Lanmi

Good morning, you have quite a progress! I will give few more hours here, I will go to bed around 3AM

Here are first progress pictures: I started at 21,30 CET I added few details made of styrene rods on cockpit walls. Wings and fuselage joined. Not very happy with the joint, I used Vallejo water based putty. After 2h15'. Need to sand down fuselage joints, made seatbelts from tamiya tape, I dipped canopy in Gauzy glass coat agent.

Hi everybody, I am planning to join in with hopefully an easy build. I will start around 21h CET. See you soon!

Thank you @trickyrich for your encouragement and nice words. You made a great job running this GB. Certainly I will take part in future builds. This year, I have finished 2 out of 3.

Aichi D3-A1 Val Fujimi 1/72 AI-203 Takashi Ono

Finished!

Sorry for the radio silence, it has been quite a busy period of the year, we returned to business trips again after more than two years, also went on vacation with my family. Anyway, I am very close to the finish line, so I hope I will be able to pull this to an end by tomorrow. I will omit the big bomb, since I forgot where I put the bomb rack for it, I can add it later. Here is how the progress went. not many difficulties. Main headache were the decals. Interior is Nakajima interior green by Gunze Fit was okay no main issues. Gunze black surfacer, and then light gray marbling Gunze colors, IJN Gray green, cowling color at the front and gunze H3 red... ....which proved to be much darker than the hinomaru and tail codes. To late to change now. Today i will do some wash, and final semi gloss cote. Hope I will finish with the antenas, and other small parts at the end.

Thanks a lot, Pete!

According to an article Detailing the D3A1 by Mr. Ryan Toews In August 1941 the aluminum finish and the red tails on existing Vals were repainted with an overall olive-grey scheme. In 2002 Jim Lansdale detailed an examination of several artifacts that included five Vals brought down over Pearl Harbor. Lansdale stated that the surface color “was either identical to, or a close match to, the hue of FS 0277 or FS 6160”. Note too that this paint had a gloss/semi-gloss finish. So, i will most probably go with Mr.Color 128 Gray Green slightly darkened with olive green. Furthermore, interior will be Nakajima cockpit color, not aotake as instruction sheet suggests. Also in the abovementioned article Toews writes that bombs should be mid blue-gray. Thank you a lot for your comments, I totally agree, I love Fujimi they have nice assortment of Japanese subjects.

@PeterB Thanks for the head-up, looking at that cockpit insert, indeed it looks poorly molded it will require a lot of dry fitting before it goes together. Also, I'm not fond of two halves cowlings and molded wheels with main gear skirts either.

Hi everyone. I am jumping in with Fujimi's Val, probably one of the first kits in my stash. I am planing straight forward build without any upgrade or scratch building interior. I will only use Eduard Masks and tamiya tape seatbelts.

Here is some update on the Stirling. I am getting close to finish its interior which is a size of a 5 bedroom house, luckily since i am building early war machine it is almost all in one color except the turrets. Firstly I went with Gunze black surfacer followed by interior green. Detailed target map of Ruhr basin was done by my 7-year old daughter 😀. Still have some interior details, and next step is gluing numerous windows and closing the fuselage.

I follow your builds regularly, enjoy the life stories too, very inspirational, I am really glad you back.

Hi everyone, my entry will be Italeri model of this big bomber. Here are boxing and instruction pictures: Looks fairly detailed, especially in the insides, a bit overdone panel lines and rivets but I can live with it. Maybe I will only try to downsize details on the fabric covered control surfaces. I removed few parts from the sprues already:

It was a bit of a dash at the end but I managed to finish it on the night before we departure to Moson Show in Hungary, bellow is the picture with competitors in maybe most numerous category. I enjoyed this groupbuild and very glad I finished it. I will take better pictures for RFI, I promise 😀. Here's the building thread:

It has been quite straightforward build to the end. Decals went fine and were easily conformed to the surface with Gunze's Mark Setter and Softer. Then, I sprayed it with Gunze matt coat, which I weathered with artist's oils and pigments. Masks removed: I will put couple more pictures on finished models gallery.

Great work. If you have some close up pics it would be great to see details as well.

There's been quite a progress in the recent weeks. Assembly of fuselage and wings went quite okay. Only detail needed to be addressed was engine nacelle faring which needed few drops of sprue goo on the upper side, as well as nose canopy which needed some physical pressure to adhere. When I finished assembly I shot Gunze Mr. Black Primer and started to marble the surface spaying thin layers of Gunze Off white color in random pattern: This was a final result of marbling effect, You can see in the background Mossie's colleague from the day shift, a Revell's Fort, which received same treatment. 😀 Further back there on the computer screen you can see ongoing our modeler's club online workshop where several of us gather and work on our kits online. We started it during COVID lockdowns. Next came the Gunze C series main camouflage colors (C361, C362 and C363). I cut camouflage pattern from a transparent paper which I've drown over a printed plan freehand. I used small nibs of Blu-tack to position it. Hope I will update you soon with decals and weathering process!

Great work, I saved a lot of pictures for reference. I am hoping to start one soon.

Here I present the current progress on this nice Tamiya kit. Assembling mostly goes without problems, I first sprayed the interior with black mr.surfacer 1500 and then sprayed the interior green. I added few hoses made from acupuncture needle. For the first time, I experimented with transparent decal paper for internal canopy frames. These are frames that are only internal and will be seen trough the glass. Firstly i sprayed interior color followed with gloss varnish. Then I cut it into strips and positioned it inside canopy. Finally I joined the tail surfaces and the wings. Next I will polish and mask the canopy, add nacelles and sand joints to prepare for primer.

I was team Marauder too, but I will follow this build for sure. Sparviero is my favorite Italian bomber. This kit is fantastic, only downside is a bit soft plastic, but very nice and detailed.

Nice progress, you are almost half way done! 😀

Ups, it seems that I've put Marauder in tight formation between Whitley and Sparviero. Who is taking the bets?

I've used Standard size for most of the rigging. Superfine was used in rigging parallel to fuselage and on MLG struts. Although it is advertised that Superfine is right weight for 1/72 wwI planes I find it difficult for my eyesight. White background is a must for me, and only tiniest drop of CA glue is enough to hold it. Also it is super stretchy so it forgives accidental pulling.

😀Ha ha, yes Eduard didn't see a penny from me this time. But don't have such a good experience with the Montex. To avoid lift on the curved edges I will have to trace it an cut out from the Tamiya tape.