olympic1911

Hi all, can anyone suggest an acrylic gloss clear coat that can be applied over acrylic paint before using an enamel wash? I've been trying to get hold of torro Aqua Gloss Clear alc600 but it seems it is not available anymore. Thanks in advance Peter

Thanks for your very interesting input guys. Essentially, the halftrack in the historic image on the bridge was, with all due respect, a mule. It could be an interesting subject, I don't know if many of these have been built before. The kit I have my sights on is the M16 from Trumpeter. We'll see. Regards Pete

This picture was taken in Kervendonk in March 1945. Indeed the Americans weren't even in this area. The British and Canadians came in from the north from Kleve, while the Yanks moved up from the south. They finally met in Issum and Geldern which is a few miles south of Kervendonk, but like I said: I know nothing about AFVs. Did commonwealth forces use this half-track too? Thanks Pete

Hi all, I know NOTHING about armoured fighting vehicles. The image here was taken about 12 km from where I live, the building to the left still exists, I have been there several times and it is haunting. I would like to build a model of the halftrack that is on the bridge, I gather it is a US halftrack. Which kit can be recommend for this? Dragon and Tamiya have 1/35 scale halftracks which both look pretty fitting to my untrained eye. Many thanks for your input Pete

Thanks all for your comments and likes. Contrary to the instructions, I glued the engine beareres to the wing spar before the engine were attached to them. When test fitting the engines nothing would line up as it should. The engines simply wouldn't rest onto the bearers where they were supposed to. The only cure was to remove half of the supercharger air-intake and after that the engines fitted better. As an afterthought, it might have been better to simply remove a slice of intake where it attaches to the engine casing. Peter

Well, I got this one out again after five years. Thanks for checking in! Peter

There is a slight curve at the top of the fuselage directly behind the cockpit which should have been a straight line. This slight curve is horizontal as well. Most built Contrail Hampdens I have seen have this obscured by the open cockpit canopy. I'm not sure if I want to have my canopy displayed open or closed yet, so I thought I need to get it sorted out. The only way to correct this was to replace this part of the fuselage with a heat-molded replacement: Better: In the meantime I have started adding frames and stringers: The male-mold for the nosecone is nearly finished Thanks for dropping in! Pete

Thanks for your likes and comments folks. Work on the Hampden has steadily progressed in the past few days. I started to cut out side side windows at the nose of the aircraft but then realised, this won't work, I need a different approach. So I then started to model a wooden nose from pear-wood that would serve as a male mold for heat molding a clear nose-piece possibly from acetate or clear styrene. This was tacked to the fuselage and sanded to shape. And then repeatedly primed and sanded with very fine sand-paper th achieve a smooth surface.. I hope it works out how I planned it. In the meantime I also produced a male and a femaie mold for the pilot's seat: A small sheet of 1mm styrene was then tacked to the female mold and then placed inside an ofen set to 250 degrees centigrade. After a few minutes it was taken out of the ofen and the male mold pressed into the sheet styrene. Looks promising: After cutting it out, we have: voila! a pilot's seat! It fits quite nicely: Thanks for checking in! Pete

Why would they advertise this with "Full Interior" when ist doesn't have full interior? It appears that everything between the midupper-turret and the main-spar is not included. This isn't going to stop me from buying it, but why advertise with something that it hasn't got.

I bought this kit at Hannant's in Hendon in the early 1990s. In 1993 Jim Howard's excellent build article was published in Scale Aircraft Modelling, pointing out most of the kit's flaws, of which I was familiar with by then. I agree with Jim in some points he raised but not all. In the meantime a lot of aftermarket items have been released, serving as superb replacements for most of the unusable white-metal pieces. The outline of most of the vac-formed airframe pieces is good. The panel lines are particularly good on the wings but not so good on the fuselage. Most of the white-metal items are unusable. The Pegasus engines can be replaced with the Vector offerings: Originaly intended for the Beaufighter I'm going to use the resin wheels friom Ultracast... ...propellers from quickboost, though the white-metal propellers from the kit are ok... Vickers guns come from GasPatch... ...and cockpit instruments from Airscale... All Contrail decal sheets I have come across were poor, the same applies to the Hampden's sheet. I got A1-style roundel masks from Montex: As usual the fuselage halfs were removed from the backing sheets first: The fuselage and the wings were tacked together and the airframe outline compared with the plan. The wings sweep back everso slighty, the starboard wing apparently more than the port. The problem is: the engraved wing-spars on the wing-surface sweep back a great deal more. I'll deal with that when I get there. One of the biggest flaws with the fuselage is the cockit-outline which is completely wrong, though this is easy to rectify: It is up to the modeller to scratch-build almost all of the interior, such as bulkheads and floors: Living in the internet and YouTube age makes life much easier for the modeller, and that's where I got much of my information from. Thanks to all for uploading their videos of the restored Hampden in Cosford. Looks like a Hampden: Thanks for dropping in! Pete

I sent Border Models an email at the end of December, asking when the Lancaster would be available. They replied within a few days saying, that if I ordered a kit at MBKs they (Border Models) would have it shipped in January.

So how many Merlins do we get?

It was the fastest aircraft of the war, but it was also fundamentaly dangerous to it pilot. Like someone stated above, it was one giant firework. The Me 163 scored 16 victories, mainly B17s and at least one Lancaster, for the loss of 14 own aircraft, mainly by accidents. It was so fast that the pilot had only a few seconds to home in onto its victim and to shoot at it. If this didn't work on the first approach the mission had to be abandoned as the aircraft only had enough fuel for 7 minutes powered flight most of which was used when climbing. It was too fast for combat. After the fuel was consumed the aircraft returned to base by gliding. The Me 163 couldn't taxy by istelf and it was incapable to carry out ferry-flights, it had to be transported dismanteled by rail and road.

Here are some images of my Meng Model Messerschmitt Me 163 in 1/32nd scale. Markings are of an aircraft flown by Otto Böhmer in August 1944 while stationed at Venlo. As I live only a few miles from the remains of the Fliegerhorst Venlo I wanted to model an aircraft that was stationed there. Indredible that the vapour trails of Me 163s in a "sharp-start" to intercept incoming B17 bombers might even have been visible from where I live. Paints are from Model Master and Decals from hobby.dn.ua . 440014 was one of the first operational Me 163, built by Klemm Flugzeugbau she was camouflaged in 74/75/76. After being stationed at Venlo in July/August 1944 she was shipped to Brandis near Leipzig. I know of at least three photographs of the aicraft, one of them was taken at Venlo. The model is tricky to build. It was my intention to display it with either the tailpiece mounted to the fuselage or even removed. To acchieve this the engine locatings stubs on the rear side of the rear bulkhead (Part F18) needed to be removed, Otherwise the engine would have protruded too far out off the rear fuselage. Instead of cementing the engine to the bulkhead I cemented it to the fuselage, which gave me a far better fit. Thanks for dropping in! Peter

The transparencies are from clear resin which is perfect because they can be cleaned with thinners without damaging them.