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hsr

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Everything posted by hsr

  1. I ordered directly from Plus Models and mine arrived today. It looks pretty good with minimal flash and a very nice decal sheet. I ordered the wheeled version but it appears that the only difference between the 2 boxings in the cover art and the decals. The sprues appear the same. Not shown above is a small packet of resin parts that make up the engine with individual cylinders, exhaust and intake stubs. I also have the Ardpol kit and for comparison here are the 2 fuselages: Note that the Plus Model one is a bit longer. I did not measure them so I have no idea which one, if either, is correct.
  2. It really isn't that bad a kit. I thought the T-34C was much worse. Thanks
  3. my browser won't show the pictures because it says the web site in "compromise"
  4. Here is my build of the Sword 1/72 Northrop T-38C Talon advanced trainer. This kit has a reputation of being hard to build and while it is probably not for the beginner I think it went together pretty well. The kit consists of 22 plastic, 19 resin, and 3 clear parts along with a color photo etch sheet. The entire interior is made up of resin parts including exquisitely cast control sticks, which unfortunately were impossible to remove from their pours without breaking them. The color photo etch was of Eduard quality and fit the resin very well. The finished cockpit fit into the fuselage perfectly. Unfortunately things went down hill from there. The 2 main issues were the canopy fit and the wings attachment. They really, really want you to pose the canopies open and have molded them that way. If you want to have them closed the fit is bad and needed a lot of filling and sanding. The wings are a butt joint to the fuselage with no indication of exactly where they go, and the instructions were were no help with vague drawings. Also while they supply you with a resin pitot tube the instruction make no mention of installing the part. I ended up using a Master brass one. For paint I used Humbrol 125 for the FS 16118 and AK Real Color ADC Grey for the FS 16473. The decals were nicely printed, but I have found Sword decals being very problematic in the past so I also got a Wolfpak sheet 72-041 as a backup. As it turns out the Sword decals worked very well for the most part, but a couple broke while removing them from the paper so I used a mix of the Sword and Wolfpak ones. I had a problem with both type silvering, but was able to fix that. So here it is: Next up in my arcane schedule should be the North American T-39 Saberliner, and I have the Anigrand kit, but with the recent announcement of the Sword kit I am going to wait for that first. So next will be the Wolfpack T-2C Buckeye. Enjoy
  5. Yea, I am going to have to start doing that.
  6. I use CA exclusively for filling on all models, but I have only seen this on resin seams that are under stress.
  7. I still have builds that go back to the '70s, but they are mostly plastic.
  8. Today it appeared on their web site https://www.plusmodel.cz/en/AL7038-Martin-T4M-kolova-verze
  9. My modeling tastes in recent years have tended to the obscure. This means that I build a lot of resin kits. Recently due to some home renovation I have to move some kits and to my horror noticed that seams that were perfectly filled and painted are now popping open. This seems to be most prevalent with Anigrand kits. Being Anigrand kits that was a bit of warpage in fuselage halves that required some gentle persuasion to meet and being resin I used ZAP CA+ to do the gluing. I can only conclude that over time the glue is failing. Has anyone else seen this, or have another explanation? I guess I could use epoxy in the future, but it is such a pain to mix, and then wait for it to harden.
  10. hsr

    Holy Grail kits

    I have a bit of an eclectic list of wants, but unavailable: For ships all in 1/700, and 1/720 just doesn't cut it: A Tennessee Class Armored Cruiser (ACR 10-13) CVA-59 Forrestal CVSN-65 Enterprise Aircraft, mostly from the "Golden Age" of flight, all in 1/72 in any medium (vac, resin, plastic) Aeronca L-3 Berliner-Joyce P-16/PB-1 Boeing FB-5/PW-9 Boeing F2B-1 Boeing XPBB-1 Brewster SBA-1/SBN-1 Curtiss PW-8 Douglas B-19 Douglas DT-2 Hall PH-1 Kaiser-FleetwingsXBTK-1 Martin XP5Y-1 Martin P3M Martin T2M-1 Martin T3M-1 Naval Aircraft Factory TS-1 Standard E-1 Taylorcraft L-2 Vought VE-7 Vought FU-1 And for armor: M44 155mm Howitzer If any of these have ever been kitted and I just missed it, please let me know
  11. While it may have been shown, and maybe even sold, at the Moson show it is not available on their web site, or anyone else's. So calling it "released" may be premature.
  12. That is how I interpret it, but I used my 1/72 ruler and the 55' 3" number. I don't think it would be too difficult to fix the Italeri tail with sheet and strip styrene, but since I already had the Fujimi tail I used it. Thanks
  13. According to Scalemates.com https://www.scalemates.com/kits/revell-04579-grumman-ea-6a-wild-weasel--148071 Revell made a 1/48 EA-6A and the Hasegawa is a rebox of the Revell kit. Thanks
  14. Except that Italeri messed up the tail and Fujimi missed out on the wing cord A lot of steps and if each one introduced a small error it adds up Thanks
  15. @Tailspin Turtle Using my Murphey's Rule 1/2 ruler the drawing in the D&S book come out to 54"9" So @Smudge it would look to be that the drawing is off
  16. I wish I knew, but I have no way of telling. Perhaps @Tailspin Turtle or @Dana Bell can chime in and say that I was just holding thing wrong. Thanks
  17. Thanks. I like the way the colors and markings came out.
  18. It now shows up on the Sword web site https://swordmodel.cz/en/coming-soon/166-sw72142-t-39a-sabreliner.html
  19. This is my build of the Italeri 1/72 Grumman EA-6A Electric Intruder Electronic Counter Measures aircraft, with a little help from the Fujimi kit and a simple nose mod. Italeri and Fujimi are the only big plastic companies to kit the EA-6A (Tamiya does a rebox of the Italeri kit) . I read that the Fujimi kit was the "better" of the 2 fit and detail wise, but the Italeri kit comes with folding wings and was more accurate. To save shelf space I wanted to do one with folding wings. Wolfpack makes a resin set of folding wings for the Fujimi kit but it is out of production and impossible to find. My first plan was to use the Italeri wings on the Fujimi kit. But when I put them together I realized that the Italeri wings were wider in cord then the Fujimi ones. So I broke out my scale drawings* to see which, if either, was correct. It turns out that while the Italeri ones seem to be spot on The Fujimi ones were too narrow So now I decided to go with the Italeri kit. One of the issues with the Italeri kit is that it is basically their A-6 kit with some jamming pods and EA-6A decals. But the EA-6A has a longer nose then the standard A-6 so it could fit more ECM equipment, so the Italeri nose is too short by ~8 scale inches. I first thought that I would use the Fujimi nose, which is the correct length, but the contours didn't match the Italeri Fuselage, and it would have been difficult to get it to match, so I ended up using a styrene strip spacer with the Italeri nose. While I had the drawings out I also compared the 2 fuselages. What I fond was the The Italeri tail was a bit too small in cord While the Fujimi one was a better match So I removed the Italeri tail and used the Fujimi one. I also found out that both fuselages were too long behind the cockpit I cheated the Fujimi tail a little forward but I couldn't move it very much and didn't see a good way to fix it, so I just ignored it. Here it is after the mods One final problem was that both kits had ALQ-76 pods that looked more like the later ALQ-99 pods used on the EA-6B. The ALQ-76 pods have flat side while the ALQ-99 are much wider at the bottom then the top. I ended up filling the insides of the Italeri pods with super glue and then sanded then flat, I also somehow managed to loose the Italeri speed brakes. Luckily I had the Fujimi ones and they were close enough to use if posed open. Once the mods were done the build progressed smoothly. The Italeri decals where the basic markings while the Fujimi ones had all the little "No Step" and other stencils. Neither kits had stencils for the jamming pods. On the Fujimi decals the white in the stars and bars was more of a cream color while on the Italeri decals white was white. So I used a combination of both. After all that I am happy with the results. Next up is the Sword T-38 Talon. Enjoy * I used drawings from the Detail & Scale EA-6B (that covers the EA-6A too), and the Aerophile EA-6B & EA-6A books. The D&S drawings where done by @Dana Bell and I could not find out who did the Aerophile ones, maybe Mr. Bell did them also. They both agreed but that does not mean that they were right, but they were all I had so I used them. I am sure Italeri and Fujimi had drawings that they thought were correct.
  20. Since they are only showing the 3D renders and box are I am guessing that they are just starting them and April and the release will be later this year. Time to sell my Anigrand T-39.
  21. This is my build of the Omega Models 1/72 Cessna T-41A Mescalero US Air Force primary trainer. The T-41 was a Cessna 172 with an upgraded engine and was used as an initial Primary Trainer for student pilots from 1964 until replaced by the Slingsby T-3A in 1993. Many years ago when I took flying lessons (I got as far as my solo cross country and then for several reasons quit) it was in the very similar Cessna 150 and this brought back many memories. Doing my research for this build I came across this film on USAF pilot training called "The Year of 53 Weeks" I can only describe it a "cute", but you might find it entertaining. This is my first Omega Models' kit and I would put then in maybe the upper middle of the pack of resin kit manufacturers. The resin castings were smooth with a minimum of pinholes and fit well. However the instructions, transparencies and decals were found wanting. Omega make several boxings of different versions on the 172 and the the kit contains extra parts for the different versions and the instructions did a poor job of indicating which ones to use. Also parts placement indications were vague. The nose wheel was not usable so I fabricated on from spare parts. The front and rear windows were vacuformed with no markings or indications of where to cut, nor was they any framing. The front window was way to large and the back one was too small. This lead to the need for a lot of filling and sanding which was not conducive to ending up with very clear windows. The side windows where just a single sheet of acetate that had to be cut out with no template provided so you had to hold them up to the opening and try to scribe them from that. A process that actually was easier then I thought it word be. The decals came in 2 sheets. The first sheet was for the lettering and numbering. This one wasn't bad although I did not like the font and I only used the "N" number civilian registration. The other sheet was for the multi color markings and was useless. It was dot matrix printed and had poor registration and I didn't use it at all. Instead I used bits and pieces from other sheet. Both had a continuous film requiring careful trimming. All in all it was a quick 12 day build and I am happy with the results. Next up will be a Grumman EA-6A with folded wings that I will build using a combination of Fujimi and Italeri parts Enjoy
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