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Hello all I have been suffering from a lack of mojo for a while now, and I needed to try and break it, so I decided to do something fairly simple and mostly out of the box. I decided to go for an old favourite, the KC-97, but the USAF SIG is doing a transport theme for Telford this year so I converted the excellent Academy 172nd scale KC-97G to the YC-97A. Another reason for this one is an interest in the Berlin airlift, and this is the only member of the C-97 family that took part, flying 27 round trips in May 1949. Hope you like this one. Ted

Hi everybody, this is a Copper State Caudron G.IV, 1/48. Figures come from the Eduard range and some of them were slightly modified; everything else was scratchbuilt...hope you like it...

Canberra B.2 98 Squadron, RAF Watton, 1968 This is the S&M Canberra kit finished in classic 1960s silver-and-dayglo. Here is the original inspiration: This is or less OOB, though I did emphasise the control surface engraving so that it looked more definite than the surrounding panel lines. Having seen some photos of models finished from this kit I thought they had a little too much of a tail-up stance, so I shortened the main gear legs by about 1mm or so and gave the wheels some flats, and that seemed to give it a roughly level stance. If you make one of these don’t under-estimate the amount of nose weight needed. I packed the forward engine nacelles as well as every bit of space around the forward fuselage and still couldn’t prevent it tail sitting. In the end I added more lead weights on the bomb aimer’s floor which just balanced it – its all black in there anyway so you can’t see much of it. It’s worth mentioning the canopy on this one. The whole upper forward fuselage including the canopy is moulded clear and it works very well. An unexpected benefit of this is the minimal distortion around the canopy edges which means you can clearly see the cockpit detail, so it’s worth putting in the effort here. I made my own dayglo strip decals by spraying white, orange, red and dayglo orange in that order onto clear decal sheet, then cutting out the strips using a new knife blade. They were never going to bend around the leading edges so I sprayed those rather than use the decals. The decals were fairly thick, but then so was the original. I was pleased with the way it turned out though. Canberra wing walkways challenged me a bit. I think I’m right for this era by using black dashes to indicate walkway areas, in fact it looked to me that the small panels engraved in the kit upper surface in front of the flaps were not panels at all, but were in fact these walkway dashes, though I can’t be sure about that. Black lines didn’t seem right – I think they came in with the Light Aircraft Grey scheme, and certainly the later yellow/red stripes are not right for this era.

Latest off the bench is the Hasegawa Me 109 E-3 in the markings of Karl Wolff (yellow 15), August 1940. Had real problems spraying the white ...coverage. I did not have my heart in this fully....oh well...…………... Decals are Xtradecal … I really do have a thing with Battle of Britain 109's ………… note to self ….. get help. Hope you like Please feel free to comment etc. Cheers Dick

Eduard 1:72, Syhart decals

After an absence of forty eight years I've just finished my first build, Well for better or worse, warts & all here she is. First build & paint in all these years & never used an airbrush before.... Never weathered either so, in truth, it's hiding a multitude of sins & cock-ups. I think that I couldn't have chosen a worse first model whilst learning airbrushing, especially with using Alclad airframe aluminium. However, I'm going to call this my 'practice' piece in readiness for my next build. Some of the weathering is somewhat heavy in places but it's helping to disguise my mistakes I suppose. Admittedly, I did struggle at times due to tiredness & loss of concentration etc but persevered. I welcome honest constructive criticism & advice & opinions from anyone. Regards to you all. 😉

Italeri / Accurate miniatures Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless. Built As a A24B of Groupe de combat 1/18 "Vendee" France 1944 lovely kit, went together well, used some of a eduard zoom kit painted with my usual mix of acrylics, and using mission model paints for a first time, very impressed with them. Airbrushed with my new airbrush, first time i have used a double action one for over 20 years, happy with the result. thanks for looking.

Thanks Giorgio, Ben, Joe and John Primed early this morning: and a few hours later sprayed the Bomber Black: I'll let that dry overnight before I start masking up.

This is a typical Special Hobby mixed media kit. Mostly injection plastic parts with some for inexplicable reasons in cast resin and a small PE fret. the instructions are vague at best. Some confusion arises as this is based on their Skua kit and there are some parts not used and others that are substituted for other parts. It goes together pretty well and has a detailed cockpit, but the canopy is molded in one piece so it is pretty invisible. One problem, however, was that the quad mg's mount was wider than the slots in the turret, but when you cut it down to fit the turret, it's too narrow to span the turtleback fairing behind the turret. That's why the guns are up in the air on mine. In reality the a/c was a complete failure, even as a target tow. It did, however, have one confirmed kill while escorted by several Skuas, a Ju-88 in Norway. Speaking of Skuas, that last picture is with an old Frog Skua for comparison.

The rest of today’s fiddle sticks consisted of. Sticking the last few surfaces. lots of clampage. 😱 Also lots of seams to fix before the big paint. not too bad really. Some ppp and a light sand should do the trick. looks fixed. I’ll try some primer when the bottom section gets added. sorted. 😇 and the nose ones. Ok seams done. I had a blast at re fitting the lower wings. and noticed that you will be able to see the back plate of the wheel well through the open engine compartment. Glad I noticed that after I had painted just the insides. 🤨 So with that said here is the first coat of silver. Then a post shade of Tamiya smoke. The other side and outer walls were brush painted as I’d cleaned my air brush. When dry this got varnished and left to dry. The canopy needs fitting so I painted the inside and did a Flory wash and varnished. Ready for mask peeling in this shot. And peeled. nice! At last I can glue it on. I’ll add the little aiming thing later. No worries. 😇 Here she is glued with gators grip. I think a little ppp but a lot better than I feared. 🧐 All seems well positioned and the front lines up well. While that was going on the other stuff had dried off and a Flory wash was added. Twenty minutes later I could wipe away and add some extra wires and such. the rear looks ok for through the engine bay. And the actual main well looks good to me too. 🤗 And the other angle. Just noticed that the wire doesn’t go where I have put it at the rear so I’ll fix that up before fitting. 🤪 Just before I finished up for the night I added the intake. Should this have a mesh cover? Or was that only a Mk 2? Any way I cleaned up the internal wheel bay sections and primed ready for the second well section. you forget how big this thing is sometimes.😳 Anyhoo thanks for popping in, again. I’m really needing to get to BIG paint now. I can taste it in the air. I’m away with the boy from Thursday so I’m not sure how much will get done but I’m hoping for a button up of sorts. 🤗 Take care y’all and as always. Happy Johnny 🌪

I've not ventured into the 'Desert Campaign' theatre of operations for a very good reason - I know jack shat about this area of conflict. My missus says her grandad was a 'desert rat' - which surely requires a lot more research at some point - but for now I have a little Blitzbuild offering... Here we go - it's a bit small - but deadly if encountered... I hope you like it - stuff that is 'knocked up' in double quick time has a place in our hearts too...

This time without a link, but with a bonus 🤣 and as the promised bonus: Tamiya Kübelwagen with the repair shop conversion ... Thanks for looking!

Special Hobby 1/72 HA-1112 m-1L Buchon, as a hurricane of a polish squadron, battle of britain movie. Lovely little kit, went together really well, the canopy was the worst part of the kit, so i replaced it with one from a airfix kit. thanks for looking

Found this in my stash I had forgotten about and prompted by coming across the decal sheet bought specially for this kit thinking I had sold it. Anyway, its one that will be worked on in between two GB builds, The yellow part at bottom of pic is a spinner from the Heller Harvard which I can make fit the Beech with a bit of fettling.

Hello, It's my first post here, so be gantle with critisism This is my fourth serious model. I know that not everything is perfect, but for me is good. I try some new techniques. Hope you like it, of course I'm waitng for advices to make next model better

Hello After a little longer time, finally finished. From Collect-Aire, the North American RB-45C Tornado, RAF Sculthorpe 1952. Thanks for looking regards Martin

Cheer

Revell 1/112 X-Wing Fighter The first time I've finished a Blitzbuild - thanks to everyone who commented on the build and participated in the GB and thanks to @Enzo Matrix for hosting - great stuff. Here she is - hope you like her;

Not posted any new model here lately because of the less than desirable quality of photo that I can capture at present( I swear I will fabricate a photo booth by end of this month) ; Anyways here is the Tamiya kit , completely built out of box . It is brilliant just like any other tamiya kit . Weathered it a bit heavier than usual and I kinda like how it came out . Intentionally over pronounced the post shading . Thanks for watching

Hi I’ve never posted in this section before, as all my model are normally of the Sci Fi variety but another passion of mine is the Pirates of the Caribbean films, so when I saw the 1/72 scale Revell model of the Black Pearl, I had to have it. First impressions are that the box is huge and there are tons of individual pieces, all well moulded and crisp. Lots of thread for the rigging (not looking forward to that bit), so far so good, but the quality of the instructions are a let down. Black and white photocopied instruction not even stapled together doesn’t fill me with joy, considering the kit was nearly £90. Oh well on with the build. Airbrushed the big pieces the required Anthracite grey, and the sails a lighter grey. Will hand paint the smaller bits. I did a fair bit before I remembered to take some photos, also I’ve gone cannon crazy having made 32 of them. Each cannon has seven individual sections! p.s. I have never built a ship of any kind before so be gentle with me.

Hello everyone! I've spent the past three years completely dedicated to scale-modeling. I'm definitely an amateur relative to so many of you, but I've definitely made some models that I am very proud of. I'd classify my skill level as intermediate. There are two reasons that i am commencing with this photo-build. I have no modeling community locally and am desperately in need of company that shares my passion--I thought this would be a great way to initiate that. Secondly this is only my second 1/700 ship build and I'm looking for your sincere thoughts, advice, reactions, comments etc. Hopefully some of you will find this of interest and even better find it instructive! I am building the Trumpeter 05767 Prinz Eugen. I'm still debating which iteration to make. I want this to be a project I can really get stuck in to. Therefore I've purchased just about every AF detail set that I was able to. This is going to be a very time consuming build and I love it. Here's what will be occupying me for the next few months...

Assembling the cowl/engine sub-assembly started by adding some weathering to the inside of the cowl and air-scoop. For years I’ve been using an oil paint set from the pound shop and as the outsides of the tubes of paint were really sticky and crusty I decided it was time to splash out on some “proper” oils so I bought half a dozen Abteilung 502 colours, here I’ve used ABT006 burnt umber “blended” with odourless turpentine. Once the oil paint had dried I added some MIG oil and grease stain mixture. I also added some oil stains to the engine gearbox. The air-scoop and engine fixed into the cowl. Here is the engine/cowl sub-assembly ‘dry fitted’ to the aircraft. Now that the engine and cowl are completed next I need to add some extra “paint” to the airframe, wing walkways etc. before I can make a start on the exhausts. until next time as always, any suggestions, criticisms or comments will be gratefully received. rgds John(shortCummins)

Hi folk's after the weekends blitzbuild it was nice to start a non wingy thing,the hull and deck cleaned up with no fuss all in all although simple it should be a nice little ship when done,some of the sprue gates are dodgy the ones at the rear left a gaping hole at the end of the stern which needed filling. I cut down some plastic railings just to add to the build they're not 100% but give it a busy look. Next job is the hull brown/red and black waterline tomorrow.Other builds are not forgotten the skua and Vengeance are drying nicely after matt coating,they'll be in the gallery in a few days.

Build another Frog Kit - Yes Host / Co-Host duties - Probably not! To be honest, I reckon we give Frog some breathing space for a while and see what other manufacturer's models we can all butcher... I mean build! Cheers. Dave

Having now inserted the plastic ammo boxes, I know the correct decision was made. The next tricky bit is putting the guns on the mounts. Than after that it's the front shields & back rails, then that'll be step 1 complete. But that is still a couple of hours work away..

Ok so having plied Mrs Jockney with half a bottle of Mateus Rose, and a good few After Eights, I can sneak into the other room and post a quick pre decal picture ! A bit of tidying to do but nearly there ! cheers Pat

I was not going to take the the chance so I added some lead shot to be safe. Here is a picture, I just have to sand it down now, have some other things going on so it can harden up all the sprue gloop that is on the underside wing/fuselage joint.

Purists and those of a nervous disposition- don't scroll down! It's here in all it's lurid redness, but if you want to see how it got here- then this is the build thread Spanish Civil War, Republican Forces a/c. As rendered by Frog, though nowadays the how red it was is questioned... Thanks everyone for everything, a proper build follows straight after this...

A big weekend of decalling - man there are some stencils. I reckon I spent 4 hours decalling Thankfully the kit decals are superb. Up there with the best aftermarket sets I've used. No sign of silvering (That I've see ) even on the smallest stencil and even when I laid some over a matt area that I'd touched up and not gloss coated.I did use Micro Sol to set them onto the model. I only used the large codes and serials from the Xtradecal set. I was going to paint them but laziness struck so I went with the decals. They appear to have worked well I've just flat coated it so I'll let that go off for a day or so then apply some streaking and I reckon it'll be done. Already thinking whats next

Just stumbled upon this, and I think Thud fans will find these photos of interest- lots of good modeling projects among them! Mike http://www.aeroimage.com/MilAir/Fighter/EarlyFight/F105Thud/F105ThudPort.htm

My name is Alexander. I want to join your community. Here are some of my recent designs. 1/72 Lockheed P-38L Lightning (HobbyBoss) 1/72 Messerschmitt Bf.109E-3 (Tamiya) 1/72 Supermarine Spitfire Mk.I (Airfix)

Hello all, Finished bits and pieces yesterday and had a good play with my camera. Comments and suggestions are very welcome: BANANA FOR SCALE: Many thanks!!!

Hello, this was suppose to be completed for the Specialist group build but l was unable to complete it till now. The kit is from Airfix and the decals from Caracal. l ended up using 2 sheets from Caracal as l messed up the walkways on my first attempt. The decals are excellent and the white is really solid. lt is painted with Xtracrylix Gloss Sea Blue and matt coated afterwards. I added the heat shield on the underside of the exhaust. Hope you enjoy it.. Robert

Here's my completed Fokker from the May, Blitzbuild 1 GB - didn't quite make completion back in May as I had trouble with the lozenge decals folding up - by the time I had worked it out I had lost some of the lozenges and too much time. Anyway, in an effort to get it done before joining the Blitzbuild 2 GB this weekend I finished it off - the extra time allowed some weathering and rigging which I probably wouldn't have attempted in the GB. All in all a very nice little kit, even with the tricky decals. Hope you like her.

Another 70's classic oldie but goodie from Italeri... I'm quite enjoying these old Italeri kits as they have all the basics of a decent kit, just in need of a bit of updating and TLC. She's had a full rescribe, adding in more historic detail than was present on the rather sparse original raised panel lines, I've also added a fair bit of scratchbuilding, including an accurate cockpit, flap levers, dive brakes, P/E guns, sights and brass barrels. Anyway - as always, all feedback and constructive criticism is much appreciated... so please fire away chaps!

Thanks Dave, that is very kind of you indeed And there's more I have been working on the prop and now just need to touch in the wood around the boss and paint the boss to finish that. A big thank you to @Peter B for kindly supplying the decals as they are now on and I used @stevehnz 's excellent and very quick diluted Klear application method. The Exhausts and collector ring are on painted in a mix of Humbrol 16 a brassy metallicy colour and Humbrol metal coat gunmetal I have some powders to shine them up a bit. Still got a way to go with some extra rear cockpit bits and rear Gun. I have done the wheels and will add them near the end. I am not sure whether to scrape off the moulded pushrod tubes from the rather nice looking Aeroclub engine and replace with wire before mounting the engine although cleaning up might be a mare. I might try one to see what it is like first before committing to that Cowling is painted with fasteners added just needs the inside painted I am going to do this in aluminium colour. then it's just a case of adding some small fiddly bomb rack mounts on the lower wing some wticky out bits and an aerial and bob's you uncle. I should get this finished (famous last words ) Thanks for looking in All the best Chris

Here we go people... Happy with this so far... C

Here's the shot of the extra tank being filled through the window. I selected the "flattened" exhaust stubs for this plane, painted up and fitted with a couple of Reinforcement strips across. I've had these come loose in the past. Now the top panel can be fixed Looks quite chunky, but then there is a 24l supercharged V12 under the bonnet! It's dawning on me that these machines really were single seat Hotrods! Wing under side is in the process, and Tailplanes are foiled and fitted. As expected they're a perfect fit. Foil inside the radiator areas, and the outsides will be foiled in place. The wing panel is just popped into place here. I should say this is the replacement wing set courtesy of @malpasowith the right fitting for the intake, and the wheel well modification on the top of the wing. Thanks again for these, Will. Just the job!

With the camo all masked up and a spot of Quick shine gloss painted along the edges of tape, I sprayed my first coat of Vallejo NATO Black. This went on well, sprayed cleanly and has settled perfectly. I plan another light coat today, then I will airbrush some highlights before sealing it in. I have also airbrushed the turrets and gloss varnished them in. My choice of using liquid mask worked well, my only piece of advice would be to be careful when removing the mask. As the area's you want to remain painted are so thin you need to make sure you don't remove them as well, which happens easily. I used a cocktail stick to clean it up, and I'm happy with the results.

Been a while. I've tried a different type of resin from the brand Resion. This hardens in 90 minutes, instead of 7 days for the other resin that I used. Sofar I've casted 9 bodies, 4 with the clear resin, 5 with the white. These are 4 of the white bodies, the one on the left didn't come out well, cause I left the mixture harden to long : The white resin give a much smoother result then the clear resin : There's still a lot of refining to be done : But I'm having tons of fun experimenting with resin and that's the most important thing. Sincerely Pascal

If there was sufficient interest in Frog Squad 2, we would need to find some very gullible GB Hosts, I wonder if anyone could be persuaded to do it again...... 😉

Getting closer to release! I think this is likely to be the box art. This was published in the most recent issue of Airfix Model World. I trust that posting it is ok given that it is an advertisement but please forgive me and delete the post if I have done wrong. I am very excited about this release!

North American Harvard IIB FT246, FDMX of the CFS RAF Little Rissington. Depicts one of the many that were taking part in the static at Odiham for the Queens Coronation Review 1953. Heller kit. CMR vacform canopy decals from various generic sets.

evening folks as it's a Bank Holiday here, I had a bit more time at the bench.. the windshield parts were made up and painted... ..then very carefully assembled - I also added the fixed gunsight and mirror.. ..and thankfully the coaming fits nicely - Steve from Model Monkey has kindly 3D printed the gunsight which I think will arrive tomorrow so once I have that I will detail it, fit it and this whole assembly will be added to the airframe.. ..I had to find another part to do and as the glazing was going pretty well (hope I don't speak too soon, it's my nemesis), I decided to start on the side windows... ..started by making a mould profile to make up the PETG in boiling water, pressing it down on foam to adopt the shape.. ..once done, I used the PE frames I made to size the glazing... ..I also had separate PE frames for the front sliding part of these windows so they were also carefully added.. ..then the detailing started, there are lots of very small assemblies in each one, and they are subtely different (or will be) as the top canopy part hinges off one side.. ..another bit I was dreading sorted out, hopefully I can get them all finished without any mistakes like scratches or CA blobs TTFN Peter

Meanwhile, I'd like to get the fuselage bundled up on the T.3. First, the scratch built bumpy things go into the air brake wells, and pose for another mating picture: They should look OK once painted. I haven't found any good photos of this area, but my plan is to simply paint the camo scheme over them without masking of any kind. Now, against my better judgement, I did NOT try to size the bumps so they would fit inside the holes in the air brakes. Because, after all, I may be a Yank but I'm not crazy. And this is 1:72 scale - the bumps are only 1 mm wide (nominally) and my thumbs are 25 mm wide. I think my Geometry teacher called this an "incongruity." And, of course, you have to fill in the ejector pin marks inside the intake trunks which have been conveniently engineered to be right in the line of sight. FOD covers might still be a good idea. We'll see. Lastly, my package arrived from Singapore. As has been mentioned, the rear fuselage does need some additional shaping, but I think it will work out OK. The fuselage piece has no panel lines on it. I'm still thinking about how to angle the burners in and down, but I suspect it will be a modification of the burners, not the fuselage. It doesn't look like the resin fuselage would easily fit on either the Frog or the Plastyk kits. Which is too bad, because they could both use a little help. Looking at the width across the aft end of the fuselage (where the burner cans attach), the narrowest by far is the Airfix "tweaking" of the T.3 kit (23 mm), followed by Plastyk (25 mm), Frog (27 mm), and the HPM resin part (also 27 mm). The difficulty putting this on either the Frog or Plastyk kit is the cross-sectional shape of this section of the fuselage. Airfix seem to have the curvature on the side matching the drawings I have, whilst Frog and Plastyk are too flat on top, and the side curvature is too "square." I think you could do it with a bit of filler, but I'm already tired of sanding. Now it's time to change my other mind again. I have sourced an actual Airfix FAW.9 (not a T.3 in an FAW.9 box like I have now), and I'm going to use that for my FAW.9 when it arrives. The resin parts are designed for that kit (I'm trusting that they will fit - hmmm...) and if both models, the T.3 and FAW.9, are from Airfix they will look better sitting next to one another in the display case. The Frog and Plastyk kits will be donated to the Retirement Home for Oddly Coloured Misfit Styrene. Fickle modeller... Cheers, Bill

Blitzed this! 6hrs 23 not including an hours tea break. T47 Snowspeeder, my second and much better entry in this BlitzBuild

Afternoon folk's,one of my all time favourite kit's is Airfix's 1970's Spitfire VB,from the box art with Jan Zumbach's aircraft roaring down the field to the blue plastic inside It always reminds me of what seemed like endless school summer holidays as a kid.Anyway built for the Blitz build GB over two days it took about six hours in total,the only decals I had for this later boxing were USAAF ones but despite my aversion to Spitfire's with stars I quite like it.I scored the ailerons to droop/raise as the plastic was nice and soft.Thank's for looking in.

I like this approach the best of what I've seen and what I've tried ... Paul

Release expected in late September 2019 - ref. 48281 - Douglas B-26B-50 Invader, Korean War American Bomber - Source: http://www.icm.com.ua/news/626-b-26b-50-invader-korean-war-american-bomber-100.html V.P.

Andre, the FROG kit is made by Hasegawa, there was an exchange of kits between the two companies back in the late 60s. I have assembled all the main parts, filled and sanded it is just about ready for a coat of primer. With all the sanding I have lost the ejection seat firing handle and the instrument panel has come loose, but they can be easily fixed before fitting the canopy, usually I would not fit the ejection seat until I was ready to fit the canopy, but luckily I checked and it would not fit with the fuselage glued together.