Magua87

Gents, she's finally finished. Thanks for joining me for this build.

Hi, all. I'm glad to be sharing this RFI with you all. This kit almost didn't make it across the finishing line. It never quite reached the shelf of doom, but it was certainly on the back burner for a while. This model was to be airframe WK293. Xtrakit incorrectly label the belly as being PRU blue when it was actually silver. Wanting to add a PRU blue Swift to my collection I changed course and grabbed some Airfix decals from @FZ6. This required a few touch ups of the disruptive camouflage on the top sides to match the new aircraft, WK281. When I got to the gloss stage I promptly dropped the aircraft and had to repair to nose. That wasn't too hard to fix. Following the repairs I decided to brush on a coat of klear, rather than airbrush my Tamiya X22. However, this coat of klear caused cracking all over the model! After some attempts to fix the issue I eventually stripped the whole aircraft with thinner and sandpaper. And for my last disaster, as I approached the finishing line I drilled a hole right through the starboard wing trying to make a secure footing for the landing gear. Despite all the trials, I'm very happy with the finished product. I've lost a few panel lines along the way (mostly on the upper side of the main wings), but it's not a glaring omission. This fills a niche in my collection and demonstrates my commitment to getting things right! Paints: PRU Blue: Humbrol Acrylic 230 (horrendous paint) Dark Green: H330 Dark Sea Grey: H331 Gloss: Tamiya Flat: Gunze Decals are Airfix, except for the roundels (Xtradecal) and the squadron markings (Xtrakit).

I'm enjoying these builds. They'll prove very helpful as I hear S&M have announced a PR3 for next year (it's on the wishlist).

I had similar issues with my Airfix F-51s. I had wonky panel lines on one wing and again on the fuselage under the cockpit. Those burrs on your fuselage are something different again!

Hi, all. On the hunt for a single seat Skyhawk in 1/72 I bought one of the Fujimi Blue Angels boxings. This is the A-4F / TA-4J box and contains parts to build either a single or two seat aircraft. I actually managed to grab two of these and I plan to build one as a single-seater and the other as a two-seater. This will leave me with a spare nose section for the single-seater which I'd like to put to use elsewhere. I've seen a Fujimi A-4KU for sale, which I understand to be basically an A-4M. I'm wondering if I could take my spare parts from the A-4F boxing and use these on the A-4M. As far as I can see the only new parts for the A-4M / A-4KU is the nose itself, which would be replaced. Although I see the intakes are given a different part number, but I can't find any references online about the A-4M having larger intakes than the earlier skyhawks. Is anyone able to speak with confidence of the differences between the A-4M / A-4KU boxings and how they differ from the various A-4E/Fs models that Fujimi have kitted? I'm hoping you'll tell me it's just the nose section and I can go ahead with this idea.

Colin Grey was on the list. Now that I'm aware of Rosie I think a Typhoon Tempest will be in order.

I've been thinking about buying one of these for a while. Bill's builds are always great as I'll be able to see what challenges lay ahead and how to tackle them (though not with the same level of finesse!) With all the Anson experts in one thread, what's the difference between the early and late boxings of the Special Hobby kit?

None that I'm aware of. See below. It wasn't too much work, but it was easier having the Eduard spare and not having to cut out the rear canopy section as well.

Thanks, all for your comments. Tamiya X22 for the decals and Tamiya XF86 to finish. The Hurricane had a coat of Microscale flat. I might need to lay down a few more coats in the future for a flatter finish. Although the kits don't stand out in the cabinet, so I think the light was just at the right angle in these photos to make them shine. Whoops. Oh well, only a small error. This was Xtradecal sheet 72221. Is there a reference we could pass on to them?

Oh, and for anyone who's interested: Paints: Dark Green: Gunze H330 Dark Earth: Gunze H72 Sky: Tamiya XF21 Tamiya gloss and flat coats. The decals were from an Xtradecal sheet.

Hi, all. Thought I'd share my latest complete kit. I bought the Tamiya Spitfire as a quick build while I struggled along with some of my other works in progress. It largely fell together. I made two small alterations. I sanded the nose to create a profile I was happy with. I lost some of the raised detail in the process, but I'm not worried. I also used a vacuum formed canopy. This is the Squadron Mk1 canopy. The rear section isn't vacuum formed, but is one of my spares from my Eduard Spitfires. I had to build up the airframe with plastic card and filler to meet the base of the new canopy. I've painted this bird as Alan Deere's Kiwi P9398. I've kept it rather clean apart from some light exhaust staining and some highlighting of certain panel lines. This shows better on the underside with the lighter colours. I believe this is the aircraft he was flying when he had a head on collision with a Bf109. Sticking with the New Zealanders in British aircraft theme you'll see Keith Park's Hurricane in the final photos. At some point I'll add Deere's Spitfire Mk. 9 to the collection. Not the best photos (indoors, afternoon, no direct light!) but you get the idea.

Thanks, Stever. I managed to get my hands on a SAM publication on the Lancaster. It's got some line drawings at the back which seem to agree mostly with the Airfix kit and partially with Hasegawa. Both kits seem to get it wrong at times. Well, after making a start on the engines I was motivated. I've started scribing some detail into the wings. I started with Tamiya tape and got some shonky results. I've heard Super Glue works well for filling gaps and being a reasonable scribing medium. Any thoughts? Then I bought some Dymo tape and I'm getting better results now.

I've decided to scribe some detail into the engine nacelles. The middle engine is complete. I started following the Airfix panel lines and I think I'll stick with them.Perhaps I'll delete the aft vertical line if its erroneous (looking at the Hasegawa nacelle).

Looks like S&M are coming to the party in 2019. http://sandmmodels.co.uk/misc-news/mustard-arrives/ Thanks for the advice. And thanks to Selwyn for the offer, but I'll wait for a full kit release. Looking forward to the completion of your hybrid, Canberra kid.

Sounds like it's time to sit back and see what S&M have in store. All good, I've still got a B(I)8 to build first.

Very nice. What was your colour choice for the silver?

Morning, all. I visited the RAF Museum at Hendon in January and was very interested in Canberra PR3 WE139. "8/9 Oct 53 Bearing the race number 3, and standard light ‘PR’ blue lower surfaces and light grey upper surfaces, winner of the Speed Section of the 19,746 km (12,270 mile) London Heathrow- Harewood International airport, Christchurch, New Zealand International Air Race, flown by the late F/L Roland L.E. ‘Monty’ Burton AFC and Bar (who died in France 29 April 1999 aged 80) with F/L Don Gannon DFC as navigator. Elapsed time 23 hours 50 minutes 42 seconds (Airborne time 22 hours 27 minutes) at an average speed of 795.8 Km/h (494.48 mph) - a new world record." I see Aeroclub used to make a conversion of the Airfix Canberra to PR3 (not sure what the base model variant was). I haven't been able to find one handy. Is there any other route to a PR3 in 1/72 available? I'm quite keen on this ship. British Jet, New Zealand connection; it ticks all the boxes!

I copied the size and placement of the cut out area for the exhausts from the Hasegawa kit. However, I didn't take in account that the Airfix kit has the front of the engine separate. So I've had to shorten the cut outs slightly with some plastic rod. I'll sand and fill these along with any imperfections in the coming week. This mistake was confined to the shorter exhausts only. No fix needed on these. I'm trying to preserve the raised detail on the engines. Mostly. I couldn't avoid losing the top panel and rivets.

Swift progress (for me anyway) on the nacelles. Two done and I'm working on two more at the moment. I'm going to remove the shrouds and cut away a space for the exhausts on all the nacelles before I start inserting the exhausts. The exhausts will need a backing plate to attach to.

We're almost there. Final touches now. In typical fashion I had to fix another self imposed disaster. When trying to create a secure footing for the landing gear I drilled straight through one wing. This led to a lot of filling, sanding, polishing, painting, and gloss coats to even everything out. I'm hoping to finish this project on the weekend by attaching the above parts, the exhaust, and giving the fixed wing a final flat coat. I'm quite proud of both my ability to fix a disaster and to stick with the kit!

Does anyone have any experience with pencil imitation panel lines? I'm not sure my scribing skills are up to the task on a kit this big. I figure it could look quite effective against the white.

Beautiful work. Well done.

I don't think I mixed my milliput together very well as I had soft patches within the blank I'd made for the rear fuselage. Many weeks followed of digging out the soft patches, filling these with CA, sanding, and looking for bumps and depressions. What you see here is the finished product. A mixture of milliput, super glue, Mr Surfacer, and Tamiya Fine Surface Primer brushed on and sanded back. I've moved onto the engines. The Airfix kit has moulded on blanking covers to hide the aircraft exhaust at night. I'm working on removing these, drilling holes, and installing spare exhausts from another Hasegawa Lanc'. The top nacelle is standard, the middle has been completed, and the bottom is from the Hasegawa kit. This is going to be a pretty slow and laborious process, but we march forward!

Which is all good with me. With new nacelles I'll be building an RNZAF Herc'. It's a shame that Attack Squadron has closed down. Thanks, all. Roym's gonna scan a copy for me.

Hi, all. I've recently picked up a copy of Italeri's 1/72 Hercules in its KC-130F boxing, aka Fat Albert. I got a bargain, but unfortunately that means I didn't get an instruction sheet with the kit. Does anyone know where I can find one online? 1999.co.jp is my usual go to, but I've had no luck there for this kit. Thanks in advance.