Beggsy

Ooh this sounds pretty neat. I'll find something to build, surely. Sign me up, please!

You can sign me up to this, the Mirage IIIO is a particular interest of mine.

Sign me up then, this is my favourite of the SAABs!

1/144s are a ton of fun, and (usually) nice and quick. Count me in for at least 1!

I'm in, with an Air-Sea Rescue Spitfire if I can find a suitible kit and decals.

You can count me in! I've been planning a build of CAC Mustang A68-1 and discovered that it still exists and has raced at Reno in a totally different colour scheme. That would make a cool pair of models.

Well, I wasn't planning to be here (much as I love the F-14). I went online a couple of weeks ago to buy an F-14 in preparation/hope for the What If group build next year (if it passes the bunfight). However, in a little bit of fat-fingered clumsiness I put two in the shopping cart. There was enough other stuff in the order that the price looked about right and I didn't notice until they turned up together in the box! So now, I've got a spare one of these and there's a group build on so I may as well try and throw it together! This will be entirely OOB except for maybe a masking set. No fancy resin or scratch building this time! So without further ado, I got the first parts off the sprue: One evening and a lunchtime decal session later (the joys of working from home), we have this: So far, I've been impressed by the detail in the kit, but a bit suprised by the number of raised ejector pin marks I've had to remove from mating surfaces. Nothing to challenging thankfully. Now on with assembling the main body!

Not as of today it isn't

I've got a whole bunch of Australia prototype models to make, I could definitely do one for this group build. Please sign me up!

Got it in one! I guess the museum had the two incomplete aircraft and figured people would rather see a complete WWII fighter than some disassembled pieces. Maybe I could do a story along the lines of: A ship carrying P-40s to Australia hits a rogue wave and loses a container of wings overboard. The perfectly good fuselages are put into storage on arrival. A few years later the production of CAC Mustangs is ramping up but isn't providing fighters to the squadrons fast enough. The entire Mustang wing is a sub-assembly that's joined to the fuselage in a near complete state. Some bright spark at CAC realises that if they produce a few extra sets of wings and pay some engineers a bit of overtime, a few extra fighters can be had quickly and cheaply...

I'm already signed up, but I'm having thoughts about a second build, and operational version of the infamous "Kittystang" from the museum at Moorabbin:

I'm working on a small layout at the moment that will definitely involve some structure kits, and also possibly some freight cars. I'd bee keen to build one of those for this group build!

I've got a couple of builds needing modification for my GAF / CAC prototypes theme, including: CMR CA-6 Wackett, modified with a Gypsy Major engine and cowling. Avro Lincoln, made from Airfix Lancaster with Blackbird conversion High Planes Winjeel, with the engine and vertical tail moved to their prototype locations So, count me in for one of those!

Thanks for the kind words everyone! In excellent news on the "Aircraft-built-at-Fishemans-Bend" front, the Avro Lincoln conversion set from Blackbird has just come back into stock, and I've ordered one. That's going to be a big project! If anyone else had been eyeing up that set, get in quick and order yourself one!

Which parts are you looking at using? I saw that CMK do a full conversion set now. If the rest of it has as much detail as the hedgehog exhaust I used, it should be great. The HPM set is pretty good too, but hard to find these days.

G'day everyone. With my Beaufort project finished, I summoned up the mojo to deal with a few outstanding issues on this project. And shortly after that, it was done! This is the Airfix Beaufighter TF.X with some modifications to turn it into the first Mk.21, as flown on May 26, 1944. The work needed for the conversion was relatively tame compared to the Beaufort, but I ended up making a bunch of extra work for myself with resin engines and Eduard lowered flaps. Here are some details Kit: Airfix Beaufighter TF.X Aftermarket: - Barracuda resin wheels with tread pattern - Eduard general photoetch set - Eduard photoetch flaps - Eduard masking set - HPM resin autopilot housing, instrument panel and rear canopy - CMK resin hedgehog exhausts - Vector resin Hercules engines - Quickboost resin undercarriage doors Paint: - Exterior: Gunze H-302 (approx. RAAF Foliage Green) - Interior: Mix of Tamiya XF-81 (Dark Green 2 (RAF 2)) and XF-21 (Sky) Decals: From the HPM set, tail number modified into A8-1 (the font is not quite correct but close enough. If I stumble across a better set in future I'll repaint and re-decal that area) Other modifications: - Drilled out the gun ports in the lower fuselage - Left off the HPM machine gun barrels as A8-1 and A8-2 didn't have the extra wing guns - Drilled out bulbs in the wingtip lights - Opened up tubes on the front of the exhausts by rotating the point of an exacto knife - Added EZ-line aerial wire - Removed second antenna behind DF loop - Added greebling inside the fuselage (slightly visible from just the right angle) - Added feature on front of canopy (rear-view mirror?) from styrene card And now, here are the photos! This is definitely one of my better finishes for an aircraft with a single colour all-over. The canopy windows are big and very clear. The after-market flaps, wheels and gear doors all look great! Finally, here are a few side-by-side with the Beaufort. At this rate, I think I'm actually finishing kits faster than buying them this year!

Your wait is over! Here's the link to the RFI: This one turned out pretty good in the end, I'm super pleased with it!

Update time! The Foliage Green (Mr. Hobby H302) went down well. I added a tiny bit of white to do the canvas control surfaces, and then used lighter and darker shades to add a bit of variety around the aircraft. Then, I painted up the gear bays, re-did the flaps and added the gear doors. As of right now, it's also had a gloss coat added where the decals will go, and I'm waiting for that to dry. I'm really pleased with how the flaps and gear doors look! The propellers have been painted up. And I've painted/assembled the engines/cowlings. The resin exhausts from CMK were a big upgrade from both the Airfix and HPM parts. I see that CMK now offer an entire conversion set, it looks pretty good and I'll keep it in mind if I'm going to build another Mk.21. Finally, I had a go at the wheels. Eduard don't provide a circular mask for these, presumably because Airfix provides wheels with separate hub and tire pieces. I've got one-piece Barracuda wheels though. Luckily, I had an idea that allowed me to spray the hubs without tedius masking with flexible tape: Those are the Airfix tire-halves, blue-tacked to the wheels. The result was pretty good. A black wash around the hub covered up a tiny bit of green overspray onto the tires. So that's the state of play. I'm hoping to get the decals on tonight, and a flat coat if they set quickly enough. Then it will just be installing the sub-assemblies and a couple of small details to make and attach.

I once wondered the same thing.....and ended up getting Tamiya Mark-Fit instead as it does the job just fine with only one product.

That's looking great! You've got the detail on the engine beautifully highlighted.

Well, it's been a while. The Beaufort build came and went, as did plenty others. And then I suddenly had the urge to pick this up again. In a whirlwind of work, I got a bunch done and forgot that I'd been posting photos here! So here are some belated shots. Last time I checked my regular hobby supplier's website, Eduard's masking set for this kit was in stock, so that was a must-buy. I then proceeded to finish polishing up the rear canopy, then got both attacthed to the model. I also added the landing gear legs and some other assorted pieces. A coat of black paint followed. I'm becoming quite fond of priming in black and modulating the final cammo colours. Sometimes my efforts are a bit too subtle to see, but it makes the airbrushing of monotone schemes a bit more entertaining at least! After the black, I realised there were a few more pieces to add, so I got them glued on too. I'll have to do the black again, but that's no big deal. I also assembled one of the Vector resin engines. It was a little too wide for the cowling, so I had to cut off some detail from the top of the cylinders. It would never have been seen anyway, but it's still a shame as they were very nicely moulded. After assembly, I sanded off a bit of raised detail on the front of the engine, and thinned down the propeller shaft. Those two modifications made it work quite well with the Eduard photo-etch. The engine cowlings are also together, minus the kit engines and the 3 internal struts which are being replaced by the Eduard etch. The Aires gear doors got some black paint, to be followed by interior green. I think these will look great once painted. Finally, while browsing an actual brick-and-mortor hobby shop a while ago (before the latest lockdown), I came across some CMK hedgehog exhausts that looked way better than either the Airfix or HPM ones, so I got those and started work on them. This is now my primary project, so hopefully the next update will be much sooner!

The decals behave pretty well. I applied them a little forward of where they need to go, then pulled them aft until the tail-end was in the right place. This helped to keep the main stripe straight. After that, I nudged the forward wider sections into place. If you haven't done so already, I'd glue the engine mount to the nose before the decals, but put the cowling on afterwards. That way the fuselage stripes can overhang or underhang a little at the front, and the cowling will cover that up and look just right. Here's a photo from my build to show what I mean. Note that the propeller is just posed in place, before anyone asks how on earth I got the cowling on

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This one is a lovely little kit. I just finished building it myself as part of this weekend's Blitzbuild. IT went together really well. I needed a bit of filler around the fuselage seams, but there's not much detail in the area so it can be sanded back very easily. That said, make sure not to sand off the two faint raised areas on the underside that will indicate where the landing gear attachments go.

Photos are in the gallery. Here are the ones that didn't make the top 5, but I still thought they looked nice enough to post. This was a relaxed and enjoyable blitzbuild. Happy modelling to all of you still going!