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Whirly

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Everything posted by Whirly

  1. Hello, we are nearing the painting stage: airframe is complete, just needing a primer coat to check for minor defects and then on to the canopy. Thanks for looking!
  2. I like your parallel with cooking @marvinneko, sometimes I feel like when you leave the heat too high and everything get scorched! 😆 Back to the build: I'm still battling with the engravings on the tail, I hope this is the final round with filler. I tried the experiment I had in mind with the wing slots and it worked quite well, better in the underside (again!) because the detail is more defined in the original MPM parts. Finally, for now, I'm quite happy with the mods to the engine nacelles, they are nearly ready for installation. Thanks for looking!
  3. With a bit of work it's not so difficult: the shortened cockpit needs stepped side consoles which are peculiar to the early marks. A bit of weight is needed in the nose before joining again the two sections. And that's it! I took care to cut the fuselage near to the widest point of the cockpit, so that after removing a few mm. the parts would meet again. Thanks for looking!
  4. Is this a specific mod of tha Canadian built lysanders? Just interested since I have one to build and found contrasting informations on the pilot seat.... Very nice start, by the way, I will follow your progress.
  5. Hello, sorry for the long hiatus: time was very limited in the last two weeks so i did only small progress on this build. I cut and added the longer strake from a piece of transparent acetate, because I needed something harder than plasticard to sustain the heavy sanding session which will follow generous applications of Mr.Surfacer. Hope to update soon with more progress. Thanks for looking!
  6. Thank you @81-er, maybe it's me, though I feel I'm investing a bit too much of my time in this model: every issue needing correction is absorbing much more time than I had planned, but you can't really ignore them once you know they are there. I can't imagine how @AdrianMF kept his commitment so high during his build! During the weekend I had some time to work on the tail rescribing everything (rudders, elevators, trim tabs) with variable success.... As you would rightly expect, the best results are on the UNDERSIDE 😠 Did the same exercise on the ailerons+flaps and those came out much better. On the opposite, you can see how the work on the leading edge slots doesn't bode well. I'm now thinking about a quick resin copy of the MPM surface detail with Oyumaru moulds, since I fear I will never reach the required finesse creating the slots with files and plasticard. And finally I started work on the last big issue with the Airfix kit, that is the u/c cutouts. As @AdrianMF already explained in his build, they are totally wrong to allow retraction of the u/c legs. I won't go for a complete rebuild of the wheelwells, it is not in the scope of this project, I just want to give a bettere representation of the actual shape. Thanks for looking!
  7. My T-6 Texan trilogy is finally complete, just on the finish line! HELLER kit 1/72 - Royal New Zealand AF - Red Chequers aerobatic team - 1972 Academy 1/72 - Royal New Zealand AF - Red Chequers aerobatic team - mid '60s Hobbyboss 1/72 - SNJ-5 US Navy Blue Angels support aircraft, at NAS Patuxent River in June 1948 See you next years, I've always plenty of KUTA candidates!
  8. Finished! Not one of my best builds, at least it's finished and archived. A big thank you to those who supported me along this convoluted path, especially to the GB moderators for helping us complete these unloved projects!
  9. More progress, seeing the finish line!
  10. There is hope! The canopy join is less than stellar and the fit of the Special Hobby masks could be better, though at least I'm seeing the end!
  11. I'm going to build this classic Airfix kit, with some improvements along the way. The livery is Alitalia, not the original pinstripe but the subsequent Landor scheme, thanks to these very good 26Decals. Quite busy at the moment with other GBs, I plan to start later.
  12. Definitely better after the Milliput treatment: see how the ailerons and elevators are of uneven thickness, now I just need to rescribe the joint 😱 Nose is nearly reconstructed, a good polishing and then I can try to join the nose cap. Thanks for looking!
  13. Alea iacta est! (the die is cast) I also replaced the exhaust with something more fitting shapewise (an old pen section) and I cut a groove for the long ventral strake. Thanks for looking!
  14. Sure, you can read more here http://www.archiviograficaitaliana.com/project/239/alitalia
  15. I'd like to join with a 1/144 Caravelle, late Alitalia livery (Landor scheme?) thanks to 26Decals.
  16. You're totally right Graham: I still need to engrave the missing line in the tail center to depict correctly the continuous surface. Actually I'm not happy at all with the result so far, I'm considering filling all with Milliput and rescribing completely the elevator AND aileron surfaces.
  17. By pure chance I was browsing the site when this thread was brand new, it was too good an opportunity to miss! Now it's time for an update since it's already fallen in the third page... First a look at the basic kit. I found inside an Aeroclub nose gear, will decide later about its use. I have also an Hobbyboss kit which may benefit from it. I took inspiration from these previous builds which are quite complete: http://www.ratomodeling.com.br/finished/new_breed/ http://hsfeatures.com/features04/xp84bd_1.htm The conversion is not that complex, but there are many changes to implement, so this is a list: - remove 1 scale ft from the cockpit and shorten the cockpit tub too - shorten the canopy of same amount and remove all the framing - remove tip tanks and build up wingtips - remove the auxiliary intakes below the cockpit - engrave movable trim tabs for the ailerons and rudder, remove the fixed tabs - add a long pitot tube to the left wing leading edge - the thin strake under the tail is much longer - the main wheel-wells have a different shap around the u/c leg (and so the u/c doors) - the tail exhaust is slightly longer and with a bigger diameter The last three I didn't see addressed in the previous conversions and it is interesting to note that most of them are not specific to the prototype but valid for all Thunderjets up to the F-84D included. This could be a job for Sword! First let's see the wings. I choose to make a quick resin copy of the Tamiya wheelwells to embellish a bit the Heller wings which are totally void. The result is a bit agricultural but not so bad. Wingtips nearly complete, tabs inscribed, wing cannon plugged and wheelwell shape corrected. See as I initially enlarged the hole for the leg attachment point and now I found it in the wrong place after changing the shape. With hindsight, I should have moved the attachment point instead of adapting the resin piece. Work is also underway on the fuselage: auxiliary inlets are gone and the early airbrake is installed (fit was not great...) while nothing has been installed inside. I preferred to make one single cut to avoid banana shapes and will add the cockpit and intake lining afterwards. You'll see I'm removing all surface detail and I don't plan to rescribe it: I choose the Heller kit for this project just because there's is so much work to do on the airframe which would ruin all the delicate engraved details on the more modern kits and the prototype is also very smooth in its grey overall livery. Thanks for looking!
  18. Ok, now let's see some actual building work. First I tried polishing the nose windows with the "new" products I didn't have nearly 30 years ago. A definite progress, making them at least presentable. Then I re-did all the filling which had shrinked notably, see how I used Squadron Green Putty in the first round. I wonder if it still exists as a modelling product... Had already an accident in these first stages, for some reason the lower nose broke up during a sanding session and part of it disappeared in the sink 😡 Time for a break! A lot of work is needed to make the tail presentable: I added plasticard shims to reduce the enormous gaps in the elevators. See as the groove is still very deep despite the shims. Surely this won't be right at the first round.... Something for the cockpit too, don't foresee anything special here. Thanks for looking!
  19. This I didn't know and you are right, the build is too advanced to follow this route. However it's a useful advice for those wanting to build their Airfix kits, definetly a big help. Thanks Adrian, you might have guessed that most of my to-do list was inspired by your great build 😊 I'm not going that far remedying the kit faults, though, just want to get this finished!
  20. You're right about what happened in the real world, though it's not my cup of tea with models 😊 I recovered the canopy and trying a second chance with painting: definitely want to finish this!
  21. I have a couple of 720s and some Minicraft 707, all 1/144 waiting to be built, so definitely add me to the list please!
  22. Thank you @Col.! I made a mess of the painting stage because no paint masks are available for the Hobbyboss canopy and I diddn't fancy doing it all with masking tape. So I resorted to masking liquid, but made a basic mistake: I totally forgot to mask the upper windows, realizing it only after the second paint coat... Then it was a long process of sanding with wet Micro-Mesh, at a certain point dirty water got inside the canopy ruining everything. I still wonder how it got inside. Long pause dedicated to fishing, meditation and similar quiet things, then I got back to this and found the canopy had got loose. To cut it short, I'm back to about three weeks ago and trying to find a working plan. I surely can't put this kit aside again because I will never finish it!
  23. Hello, sorry for the lack of updates: this build is not going well like the first two. I had a lot of issues with the cockpit canopy because the kit supplied item is too narrow, I tried to replace it with one spare from the Heller kit but I just couldn't make it sit correctly. In the end I managed to obtain an okayish fit with the help of these Berna clamps, which I procured after years of procrastination. By the way, after using them I can say that every comment (good and bad) you find googling is correct: they skip like mad, but if you are very delicate and try to help them with additional guides they are just the right tool. In this case, had I used a traditional clamp I would have probably crushed the canopy or misplaced it. This seemed to solve the biggest issues, but then I had an unfortunate sequence of accidents during painting and I'm still pondering the possible solutions. I hope to have a good idea before the deadline.
  24. Hello everybody, after some negotiations with the moderators I'm joining with one of the most primitive classic Airfix kits: I hope my sacrifice will instigate a retool appearing in next year Airfix announcements! This is a build I enthusiastically started a long time ago, certainly more than a quarter century. After discovering the many inaccuracies of the Airfix kit it stalled and never got to an end. Now it is just a matter of finishing what I started, because I always try to save my builds and the competition from the MPM kit is not really that strong. I know the builds seems quite advanced, having joined the fuselages and wings halves, though I actually postponed most of the work because I plan to do the following corrections: - correct the passenger door engraving - replace the engines with the Airwaves Wright resins - correct the bomb bay doors engraving - replace and adapt the transparencies with the Aeroclub acetate mouldings - modify the tailplane to make it a continuous surface with the cutout in the fuselage tail - change the exhaust arrangement - rework all the landing gear area: nacelles cut-outs are completely wrong. - rework the wing slots: position and shape are not correct. I planned to build a Photo Reconnaissance bird without turret, so I'm at least relieved from the hassle of correcting the abortion supplied in the kit: I even have an Almark decal sheet for this subject, though it seems to be a very obscure one and I couldn't find more than two very blurred images over the internet.
  25. Hello, I anticipated a lot this GB because there are so many wonderful subjects to build! My first will be the prototype which I plan to convert from the Heller F-84G kit. Now superseded by the Tamiya and Academy much better efforts, bust still enjoyable. Pictures to follow. Cheers Fabio
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