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Hi guys, This one has been finished for a few months but I never got around to do a proper RFI as I wasn't very happy with the pictures my iPhone was able to take. Even with some focus stacking, it didn't feel quite right. I treated myself to a second hand DSLR and after much tinkering with the settings, I have a few shots I'm happy to share. The kit is the venerable Hasegawa "modern tooling" date back to the early 90's. Aftermarket parts Eduard 73201 PE set Res-kit 72-0084 Exhausts Master AM-72-036 pitot Quickboost 72 011 Ejection seats Eduard CX135 Canopy and wheel masks Decals Main markings from Hi-Decal Line 72-057 @Diego Stencils from Caracal 72105 and Microscale 72-0051 Paints Mr Hobby Aqueous H303, H309, H310, H311 Mr Color super metallics (SM range) mixed with Mr color lacquers for color variations of the exhaust shield. GX100 for clear coats, MRP-126 satin varnish for the last coat. Canopy sealant made from strips of electrical tape (the thinnest I could find, but I don't recall the exact thickness). I "raised" the formation lights using aluminum strips prior to painting, a painfully time-consuming process which yielded 0 results on pictures The issues with the kit are well documented. In order for Hasegawa to offer all US and Japanese made production phantoms from the same core sprue set. A lot of sub-assembly are present and a lot of seems need sanding/filling. Enough chit-chat, pics below There is a mini-WIP here btw

Hi, Though I like early French jets and Special Hobby kits, I also like British aircrafts and other brands. I just love the looks of the Lightning and had to build one: I added below some explanations on the build for those who would like more details. Kit and extras: The Airfix F.6 with the infamous missing stabilisers box art was my choice: I intended to assemble it OOB until I came across the wonderful Baraccuda Studio sets. Being weak, lazy and really impressed, I purchased them: They are worth every penny. I also bought an Eduard PE fret but it focuses on the cockpit and ended up being close to useless, as many other parts looked to flat anyway. The pitot probe from Masters is also a must. Ejection Seat: The seat supplied with the kit simply does not stand the comparison with its resin équivalent, even when improved with the PE: Seat painted with Vallejo acrylics. Cockpit: Same applies here. The Barracuda Studio cockpit and IP coaming are way better than their plastic couterparts. A careful painting and a dark brown wash bring it to life and it does look busy: It even helps detailing the inside of the canopy: Exhausts: Again, the resin parts look way better than the kit parts. Painted with Vallejo Metal Color Jet Exhaust, followed by a black wash and a light dry brush with Vallejo Metal Color aluminium. Air intake ring: I decided to cut it off in order tomake life easy for sanding the joint, thin the lips and, I thought, have easier joint with the fuselage halves. I still think it made my life easier but still took some work adjusting it to the fuselage. Painted with Molotow chrome pen. Build: The rest of the build went OK. The plastic is soft. So much so that I ruined the tanks, hence their absence... There a few shrink marks on the flaps, but nothing catastrophic. Worse is the grainy surface. A killer when you want a NMF. I did not manage to get rid of all of it despite thorough sanding. Well, not thourough enough by the looks of it. There are a lot of scoops to drill or modify. I have seen better adjustments but I have also seen much worse! Caution: if you want to stay out of harm's way, it is necessary to sand flush the ejector marks inside the fuselage halves. Otherwise, the air intake, exhaust and cockpit will not fit correctly and you will be left with nasty gaps. I also improved the landing gear legs and flaps. Canopy: The clear parts sprue was missing in my box. I sent an e-mail to Airfix but being honest, I mentioned that even though I doubted it, I could also have lost the sprue. Well. They considered I had lost the sprue and asked for more money than the kit's value to send it. Therefore, thanks to a friend, I thermoformed one: Painting: I painted the model with Vallejo Metal Color paint. Mostly "aluminium" with some panels painted "white aluminium" and "chrome". The tail fin was masked and left glossy black. Decals: I used the kit decals without questioning their accuracy. 'hope that was not an error. Ifound them to be thick and "rigid" but they reacted very well to Daco Strong. I usually do not like to gloss after decals but that was necessary to blend them with the rest. Washes: I applied a localised wash inside the panel lines and around the raised details using a 50-50 mix of Black and Neutral True Earth washes. I applied a Vallejo European Dust wash on the tail fin. Weathering: I tried not to overweather her and kept my eye on the reference pictures all the time. I hope it did not go OTT. First weathering effects were done with the airbrush and a highly diluted NATO black. I then depicted the dirt accumulations, streaks, etc. using felt tip pens. And voilà! 🙂 Thank you for reading this far and please feel free to tell me if there are errors, inaccuracies and things to improve.

The Phoney War, Essex February 1940 A young 54th Squadron pilot hangs around beside his mount on a crisp winter morning, hopeful that with the good weather, the Jerries will send a reconnaissance plane across that he can hunt down. Having followed the Beacon Models project since day one I was very excited to get the kit onto the bench and the first impressions were very good. From the glossy and clear instructions to the high quality parts breakdown and easy assembly, these kits are easily comparable to the best loved Sweet, Platz and Eduard, but with the added benefit of having richly detailed cockpits too, which Eduard and Sweet in particular typically lacked at all. Finely detailed seats, accurate cockpit wall protuding detail, visible panel instruments and even a representation of the Spitfire control column will definitely reward a little careful painting. It is only a pity that the canopies cannot be posed open as provided. Assembly was so simple that both planes were on their legs within a couple of hours, even allowing for cockpit painting and research. A little seam line filler will be needed but it is a world away from the all-filler Mark 1 Spitfire 14s and Armory Emils. The kit at present just includes the one set of Mk1a decals, but has parts for several different Spitfire types, including the two-blade prop and thick antenna mast, so I decided to have a shot at an early war example DL-N which sported (probably) a black and white underside. Along with the rare B pattern camo. This was brush painted using AK 3G and Revell Aqua. You can see quite prominently here the deep panel lines that have attracted a lot of comment on this kit. To me they are no major problem - you don't have to worry about a panel line wash for sure! Decals were obtained from a few sources to complete the desired scheme. A Mark 1 Decals set was perfect for the lettering. I did have recurrent issues with silvering on this project, from several different decals. I can only assume the paints I used had a much more pronounced matt finish than others. I ended up stripping and repainting part of the wing to replace the roundels after that photo as they developed a very pronounced rim. Fortunately although some is still visible under the photobooth lights, it looks fine on normal display, so I won't be attempting to fix it further. I will be more careful to gloss before decals in future though! Then it was on with the fun part, adding a vignette. I went with a Thompson three wheeler from Ray Rimes Minatures - these were used in the early war on RAF airfields, although I don't know specifically if they were used with 54th Squadron. The figures are a driver from eBay seller 3djson and a pilot in resin from Heroes Models of Italy. With these added, the scene was complete: Aside from my own decal issues, I was very happy with this build, its a lovely kit and with all the parts in the box, gives lots of interesting potential. Thoughts, comments and rivet counting welcome....

Another belter of a kit from Airfix. The fit was superb and very little filler was needed. Primed with Tamiya Nato Black, Painted with Colourcoats Extra Dark Sea Grey and Light Aircraft Grey. Tamiya Nato Black, Rubber Black, White mixed a few drops of Buff and Flat Aluminium Mr. MetalColor Dark Iron Washed with Flory Dark Dirt, Citadel Nuln Oil, Seraphim Sepia and an oil dot filter using Windsor & Newton Oils. Finished with Windsor & Mewton Galeria Satin Varnish. Edit: I forgot to mention that I used the AeroCraft brass undercarriage set for this. Apologies to Alistair for neglecting to mention this as the set is fantastic and includes a corrected nose wheel. WIP Here. Thanks for looking, Cheers, Alistair

I'm calling this one 'Done', after posting a lengthy WIP. All I have left to do is fit the very long whip aerial on the upper fuselage but it will be transported back to the UK for SMW'23 so I will leave that until later. It took approximately 6 weeks to complete this build - pathetic I know when compared to other contributors to BM but this has been a bit of a record for me !. Hope you like it

LINK TO WIP THREAD: CHAR 2C Super Heavy French Tank, "The French Leviathan" MENG 1/35 Hi Pals, I finish the model, and as usual, a batch of detailed photos. It has been a very pleasant kit to build, without review problems, everything fit together very well, and also there are not a multitude of small pieces to get another complete and small one in addition... Personally I prefer it, I think that having more pieces does not necessarily make a kit better, and on the contrary, it ruins the fun by unnecessarily complicating the work and at the same time, the progress is very slow and not very fruitful. The tracks are perhaps the most complicated in the kit, although nothing special, they are just delicate, and when handling them, it is easy for them to open at some point, and have to be joined again, but at the same time they do it again at another point at the same time stress them That's why, as soon as they were in place, I decided to use glue. To say that the putty used (MIG AMMO), is a very good material, at least for me, it has served me very well, and I have been able to make the camo, which was a lot and complicated, because I wanted to conform to the pattern of the instructions as much as possible i was able The only negative thing is that you have to be careful with PEs, as it tends to stick and if it is not smooth, it is very difficult to clean. One of the grilles was damaged for that reason. Painted with the AMMO set for French vehicles of the time, and weathered with AK and MIG products. A highly recommended kit for lovers of ancient French armor, or if we want something different and quality for our collection. I added a photo with my M3 Stuart, for size comparison, it is not a figure, but it can give an idea of how big it was. It would have been ideal to have an R35, H39, or even an FT17, but at the moment I don't even have anything like that in my stash... Maybe when I lighten the stash in a century, I'll add one and upload the comparative photo. Seeing the finished model, I would love to make a Char B1, but the price is very unfriendly, I think it is too expensive for what it offers, if I ever find an offer, it would be an ideal companion for the C2. Many thanks to everyone who followed the blog, who took the time to view and comment, much appreciated.👍 Until the next model, I hope not too late, although it is becoming more and more difficult for me to decide which one will be next...disadvantages of having an oversized stash... Cheers Francis.👍 Some pics of real vehicle for comparative (Via Wikipedia), only for info purposes. I erase on demand admin if is request.

Here's my latest build completed for a group build on another site.

Westland Sea King HAS.1 XV666, No.826 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose, Cornwall, England, 1970.

Here is recently builded kit, Bf 110 E from Eduard in 1:72. Despite its age, the set is 11 years old, parts are well molded with plenty of crispy details. Fitting is almost excelent. Fuselage and wings are partially riveted but I deciced to add full riveting. On my YouTube channel you can watch videos about build and painting process of this kit: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDIZZvGCcrwaaPRq28whEweOyP9xufoe8 Enjoy watching, in the meantime it's time to move on to the next project.

I picked up this kit some time ago and started it during lockdown but never finished it. It was therefore an ideal one to return to after moving house recently and loosing the mojo, it allowed me to complete something which had been preying on my mind for ages AND allowed me to complete the first model in my new home This was the kit: I don't have any sprue shots, I didn't really take any pics of this before completion. I didn't want to paint it black so I found some lovely examples in yellow so... For once, I used the chrome parts from the kit rather than strip and Alclad them. Looking at these pics though makes me think I need to put a bit of panel wash along the door and bonnet joints to bring them out a bit as they are very visible on the real thing.

Hi all MODeller has decided to start reposting after the great Photobucket fiasco its been a long time! This is my rendition of XP 505 the Bedford Gnat made from the Airfix kit with a white metal conversion bought off ebay which was quite expensive but saved a lot of pain. Finished with Revell Aqua and a topcoat of Alclad Aqua gloss. Trying to get to grips with the technology that has overtaken this old git so hoping it works. Looks like its worked , best leave it at that I think!

Last summer we spent some time in Slovenia - a beautiful country! We also went through Zuzemberk, an old small town above Krka river. After coming home I discovered that there was a Wehrmacht HQ attacked by SAAF Beaufighters in January 1945. Here is my Bristol Beaufighter Mk.X of SAAF No. 16 squadron based in Italy, 1944/1945. A well known Airfix kit with Eduard PE parts, resin wheels and exhausts. The paints are AK Real Colors and decals by Xtradecals (insignias), TallyHo (code letters) and home printed (serials).

Greetings, colleagues! I have finished building a prototype of a French dragonfly flyer, the prototype of which I accidentally stumbled upon on the net. As it often happens with such futuristic projects, the device never took to the sky, and was "successfully" broken in the aerotube during tests, but left its mark in the history of aviation. Now its fuselage is in the Aviation Museum in Angers and is being restored. The model is made of various ersatz modelling plastics, sprues and some suitable off-the-shelf parts, paper clips. The cockpit glazing cap is made of transparent plastic, a stand is made (the model is fixed because of the shift of the centre of gravity, falling on the tail). In the cockpit straps and "helm" from MicroDesign. Paint and varnish brushes: urethane-acrylics GSI Mr.Color, GSI Mr.Metal Color, acrylic PC88, varnish Tamiya, + simple pencil. Enjoy your viewing!

This was among my last builds (alongside the DH89 for the DHGB) but not entered as I could not decide on a finish at the time. While I was waiting for things to dry with the Rapide, I came across a photo of NZ Tigers of the CFS at Tauranga, New Zealand in the book by Stuart Mackay. A simple scheme but with interesting additions of red. Its the 48th Airfix Tiger Moth with roundels from one of the kit options but serial and codes from generic decals in my box of decal bits of nimbers and letters.

At the other end of the scale, Ferrari 250 chassis # 1717GT. Built originally in 1960 as a 'standard' 250 GT Pininfarina Coupe, it was later crashed. That led to a re-body in 1965, and with a chassis shortened by Vaccari (though it looks longer that a 250GT rather than shorter) and bodywork by Piero Drogo's Carrozzeria Sportscars it reappeared as a very elegant GT. To my eye, it combines elements of '64 GTO, Lusso and even Alfa TZ2. It practiced for the Lavant Cup, but it didn't end well... Fingers crossed it'll be out for the race later this afternoon and then a quick polish should have it looking good as new.

Now the building began and I quickly reached step 10, even putting the photoetcheds in place. I decided to change both fuel tanks from the Tamiya T-55 kit. e

Hi there, These are some of my most recent completed builds. All at 1/72 scale. I try to alternate simple close-to-OOB builds with more detailed ones. Most following models belong to the latter category. I had a blank year in 2022. Started many, finished none! Seahawk FGA.6 - Trumpeter: August 2023 I started it in Apr 2022, got bored and only finished it last month. It demanded quite a bit of work, notably in the cockpit where details were scarce and the IP incorrect. I used a Quickboost seat (that misses its cushions) and scratched the rest. I cut some masks with my Silhouette as some decals were missing and others were wrong. Meteor NF.14 - Special Hobby: Jan 2023 The cockpit, fuselage halves and engine heads are really nice (to my eyes) and very little detailing was needed. The wings coming from an earlier mould are a bit fiddly and the new parts do not fit that well inside them. I got some Res-Kit wheels to correct the error made by SH on the rims. I depicted an aircraft from the CEV (Centre d'Essais en Vol - Flight Test Centre) that bore several variants of a colourful livery. AH-1S Cobra - Special Hobby: March 2023 A little gem of a kit that needed very little detailing: rotor head, handles and stuff inside the canopy, wiring on the TOW missiles. I opted for the colourful Turkish Airforce camo: A note of caution, though. Despite using Daco Strong, some stencils suffered from silvering and I struggled getting rid of it. Fouga Magister - Special Hobby: Dec 2021 I am very seldom pleased with my work. This is one rare exception, bar for the ground that I think is too "rough" It involved a lot of detailing. Not that the kit is bad, quite the contrary, but I kind of got carried away and never lost interest... Painted in Moroccan colours: Sambad - Special Hobby: June 2021 I am happy with this one too. The kit is lovely but I wanted to see where I could push the detailing, including scratching the DEFA gun, ammo box and the stairs. It depicts an aircraft during the War of Attrition, shortly before the transition to the Sa'ar: I just love the SMB-2. 😍 This was my third build and a fourth, a FAH Sa'ar, is in progress! Mirage F.1 EDA - Special Hobby: Jan 2021 I added some aftermarkt and self-made details to this already good kit and scratched the SAMP bomb. Aircraft from the Qatar Air Force during Granby: Mystère IVa - Azur-FRROM: 2020 Typical short-run kit that demanded a lot of work to make it look like the real item: replacing parts, rescribing, detailing, filling, sanding, filling, sanding and sanding again.... Thanks in advance for your feedback and constructive criticism. If you think worth opening specific topics for more details on some of these, please let me know.

Hi there, my first F1 car build. Easy build, painting the livery was the hardest job on it. Built OOB except for PE seat belts that I added.

Last week is an egg maritime, this week also some sort of semi-maritime. A german Landwasserschlepper in WWII, i.e. an amphibious tractor based on Panzer IV chassis, use to carry troops and supplies from shore to shore. I chose german blue/grey scheme for it. Then washed with sepia, brown several times. The rubber track in this box of kit is broken when i open it. Luckily, i bought in local shop, so could get replacement. If buy from online shop, i may just throw it rather than pay for replace parts. 1/72 Panzerfahre Working Photos: Product Photos:

"Hang on you're doing what now?"

Well, the kids are happy. They'd only just gone back, but school's broken up.

Hey all Bear with me, this is a bit of a ramble... I don't do a lot of scale modelling these days, I gave up, for reasons, and I have for the past few years been concentrating on Games Workshop figures/vehicles. Last summer and this summer have not been helpful either, it's been too hot for me, and I've been unwell both summers as a result, currently I'm in limp home recovery mode due to the heatwave at the end of June aggravating health issues (the same happened last summer) and thus making me unwell, but I seem to be managing so far with the current Indian summer (famous last words). I do however have an urge to do some scale modelling of a sort going forwards though, particularly around Xmas. Why Xmas specifically, I love Star Wars, not for the hokey story, but because it's a modellers wet dream. Xmas is always Star Wars time for me, back in the day (the 80s, mostly the latter half I guess) one of the films or the other were always on TV around Xmas, and so I always feel the urge to build a Star Wars model or watch the films around that time of year. Back in 2016 at Xmas I did a Bandai Millenium Falcon and in 2019 I did a small Hoth diorama with Bandai models - So, I want to do a Star Wars kit this Xmas. I considered many options, but as it's 40 years since Return of the Jedi, and Revell have repopped their Lambda class shuttle kit I decided to do one of them. It had gone OOP, so I never got around to buying one before, but I have secured one now. So, here's the plan, yeah I know, of mice and men - I've got references of what is purported to be a studio model, and from it and the movies we can see there are LED lights in the wing and fin tips front and back and under the hull, as well as the engines being lit, so I am going to replicate that. The engine lights will be relatively simple, ditto the fin and hull lights, however the wing tip lights will be the hardest part because the leading/trailing edges are quite thin, so not a lot of room to work with and I'll have to make/disguise channels for either wires or the fibre optics. All the electrics/electronics will be housed in the main body and I'll disguise the join so that I don't have to glue it, so that I can take it apart if needed. Parts - What we have there is some 0.5mm and 0.25mm fibre optic strands, some 0805 white pre-wired LEDs, some blue flickering LEDs (not wired), an Arduino nano (to programme the LED blink for the wing/fin/hull underside lights), two PCB battery holders with switches for CR2032 batteries, said CR2032 batteries, and 60mm round flight stands from Games Workshop which will be made to take the 5mm clear rod seen at the top of the image. For such a basic kit I get the feeling I'm going overboard, particularly with an Arduino to do a basic timed blink on some LEDs, but hopefully once done it'll look good. So, as stated above, I hope to get around to this at Xmas, I know that's a bit of a way off, but it gives me something to work towards, so please kindly stay tuned. Thanks for looking, C&C welcome.

I have had this kit in the stash for years and finally the "Above the Kaman Line" gave me the encouragement/excuse to build it. Until Bandai started producing kits, Finemolds were the by-word in Star Wars kits and they are still excellent to build. I built the smaller kit from Finemolds some years back and this kit is, naturally, very similar. I used Tamiya paints, the main colour is XF-19 and then weathered it with MiG washes and pigments. Build thread here: Size comparison with the 1:72 kit: Thats now my entire Finemolds stash built Have to build the Bandai ones in the future!

Rally car inspired meet at The Motorist today . Amongst the cars on show was this genuine Ex McRae Imprezza 555 group A car . It was used by Colin in 1995 at the Monte Carlo and Corsica rallies and then by Frederick Dor on the Safari as a privateer . The co drivers side A pillar has the holes , albeit filled , where the snorkel was fitted . Unbelievable attention to detail , a treat to see such a car free to view . Other group A homologation specials included this well used Cossie An early ST165 Celica GT Four Nice Integrale And these took my fancy Gary.

The two stressful jobs, where so much can go wrong, are done - exhaust stains and the "NIGHT DUTY" banner. I am pleased to report no issues at all. The banner was hand painted with Vallejo Model Color and the exhaust staining was an airbrushed, very thin mix, of Tamiya NATO Black and Flat Brown. You might notice I have started some subtle weathering such as chipping and dirtying the panels that are typically walked on. I still have a number of details to do. However, I'm getting my monies worth out of this kit and worth every cent. Ray

1:48 Star Wars "A New Hope" X-Wing from Finemolds OOB build, painted with Tamiya paints and weathered with MiG washes. Build thread here:

An oldie of mine unearthed recently to exhibit at Modelfest with a number of my other older builds as part of a theme I cobbled together featuring Aircraft of the 1930s. Its from the SH/AZUR FRROM kit of the single fin Monospar. They also issued a twin fin variant of which I think I have shown here before. The wings lack the reggie lettering for which I am on the search for a suitable size.

ASDA kids back to school clothes range are now including different coloured construction hard hats and steel toe cap boots

Trouble is that you are looking at it through 2023 eyes. As a Wrinkly who was around when that was new I can assure you there aint nowt so ugly as a modern car....almost any modern car. In fact modern designers all seem hell bent on out-doing each other to achieve a new level of ugliness.

Lots of interesting stuff in the carpark at today's Goodwood Revival meeting but this Graber-bodied Aston Martin DB.2 was pick of the crop:

That's good news Si and I'll look forward to seeing Pete's updates. It has been too hot to do any modelling or printing today, so I have been having a look at the radio fit that I'll be making for the Landy. The radio cage is coming along nicely. I've done the first radio. and I'm rather pleased with it. cheers, Mike

Saved from partly built scrap kit with via dolorosa. The kit was mostly there, front suspension and front wishbones were missing and there were only one rim and no rubber for any corner. Mainly due to this I decided to draw inspiration from Japanese Kaido racers even if this is not full-on one. I polished through the lacquer four times. Three out of four times the base coat chipped out from the plastic, revealing the white plastic. With normal colour this probably wouldn't have been such problem but I went with Nissan's Midnight purple which was black coat -> purple -> sort-of clear paint -> purple metallic effect -> clear coat; so this basically impossible to repair without spraying the whole body over and it shows. Also in the fifth time I didn't polish as much as I would have wanted therefore it's not as glossy as I would have wanted. Rims and wheels are DIY 3D-printed, some parts are borrowed from other kits and some are miscelanneous. E.g. front brakes are from tamiya's R34 Skyline and rear brakes from Fujimi's MR2. Seat covers made from wooden marbles were pretty common in Finland up to 80s-90s (mainly so the seats wouldn't be too cold) so I though they would fit the theme pretty nicely and are made from 0,8mm glass marbles. Floor mats are vinyl clothing, antenna is made from steel tubes and pin, wipers are etched and so on.

After many Tu-134s, a Tupolev Tu-154M lined up to the row now. This short lived livery can help me to bring back my memories from the good old days. Pannon Airlines was a Hungarian charter airline founded in 1999. due to the demands of a tour operator, called Jorgos Travel. They operated this only example (HA-LCX s/n: 88A788) from their Budapest base to the different mediterranean holiday destinations until their bankruption in 2002. After they cheased their operation in 2002., the aircraft was sent back to the lessor. Zvezda kit 1/144. + extratech accessories, Perfect Flaps/slats: www.laci-ltd.uk as always, alias Ladislav Hančar, Decals: HAD (www.hadmodels.com) by Szegedi Ferenc + Authentic Airliners.

This is another kit that was started earlier in the year and crying out to be finished. If you haven’t got one of these treat yourself. It really is a monster step up in quality (see what I did there). Its finely moulded and comes with masks, etch and decals that you need to be careful with but work well and are in register. The aircraft was designed to be a replacement for the An-2 and was code named Clod by NATO. Not exactly a name befitting the attractive Little Bee.(Pchelka) Its finished entirely from the box as an East German example painted with Xtracolor paints and varnishes, Flory wash and Tamiya weathering powders. Hope you like it. What do you get when you muliply An-14 by 2 An-28 (PZL Mielec M28) Another superb kit this one by Aeroplast, I built this some time ago in Vietnamese colours. Thanks for looking Pete

And then one day we decided that we were fed up with sleeping in and living in a clean house. So we had kids...

@Neddy I'll second that. I forgot to add a couple of spots from this week. A Jaguar XK140 in commuter traffic in Lincoln that I've seen before. And, to add to the BMW bit above, Waiting at Holdingham roundabout (Lincs) when a pre Bangle 7 series swept past right to left. Proper motor! Oh, and I found this...

I'm probably showing my age by observing that the one that really does it for me is the Mk 1 Cortina with the twin-cam engine.

This is another in my sort of series of "Building models of toys I had as a child" I remember owning a matchbox Europa and in fact i went and re-bought one before this build, but it is in blue rather then yellow

Update. I have contacted the reading room (research) at RAFM Hendon with the aim of getting the individual AM78s for the F-4J(UK)s. Currently the remote facility is "paused" but I have been invited down at a time in November and should be able to view - and hopefully copy - the records for ZE350-ZE364; these should give UK arrival dates (and therefore batches) and dates of major services and therefore which airframes were repainted. Keep your eyes open for further updates, folks.

I am pleased to say this is now complete! Here are a set of RFI pics, I'll post the best 2 or 3 into the gallery This won't be my last build for this GB considering how much longer there is, but for now need to build a non-SF subject See you later!

More painting (thanks to Mr Color lacquers): I should have lightened the brown I think. Bit too dark out of the jar. And I probably built it up just a tad too much On the other hand, in trying to keep the weathered effect from the mottled black basing I was probably a little thin with the mid green. Will need to go over a few spots. So there will be touch-ups! Didn’t quite get my transitions between colours right. This is a more complicated scheme to paint than my usual fare of low vis grey(!), and the Phantom’s shape is obviously fairly complex. So good experience building at least, and should clean up ok if I’m careful, even if I’ll have lost a bit of the black basing effect.

I have a business plan for electric cars. Stick on grilles. Use Double sided tape and . Et Voila! This time next year, Rodney....

The HAS5 bit is easy; it’s all there in the kit… but the weapons bit is not, because Airfix haven’t included weapon carriers (at least in this boxing). If you can find one, there used to be a FlightPath set to convert the Hasegawa Sea King into an HAS5, and it included some nice weapon carriers (white metal inside with brass exterior). Pretty rare now., though. I face the same issue. This build is essentially a test run, OOB, HAS1… but in future I can definitely see myself building aircraft that I actually flew, notably an HU5 in 819 NAS colours, and probably an HAS6 as well. I suspect I will end up designing and printing some weapon carriers; the carriers themselves aren’t that hard (being box-shaped), but the compound curves of attaching them to the fuselage are what pushed my Hasegawa HAS5 (ZE419) onto the shelf of doom in the first place. This build is tweaking my interest in digging it out and finishing it, though there is the little matter of Ark Royal, too. Short answer is you’ll either have to wait for after market or scratch build them yourself. The weapons themselves aren’t too hard; you can get after market Stingrays and Mk.46s, and/or purloin a Mk.11 DC from elsewhere. Hope that helps!

Thanks Max, I've used it before for the same purpose and got pretty good results Hopefully the same will apply this time Thanks John, to be honest I'm not sure, my stock of Alclad is running down so for some time I've been consolidating the remains of what was left in one bottle There's definitely some White Aluminium, some Dark Aluminium and some Stainless Steel, but I'm not sure they were the only ones, and what the proportions are now is anybody's guess... Thanks Alan, also good for oleo struts (if that is the correct terminology for the shiny part of the undercarriage leg) but it can be problematic getting it to conform to a tight curve; for the landing light backing there is no such issue of course Cleaning up the wings took a lot longer than I thought, the leading edges had seam lines that were stubbornly resistant to a cosmetic fix and demanded proper filling and sanding. My two least-favourite modelling things. However once that was done, I got the engine nacelles put together: Again, these needed some filling and sanding to eliminate (or at least hopefully eliminate) the seams. I used Aluminium for the gear bays as well, but if you follow the paint call-outs in the instructions you would do these Interior Grey-green, so that's up to you to decide After that I got the engine pods fitted to the wings: It's not really visible in the picture, but guess what? They're going to need some filling and sanding Cheers, Stew

Indeed, think I will make my second entry if (lol) it happens a jet possibly an raf desert storm one to go with my victor, anyway hope to get it done tomorrow, also 2 more previous builds are in the inspiration gallery

Hi everyone I made a start on the P-40 over the past couple of days so here are the first progress pics. Side walls first. The interior colours for P-40’s are a little tricky to pin down. I ended up playing safe and going for interior green (AK real colours) and going by photos on line and in reference books added just a tiny drop of Tamiya yellow green. 63FE02DF-60D5-46C1-9B98-413434F69287 by James Halls, on Flickr I added the oxygen regulator, the round bit at the bottom punched out from some plastic card. I’ll add the pilots hose later on. ACD6354B-686D-40CB-BDE1-713C9E7D76BE by James Halls, on Flickr The cockpit floor. Again painted interior green and I used a torn off bit of foam to add some chipping to the floor as I’m pretty sure this would have been happening in desert conditions. 9F854D92-41A1-4D44-80A5-714895805955 by James Halls, on Flickr Having a rummage through the spares box I found a couple of resin seats by Untracast that I’d forgotten I had which is a bit more in scale in terms of thickness. The frame work on the back didn’t fit the location holes on the kit parts so I sanded it off and used the plastic part from the kit. The seat belts are from Eduard. The chipping was done along with the cockpit floor. A25E27E1-5371-4BF9-92A3-C704BA3D44A7 by James Halls, on Flickr I also painted the radiator intake. The top and bottom parts come separately so the a slightly tricky seam to sort out here. 317FD6B6-F611-4868-8BFD-11A3BBC3AAAD by James Halls, on Flickr That’s all for now. Weathering next. Thanks for looking. James

I used Tamiya's Lancaster kit to backdate it to Avro Manchester. From Sanger's kit i only used the engine nacelles which i reworked a lot as they were outshaped, outer wings and the clear parts for upper and rear turret. I scratchbuilt the bomb bay, turrets internal structure, fuselage interior, lead landing lights ,exhausts, radiators,propellers. I reworked the poor Sanger vacuform wings with Archer resin details and rescribed the panels and the tail section. The Browning guns came from the excellent MASTER sets. All other details such as cockpit, flaps etc came from Eduard biged set. The roundels on wings were painted using masks. All other insignia and squadron codes are from Xtradecal sets. I painted it using Xtracolor paints. It represents an aircraft from 207 squadron RAF at Waddington Lincs. during 1941.

Something nice and easy; a Tamiya Mosquito pretty much straight from the box. I only added some decals from Moose Decals. They are pretty nice and you get quite a few options, but only enough national insignia for 1 aircraft. Sweden purchased a mixed batch of nightfighter mossies post war, that severed into the early 1950s. Some were left in British colours, some were repainted. This machine was one of those that was repainted.

Missus has got a new pot plant; 🤣 Keith

Hi Bill and Alan, definitely the washer bottle filler, as Alan says, never ever saw it been used/filled/refilled!!! Colin