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Hi Everyone, I might have missed the cut for the Tiger Moth Group Build, but I did finally finish this really nice little kit. Markings are for the Royal Australian Navy Naval Air Station at Nowra in the mid-1950's. Decals are from Southern Sky models and the kit is of course the new-ish Airfix 1/72. I had my usual bumps and scrapes in the build process but I enjoyed it very much, especially my first attempt at biplane rigging which was done with invisible thread and superglue. (I gave up attempting the elevator rigging!) For the photographically-minded, it was my first attempt at using the focus-stacking function on my Olympus m43 camera which composites several pictures with slightly different focus points in order to get more of the small model in focus. It worked very well. The last shot with the engine "running" is me blowing on the propeller whilst pressing the shutter! I couldn't use focus-stacking for that, rather a very narrow aperture which still doesn't get all the plane in sharp focus. Thanks for looking, Andrew

Gannet AEW.3 XL479 849 Naval Air Squadron ‘A’ Flight, HMS Victorious, 1967 Aeroclub Gannet AEW.3 conversion kit + Frog Gannet AS4 When I saw Sword was doing the Gannet AEW.3 I knew I had to have one as I had flown in the beast way back in the 1970s. It would have to be finished as XL472 – the one I flew in. And it was so! I had had this old Aeroclub conversion in the stash for decades so it was time to throw it away. I thought I would have a good look first, though. Then I saw those beautifully moulded white metal parts and the crisp vac-form parts and quickly realised this was far too good to go in the bin. So I got on with it. There were a few difficult moments (for example when I found I had lost the nose wheel leg and had to fabricate a new one) but actually most of it went together really well, and I’m convinced the finished product looks more like an AEW.3 than the Sword one – but I’m biased! Having done XL472, this one had to be XL479 which I saw at the Coltishall Battle of Britain display in 1967 when I was merely 16 years old. These are the Aeroclub parts : The Frog wings with white metal leading edges , undercarriage bays, bulges for the flap hinges and panel scribing added : Airframe ready for priming : Wing top surface after priming :

Here's a sneaky peek at my Harvard II / Sk.16, almost straight from the box. Improvements include adding etched seatbelts, navigation lights, scratch-building better engine detail and adding ignition leads as well as cutting and dropping the elevators. Sorry there's only one photo, but for the full build article and more photos, this will be in a future Airfix Model World magazine.

Just completed after the best part of a year and two Group Builds (Sea King STGB and KUTA VIII), is this S-61L. The fuselage comes from a 1997 Aircraft in Miniature vacform conversion kit (which also include a white metal undercarriage & tailplane, and a decal sheet). The cockpit and rotors come from the old Airfix Sea King. I've also added some other extras: glazing to the passenger cabin (the kit includes window decals) Whirleybird metal passenger seats Airwaves PE details Archers rivet decal (the vacform fuselage is totally smooth). Thanks for looking. Cliff

Hi, this is my latest Eduard's Spitfire IX. Painted with Gunze acrylics. Decals out of box (Royal). Thanks for looking this.

Hello everyone. After more rummaging around I've found the other 1/72 Silver Wings planes from some years back. I remember being really pleased with the Bulldogs, which has got to be one of my favourite Airfix kits. The trainer version was a simple conversion (no aftermarket extras!) with repositioned wings, new tail and metal panels from plasticard, and a hole in the decking for the second seat. I've included a few extra photos showing the differences. I did the same with the Snipe using Toko's kit - I don't think they were Roden at that point. I've just noticed a few wilting wires in the photos which I didn't catch earlier. The Aeroclub Gamecock unfortunately has suffered a bit but is repairable. Looking at these again has definitely given me the taste for another at some point this year. I was sure I'd built a Fury, but maybe that explains why I've got four Matchbox kits in the Stash! Perhaps I should try one of them next. I built up a lot of experience building these kits as well as having great fun, and with new materials available now it would be a nice challenge to work on another. Thanks for the many positive comments and likes from the previous posting. Haris http://harisali.co.uk/

Here's my latest, the Kittyhawk 1/48 UH-1Y Venom, coming soon to a SAMI near you!

Part of an Afghanistan 1/48 collection diorama. Probably would not have built except for wanting to include all aircraft and vehicles used by the British in Afghanistan. But pleased I did as I enjoyed building this weird mosquito looking thing. NOTE what look like silvering does not show normally. The photo lights have picked it out. Perhaps I did not make as good a job as thought in de-silvering. The decals, which come on a sheet for 7 countries using the drone, are from Caracal Models. Lifecolor used for painting. Huge collection of colours. Two. Laurie ">http:// ">http:// ">http:// ">http:// ">http:// ">http:// ">http://

Hi all, Here are some pictures of my latest build - Airfix's ancient Do 217J, from their 1974 boxing. I've been bogged down with bigger builds, so I thought I'd pull this oldie out of the stash. It was a really fun build, the finish is with "artistic license." The build is OOB, apart from some struts to hold up the landing gear. I also did not use a drop of putty - though it could use it. Amazingly, these are the original 40 year old decals! They were a delight to work with.

Here's a Mig-15bis and Mig-15 UTI from Eduards Royal Class boxing that I just completed. It went together fairly well. It is a very nice kit. Enjoy.

Tie Fighter undergoing maintenance aboard the Death Star. Great kit. Well made and easy to put together. The support stand was very basic so I "Star Warsed" it up a bit and scratch built a droid.

MATCHBOX SEA VENOM 1/32 Here is my recently completed Sea Venom. It’s the old original 1980’s Matchbox tri-colour offering, not the newer Revell boxing. Kindly donated to me by Airfix Andy (he originally got it part started from Kit Rescue with some wing assembly done on one side). Unfortunately when doing a parts inventory, I discovered it was missing one air intake & the cockpit interior sides. Decals were also almost completely shot with water damage, these were kindly replaced by Dean Flyer, who had a near full set, coupled with a few lucky saves from the originals I made up a full set. Most of the additional work has been to scratch build new cockpit sides, extend the floor forward of the instruments panel & box in, add pedals (very hard to see) add electrical wiring/boxes behind seats & below rear canopy, scratch build more reasonable bang seats, add new instrument panel, canopy release, one intake, improve the dodgy wheels & add new cowl vent ‘ears’ over the engine & a bit of panel scribing. If anyone is building the Revell re-pop, the whites of the decal roundels are very opaque, I painted over them carefully when dry with thin washes of white to build them up, then applied the red centres, ( if I had realised before I would have painted in the white on the wings & booms before decaling but alas! ) The rest of the kit went together very well, with not much filler & was fun build. Anyway on with the images, any questions just fire away. Big thanks to Andy & Dean! Paints were from Vallejo, varnished with a Humbrol acrylic rattle can. Cheers Mac

Hi folk's well January like last year has given us a cracking GB, this time the subject is Republic's Thunderbolt.I picked up two Revell kits and used the kit decal's for a French machine and an Airfix/Academy mix for the RAF machine.I never questioned Academy's colour scheme for the RAF machine and it seems no clear evidence has surfaced only to say that these aircraft were delivered in the scheme and repainted in theatre with the more common brown/green finish,thanks for looking in.I am building the third example soon here's how they build. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234995068-a-trio-of-revell-p47;s/

29/1 update: Rear gunner added, weathering underway:

Here is a build of the Matchbox Sea Venom I did about 5 or so years ago. Was reminded of this whilst reading through Big Kev's Spitfire build on LSP (looking for more tips and inspiration) One of our club members worked for Lesney Matchbox here in Peterborough and had quite a few kits stashed away. He agreed to sell a couple to club members and I always wanted to do the Venom (this was just before Revell re-released the kit) A side by side build quickly ensued with me and a fellow club member building the Venom. Bill built a folded wing version and I went for the wings out with engine exposed and various panels open. Quite a healthy bit of competition between the two builds and a finish deadline was set for the November club meeting that year. I did manage to finish on time and won the 'competition' by default! Bill's build was better but not quite finished. Very enjoyable build by the way and we were lucky the old kits had been stored well with the decals standing the test of time. Thanks for looking, Steve.

My first completed build after a 20ish year break, and it's been great fun Lots of it has been new to me (never used to have any aftermarket bits at all), so it took me quite a while to get done. I'm already starting to build up a stash though, so I guess I'll have to speed up... It's the 1/48 Airfix kit, Flightpath set (which was awesome) and Neomega cockpit Build thread is here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=79573

Here is another of my occasional 1/48 builds, the Eduard Messerschmitt Bf109G6. A lot has been posted online about the accuracy of this kit and building it alongside 2 other 109s the difference in size is instantly apparent. As a 109 fan I was rather disappointed initially but once I started building that disappointment all but vanished as the kit is a delight to build with superb detail inside and on the surface so it's portliness is forgiven on this occasion. Other than sand off the strange bumps at the wing root everything else is OOB including the strange undercarriage leg angle. I painted this one as Major Franzisket's aircraft as the other decal options all have some issues, several were ERLA built G6s so should have had the extra cowl bulges on the right side but Eduard didn't include them and one of the options colour schemes is actually a mixture of 2 aircraft from different factories. I've gone a bit overboard with the weathering as the photos I've seen showed this aircraft to be very clean, I'll put it down to artist licence. Duncan B

Gone

Drew this plane about 4 years ago for some other work. Thought I'd show it in a larger different format.

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This is my mundane effort at the Matchbox Sea Venom. I converted it to an FAW -21 and used Berna decals for the 891 Squadron markings. The seats and wheels are AMS resin test shots (cheers Harold) the rest is as Matchbox intended other than a few mods around the engine and cockpit. I have another 4 of these in the collection, 1 to do as a FAW -22 for practice before I get serious and model the 3 FAW-53's I've bought back to life (WZ-895, WZ-907 & WZ-937)

Having only built one kit last year, due to major back problems and the onset of depression I was determined to build more this year. Well, here's the first build, the Hobbyboss Russian T-28 medium tank. I still have some weathering to do, once I've decided what base she is to go on, but it certainly helped get some of my mojo back. I did use Friulmodel tracks, as didn't like th ekit links.

Hi Clive Only a small update on this model, problem is I don't get to much time to model as much as I like, but what I have done is a little step forward, I have created templates for the windows which was first done in Illustrator 10 to get the look right and the spacing, plus I had measured the original windows from the Brooklands VC10 so I know the width and depth is OK, from this I used my Cameo cutter to cut out the shapes and after some measuring I was able to adhere the window templates to the fuselage, the biggest problem doing a civil version VC10 is to make sure every thing lines up because of the livery which has stripes leading all the way along the fuselage and if the windows are in the wrong place everything will look wrong, I think I got all the windows spaced correctly but I might have to put the windows a little higher up or even move the engines a bit higher to make everything look OK, once I am happy where everything goes I shall spray some grey primer over the windows, remove all the cut out templates to reveal the sandy colour underneath, this will then help me to cut out and file the windows in the correct position, I have also scribed the doors and freight door. The whole model will need scribing as well, which I do find very boring and have to be in the right mood. The other thing you may of noticed is that I had to close up the passenger door, the reason for this is, that I had positioned it to low to be inline with the other doors position, so all the work that I had done to show the door open was wasted, which is a shame but I am afraid had to be done otherwise it would of looked wrong, so the moral of this story is check everything and plan ahead. I had to look at a few BUA photos to make sure I had the right amount of windows on each side as they slightly differ to RAF VC10 Always best to look at the subject you are modelling to make sure everything is OK rather than scale plans Engines are only attached temporary and will need panel lines scribed Underneath the fuselage had to be completely scratch build to show the step where the wings join the fuselage, plus some other detail, still need to add all the pipe work and cables for the undercarriage bay Wing tips had to be modified for this version 1103

Little bits 'n' bobs. I made up the Captain's and Co's side panels. On the real aircraft these carried the No 1 V/UHF (Captain) and the No 2 V/UHF and AI comparator (Co-Pilot). The green 'thread' hanging down are the Oxygen supply lines. I also started building the control columns. The Italeri parts aren't bad but the Flightpath etch is just better (and the Airfix are just completely wrong - Airfix seem to think the 'yokes' protrude from the instrument panel ). Flightpath, however, make a poor representation of the elevator trim switches. Eduard do them as tiny pieces of etch to be folded up(!) but they are completely the wrong shape and the wrong colour to boot. Accordingly I made them out of slivers of plastikard.

Been a long time, but I'm still faffing with these.....The flying-boat is very badly stalled (mostly for want of electronics nouse), but I've been messing with the ATV on and off for a while. Well, when I say messing what I mean is filing, and then filing some more, followed by some filing.....It's absolutely staggering just how much plastic I've filed off the hull of this thing in an attempt to square it up a bit: Once Im satisfied that it's as square as it's going to get (ie: not massively), I will drill a hole in the roof for the gun mount and section the hull into three parts; front, left rear & right rear.....Then I can start work on the interior!

Hey all, just finished my Merkava MkI. Only my second piece of armour, and again had so much fun building it. First real attempt at B/W technique, chipping, using filters, pigments, AK dust deposits etc, basically just decided to throw the kitchen sink at it, only way to learn i believe. Dont think I went over board, but thats just my opinion. Hope you all like and all feedback welcome. Is currently on frame which i intend on doing my first diorama on.

This is a 1/48 Monogram kit done in craft acrylics.

Hi all, I did this for the FAA group build, probably wouldn't have been my preferred choice as its not really my scale (nowhere to put the thing for starters!), but was chosen from a list of possibilities! Built OOB apart from some quickboost seats which are not quite the right mark, but look loads better than the kit seats and a bit of amertuerish scratchbuilding on the wingfold! Decals were a nightmare, very translucent and had a layer of scum on the back, had no choice but to do the best I could with them. As always notice some bits that need touching up after photographing it but anyway here it is... 894 NAS HMS Albion 1960 cheers Simon

I am so sorry but I made a mistake with the first picture, which is very blurry and should be deleted (if it is possible). Next pictures, shot in 2010 with a better camera.

Here is my completed Revell (Monogram) 1/48 F-5F of the Royal Thai Air Force in 211sqn 30th anniversary markings. The decals are by Siam Scale, the camo is hand-painted using Humbrol enamels. The build thread can be seen here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234993800-148-revell-monogram-f-5f-rthaiaf-211sqn-30th-anniversary/ I hope you like it

HI all, finished this a while ago but never got round to sharing pics, Hope you all like, all comments welcome and appreciated. Must say was quite a build. First time working with so much PE, not all made it onto finished model. Im very happy with with it all turned out tho. Enjoy

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde. Work is the curse of the modelling classes.

A squirt of Alclad black primer/microfiller on the PE. Gonna have another go at the technique of overspraying with grey and micro-meshing back to reveal the black on the raised sections of PE. I'll leave the black to harden overnight first tho'.........

Now I weathered the car, first time I've added dust and dirt using the air brush, usually use weathering powders. I was happy with this first attempt. Considered the model completed, so feel happier posting in this section Added ice build along the bodywork. First attempt at showing snow spray, cotton wool was used. More use of the cotton wool. Here completed build. Snow spray from the front tyres, same method. Not the best photo due to bad light and reflections. Sitting with some of my other collections.

Hello all. This is my first build on here and only my 3rd topic if you include my Introduction post. So I will give you a little introduction. I wanted to build a kit simple as that. I'm over in Greece and the winters are dark and freezing so I need something to do apart from feed the cat and look at snow capped mountains all the time. Thing is.... building a kit isn't simple these days. You get etched parts, resin parts and all sorts of very tempting things to empty your wallet on as addons. Makes you wonder if the kit your buying is total rubbish and you really need all the extra stuff you can get for it, I digress so on with the post. So I saw a pretty picture of a Phantom on Hannants. and it came with goodies. I wasn't sure if it was worth the price, So I looked at the original Academy offering and added the resin and brass updates...as you do.... and found the separate parts with kit was very close to £85 with postage, So of course it was a snip to buy the ready assembled boxed version. See how easily your tempted into doing things like that. Update as I didn't add these photo's first time round. I will get used to writing posts Supplied Decal sheet by FURBALL, I understand these are top quality printers Eduard extras included in kit, Exhausts, seats, Wheels seatbelts and a set of masks I bought a Marine sheet as I fancy a marine F4B About 4 weeks after ordering it arrived. felt like Christmas all over again. So flicking through the instruction sheet as you do, I saw this and thought ahhhh. Cutting and bending to be done, Though only on a few places, I think I can cope with that. Then again I might not. As I haven't built anything for 40 years and I wear jam jar bottoms to see through. That got me thinking, If you get a kit with goodies built in and you have to cut and file details off a flight panel. Would it be so hard to add a resin blank of the right shape and size so you can't mess it up... Just a thought Then I had the bright idea, Start with a 1/72 scale kit. I like the tornado and what you can hang off it, Especially when I saw this little gem from hasagawa As you can tell, I wander a bit, So back to the Phantom. The parts allow me to build an F4N which is an updated F4B model. and I get kit parts for building a N or leave them off and build a B with some aerials removed or moved. I will check photo's and posts on here for that info. So I may build the kit as a B in Marine markings as I also got a marines decal sheet...for practice, Use the resin and etch as templates for scratch building and keep the goodies for the N on another kit. Now I'm worried, I'm beginning to think of templates and scratch building part's and it's only open box and have a look stage......., Am I on the slippery slope.......... Right, The sun is now out, So I can load up my Ha telescope and see what flares and other things are visible on the sun today. I hope you will enjoy my wanderings through this build, Any and all critiques, Suggestions hint's or general musings are very welcome. By the way, I'm a paint brush user not a spray gun, So brickbats and general condemnation is expected Have a happy day. Peter Post edited as I got my Alphabet confused N not J

Having heard mostly negative feedback for the Minicraft Boeing 707 kit,I wasn't overly happy as I received a kit as a part of an auction lot. But I wanted the other kits that were included,so this found its way into my shelf. I was planning to resell it,when I found that Kenya Airways decal set. So I decided to keep this kit and build it and after some research I got me the Contrails resin cockpit that changes the overall look of the kit significantly. I am not very familiar to every 707 versions and its sheer amount of differences that plagues almost every version,but now it looks like a 707-320 to me,which is perfectly fine. I had to build this Kenya Airways 707 as a reminder from childhood. It was in october 1990 when I went to Kenya with my grand parents.While waiting for our flight from Zurich to Mombasa on a Caledonian Airways Boeing 757-236ER,this Kenya Airways Boeing 707 was standing at the other gate getting ready for the flight back to Nairobi. I liked the paint scheme very much and of course the elegant lines of this Boeing classic. The build was pretty straight forward and,apart of the Contrails replacement part,out of the box. All parts fitted quite well so construction was completed at a steady pace. The Kenya Airways decals are again from PointerDog7 and are of good quality.The details like the coroguard panels and engine details are from the Flying Colors Boeing 707 detail set,and with these on,it really enhances the overall appeareance of the kit. So here she is... Cheers, Alex And of course with a "Wild Beast" comon in every wildlife reserve in Kenya...

My Niece is into dinos so I got a pound shop model special, stripped item used Milliput to resculpture the jaw area and legs. Repainted, added epoxy for eye glaze, mouth drool and nostril moisture. I then placed on a board with some greenery, added a tree stump-real wood but repainted. I added footprints and finally added a dusting. Si:)

Using Postimage for the first time here. As the tag says, I'm no ship modeller. More used to 1:1 scale. Anyway, here is my latest build. Rears of the secondary armament were closed up and the masts were tweaked, albeit inaccurately but better than the kit ones. Put some stretchy stuff on for rigging and halyards (bunties will pick up on my inaccuracies here). Didn't do too much in the way of this as I was rapidly losing the will to rig. Oh and no ensign either. Decals on the Arado were nasty typical Academy and refused to settle. Underside crosses stuck on a couple of boats instead The vessel was given a battered look as I wanted to depict it as if it has just done JMC and gone round the buoy again and straight into a three month stint in the Iceland-Faeroes gap hunting sea trolls. Guardrails were bent and broken in the build but I've seen worse in real life. Light AA gun barrels looked like they should be squirting AFF instead of shells so replaced them with bits of rod, oh and negative handrails on ladders. TypeVIID WIP in one phot for scale Pick and poke at will, I'm not fussed.

Tamiya Krupp Protze with 3.7cm Pak 1/35 35259 Picked up cheap on the internet, an old kit I know, but passes my time in this terrible winter weather. I wish I could get the faces better as I feel they let the model down, however I do like them in, as it gives a better sense of scale. Any comments to help me improve will be welcomed.

Hello again! There is Draken from Revell in 72nd scale. PE parts from Eduard added. .

Hello! This is my Airfix 1/48 Seafire F.XVII built with a few minor tweaks. I haven't been building for a while due to lack of spare time but things are better now and I wanted to get back into things with a quick 'n easy build. So nothing special, just a simple clean almost OOB model. More details can be found on my blog, for now I'll shut up and post some pics. Feel free to let me know what you think, good or bad.

A bit of cross-kitting here with a 1/72 Dragon M4A4 hull fitted with the Airfix 1/76 flail attachment with scratch-built stationing equipment

Well, after a lot of sanding and carving (and a little bit of huffing and puffing), my Royal Thai Air Force anniversary F-5F is now finished. I have done some weathering though this doesn't really show itself very well in the photos. The Siam Scale decals are nice and go on rather well, though the oversized fin decal is tricky to get to bed-in and I had to use several splashes of Microsol. Thanks to the group build, this kit has been built but I have to say, the chances of my ever building another are extremely slender! More photos can be seen in the gallery section; hope you like the finished item.

Agree with that. Just had a very enjoyable catch-up read. Flight deck looking mighty fine. Have to say that it looks like it was a pretty 'orrible green colour to have to spend hour after hour sat surrounded by P'raps the traditional black 'ole weren't so bad after all. Resurfaced. Somewhat bruised. Ambition way outstripping talent as usual.........

Thank you for your kind words folks I'm getting closer, with the paintwork pretty much finished. All that's left to paint is the undercarriage, which unfortunately still needs some 'attention'. Shortly after I fixed the legs on, I realised that the model was sitting too high - only by a few mm, but enough to look odd. I was going to leave it, but I'm finding it increasingly irritating so I will probably try chopping a bit off the bottom of the legs....... As you can see, I've decided to leave off the engine intake particle separators. The only photos that I have seen of New York Airways S-61s operating without them are of '617' (in what appears to be the early phase of its career). The decal sheet is for '620', so I've printed off some new serials on my ink-jet. Not long to go now! Cliff

Well, that was a slog, but the scribing's done. Once again, started with a diagram of the original Airfix wing... Then worked out what it should look like. Printed the corrected diagram to scale and used it as a guide to fashion various templates or simply guide straight edges as I worked through the task to end up with... Starting to come together with the flaps. Still got the raised areas (in green on the diagram) to add but that's the lion's share done. Good night all.

- and not only that - the slopes hit back as well it seems to me. I'm going for another few days skiing in about a week and a half - must be a glutton for punishment. I used the CMK Hawk 100 resin tub as the basis for my T1/T1a tub - but to make it work I had to take all of the detail off and substantially modify the shape as well: I'm not sure now that it was worth starting with the CMK tub. And I also used the seats as a basis - but again they required substantial modification: The instrument fit in the Hawk 100 is very different to the TMk1/1a so I wouldn't have used the instrument panels anyway. I also don't really like resin add-on side walls that much. Really hard to avoid making the side walls look way too thick in 1/72 scale IMHO. I probably wouldn't have used them even on a Hawk 100 build. All that said - there's no doubt at all that the CMK resin cockpit is a big improvement on the Airfix offering - and I'm pretty sure I'd use it happily on a Hawk 100 build (minus the side walls). However; accuracy wise it's definitely compromised by being designed to slot easily into the Airfix kit. I don't think I'd worry too much about that if I was building a Hawk 100 - but I just wanted to do that bit more for the old T1 & T1a Oops. I've just admitted that I did fork out the few quid for the chunk of resin. And then didn't even use most of it.............