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Fairey Firefly Mk.1 Z1905 of 731 Squadron Royal Navy East Haven 1944. The Grand Phoenix kit with Barracuda studios main wheels, prop and cannon spouts. Decals from the Special Hobby Mk.1 and a spot of scratch building some missing details. MM, WEM and Gunze jam used. Embarrassingly drawn out WIP here.

A Tornado GR.1 doing it`s thing....., Revell kit, 1/72 Scale, blurred base from Coastal Kits Thanks for looking.

This is a conversion of the Dragon (now re-released by Revell) 1:32nd scale Bf-110C into a G using the AIMS set. AIMS have designed their kit so it just drops into place with no major surgery required. You get the interior update parts, engines, nose, weapon fits, choice of schemes and Master turned brass aerials. The resin is very finely cast with some lovely panel details. There is also an extensive etched fret. The instructions are in the form of a CD disc which includes loads of reference photos. I used a set of HGW seat belts instead of the etched ones that come with the kit. AIMS provide the rear canopy as a vac-form, but they do a separately available clear resin one which I used. The model was painted with Xtracolor enamels. Thanks for looking. Angelo :)

She's done and delivered. Here's the wip link, It's fastened to the wood with small brass rod in each tyre and glued. The wood, I sprayed two coats of gloss on.

Here I present one of my last works completed on the occasion of the Working Group of French Aviation for the Fuengirola Scale Model Contest 2019. A much more complicated model than I thought at first with a quite complex bridging. It has been a "express work" but very satisfied with the final result. A very striking decoration with five colors camu and a spider on the top of the fuselage. I hope you enjoy that. More info and pics in my blog jamiegrahamworks_spadXIII

This is my attempt at making a M4A2 as used by the 20th Armoured Battalion of the New Zealand 2nd Division in Italy in 1943. The base kit is the Tamiya M4 with a Wee Friends Hull top. The paintwork is a melange of Mike Starmer mixes from Tamiya paint and the decals are Bison Thanks for looking.

Getting there One of the reasons I chose to model the Avro 504 is that there were some parts of this project that I had no real idea how to do. So I thought I would set myself a challenge and force the old grey matter to work a bit. The one thing that has caused me the most delay and uncertainty has been how to make that large voluminous cockpit opening right at the critical structural point where the wings meet the fuselage. One decision I made straight away was to make the fuselage from the strongest wood I could find and this was a good decision. On the other hand just about everything else regarding the cockpit has involved rework and rethinking. This is my third attempt at fabricating the cockpit's top deck indicating that so far I really have had no idea! During various dry assembly runs it became apparent that the vac-formed plastic deck was too flimsy. It was not strong enough to firmly hold the vertical struts that extend upwards from the front of the cockpit. These struts will be critical to holding the top wing in place so they have to be held strongly. I decided it was time to go back to wood. Here I revisited the wooden buck that the vac-form plastic was formed around and decided to cut out the holes where the two pilots' heads stick out. That worked OK, but as you can see, the edges (sills?) around each cockpit opening are very thin. If you look closely you can see that the sill on the top left hand side of this bit of wood has broken during the sawing. Inevitable really! But from another point of view things were looking a bit more favorable. At least now there's a sturdy block of wood in front of the student pilot and, with a bit of judicious woodwork, perhaps something that's going to be sturdy enough to hold those struts firmly in place. Cut out the notches where the struts will fit and completely give up on the idea of holding the entire fuselage deck in one piece - it's just not going to happen. Ta-dah! The Magnetic Formica slots nicely into place. This might work yet. With a block of plywood representing the cockpit floor and cut just to the right width to lock in between the base of the struts, the struts are actually held really firmly in place. This is working out OK... Here's what it looks like with the brass side-walls in place. I think this time I might have a workable plan. So start slopping some paint about. Use some Vallejo 'Silver Grey' acrylic to represent doped fabric on the inside of the cockpit and some other appropriate wood shades for the wooden cockpit floor and the wooden main fuselage members that run under the pilot's feet. Slap some oil paint onto the 'unpainted' wood for a bit of grain effect and... glue the assembly in place. Add some fine guitar strings to crudely represent rudder control lines. Go back to the lump of wood in front of the front seat (over top of the cowling) and carve the edge that faces toward the cockpit down nice and thin. This is so that to someone viewing the final product the top fuselage decking appears thin. Do the same to the bit behind the instructor. See... the edge to the top decking looks nice and thin so when you look into the cockpit it makes the model look more delicate than it actually is. Well that's what I'm hoping anyway. And now the central interplane struts are held in place nice and firmly. I'm finally satisfied that this central bit is structurally viable - although I'm still not completely sure about how to stick the top wing onto this. I'm guessing I'll nut something out. I've been significantly slowed down by these tricky bits that I'm uncertain about. Nonetheless, I think I'm slowly getting there. Bandsaw Steve

Yep. No problems with discolouration from the resin.

Hey you lot. I was feeling under the weather yesterday afternoon and feeling rather crappy today so I decided to stay in bed. Catching up with all your builds I thought a venture into the grotto wouldn’t hurt too much so...... 🚶‍♂️ Things were done. let’s begin at the start. The rest of the parts got a Flory wash. And the green parts. Not to mention the pedals. And the rear of the bulk head. 🙆‍♂️ Just need to bring these together now. Oh and the control stick. 🦹‍♂️ I sprayed a top coat and let that dry before glue. While drying I looked at this bit. not too flash heavy and the detail is good. There are some dials missing though. You can see from the rear. the two larger of the ten pin marks. 😳 so anyway, out with ma new files and whoosh. Now that’s better. 🥳 After that I was feeling a little giddy so I went and made a nice cup o’ tea and sat and read my book for a bit. Imagine my surprise when I noticed the picture of the bulk head. The bit I had painted green. 😬🤯😳🤭 noooooooo. not one to be down hearted, I was feeling a bit rotting anyhoo so out with the silver to start the whole process again. 🙌👏🙌cue the Rocky music for a bulk head montage. silver (painted with a top coat and chipping fluid) and pre shade again. accidentally dropped some Tamiya timber on it while mixing the top paint. 🙀 I’ll call it weathering.... 🤫 Top paint on. Then chipped, top coated aaand Flory washed. Right. Back to where I was just with a different colour. 🤣😇 phew! Now we can move on. Engine struts glued in place. And the extra ones added to boot. happy with that. 🥰 Next is the office. All the bits got glued apart from the seat that is just fitted in place for now. just how I wanted it. 😀 just need to add the control stick and compass. ( I haven’t painted that but yet😬) . The bulk head got its tank fitted again and glued to the engine framework. the pipes at the top wouldn’t fit so I figured I’d let that dry then clamp them one at a time. That seemed to work a treat, 👌 I’m so glad I didn’t leave it green. Even though you can only see it a little I would have known. You would have known. The whole wwoorrlldd would have known, you get the picture. 🤣💃 More tea and more glue. The not yet red tank thing. hmmmm that looks like I feel. 🤔 After taking 🤔 @CedB or @perdu ‘s advice about how to fix my aging PPP (I cleaned the screw thread got rid of the hard stuff and after use put a spot it water down the spout 🤩👌) I filled the blighter. and sanded and filled again. lots better. 🥰👏 While things were drying I decided to turn my attention to the fuselage. The internal parts had had their pin marks sanded last week so what to do about the holder hoop things? The one that hold this in place in real life. not a bad fit. The gates are stopping it fitting flush but I think I could pop them on and off at will. 👏🙌👏 just need the support. So with that in mind I have decided not to cut off and scratch build the hoops but drill them out and keep the kit parts as they help to hold the removable panels in place. here’s before. and after a tidy and a drill . that works. 😀 while I was at it I’d heard that the wing was a bad fit. At least I think I heard that? Who knows. Well long story short it isn’t. well my one isn’t and that’s all that matters right now boys and girls.😌 nearly done now. Sorry it was a bit of a mammoth sesh. 🥳 Back to the IP the Airscale pack suggests I build a back plate from plasticard. I checked the kit bit first. 🤔lots of detail🤔 sod the plasticard where’s my SIHRSC 🤪 Now smooth on one side ready for the decal. To be fair I did use paper thin plasticard as a backing plate. I’ll sandwich this in the middle. 👌 also lookie all that detail I’d miss out is I’d not used the kit bit. Lovely. 😀 Before moving any further forward I need to finish the office soooo. I forgot how much fun PE belts can be. These all move in the little buckles. 🤗 After assembly I struggled to find how to attach it to the seat as the picture isn’t like my seat so for the interests of other builders. It’s like this. ( I think ) And after much folding and gluing we has. looking dandy. BTW the lagged pipe on the left got painted and fitted too. its amazing how I managed to paint and weather it to look exactly like Tamiya tape. 🤣 doh! For the last touch before I finished up for the day I added a little Flory to the belts. So with that we are here. Still need to add the controls and compass but that is for another day. Thank you so much for sitting through this massive post. I really hope it helps others that might want to build this lovely kit. Today’s lazy day Modeling has made me feel better too so it’s back to work tomorrow. Oops look at the time. 😳 I’m of up those wooden hills. See you all soon. Take care and as always. Happy Modeling Johnny 🌪

Hi everyone. Although I’m long in the tooth this is my first post on the forum. Up first is my Airfix Sea Fury just completed. The kit was built mainly OOB apart from Eduard seatbelts and replacement wheels from Barracudacast. I replaced the pitot tube with brass tube and the u/c door jacks with nickel rod. Like others I spent a lot of time on the cowling - the worst (and really only) difficulty with the kit. I’m pretty selective about after market and I’m too cheap to fork out for the resin cowling upgrade. However the wheels are far better than the kit and avoids a lot of cleaning up of the seams whilst trying to retain the block tread. I dug out a spare gunsight which is missing in the kit but is a prominent feature in the cockpit. Paint is Xtracrylics with alclad light sheen varnish to finish. Light weathering with oils over the gloss coat. Anyway a few photos if I can work out how to post them. Steve

Dear ladies and gentlemen! Let me present to you another model from a relatively new manufacturer of models, called “Pepelatz”. The model is made of polyurethane resin of the highest quality. It absolutely nothing smells, it is beautifully processed and has good adhesion for paint. There are very few details in the kit, but they are quite enough. I added from myself only seat belts in the pilot's seat and some wires in the chassis niches. This is the best on the 72nd scale that can be made from resin. There are no casting defects in the model, a minimum of putty was used. Because the model is almost a “paper” project, I allowed myself to paint the model the way I wanted, but strictly in accordance with the colors of the RLM. The RLM 76/79/83 scheme is applied. The spots are imitated by inspiration from viewing giraffes))). Please, enjoy watching!

Hi guys, My Canberra is now finished for a few weeks and yesterday I finally managed to take some rollout pics. I hope you like it, even whe it´s not british😉. Cheers Daniel

My first time posting any model photos here, so I hope this turns out ok. This is my recently completed Macchi C.94 flying boat, which uses the Broplan 1/72 vacform as a starting point. Most of my models are scratchbuilt, or based on vacform underpinnings which have a significant scratchbuilt content, so my completions are somewhat infrequent. Major projects like this typically consume around 1000 hours' work, thinly spread over several years as I usually work on multiple projects in rotation. As is typical with my vacform builds, only major components were used and practically everything else was scratchbuilt, except for the engines, which are Vector resin Bristol Pegasus. Cockpit and cabin are fully detailed throughout. The Macchi C.94 was a product of famed designer Mario Castoldi, but a distinct change of pace from his more familiar Schneider Trophy seaplanes. With an all-plywood structure and hull lines reputedly derived from WW1 Curtiss flying boats, it was a curious blend of ancient and modern. 12 were built: 6 Serie I aircraft with Wright Cyclones and 6 Serie II with Alfa-Romeo Bristol Pegasus engines. All initially served on the Mediterranean routes of Mussolini's airline Ala Littoria, beginning in 1936. But in 1938, the last 3 constructed were transferred to Argentine affiliate Corporacion Sudamericana de Servicios Aereos, where they were named Rio de la Plata, Rio Parana and Rio Uruguay. As their names suggest, they served the River Plate and tributaries and also a coastal route running from Rosario in the south to Montevideo in the north. After around 8 years of reliable service through the war years, all 3 were destroyed in a suspicious hangar fire and replaced by Short Solents. Probably the only 'Golden Age' Argentinian subject I will ever make. Most of my projects are American or British, but occasionally I get the urge to build something exotic !

Hello Mates, here my new russian fighter, is a superb KH Su-35s, I replaced the kit Jet nozzle with "Su-35S Engine Nozzles" from A.M.U.R. Reaver (Nr. RC4822) For those interested, here the WIP. Best Regards

This was my first Hobby Boss kit. I started it in earnest in the fall of 2012 and hit the first “snag” soon after. I had to repaint the seat several times to get the effect I wanted and stopped construction for several weeks. Then I took up the gauntlet again. The plastic in this kit was sort of odd; in some places it seems quite soft but it also seemed very brittle at times too. I broke several parts just removing them from sprues, and this sure wasn’t my first rodeo. The fore and aft sections of the fuselage presented the next challenge. There was a terrible fit between the two sections. After I had them together, I found that it looked like “a bear’s *ss sewed up with a grapevine” (old sheet metal saying there…😉). Out came the Bondo and I went to work evening the two halves up. Next step was re-scribing all that lost detail. The wing to fuselage fit sucked too, and I spent a few sessions wrestling that into shape. Then, I somehow lost one of the front gear doors and had to make another one. 🤪 Believe me, I was quickly losing my passion for this build even though the MiG-17 was a long-time favorite of mine. I wanted a MiG-17 of the North Vietnamese Air Force. I had looked at several paint schemes for this plane and finally decided on one. The full-scale plane like this is at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. On-line research revealed that this scheme, along with 3 or 4 others all bearing number 3020, was claimed as being used on the mount of North Vietnamese ace Le Hai (7 kills). Hmmm…by this point though, the die had been cast, decals had been ordered and I stayed with the squiggly paint. I was worried that my Paasche H wouldn’t be able to do what I needed for those complex squiggles. I do have a double-action Paasche Model V, but I just couldn’t get it to cooperate at all so it was back to the Model H. At first I planned on doing a sort of “reverse” pattern. I would paint the darker color first and then use small blobs of Blue Tac to mask the squiggles and then spray the lighter color over those. Well, I had more than half of the underside done when I abandoned that plan. I don’t think I could’ve ever made that look right. So one fine Saturday morning, I fired up the CO2 and the Model H and just painted the darned thing. I wish my spray pattern had been a bit tighter but I finally justified my work by assuming that the original Vietnamese painter probably had a lot of over-spray too. So, it was onward through the fog! 😀 I custom-mixed the pale color from Model Master Sand, Flat White and Faded Olive Drab, while the green is MM SAC bomber green. The decals are a combination of kit markings and aftermarket. Weathering was done with Flory washes and pastel chalks, colored pencils and a bit of dry brushing with Humbrol Matt Aluminum. Cockpit features are mostly courtesy of an Eduard Color Zoom set. I did scratch-make the oleo boot covers on the front landing gear. The canvas boots were frequently found on the front and often on the main gear too on NVAF ’17s. My boots are tissue soaked in white glue and shaped around the oleo section. I broke both of the forward pylons/mounts for the drop tanks and had to wait for replacements, When they arrived and were painted, I had trouble getting the outside “legs” of both of these to fit tight against the underside of the wing. But, ah hah, a bit of internet research found several period pics that show the outside leg didn’t fit flush on the actual planes either. I took a few pics of the MiG-17 inside once finished around March 2013, just to document the actual completion and to get a few underside shots as well. After waiting several weeks for the wind to die down, I finally had a window of opportunity for a photo session at the Cameron airport. When I got out there and opened the box, the starboard pitot was laying on the bottom of the box. Arrghh! 😮 Well, I wasn’t packing it in just for that! It turns out that NVAF Pfc. Dam Dhum Phuc had backed a re-fueling truck into that pitot tube and knocked the damned thing off! 😉 Oh well, photography must march on! That was just one more SNAFU in what seems like a jinxed build from the start. At any rate, the MiG-17F was finished, and I like it alright now, I guess. Thanks for checking in and taking a look at her! As usual, comments welcomed! Gary The kit: And the inspiration for my paint job:

This is my rendition of Eduards 1/48 'New Generation' Focke Wulf Fw190A-5. I decided after failing to find an alternative colour scheme, against those given by Eduard, which took my interest. It is not always easy I found to distinguish the 4 gun A-5 (light fighter!!) from the 6 gun A-5 (heavy fighter) I therefore, against my usual practice of using schemes supplied in the kit decided to build Graff's A-5. But then when looking in my spares box I came across a set of the gun pods carried by the U12 version. These I believe were from a 1/48 Dragon Fw190, upon examination these seemed accurate and as the Eduard 190 kits supply Mg151 gun barrels which are hollow at the tips, I then made my mind up to build the A-5/U12 version. My only other additions to this excellent kit was the Eduard Brassin cockpit and some detail to the undercarriage bay. I used the new range of AK's True Colour Luftwaffe paints, which although are 'scale colour' (not sure to what scale!!) I added 10% white which I thought came out quite well. Decals came mostly from the kit, these I wasn't a 100% happy with, they are printed by Eduard and have a flat finish which I found didn't totally disappear when applied to the usual gloss finish. Eduard please give us glossy decals!! I did not want to finish the aircraft in the popular Erich Hondt scheme and just happened to find a thread on Hyperscale Forum about alternative schemes for this particular 190 variant. My build represents the Fw190A-5/U12 flown by Hermann Segatz of 11./JG1 early 1944, Germany. Unfortunately the photo of this aircraft does not show the fuselage side very well so the number or 'Doppelwinkel' is not shown. I decided therefore to apply the Doppelwinkel as Segatz was Gruppenkommandeur the personal badge was a home made decal:- Using the gun pods in my spares box saved me money, I do think the Brassin set is slightly overpriced especially if you don't want the decals for Hondt's machine. However I highly recommend the Eduard 1/48 Fw190 family and look forward to future variants they will eventually release, maybe the S-8!!!! Cheers Andy

Here's my first contribution, I haven't made a Firefly since I did the Airfix one as a kid, despite having a number of them, mainly MPM and Special Hobby in the stash. I picked up this Plastyk reboot of the Frog original many years ago in Beatties in Cardiff I think. Beatties closed down about 19/20 years ago so it's been sitting for at least as long as that. The mouldings dont don't look to bad and there are only a few parts. In keeping with the spirit of the GB I'm not going to add anything and just build straight OOB. The transparencies are pretty thick and have a fair amount of flash. Transfers look good good but I wonder if they'll still be OK. I like the Eastern Fleet option but if they don't work I'll look in my transfer collection. Or use something form one of the other kits.

The Special Hobby / Italeri / Revell 1/72 Hudson kit is not an easy kit to build. I have however managed to complete a model, finished as a BOAC machine that was used on the Stockholm Run. The service operated between Leuchars and Bromma during WW2 and was flown by British and Norwegian crews. The model is more or less out of the box, apart from opening up the wing slots and the installment of passenger seats (although not much of the interior can be seen as the windows were blanked off). Luckily I did not have to install the turret and I could paint over the nose glazing. I had originally planned to finish the model as G-AGDF "Loch Leven". However a visit to Oxford a couple of years ago made me change my plans. Now, the model is finished, as is the "celebration party"..... Nils

Just a short post for those obtaining the new Airfix 1/24 F6F. It is a little known fact that the F6F had a dorsal and ventral seam running down the rear fuselage spine, much like the Bf109, actually it was slightly offset from the centerline like 1/4 inch or so. Might save you a bit of filling...Briefly goes from behind the antenna plate (behind the cockpit) to the fin leading edge base on the upper rear fuselage. On the lower rear fuselage from first lateral seam to the belly hatch (slightly offset) then from the belly hatch to the tail wheel well, and a short distance behind the tail wheel rear doubler to the hold back fairing. Check your references and here are some hopefully helpful photos, including a 1/48 kit under construction. You may have to blow a few up for better viewing, but you get the idea. HTH, Pat D

Ladies and Gentlemen! Children of all ages! Welcome to the greatest.....well, um to a pretty good build of a pretty big thing. To set the stage; A friend of mine does large scale RC aircraft models. His latest completion was a 1/9th scale B-17G representing Nine-O-Nine. a Fortress that is still flying. The model was brilliant with something over 5000 rivets, chipped paint, and some amazing weathering applied to the exterior. He likes to do scale events and felt that his model still lacked something. Like an interior. He had a ball turret 3d printed and realized that he couldn't finish it to his own satisfaction. So, I got it. I immediately started cutting it apart along the lines of the real turrets castings. Much priming and sanding got me a nice clean interior surface to begin from. Ammo boxes were cut out of balsa and skinned with .010 sheet styrene. The gun control unit was made up out of the usual bits of plastic. It took a lot of digging to figure out what this thing actually looked like. Not a lot of pictures of the insides of ball turrets. But I am persistent... This all took a while and I have a lot more photos to show but I need to knock off to-night The good thing about this thread is that I actually finished the build so that you know there will definitely be some sort of conclusion to all this... I can see where I'll have to learn how to reset pic sizes.....

Dear modellers, Yesterday I was browsing in Rumourmonger I read that MicroMir will bring out a Fokker G-1 in 1/48, at last, I hope they will avoid the issues with the MPM 1/72 kit. Years ago I build the model in scratch, in /48. It was a most difficult build, of course that fuselage with many windows ! I made a kind of stringers and bulkheads construction, covered by thin plastic sheet, in which I made the openings for the windows one by one. That was indeed a exercise in patience., sigh..... To show you what we can expect from Micro.Mir, here are some photographs of my old model. Enjoy the results of my struggling... With kinds greetings JohnHaa

it it does seem to have been. A test pull on the dental vac machine looks nice and clean. As it happens I don’t expect these to be useable canopies. I only have 1mm PETg sheets at the mo’ and I think it’ll be too thick. I think 0.5mm is what I’ll need. I’m also not sure if these masters are the final ones. As hendie noted they’re 18 months old and tbh I can’t remember if they were just for practice or whether they were for best... It feels a bit like re-learning old skills at the mo’

Hi All, For my next build (more to follow) It's going to be the very old Airfix LCM III and the fairly new Airfix Cromwell. The LCM kits come with the old Sherman but I had the Cromwell already and it's a much better kit, so I'm going with that. The Landing Craft/tank combo practically beg for a beach landing scene diorama - but I've never tried simulating sea and waves and all that floaty thing stuff, so I'll give it a go - but if I don't like the results I'll bin the dio. and make a stand of some sort for it. Dave.

Hello Britmodellers! 👏 Finally, I’m finished this excellent and well-detailed kit from Zvezda. I’m not planned to post the pictures in RFI and even the WIP sections, but it can be interesting for some of us. It’s not a Class A build... Let’s look! The starboard side: And the port side: The front view is good and the disadvantages is not so noticeable: Hats off: The other side: Zvezda provides us a very detailed engine compartment OOB: The main rotor is very detailed, too: The belly has a nice details, I like how it looks slightly weathered: Let’s take a closer look on the aft side: And the nose section: The navigation lights are from the clear parts. The starboard: And the port side: That’s all for now and there is a WIP thread, for those who interested: Thanks for looking! 🐈

My last finish is a 1/72 Fw189A by ICM. I always like Hungarian aircraft with its white cross on black. This ICM kit is quite recent and it offers a much better Uhu than MPM's one. The only real need of filling/sanding is the joints between the booms and the wings. Nanond

Thanks for the post Dennis, Moa and Mike. Some construction: Hulls: I followed the kit instructions and placed the bracing on one side of the hull and then glued the bottom to that. I could see issues with that procedure, I now have nice gaps that needed filling. A better way of doing it would be to glue a side and bottom together and then add the braces. The instructions would have you complete the whole tail assembly before adding the tail booms. There is some PE that hold the middle fin in place, I saw trouble with that and decided build most of the plastic parts first. Thanks for looking. Stephen

Getting to grips with this kit, the port wing was badly warped, doing an impression of a stuka. I have it straight again but being 50 year old plastic the wing tip snapped off, the fun never ends. While the wing was being straightened and the glue hardening on the wing tip I was contemplating the cockpit, not with much to start with and the canopy frames molded as part of the fuselage I will just add side panels and instrument panel for the pilot. The intakes have been added and an intake ramp added so that you cannot see into the wing cavity, I have taped up the big bits to check for fit problems, so far looking good. If I was not building a couple of King Tigers in the Panzer VI GB it might have been ready for painting now.

OK where was I The forward was then joined to the rear section and filler and Mr Surfacer used to smooth out the join. The join was cleaned up and the wings attached, tailplanes just pushed in Wheel wells are nicely detailed so only need paint and a wash Seats added just firing handles needed later. I ended up splitting the vacform canopy and used the injection front part from the kit Overall view before the paint gets put on Front part masked and the rear painted a white undercoat for the yellow trainer bands which was then masked and painted Tamiya gloss black Finally the Vallejo Metal Color Aluminium was put on Masks removed and quite pleased how it has turned out. Squadron markings still to be decided as most squadrons had a two seater on strength Until next time.. Robert

Another little slow update on the Sycamore. I tried to scratchbuilt the structure of the rear seats with round 0.4mm profiles like evergreen and simulate the fabric of the seats with 0.10 mm "texturized" sheet metal. To reproduce the canvas effect, I simply heated the sheet on a candle and pressed it with the wooden handle of the brush on a squared bottom (like Ikea cutting board). The result was satisfactory, I will try to exalt it in the painting stage .... [/img] At this point I fixed all the interior parts for a fit test......................... and finally I tried to put the entire cockpit in the fuselage already glued ....... That's all for now, but I have to say that this little short run is really enjoying me. See you soon with other progress! Sebastiano

I have split open the bag for my build and it sired some memories from a childhood build. I will build OOB as I need something to get the mojo back. The parts in a lovely brown plastic Instructions and washed out decals And the decals I will use for the build Not sure if I will build as a 816SQN Mk1 or an shore based 724SQN T Mk2

Hi Everyone Managed to finish this last week after a long nerve-wracking slog My attempt at Special Hobby`s 1/48 Loire 130 Cl `Colonial` kit Built 99.9% from the box with just the pitot`s on top of the mast replaced with a home made item as my sausage fingers couldn`t handle the little resin bit Finished to represent an aircraft of: Section d`Hydroavions de la Marine, Cat Lai, Saigon, Cochin China, French Indochina late 1940 Apparently a few of these were still in use in 1949-50 so it fits in with my Indochina collection although I couldn`t cobble together any later decals. With it being a flying boat with no undercarriage I was a bit stuck on how to display it...... .. so I came up with it having temporary repairs away from base 🙄 Decals were from the kit Hope you enjoy, thanks for looking Cheers Russ

Hello all, I have looked online for exhaust replacements for this. It looks like Barracuda do some that are 'possibly' compatible, but the big H were out of stock. Hannants did some for the new Airfix and Trumpy kits, but at nearly £12 each I decided to give them a miss. The reason I wanted to get them is this rear end view of a taped up fuselage back end: It was not what I would have liked. I rummaged around in my rod stock and found some tubing which was reasonably close to the size I needed. I sanded down the outer rim to make them fit into the plastic kit part and then thinned the inner edges to help them 'blend' in, and stuck them to the rear-end part: I used my compass cutter (with the newly found 'rotate it backwards AWAY from the blade' method to prevent it cutting in a spiral) and got some blanking plates for the rear end, and fitted this assembly to the rear fuselage, having taken half an hour or so to cut out the kits' blanking moulding. I have also fitted in a series of bits of plastic to try and ensure that the ends and the tubes do not dislodge later on in the project. The tube interiors have been painted black, but will get a bit more appropriate colours later on. I think it looks better than the original that Frog (or Hasegawa) intended. As for the cockpit interior, that is now fitted too, and the control stick turned out fine in the end, the Glue'N'Glaze grip worked a treat. And the fuselage still closes up okay too. Bonus! Suitable weight has been added with lots of CA gel, so, with luck, the fuselage should get closed up properly tomorrow and I can start cleaning up the fuselage properly. Thanks for looking, Ray

One hundred lines please Tony. "I must remember that here is no future in dangling models out of windows. I am a very silly Earthling!". And no using copy and paste either! Martian 👽

Here we go, it's touch dry, I can't resist a test fit

Right, the primer having had chance to cure overnight, I began today with doing the detail painting on the engine. I don't know why but something yesterday made me check on the colours of the Bristol Perseus engine. I was a good job I did because my instinct told me to go with light grey crankcase and black cylinders. Pictures showed that the Perseus had a black crankcase and either grey or natural metal cylinders. Still I'm quite pleased with the way the engine came out. The fuel tank, pilot's seat and the winch have received a coat of Alclad White Aluminium and the interior of the engine cowling and the winch operator's seat a coat of cockpit green. As long a Satan's herd can avoid dropping any cowpats in my path,I have tomorrow free as well so I think I will concentrate on getting the instrument panel detail painted and installed along with the fuel tank and the crew seats. Thanks for looking Martian 👽

A quick fit of the blades for a look see while I crack on with a section of lustys deck

Always an tentative part removing the masks, you finally get to see if there has been any creep, and if all the plugging up that I did on the doors worked, some tidying with a cocktail stick, and a bit more on the rotors to do, but the end draws near,

Like this? Nice pose, ain't it? I'd have left the tail planes out, for ease of painting - but I guess it's too late now, Ced 🤷🏻‍♂️ Nonetheless, great progress Although I reckon you're up to a lot of sanding now ... Ciao

I've almost completed everything else on the bench, my Trainers GB Vengeance (which wasn't finished on time) is almost done and my Avenger in the specialists GB well underway. So it's time to dig out some Frog and Frogspawn and get stuck in here. A cursory search of the stash revealed these (and a Chematic Shackleton) so the first quandary is where to start? The second quandary is should I look further? I know there is a Master, Sea Venom, Baltimore or Maryland, Gannet and a Martlet at least, along with an incomplete Barracuda and Skua. And lots of Sea Vixens I got before the newer versions were released. I've just done a Seahawk for the 50's GB so should I do another? This is a very early Frog with the moulded in pilot so something different and I've got transfers left over from the Hobbyboss build as well as a few in the transfers collection. I haven't made a Firefly since doing the Airfix one back as a kid so that wouldn't be new and the last Shark was when I was a kid too. The Shark is in an original Frog box but the plastic inside looks more like Novo. So I think I'll start with the Firefly and Shark and see how we go, as I also want to do something for the D-Day GB.

Built OOB and tried to get the very worn finish of the Bounty Hunters Tomcats using multiple shades of grey. Not exactly as I had hoped as it is slightly too dark I think, but I'm calling it done. Missing a couple of small bits that I offered up as a sacrifice to the carpet monster, so need to replace the pitot tube and 2 airspeed/AAT probes. The decals were a bit thick and silvered a little despite gloss coating beforehand, although other than that quite a nice kit to build. Crew figures from PJ Productions.

Does the undercarriage go up and down when the wings sweep?

So, my next build is going to be this little beauty, Heller’s 1/48 Mirage IVP. I’m intending to build mine to represent the Mirage IVA, that’s displayed at the Yorkshire Air Museum. Aftermarket items are:- 3 decal sets, 1 Up North, and 2 Syhart (and yes, one is a 1/72 set, but there is a reason for this) AML resin exhausts NeOmega resin cockpit set ResKit resin wheels Master Models refuelling probe Up North scribing set D433049E-CFCC-4AA1-AB16-CBBCE215666C by ian gaskell, on Flickr A3A80789-6181-4090-AF1B-09AD55AF3A73 by ian gaskell, on Flickr 5F1387E2-1CDA-4A6C-B277-473C72812978 by ian gaskell, on Flickr B6D84D7F-B3DD-4405-847C-CC11978B487B by ian gaskell, on Flickr

Here's my attempt at the 1/72 Revell (Airfix / Heller) Concorde. She's built out of the box except for the addition of a pair of pilots, a tiny bit of scratchbuilding under the visor and the F_DCAL decals, although I only used the window / door decals from the latter. It's an impressively large model once built, with a length of 85cm and a wingspan of 37cm. I definitely wouldn't describe it as an easy build.....here's a link to the build thread, which will hopefully give a flavour of the blood, sweat and tears required to undertake this kit! https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235047199-revell-172-concorde/page/8/&tab=comments#comment-3368409 Thanks for looking!

Thanks @bbudde, @Nikolay Polyakov and @giemme. I said that pics would be posted ad here they are. Not pretty but better than it was. A smile for the camera LOL. And tickle it`s tum I can see that there is still a lot of sanding/filling to be done, but it is a lot better than before. Well that is it for today, may catch up tomorrow/over the weekend. All comments welcome Simon.

Ok Mottling - Take 2. This time taken in natural light. I have given it a quick wash of very diluted RLM76 and wiped the excess off with a dry brush, just leaving the fuselage spine dark. I am fairly happy with this through many others could no doubt do better. Probably look better when the wings are painted instead of white - we should see in a couple of days! Incidentally, this is claimed to be the official factory paint scheme! The one in the museum does not appear to have the full camo pattern on the fuselage spine, but it is difficult to be certain - other sources show it just mottled, which is what I have gone with.

Thanks Giorgio - yes, I'm free, FREE I TELL YOU! At least until next week when she may be back under my care Great photo Tony, could be my brother Mention you in a derogatory way? As if Good point Keith. Assuming you mean do the pylons swing away so that it doesn't shoot itself down when the wings are forward, the answer is no. They should have thought of that shouldn't they? I'll watch out for it when assembling the payload Thanks Ben. Nice spider No. Should it? The boys are in with their gloves. Pathetic little boxes and i/p blobbed (not worth big photos, see below) With that done I could close up and check that horrid front seam: Improved by some pressure and glueing one side at a time. The good-enough-for-the-ceiling internals are barely visible: That shot leads me to the thought that the crosses on the rear of the bone domes are there so that the crew can check if their heads are on straight after a trip around the Mach loop. Is that why? Is it Dad? The tailplanes can be moved. Independently of each other. They can flap as well as swivel. Glue them in then: I'll close the rest of the back seams later. Now then, this is going to be hung next to T-Tommy as if they're flying in formation. Question: air brakes open or closed?

There certainly are Craig but the instructions are good in this respect Hi Valkyrie, The shape it what's bothering be at the moment. The cowling / fus / wing joint is proving rather challenging during the the dry fit stage but I'm hoping once liquid is applied, things look better. I can see some filling and sanding in the pipeline!! Anyhow, here's the cockpit with a little colour. It's ready to be installed so the next images will hopefully look more like an aircraft 🤞Just for info, the chest straps will have to go in later as they attach to a plate which can't be fitted until the fus is joined! No more updates for a few days as I'm taking a trip to Rome with the Mrs. Have also decided to take the train to Anzio on Sunday for some lunch by the sea and soak up a bit of WW2 history with the sun

I'm with Mr Lundin - this site is called Britmodellers, not Britassemblers and Mr Shimizu has gone to an enormous amount effort to give us a rarity. Let's give him credit for his work and the very reasonable price for this kit. It would be nice to have the option of an HP45 with the shorter cabins and large mail storage but it would not be too hard to modify the kit. Perhaps, and with our support, now that the hard work has been done, he will be able to afford a bigger printer and produce later kits to a higher standard but there are links to sites where these lower quality prints can be smoothed off. Having wrestled with the Contrail vacform back in the late 'noughties' (and been fortunate enough to score 'Best in Show' at ScaleACT 2009 and had the model feature over two issues of Plastic Modelart here in Oz in early 2010) and now having my gob well smacked while watching Moa's work on the same kit, I can only heap praise on anyone doing the job of making kits of aeroplanes like the Heracles, Ensign, Argosy and such-like. If I could make a suggestion to Shimizu-san, that would be to consider marketing the whole she-bang on a CD or thumb-drive so that enterprising modellers could print their own kit of parts on whatever quality 3D printer they have access to. I imagine that does have copyright issues but perhaps some sort of 'self-destruct after one print' message in the programme would do the trick. Anyhoo, just a few of my thoughts - take 'em or leave 'em.

More progress! Wow, compared to what I've been dealing with, this kit is coming together like a dream! It's a really good one for getting your mojo back - enough detail to be interesting, but not enough to get bogged down in, care and precision in preparing and assembling parts is rewarded with excellent fit. First two shots show the completed cockpit with Eduard set. I hit the instrument panel with a dull coat, which takes some of the graininess out of the printed detail and makes for a more realistic look, then stuck the two layers to each other with gloss coat, which prevents my having to go back and put a drop of gloss in each individual instrument. I'm very pleased with how it looks, but less pleased at how little of it can be seen once closed up. Fuselage all together. Everything held together very well with TET and a little tape. There is a seam line, especially on the nose, and I applied a little Bondo to it this morning after taking the tape off. I'll sand it down this evening and try to treat any leftover seam with perfect plastic putty. Some of that cockpit detail is visible, but not a lot. It looks like I lost the lid to my PE map case somewhere during contruction. . . Nice little photo etch detail on the landing gear bay, complete with a little sprocket. The PE gear bay doors look like they'll be pretty tricky to do - I'll accept advice from anybody who's done them. I'm planning to get the seams all worked out, rescribing done as necessary, and get the wings on tonight. I'm weighing my options about whether to try painting before installing the undercarriage, or if that will just cause more difficulty.

More done this afternoon (my daughter's looking after the pup - yay!) The fin/rudder is inconsistent: A quick check on the 'net showed that the rudder doesn't reach the top of the fin so some Humbrol filler was added: I think the enamel on the internals is dry but, to be sure, I fixed the wings on instead. I had intended to use the old soldering iron I've had since dinosaurs roamed the earth but when I got it out of the cupboard: Not only is the fuse missing but so is the live pin. At some point in the past I must have wanted the fuse… and forgotten to put the pin back in the plug. I have no idea when. I'll keep it of course in case they turn up. Out with the 'hendie type soldering station' - 200o seemed to work fine: I fitted the wings and melted the wing lugs while wiggling the wings to make sure they still moved: Will the enamel be dry enough to paint over by now? Will it Dad, will it? We're getting close to closing up when the internals are painted: