CheshireGap

Excellent work, cger! Particularly enjoying the rain effects on the exhaust stain

That really is museum quality, and given the Avro Heritage Museum is in your neck of the woods, I think you should have a word!

Thanks, Edwardii! The wash was applied straight on to bare plastic - I find the Vallejo wash will not wipe off paint or varnish without leaving considerable staining behind, whereas on bare plastic it will wipe off easily even days later, leaving behind exactly the right effect in rivets and panel lines, and dense enough to show through a layer or two of airbrushed camo

Excellent finish, lovely subtle variation to the colours

Its a mix of Tamiya XF58 Olive Green and XF67 Nato Green, then added a couple of drops of XF71 IJN Cockpit Green for fading; strictly speaking the whole combo is probably too light, in photos the Shinden appears much darker, but I like the overall effect, and that is what counts!

Thought I would have a bash at getting this finished withing 2020, but falling a hour or so short of that target...following the tip from bentwaters81tfw, I decided to bolster the pegs for the undercarriage legs with brass tubing, sized up for the hole: So far this seems to be holding... Decals were disappointing, too bright, and out of register with a noticeable white line appearing on one edge; I only used them for the underside and decided to make masks elsewhere The prop is fiddly to paint but plenty of fine tape and it gets done easily enough And that is nearly up to date; I have since superglued the undercarriage in place and am adding the doors & aerials to wrap it up, will post an RFI in 2021...

Thanks for the tip! I must admit to looking at them and wondering how they will support anything, Hasegawa do not supply much of a peg to hold to it in place.

Excellent work! I wish I had the courage to do this kind of scratch work, let alone present it!

Decided that the next challenge should be an old kit, one with raised panel lines that needed a full engraving and riveting job done on it; chickening out on old Monogram B-24 & B-26 kits as I wanted a quicker build, out came this old Hasegawa kit; this still hasn't been a quick build: too much work and trying to slowly pack up the house ahead of a move in the new year. Overall this is a surprisingly good kit, yes the detail is not up to modern standards, but the fit is very good, making for a simple, fast build. The only challenge is the one I set myself. I didn't add much to the cockpit, just careful painting a few handles on the throttles, and a seat borrowed from a N1K1 Shiden update set (yes, I misread it and ordered the set for a different aircraft!) The to work with the engraver and the rivet tool; there are some lines already engraved around the intake and on the wing, but the rest are me. I left some raised lines in inaccessible areas and for small rectangular hatches; most of the rivet layout is my imagination as I could not find a decent plan. I chose to depict larger fasteners around the gun access panels. All this is highlighted with Vallejo black panel line wash; this wipes off bare plastic easily when dry, leaving a nice contrast, but over paint it doesn't seem to come off at all, so I avoid using it over primer. I am not bothering with primer here, rather going straight over the plastic. And initially this seemed to be working out well; this is the underside grey going down, using the Mission Models system for the first time It did not work out quite so well in reality; I don't know what it is like over primer, but over bare plastic this stuff comes off with the lightest of touches, its very fragile. And yes it went down nice and wet, so this isn't a drying-too-quick issue. In the end I wiped it all off - and it was easy to wipe off - and laid down some XtracrylixNeutral Grey (I am not too fussed about colour accuracy for this one) A quick spray of interior green over the canopy and we are ready to mask up and lay down the green Everything seems to show through nicely A slightly lighter version of the green was then used to break up the monotone a bit, and some pastel work to add a bit of dirt here and there; obviously this is all in what-if territory as this aircraft never saw combat, indeed I believe it was never actually fitted with real guns, so the kit is a bit 1946 as presented by Hasegawa And that brings us up to date; I hope to be adding a gloss coat and decals in the next few days, assuming they are still usable after 30 years in a box!

I am going to stick to my interpretation when I do my Revell 1/32 in this scheme! In the BW& it sure looks like the dark area extends below the panel line but the colour photo reveals it is really just the yellow, which the relative colour sensitivity of the B&W film is rendering tonally as dark as the unpainted panel. There does appear to be a bit of touching up/smudging at the point of intersection which adds to the illusion. Plus I cannot think of any earthly reason why it it would have been painted a light blue!

Mark, be wary of that dark triangle just aft of the "LOU IV" (3 in your picture) being a painted colour - on Mustangs the panel surrounding and to the rear of the exhausts is in a darker metal, that triangle is likely to be just the only corner of that panel that is unpainted.

fantastic weathering and the nose looks genuinely translucent, very cleverly done!

That is very nice, the subtle, low contrast wash over the rivets works beautifully - easily visible close-up, not so much at distance, just like the real thing!

Copyright on the instruction dates this release to 1990, its been in my stash since around that time, and its turn has finally come around...I fancied doing something BoB this year, and chose this beastie, however lockdown and I did not get on, progress has been spectacularly slow after the mojo evaporated, only picking up again recently. Overall 2020 is likely to see only two kits come to completion, and one of those was started in 2019. I can only hope that next year is better all round...anyhow, to catch up with the progress since March, we kick off with what all old kits need, a good sound filling of ejection pin marks. I decided I was going to have the cowls off on one side, so opening up the cowl fasteners. To this end I separated the single piece cowls into two, testing fitting also seemed to imply that this would be easier to fettle into the slightly warped front fuselage. I prefer a painted instrument panel, so had a crack at the Airfix two piece offering Cockpit painted with Vallejo Duraluminium with a few drops of grey added to dull it down further Some chipping and weathering Whilst I am not going to super-detail anything, I did decide I would improve a few areas, such as the rear tail light, here being measured up against a piece of sanded clear sprue Prop taking shape And the gun bay, only one of which will be left open There is a bit of warping around the front, and left to its own device the nose tilts forward slightly, meaning the top cowl does not fit without persuasion, and super glue; here the front has been glued, later the rear would be given the same treatment; note I have undercoated the rear with a bit of Humbrol Hull red enamel, which is a good approximation for the dope used on the fabric areas A little view inside the cockpit which has been spruced up with some Eduard belts And all finally together; the front cowl is just tacked on as that will be removeable The aerial and base is being prepared, drilled and pre-fitted with some invisible thread; the fit has been fettled to make it near perfect so it can go in at the end At this point plans started to change; I had planned to add camouflage but in the manner of the original would have been, over bare metal areas and doped fabric; however once this was down and a wash put on to highlight all those raised rivets, I thought it looked really good! Because enthusiasm is still up and down, I have elected to forgo the BoB paint job and finish it "factory fresh", as it would look off the production line before it hit the paint job, or at least how it would in my imagination. This finish looks great in the large scale. There is only one problem: the Vallejo wash seems to soften the Vallejo metallics, making them rather delicate, meaning that in attempting to clean up the wash some damage has been done. Because of this I am going to mask up properly and tidy up both the metallic and the fabric areas. Washes will then be kept to a minimum, and having chosen this scheme it means I get to short-cut and head straight to final assembly - no weathering, no varnishing, no decals! That will wrap up what has been a long slog, and enable me to get on to something a bit smaller and less daunting, and hopefully a bit quicker!

Just the postage, I don't want to fold it so it will be a large letter - I'll let know. PM me the address and I'll get it sorted this week

I have the early 1990's release of this in my stash, with the Big Beautiful Doll decals - let me know if you are still in need.

Thanks for all the kind comments! Its all relative - started in March and finished in April is very quick for me! There are not really that many parts to slow you down, there are only 8 steps in the instructions, including rockets & bombs. Examples of the" mixed bag": - lovely detail on the radar operators station - weird "growths" at the base of the prop blades Landing gear is fairly sturdy so far, its a bit of a fiddle getting it in if you leave it till after painting though. Doors are more of a fiddle as there is little in the way of contact points to glue. Standard sponge technique using Citadel paints - their base metallics are really good for brush painting, and they have a good choice

Looks like practice made perfect...stunning...

Love the desert scheme, topped off with some very nice weathering effects.

Excellent, Fuad!

A very quick (for me) OOB build, and a real mixed bag of a kit: most parts need cleaning, some (props) have some horrible moulding flaws, the canopies do't fit too well and the decals silvered..one the other hand fit is good, surface detail is restrained, some parts are very nicely detailed, and the Tigercat can't help look good! I attempted to do this almost totally out of the box ,so not even seat belts, intended to rely on the finish to get it looking good. I did however replace the aerial posts: even Italeri's box art says there should be two, but they only supplied one moulded in with a fuselage half, and as that broke off & disappeared I figured it wouldn't be to much of a crime to add the second. I didn't add a wire as photos suggest that not all of the Korea birds had one, indeed the variety of aerial/wire combinations suggests there were a few different radio configurations around. No bombs and rockets because tbh I lost patience after the matt varnish and wanted to move on! I am happy with the finish, there is more variation in the black than is apparent in the photos, but the decals did silver a bit more than I hoped, taking the shine off the whole a bit - they are probably twenty years old so it's understandable! (the barrel & box is supplied in the kit for the purposes of keeping the tail off the ground, mainly necessary because I forgot to weight the nose! Still, couldn't be bothered to paint it...)

Stunning!

This is the Kitty Hawk kit. Something of a mixed bag, there is some really nice crisp surface detail, fit is mostly good if you don't mind a little fettling first, and then there are the thickest decals I have ever seen; really not good even after a ton of decal softener. They are more like stickers, but they don't stick. Recommended if you are aware of the challenges. I also dispensed with the arrestor hook, filled over and rescribed the recess for it. The "gaps" on the upper surfaces panels were left deliberately, these are opening doors, to vent the exhaust I believe.

Finished but not finished: as you can see from the pics the armoured glass windscreen is currently lost but will be added when it turns up! Work in progress can be found Revell 1/32 Spitfire MkIIa

Last update before posting the RFI photos: showing the tiny section of Albion Alloys Brass used in place of the inaccurate aerial terminator on the fin, the fitting at the other end, and the replacement Quickboost exhausts painted up. Unfortunately the armoured windscreen is currently lost, as will be seen on the RFI pics; if it turns up I will be adding it.