Bill.B

Simply stunning, very well done!

Fantastic finish, well done!

Lovely job, very well done.

Excellent job!

Hi Joachim, I agree that the wheel angles aren’t the best, but the kit doesn’t allow for a correct stance without some surgery, which I didn’t fancy tackling at the time, hindsight I should have. With regard to the ribs under the wings, they are present on the upper wing, but the photo just doesn’t show them for some reason, however, they hardly exist at all on the lower wing. regards, Bill.

Hot off the building board is my rendition of the diminutive Airfix Gloster Gladiator. It was a fairly quick build and the only additions I’ve made to the kit are seat belts, a scratch built foot step (not all were three pointers), after market decals and rigging wires. This was the first time I’ve tried oil paint dots for weathering and also the first time I’ve used Uschi Van der Rosten rigging thread. I definitely need to use less oil dots, or at least smaller ones as it’s so easy to over do things, and I need to use less super glue for attaching the rigging so it dries quicker. Paints are Tamiya acrylic and the clear lacquers are Humbrol Matt over Humbrol gloss. Anyway here it is warts ‘n all, and any constructive pointers gratefully received.

Good job on the complex Camo scheme.

I’ve not posted on here for some months now mainly due to a combination of other interests and work, but I’ve finally completed another build. It’s the 1:72 Italeri Merlin helicopter as featured in the 007 film ‘Skyfall’. It’s built OOB apart from some photoetch seatbelts and cockpit instruments and the weathering has been kept very low key as the 1:1 scale version in the film looks quite clean...until it crashes! The kit isn’t particularly well moulded with a few gaps here and there and the main rotor blades didn’t have any droop on them, but a heat gun and some judicious bending soon sorted that problem. Perhaps the most frustrating issue was that the instructions have omissions and inaccuracies which caused a fair amount of head scratching. As there aren’t too many detail photos of the real thing it was a challenge to recreate a reasonably accurate looking model. As just one example, the tail rotor painting detail in the instructions is nothing like the odd ball scheme on the real thing. Anyway, I’m calling it done as I’ve a tasty little Gloster Gladiator on the bench which needs my attention. Bill.

Having visited Newark Air Museum today as part of a birthday outing, ‘er indoors treated me to these two kits. Top girl! I’ll build the Cessna, eventually, but the 1/48th 100th special edition Fieseler Storch might end up being in the stash for many, many years to come. It’s just too nice to build.

Searching for something different to build whilst recuperating after a nasty dose of pneumonia I came across Brengun’s 1/72 ‘Messerspit’ which immediately piqued my interest. The real aircraft was an amalgamation of a captured Mk. V Spitfire and the front end of a Messerschmitt 109 (G?) complete with Daimler Benz engine and in-line canon. The kit itself is not particularly accurate, especially in the canopy area, and the fit of parts leaves a lot to be desired, but then sometimes half the fun is beating a kit into submission. Having said that the decals supplied were really excellent being well printed, very thin and easy to apply. Anyway, it’s built out of the box with only the addition of some photo etch seat belts to enhance the cockpit. All paints are Tamiya acrylics sealed with Humbrol gloss and Matt lacquers. The yellow (XF-3) was toned down slightly with a drop of light grey and weathering kept low key as I don’t think the real aircraft saw too much action. Then again I may well be wrong.

That’s a cracker! Nice job!

Stunning model!

Beautiful!

Top job, very well done.

A refreshing change form the usual camouflage schemes. Nicely done!

Having visited my local Hobbycraft recently I found they’d stocked up with a bunch of Starwars kits so for a measly £6 I thought I’d dip my feet into the world of SciFi. This kit is the Level 3 version of the Snowspeeder, not the click together series 1. It went together really easily and was a fun build. The colours aren’t probably 100% accurate, but who cares, it’s just a bit of fun! Ah, spot the deliberate mistake...I forgot to remove the masking tape off the rear window!

Cracking job!

You’ve really made a silk purse from a sow’s ear with this build. Very well done on beating this old classic kit into submission.

It’s nice to see something a bit different. Nicely executed!

One other thing Phil, Meng kindly made the Camo pattern in the instruction manual to the correct scale so it can be traced or cut out if required.

Hi Phil, I used XF-83 Medium sea grey for the underside, XF-67 NATO Green and XF-53 Neutral grey for the upper surfaces, oh and XF-85 Rubber black for the anti glare panel. I used X-6 Orange dulled with a drop of rubber black for the bands on the fuel tanks. I doubt these colours are very authentic, but they looked very close the internet pictures of the real aircraft.

Very nicely done.

Good tip Joachim, thanks.

Having a soft spot for jets of the Cold War I decided to build a (slightly) more modern fighter to accompany my recently built Hawker Sea Hawk. This particular Fiat G-91 is manufactured by Meng to 1/72 scale and whilst it isn’t the worlds best quality kit, it nevertheless builds into a fair representation of the Luftwaffe’s version of this ground attack jet and is nicely decorated with Cartograph decals.The only additions to the basic kit are a resin ejector seat, pilot and a photo etch access ladder. All paints are Tamiya acrylics and the lacquers are Humbol gloss and Humbrol Satin. Shoddy phots by ancient smart(?) phone. Comments, harsh, Micky taking or otherwise well received.

Very nicely presented. Love ‘em all! As an aside, I’ve worked on all the engines present in your dio, but the quirkiest of all was the tiny fourth engine in the Trident, the RB 162. It featured a ‘total loss’ oil system so you had be sure to top the tank up before starting, and the jet pipe used to glow cherry red at max. We didn’t use a linear throttle like other engines had on the test bed, but instead used a switch box with pre-set conditions. Suffice to say the tests times were very short due to the limited oil quantity.