Spec7

I just use fishing line with brass wire turnbuckles and brass tube from albion on WnW

I think i solved the problem of the canvas type fairing......having searched hundreds of picture on the web i cant actually find an original that had it fitted . I suspect it was more of a hindrance than a help especially if you needed to get hold of your handy gun in the scabbard on the forks and fire at some Jerry or other... I started putting the engine together and it looks like some sort of custom Harley of the 70's but it will tone down once i add some weathering and mud....well quite a lot actually.. I made a spring clip retailer for the ? well whatever it is like the real thing but its a bit big. My fat old fingers dont work well now with hings below 5-6mm I will post some picture of the wheels when i get some paint on them, i have shaved a load off the spokes, enough to warrant getting the hoover out but they still look fat...but getting there.

Very impressed with your underside wing to fuselage joins , top one turned out well also

I can see the problem with the spokes is they are moulded in 2 halves and slightly out of register. Not a very good pic but you can sort of see what i mean. I will have to whittle these down with a scalpel Basic engine parts, nice fine detail This is what i found online, and i will use this as a guide https://www.yesterdays.nl/product/harley-davidson-1942-wla-750cc-2-cyl-sv/

I am new here so not sure of the format for a build but if i rabbit on too much just say This is the Italeri WLA 750 from WWII. W as in the Engine type L as in high comp and A as in Army, also known as a Harley 45 because they were 45 cubic inch (740cc) A few of these were built in 1940 while the US pondered joining in the war but eventually they would produce 90,000 by 1945 and probably that again in parts. To me its typically American, large, heavy, slow and complicated compared with the British equivalent single cylinder Triumphs and Nortons that did the same job. I built the Italeri Triumph 3HW a few years back and always promised myself i would build this to go with it. This is an old kit first hitting the shelves as ESCI about 40 years ago, reboxed several time and becoming an Italeri model about 20 years ago. It looks well detailed, the spru attachments are fine and the plastic looks hard. It has rubber tyres, clear screen and what to me is a nightmare...Plastic .leather panniers and a plastic fabric fairing.. My aim on any build is to make it look real in photos and leather and cloth doesnt bode well. This is my Triumph 3HW. Also ESCI/italeri, 1:9 scale and the same age. You can see how i cheated here by removing its leather panniers and building the frames that would have held them out of strips of plastic card. I also cut out the plastic spokes which were 1mm and would have scaled up to 9mm and replaced them with piano wire spokes of 0 .5mm so about 4.5mm scaled up., everything else is out of the box except the push rod tubs on the engine which i made out of alloy tube because i cant paint a finish to look like metal however hard i try Anyway back to the Harley, i hope some of you will get something out of following this build even if its just side splitting laughter as it all goes wrong... and if anyone has some ideas to add realism to the build then lets here them ? I am already looking at the great big fat spokes in the wheels.... I did a quick search on Google for some pictures of original bikes and they came up about 50/50 this model and original but the giveaway on all the models was the spokes...My problem is these are 40 spoke wheels and there simply isn't room to put 40 holes in the hubs. The kit gets round this by merging the spokes into one at the hub and where they cross. ..Dilemma...

Ha ha yes i did the Triumph ages ago Basically out of the box except i made and added metal spokes made from piano wire because the plastic ones were way to thick.

Thats the one, i will be on the military vehicles thread next i think

Thanks Guys, sorry i should have said this is 1:48 of course. Engine is Aires and flaps are Eduard

My first attempt for about 10 years after a few weeks of lock down. Om reflection it was a bit ambitious but i decided i wouldn't buy anything just use some kits in the back of the wardrobe so the choice was not huge. It will also be a bit diverse as i have a 1:9 Harley for Italeri in my sights now

Sorry not a lot to follow really still finding my feet with building and photos etc. This site has been great for reminding me of techniques and tricks long forgotten and this Spit has really been a practice run to try out new and old ideas and to even see if i want to get back into models. anyway its done now, i will stick some picture in the "completed" section and have a look in my very small stash to see if anything else inspires me Thanks for looking

I have to say i am a little bothered by that surface texture in the plastic. Its almost going to need a Halfords filler primer to get it so it will work as gloss but then you will lose detail. Be very careful how you go , i tried to do a hawk in gloss black many years ago and it ended up in the bin as i kept getting a frosted finish.....GL

I'm sure this will be controversial but i tend to bin all my models after a few days after completion. I have always enjoyed the build but after that they are just bits of plastic. Its a bit like building a jigsaw. You dont keep it built for ever , you break it up and do it again or buy another. I cant really disassemble the models so i just buy another.

We had this the other day, Someone doing 34 in a 30 i think.

Just a small update, leaving the engine till last as its just held in place by 4 very small resin points and will snap off even if you look at quite hard let alone touch it

Yes sorry it was north weald fighter meet, must have been 1990 as i found a you tube video of the 1991 display there and it landed, sure it didn't when i saw it.

I remember the shackleton slow fly by at the fighter meet in about 1995 ?, it was quite high so that helped but it made a lot of noise and almost appeared to be stationery with everything deployed, it was a 2 minute flypast

Good news today, i dug out the compressor and airbrush that laid unused for 10 years and it it all worked, didnt even have to clean the airbrush My very old jars of paint have gone on semi gloss which is actually useful as it means i will be able to apply the decals without having to gloss first I assume the inside surfaces of the flaps would be interior green ? I know Spitfires dont bleed the flaps down on the ground like US stuff so allow me a little artistic licence

Struggling with even the basics here, Amazing how 10 years off really does put you back to being a beginner this has become a practice build so please dont judge me on it ......... I didn't use the resin interior , i think that was probably a step to far at this stage. Thanks for looking.

Sharing the way you do things is fantastic for all us Corvid refugees returning to the old hobby after all these years

As i have a follower now heres an update after hours of cutting little bits of plastic and slightly larger pieces of finger i now have some gun compartments in the wing ..you cant see it here but i have also cut out the lower edge to take some PE flaps. This is the front cut off and the bulkhead just resting in position, not to bad so far Not sure about the resin interior ? I sort of get the resin guns and engine because they are not in the kit but the kit has an interior and i sort of feel an obligation to use and improve the original in cases like this. I also think that the resin interior is in danger of becoming so fussy that detail is actually lost unless you have a magnifying glass...i will try and detail the original and i have the resin as a back up if needed. thanks for looking

More than welcome but dont expect too much as i am having to learn all over again as its been so long since i stuck anything together Several other threads here are jogging memories and bringing me up to speed. even basics like cutting parts from spru's...i just had a vague memory i bough a pair of spru cutters years ago and now after a good search i have found them

Interesting as i dont thin them, i just brush them out but the problem with that is about 7 day drying time . Heres another that has a good exposed cockpit from a few years back. this was an early attempt and i hadn't mastered turn buckles and my rigging is too thick I haven't done anything for 10 years but now find myself with time on my hands, i have started a Spitfire as a warm up and i am making a complete pigs ear of it. Incredible how you forget all the little techniques. I am basically starting all over again, Your build is excellent and every time i look i remember something else keep up the excellent work.

Ha ha , you asked, I dont want to hijack your thread....a rigging nightmare and my Bristol fighter

You say time to hide the cockpit detail but actually you can see quite a bit in this kit. I built the FE2B just for its cockpit years ago..

I now have the kit and i need to check that the panel lines will be a good guide for cutting in order to fit the resin parts. I can well imagine one will not be a direct fit for the other I think people automatically think upgrade parts will be better than the original but i'm not so sure thats always the case. I will certainly look at detailing the Hasa cockpit before i commit to using the resin parts. I also bought the Haynes manual for spitfire owners loads of detail pic's in there.