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For a 25 year or so old kit it really stands up well in a number of areas whilst also showing it's age in others. The detail in the cockpit, weapons bay and wheel bays is as good as any new release that has come out in the past year or so; however the fit of the parts is very 1970's and the panel lines are raised. Rather than rescribe the kit I built this old gal in the manner of the day when she was released and built up any panel lines that had been lost during the sanding of the not to well fitting parts. Construction was completely out of the box, which just showed hoe well detailed this kit is. The main colour was finished in Lifecolor UA041 FS16473 ADC Grey and I am very happy with their rendition of this somewhat elusive colour. The Eaqle Strike decals performed flawlessly with Microset and just a little Microsol being needed over some of the more prominent raised panel lines. Weathering was kept to an absolute minimum with just a light highlighting of some of the panel lines and minor fading to some of the panels as the F-106's were quite possibly THE best maintained planes ever to have served in the US Air Force. So here we are, hope you enjoy the pictures... Thanks for looking.

This is the second of my many adversary TA-4s. It has been a WIP for a long time but I finished it last week. And with its "sister": Jens

My latest work, excelent and acurate model. Link to WIP pictures http://www.maketarskikutak.com/index.php/topic,15521.0.html. I hope you like it .

Right my swear box is full on this one... but for £18 (thanks Debanhams) wasent so bad real *cough* ive tried to add more details on the interior but i fell there should be more its just sooooo big and my patience started to flag. so here it is in all her glory... Introducing my Spitfire Vb. Thanks for looking

I would like present to community my latest finished model. Model was inspired by photo of pink-coloured Spit of No.16 Sqn. This is "light" conversion of ICM Spitfire Mk.VII. Short list of additions and corrections: - camera window was cut out, camera immitation was made and installed inside; - rivets was added; - locks on engine compartment panels was rescribed, as there was missing a lot; - elevator "dropped down" as it should be when control stick is not locked; - exhaust pipes sustituted for halvanically grown from REXx aftermarket company. Model painted with two tones of pink color, with following postshading, wash and weathering with artists oils and AK-Interactive.

Here she is, finished over two months, which puts me on target to complete 6 models this year.... There are some things I'm not happy with, but rather than correct them I am going to make sure I overcome them in the next build, whatever that might be........

This one is almost straight from the box apart from the addition of some of the CMK resin set which replaced the gun bays, cockpit and nose gear retraction leg. Other than that it was pretty much straight out of the box including the decals, which represent the subject of the box art, F-84G Thunderjet FS-271 of 508th SFW based at Turner AFB in 1956. I know that the gun bay cover should be hinged at the front, but for the purposes of the photos this was left unattached and I think that the ladder should be zinc chromate yellow, which I'll re paint at some stage before she goes into the display cabinet. Other than that I am quite happy with the way she's turned out and welcome any comments, good, bad or down right ugly!

Latest completions for the wifes growing collection. She has a thing for the old stuff, so if she spots a kit she thinks looks 'nice', she buys it and I have to build it! Anyhow, Airfix 1/48 Spitfire XII and Italeri 1/48 Spitfire FR.Mk.IX

Hello all Thought I would share with you my experiences of the new Airfix Vampire. First, it is a good kit with some lovely detail and panel lines that although seem a little deep actually look fine under a little paint. I built it pretty much OOB except for adding some seat harnesses from lead foil, seat top ejection pull handles and a few antennae around the place. After finishing it I saw some pics of the Duxford machine on which my chosen scheme seems to be based and found I had the wrong configuration of pull-handle so don't go copying me! Construction wise it's a little smasher with almost self jigging boom alignment - be sure to follow the assembly sequence though otherwise you'll never get the booms into the wing. I chose (in my infinite wisdom!) to leave the main gear legs off until after painting then found out why Airfix suggest fitting them when they do! In the end it was all recovered by a little careful trimming of the locating blocks at the top of the legs - no harm done! Airfix mould a number of protuberances onto one half of an assembly which presents challenges to not knock them off during the rest of the process. I managed to keep them all there until part way through the decalling I managed to remove the fin mounted pitot. I replaced with a small section of stainless tube. In retrospect I should have just removed it at the off and planned to replace it anyway - but I like a challenge! I painted it with Alclad Aluminium and Precision Paints Fluorescent Red-Orange and yes, it fluoresces! Decals are fine with stencils aplenty and all behaved well with a little Sol. I would love to build another and when I find a scheme that does it for me I'll have another on the bench! Anyway, enough waffle, here she is, I hope you like her!Sorry about the picture quality but I seem to have mislaid my tripod in the move so these are hand-held so no depth of field. Comments and critique very welcome. Cheers all Rick

Finished her off this afternoon, complete with NI fit armour and Night Sun... Built totally OOB with the only addition of the antenna wires... Build thread is here

Yeah, i could put it in the lounge and look at it when I get made to sleep on the sofa

LOL... seven pages on a £8 1/72 kit... I've not bought one yet but intend to at Southern Expo... I will have fun building it and will happily display it at shows and won't give a thought about accuracy... IMO, there is no such thing anyway at least not at these prices. I love when some builders buy a kit then buy resin cockpits/intakes/etc, PE parts. vacform canopies, white metal undercarriges and after market decal sets..spending twice what the original kit cost.... they do make for wonderfully insightful WIP's... long may such model builders continue... but it's not for me personally... but is someone wants to super detail an £8 Airfix Vampire kit I will be the first to cheer them on. Our hobby needs all extremes of modeller from the novice to the master, so less bickering and more building is what we really need...

I finished this Alconbury F-5E almost a year ago but I only got to photograph it today. It's the AFV Club kit with TwoBobs decals. Paints are from Xtracolor. Jens

BM being down gave me a chance to actually do some building instead of looking at everyone elses!! Chinook is coming along nicely but ramp is causing a few issues. Its gonna be a 240ocu Cab from 1992. Fond memories of doing work experience as a trainee Load master. Ahhh.... 2 weeks spent flying around vomiting all day everyday!! Sea King looks great. was a bargain on Ebay. Haven't built one before so looking forward to getting my teeth into it. Its going to be a yellow one. Not sure which of the squadrons yet. Stu

If it's an accurate representation of most examples of the II then all you will have to do is sand off the Coffman starter bulge and possibly change the prop: hardly difficult. The most recent 1/32 Revell II kit, the one that provided the Hasegawa kit with a new A wing, came with both props, so maybe this one will too.

lovely finish on a pretty little jet well done Glenn.....

Superb Jens! Makes me want to go and watch Top Gun again!

Some more work on the canopy... Pinched some masking tape to make the pieces easier to handle and sprayed Matt black for the first colour Then sprayed Tamiya Aluminium several hours later... I will take the tape off later. Had one pain in the bottom moment where I lost a piece of the U/C in PE to the carpet monster. I am hoping it just turns up!

Superb scooters, adversary jets are my favourite after living near Alconbury from the mid 70's and saw the aggressor F-5's everyday. Pity the RAF didn't do similar paint jobs on a few Hawks or similar!

For decals try here, http://lifthereserbia.wordpress.com/ , Lift Here Decals from Serbia.

There's a lot to do here, to get these bits of styrene sheets and strips to look like an ICBM transporter/launcher so I'd better get started. I've finally found an image of both sides of the vehicle and have been able to scan it and resize it to 1:144 scale. This will really help. The driver's section is a split two-cabin component, separated by the ICBM containers nose section. Once the sizes had been identified, I cut the floor base and then started to build each cabin. The right, driver's, side is a short section, whereas the left, crew, side is a double cabin unit and stretches further back. Whilst those pieces are drying, I will get on with the chassis. I have drawn out a template and will cut out the chassis ready for adding the driver's cabin etc. . I think the hardest part will be constructing the wheels and tyres so I'll make a basic start here. As there will be 15 wheels (14 main and 1 spare) I plan to build one complete wheel and then make a cast for the remainder to be produced in resin. I intend to build the tyre first. I can't find a single piece of plastic tubing which has the correct inner and outer diameters so I will build one up, from tubes of varying thickness. Once I've got the parts glued together, giving me the correct outer measurements and the correct hole size for the wheel when it is inserted, I will fill the joins and then sand them smooth. Then, the tyre will need to be cut from the rest of the tubes in order that I can do the same to the other side of the wheel. With the tyre now at the right size and basic shape, I can round off the edges ready for the treads to be added. Working with white plastic can make it difficult to see whether the rounding off the edges will be equal so, to help me here, I have used a pencil to shade the complete tyre. When it comes to filing, I should be able to check whether the chamfer is even by looking at the white showing through the grey of the pencil marks. Right, now for the difficult part which is adding the tyre treads. I've looked at various drawings and there is a distinct V-shaped pattern to the tread. In order to be able to keep control of the tyre, whilst I'm trying to work on such a small thing, I have made a little bench rig to hold the tyre. It is just a piece of tubing, similar in size as the internal diameter of the tyre and this tube is taped to a wooden block. Once the tyre is positioned on the tubing I can then add each tread piece and then rotate the tyre to the next position. Each tread piece will be 2mm long, although I shall be using 3mm so that I have an overlap to file down at the sides. After I had completed a full revolution of treads on one side, I put the block aside to dry overnight before starting the other side of treads With the one side of treads completely set, I then proceeded to repeat the operation on the other side. Again, once complete the whole thing has been set aside to dry overnight. The next phase of this tyre build will be to sand down the sides of the treads so that they merge with the tyre wall. Hopefully nothing will fall off when I attempt that! That's it for tonight. I'll try to get some more done tomorrow. cheers Mike

Despite it's faults, I love this old kit. Looking forward to this build. Martin

Nice work there Jens Si

Ok, so had some time painting this beasty... first attempt: Not good at all, so tried again.. Much happier... So I finished her off... More in Ready for Inspection..

At long last I've finally succumbed to the siren call of my unfinished Lancaster. The Mr. Surfacer was a little too runny for fairing in the nacelles, so I've resorted to Tamiya White Putty, which has a more solid consistency. Very good stuff, and it builds ups nicely and is easily sanded. I've actually done quite a bit to sand the nacelles in, and I think it may be time for priming to see where I stand (or am sinking). Before with this kit, it was vying with my He-111, now it's vying for my attention with a Liberator GR.V conversion (see, I really don't just do VVS aeroplanes). However, I think the priming will give me an incentive to fix all the spots that need a-fixin'. Below are photographs of the unprimed work (I've since done some more work on these nacelles, so they look a little better than below). Regards, Jason

Very smart - especially like the job on today's deserty one! cheers Rick

And finally, where I plan to cut the hole where the radiator will go. Regards, Jason P.S. Just as a sort of revelation, looking at photographs of the South African museum Hartbees, I won't have to cut away the coaming between the pilot and the gunner. P.P.S. As should be obvious from the preceding blurry photographs, I did not use my Christmas money to buy a new camera (instead I bought a rather large piece of an Il-2 rudder, believe it or not!).

A great looking pair....of aggressors.

http://framework.latimes.com/2011/06/13/memphis-belle/

Seriously good.

Just lovely. Stephen

Thanks for the comments! I only build for my pleasure and no-one else. My wife wouldn't know any different, and none of my family would - so it doesn't really matter what finish it gets, I don't spend 6 months building a cockpit or interior that no-one will see, or spend a year building a model for a competition in such a way that you can only see the inside with a dentists mirror. No - I build simply for my pleasure - if I like the look of something I have built, then that is the only opinion that counts. The only reason I posted this particular kit on here, is that I had not seen any in the night fighter variant - bombers yes - fighters no - so I thought that people may enjoy seeing it. Clearly, I was wrong to a certain extent. If the only comments people can make, are negative, and ridicule them about ignoring research (which again, I don't bother with - I build out of the box and limit aftermarket to photo-etch and masking) then I will simply stop posting, and keep all my builds to myself. I have only been back in the game for about 18 months and thankfully have quite a thick skin. Other people may just stop altogether because of comments. Encourage don't discourage. My final comments are these, the finish is for a reason. Due to limited funds, I cant go out and buy several airbrushes, one for fine work, one for coarse work or one that would cover a large area easily. This is a massive kit, and the only aerosols I could find from modelzone or Hobbycraft (my ONLY local hobby shops) was satin black - there was NO matt black available. And this photo shows what happened the last time I followed "advice" on gloss or matt finishes.

Great looking adversaries! I love these schemes on the A-4s and you've done a great job on these two

They look great, lovely job! Shaun

Great job Rob. I like it a lot. Cheers,

Nice praying then!

Two brilliantly executed 'family sized' models.

nice scooters well done Glenn.....

A couple of great looking A-4s there Jens!

Really nice. Good build. Great finish!

very,very nice glyn

This morning I completed the stencils. and tanker view Thisfternoon I painted the wheelwells and undercarriage parts

Very nice couple of aggressors. Patrick

Great job Rob. Really impressive build. As far as the 'browning' goes, as an artist, I learned long ago about the benefits of 'happy accidents'. This is one of them and adds some extra realism I feel. Andy

Kit: Italeri 1/35 Demag 10 with PaK 38 Details: unknown unit, Russia 1944

My sentiments exactly Sean, what is the point? I've just built the Gnat (see elsewhere on the site 'My first build for the Year') and it has all the 'faults' mentioned above but once built it looks a little treaure. So when my two Vampires arrive on Tuesday via my Sister in law I'll build them as I did with the Gnat 'Out of the Box'. No resin, no PE no nothing excepting some seat belts from maskimng tape and what I'm provided with in the box. So when it turns out a little gem, I'll be please to add it to my collection. Colin

Heavy panel lines or not, I shall be adding one to the list. My grandfather was an apprentice at Shorts, before joining RAF B.C. as a Nav. He also trained on the Stirling before moving onto Lancs, so it's an essential purchase as far as I'm concerned.

Hi Miggers, I did thank you. Very useful particularly for looking at airframe details such as attachment points for cowling etc. Thanks for sending through.

Hi Mike, these might help, took them when we visited Duxford in 2010. Cheers Den

Now to the cockpit and the nose , cleand the wall of the nose so to take the resin parts . using pva to hold them in position over night to see if they would fit !! Well it did but not very good and they do not go to the frount of the nose , so now held by cyano then put so more detail in . looking forward to the easy bit Arnold !!!