erniewise

Back in the game! Hope the Hobby Boss kit doesn't cause you as much anguish as the Dragon kit.

Kleer (Pledge) coat laid down for decaling. The Lf Portuguese Decals areon a single carrier film so I have a fair amount of careful cutting out to do now.

Hello Folks 11 weeks to go. Slightly late with the update this week but I decided to spend some time at the bench rather than the keyboard this Sunday. There was also quite a lot to catch up with with! First of all commiserations to @Andwil with his decision to abandon his build of the Dragon Black Widow. He hopes to return with Hobby Boss's offering of the same kit so I have put him in a holding pattern for now. There are a few new starters this week, notably our first 1:144 kit with @Alan P's Spaceship Two and White Knight Two from Revell. We have also lost a Bronco, which has morphed into a Vampire! This leaves us with 44 active builds; of which 1 is completed, 24 are in progress, 18 are yet to get under way and one is doing circuits around the holding beacon. Most popular aircraft type is still the De Havilland Vampire with 8 offerings, closely pursued by the P-38 with 7, and the Saab J21 consolidating third place with 5. Mainly due the the number of Bronco's being put down. In the Aircraft manufacturer stakes De Havilland (12) have now opened up a healthy gap over Lockheed on 7. Saab are in third with five builds. Airfix (7) are now stretching away from ICM on 4 in the kit manufacturer stakes. Cheers Erik

Hello Folks 12 weeks to go. Back up to 40 builds with @Courageous's Reno Racer Lightning. This takes the P-38 up to second place with 6 builds only one behind the Vampire on 7. The Reno Racer is our first Hasagawa offering Airfix and ICM still lead the field for kit manufacturers with 6 each. Cheers Erik

Hello Folks 3 weeks down, 13 to go. We briefly hit 41 builds this week but are now back down to 39 with one abandonment 😞 ,which is offset by one completion which is also our first gallery submission 🙂. Commiserations to @Andrés S. who felt his Bronco wasn't worth persevering with (we've all had one of those kits right?) and congratulations to @theplasticsurgeon for his lovely little Vampire. Most popular aircraft type is still the De Havilland Vampire with 7 offerings. The P-38 lightning and the Saab J21 are now in second place with five offerings each, followed by the Bronco and Skymaster with three. De Havilland (11) are stretching even further away in the lead as aircraft manufacturer followed by Lockheed and Saab (5). We then have and North American Rockwell and Cessna in a tie with four each. Most popular kit manufacturer is still a tie between Airfix & ICM with 6 each, trailed by Special Hobby, cyber-hobby and Academy, with three each. Cheers Erik

Out from the spray booth. Happy with how it looks so far. Now for the moment of truth. I'm reasonably happy with that, apart from knocking off the aerial mast as I was putting it on the stand! More cleaning up to do before prepping for the decals. In particular getting the vallejo mask off the cannon without snapping them off! But this will have to wait, as I will be away for a week on a dutch road trip.

Some unexpected time available at the bench. So... Wings put together - underside. Topside. Canopy dipped in Pledge. The moment of truth. Did I put enough nose weight in to prevent it being a tail sitter? It would seem so as it perches on it's front undercarriage. Some cleaning up and some fettling to do and then on to primer stage.

Earwig? I would have thought Moose would be a better name given the long spindly legs. Welcome to the J21 club, we are not going to catch up with the Vampires but we are neck and neck with the Lightnings for No. of builds.

Welcome Thom Your entry brings our proposed builds for this GB to 40. It's also our second Sea Vixen. Good luck with the build, I can see that you are thoroughly prepared! Erik

Thanks Steve. I think I will be having to rescribe some of the raised panel lines, which is alway a PITA, but hopefully the mix of raised and scribed lines will creat some visual interest. Anyhoo, some progress shots. Paint for the cockpit interior. I don't think I mixed it properly so it will need to be added to. Fuselage, such as it is, buttoned up and the three part canopy glued together with the help of a passing octopus. I have had to add a .13mm shim to one side to get the canopy to sit correctly. Liquid gravity added to the nose cavity, I will add more behind the cockpit bulkhead if necessary when I have the wings and boom put together. On to the scribing.

I wasn't happy with the masking so peeled off the old (there is something very soothing about peeling back copydex!) and re-applied. I hope to get some paint on it this weekend.

Comfort yourself with the fact that you are at least building in the same scale as 25 others. Think of @Mjwomack all on his jack jones with the single metric scale build, his Heller SkyMaster!

Hello Folks 2 weeks down, 14 to go. We now have 39 proposed builds, 1 @1:32, 11 @1:48, 1 @1:50 and 26 in gentleman's scale. 20 of those builds are now under way. Most popular aircraft type is still the De Havilland Vampire with 7 offerings. The P-38 lightning is now in second place with five offerings followed by the Saab J21 and Bronco with 4 apieceand the Skymaster with three. De Havilland (10) are stretching away in the lead as aircraft manufacturer followed by Lockheed (5). We then have Saab and North American Rockwell in a tie with four each and Cessna with 3. Most popular kit manufacturer is still a tie between Airfix & ICM with 6 each, trailed by Special Hobby and Academy with three each. Cheers Erik Following @Mjwomack's suggestion I have pinned this to the thread. It has, of course, obstinately pinned itself to the top despite my best efforts. If any mod with knowledge of how to do so could move it to below the gallery topic it would be appreciated!

Hello All. Away in Portugal at the moment but I managed to get a soothing evening in removing parts from the sprues before I left. My priority at the moment is still my FAP Hurricane in the 90th Anniversary STGB but I might be able to sneak some time in on this as well!

Hello. I'm abroad at the moment (You'll never guess where!) so a quick update to show masking progress before I left. I use white tack worms and copydex. I'm triying to get tighter more varied curves in the worms for this build so am having to build up piece by piece. Back to it at the weekend hopefully.