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Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/09/12 in all areas

  1. Finished this build up about three weeks ago. This has taken a little over three years to build. It is comprised of parts from four 1/72 kits (2 Academy, 1 Hasegawa, and 1 HobbyBoss), after market sets from CMK & Eduards, and a total of 1200+ scratch built pieces. None of this would have been possible without the outstanding custom decals from my friend Joseph Osborn, invaluable technical advice and reference material from my friends Jon Bernstein, Tony Morgan, and the US Army. So I'll shut up now and post the photos. The in-progress for this build can be found here. Please let me know if you all have any suggestions or corrections. Devil Dance AH-64A 89-0202 C Company, 1/229th Attack Helicopter Battalion aka."Blue Max" Dave Fassett
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  2. Hi everyone As you may recall, a few months ago I built a Cent for my Dad who is a Vietnam Vet. Well, shortly after I started this second AFV Club 1/35 Centurion for myself, which I have been chipping away at for the past couple of months and finished last weekend. After market items included a vinyl mantlet cover (AFV Club), tracks (AFV Club), turret basket stowage (Firestorm), steel plate mudguards & stowage bin reinforcement (Mouse House), decals (Mouse House & Arms Corps Models) and water jerries (Mouse House). Some of the tools and the small spot light near the MG were from my spares box. Scratch-built items included search light cover (tissue paper), aerials (styrene rod) and tool box tie down straps, which I made from lead foil. Thanks for looking
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  3. HMS Leopard 1:350 The Type 41 or Leopard class were a class of anti-aircraft defence frigates built for the Royal Navy (4 ships) and Indian Navy (3 ships) in the 1950s. These ships were designed to provide anti-aircraft escorts to convoys; as a result they were not built for fleet speeds and made only 24 knots (44 km/h). They shared a common hull and machinery with the Type 61 or Salisbury class aircraft direction vessels. HMS Jaguar and HMS Lynx were sold to the Bangladesh Navy in 1978 and 1982 respectively, and were still in service in 2007. They were armed with two twin 4.5" guns in Mk6 turrets, one twin 40mm STAAG mount and one squid three barreled anti-submarine mortar system. The Leopard class was also fitted with an early type of hydraulic stabiliser system consisting of two fins that could be extended outside of the main hull to port and starboard, from a compartment between the two engine rooms. Gyro controlled with a relatively simple control system, they proved very effective in use. During testing every 3 months at sea, the ship could be easily driven into a 20°+ roll from the manual control on the bridge. Prior warning had to be given to allow stowage of loose items over the ship's tannoy system before testing was carried out. Slight reduction in top speed was also noticed when in use. HMS Leopard was built at Portsmouth dockyard; she was launched on 23 May 1955 and commissioned on 30 September 1958. The ship, first commanded by Commander R.G. Gaunt, was to serve in the South Atlantic and South America upon commission. In 1961, HMS Leopard sailed for the island of Tristan da Cunha after a volcanic eruption. Her crew assisted in the relief effort, as well as the recovery of personal belongings left behind by the island's inhabitants. In 1963, HMS Leopard suffered serious damage when she collided with the South African minesweeper Pietermaritzburg during exercises off Cape Point. In 1968, she was diverted to Bermuda in response to civil unrest. During Britain's fishing dispute with Iceland in 1973, Leopard was accused by Iceland of threatening to fire on the patrol ship Ægir. The British government refuted the claims, accusing the Icelandic ship of trying to cut the trawling wires of the German fishing vessels Teutonia and Dusseldorf, and of firing several shots. The government further stated that HMS Leopard had only warned the Ægir that she would fire back if more shots were fired.HMS Leopard provided further support for British trawlers during another fishing dispute with Iceland in 1975. She was decommissioned in 1975 and left Portsmouth for scrapping in Spain in 1977. The Model The model comes in a sturdy cardboard box with a picture of HMS Leopard on the top and its specification on the front. On opening the modeller is confronted with a load of polystyrene chips. On top of the poly chips is an envelope with the etch sheet inside. Carefully emptying the box will reveal to ziplock bags, one with the metal parts in and the other with the resin parts. Well wrapped in bubblewrap is the main hull, which is in two parts, split ate the waterline so that either a full hull or waterline model can be built. At the bottom of the box are the instructions and a small, but very welcome decal sheet. The casting of the resin hull is nothing short of exceptional with no sign of even a pinhole bubble. The amount of detail on the upper hull has to seen to be believed and must have taken the moulding to the edge of what is possible. There are some small moulding pips, all on the join of the two hull parts, so easily removed without damaging any of the detail, and there were the smallest bits of flash on the front of the bridge, again easily removed with a swipe of emery cloth. The lower hull not only has the propeller shaft fairings moulded in to the stern, but also some very fine strakes and the two stabiliser fins in their recessed housings. The rest of the resin parts consisting of the two Mk6 turrets, their associated director, director platform, aft fire control director, STAAG mounting, ventilator junction box, bridge, 25' fast motor boat and 27' whaler, are equally well moulded with crisp details throughout. The metal parts also very well moulded, the majority of which are fixed to moulding stubs. There is quite a bit more flash, as seen in the photo below. The flash shouldn't cause any problem experienced enough to take on a kit such as this. The metal parts provided are the fore and aft diesel exhausts, squid mounting and barrels, 4 x 4.5" barrels, STAAG 40mm barrels, Type 293 radar antenna, rangefinder sight bars, 6 x stack vents, rudder, ventilator exhaust, deck winch, 3x small and 3 x large mushroom vents and finally 2 x propeller hubs and A frames. Etch Sheet The single etch sheet contains all the finer detail parts. These include both the fore and main lattice masts plus their associated platforms, yardarms, auxiliary steering platform and supports, ships boat davits, life raft racks, 974 and 960 radar antenna, masts and dipoles, RAS gantry, cable reels, propellers, Mast squadron numbers, jack and ensign staffs, inclined and vertical ladders, anchors, squid mounting hand wheel and loading trolley rails, a complete set of railings, each designed to fit into their respective positions, and ships nameplates for all four ships of the class. Decals This is the first kit of this type that we've had to review to have decals included which is a very welcome addition. The decals appear very nicely printed, in good register and quite opaque. The do seem to be rather matt and Peter Hall has told me that they are rather thin, so will have to be applied direct from the backing sheet. Included on the sheet are the ships numbers for both sides and stern for HMS Leopard and HMS Lynx, bridge windows, depth markings, nameplates for the two ships, standard White Ensign, Union Jack and smaller battle ensign complete the sheet. Conclusion Peter Hall is renowned for designing kits and etch parts for White Ensign Models. With Atlantic Models he is able to bring this expertise to models of ships that White Ensign will probably not have released. Maritime modellers have long regretted that Royal Navy ships of the 1950's and 60's seem to have been ignored, yet with this release that's no longer true. The model is a stunning example of the resin kit designers art, long may Atlantic continue releasing ships of this era. If you're interested in Royal Naval frigates, or their ships in general and are of intermediate or an experienced modeller, then get this one, you won't regret it. This will be part of a build review shortly. Review sample courtesy of Peter Hall of
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  4. This build has spendt a lot of time in the back end of the "Cabinet of shame", due to the badly fit and details, and had almost given itt up, But In that cabinet was also a badly buildt Hasegawa F-16 RNOAF, so i descided to use the decals from that kit and transform the badly Eurofighter to a What If. As most of you know, Eurofighter was in the competition with Gripen and the ugly one i cant remember name of, but the last one won the competiton. So maybe this is how it could have been The Eurofighter is definately one of my favourites tho, so any tips to what the best kit is in 1/48? Some pics:
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  5. Here's a novel idea - why dont we wait until its released, and see how fantastically good/ Oh christ its so pants, it is.? Though I must admit I know where Im leaning... Jonners
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  6. Aha! I wondered why I was so impressed! I bet it's 1/32 really.......
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  7. Looks good - liking the refueling door looking like a Marlboro packet! Nice tanks too :hmmm:
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  8. Another quick update from me. Decals now going on....not too many thankfully! Apologies for the iPhone pic. Will take some proper ones when it's finished! Cheers. Graham
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  9. It would be nice to cut out having to upload images to sites like photobucket all together and just upload straight from a pc
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  10. Very nice models. The decals from Modeldecals were very good for its time, and they still are. Nils
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  11. The white discs were warning discs on the undercarriage downlocks - ie "remove before flight"! Fitted to prevent accidental retraction.
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  12. I'm sorry, but we are getting into semantics, here; for years, we've had the argument that the mats never existed. Several eye-witness reports have persuaded many that they did exist, with those refusing to accept the idea clinging to fanciful notions about raw materials availability (or not.) We now have a not-so-subtle shift away from "They never existed" to a grudging acceptance, but with a need to argue about the material used. Quite frankly, who cares? If the mats existed, they existed, and would have been used; anything that follows is argument, for the sake of argument, and is nothing short of tiresome.
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  13. Thanks for that! I really appreciate the feedback from those who got to play with these jets. Having never seen on in person I have to rely on photos and deduction. Last update for tonight, got one more form skeleton complete. This will become the master for a vacuum formed windscreen - which will be faired into the fuse and become a master for a cast windscreen.
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  14. Cool build Well done. Noticed this thread as i`ve just watched "The Sum Of All Fears"
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  15. Lovely job Mike, captured the deceptively graceful lines of the original. Now you need to do '777 with the phase 2 wing !
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  16. Wow, you've done a really nice job of the paint work. Deacon
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  17. Not necessarily a big church, but one where a Bishop is formally located. As such, the cathedral is the headquarter of a diocese. While most cathedral are big churches, some are much less imposing The above mentioned Bishop can then intercede with the designer to put the correct symmetrical dihedral (or in this case anhedral) as you suggest And yes, the F-104 had a symmetrical dihedral on both wings. The hasegawa kits can however be a bit tricky to build, so I'm not surprised this kind of things happen
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  18. And the AAC use 'TAD' numbers. Link to lists of them all at UK serials: http://www.ukserials.com/maintenance.htm The RAF seem to have stopped issuing M numbers in 2003.
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  19. Looking good Karen! All the best, Angelo
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  21. This is the first kit from the Roden company I ever built. Suprisingly construction proceeded without any major problems. The fit is good overall; you need to drill some holes for the attatchment of poles, mirrors, headlights. The assembly of the wheels and the axles is a bit tricky - it took several attempts to make all wheels touch the ground. The luggage frame on top and the ladder on the back are photo-etch items. These performed very well and are easy to bend into shape. The model was painted using Gunze/Mr.Hobby colours. Thanks for looking.
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