-up-and-drop summer build was the entry for the West Middlesex Scale Model Club's 6 Month Challenge competition. This year we asked to do something with a KIS-5 truck (least, I think that's what it was). Anyway, this is what my glue-sniffing brain came up with, "Keep It Silly Stunts" ... a Revell SE5A completed the set-up ... I then returned to the Harrier fold with a Harrier GR3 in arctic camouflage, but this got stuck on the back burner for a number of different reasons and for some more light relief I decided to team up with Panzer Vor! and do an egg plane/egg ship diorama for the Middle Wallop model show. For the aircraft, we chose the Mitsubishi A6M Zero ... (Hasegawa Egg Plane) And for the ship, the Fujimi Akagi ... (Fujimi Chibi-Maru Kantai series) And this is the diorama they ended up in … sadly Dave's Zero didn't make it off the deck after he soaked the wing in glue to make it stick (or something like that). This will be added soon as he now has a replacement kit. The ship is the Yamoto, another in the Fujimi series and apparently not an easy build. Dave - mine went together easy - you picked the wrong option! It should be noted that SHAR2 was particularly unimpressed with this diorama for some strange reason! Something to do with it not being right and proper! Personally, I thought it was a shame there were only 6 egg planes (2 were mine) on display at SMW2014. It's all getting far too serious at that show! Merry Xmas and Best Wishes to all for 2015. That’s All Folks! 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 The rigging on that SE5a, well, that just seems impossible for a human to achieve - well done indeed. Enjoy your subtle weathering as well. Those egg planes - it's amazing to me how many of the characteristics of the original are carried over, very clever that. Cheers, Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyC Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Very good indeed - I'm an egg-plane fan too (see my portfolio's for the last 3-4 years!). Some very nice builds in there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Very nice work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatcawthorne Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 You truly are the Eggman, goo goo ga joob! A truly varied and well-finished selection. Thanks for sharing with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Good work! The SE5 stands out and I just love all the egg planes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heloman1 Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Great sellection for the year Chocks, congratulations. Colin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliffB Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Lots of lovely colour - no falling asleep here! Cliff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Great builds all, but you're "keep it silly ", is really good, just different enough, Sean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzer Vor!!! Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Ok looking good chap Got my replacement egg Zero so ill crack on with it over the festive period, hopefully with no more gluing disasters But c,mon Graham weres the Spits and Me 109s??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaStix Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 That's an impressive collection of well built models! The Harriers are excellent but I was especially taken with the Rowland! Well done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChocksAway Posted December 22, 2014 Author Share Posted December 22, 2014 Thanks for the feedback folks. Merry Xmas one and all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seb Palmer Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Hi Chocks Away, I found this thread because I'm building a couple of TBF Avengers (bought many years ago at an air-show event at Duxford). I was researching possible paint-jobs, when I found your fire-fighting conversion. Very good it is too! I'm returning to model making after a 20-odd year hiatus. Since resuming the hobby/obsession, I've mainly been building WWII German armour, and suchlike. The Avenger (I'm working in the 1st of the two at present) is the first aeroplane model I've built since my childhood. It's felt like a steep learning-curve! I've made loads of mistakes, and have had some real problems to contend with. I hope you don't mind if I mention a couple here? 1) My two models are quite old, and the decals are in a really awful state, all of them being very cracked/fissured. This means when I apply them they fragment terribly. The larger decals have now been placed, albeit with much difficulty. But the smaller ones - on the tail-fin and prop - all disintegrated into myriads of atom-sized particles, and so were binned, as there was no rescuing them. Any tips on working with such decals? 2) 'Misting' of the canopy: when I removed all the masking from the canopy, much to my annoyance I discovered that there was what I'm calling 'misting up'. I'm guessing it somehow got damp in there. I tried heating the canopy with a hairdryer, hoping it'd make any moisture evaporate. But the foggy effect remains. Any ideas about how to remedy this? I'll hopefully, time allowing, be posting an article on the build on my blog - http://aquestionofscale.blogspot.co.uk- some time later today, with lots of pics of the TB Avenger, showing what I've been up to, including all my gaffes and other trials and tribulations. Regards, Seb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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