Christer A

That is a thing of beauty, PC! Cockpit work and the neatness of all glasswork is a thing to admire.

Firebrand it is! And I do have that Valom kit as well...

Hmmm, I do have A minicraft C-130A that I need a reason to start.... I really like the noseless-version!

This looks oh so tempting! I know I should finish all my other builds but the siren song is very strong... Count me in with a F6U Pirate (if that is eligible since it never took to the sea) or F7U Cutlass, or Blackburn Firebrand TF2 or Grumman AF-2S Guardian!

Thanks Pat! I plan to paint the nose tonight, so that I can put on the stickers during the weekend. Gunsight? I haven't even seen that one on the sprues? And thanks for the info about the 100th Group. It makes more sense then to use MSG as I did

Thank James! I had a lot of fun painting it, even tough I did it a couple of extra times. It turned out more or less as I wanted it too!

Thanks Rich! I have a feeling that this build is cursed in some way. The windshiled is faired in, all seams are seen to so now it's time to paint. Finally! Starting from the bottom, a nice even coat of Tamiya NATO black was the ide: A clear coat to protect it really darkens it quite a bit, which could help in the next step where I add some normal black to a few panels here and there. Some masking later and the gear bays could be colored in as well. Neutral grey (also Tamiya) seems to be the general accepted truth for camo P-38J so I went with that. The topside got Gunze Medium Sea Grey instead, and a lightened version of the same. The picture of Miss Ann shows a very solid and unweathered finish, but where is the fun in that? Let's just say that this picture shows Miss Ann a few months later... That Panzer putty is really runny though, so one cannot mask it all up, leave for supper and expect to have it stay in the same place once one gets back. For me that usually models at a geological pace this really puts me into overdrive. I still like the stuff, since it's so low tac and does not leave any residue behind. One swift demasking later and this is what I got: I think this "odd panels in blacker black" might work? I do have a P-61 and a NF Defiant that I could test that hypothesis on But after all this quite nice painting a few things jumped at med. There was still an few places where I needed filler, and once place where the plastic appeared to have melted? Well, there was nothing else to do but to roll up the sleeves, putty the worst bits and repaint it. Time to clear coat it, so that the stickers can go on smoothly. In my attempts to get a smooth finish I managed to get a tiny drop Self Levelling thinner on the glove that holds the model. Yet another fingerprint!? D'oh!

Here's a slight update on the wheels. The main wheel hubs are remade, and the tire pattern has been tweaked a bit. I have a feeling that the Tarangus wheel dimensions might be a little bit off, so I'll try to use my Google-fu to track down the proper dimensions. While waiting, here is a short clip with a J32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4654yXp7No

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Lansen's first flight! This will be celebrated by Swedish Air Force Historic Flight which will fly a pair of Lansen over southern Sweden and hit all it formers roosts. They're not scheduled to pass over me, but I'll keep a track on Flightradar 24 just in case. Of not is that SWAHF will fly J32:s since they were the ones that flew for the longest time, up until 1997. Not used as fighters but general flight tests, EW and so on. From the start it was claimed that the attack version would only serve for 7 years before being replaced, it ended up with 21 years in active service before Viggen replaced them all. On to my little build then... With help from @Rudolf_Filip and his 3D printer, we now have a first glimpse of how the airscoops will look in resin: The upper scoops will only be used for the A32A/S32C versions since they had a different (weaker) Avon engine. Most scoops has been tweaked a few times until a suitable size has been found and once I was happy I started to add them to the fuselage. A few extra intakes were also opened up just to complete the look. The gun ports were inexpertly drilled out to allow a couple of brass tubes to stand in for the ADEN guns later. While working with the fuselage in real life, I also started the next 3D project after the scoops. Here is a sneak peak. The number of ribs on the tires are wrong, the shape on the main wheel hub is also far from correct and so on, so this will need some more modelling time before it'll hit the printer. Time to get cracking!

That looks fantastic!

I wonder if it would be possible to convince Eduard to release the stencils separately this time? One of these buggers will wing it's way to me, that's for sure.

The more the merrier John!

Well, it says Tarangus on the box but it is Sword plastic, just like with another favorite of mine : Classic Airframes! And as with my previous CA builds, some addons are to be 3D printed: The first batch should be off to the printer very soon, and I hope they'll come out all right. I focused on the small intakes, vents and scoops that are found on the rear fuselage. The two rightmost ones are actually for the A32A and S32C versions (attack and recon) but I have one of them in the stash as well, and just maybe this could be popular enough t be turned into a small product? We'll see.

I think that's the case, yes.

Well, I survived the cleaning up of all parting-lines on the Airfix Tiffy, so this should be manageable since it's a lot fewer parts! A32A with it's closed gun ports are too easy... I think that if you start to drill at the rear end perpendicular to the trough, then one should get a good wall to drill through in the next step. At least that's what I hope will work