fubar57

According to Aero Detail 20, its a FuG350 Naxos Z search radar antenna

This is an Esci/AMT repop. The kit went together pretty well but pay attention to the instructions as Italeri mis-numbers several parts; they are pretty easy to figure out though. Another error was that a clear canopy was include and every photo I've seen has the smoked one. An easy fix for me as I swapped it out for the smoked one in their S-3A kit. The cockpit is pretty barren so the canopy hides this nicely. I had to remove and re-position some of the antennae. These things were all over the place so references are needed. I used Vallejo Model Air Barley Grey as it looks pretty close to the photos. I'm pretty much stuck on paint I have in stock due to this COVID thang. Italeri wants you to paint the canopy/glare panel Black but the photo shows Grey; I used Tamiya XF-53 Neutral Grey for this. I used the kit decals and I'm not sure if its my choice of lo-viz paint or their choice of lo-viz markings but they all but disappear. The tail marking...yes...that's singular. Its one piece except for the formation lights. There was no problem getting them into position as they were very sturdy. I got them to snuggle into the panel line but not completely. I made the FOD covers as I didn't feel like fiddling around with the intake seam; not completely accurate.

I wonder if the taller tail wheel strut had something to do with the external fuel tank

Beauty. And a nice clear shot of the tail wheel extension

If you are going to do one of the -3s in Post #2 and not "Jane" try and acquire just numbers from spares or a friend. Alley Cat provide the decals for mine, one set of Stars and Bars and then a bunch of numbers. The numbers for the tail are about 9mm and for the cowl about 5.5mm. No other special markings

Alley Cat Decals makes a 1:48 set but mistakenly call them F6F-5Ks. There is one F6F-5K on the sheet which is the one I modelled using an old Monogram kit, the one with the folding wings and no interior. Two things to note. The antennae coming off the cross beam on the tail both enter the left fuselage at the same location. Look at the second photo down in sabrejet's second post, the tail wheels have extensions. I added 2mm of round stock for mine. Decals https://www.alleycatmodels.co.uk/post-war-test-f6f-5k-hellcats-4247-p.asp

Love it....woof woof

Great to see one that's not shiny and silver

Just a small dab of superglue (CA) is required to attach the thread I posted. It grabs almost immediately and will hang on like a frightened limpet to a rock. Very stretchy as well

Great job. I used the decals as well on my build. If you look at them under a magnifying glass they look like they're sprayed on. For the antennae I used https://www.uschivdr.com/products-in-detail/rigging/ I chose to use the Superfine for 1:48 but Fine works just as well

The Osprey book, "56th Fighter Group" has a profile of P-47D-28 with Donald Duck on the nose, code LM✪J, s/n 44-19780. There is also a photo of said aircraft but no markings can be made out. The caption says, "....outside No 2 hangar at Boxted on 11 October1944. Jackson had four air and four ground victories at the time this shot was taken....". The appendices for the profile says, "....Teddy entered service with a Dark Green and Light Sea Grey disruptive pattern on the upper surfaces, which was the commonest form of 'in-the-field' camouflage applied to 62nd FS aircraft. The undersurfaces remained in natural metal finish...." Superscale Decals 48-937 has a P-47M-1RE "Teddy" also listed as LM✪J, s/n 44-21117. This one with camo listed as Dark Green and Medium Sea Grey over NMF. No Donald Duck on this one. How accurate the camo colours are, I have no idea

Very cool. I have the RCAF "Checkerbird", NMF CF-104D Twin Seater, and a NMF single seat CF-104G in my 1:48 collect. This would be a nice one to add for a camo bird

Very nice and love the photography

"Douglas A-4A/B Skyhawk in Navy Service" by Steve Ginter has two photos of your aircraft, one from the left on the ground and one from the right in the air. On the ground the slats are open and to me it looks like no red underneath. The date is 1957. The airborne shot is from 1959 and the battle efficiency "E" has been added to the fuselage side above the intake warning. The book calls the aircraft an A4D-2 EDIT: In the same book I see aircraft of the same time frames with and without red under the slats. Sorry I can't help out more

According to 4+ Publication, "Fairey Gannet Anti-submarine and Strike Variants AS Mk.1, AS Mk.4", "The colour scheme of Federal German Navy aircraft did not differ from the later FAA pattern of EDSG and Sky Colours, with the former wrapping around the wing and tailplane leading edge onto the lower surfaces...." This was, "....6" of the undersurface, back from the leading edge of the wings and tailplane, the same colour as the upper surface, i.e. Extra Dark Sea Grey"

Thank you

Looks great. I may have to tunnel into my stash a get mine out

Thank you very much gentlemen and thanks for posting the link Troy I use Uschi van der Rosten's Super Fine thread (meant for 1:72) for all my antennae as I think its closer to scale than their Fine size. Having said that, I have now seen a few models using Fine and it looks OK as well as we are only talking .01mm of a difference https://www.uschivdr.com/products-in-detail/rigging/

The newest Mk.I kit with the fuel tank cover and landing gear issues. I had to add the padded headrest as per the photo, made from a piece of round sprue tree. Other than that, a great kit. This is WZ⦿H of 19 Squadron, Duxford, 4th May 1939. Innards were painted with Tamiya XF-71 Cockpit Green. Masking tape harnesses. The bottom was painted with Tamiya XF-69 Nato Black and Vallejo Surface Primer – White. Note the long area of white that needed to be masked off and when painting was done and the tape removed, no paint lift. Upper colours were done with Tamiya XF-81 Dark Green 2 (RAF) and Mr. Hobby Aqueous H72 Dark Earth. Antenna is Uschi van der Rosten Super-fine thread From Da Webs

Thank you. I’ll post the photo once I get back to my laptop

Thank you. This had to be one of the easiest models I have ever built out of the 100+ that I have finished. I posted the photos on another site and one person said I overdid the weathering. I included two photos of the actual aircraft (both sides) to prove him wrong. A day later a guy sent me an almost perfect photo of the left side and apparently I didn't weather it enough. Also, it looks like the lower surfaces were a grey colour and everything I had been told were that these aircraft were natural metal or a silver colour. Now it got me heading for more research Thanks Mike. When I read about builds, the most important thing for me is what paints are used and any mixes so I like to include this as well. To include difficulties with the build is important to me as well. The more info I get from reading about a model build will determine whether I buy the kit or not. I also include my usage of Vallejo paints as there are so many who dislike the brand. I totally agree they are a bit more fragile than other acrylics and some of their colours are off, especially the early offerings. Once I figured out never to touch the paint for 24 hours after spraying I haven't had any more problem with paint lifting after masking than any other acrylic paint. I've used Tamiya decals before and never had this much trouble. Yes, they took some coaxing but yowsers, this was a battle about who would give up first. If the military want to make invincible aircraft and fighting vehicles, coat them with Tamiya decals George

N1K1 from the 402nd Fighter Squadron, 341st Fighter Group. This is a very nice kit with great fit and low parts count. When I opened the kit I set myself a challenge; finish a kit in under a month. If you discount the 10 minutes it took me to attach the aerial this morning, the build took 15 days. Why oh why does it take me 3 – 4 months to do others? Innards painted with Tamiya XF-58 Olive Green lightened with XF-4 Yellow Green and an Eduard pre-painted seat harness set was added. While the paint was drying I joined up the wing parts and drilled out the wing guns. There were minor gaps along the wing roots which, to be honest, were thinner than the engraved panel lines beside them so I left them. There was a fine gap on the lower wing/fuselage join. This was only on one half which is odd as the rest of the fuselage lined up. Thin plastic card was used to fill. I sprayed the wing I.D. bands with Vallejo Model Air White and then their Gold Yellow. A Google search doesn’t seem to show the later available anymore in the Model Air group of paints. This was left to set-up for at least 24 hours before masking. Bottom done with Vallejo Metal Color 77.706 White Aluminum and again I let it set for 24 hours before masking. There is a small pattern under the stabilizers and to mask this off, I enlarged the instructions, laid a piece off Oramask 810 over the instruction area I wanted to use as a mask, cut it out, removed it from the paper and stuck it to the model. This stuff is pretty low tack but I removed a bit more. I sprayed the top coat done using Tamiya XF-11 J.N. Green and as is my wont, started to immediately remove the masking. Not one bit of Vallejo was harmed in the process. I noticed a bit later than I didn’t have full coverage on the left side so the next day I remasked and reshot. Once again no paint lift from Vallejo. I’ve read builds where people have used Liquitex Gloss for a clear coat so I bought some and figured I was use it for my first time of spraying clears. My biggest fear of spraying clear coat is “when do I know when the airbrush is cleaned out” so I triple cleaned it. A few observations here about Liquitex. It sprays great when cut with 25% water and dries fast. I noticed I had pebbling so I’ll put this down to fast drying and the fact that I was spraying about 6-8″ away. Next time I’ll get closer and go slower. The decals…those freakin’ Tamiya decals. I used everything in my arsenal including Walther’s Solvaset to try and get them to lay down in the panel lines and nada. The last attempt was to pool Walther’s on the wing decals and walk away. I went down the next morning and the decals stood proud. Finally I got some paper towel, soaked it in scalding water and pressed firmly into the decals…success. The next day I went down to put some more decals on on noticed that the previous decals, for the most part, had raised out of the panels lines and I raised the white flag. I clear coated the decals and then weathered with Tamiya XF-16. When dry I ran some Tamiya Grey Panel Liner along the panel lines. Watching videos about this technique shows various wait times up to half an hour before removing the excess but I remove it almost immediately with good results, about a half a wing or fuselage at a time. I let this dry overnight and then flat coated with Microscale Flat. The aerial was done using Uschi van der Rosten Super-fine thread

Lovely. I built an ICM here...https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/done-1-48-bf-109f-2-winter-war-eastern-front-wwii.41706/ and used this as a reference...https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/done-1-48-bf109f-4-j-steinhoff-your-favorite-aircraft-of-all-time-gb.31793/

I really like that scheme