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BAC 111-207 British Eagle 1:144 Airfix with Classic-airlines.com decals I picked up this vintage Airfix BAC 111 at this years Cosford show for £10, in the British Caledonian boxing. Finding this decal sheet at www.classic-airlines.com I just had to have it, and started building immediately. The kit isn't bad but requires a few basic corrections as it was based on the early prototype, and the first production examples that went into service with British United. The nose is too blunt, so was built up with Milliput and given a more pointed shape. The wing fences aligned with the outer flap track need removing, and new ones installed further inboard. The leading edge landing lights need to be filled in, I rescribed the wings as well. An APU exhaust needs to be installed at the base of the rudder. Refined the shape of the rear cowlings, blending in the 'ring' exhaust to a smoother shape. Careful masking was needed to get a thin white line under the 'cheat line' and the decals needed care in application, but worked beautifully. I really enjoy building these vintage Airfix airliners, especially when I can put them into long gone liveries that I remember from my childhood. Ok, they are not to the standard of the stunning Authentic Airliners resin kits, but are still very enjoyable! And finally... with the F-Rsin Bristol Britannia; Thanks for looking, John

I never get tired of building this particular aircraft. Using the Hasegawa MkIX kit, which is sublime, along with the Brigade Models MkIX T conversion set, which with a bit of TLC produces a stunning model. Decals are from Xtradecal RAF number and letters set and paints as usual are Vallejo Air. This aircraft is: 441 Sqn RCAF & Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar Spitfire MkIX T

I want to present my last model build, a Mitsubishi Zero in 1/72 scale from Airfix. It is part of the Pearl Harbor dogfight double set wich also includes a P40B Warhawk. I add the Eduard photoetched set for cockpit and exteriors. The canopy comes in one only piece so i decided to cut it, also the model is complete riveted. It was painted with Model Master Enamel paints, and wathering was with Model Master Acrylic washes and K4 pigments. Decals represent Pilot Lt. Shindo Saburo airplane, part of the 1st Squadron in the IJN carrier "Akagi"’s second wave on Pearl Harbor attack. 7th December 1941. Pictures: The P40B Warhawk post , part of the double set you can see here: Hope you like it.

Hi guys, this one I finished a few months back for Airfix Model World and was featured in the June issue of the magazine. It's actually a test shot of the new 1/48th Meteor F.8 Korean War crossed with the resin Brigade Prone Meteor conversion set. In simple terms the kit is superb the resin not so. Full marks to Brigade for producing this but to say it was a struggle is to put it mildly. There were air bubbles galore, mainly underneath where the pour stub had to be removed, almost a canyon once the piece was removed and a few clustered around the underside of the nose and in the nose gear well for good measure. The vac parts while beautifully clear needed a lot of coaxing to get to conform to the shape of the new nose (as the prone canopy has a bubble shape that curves slightly into the fuselage) and the underside observation window was badly skewed to one side and ill-fitting. The forward fuselage interior needed a lot of 'Dremeling' to allow the nose gear to fit and worst of all the whole forward resin nose section was warped to the left, (plus a large depression at the top in front of the windscreen) with the end result that a good deal of the forward fuselage is now Milliput ! Having said that the decals were superb, the prone seat very well rendered and instruction sheet clear and concise...all in all the presentation of the package was exemplary. Now hopefully all this was down to it being a review sample and not representative of the production parts but be warned. The Airfix kit went together with no dramas and was a lot of fun to assemble but what should have been a weekend build turned into a two week marathon......oh well such is life. Lots of extra parts were provided including all the Eduard sets for the cockpit, seat belts, flap and undercarriage bays and the engines. Painting was sploshed on courtesy of several AK Interactive's Xtreme Metal aluminium tones through the trusty Iwata Micron and weathering was provided courtesy of Ammo of MIG and the superb Abteilung 502 oil range. Cheers all and thanks for looking, Meteor Melchie.... (almost always found prone)

Hi guys, I'm not usually an aircraft builder however I decided to incorporate a diorama into this build and have a go at adding an electric motor to one of the engines, also this is my first attempt at modelling a grass base. I wanted a patchy and worn looking effect where a lot of work seems to have been carried out under the plane and the grass has suffered for it. I hope you like the results.

Hello all Seems ages since I posted anything here, and finally got around to taking some pictures of recent builds with the decent light flooding into my kitchen courtesy of the UK weather just lately. So, here are a few pics of each build I've finished in the last 8 months or so. Most are out of the box, usually assisted with aftermarket canopy masks, occasionally supplemented with a bit of resin. Paints used are usually a mix of Tamiya and Mr Hobby Aqeuous acrylics, which i get along best with. Thanks for looking Adam 1. Heinkel HE 162 Salamander - Revell - 1/32 A nice kit, very cheap for the scale I thought (less than a tenner). Quite a rickety and fragile undercarriage, but otherwise a pleasureable build. 2. Chance Vought F4U-1/2 Bird Cage Corsair - Tamiya - 1/48 Nothing but good things to say about this kit. The wing fold option from the box works a treat, no need for expensive aftermarket stuff. This was the first time I’d tried the hairspray technique, as I wanted to show a weathered top coat wearing away to show the primer underneath. Could have done with an extra layer of protective varnish over the primer, but pretty happy for a first go. 3. Red Arrows Hawk – Airfix – 1/48 Airfix’s 50th anniversary offering. Decent kit, although I thought the cockpit details were a bit sparse, so I added a couple of Pavla seats and some instrument decals. I did a bit of surgery to the wings to display the flaps down, which made the decaling of the underside a bit more tricky, but overall happy with the result. 4. Sukhoi Su-27SM Flanker – Revell – 1/72 Another fine offering from Revell imo. Went with the box art version, but toned down the vividness of the blue. Having now seen some photos of the real aircraft, mine definitely isn’t blue enough… 5. Dam Busters Lancaster – Revell 1/72 I might start to sound like a sales rep for Revell, but this kit was another joy to build, once I’d rescued it from the hopeless side opening collapsing box. I’m a big fan of the colours of the Mr Hobby Aqueous acrylics range, although I’m not a stickler for accuracy, their dark green / dark earth just looks right to me. 6. Lockheed P-38 Lightning – Italeri – 1/48 Having been spoiled with building lots of nice kits of late, this one was a complete change of tone, and is one of the worst kits I’ve battled with. To some extent I agree with the view that there are no bad kits, just bad modellers, and if ever there was a set of sprues that highlighted my limitations as a modeler, then it was this one. Just about every joint needed tedious amounts of filling and sanding, some of the decals seemed as thick as cardboard, and I gave up trying to achieve anything with the clear parts that made up the central part of the canopy. Quite like the PRU blue shade though, so not totally dissatisfied… If you made it this far, thanks again…

Hi everyone!) Its ones of my series "one-week build" from the ukrainian manufacter. Seat belts - PE-parts for unknown manufacter. Painting - Vajjeio Metal Color Aluminium, decals - Begemot ("silver 6"). Weathering - Tamiya. Thanks for your attention. Konstantin.

Thanks Michael - good advice! I think I might just build it OOB. But it wouldn't take much to move a window. Or two. Dither dither... Thanks Tony - I shall infer something at my leisure! Thanks John - hopefully I'll get (re)started soon. It is DONE! I have today completed the sale of my company and I'm now RETIRED! Aha ha ha ha.... Not 'buy a yacht and sail the world' retired, just stopping the daily drudge (and fighting off SWMBO's wish to replace it with DIY drudge!) I now have nothing to do and I'm going to enjoy doing that for a while until I get bored. I haven't had the time to be bored for a LONG time... Plus some modelling, of course. We're off to Blenheim with the girls tomorrow, back Sunday, and I hope to get some bench time then. About time! Watch this space...

Since I am almost exactly as old as the 50-year celebrating Saab Viggen it was pretty logical to start a few Viggen builds this year. My plan is to build the first and the last Viggen, and I am currently working on a Tarangus JA 37 that will become 37449, the last Viggen. But here is the first one, the first prototype in its first configuration that flew for the first time on February 8 1967: I used the old Esci/Airfix kit which of course might sound rather stupid... But I had one in my stash, so it was cheaper to build it than to buy a new Tarangus. Many modifications had to be made. Most visible are the flat back - the typical Viggen "hump" had to be removed - and the V-shaped canards. The huge pitot tube was made by Maestro models. The wing dogtooth also had to be removed and new radar warning recievers(?) were scratchbuilt (under the wings, later they were integrated with the wing). I also had to make new panel lines and modify the fin and main wheels (both are from the Tarangus kit). I used the Tarangus cockpit, a seat from Maestro and a scratch-built instrument panel. The Viggen prototypes had a mostly green cockpit, like Draken, but unlike the rest of the Viggens where it was light grey. Scratch-built FOD covers were necessary to hide the horrible inside. Cockpit: Decals (apart from the roundels) were printed on my own printer. I painted it with Vallejo metal acrylics. Thanks for watching!

My second finnishig work for "one-week build" series! Painting - Mr. Hobby Color and Tamiya. Thanks for your attention. Konstantin. [/url

Italeri's latest 1/32. OOB. 4 out of 5 stars.

This aircraft is something close to my heart as I am the membership and events secretary for the Hawker Typhoon Preservation Project, We are aiming to get the world's only flying Hawker Typhoon MkIb flying again. This kit is the superb Hasegawa kit with Eduard cockpit upgrade,and 4 prop spinner from Ultracast. The aircraft was delivered to 174 ‘Mauritius’ squadron on 4th Jan 1945, based at B.100 Goch, and received the code ‘XP-W’. RB396 was lost on operations and was recorded Cat ‘E’ on 1st Apr 1945. Originally equipped with bombs after conversion to the Typhoon (July 1943), 174 squadron converted to rockets by January 1944. The squadron spent the next few months attacking radar stations, flying bomb sites and German communication links in northern France. After D-Day they moved to Normandy providing close support for the Army and attacking German tanks and transport. By September 1944 they had moved to the Netherlands where their remit was offensive sweeps over Germany. On the 1st April 1945 RB396 was the mount of Flt Lt Chris W House setting out from Goch for an offensive sweep. Shortly after selecting his target and releasing his salvo of rockets RB396 was hit by flak, too low to bail out and rapidly losing height Flt Lt House force landed his aircraft to the North East of Denekamp. In the immediate aftermath of the attack the whereabouts of Chris House was not known and as squadron members returned to Goch they reported that he was seen to successfully force land RB396 and it was assumed taken POW, had he survived the landing. He had indeed survived and successfully evaded capture, making his way back to allied lines and much to the surprise of his comrades arrived back at the squadron on 5th April. After 174 squadron was disbanded on 8th April Chris House went on to complete further operations and remained in the RAF until retirement long after the war. If your interested in further information have a look at:- http://hawkertyphoon.com/ Or: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=hawker typhoon rb396 restoration

More unbuildable garbage - the neck is 0.5mm too short, the facial detail is completely bland and inaccurate, and the panel lines are invisible. I can't even be bothered to put red lines on it, it's so awful. John

My first luftwaffe build since I was a child.. Tamiya great 1/48 FW190. Out of the box. Mr Hobby paints, pastels and water for panel lines and weathering. and a comparison with a more recent generation of the same fighter bomber strategy. Things got bigger... Thanks for looking

The long awaited GASPATCH kit has been quite recently released so I immediately took the chance to start building two. They are both A-1s but judging from the quality I am getting so far I will surely build a B-1 and maybe an A-0 (future release) as well. Enjoy: to be continued...

Here's ICM's 1/48 scale Po-2 completed recently. Painted with Tamiya Acrylics for the uppers, Italeri RLM-65 for the unders, and some Vallejo metallics for the engine and machine gun. Built out of the box, with only the MG sights replaced with some PE scraps, some basic engine wiring added and seat belts added to the excellent ICMs offering. Rigged with elastic thread, after assembly and painting. Assembly was trouble free, and even the struts aligned with their locator holes properly. Replaced the kit provided ordnance with some from the ICMs I-153, just so. Kit decals used over painted IPs, with liberal application of Mr. Softer. The end result looks rather convincing.

Hello, I would like to present my latest completion; S&M model's 1/72nd Bristol type 171 Sycamore Mk52. Very nice kit, went together quite well and required very little filler, The clear parts were surprisingly straight forward too although I did experience a slight mishap by dropping and splitting this section from the rest of the fuselage. Luckily it was in the early stages of the build so there wasn't much damage! I've made an error with the white sections on the aircraft. The section below the main rotor should not come down as far as the hoist. The rear oleo struts are not quite right which resulted in the aircraft not 'sitting' correctly. I had to extend the front oleo to give the distinctive low tail look the sycamore has. Unfortunatly this has resulted in the poor pilots having to jump to reach the step!! Not sure if the error was my doing or the kit parts are the wrong length? Something to bare in mind if anyone is building or planning to build the kit. Pretty much out of box although I've added some minor additions which are a mix of spare PE & scratch built brass / plastic rod. [/url Thanks for looking Aaron

Hello, after a break of 2 year and a half, here she is. Trumpeter kit in 32nd scale with a lot of custom made parts, resin bits from Flightpath PE from Eduard and decal from Airframe and Zotz. Airbrshed acrylics colours are Gunze and Tamiya, Vallejo for details with brush. And now enjoy the pictures. CIAO! Piero

This is the last... OOB for the B, and much scratch for no name... More pictures next...

Hello folks! Those who have seen my posts before may or may not remember that as a tropical forest ecology student I spend four months or so every year in Borneo. Following on from my successful Vampire built there last year, and motivated by the need to keep reducing my stash when when not in the UK, I shoe-horned the Revell Hunter and Airfix Swift into my rucksack this year - and managed to complete the Hunter and get the Swift 75% done! Not too bad considering the heat, discomfort and the fact I work six day weeks for fthe whole period. Anyway, here's the Hunter: it's actually the FGA9 which I bought for silly money at Telford a few years back - but I've back-converted to an early F6 by hacking an F6 tailpipe off the first Revell Hunter I built a good decade back, when you could actually buy the kit without selling major body parts. It represents XF526 of 63 Squadron, which flew Hunters briefly in the late 1950s before reforming later as a "Shadow" unit as part of the Central Flying School with FGA9s in the 1970s. I added some scratchbuilt sidewall detail, a bit of representative wiring in the undercarriage bays, a resin ejector seat and mainwheels from Quickboost, and the decals are Xtradecal. Hope you like! As well as being a pleasingly unusual squadron, it has a local connection as 63 were based at Waterbeach not a million miles away from Ms.Vulcanicity's folks in Ely. Lastly, here's the view from my modelling desk over the jungle! The sharp-eyed might spot the Hunter in this view.

Hello Here is my last build : 45th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron Mc Donnell RF-101C Tan Son Nhut, Nam around 1970. This is a 1/72 kit from Valom. soon to be published in the French magazine "Avion de Combat" and to be seen at Modelbrno on Saturday. Patrick

This aircraft is something close to my heart as I am the membership and events secretary for the Hawker Typhoon Preservation Project, We are aiming to get the world's only flying Hawker Typhoon MkIb flying again. This kit is the superb Hasegawa kit with Eduard cockpit upgrade,and 4 prop spinner from Ultracast. The aircraft was delivered to 174 ‘Mauritius’ squadron on 4th Jan 1945, based at B.100 Goch, and received the code ‘XP-W’. RB396 was lost on operations and was recorded Cat ‘E’ on 1st Apr 1945. Originally equipped with bombs after conversion to the Typhoon (July 1943), 174 squadron converted to rockets by January 1944. The squadron spent the next few months attacking radar stations, flying bomb sites and German communication links in northern France. After D-Day they moved to Normandy providing close support for the Army and attacking German tanks and transport. By September 1944 they had moved to the Netherlands where their remit was offensive sweeps over Germany. On the 1st April 1945 RB396 was the mount of Flt Lt Chris W House setting out from Goch for an offensive sweep. Shortly after selecting his target and releasing his salvo of rockets RB396 was hit by flak, too low to bail out and rapidly losing height Flt Lt House force landed his aircraft to the North East of Denekamp. In the immediate aftermath of the attack the whereabouts of Chris House was not known and as squadron members returned to Goch they reported that he was seen to successfully force land RB396 and it was assumed taken POW, had he survived the landing. He had indeed survived and successfully evaded capture, making his way back to allied lines and much to the surprise of his comrades arrived back at the squadron on 5th April. After 174 squadron was disbanded on 8th April Chris House went on to complete further operations and remained in the RAF until retirement long after the war. If your interested in further information have a look at:- http://hawkertyphoon.com/ Or: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=hawker typhoon rb396 restoration

Greetings, all ! I present to you my recent work: test-build T-54-3 model 1951 from MiniArt #370007 pleasant viewing :-) foto is clicable

Dear all, my latest little work, she is a Kingfisher OS2-U started from an rather old monogram kit a friend of mine gave me. Unfortunately the old resin from Cutting Edge are impossible to be found (at an acceptable price) so I decided to modify the kit, trying to reproduce all missing things by myself. The camo has been painted with gunze and tamiya. Decals from Aeromaster. I hope you'll like! Kind regards mario

My models are not in the same league as some of the incredible builds on this forum. However, in my view, one of the principal obstacles to plastic modelling is the amount of time and effort it requires. That is one reason why I used the undocumented quick build option for this model. That is, I built it in flying mode with wheels up, crew hatch and weapons bays closed, and with homemade transparent discs instead of propeller blades. That is either the crime of the century or a deft move, depending on your viewpoint. A couple more photos and description:on this page on my web site: Wooden wûnder

Added a few more photos, including these:

Williiams bros 1/48 pitcairn autogiro Williams bros kit is basic but nice. needs work to get everything to fit. both cockpits are completely scratchbuilt, resin engine, rescribed etc. originaly painted red and white for the detroit news aircraft, the decals fell to bits and where unuseable. so it has sat on the shelf of doom for about 18 months. about 6 months ago i tried to strip the paint off and broke the model. picked it back up about a week ago, painted in beechnut gum colours, the decals had about 4 coats of liquid decal film and went on well. made turnbuckles with thin brass wire and rigged with EZ line. i lost the windshields some time ago. its a double boxing so i may make the other one!! thanks for looking

Hello! It has been an age since I finished anything so I wanted to restore my mojo with a quick and easy build. This is Revell's 1:100 U-Wing which I have re-painted and added a few small details to. The cockpit was detail painted as well as the crew figures. I added a door gunner and some figures to the base. It was completed in a weekend and was great fun to do. Hope you like it!

So a couple of years back at the grand old age of 40 I decided I needed a cheap (HA!) hobby to keep me from staring at t'internet all night. The natural option was to revert to my childhood and start building models again. As I've developed a deepening interest in aviation in general and WWII specifically, it seemed like a decent area to aim for. First build was predictably enough an Airfix Spitfire. It was originally a Mk1 - 2 bladed prop, b&w underside, flat canopy. Then the final coat of matt varnish ate the decals & paint. 6 months later I resurrected it as a MkII. OOB, brush painted Far from perfect, but not too bad given the grief to get that far. It's stablemate the Hurricane was an obvious next choice. I added an Eduard Zoom interior - mostly for the seatbelts & IP, Brush painted. Oh, and some resin wheels To complete the trio - a Defiant. Eduard interior again, plus aftermarket wheels, exhausts and guns. Also discovered canopy masks. Rattle can painted. On the whole, rather pleased with this one. A bit "box fresh", but neat & tidy. And all together: Then came a 109. I followed CedB's build on this quite closely. Complicated paintjob. It's OK, but not as tidy as the Defiant. Rattlecans and Eduard interior bits again. Discovered "haireals" which are much more in scale than my attempts at stretched sprue. Followed by it's bigger, less useful brother. Gave in and bought an airbrush - this was my first attempt, so its not too bad if you don't get too close! Aftermarket decals to avoid sharkmouth disaster. The 2 germans together. A nice contrast in size. ...and finally the whole gang... All pics - Nikon D5000, 18-200 lens at full zoom, min aperture (f36?) It's been an intriguing, frustrating, fascinating learning process so far. Bits I need to improve on:- Handling silly tiny bits and gluing them solidly without making a mess Airbrush technique - the real biggy. Keeping the dust down. The pics have actually been quite flattering in hiding the bits of lint glued forever to any flat surface under layers of paint & varnish. Weathering. - after taking the best part of 6 months per plane - I'm terrified of doing anything more to them that could bollix up all that work! Comments/criticism gratefully received! BL

Hi All We finally got to camouflage, I immediately say that the result is not the one hoped for; First I sprayed the RLM 76 , then I just blew it off with white in some areas The difficult came after, spraying the RLM 74, following the camouflage of the instructions, it was difficult; The horizontal snake pattern is very random, even in historical photos........ It is most likely that I have not used the right amount of thinner with the color, but I did a lot of tests and the result is this. With black it was all easier, before Gunze's H77 (tire black) on all undersurfaces, then the same color with addition of dark gray, and finally some areas with a mix of black and blue H54, always Gunze. I'm not really happy with camouflage, but I hope that with exhaust fumes, decals and washings, the appearance changes a bit better. Goodnight Ettore

Picked this up again after wrapping up an Airfix F-111 for the group build. Got the wings on and used a bit of Milliput to sort out under the cockpit: Thanks for looking, Adrian

Hi folks Thanks for all the kind words of encouragement - I certainly need a lift as this is turning into an epic struggle (Man vs Plastic...) I was in a Dominos Pizza place the other night and noticed on their menu it said there were more possible combinations than there were people on earth.. I am reminded of that every time I try and vacform a canopy with all the different methods, tricks, gotchas and variables.. I have used all my PETG again still without success but have learned a lot on the way.. I also wonder if it is actully possible to vacform a canopy to the same clarity the sheet starts out at, but anyway I keep trying.. I have three kinds of defects: Bubbles - I know these are moisture and have managed to reduce to about 3 - 5 (from 50 or so) by reducing the temperature - this is an impossible balance between hot enough to form, but cool enough to avoid bubbles Patches - turns out these are trapped air and only occured with a super smooth polished plug/mould - bit like sticking a sticker and getting a bubble in the middle - the air has nowhere to go so it is a microscopic raised area which causes optical occlusions.. Wavyness - this I think is because the plug is now microscopically rough to allow the air to escape (dry sanded at 600 grade) I have tried plunge moulding - fail with bubbles and it didn't pull in and take the form properly, I tried a 20 thou white card vacform as a base on the master as said on a forum - fail it deformed & caused trapped air patches, I tried sanding & polishing - fail, the bubbles are in the plastic, I tried all manner of temperatures, grills, ovens and now have this dental tool for £95 off ebay (arrived in 3 days well impressed).. it has definately got potential as it works perfectly in terms of forming - it is just the material & outcome that is letting me down.. I have ordered more PETG from another supplier and m speaking with John Wilkes from Tigger vacforms tomorrow about helping me out - I have also emailed MDC and HpH in the hope of maybe doing a resin one as a commision.. by the time I am done the canopy will have cost the same as the rest of the bloody model.. ..in other news - i did try to keep my mojo going by doing the tailwheel doors - I had to remove the tailwheel well roof and move it deeper into the fuselage which was a horrible job with a dremel cutter right next to lots of lovely finished skin panels, but it worked out ok.. ..I also needed to make the tailwheel doors - seen here in one of Tony's lovely pics - note the tiny fairing at the bottom which I assume covers the very bottom of the wheel when retracted.. ..sketched out the door outline after embossing the fairing into the sheet first using a bit of plastic card with the female shape dremmeled out of it.. this is my last bit of 'good' litho that takes wire wool without turning red or blue so is very precious ..cut out the door shapes.. rivetted.. ..and shaped & started to add the internal framing.. ..thats it for now - I will sort the canopy one way or another, but jeez its the one bit of any build that ALWAYS causes me problems.. TTFN Peter

Hi Glynn and thank you. Yes the KV-1 was a bit of a brute next to the other two! Didn't get as much done today as I'd hoped. Mostly worked on the SU122 - first getting a very thinned Revell Gunship Grey wash all over the green areas, then a targeted wash of Revell's Anthracite around and in all the detail before finishing with a dry-brushing of a lightened version of Humbrol's 102 with a touch of Revell's matt yellow added: .......and with some of the other parts: Hopefully I'll get some more done on the others tomorrow. Comments and suggestions welcome. Kind regards, Stix

Well I have finally put an end to this build. Brilliant kit but I have been frustrated by my own ineptitude with turnbuckles! In the following photos I have tried to capture, to the best of my ability, the finished model and some of the fine details. Propellor, boss and engine panels are only sitting in place and are not fixed so that they may be removed to show engine detail. In the pictures I now see that some of my turnbuckles are not quite in line but these are easy enough to fix by tweeking the wire with tweezers, on the other hand I can't do anything with the messy twisted and glued ends of the EZLine but the don't look nearly so bad at 'actual size'. As to the kit, I can't fault it, brilliant! As to my skills ...weeelllllll........let's just say 'Could do better' particularly the lozenge. I found trying to get that neat and tidy a very difficult and time consuming task. Numerous times I tried to move on too fast before a decal had set, finished the next piece of lozenge or rib tape only to discover I had unwittingly mucked up the previous decal. I am looking forward to trying one of the WIngnuts kits with the pre-shaped lozenge. My turnbuckles, I just don't know, they are too big for scale even though they are the smallest I could make at 0.4mm outer diameter and, no matter what I do they will never be truly accurate representations of the real thing. I am thinking that I might just go for a touch of silver paint on the ends of EZ line in future. Anyway I hope you all like it and, as with my Sopwith Camel - If I can build this kit and not be totally ashamed of my results then anyone can make a great model from a Wingnut Wings kit Give in, you know you want to

I got it back in with superglue and pointy tweezers, but it didn't sit completely level when drying which changed the rake angle of the undercarriage leg. I adjusted that "manually" and it looks kinda OK-ish now. I just want it over with now. The wheels are on and the exhausts are on. The undercarriage legs in the kit are very detailed and fit together well, but any paint on the stab-ins for the legs to wheel wells needs to be scraped off prior to trying to insert them - they appear to be zero tolerance fits. The injected wheels in the Eduard kit did not impress but the Ultracast ones are much nicer and easier too, not having 4 parts per wheel and the tyre split in two with no locating lip and a seam to sort out, negating any advantage in being able to paint hubs and tyres separately. Exhausts (I'm glad I scraped away the excess thickness of the cowling here - it looks much better) And on its wheels.

17/6 update. First round of weathering: Brown filter overall, pinwash, streaking. Now letting the slug dry before the next round: More to come...........................

Hi All, Here is my latest build. A super-fast palate-cleanser in between more involved projects. This is Hasegawa's 1/48 Bf109G-6, boxed as a G-14 and finished with Mr Color paints and kit decals. A full-build article is here: https://jonbryon.com/hasegawa-148-messerschmitt-bf109g-6/ Comments welcome. Thanks Jon

Smoothed cockpit area and starting on the wings and engines. A point to note is that the tail section is about the size of a 1/144 727's wingspan! Cheers Tony

Yes, I know, I'm being a spoilsport my interrupting all this banter by reintroducing modelling to the thread but I have battled heat and humidity to bring you some plastic action! I have got the main fuselage longerons in place and worked on getting a better fit of the retractable rear decking, this was rather a time consuming business as I need a close fir without forcing the fuselage apart. The instrument panel has also been added. I was able to use two of the three kit parts but the third was short shot and had to be replaced. No big deal though. The cockpit sills curve over a bit on the real aircraft and this has been addressed by adding plastic strip along the openings. A quick check revealed that the windscreen was a poor fit on my kit and some time was spent attending to that issue. The next big issue to sort out is the area under where the turret would have been fitted. On the fighter there are two access doors for the gunner but these seem to have been replaced by a small door for the target drogues on the tug. This door looks way too small for a human to get through so I guess access to the rear cockpit was via the opening left following the removal of the turret? Any views of the underside of a TT Roc would be appreciated as I only have one of a Roc stood on it's nose following a landing accident and naturally the bit we are interested in is in shadow! Thanks for looking Martian PS I really am going to have to give some more attention to my Telford builds over the next few days.

Finally I've put props and rudders in their place, I managed to forget about them before Boat take two, I think I'll leave it and maybe add some other shades with oils, after putting the grey on. What do you think? Cheers Mick

Congrats Ced! Gosh, the guy was already pounding model after model - from now on it'll be impossible to keep up at his pace! Ciao

Its not new and I cant remember if it ever made it to this forum; built about 6 years ago from the Revell 1/72 Sea King and the Whirlybird Decals / Models S61NM conversion kit, this diorama has been totally re-built and brought back to life after being totally smashed to pieces by a rogue tennis ball aimed at it by some moron. Left in many pieces to rot in a very well buried box in my attic, I found this during a house move in February and decided to bring the memory of the Lands End service back to life. Originally built as a memory of my childhood days when my parents owned a cottage over on Tresco in the Scillies which we flew to originally via St Mary's and then in later years as a direct service to Tresco; the family would trek over on what was originally a BEA service and then in BA's red white and blue colours. This particular S61 (BEON) ditched killing 20, just 1 month ahead of one of our numerous trips over to the Scillies. A big mention to Roger Evans of Whirlybird Models who has brought this amazing model to our benches - another subject that had for many years been overlooked by the main stream manufacturers. Hopefully, one of my club colleagues at Farnborough shall soon bring another Whirlybird 1/72 S61NM to life to compliment this diorama After the 2017 rebuild... And finally, as it was before its new facelift and rebuild back in 2011 Thanks for looking in - John

Boris is your uncle Fayina is your auntie and into the frame they go and poised at correct angle, waiting to dry and I can begin piecing the larger airframe together and get the nose part on, then we may see a MiG taking shape at last....

With all the markings down, I started to weather the model with some airbrushed stains using the technique employed by Chris Wauchope, that is a highly thinned 50:50 mixture of tamiya redbrown and black I will go back and add some oil leaks with oil paints . Chipping was done was light grey, green and silver KH Airacobra , and of course, I had to accidently drag a brush loaded with thinner across one of the lower roundels. Can't have a model being done without flaws now IMG_0034 by , IMG_0035 by , Thanks for continueing to look in and all the supportive comments Bruce

Hi everyone. Here is my attempt at the new Airfix Stuka. A very nice kit and I enjoyed building it although I had a disaster towards the end, I managed to spill white spirit all over the rear canopy, which fogged it immediately. Not to worry I thought and set about polishing it out only for it to crack multiple times during the process. Not to worry, I thought again, I'll contact the nice chaps at Airfix and buy a replacement, but unfortunately the reply came back 'we have no more canopies in stock... sorry' So rather than giving up on it I decided to leave it as it is and claim that it had a nasty brush with a Spitfire! Or until at least an alternative replacement can be sourced. For this kit I used Xtradecal sheet X48164, this particular aircraft is from 6./st.g 77 circa 1940. Painted with Xtracolor enamels and weathered with pastel chalks and oil washes. The only additions I used were seat belts made from Tamiya tape, I also used Eduard masks for the canopy (highly recommended), plus a little extra riveting here and there. Thanks for looking, gazza l

Well done Ced. I retired twelve years ago after forty years of jobs. Loved working, just hated the way it was disfigured by the concept of employment. No more team building, no more committees, no more KPIs, etc.... I always felt that my attainment of a state of economic uselessness (and I am not inferring this applies to you) was, well, quite liberating. Happy retirement and on with the builds! Michael

Paint!!

.....add the bar for shoulder harness.....then painted all............