nearsightedjohn

What a great way to honor your father. I’m particularly amazed at the fabulous slightly weathered and very realistic looking finish you got with brush paints, it looks like model show winner to me! I would be lucky to get these results like this with an air brush! Loosing a parent is tough at any age. I lost my dad 39 years and still miss him every day. May your memories of him be with you for many more years.

Not sure if this qualifies as a “spot of the day” but I just wanted to put the word out for a fabulous classic car collection that I got to tour yesterday in Southern CA. The Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar, CA (just north of LA) is open to the public on Thurs - Sat, admission is free and a guided tour is available with advanced reservations for $10 USD (highly recommended). It was the first auto museum my wife enjoyed because it also included a vast collection of music boxes and large antique “orchestrions” which they demonstrate during the 2-1/2 hour tour. The cars are mostly classic American makes with many concourse d’ elegance winners (about 260 cars total). Most of the cars are not roped off allowing visitors to get up close and inspect (without touching!!!). If you’re ever in the LA area, I highly recommend a visit, cheers, John

Dang that came out out nice! The finished ship is fabulous but it’s the aircraft and figures that really make this build stand out. I will use your WIP as a master-class guide to aim for when I get around to my Langley. Bravo Mick!

Terrific progress on that radial. You’re also doing an excellent job “de-gating” these delicate MiniArt parts. I fractured a number of the thin molded hoses on my build and ended up replacing most of them with small diameter solder. Hopefully you’ll have better success de-gating and cleaning up these fragile parts than I did.

Fabulous job on the camo, winter whitewash, weathering and snow base. I have this one in the stash and your build is inspiring me to get it out and give it go (a good winter project?).

If you do assemble the track using the kit supplied pieces, I highly recommend making an alignment fixture. I fabricated the alignment fixture shown below out of sheet styrene, made assembly much much easier:

Nice job so far. I built and posted the Australian version of this kit here in early July, it was a lot of fun and the way the kit is designed really lends itself to displaying the interior. Are you planning on using the kit tracks? I remember spending about four days on assembling the two track lengths, lots of gate remnants requiring clean up!

Thank you all for the kind compliments, makes me want to build & post more classic F1’s! I airbrushed Tamiya X-18 semi-gloss black onto the valve (cam) covers and then did a light dry-bush with steel enamel.

This “hammer-head” version of the first of the Tyrrells was the fifth Ebbro F1 kit that I’ve built and, like the previous four (Lotus 33, Lotus 49B, Lotus 72C and Tyrrell 002) fought me all the way! While similar in design to the Tamiya 1/20 F1 kits, these four Ebbro kits that I’ve sampled so far incorporate little differences from Tamiya kits such as the lack of corner fillets on stress points and excessive interference on press and snap fits that seem to result in my having to make repairs in multiple areas as I assembled the kit. Example: I broke the wheel axle posts on one the rear wheels and ended up having to drill-out and replace the post with a .073” ID piece of stainless steel hypo tubing: All part of the “entertaining challenges” of scale modeling I guess! Ebbro’s selection of classic ‘60’s -‘70’s F1 subjects make it worthwhile IMO despite these challenges. To the base kit I’ve added AM plug wires, fuel lines, cooling lines with resin fittings, gage wires and safety harness. I airbrushed Zero Paints Tyrrell F1 Blue base paint and Mr. Color Super Clear III clear-coat with self-leveling thinner. The chrome was removed and replaced with Alclad Polished Aluminum over black lacquer on all plated parts except the velocity stacks. I airbrushed the exhaust headers with Alclad “Exhaust Manifold” over gloss black lacquer for the first time and like the result vs. the usual semi-gloss black that I’ve used on previous builds. I used Ebbro’s kit decals which are always excellent. In general, I’m happy with this finished model and look forward to building a few more Ebbro’s in my stash despite the challenges. I always thought this hammer-head version was kind of ugly but its looks and weirdness really grew on me during this build to the point that it is now one of my favorite 70’s F1 cars. Cheers, John

This kit represents the “prototype” F1 predecessor to the BT46B “fan car” and was somewhat of a flop due to the excessive weight of the huge flat-12 Alfa engine and poor cooling performance of the surface radiators concept. I ordered this kit from HLJ for the amazingly low cost of $17 USD (shipping added $25!) with the intent of using it as a practice build for the Fujimi BT46B fan car kit in my stash. Bottom line: it’s a fabulously easy to build kit with few if any challenges. Highly recommended!!! I airbrushed Brabham Alfa Red base paint from Zero Paints with Mr. Color Super Clear III clear-coat with self-leveling thinner. I stripped all the Fujimi kit supplied funky dull chromed parts with oven cleaner and then primed and repainted them with either Tamiya AS-12 bare metal or airbrushed Tamiya acrylics for the gold block, semi-gloss black suspension components or other assorted dark metallic grey, white, aluminum parts. I used Alclad “Exhaust Manifold” over gloss black lacquer on the exhaust headers. I used the kit decals which were a joy and required a minimum of softening solution to settle down. I added AM plug cables, fuel lines and a safety harness. I used CA to bond the photo-etch surface radiator pieces to each side of the lower body which was a little touch-and-go due to challenge of positioning/aligning each piece before the CA set (a few seconds!). I did not paint the side scoop areas black on both sides due to the risk of pulling up decals if I attempted to mask these areas (even with clear-coat over decals, I always seem to have a disaster when I approach a mounted decal with tape). In general, I was really impressed with the engineering and ease of assembly of this Fujimi F1 kit and look forward to assembling the sister fan car kit as well as a six-wheeler Tyrrell P34 that I still have in my stash. Cheers, John

Excellent paint work and all-around clean tidy build on this one, I especially like the restrained weathering on the top. I attempted the B version of this kit a few years ago and it was a struggle from start to finish. I’d love to try the new HK 1/48 B-25J kit but fell over when I saw the $149 USD retail price 😵‍💫!!!

Gorgeous build! The engine and chassis detailing is amazing and I really like the factory correct color, what paint did you? I assume this is the Revell/ Monogram 1/24 kit? Is the ride height stock OOB or did you lower it a bit?

Very nice job on this desert version on the MiniArt Grant. The subtle dry-brushing and dust that you applied to the lower portions is particularly nice. I recently built and posted the Australian version of MiniArts’s M3 Lee kit (with interior, RFI here) and thought most of it assembled pretty easily. Unfortunately, the pin engagements on the swing-arms of each bogie assembly are way too shallow and tend to easily dis-engage causing the arms+ wheels to fall off. I ended up bonding most of these pivot locations together which negated the movable function. The bogies also tend to “pronate” (sag outward) from the hull unless you fixture everything square while the bogie-to-hull bond joints cure. Overall, I highly recommend the MiniArt M3 interior kit(s), they are a lot of fun to assemble and paint and easy to display both fully assembled and with the interior bits exposed.

About the nicest vintage race car model I think I’ve seen anywhere on the web (or in a museum). Your photos are first rate as well. This magnificent model brings back memories for me of a summer evening in 1981 watching Phil Hill doing solo laps around Laguna Seca at sunset in a similar (or the same?) car. Motor racing nirvana!

Got this one yesterday from a long-ago pre-order placed with HLJ: The UN needs to pass a binding international law forbidding kit manufacturers from molding their kits in brightly colored resins (especially red!!!!). Guess I’ll go with the box art color on this one when I get around to building it to avoid the horrid bleed-thru issues…. The price was right ($17 USD) but shipping brought it up expected US dealer prices (about $39 USD). My two favorite non-domestic suppliers are HLJ and BNA in Australia.

Thanks again Michael for the observation about the incorrect aircraft (P2Y-1) on the box art, I totally missed it! At least they didn’t show the weird three engine prototype! (Early XP2Y-1). Yes, I have yet to locate a photo of any aircraft floating near the Langley (or any WWII seaplane tender for that matter) and being re-fueled via a ship mounted boom and fuel hose. I suspect any seas rougher than nearly dead calm would be dangerous to re-fuel this way. My reference book on the PY2 (the Steve Ginter book) states that they incorporated two 650 gal fuel tanks. I’m wondering if they just sent out one or more of the motorboats with 55 gal fuel drums and a pump? I’ll keep looking…

Thank you Michael for the clarification. I found this description on hazegray.org for the tender conversion of the Langley which supports your comments: “The forward 1/3 of the flight deck was removed to open up a seaplane servicing deck, and seaplane hoisting booms were installed. The remainder of the flight deck apparently served no purpose other than as an aircraft storage area when the ship served as an aircraft ferry”. When I tackle this kit I’m hoping to create a water diorama that is similar to the box art but I’d also like to depict an actual refueling of one of the P2Y Rangers. The few WWII images that I can find of seaplanes being refueled appear to just show a launch or launches around the aircraft some distance from the tender. Is this the way they were refueled from the Langley or was there an actual refueling line/ boom extended out to the aircraft positioned close to the ship? The later would work better for a waterline display but I would prefer accuracy over visual drama. Thoughts?

Amazing job on these Trumpeter P2Y Rangers. I did a test build of one in my stash and the PE wing struts were a real test of my PE bending skills. Beautiful job on everything so far. Are you planning to show some of these aircraft partially disassembled on the aft upper deck like the kit box art? I wish there were more reference photos (or even better yet a video) available showing how they managed to assemble/ dis-assemble/ move these huge floatplanes and upper wings on/ off/ around the deck. Did they use the elevator or just crane these aircraft directly on/ off from the upper deck to water? The whole affair just looks so tight for space….

Thanks gents for the positive feedback. Thank you Kingsman for pointing out some of the inaccuracies on my build. I chose the MiniArt instructions option #1 for this build and didn’t bother to consult any other references and it’s a good reminder to me to not assume that the kit manufacturer’s design or instructions are accurate.

This is the Australian version of the MiniArt M3 Lee with interior kit, my second full interior AFV attempt (I posted an AFV Club T-34 a few months back). It's a nice kit with my only issues being the ridiculous size and number of molding gates on each part and some of the crazy fragile molded hoses/ lines as well as the micro PE fittings. I originally did not intend to weather this tank build to this extent but I found it looking a little too toy-ish and uninteresting with my original "clean/ new" paint scheme and so went to work with the oil paint washes/ dry-brushing and Vallejo acrylic mud. I used Tamiya acrylics for all of the base paints and the kit-supplied tracks which, after 4 full days of gate removals/ clean-up and assembly actually went together pretty well. I'm still a novice at AFV builds but am enjoying the process of pre-assembling most of everything before painting and the weathering process (minimal masking compared to scale model builds of planes/ cars/ ships). I think MiniArt did a particularly good job engineering this kit so that the interior can be easily viewed as well as the ability to re-assemble everything without much in the way of gaps or seams. I have a few AFV interior kits from Rye Field and Takom which I hope to complete and compare with MiniArt but my conclusion with this kit is: Highly recommended! Cheers, John

So disappointing James to see these gaps and miss-fits that you are encountering between the wooden deck and PE edge gratings. Is there any way to fill the gaps with plastic filler putty to bring it up to the level of the PE by masking off the PE and wood deck edges, applying the putty, and then once the putty is cured, remove the masking and sanding down any excessive putty to blend the PE to wood surfaces? This won’t eliminate the gaps but at least might diminish them by leveling out the step-downs? I don’t believe I got any PE for the metal edge gratings with my Fujimi brand laser cut wood deck for my Zuikaku and will definitely look hard and dry-fit everything before I commit to the wood deck when I do my build. Sometimes “less is more” when it comes to upgrades! You’re doing a fabulous job on this build so far James; if you were to do nothing to address these gaps, I think your deck will still look fine once everything is painted and the deck populated with aircraft and accessories.

Fabulous job John on both of these builds. The bus made me recall a Matchbox toy I had as a child, your build makes me want to build this kit as a tribute to my childhood memory. Your subtle paint work on the upper benches, wheels, engine details and contrast between the bright red and the dark red stairs and flooring is particularly nice. I am finishing up an arduous build this week of the Mini-Art M3 Lee kit (the Australian one with full interior) which must have at least 10,000 oversized molding gates that needed to be trimmed and cleaned-up. I identified with your “breaking delicate parts” comment, I gave up trying to use any of the micro molded tubing/ hose parts and replaced most of them with solder wire. Mini-Art kits are definitely not for beginners!

Splendid progress Michael on this kit so far. I’m intrigued how you approached pre-assembly/ pre-painting of the Eduards PE under-deck framing. Did you dry-fit all these pieces together on top of the hull and check fit/ alignment with the flight deck first before painting all the individual PE sub assemblies and bonding everything together or just fit and bond piece-by-piece and hope everything eventually fits? I’ve read of challenges encountered in getting this PE girder construction (Trumpeter or Eduards) to come together all aligned and fully installed between the hull and flight deck on other builds. Did you pick the Eduards PE because it fits better than the Trumpeter PE? I have this kit with the Trumpeter PE and Eduards safety net PE in the stash and would like to learn as much as possible from your experiences before attempting this project. Thanks for posting this WIP, cheers, John.

Hi Joe, Your build looks great so far! I built the original Italeri release of this kit in 2017 and wanted to share a miss-step that I encountered and that hopefully you’ll avoid. I used an Eduard canopy masking set on mine (highly recommended!) which I applied after bonding the canopy to the finished fuselage and before exterior painting. The thing I didn’t realize is that I ended up with unpainted portions of the fuselage visible through the lower side edges of the canopy after removal of the paint masking: I fixed this by removing the canopy (which damaged it beyond repair), painting the unpainted portions of the fuselage along the side edges of the cockpit opening and then painting and installing a new canopy. Italeri was kind enough to provide me a replacement canopy after I explained my miss-step. A side note on the panel line engraving: I thought they looked fine on my Stirling after priming and painting. I have an unbuilt 1/72 Italeri Sunderland in my stash that has much more pronounced out-of-scale panel lines which has discouraged me from starting it. Hope this helps! I look forward to following your progress on this excellent kit. John

Thank you James for the 3D Wild source. Their 3D printed 1/350 IJN AA guns and aircraft options look really nice and the prices are amazingly reasonable.