Bonhoff

Ta - Changed now.

Thanks - I used smoke coloured "Invisible" nylon thread which worked fine on the control runs from the back of the wing to the tail - Apart from being invisible The same thread wouldn't attach to the pegs I'd attached to the control horns - Nothing would stick the nylon. Hence the black polyester thread - it's the only stuff I had that would stick. Will change the nylon another time.....

Lovely finished builds in the gallery...... A question - How can I add "Finished" to my thread title?

Pictures now added to the gallery. My thanks once again to Paul J for the replacement decals to replace my over yellowed originals. Think I need to build something without rigging now....

Airfix Ford Trimotor - 1/72nd Scale American Airways markings - Built OOB with control lines added from thread - Painted in Vallejo and Tamiya acrylics.

Finished about 20 mins ago. Photographed while paint and glue were drying!! I guess I do a page in the gallery next??

"Parkinson's Law – work expands to fill the time available for its completion" And here it is - nearly complete - Apologies for the blurry picture. Some slightly less blurry ones below. Just have the forward control wires from the cockpit to the wing to redo and it's finished. And yes - It has been a bit "challenging"

Not much rigging compared with some of the other builds on here but the control lines are fairly obvious so it seemed a good idea to add them. The guides were descibed previously but also added the aileron cables to the wing too. All the cables were made with smoke coloured "Invisible" thread which really could do with being more visible.

Props painted and decaled. The engines were painted black, drybrushed with Citadel's Boltgun Medal and then washed with Citadel Badab Black. The exhaust manifold on the centre engine supplied in the kit decided to snap while I was attempting to persuade it to conform to the back of the engine. This required a new manifold to be manufactured using plastic rod and the collector pipe from the original part. Then I attached the nacelles to the main struts. I'd left the minor V shaped struts off as it seemed that they needed to go in once the nacelles were in place. This turned out to be the case but it was also very tricky to maneouvre (sp) them into position with the nacelles in the way. Eventually wrestled them into location. Undercarriage then attached - We're on the downhill bit now - and all the other ancilliaries added over the last couple of days.

Had quite a productive hour last night so should be OK now - Am expected to complete tiling the bathroom on Saturday so was banking on Sunday to work on it. Just engines to add to the nacelles, wheels and spats, bit of rigging and sundry items left to do.....

Saturday? Thought the 16th was Sunday or have I missed a trick? Better get my finger out....

Thanks for the tip - I've done a bit more on the Tri-motor but it's going to be a close run thing - Decals have been added (Corrugated surfaces - Aarrrgh! ) the engine nacelles now appear to point in the same direction and I'm currently attempting to rig the control lines from the cockpit to the wing.

There's a number that I really ought to get sorted before I get on with the rest of the stash. So..... 1/700 USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) / USS Coronado (LCS-2) 1/100 Lightning F6 / A6-A Intruder and A7 Corsair II 1/35 - M901A1 Along with AMT's finest - a Cutaway Millenium Falcon (Suffered an attack of AMS) / Darth Vader's Tie Fighter (Warped beyond belief) and Trade Federation Droid with STAP (If anyone can tell me how to make the droid articulate enough to actually fit on the blooming STAP pedals please let me know!)

If Jeff Goldblum was using a Windows based laptop..... That flipping paperclip would have appeared and said "Hi - It looks like you're trying to save the world....."

2 coats of Vallejo Model Air Aluminium and it was time to mask it all up. Started off with painting the red leading edge - Masking took a bit of effort as you've got all the corrugations to sort but it turned out a lot better than I'd expected. Next up was to mask the black areas - A couple of hours work here..... Black is Tamiya Matt acrylic. And here it is unmasked - I've obviously got some touching up to do.... Another view - Once it's touched up I can give it a coat of varnish.

Nice model - nicely presented.

Ozmods - http://www.ozmods-kits.com/conversions-upgrades-accessories-1144

As mentioned above - The newer Revell moulds are great but some of the 80's moulds less so. These are the ones normally in the grey boxes. The F111 needs a good deal of filler and the enormous gap in the fuselage where the swings sweep back could probably do with addressing as well - Wish I'd thought of that before I glued mine together - Canopy reminds me more of an SU24 Fencer. No cockpit innards either. The F-4E Phantom looks suitably Phantomy but IMO the canopy has issues. F-106 - Fuselage seems to be wrong sectionwise, engine inlet fences missing, oversized falcon missles nearly drag on the floor if you show them deployed but it's an attractive subject nonetheless. Mirage F1 - It's in my stash but I've not started it yet. Looks OK though. F-18 - Grey box one has definitely been superseded by later ones. Sure there's others in the range but these are the ones that spring to mind. But my biggest issues with all the above is that I've had nothing but trouble with the decals - They don't stick at all unless you nail them on. Sorry if this appears to be a hijack but does anyone have opinions on the 1/144th scale kits available from Minicraft these days? Would love to see a new tool F-4 B/C/D/J/K/M/N/S as all I can get are various E/F/G models without conversion work (Liliput Air Force)or tracking down the old Otaki kit....(I'm willing to forego the different fuselage shape of the Spey powered ones just to get the short nose in 1/144th) And - Is it me or do they still take as much time to build as a 1/72nd?

Airfix Hampden?

There were quite a few decals

Please may I present a "Work in Progress" I occasionally build ship models and picked this up to keep myself occupied one night on holiday while the family went to see the Chuckle Brothers. Wished I'd gone to see them now. Detail soft, decks didn't fit, helicopter is a featureless lump. The only reason I've persevered is that I have a few weaponry spares left over from a "Pitroad" Spruance class destroyer that I was able to use in place of the hopeless Minicraft ones. Had to replace the gun barrels when the kit ones snapped while being removed from the sprues - Hooray for the zillions of spares left over from my Dragon "Independence" CVL. Given the hopelessness of the kit I took the liberty of a little experiment and converted it into a waterline model.

Another one out of the stash and on the shelf.....It was a delight to build but the varnish, decals and wash have all conspired against me! :shithappens: Built OOB - Airbrushed Humbrol Enamels.

10: Progress - As mentioned before I've used some styrene strip to make new ribs where the fuselage top meets the sides - The ribs were then sanded down to make them blend in a little bit better. Shame the camera shows just what a cack handed effort it turned out to be... And there's the control cable guides as promised. Picked up the smallest diameter brass tubing I could find at MZ and then cut three little lengths. These were then glued to the fuselage and checked to make sure the nylon line would pass through them. Then repeated on the other side. My apologies that they don't truly represent the prototype but I can live wth them. At least the cables have a home 12: Cockpit masked and thin white primer coat to check for blemishes. There's a few. And of course a "DOH!" moment when I realised that I should have primed the cockpit framing grey instead. 13: And on to the engine mountings. Quite early on in the build Old Man warned me that I'd expect the kit to put up a bit of resistance but haven't had much from it so far. The kit's just ambushed me! The instructions need some serious understanding at this point (How any young lad would have understood them back in 1969 escapes me - Refer to a later set online if you get the chance) and, although I think I've interpreted them correctly, the engines have been loosely placed on this photo and look.... The Starboard motor is pointing inwards and the port is pointing straight ahead. Hopefully I just have to fill and drill to correct it. You will also notice how the other undercarriage brace/wishbone has helpfully fallen off so you can see more clearly. Another little tip - My head was starting to hurt trying to identify the port and starboard engines so I painted the engine locating rings green on Starboard and red on Port. 14. There's always a danger that upon the purchase of a new tool or material you start to find reasons to use it. So here's a tale of when is a bad time. I'd started work on the exhaust system for the central engine and discovered that the collector stubs moulded on the exhaust manifold don't actually line up with the cylinders. Suitably inspired I set to with my set of mini drills to drill into the back of each cylinder to accept a stub made from the aformentioned brass tube. I then started dilling out the manifold to accept these stubs. Partway through I attempted a dry fit only to discover that the engine wouldn't fit with these bits added. The stubs have now all been removed and the manifold will be glued directly to the backs of the cylinder heads instead.

Crikey!! Well at £90 I'd hope the front spoiler isn't misshapen like the one in my stash. Just had a quick look round on the interweb and the Revell one seems difficult to get hold of too - which might explain the price of them these days.

Got one of the ubiquitous Tamiya Silk Cut Jags that's been sat in the stash for the last 20+ years. Any chance I could use that given the number that are likely to be built already?