bianfuxia

haha yeah - hi from summer in Australia! thank you!

well, I'm calling this one done. Since my last update, I did the last decals - the two tail markings and the fuselage numbers. In theory there should be a yellow band around there, but after contemplating bodging something up with some HobbyBoss decals from a Sabre kit (those ones with the Korean War era yellow fuselage stripe) I decided to use poetic licence. Probably there are few people on Earth alive today who have the level of expertise to know whether these things always had the yellow stripe - those who do are most certainly not going to visit my mancave! The S-22 markings were very milky, but I discovered that because the film is so thick, I could safely scrub that milky residue off with my finger tip. This made the decals vastly clearer. I also put a new one over that lopsided one on the underside. So all that remains is to stick on the little plastic windscreen if and when I find it. Pics in the gallery but here too, including one next to a Spitfire as a size comparison. I always thought of these pre-war biplanes as fairly small but actually this one was quite hefty. Thanks for watching and for all the comments!

thanks! the advantage of taking pics with a cell-phone I guess

I can't quite believe I got this one across the line, given how badly I flamed out of so many group builds this tumultuous year. This was not an easy build, and it's far from my best model, but in the end, at shelf distance, I think it actually came out ok for an 80s Kopro kit with pre-historic decals... The Aero A-100 was a light bomber and recon plane - which I assume those fuselage windows are associated with - made in Czechoslovakia pre-WW2. I am no expert on the history of that region in those days, but according to what I can figure out, the Czechoslovakian Air Force disbanded after the German invasion, but in Slovakia they set up an air force and used some of these planes. This one is in - roughly - the markings of that air force. This one "fought me all the way" to use that modeller's epitaph for a doomed kit. I tried EZ Line for the first time, with mixed results. I can see it will be good once I get better at it. At my current rate I will produce precisely two more biplanes before I die, though, so I guess it's gonna be a while... Anyway, glad to have it on the shelf. A few more pics in the build thread: Thanks for a good GB and some nice kits in the gallery!

Yep, I needed that luck. Here's the tale in full... I've never done this before, so I figured it out on first principles. I used yellow tape to indicate where I needed to make the cuts, based on the diagram I had drawn before. First cut went nicely. I thought I was gonna ace it! Second one was good, too: In face, the whole of that side went well: Unfortunately, I really messed up the other side and had to do some crude hacking with a knife. Now there's a bit of a mess to fix: Also, as the A320 was shrunk to the A319 and then the even-shorter A318, I briefly contemplated building mine as the little known concept A301: So now I have to work out how to get all those bit neatly together. I am presently thinking that I should put an interior liner of plasticard at the joins which will help hold it in place and also give some backing for the filler (I'll need a lot of that).

This thing is about as finished as it's gonna be. I can't find the little windscreen parts - lost on my desk somewhere. Other than that, here's how it played out to the end. I used EZ Line to do the rigging - my first time with that product and I really made an unholy mess of it. There was super glue all over the place, and the little strings are mostly attached at the wrong places. It certainly takes some practice, that stuff. Then came the wheels. The instructions were a bit unclear, and the attachment points that did exist didn't seem to have much purpose. So in the end I just did what seemed about right and mashed it all together with superglue. And then I did a ton of touch up paint to cover the various blotches of superglue, and here is where it is at now. All I need to do is a few more decals.

amazing build - as always! You must have both incredible eyesight and a very steady hand!

Really nice build! I have that same kit, almost finished, and for a minute I thought "if i just add PE railing mine will look that good". Then I scrolled to the pic with all the additional stuff you did - no wonder it looks so good!

Well, so far so good, from this angle at least: I added the tail last night and painted it this morning during a boring conference call. But then I flipped things over and discovered one of the markings was skewiff. I have NO IDEA how that happened. I am not the world's best modeller by any stretch of the imagination but this is not something I've ever done. So then I painted over it (because scratching it off didn't work) and that just made an even bigger mess. So given the way this build is turning out, I think I'm just going to leave it. What's under the model can't be seen... If the underside was another colour that would have probably worked. So I just have to keep in mind that this is a test-bed for learning how to do a biplane... tonight I will attempt the undercarriage.

Thanks! Yeah it's actually a big plane. When I bought it, I figured it would be small like maybe a Spitfire or something, but it's a decent bit bigger than that. Happy to report it appears to have stuck together ok. I very gingerly put it through some mild aerobatics - couple of barrel rolls - and the wing happily did not fall off. Since then I have assembled the tail, so actually now it's nearly done. Some touch up paint, add the wheels and propeller and windows, and then decide whether to try to rig it using this EZ Line stuff I bought. I had figured this plane would be a test-bed for that, because I have a few biplanes I want to do a nice job of later on. If there's time between now and the end of the GB I might give it a quick try.

I did this last night. Man, it was tricky getting that wing to stay there...this was the result of my first effort: the whole thing just fell apart. The plastic doesn't seem to like to be glued, that's for sure. Anyway, I also did some decals, and as predicted above by a few of you, they are very thick and really not very good. The sheet is very old too. This is where I got to in the end after some really messy efforts. It's not pretty, that's for sure. And I fully expect it will fall apart as soon as I pick it up this morning. Alignment is not perfect but it's the best I could manage:

This is insanely awesome! I really think Japanese F-4s are the coolest of the lot. My 1/72 RF-4EJ arrived too late for this build (hello Japan GB 2022) but yours certainly carries the flag for JASDF schemes in this GB! Congratulations on a really fantastic model.

Not my best model this year, or ever really, but here it is anyway. I obviously should have done the canopy better, but the reality is that I lost it for a while and decided to push ahead, figuring I could stick it on at the end. When I finally did find it, of course it didn't fit very well but I'd already painted and done all the decals! Add to that the finicky props and the weak undercarriage, and this one will find a home in a more obscure corner of my display shelf. Still, it's a decent little model of a plane you don't see so often.

Not sure I will get this done by the end of the GB but I'm still working on it. The cockpit area can't really be seen because I put pilots in - not sure where these guys came from. But it fits together quite well and now looks like the beginnings of an aeroplane.

Do the Orion! I already started my JASDF P-3 and it's probably past the 25 % threshold so I'll have to live vicariously through yours!