Aims

Do 217 J/N not really fast enough to ever need it!

AIMS 1/48 Do 217 N-2/R22 conversion Hi everyone, well just did a little everyday with gritted teeth (due to bad hands) but it is done. Thanks to ICM for such a nice N-1 kit and thanks to CMK for their fantastic Navigation lights. Thanks also to Gas Patch for their wonderful FuG 202 set - ok the receivers are not to scale thickness wise but as good as it is ever going to get without using thin wire! My model is finished as 3C+HR of 7./NJG 4 using decals form AIMS 48D022 and using mostly Mr Paint colours. Please note that the Yellow 3rd Group stripe above the NJG badge cannot be seen in the photo due to angle of photo but is on sister ships. Spinners also out of view in photo but again sister ships have them in the Staffel colour. Please also note that 3C+HR appears to not be using the flash eliminators on the 4x upward firing MF 151s and finally note that the photo shows 3C+HR with white prop tips! This can be seen on Do 217 N-2/R22 3C+IP that landed at Dubendorf and can also be seen on a Bf 110 G-4 C9+CB - in both cases tips are white only on the back and so I have made the tips white also only on the back of 3C+HR. Thanks for looking

AIMS JG 54 decals, please email me at aimsmodels1@gmail.com to order, thanks 1/32 - £12.00 + shipping 1/48 - £9.99 + shipping 1/72 - £8.50 + shipping

Thanks everyone

Hi everyone here is my 1/32 Mistel 3 W.Nr. 460065, Bernburg, Germany, April 1945. Paints were Mr Paint range - with their RLM 76 diluted with 50% white to achieve a late war cobalt reduced RLM 76. Conversion / decals - my AIMS 1/32 Mistel 3 conversion set Other AIMS products - Ju 88 A-1 Essential PE, Tail wheel Bay PE, Main Gear bay test shot PE, Ju 88 External Manufacturing Plates decals Non AIMS products - HGW Ju 88 seat belts Problems during build - Bad back, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel, Covid 19 and pneumonia - Oh sorry you mean with the build..... things needing filler only and if using what Mr Paint call an undocumented 'RLM 76 Grunblau' again I would give it a monotone RLM 02 undercoat to add strength / depth to this very weak colour regardless of what it truly is called or was in real life. During the build I purchased the Flugzug for the Mistel 2 from Luftachieve and saw the cable for the explosive charge on the back support rod was in a pale colour. When I did my Mistel 2 I had just said ok it must be yellow but this time I asked D.E Brown and he supplied me with the colour chart for the different voltages the Luftwaffe used. All I needed then was to see in the Flugzug that the fuse at the base and top of the rod was 24 volts and I had my answer - 'Violet'. If you have any questions I will do what I can to help. thanks again and best wishes, John

Thanks guys much appreciated!

Hi everyone, just finished my ICM Gloster Gladiator / AIMS J8 conversion, hope you like it. I am obviously not a bi-plane modeler as I went for the option of directly placing on top of the main wires a length of 0.5 rod, believing life was too short to try and drill into it 0.15 by 0.3mm back to back slots and then again in the middle and at the end - twice over - shoot me! Kit was built using the following.... AIMS Mk 1 engine set, upper ailerons, decals, Cockpit PE, bracing wires and external details PE, landing flaps PE, J8 conversion set, Gas Patch RAF turnbuckles x4 and a lot of scratch building. Model was finished using Xtracolour WWII Olive Drab and RAF Barley Grey and as indicated my AIMS decals. I will take some nicer photos once I have it on base, Thanks for looking -John

Prices of aircrew was listed at top of post. DR.1 project cancelled J

Hi all and a Happy New year to you all, a number of items are ready now! To order email me at aimsmodels1@gmail.com and remember to say where in the world you live so I can calculate shipping, thanks 32D025 Monotone Spitfires £11.00 24F001 RAF/FAA 1950's pilot £25.00 24F002 2nd Lt Black Watch WWI £25.00 32F004 RAF/FAA 1950's pilot £16.00 32P023 Ju 88 A-1F/A-5 F Camera fairing £6.00 48F002 RAF/FAA 1950's pilots (double set) £16.00 48P021 Ju 88 C-6 update set for Dragon kits £18.00 48P023 Ju 88 A-1F/A-5 F Camera fairing £4.50 72F001 RAF/FAA 1950's pilot (double set) £8.00 72P004 Ju 88 A-1F/A-5 F Camera fairing £3.50 Coming soon.... 32PE017 External details for Roden SE.5a kit £TBC 48PE013 External details for Eduard SE.5a kit £TBC Bf 110 G-2/R1 1/72, 1/48, 1/32 (Feb/March? £TBC) 32P024 Fokker DR.1 corrected wings (TBC) Many thanks, enjoy

Weathering based on photo of this aircraft plus 90% of the other silver Tempest photos. thanks anyway

I have never said this model was 'in action' anywhere in my introduction but No 3 Sqn were up getting dirty over the firing ranges of what became West Germany on a regular bases as they were 'heavily involved' for 1 year perfecting the use of the Tempest as a platform for delivering RP. I tried to get the No.3 Sqn daily record of events log from the National achieves in the UK but it is only available up to the end of 1945 at the moment. High Speed Silver Tempests started to appear as early as the beginning of 1946 - not 1947 but yes No. 3 Sqn received them like this in 1947 but the majority of photos of High Speed Silver Tempests based in Germany show them dirty - as is Macfie's aircraft in the photo. I hope that helps.

The silver was pre-shaded in Mr Paint RLM 81 being the only medium brown from Mr Paint that I had! Artist oil paint Raw umber was seeped into the working panels/control surfaces followed by some black only in a few places so as not to over-power it in 1/48. Some Florys grime was added to places but most of it removed and some AK dark earth dust applied to the wheels. The exhausts are black primer then Alclad Jet Exhaust then AK exhaust stain

Thanks everyone, Is that Alclad II? Nice finish! No it is Mr Paint Silver representing RAF High Speed Silver Thanks John

Last years Christmas present finished! 1/48 Eduard Hawker Tempest of No. 3 Sqn RAF flown by Sqn Ldr Charles H. Macfie, late 1947, Germany. Thanks for looking

Well done

And so my Hasegawa 1/32 Fw 190 D-9 is finished representing Red 1 of JV 44's protection flight and flown by the the Staffel Kapitan Lt. Heinz "Heino" Sachsenberg (104 victories). The models was finished in Mr Paint RLM colours which were a joy to use and the decals were by EagleCals. This model was supposed to be a straight from the box quick build a year ago - but instead became a money magnet! After market sets used were the following Quickboost props Quickboost Super-charger intake Quickboost exhausts Aires cockpit Aires main gear bay Barracuda wheels Eduard canopy mask Eduard Spiral mask Eduard landing flaps Master MG 131 and MG 151 gun barrels - and also pitot tube HGW seat belts and control surfaces EagleCals decals as mentioned above. Added to this list during construction were two of my own AIMS products - 32PE014 Fw 190 Hatches and Latches and 32D024 Fw 190 Oleo Leg markings (I just could not resist getting AIMS into the build somehow Three other after market products were bought and had to go in the bin but apart from those headaches I really enjoyed building this exotic bird of prey. The model finish was rather simple thankfully as Tamiya 2mm wide flexible tape seemed to fit the scale perfectly. And so with the Mr Paint White Primer masked off the RLM 23 was applied. Once this was masked off the RLM 76 and late war greens were applied free-hand using the many photos of Red 1 as best as possible. Hope you like the finish photos. Please note only the first two photos show the red lowered and locked landing gear indicators as I forgot all about them till after checking the photos. Best wishes and stay safe, John

Hi there - photos are always the key in modelling - you can find photos of many Sea Furies loaded up with rockets with wings folded if it is just before a mission on the flight deck. I agree with you and would personally never model a subject bombed up with lots of maintenance going on and panels off everywhere - it is a bug bear of mine but each to his/her own as they say. The Sea Fury could also have wings folded with 250 lb bombs on the racks but you never see this in practice

Hi guys and thanks - I do not think I have ever had such a response to something I have posted! Anyway a few questions were asked and I will try to answer them! First - thanks for nice comments about the paint work - I assure you the camera is lying as there are problems everywhere - some caused by failing eyesight others caused but large areas of paint coming off when de-masking carefully. I just cannot get modern primers to etch slightly the plastic and my last three models have all suffered from paint coming off right down to the plastic - I now hate masking! As for the effect I am an old-school pre-shader guy but I like to almost obliterate the pre-shading and sometimes post shade also but You just do not see dirty Sea Furies! And no paint chipping! All paintwork has to keep out the salt water! So apart from where oil meets smoke or carbon and the like these birds are clean but always model to a photograph and if you look at the two photos published of this bird it is spotless. As for after-market products I used the following - Barracuda wheels - a must have and easy to use but be warned - Eduard paint masks too small for these as designed for the kit wheels! Quick boost U/C doors - big improvement on kit parts Quick boost cowl and exhausts - as above (I did not use the new Quick boost spinner as I think all you need to do is fill and re-scribe the awful kit mid panel line. Quick boost wing tanks - not perfect and missing many details as well as not matching lower wing contour but the right size and almost the right pylon depth - could be better but much better than kit parts. Aires cockpit - nice and gives you the support frame aft of the head armour and seat belts and very nice seat back cushion but nothing else will be seen again! It also needs kits fuselage halves to be thinned to almost daylight. As for the excellent gun sight - it fouls on the kit windscreen causing a lot of work to make windscreen fit! And you cannot use the PE parts that hold the reflector - not unless you use a vacform canopy from Falcon. Aires U/C bay - wonderful details that you can add a little to but requiring thinning out the plastic to extent you can see day-light - used in conjunction with cockpit it is even worse - a lot of work to make fit plus no clear way to make kit U/C parts fit. Indeed kits retraction mechanism needs to be significantly altered to be used in conjunction with this product. Instructions are misleading in some areas and no mention is given to remember to alter the kits dividing wall so you can pre- locate the front emergency hook - I had to post locate mine from the outside and hope and pray it did not fall into the model! Wolf-Pack wing fold - great looking details and I think a must have but requiring lots of thinning of inner wing section plus altering the kits gun wall as it fouls on it. You will need to thin out the lip of the kits inner wing area more than needed for the product as if you do not do so it will not look to scale so lots of work to do here also. As for the outer wing sections the product for some strange reason gives solid resin nav lights while the kit ones are clear plastic! cutting away the solid resin and adding the kit clear plastic will reveal that the resin product is thinner than the kits and so there is even more work needed thinning the kits clear plastic and polishing back up. Barracuda decals - Ok never used this companies decals before and thought they were top of the game but my Squadron badges well out of register and the white of the roundels so super thin that you will see the black stripes underneath them on the outer wings - I had not even thought to try and calculate where to mask this off and not paint black there! A note on the instructions or extra set of plain white roundels would have helped given the subject matter and likelihood of the problem. I had to use two sets of decals to try and hide the black. The instructions also tell you to locate the aircraft number on the doors of 135 K (which Barracuda label 135 T) but this unit never sports the number on the doors as all photos clearly show - again homework and more work! Master Gun barrels and pitot tube - just fantastic! Eduard paint masks - perfect fit for canopy and tail wheel but not compatible with Quick boost main wheels (far too much money spent on one model) So this baby was finished with a frustrating journey behind it and it is not over yet as if you look at the photos you can see I have completely forgotten to add some hydraulic arms to the wing fold haha - doing that this afternoon. In short if I was doing this model again I would use the Barracuda wheels, all the Quick boost sets and some seat belts from some other company and scratch build the wheel bay details. I would also still use the Wolf-Pack wing fold despite the extra work needed. Hope all the above helps someone. Best wishes, John

Airfix 1/48 scale Sea Fury using most of the available after-market products available - in markings of the Royal Australian Navy during the Korean War, thanks.

Hi everyone - very excited to have received today my 32PE012 Gloster Gladiator cockpit test shot (for ICM kit) A few things to change but hope you like. Hopefully have available by mid February - thanks for looking. Will post when available and then you can email me at aimsmodels1@gmail.com Best wishes, John

Hi everyone this is a future product for the ICM Gladiator. I will post when it is available, thanks for looking

Hi everyone, sending this - my third 1/32 Gloster Gladiator decal sheet to the printers in next few days - enjoy.

Hi everyone AIMS 32P019 Gloster Gladiator upper ailerons correction finished, making silicone moulds tomorrow. Note that ICM represent the centre hinge just as big as the lower wing aileron when in fact it is narrow like the inner and outer hinges. Easy to fix yourself or buy mine when it is available, thanks for looking. Also 32D018 now here! £10.50. email me at aimsmodels1@gmail.com if interested.A Happy Christmas to you all and a peaceful New year to all my customers and friends

Hi everyone here is a preview of 32PE011 ICM Gloster Gladiator Landing flaps, thanks for looking - available mid January

The decals will be with me in next few day, the photo etch will hopefully be with my by mid Jan - possible engine set then to!