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Tornado GR.4 Italeri 1:32 The model was a slight disappointment for me. Of the entire series of new Italeri models in 1:32 scale, the Tornado is the weakest. Huge and deep dividing lines, the overall model is overcomplicated. In addition, a lot of metal elements of very poor quality. At the request of the client, I made it in fairly strong weather conditions. Personally, I like this finish because it doesn't look like plastic toys.

Fairly easy builds (for Amodel kits) they seem to represent the lines of the 1900C & 1900D OK & make interesting comparisons. Both are being built as commissions IMG_7157 by Harry Follas, on Flickr IMG_7145 by Harry Follas, on Flickr IMG_7134 by Harry Follas, on Flickr IMG_7169 by Harry Follas, on Flickr IMG_7176 by Harry Follas, on Flickr

When this was announced I thought it looked so cool that I had to have it even though it's not my usual scale. So, my first 1/48 Spitfire and it's Special Hobby. Apart from the instructions being a little vague as regards building wheels up, well, non-existent really and the undercarriage doors requiring a little fettling to get to fit it was a great fun build. Strange that as it's a flying model that there's no undercarriage up instructions though. The only other issue was the sliding canopy as it just didn't fit at all and required a fair bit of filling and blending to achieve something reasonable. As I said this was fun and I don't want to sound negative as the overall build was straight forward and fun. Primed with Tamiya Neutral Grey. Painted with ColourCoats Interior Grey Green, Medium Sea Grey, Ocean Grey, Dark Green, RAF/FAA Yellow, Sky S Type, RLM 83, RLM 76, Tamiya Flat White, Flat Aluminium Weathered with Flory Dark Dirt Wash, Tamiya Weathering Pastels and Windsor and Newton Oils. Finished with Windsor and Newton Satin and Matt varnishes. WIP Here My huge thanks to everyone who took the time to look, react or comment on this build your support is appreciated. Thanks for looking, Cheers, Alistair

Finished the Airfix 1/48 Hawker Hurricane as a 303 Squadron aircraft Build thread here: Finished with Mig paints, and Vallejo for the top colours. "English Uniform" as Dark Earth is looking a bit too brown for me, but I like their "yellow olive" as Dark Green. Thanks for looking!

Hi all, Following on from my 1970's carrier builds, I'd like to present my latest offering. Quite a quick build, having been completed over 3 days and a straight forward kit to assemble. The model is Revell's rebox of the Italeri H-19B Chickasaw, very hard to find, other than cockpit masks and a set of resin wheels, it's entirely out of the box which goes onto my next topic... I wanted to build a realistic representation of a Whirlwind HAS.7, but couldn't find a boxing or decal sheet for the variant (other than Whirlybirds resin kits) - therefore it is not especially accurate, the decals for example have been cobbled from the spares box and mainly from past Wessex builds, including the registration. The folding blades were just created from kit parts alone. On the whole a really nice build with some good details and recognisable as a Whirlwind. Many thanks for looking, I look forward to seeing you next time!

Hi folk's,couple of weeks ago I heard the words we all dread,"Dad you got a model I could build"? My youngest with most of his Uni work done wanted something to do so out came the Hobbyboss F-5 for his first effort and not a bad one for a novice brush painted too,he ordered more kits and is working on Special Hobbies Mystere at the moment but Trumpeters Nanchang A-5 turned out a beauty and an aircraft i had not seen much of again brush painted probably a passing phase but nice to see new modellers having a go.

Hello! Well, I managed to finish the Vimy trilogy. The model represents one of the first passenger aircraft and was Vickers Commercial around 1922. The model is made by MSD and is a very old casting from Frog with a new fuselage and some additional parts. There is almost nothing left of the set in the box, but the one used is completely reworked, all other parts are scratch-built. I had to extend the fuselage by 11 mm so that I could make the cabin door or the plane the right length. Once again, I show the construction from start to finish so that at least a part of the work invested in the model can be seen. The scale model is 1/72. I used Windsock Datafile Special - Vickers Vimy (J M Bruce) and internet resources. Greetings

Thanks Cookie YOU might love it, but then you're not masking it! The 'B' got a rough white: …and when that was dry the dark green overpaint: Back to masking the nacelles: That's all I can stand for the moment. Later.

Thanks again Giorgio Happy with the Hu155: I'll spray the museum one. Masking, Ugh. I had a plan to make a template using tape and Silhouette design from that (times two) but, when I started the nacelles, decided I could tape them up with the help of the circle cutter: One down, seven to go. I think I'll still use the template idea on the fuselage anti-glare though. Probably. Broadband has been down most of the day. Shovel through a cable methinks

Well folks, I'm back from hols. Had a great time, and chilled out for two whole weeks. Although I had a great time, I don't think Crete is somewhere I'd want to retire to., so I'll continue looking. Maybe Costa Brava, south of Valencia....that will be my next focus! Anyway, I have a day off today so got a chance to get back to the Battle. Mostly small jobs - I painted and fitted the exhausts, and got the main gear repaired & fitted too. If you recall, the gear doors had marks on them from the printing process, so I sanded them down a little and resprayed with the Xtraclylics RAF Night that I received just prior to heading off to Crete. That is all done, gear and exhausts on. One of the support struts broke off so I'll wait until the gear leg is properly hardened (I used Gator Grip to fix them, as well as the exhausts, to give me some wiggle time before it started to go off) before supergooing that in place. The exhausts were painted with XTreme Metals Burnt Metal which I found a little too bronze in colour, so I gave them a very light and patchy coat of black to tone them down a bit. They are the SBS Model resin Hurricane round exhaust set. Not the easiest to work with as they are separate pieces and also needed to be reduced in height slightly, but I'm happy with the look. I think I even managed to get them straight! That's enough for today, both tasks I had nit been looking forward to, and both worked out ok. Thanks for looking in! Ian

HMS Ariadne is sailing! I had planned to do a lot more than I managed, but the mojo was weak. The build and finish aren't great but it's done. Another one ticked on the list Thanks to to @Rabbit Leader and @JOCKNEY for keeping us in line and everyone else for what has been a very entertaining and absolutely HUGE GB Build thread is here /P

Here are some pictures from one of my detail constructions, an RF-104G in Hellenic Air Force duty. It’s a Kit from Hasegawa in scale 1/48. This model is the F-104G of Hasegawa and converted to RF-104G. The cockpit, ejection seat ΜΒ GQ-7 and exhaust are replaced with ones from Aires detail set. CMK detail set for avionics boxes, fuses, electronic bay and Radar is included as well. Conversion RF-104G detail set coming from Victory Production. I scratch-building the photo bay with the right inside camera and the centerline pylon with a trainer R.B.D. The model is painted in “Vietnam” camo, using colors provided by the Model Master and it finished with extensive weathering. Decal sets are from Icarus Decals, representing an RF-104G in the last years of Hellenic Air Force duty. I hope you enjoy my model. Happy modeling! Giannis Doxas

I built this one last summer, and I finally got around to taking some photos of it. It was an Academy kit, if I recall correctly, with some Italeri decals I had saved up from years ago. I always wanted to be a fighter pilot in the CF, but by the time I was fifteen, I had sprouted to 6'8" and almost 200 lbs, so that dream died quickly. I played around with the weathering a bit, but in real life, these things look beaten half to death, and I probably could have done even more to it. Most of the Canadian CF-18s are older than my wife, and my children keep telling her she's ancient! Then they run away quickly.

The Emhar kit of the Demon has quite a few braces/linkages, etc. missing from the landing gear. I added the most obvious bits with styrene rod, hoping that the gear covers will hide my laziness. The nose gear has two rods called "shrink links" that are quite obvious. They extend from the torque links up to the corners of the nose gear well. The Airwaves PE set includes these, but being PE they're flat. I prefer rods so I didn't use the PE. Now, the starboard shrink link has an interesting bend as you can see here: I assume this is for clearance of something when the nose gear is retracted. I managed to put a curve into the 0.025" rod (without breaking it!) - it's not perfect, but nothing I do is. The horseshoe that holds the nose wheel is a separate part from the strut, so I pinned that to make it stronger. I also made a new drag brace from rod which has the correct triangle where it attaches to the nose gear well, and the straight brace that connects to the nose gear strut. The rod that goes from the bottom of the drag brace to the lower portion of the strut contains the nose gear lock. I stuck some rod in to represent that as well. You can see that one of the shrink links is not straight! Better photo later on... The main gear struts needed the addition of the lower lock link, a short piece that goes from the strut to the side brace link, and the drag brace which goes from the strut towards the rear into that small slot-like opening in the gear well. I hope I'm identifying all these properly - I'm trying my best to interpret the drawings in the Ginter volume, but seeing that I know virtually nothing about these sorts of things I could be wrong. You can also see the PE that I added to the main gear well floor - I think this will look OK under some paint. Putty work has started on the wing roots, but still needs finishing. Actually, most of the putty work will need refining once some paint goes down. The indented slot on the lower fuselage above the front of the gear well is where the pylon for the drop tanks attach. If I don't use the tanks, these will need to be filled. I think. Oh, yeah, I started working on the empennage - I rounded the end of the beaver tail and began work on the light at the very end. The light is a portion of a very small practice bomb from some CMK kit. I used a razor saw to split it so half would be above and half below the tail. I need to finish sanding this into shape, but I'm happy with it so far. So, obviously the landing gear is in place. Cue shock and amazement from @giemme. I adjusted the location of the nose gear to help achieve a better nose-high sit of the aircraft. Once the tyres are added, the nose won't sit quite this high since the main gear tyres are larger than the nose gear tyre. You can see the bend in the shrink link better in this shot. So that's where we are. About 75% of the work is done, now I just need to concentrate on the remaining 95%. Cheers, Bill PS. On the down side of things, I discovered a nasty flaw in the vacuform windscreen (a rather nasty dimple) that will render it useless. I'm really disappointed in this Pavla set - I previously let you know about the issues with the resin forward fuselage parts and now this with the vacuform. I'd complain to Pavla, but, uh, they're out of business. I wonder why?

My Norduin Norseman float plane had a little bit of bumpy journey, and at one point was completed as a ski plane because I'd had enough. Apparently I hadn't though 😛! After a suitable lull, and time to contemplate my options with the remains of the float assembly, I had another go. With the lessons learnt from the first session, I got them on and rigged. This little kit is quite a classy little product in many respects - all flying surfaces including the flapsare supplied separately. Perfect for me, I like to show movable items in a moved position. The original decals worked fine. While the kit includes the ski and wheel options, I think this is the Norseman in it's true element, grafting away between the lakes and remote outposts of the Canadian outback. In spite of the structural challenges, I love the look of her on the floats. After all the handling I thought about doing a clean and tidy, but decided against. Hard working little sky trucks can have a bit of grime. That's my excuse anyway..... 😎

To round out my Battle of Britain movie builds, I just had to have a Hurricane. So, I'm modifying an old Hobbycraft Hurricane Mk IIc into a Canadian produced Mk XII, with a lot of scratchbuilding, detail parts from a scrapped Ark Hurricane Mk 1, and various parts from the spare parts bin. It will be * F, H3422 flown by Christopher Plummer in the opening airfield staffing scene. ... the rest of the fleet, just awaiting weathering ... Hey, you have to get your inspiration somewhere, don't you? Colin

Couple of pics of the Celica GT4 1993 Monte Carlo winner driven by Didier Auriol I've built for the Turning Japanese GB, More pics and write up in the GB forum Tamiya LP2 white body and Tamiya acrylics for the details Real nice kit that goes together well with no real vices, decals a little fiddly, but I've had worse In todays £50 ish for a decent car kit, £20 for this is a real bargain Ian

Thought I would try the Lakes District to catch some low flying action so I set off at 5am with fingers crossed and prepared for disappointment. Got set up on a hill over Ullswater around 8.30 am, the weather was as forecast overcast in the morning sunny in the afternoon. My 360 radar app showed nothing in the area or departing bases for my area and my scanner was silent (all day as it happened). The views were terrific and I was reasonably comfortable in my chair though when the wind picked up I did get a bit chilled. So after this scenario setting preamble around 10am I heard a rumble to the South toward Patterdale and I spotted a jet at low-level cranking around the corner of the valley, it was the first of 2 F-15s (number 2 about 20 secs behind the leader) The pair did not follow the course of the lake the leader electing to turn toward and climb out over the top of me and number 2 to climb and break before reaching me. Photographically speaking this was very annoying but wow pretty exciting, the F-15 pics show the difficult lighting and you can imagine me trying to track him over my head whilst trying not to fall off the mountain. About an hour later and I heard another rumble from the South and spotted a jet again cranking around the corner leaving vapour trails Bingo! it was a pair of F-35s which I had not managed to capture before. On their initial pass these guys stayed low and followed the course of the lake below me where they did a curious thing, climbing and turning around to come over the hill crest behind me and then turn back into the valley and then, well head toward me.. like I mean at me. The leader cranked upside down a couple of hundred feet above me and number two he stayed level but was a bit lower (A bit! the noise was incredible and I heard and felt his wake vortices). Well I was on a shaking high for about 20 minutes after that pass. After several hours in the afternoon I heard a whisper down south and spotted a large aircraft coming up the lake ..it was a RAF A400 this was great there arent many of them and they dont low fly that often. After that a pair of Omani Hawks sneaked quietly by well over the other side of the valley and I was not able to get a reasonable shot of them but was well pleased with the day as I trudged down the mountain. quite a few more if you go into my photostream: https://www.flickr.com/photos/87490663@N08/with/52087311073/

Another of Airfix’s classic airliner kits, I made this one straight out of the box. I was surprised to find it’s as big as a 707, I always thought those were much bigger! Sprayed with appliance white, chrome silver and Tamiya light ghost grey, detail touched up with Posca pen. The decals were very good despite the age of the kit. It needed noseweight, but generally the fit was quite good.

This was my project in the M3/M4 Medium Tank, Single Type Group Build. It really was a lovely kit to work on and I added a few extras from the Hauler PE set for this kit, as well as using a metal barrel and some resin stowage from the Black Dog set, also designed for this kit. While I was working on this build, Bertie started his thread for a possible Entropy GB, which gave me the idea for the burnt out turret scene. Luckily I had the parts for a Sherman turret in the spares box. It was originally from a HobbyBoss 1/48 Sherman. The figures and telegraph pole are from Tamiya and most of the green, scenic materials are from Woodland Scenics and Army Painter. As usual everything, with regards the painting and weathering, was done with acrylic paints, all applied by brushes. The mud texture is the only exception, which is from Vallejo. Kit: 1/48 Tamiya Sherman British IC Firefly Paints: Humbrol, Revell, Citadel, Railmatch, Vallejo acrylics, all applied with brushes Extras: Hauler PE set, metal barrel, Black Dog Stowage set, Tamiya figures and telegraph pole, spares box turret and various parts from a 1/48 HobbyBoss Sherman kit, MDF, expanded polystyrene packing, household filler, Vallejo European Mud texture, Woodland Scenics Blended Turf, Army Painter Grass and Flowers Tufts, thread and Lead wire WIP thread: HERE More vignette photos can be found: HERE Scenes from the vignette: Tank only: The full vignette against a white background: Thank you to everyone who commented in my build thread. Comments and suggestions welcome. Kind regards, Stix

I realise there has already been a phenomenal Procopius build of this and that Cookenbacher is also engaged in a cracking build but I've been wanting to get stuck into this since it arrived. It will be a little different as it will be built with after market decals to build the mount of Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire as he was then. Some pics which have all been seen elsewhere. More later, Thanks for looking, Cheers, Alistair

Airfix suggest painting the wing tip identification lights “glass” red and green however I thought that I’d drill a hole in each and fill the hole with Tamiya X-25 clear green or X-27 clear red. The base of the gun-sight was brush painted with vallejo black. Glazing fitted. Antenna mast nailed in place. Pitot and stirrup Gun camera? I’ve assembled both spinners and prop’s… …I’ll decide on which gets fitted to the airframe and then take some RFI photos. until next time as always, any suggestions, criticisms or comments will be gratefully received. rgds John(shortCummins)

Right, flat coat done, exhausts and fiddly bits on the underside and rear view mirror done. Canopy unmasked. Still to do. A little bit of toothpick cleaning on the canopy touchups where the filler was showing, set up the photo booth and get some prettier shots with everything on the stand. I now need to think about the next one. . Thanks for looking, Cheers, Alistair

I decided not to follow the steps in the manual, Airfix would have you attach the radiator before the landing gear, I think it makes more sense to attach the landing gear first? Wheels added… …and up on her feet. Airfix have done a really good job with the weighted wheels. The radiator sub-assembly was glued to the underside… …the rear flap for the radiator and intake(s)… I think that Airfix has missed a trick with the intake for the radiator as they joined it to the sprue using the “top front”, which will be visible, if they’d used the bottom rear then I wouldn’t have had to “fix” this… The joint was sanded and then given a coat of MRP black… …followed by Xtreme metal AK478 white aluminium… …and finally bolted on. Next I’ll be adding the remaining bits’n’bobs to the airframe. until next time as always, any suggestions, criticisms or comments will be gratefully received. rgds John(shortCummins)

Ha ha I am dumb enough, could not wait. I will do a bunch of little touch up’s but not too bad.

Hi everyone, This is diorama #3 related to Nachrichten Fern Aufklarung Kompanie 621 (NFAK 621) as you can see from the references below of the Sd.Kfz 251 likely attached to HQ of 90. leichte Afrika Division which inspired the diorama. The Kfz. 21 is a further conversion of a Plus Model Horch conversion to represent one of the vehicles used by Rommel and Bayerlein which is now owned in Germany. The Sd.kfz. 232 shown in the rear of the first reference photo is likely from Kampfgruppe Kiehl which was attached to Rommel. Other two armoured vehicles are modified AFV Club and the figures are modified and unmodified Dragon and ICM (Dragon's Bayerlein figure is an exact copy of the pose for him in Rommel's Kfz. 21 and the diorama). North African dioramas can obviously be challenging in terms of the scene going beyond just a palm tree and sand, so I decided to try some things to recreate a dried-up riverbed in Libya using crackle and still water products from AK. The tree is supposed to be an acacia. Anyway, hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I enjoyed creating all the components. References Here it is for comment... Thanks for looking, Jeremy Detailed Sd.Kfz. 251 interior before adding the top half... one figure later swapped out for the standing officer.

This is an out of the box Tamiya F4U-1D in 1/48. The decals are from Aztec, Salvadorian air force 1969.

Hi all Been working on this little beauty from Airfix, what a cracking little kit. Built OOB apart from the seat harness. Brush painted with Humbrol and Colourcoats enamels and weathered with oils and pastels. A really enjoyable kit Thanks to those who offered support and encouragement during the build. Chris

Hello Britmodellers, here one of my surviving older Models. Hasegawa built 1977 with Modeldecal decals (from 1972 🙂!) and a supered seat. Clear parts and silvering decals are clearly ageing now. Stencils are handpainted with Rapidograph, who knows them now? I was a Teenie then, so forgive me! 🙂 Cheers, Tom

New reference book. Should please the rivet counters. LOL Simon.

Decals have cleared customs! 🥳

I thought I'd share some pictures here of the Tamiya Honda RC166 kit that I built for the Turning Japanese group build. This is the first ever motorbike kit that I've tackled and I'm glad it turned out so well. I wouldn't recommend it to a novice modeller, but I would recommend it to someone who has built a few kits, because it should give you the confidence to tackle another bike kit in the future. As I was building this kit, particularly the wheels, I said "never again" but now it's done I'd love to have another go at one of these. It would be nice to add some of the detail parts and also to replace a few other parts with finer scratched details. With that sort of build I'd probably display the bile with the fairing off as the engine builds up into a little jewel that deserves to not be hidden. Although it's my first bike build, I definitely don't think it'll be my last. You can see the build thread here:

Well, it just had to happen! I like to see how things evolve over time and the Dornier Do 17 is perfect for that. I am currently building a Do 17Z in this GB but I now feel the urge to build an earlier one. The Do 17E has a different nose, different engines, even a different wing! While the Z has split flaps, the E has plain flaps. And of course there is a totally different colour scheme. This does not look to be as complex a build as the Airfix Do 17Z. For starters, there is no open bomb bay. But on the other hand the cockpit looks to be equally as nice as the Airfix one. I haven't decided on the markings scheme yet: either the box art scheme or a Spanish Civil War version.

After much trial and error I have a colour that looks about right. The photographs are really effected by the light source. Much darker under artificial light than sunlight. The true colour to the eye is somewhere between the two. After a coat of varnish and application of decals I had available. I'm now waiting on delivery of some larger roundels for the wings and some custom printed ones to finish it off. A company called Bedlam Creations (found via Google) are printing 'Rolls-Royce' for the cowl and the 'C' and PS853' for the fuselage. It will be interesting to see how good they are, may be a few weeks to wait.

These are the last build shots of the Audi before I move it over to the RIP section. It’s appropriate that it’s a 1985 Portuguese Rally depiction as the current Portuguese Rally is on this weekend and they are also celebrating 50 years of the World Rally Championship too . The final touches included moving the co drivers seat back , which maybe can be seen here The sump guards are painted white, but I have deliberately left them not quite finished , to create a used look .Both are blue tacked into place so they can be removed to admire the suspension ! The front one is huge , big enough to create downforce ! And here she is finally on her wheels . The tyres are slicks as the Portuguese Rally back then was both tarmac and gravel stages . A blob of washing up liquid allowed the wheels to slide on easily , although this is always a heart stopping procedure ! I used a green pen on the inside of the windscreen to make a sun strip . The windscreen fasteners I delicately painted silver . It wouldn’t be a rally Audi without a full set of spotlights. These are with the kit , are all chrome and we’re a nightmare to paint and assemble ! I think they are intended for the winged S1 so I had to make them fit , which I achieved using magnets . There are covers and lenses for all 6 lights , so the combination is up to the builder . This is the first time I have used magnets and I couldn’t believe how powerful they are ! The Audi rings on the grille are metal , but a decal and I found a blob of glue held them in place better . Thanks for looking and following this build . Gary .

Undercoated:

Here's my Hasegawa 1/72 M5 High Speed Tractor. Build thread:

Hello again, it's been a while. Spring is here. The grass is cut, the new flowers are planted, & the summer tires are on the vehicles. Time to return to do some modelling. As I was getting ready to start painting the modeI, I ran into a little setback. The good news is I've been able mix a close match to the RCN ships' grey paint colour. The bad news is I decided to complete the ship's funnel before applying the first coat of paint. Unfortunately, completing the funnel has turned into a lengthy project with lots of trials & tribulations. I found that none of the funnel parts supplied with the kit fit properly. Not really a surprise, as the quality of this kit really sucks. Here's a photo outlining the major issues I found; And, a photo showing the rework completed to build the funnel; I'm finally happy with the end result ... what a relief! Next, add a coat of primer to the reworked funnel and then start applying a coat of finish paint ... for real, this time . As always, thanks for following along. Stay safe! John

One of my favorite topics. F-4E Phantom II Hellenic Air Force Tamiya 1:32 F-4E Phantom II HAF 1:32 scale

Kit - Eduard 'Profipack' original issue. Paint - All acrylics. Decals - Kit & Aeromaster Extras - none. Bell P-39Q-20 Airacobra GC 1/5 'Champagne' Southern France September 1944 Not sure if this has happened to anyone else, but I genuinely forgot that I had this kit until it 'appeared' during a stash tidying session... happy, happy modeller ! Everything you see here comes from the Profipack box with the exception of a couple of decals. The build was so straightforward - not one to rush, you need to really think it through and read-ahead - but virtually problem free until you get to the wings which are realistically thick on the leading edge but unrealistically thick on the trailing edge. It's a known issue with the kit and easily solved with the robust application of 'some modelling skills'. After the usual primer-coat, I decided to try to achieve a heat-faded / bleached effect for the paint using the usual pre & post shading techniques and lightening the OD & NG tones (both Tamiya). I read that many of the French P-39Q's were taken from stockpiles that had been in North Africa for a few months in open storage so this is what I've tried to replicate. Weathering & leaks etc are mainly achieved with W & N oils and some MIG washes, the exhaust plume is Tamiya 'Buff', 'Red Brown' and dry-brushed oil-paint and I'm really pleased with how it came out.. Eduard would have you build the French 'option' as a late P-39Q-25 with a four-blade prop but by changing to a three-blade Q-20 and altering the side number I've employed a little artistic license (also explains the painted-over Stars'n Bars). It may upset a purist or two, but I can live with that. Please feel free to ask any questions, make any comments or criticisms. All the best from an Autumnal NZ. Ian.

- What else to say ? They just are CATS.......A world in itself we cannot understand, may be is it why we love them so.

Finished! RFI thread here:

OK, so it's minor progress but still progress... I clearcoated the little Lanzie. Literally every time I have the clear out for some other project I say to myself, "let's get the Lanz out and clear it"... but I'm lazy and never do... but now I did! It doesn't need much more work at all, just some detail painting, putting it together and a little bit of weathering... I just have to do it.

I clearcoated all the parts this morning, except for the engine which I hadn't painted yet, but now I did. Cab is looking good. I found some pics of a Hino engine online and some were completely metal, others were a little off the red in the direction of orange. So that's what I did. Transmission and upper half of the engine will receive metal coloured paint, I'll brush that on. It will make a nice contrast with the black and yellow. It's now the second time I broke this "coathanger" off... I think I'll replace it with some brass rod. If you're not sure about what I mean (this pic is a little off), take a look at the first picture in this post and you'll see.

More engine progress. The Cricut turned out to be a Godsend. I cut some donut shaped pieces and the exhaust flap segments into styrene sheet which is about 0.5mm thick using the 'Plastic Packaging' setting with higher pressure and the fine point blade. It will make 2 cutting passes which does not go all the way through, but you can then use the exacto blade and just wiggling it to get it out. Those triangular pieces are only about 6mm long, 2.1mm at one end and 1.1mm the other end.

I forgot to respond to this - your idea is what I actually had in mind. I've learned from trying to hand paint arresting hook and/or missile stripes that I'm a real lousy hand painter. I may get lucky, however, as the more I look at this colour photo of the plane I'm building, the more the fuel dumps look to be grey or white. I have some other photos where they look grey or white as well. More research! Cheers, Bill

More progress. I cleaned up the fuselage, wing and nacelle joins and glued the nacelles to the wings. I glued the wings and tailplanes to the fuselage starting with the port side: Starboard side was done and one of the under-fuselage aerials was glued in place (the other one will be fitted after decalling). The tailwheel and doors were also glued: The canopy, pitot, aerial and propellers were glued too: Considering that I haven't used any filler, plastic card or "soup", it has turned out okay. Just the decals to apply now: That's all for now. Dave

Thanks, guys. Moving along.... Body primed with TS-101 Base White. Quite a few rounds of filling, priming, and sanding to get to this point! Happy with how the front end has come out... Engine is under way, and is pretty well detailed. I think I need to figure out how to mount it higher in the engine bay -- not too much, but right now it looks like it's all hanging under the car. All the pictures I have of the real thing show the exhausts coming out through the rear valance either side of the moulded in grille, but as things are the headers will emerge from under the body... best, M.