Dr Jimbo

Nick. They are all excellent. You are selling yourself short. I've been at it a couple of years and am way short of you. I love the Mossie diorama, and the hurricane is very well done too. I'm building a hurricane at the moment and am struggling with the same canopy issue. I was thinking of just pressing it down and glueing it, hoping it doesn't break. Fingers crossed. James(from Harrogate)

Amazing work for such a mini machine. I have no idea how you managed to make it look so clean and pristine. Well done. Top job. James

That looks fabulous. Your paint work and weathering are spot on. I've just read your build thread and taken some top tips. Thank you. James

That looks amazing. I love the battered winter camo look. I am a firm believer in the 4in rule especially with my models, but that looks impressive. James That looks amazing. I love the battered winter camo look. I am a firm believer in the 4in rule especially with my models, but that looks impressive. James

That looks fabulous. I love the pics, the backdrop, the paintwork. I can only guess how tricky that was. Sorry to be nerdy, but what sort of paint, thinning ratio and pressure did you use? I'm struggling to replicate that kind of detail with an AB. Thanks, James

For your second build after 40 years, that looks impressive. My second build after 20 years out was also a spitfire and wasn't half as tidy as yours. Well done and hope to see more. Have fun. Maybe I could retire early, James

That looks fabulous. Very tidy and very impressive. James

What a stunning plane and so beautifully presented. It looks real. I love your weathering. If I could make something half as good as that... James

What drama! I feared for the plane from the first sentence! And so eloquently written. I'm glad the spider bought it, your girlfriend didn't get the blame and the damage to the precious plane was only light. It could have been so much worse. All the best with the repairs, James

It's great seeing it all together. I'm loving this thread, the history and modelling tips. Thanks Elger. James

It looks the business. Bring on the rest. What a feast. James.

Hello Adrian, I've been following with interest, watching in awe and hoping to pick up some tips along the way. When you say you heated up a plastic sheet over the leading edge, how did you heat it? I'm struggling with inexperience and ill fitting light covers for a hurricane. I've got some clear plastic sheets but don't know how to mould them. Thank you for any advice. James

That looks stunning! I love the NMF which I know from experience is hard to pull of well. You must be chuffed with that. Top job. James

Looks great. Love the stand. It makes such a big difference seeing any jet with the wheels up. Top job. James

Nice Harrier. I like your level of weathering. Subtle and effective. I mainly build WW2 stuff, but am going to make me one of these next. James

Just seen this thread and been reading your original build thread. Very interesting reading, especially your clear explanations of how you did the oil stains and walk ways. Thank you for sharing your tips. The end result looks great. Weathering spot on. Lovely finish. James

Good job, nicely weathered. I love the way it looks armed to teeth and as if it's seen some action. I'd love to see more pics please if you have them. James

I'm with Enzo. It looks fabulous. Your standards must be incredibly high to say 'it won'! The weathering is effective without being OTT, the markings are tidy and generally it all looks good. What wrong with it? Welcome to BM by the way, James

Back again. Having waited for the door for ages, I just wanted to fit it and get on with it, and the thread took a back seat for a week. I found a good reference pic of the door and painted it as close as I could. Sorry its out of focus. Annoyingly the lost door turned up on the doormat an hour after I'd finished the new door. Oddly the doormat is 20m from where I build. Anyway, it looks OK to me and fitted well into the fuselage with only minor sanding and fettling. As soon as that was done I got on with priming. I wanted to use Alclad on a bigger area than the cockpit and thought I could do a bit of salt chipping later. It went on a treat but I was blown away by the way it shows up every, and I mean every, imperfection. I then spent a few days sanding, filling, sanding, scribing, reriveting and tidying. I then resprayed Alclad aluminium and tamiya flat red(dope) on the fabric fuselage. It may make no difference at all, but if I'm gentle with the camo layers, it might. It's an experiment. The primed result... Then pre-shaded. On previous builds I have run even strokes along each panel line but this time I wanted to have a slightly more irregular look. It's messy on purpose. Again it may not show through, but nothing to lose. I then put a bit of salt onto the leading edges and around the air intakes, then put on the first layer of sky. ABed the middle of the panels first, then pulled back and sprayed uniformly over the whole wing. Kept going until the pre shading was showing through just enough. I think I might have gone a bit far, but you can't tell on the pics. The added a spot of khaki to the remaining sky and resprayed various bits, then added some white and did the same. The effect is barely noticeable and certainly doesn't show on camera, but again this the first time for me and I may do more with this technique next time. Then I masked the starboard wing and sprayed the port wing Night. I did the same with this, after spraying a first layer I added a spot of white and resprayed some of the panels freehand. Again impossible to see from the pics, but to the naked eye it is more obvious and effective than on the sky wing. I then got out the micromesh and got rid of most of the matt roughness(to help the decals) and also give it a slightly worn look. I couldn't resist but take the masking out of the air intake and wheel wells to see how it all looked. Having faffed about for so long, I seem to have made a leap forward in a few days and am chuffed with the result. The last image makes the wing look a bit bleached. It's just the light. The darker blotches around the wheel wells and intakes are drying paint from touching up a bit too much salt chipping. They will disappear when dried, micromeshed and 'future'd. Now to mask the underside...... I'm always surprised by the emotional roller coaster that is modelling. You have good days and bad days. The bad days are when you are undecided how to proceed with the next bit of the build and stand for an hour or more staring at a piece of plastic not knowing what to do with it, then realise that you've wasted some of your precious child free, wife free time and not achieved a thing. Good days are when you do something new using all the advice from others and pull it off without making a mess. Today was a good day, Thanks, James

Erik, check out the extras for the He 111. I went a bit over board, but you're right, its all good practice. I've had a change of heart and will use as much of it as I can, even though most of it will be hidden. The Big Ed set has all the detail stuff for the interior bit that you can only see through the hole in the top and small side windows, but I'll give it a go anyway. The Verlinden set is largely useless, but the rest looks good. I've started already, filing some of the cockpit surfaces and replacing them with various resin and PE bits. The detail is not much better, but it was fun. The kit bulkhead at the back of the cockpit has little detail but the Velrinden one looks much better but is a terrible fit with large gap between it and the fuselage. Not sure what to do. I have bought some plastic card and am thinking of cutting strips, bending/glueing them around the upper edge(may need few layers) and then sanding/fettling/trimming and generally messing about with them til they fit. I like a new challenge. The seats from the kit and verlinden set both have seat belts moulded onto them. I'm keen to use the PE harnesses and am trying to work out how to get rid of the moulded harnesses without destroying the seat itself. Have a dremel with a million attachments but never used it for this before and can see myself making a hash of it. If anyone has any bright ideas, let me know. I might have a crack at the bomb bay set next, but don't know if I should leave the bomb bay doors open or not. If closed then there is no point at all of making the PE bomb bay as will be completely enclosed. The kit has the doors closed and I think it makes the finished build look odd leaving them open (unless in a diorama with bomb loading going on). I could do my first diorama, but it would take me ages and I don't know if I want to do too many new things on one build. Undecided... The Hurricane side door arrived today and I've already primed and painted interior green. I've discovered that Tamiya paints can be brush painted much better if thinned with cellulose thinners. Will weather and post photos over weekend if possible but my brother is coming to stay and likely will be too drunk to trust myself with anything. James.

Erik, the cockpit side door is on order and winging its way to me as we speak. I'm impatient to get on with it. Have start the He 111 and have taken your advice not to over think it. I will start a thread in the next few days. I have more detail stuff than I know what to do with but I'm going to leave half of it out as it won't be seen and will be a pain to put in... James

I am running out of things to do whilst waiting for the cockpit side door to come into stock. Finished the prop. Looks nice and clean and looks the right size now. Will weathering it later when I've painted the rest. Please note the freshly painted fence in the background. What better way to spend the bank holiday! I'm going to use sellotape for the wing light covers, and am going to airbrush the wing recesses where they go this afternoon. Then I'm going to twiddle my thumbs and wait. I've had a look at the He 111, my next build, but it's such a big project for me, with so much(?too much) detail that I don't know where to start. I will probably get going on that and then pause when the side door arrives. Balls, have just spotted the blob of paint on the spinner. Out with the micro mesh... James PS has anyone used sellotape for this sort of thing before? Does it go brittle and yellow round the edges as the model ages(i.e. years later)?

I feel like I've wasted the bank holiday painting the fence and not doing much modelling. Hey ho. At least the yard looks better and my wife is happy. I did manage to paint the exhausts though. Tamiya metallic grey then drybrushed with my closest approximation to rust. Then added a bit of black and did a bit more, then a bit of white for the tips. Then washed it with a dilute MIG dark wash. I think it looks a bit redder than I would like, but I'm happy and will leave it as it is. Tyres and prop/spinner tomorrow. James PS if anyone is interested, this is the pic I used to try to gauge the colours for the exhausts. I will keep this and use it next time to guide me.

Thanks for the ideas. I used tamiya metallic grey for the base steel colour, then drybrushed various things on top. I used this pic to give me an idea of what colours to use. It's a good close up and shows the different colours well. I then got my wife to identify them and tell me how to mix them. I think the end result is a bit redder than I was hoping for, but I'm happy with it. I need to find a good rust colour. I assume that is what MM burnt metal is. Thanks for watching, James

Troy, thank you as always. I've fixed the wrong link. Again the pics are great. The tyre pic is particularly useful and gives me an idea of what I want to try to replicate. As far as the exhausts are concerned, am I right in thinking metallic grey on first, the dry brush varying shades of dark red/brown/rust with a lighter something at the very ends/openings of the exhaust. Being colourblind, although in no way a major issue in life in general, saps my confidence in picking colours for things like this. As for chipping, of which I am going to do only a little, are you saying that metal would show through rather than grey primer or red dope? The fabric part of the fuselage obviously would not get chipped, but I might do an under cost of red to see if it makes a difference to the final shading. Thanks for the tip about flower plastic. I am in the UK in case you thought I was a yank by the way! My experiments with acetate so far have been unsuccessful. It is too thick and goes opaque when bent too much. Better go and buy my wife some flowers! James.