johnny akes

Hi all I built this a while ago now, but as my hobby room is out of bounds for the foreseeable I thought I’d give it an airing. This was the original boxing from 2013. Regards J.A.

Thanks for the kind comments, the metal finish is Alclad duraluminum over their gloss black primer, highlighted with Alclad aluminium. I was trying to achieve a natural metal finish and I’m pleased with how it came out, but I guess from Selwyn’s comments a silver paint finish would have been more authentic; but like he says, my kit my rules!

Hi Folks 1st one posted for quite a while, there are lots of opinions all over the web about whether this kit represents value for money or not - IMO for all it's faults re accuracy (especially in & around the engine nancelles) it's good quality moulding, fits together well and builds into an imposing model when finished; not cheap for quite a low parts count but on the £-per-hour enjoyment scale I've no complaints. You do have to be creative though if you don't want to fork out for expensive conversion sets, and I found that those small soft plastic Humbrol paint tubs with the lids cut off fit exactly behind the intake rings to shield the lack of interior wall detail.... Decals are from Kitsworld, I don't know if the ones in the box are accurate or not but the light blue fluselage roundels just look wrong. Thanks for looking J.A.

I can’t comment on the PCM kit but I built the Revell IX quite soon after it first appeared. I don’t remember there being any particular issues and to my mind FWIW it builds into a decent looking model which outwardly at least, compares favourably with Tamiya’s. That’s not to say of course that it matches the latter’s quality, but once they are both on the shelf the casual observer probably wouldn’t know the difference (or care, if my family is typical).

Great work Tony, you’ve really captured the look & feel of the Hastings there despite the small scale. I’ve always been a fan of it myself too, I love the low-slung look of the four Hercules engines and your penultimate photo especially shows the real presence of the aircraft (one of the few plusses of it being a tail dragger!).

All good points Simon, and on reflection I guess we’d have heard from builders of HKM’s B17 and Lanc if this had been an issue. However as much as I’d like this I’ve enough loft insulation as it is, and this deserves to be built rather than being hidden away due to lack of space. I’ve plumped instead for HKM’s nose section as much as I’d like to see the oil canning effect.

I’m out, just too big for me. I do wonder whether a polystyrene-cemented fuselage joint can be strong enough to bear the strain of the weight of two massive, no doubt very heavy wings pulling down on it from either side whenever it is lifted…. A real shame if reports are true that the nose section won’t be released as a separate kit now, I’m sure that would have sold exponentially more than the full kit will.

Excellent result there Gazza, your chosen colour scheme has certainly evoked a lot of memories - including mine! I remember asking for the Airfix kit for my birthday back in 1968 which I'm pretty sure was just after it came out. In my mind it looked just as good as yours, but of course the memory plays cruel tricks - I'm sure that in reality the windows would have been fogged with glue and there were gaps I could put my little finger into! Yours will generate a lot of additional sales for Zvedza, I might even be tempted myself!

You'd hope they would be reasonable, very low parts count looking at the sprues.

At last, someone talking sense. Jeeze…

Ha! I made the same mistake - I had a vision of the wings sticking out of the front & back doors of your house! Despite that the actual model is beautiful, a real showpiece you should be proud of. I wish someone would release this in 1/32 plastic, I go cold at the thought of so much resin! Regards JA.

That's a really impressive build and paint job! Strange that they chose to commemorate what was a pretty conclusive defeat with a special paint job (I'm assuming it isn't a whif?).

I agree, excellent painting. I’ve found to my cost that larger-than actual size photos generally don’t tend to do justice to the subject, but this one passes the test with flying colours.

I'm normally a plane & AFV builder but I've fancied doing a bust for some time, so I decided to give this one a go: I need to work on my faces a bit more (scary eyes!) but generally I'm really pleased how it turned out (funny how it looks better in real life than in photos!), such that another one is in the post for me along with a couple of proper stands. Regards J.A.