Torbjorn

How much weight do you guys put in the nose? Ballpark value. My instructions do not come with any suggestion. I’m thinking 1/72 but by all means answer for other scales. It obviously matters how far forward you manage to put it, but kit shouldn’t matter that much.

Nice start. For levers, doesn’t sound like a loss - I don’t like the flat PE and usually skip them anyway. Instead glue a bit of sprue or wire and add a blob of PVA to represent the knob on the end, which makes it look like a proper wizard’s st… I mean lever. Like this:

Thanks guys. Sure to have ave Replaced the kit seat of type thick stone throne with the rather neat PE from Brengun, and used most of the rest of the interior PE as well. I have to admit I have a thing for radios, and the 3 boxes in the kit didn’t look like the alleged SCR274N it said it was, so I replaced them with bits and bobs found in the scrap drawer. Painted with Vallejo interior green on a dark base. A bit too dark perhaps. I dared to add some of the levers, which I didn’t bother painting since I’ll surely knock them of 2-3 times before it is canopy time. I didn’t do all homework though. The IP does not fit. It requires the boxy thing in the middle of the forward cockpit to be cut down a mm or two. I’m also having fun with mending seams:

Most of the effort went to find the problem area. Now that I know I could probably fix another in less than an hour (which is also why I bother you all with all the details, so I can go back if I ever buy one more). Regarding the wheel bay. The cockpit will sit too low even if you skip the wheel bay, so some carving is necessary anyway. With a rotary tool it’s a matter of a few minutes work - on the other hand, I’m not sure if I would bother if had only hand tools to be honest. Also, the wheel bat doesn’t really fit as is. Cutting loose the side walls, then adding the other sides is quicker and easier than trying to fill and sand the original. Or ar least I thought so.

I don’t think your fingercrossing will work, but thanks all the same Yes, I’m leaning towards the kit canopy, becaus eof the braces but also because the cockpit walls will be rather thick. Which means I must to go buy a P-38F to get use of my vac form. 😎 — I could barely wait to get started. The first in line was the engine hoods and booms because it’s always the cockpit otherwise. However, I’ve only glued the halves together so far, which is too boring to write about, so the first post will be about the cockpit anyway. Wise from Cookenbacher’s escapades, I started by getting the front parts to fit. This is the nose wheel bay seen from above. Two pieces, with an ugly longitudinal non-fixable seam: The cockpit is built up by one floor and two walls. Ignoring all the details for now, I glued them together for fitting purposes, using as little glue as possible to be able to separate them later. Taping the wheelbay and cockpit to the fuselage pieces and dryfitting them shows this: The blue arrow shows the cockpit wall sticking up with 1.5 mm due to being pushed up by the wheelbay. That’s what we need to address. There’s several things to be done: 1. The cockpit sits too deep in the back, the aft bulkhead/wall need to the reduced in height quite a bit, and tapered to follow the form of the fuselage (blue arrow in pic below) 2. The fuselage sides need considerable thinning to fit the cockpit, both upper and lower halves. With a dremel this is quick work 3. The bottom of the cockpit was thinned as much as I dared. Bottom sides tapered too. Again the dremel. 4. The wheel bay top is too thick. Instead of the dremel, out came the saw: Pics for the above 1. Back of cockpit wall reduced in height. It’s hidden, arrow shows what I mean. I also roughened the IP shroud, in preparation for an idea I knicked from Cookenbacher’s build. 2+3: 4. In fact the nose bay doesn’t fit well. Either side can be made to fit nicely with the fuselage piece - but not both sides at the same time. I therefore massacred the bay and only kept the long side walls, so they could be glued to the fuselage one at a time (pic below). The short walls and bottom can be added easily from plastic sheet, using the thinnest available to solve the fit issue with the cockpit. I also reduced the height of the aft part of the side walls with about 0.5 mm, a result of the sawing - the front part was cut away with a scalpel to keep correct depth for the landing gear. Frtunately the entire landing gear is forward of the cockpit. As a bonus, this solution also solves the issue with the unseemly seam! As reported in the build thread linked in the post (again, thanks for letting us know!) there is a step between the fuselage halves: the upper is about 0.7 mm narrower than the lower. I made a quick fix by abuse of the digital calipers used to acquire said measurement (I a have cheap tool - don’t do this with an expensive tool please). First I measured the upper half and locked the calipers with the locking screw, then squeezed the lower half into the calipers. This was dipped in boiling water for 2-3 seconds*. This causes plastic deformation (hah!) and the lower half now fits quite well. I don’t like to have stresses built into models by squeezing together while gluing - sometimes I do squeexe-n-glue, and give it a dip in boiling water afterwards, but in this case that would mean having to dip a finished and painted cockpit. * I still did dip it a bit too long: the tip of one of the thin very thin flaps curled due to the heat, but this was easily fixed. Anyway, the whole shebang now fits reasonably, and we can proceed to the fun things.

Might as well show sprue shots while awaiting the whistle. There is a bit flash, but the details are fine and the edges are sharply defined. Got drop tanks and bombs, but dunno if we will use them. Engine cowls and other bits. Wheel bays are aft in one piece, front one split longitudinally. Booms and underside wings. Not sprues, but decals: For the following options: I get to choose from olive drab, olive drab and olive drab A separate bag with the canopy and resin guns. The guns are nicely molded: Finally, I found this in my archives: Not sure if the F canopy was identical, but it isn’t identical to the kit: instead of two braces running perpendicularly in the aftermost canopy section, it has only one running along the centreline aft-fore. Not sure what gives,googling found no sure answer. Will get back to that.

Many thanks, I’ll make sure to read and avoid the pitfalls. It does look a bit troublesome at first look Though the results were stunning!

Oh, I was fooled by the nicely packed box (plastic wrap and all). Hmm, I did find this on my drawers: I must have bought it with this kit in mond. Seems to be mostly cockpit stuff, which in turn requires an open canopy… That’s very useful, thanks alot! This box seems also to contain decals for several version of the same plane.

Oh, this is the kit I wanted but never found as a kid. Will be happy to follow.

I never found the elusive Airfix Lightning back in the pre-internet days. Looking forward to finally be able to build one - not being nostalgic I went for a more modern kit: This is a blond spot for me - I know nothing about the plane, operations they were invlolved in, or even what’s in the box. Will I want some AM goodies? Next week will be spent pondering about this and learning something about the subject.

I baffles me why there is no dedicated field of psychology that deals with model builder stash hoarding syndrome. Such a failed opportunity. I dare not count what I have bought since return to the hobby a couple of years back.

That’s quite possibly the nicest detail I’ve seen on an injection molded kit.

How did I miss this? And how could I have missed that movie?

The RS model Airacobras have one 3 and one 4-bladed prop.

Cheapest delivery 33€, plus Norwegian VAT and handling fees (25% on cost and delivery, + fees 10-20€). And I won’t get EU VAT back, which I shouldn’t have to pay (I also end up paying 25% tax on the 25% tax for a whopping total of 57% tax). Arma has explained this elsewhere (yes, I have whined), and the EU apparently doesn’t make it easy to export EU-VAT-free. I understand fully that Norway isn’t really their biggest market and the extra cost for them is not worth it. It’s not only Arma though, most others have come to the same conclusion: I used to order from several kit makers directly, and several webshops, but they all have decided to charge EU VAT and delivery costs have rocketed. Only Hannants remain reasonably priced, maybe because of Brexit… but *their* costs increase too, so who know how long that will remain. Maybe it’s time to buy toy supplies for the next decade before it becomes too costly Wish they had a pick up at location - it’s cheaper to fly to Poland in person (40€!) and I’d get to eat some nice food.

To make you feel better: for me it would end up at 110 euros charges included. I passed :(

Well, there are options even of that is a concern. E.g. ace Dmitry Glinka, of Kherson or the mentioned Amet-khan Sultan recently honoured on Ukrainian bank notes.

Back at the bench. All stencils (Techmod) and markings (Xtradecal) added. Decided to assume a diligent ground crew repainting the black lines after overpainting the invasion stripes. In unrelated notes, the orange South African roundels on the same sheet are out of register

I hope so, those of us who can’t order directly from armahobby are missing out (also on the combos etc)

Scarcity is indeed a problem I had not considered.

What’s wrong with the RS one that makes no one want to build it? Asking since I picked one up at a sale.

That’s not a mere model; that I would call a scaled-down replica! Thanks for posting

Many thanks for that. My impression from your photos is that the details are much better than their other recent Great War subjects: all parts, fortunately including the wings this time, look much less clumsy. Hope the wartime decals will be better. A bummer they keep repeating the no-shrinkage error, but as you said, I could probably live with a 1/71 kit.

Is that valid for 1/72 as well?

Yup, that’s Fort St Elmo they are flying over.