HartDeco

Hi all. After the recently finished Sea King, it was time to continue with Italeri's Wessex. I finally managed to obtain a couple of very rare Eduard pe sets which arrived just in time. Even better, on this forum I found a post by 'Hendie' here, who produces some excellent 3d printed detail sets which contain engine bay details and other parts. In the meantime even more parts are available from him. Check it out! The interior walls were detailed with plastic strips, Eduard pe, and some scratch built parts. The seats that are visible through the cargo door, were modified to look a bit more like the real thing. The cockpit was mostly built up with Eduard pe. The 2 pilot's seats are the nicest parts of them all in my opinion. The resin engine bay and engines are real gems and the fit is quite good, considering the inconsistent thickness of the plastic parts. Overall the fit of the kit wasn't too bad and most details are present in the kit. The model was painted with MrHobby paint over AMMO by Mig Jimenez A-Stand black primer. Aquagloss clear coat and metallic paints on the exhausts from the same company were also used. The blade fold parts are from Scale Warship and are essential if you want to save space in your cabinet. And it looks cool too as a bonus. Thanks for watching. René

Hi all. Quite a few jobs done today. Added the antenna wires, painted and fitted the blades. The nose was also attached to the fuselage. I used a pair of thisn brass rods under the hinges to support the weight. Overall, the build is almost finished. Just a few small things to take care of. René

Hi all. A bit more done on the Wessex build. The struts in the engine bay are done too. The kit rotor head is a bit crude but with its folded blades, it won't be too obvious. I hope. It''s now a matter of adding several small bits and pieces. René

Thanks Alan. It was always the plan to add those struts. The engines and hatches aren't glued yet, so no risk of any damage. René

Hi all. A bit more parts added and all is painted now. The engine bay, exhaust, hoist and fuel filler caps are all from Alan's sets. The upgrade to this kit is quite obvious. René.

I airbrushed thinned clear green paint, I think from MrHobby), on the inside in thin coats until I was happy with the colour. René

Hi all. I finally did a bit more work on the 1/48 Wessesx with Hendie's detail sets 1 and 2. The nose was, so far, done and glue onto the fuselage. Inside is the new bulckhead but that;s a bit difficult to see. Not many resin parts added now, just the undercarriage strengthening plates and beetleback. More parts to follow. René

Hi all. This is my latest finished kit. The Airfix 1/48 kit is a lovely model to build and the Sea King is just a very cool subject, period! For this build I used several aftermarket parts, mainly from Eduard Model Accessories, like cargo bay, cockpit and exterior details and masking set for the clear parts. JSProducts from Australia kindly sent me their new 3d printed tail rotor and wheel set. Especially the tail rotor is a thing of beauty. Modifications were made in the cargo bay by adding pe parts to the seats and sonar instruments. Also, some of the wall mounted seats were adapted to the folded position. The cockpit and pilot's seats also received pe parts and some of my own. On the outside, the biggest addition was the rigging made for the folded blades with 'socks' made from aluminium foil and thin strips of tape. Especially the pe boarding ladder from the Eduard pe set is a big improvement over the kit part. All I can say is, the kit is a joy to build with near perfect fit. Some parts are slightly over scaled but these were replaced with pe parts. The model was, as always, painted with MrHobby (H335) acrylic paint over black primer. Weathering was done with Abteilung 502 oil paints. Thank you for watching.

Hi all. The quality of the @hendie 3D printed parts is quite a bit better than the kit parts are. To be fair, the kit was never designed to fit any aftermarket parts to begin with of course. Anyway, I modified the chin/air intake a bit to make the new parts fit. A lot of filler was needed to make the 'floor' smooth. Also, a thin piece of plastic was used to fill the remaining gaps. René

Yes, I was talking about the thickness of the plastic parts. I kept the L shaped parts to straighten the floor at the far end a bit. It was slightly curved. Easy fix. René

Just send Hendie a message. René

Hi all. A few weeks ago I ordered both Wessex sets from Hendi and all I can say is that the quality is outstanding. Also, the parts were sent by him on very short notice. A big thanks to @hendie Here are a few photos of the main parts that form the engine bay. The fit is as good as it gets but some trimming of the plastic parts is necessary because the thickness of the plastic parts is very inconsistent. René

A friend of mine found some 1/72 AV-8B files online. The AV-8B only has 3 pylons, compared to the Harrier', which has 4. So, I rebuilt the missing one from the kit parts.

Hi all. She's finished! Trumpeter's 1/32 Harrier GR7. This has been the worst kit I've ever built, period. Absolutely every single parts is either the wrong shape, wrong size or in the wrong location. It's impossible to make this many errors, so my conclusion is: they did it on purpose! Anyway, for this build I used the following aftermarket parts: - Wolfpack cockpit set - Airframe decals - 3D printed pylons, fuel tanks, nose gear and exhaust nozzles. Thanks again Fabian! A lot of work went into correcting many of the surface details. The main areas were the wing tips and its nozzles and the area behind the cockpit. Another big issue was the angle of the nose cone. It points way too far upward. I ended up cutting it off and reposition it in the correct angle. The nose landing has some very oversized details. It was replaced with a 3d printed one. The final major issue is everything that hangs under the wings. All I could use (still not 100% correct) were the fuel tank pylons. Everything else was either replaced with 3d printed parts or modified from kit parts. When everything I wanted to change was finished, I could finally start to paint. I choose to build this one as a GR9 in its final single colour scheme. MrHobby H335 over black primer is what I used here. Weathering was, as usual, done with an airbrush and washes made from Abteilung 502 Starship Filth. oilpaint. The decals from Airframe decals went on without a problem. Although It took a LOT of work to build this kit more or less resembling a Harrier, I'm more than happy with the result. There are probably many more things that can be improved on this model but I think I start dreaming of a brand new kit instead. Thank you for watching. René

Thanks. They are included in the Reskit set.

Thanks but l think you're mistaken me for somebody else. René

Hi all. I just finished the 1/32 Academy Luftwaffe F-4F (Vietnam War F-4E boxing) with some aftermarket parts. The biggest job was trying to make a decent cockpit. I used the kit tub, from which I raised the floors, Several parts from the Legend cockpit set; ejectio seats, wall panels and some pe parts, Red Fox Studios 3d printed instrument panels and a bunch of details made from plastic strips and rod. Other aftermarket parts used are a corrected nose and exhausts from QMT, wheels from a Tamiya kit and Sidewinder missiles from Reskit. Overall, I think this kit is quite decent, especially with the upgraded parts included in this release. Finding correct decals proved to be a bit of a problem, that was until a friend of mine offered a spare set from an older Revell kit. After the cockpit was done and the panel lines and rivets were fixed on the outer wing panels, most of the build was pretty much straight forward. All RAL colours were mixed from several MrHobby paints, using a RAL fan deck to make them as close as I could. Weathering was done with oilpaint washes and AK pencils. Thanks for watching, René

Hi all. AFV Club's F-5 is a wonderful kit with good details and fit. This is the second one l built and it won't be my last. For this build l used Red Fox 3d instrument panels and resin seat and auxiliary exhausts from Quickboost. I also added a few extra details to the canopy closing mechanism. The kit goes together quite well but a few panel lines had to be restored after assembly and sanding. The model was painted with MrHobby paints. I added a bit of white paint to all colours to make them look a bit faded. An oilpaint wash was used for weathering. The kit decals are not bad but needed some strong setting solution to make them sink in all recessed details. Thank you for watching. René.

I exposed him several times on my facebook page after he made physical threats to me. How did I dare to ask for payment after contributing to his magazines?

Yep. That's him alright. Acting like a bully and ripping off people. René

Thank you. Their F-104's are also very good. I agree about the Jaguar and Buccaneer! René

Hi all. This is the new 1/48 Kinetic F-16C. It's a completely new kit and is in no way comparable with their earlier releases. This was an easy, quick and fun build. The surface details are very fine and the fit is excellent. If you take your time, I think you need hardly any filler, if any at all. No aftermarket parts were used but I replaced the static dischargers with pieces of 0,2mm brass rod and added pe seatbelts from my spares box to the seat. I also flattened the tyres a bit as they are not in the kit. There's a large choice of weapons, fuel tanks and pods to choose from and are equally well detailed. The decals are printed by Cratograf and of very high quality as can be expected from this brand. The model was painted with MrHobby paints over A-Stand (Alclad) black primer. Weathering was done with an oilpaint wash: Abteilung 502 oilpaint, thinned with AK white spirit. All in all, I think this may be the best 1/48 F-16 kit to date. Can it be improved? Yes. Aftermarket cockpit and/or seat, wheels and engine are parts I would replace with a next build, which is something I do with almost all my builds anyway. Thanks for watching. René

Thanks. Yes, l like it a lot but the GR4 l built last year, even more. René

Hi all. My latest finished build is Italeri's impressive 1/32 Tornado ECR. The kit includes decals for both Italian and German aircraft, with the latter sporting tiger heads and stripes on the tail and droptanks. The kit is very nice was built mostly straight from the box, except for a pair of Quickboost seats and Master pitot tube. The details in the cockpit are on par with resin aftermarket sets.! Very sharp and easy to pick out with a brush. The kit is not perfect though. There are a few areas that need a bit of trimming, filling, sanding and rescribing but nothing drastic. MrHobby paints were used over Alclad black primer. Weathering was done with a mix of Abteilung 502 oilpaint (Starship Filth) and AK white spirit. Thanks for watching. René

Hi all. Here is my latest build: the 1/32 Trumpeter F/A-18F Super Hornet build. For this project the following aftermarket parts were used: -Eduard exterior pe set - Aires ejection seats - Red Fox Studio 3d cockpit instruments - DXM Decals - ResKit exhausts, wheels, GBU-38 bombs and AIM-9X Sidewinders Since there is no resin cockpit available for this kit, as far as I know, I used the excellent Red Fox 3d instruments and some scratch built bits instead. The Aires seats are very nice but need a few minor modifications to make them look like the real seats. The kit goes together quite good and I didn't encounter any major problems as far as I can remember. My model is not 100% period accurate as there are a few details that are not correct for the decal choice I made. Bat that's only something the experts wil notice. As with all my builds, everything was primed black, using A-Stand (Alclad) primer with microfiller. The paints I used are MrHobby H307 and H308 with a few drops of white added for some faded areas. Most weathering was done with Abteilung 502 paints, thinned with AK white spirit. A special thanks goes out to ResKit for sending their superb update parts despite the harsh times in their home country of Ukraine. Thank you for watching. René.