Nomore Shelfspace

You mean that looks good?? Just a retro project...

Very evocative of what this country had to face the enemy in those days. I like the shark on the nose! PL

Hello again with another one of my planes. I did this to see if I could follow an Alan W Hall article in the April, 1966 Airfix Magazine, converting the Airfix Ki 46-II to a Ki 46-III, the long canopy version. (As older readers may recall, Mr. Hall was an advocate of the "balsa and dope" school of conversion, in the days before resin and vac conversion kits. It's impossible to judge the results now because of the blurry and rather dim photos normally seen in Airfix magazine of this period...). Well, the scale drawings in Airfix Magazine April 1966 were quite useful! I moulded a new canopy using the old technique of male/female balsa mould, PVC sheet (I had nothing else that wouldn't tear) and some gas. It took a few tries. Using photo reference found on the all too modern Internet I built a new interior and remodelled the nose, engine cowlings and spinners. I also remodelled the tail ends of the nacelles as per the article, although I used sprue as a basis rather than just dobs of putty as suggested. (And there were no rivets..). The canopy you can see here is not a very good fit but I wasn't going to light the gas to do another one after several tries! The model was brush painted, which is unusual for me. The decals were adapted from the kit's plus some Hasegawa items from a Zero. They have silvered a bit. However, I think as an "old school" conversion it was quite a useful exercise. And I didn't touch that dope! The stuff they did in the '60's... PL

OK, after several tries linking the photo from Photobucket, and three paragraphs of text gone into Cyberspace, here is my last Real Space model, from the 94 reissue of the classic 60's Revell Astronaut in Space kit. I'm not going into any more detail about techniques in case that goes poosh as well, but there's a fair amount of scratchbuilt detail using the many available photos as reference. Umbilical was thick alloy wire wrapped in strips of gold foil. The visor was first sprayed gold inside then clear yellow outside. Better post this before anything else goes wr PL

Thanks! I have memories of the original, built by my dad about the time it was released!

I built the Airfix Dinah a while ago as a "challenge" to see if I could follow one of those old Alan W. Hall balsa-and-dope-mixed-with-talcum-powder conversion articles in a 60's Airfix Magazine! I used the current issue of the kit which is the old one in a new box. The conversion was for the long canopy version. It's a bit rough (the kit AND my conversion) but like most old Airfix builds up nicely, and you can detail it up as much as you like.

I'm new here! Finished this yesterday, a Firefly 5 from an old Palitoy-era Airfix kit - basically accurate but a bit rough, decals going a nice shade of brown. It was moulded in nice navy blue plastic, which wasn't very easy on the eyes. After building a decent interior, where I cheated by copying the parts off an Airwaves etch set instructions, building seats and instrument panel etc. from sheet, there was a lot of filling and sanding involved (first off were the boiler rivets...) - I used Deluxe Materials "Perfect Plastic Putty" - talk about boast. This stuff is water soluble so you can wipe it with a wet cloth rather than sand, but it is porous as chalk so needs priming with enamel - I sprayed the whole plane with Humbrol Aircraft Grey before attempting to paint it. Then sanded it some more. A lot of work. Underside colour was Humbrol Beige Green - my tin had nearly gone off and I had to strain the paint before spraying it. Nice coverage though! Top colour was Humbrol grey 32, probably a bit dark but it looks ok. Korean War Invasion stripes were masked and sprayed - should have done the white before doing anything else, masked them and sprayed the main colours, I know, but I forgot. It all looks good now though. Decals are off the Print Scale sheet (Hannants) - very good decals but a bit thin - I destroyed the squadron code on one side so it only has one! These went on over a brush coat of Klear. A further Klear coat sealed it all in. Handsome plane! PL