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.

Thanks all, for your interest and your kind comments. Here some pictures of the work in progress. Regards Peter

It isn't really much heavier than an average plastic model kit of the same size. The fin and stabilizers are solid casts but the airframe is hollow, construction is much like building a vac-formes kit. The parts need to be freed from Filller-gates and cleaned up. There is one thing I need to add though: I purchased the kit directly from the manufacturer in the Czech Republik. I messed up one of the decals and sent the company an email if they would sell me a replacement decal sheet. I got a reply asking if the sheet is to be sent to the same address the model was sent to. A few days later a replacement decal sheet landed in my letter-box completely free of charge. The service that HpH offers is really second to none!

Here are some pictures of my HpH Models Messerschmitt ME 410 in 1/32nd scale. It is a multi-media mainly resin kit, it is not Tamiya and I didn't expect it to be. From a cottage industry limited run kit a little trimming, sanding, head-scratching is to be expected but I loved every minute of building. The kit is on the expensive side but looking at the end result it is worth every penny! The surface detail is superb! Thanks for checking in! Peter

Hi everone, I'm looking for information (colour schemes) of Messerschmitt 410 nightfighters that were stationed at Venlo in 1944 - 45. Apparently there were only two aircraft, these were from Erprobungsgruppe 410. Any info is appreciated. Thanks Peter

Wow! thanks for your kind comments! The model was a joy to build though it wasn't smooth sailing. I had the kit for decades it was one of the first released from the 1970s, it is a beautiful model to build. My unbuilt kit showed its age, the box was bent and bruised, the instruction booklet long since gone and the rubber tires were rotten. I hope the mods don't mind me turning this thread into a build-log. I made replacement tires from wood, which was good actually because those supplied by Airfix were als undersized to avoid them snagging a location pip inside the wheel spat. One of the fuselage halfs was distorted. I tried to get it back into shape using hot water... ...not what I had hoped for. So another kit for spares was needed. I was fortunate enough to purchase an unbuilt MPC licensed produced Airfix Stuka from the States which comes in awful green and grey plastic. But in the meantime I was able to work around the missing tail-section. After a long wait the spares kit finally arrived and the missing tail piece was replaced. Further spares were also used, such as the propellor as I wasn't happy with the first I had built. But apart from these mishaps the model was a joy to build. Fit of parts was reasonably good but generally the kit is very well produced. Here the transparencies with inside and outside framing: These were airbrushed using the Montex Masks. And it sure looks the part! Wingspan is 58cm, length 47cm. The Montex masks aren't clear but they didn't mind being removed often to get their location right! Thansk again for dropping in! My current build is the HPH Models Messerschmitt 410 in 1/32nd scale so stay tuned! Peter

Hi All, this was my Christmas Holiday build, it took me a little longer though, finished it in February. It was built more or less from the box using Montex masks and Humbrol enamels. Thanks for dropping in!

Hi, how does this stuff behave when being masked? Do the masks leave stains after being removed? Is it better to dip the transparencies AFTER the frames have been painted (this would leave us with glossy canopy frames though)?

Hi all, I often read about transparencies being dipped in "Future" to make them clearer. Apart from that I know nothing about it. Has someone here worked with it, and can you tell me where I can get it from? Thanks Peter

You know that in German it is actually Die Abteilung and not Das Abteilung

Thanks everyone for your kind comments and likes! Santa's been here! Yesterday I received the large sculpture that forms the taffrail: It isn't finished yet but I now have to do some trimming and fillng to fit it to the existing structure, then it'll be off to Berlin again for some fine-carving. The ship's wheel wasn't invented until around 1704, they only became common around 1710-15. Before then ships were steered by the whipstaff, here's the tiller with the crank to which the whipstaff is attached: And here the whipstaff: Here a bronze cannon after cleaning and polishing: I'm afraid they wouldn't fire! Happy Christmas everyone and thanks for dropping in! Peter