Crimea River

Got your message Olivier. So you can't see the diagram I posted above? I can see it here.

OK, never mind. I used Drop box for my picture links and can now show you what I mean. This is a screen grab from the illustrated parts manual showing the cold air supply lines. Note the supply hoses on both sides of the seat and the small outlets we talked about. The hidden one in your pic is #38 in the diagram and is behind the seat frame as I said. The outlet boxes are 40 and 41 and both are in your pic. Hope this helps. By the way, I did look through the manual for more clarity in the area you are modeling but the above seems to be the best example. Andy

Test from Dropbox

The supply hose to the outlets is indeed the grey part that looks like a spring. The other one is hidden behind the sloped seat frame. If you PM me your e-mail address I can send you a couple of diagrams of this area from the illustrated parts manual. Andy

The Hurricanes in the footage taken on the train from the "German" side did not have spinners so I'd conclude this footage was shot in Canada using HWE Hurricanes. Andy

Hi Olivier. Sorry for the delayed response to your question. I'm new to the forum and unfortunately I don't have a third party picture hosting set up yet so I can't post up a picture of the outlet for the hose. I will describe it though as it is clearly seen in the pic that you posted containing the text "green frame". Look at the hose in that picture and move your eye upward. The next thing you see is your green frame and a lightening hole directly above the hose. Immediately above that frame and hole you can see something that looks like a small water spout. That's the cold air outlet and it is attached to a black box which you can also see and that box is attached to the end of your hose behind the frame. Make sense? I would reiterate that there are TWO such hoses and outlets. The detail is repeated on the other side of the pilot seat. You can see the top of the outlet box in your picture and the outlet itself is just outside of your picture boundary. Andy

Thanks again gents. Pete, the cables are 0.2 mm lead wire. For the plugs, I sliced small discs off of a piece of 0.5 mm dia. rod and CA glued them on the end of the wires, making sure to build up the CA so that it made a cone shape over the discs.

That item in the picture that you have identified as "big spring?" is the a cold air hose which is part of the cockpit ventilation system. You can see the outlet at the top just under your text box. There's a similar hose on the right side as well and its hidden in your picture but you can see the outlet there as well. Andy

A good start. I have the A-8 in the stash that I need to tackle one day. Looking forward to this. Andy

Thanks very much everyone. The Tamiya Beaufighter is indeed a great kit and everything fits like a glove. I didn't use any filler on this one. That's intentional. The rockets firing angles were varied to increase the chance of below waterline hits.

Thanks for that John. Seems like a roundabout way of trying to find something here but hey, whatever works! Andy

Glad I came across your build and what a wonderful job you are doing "ruining" this kit! "Greatly enhancing" is better description methinks. One trick I've used for masking a wheel well is to stuff tissue paper into it and wet it, then stuff more in and wet it some more. Do this until you get as much of the surfaces hidden as possible. I comes out without trouble but holds well enough as a mask. I built a model of one of these green nosed jobbies from the 368th FS, 359th FG a few years ago but mine has the yellow rudder. There are precious few period pics of this FG out there but I did find the one below. Maybe it's the one you referred to earlier. I ended up using straight Tamiya XF-5 for the colour. Keep up the great work and I will look forward to your updates. Andy

Coming along nicely. This is a great kit and whoever figured out to get the turret in once the fuselage is glued together deserves a Nobel. Andy

Make sure to let me know when you come down Chris. I'll give you a tour of our Mossie. Best to schedule a trip in the summer when they do engine runs on the Lanc. I don't think the 2018 schedule is out yet.

I agree. I'm a newbie here and wanted to search for answers to questions I have before I bug people to repeat things already covered. No luck getting a hit for a simple thing like "drop tanks". Really? I thought it was just me having issues and thought that maybe I had to reach some minimum post threshold before the search function worked for me.

Thanks Chris. I acknowledge and thank-you for your contributions as well while I was putting this project together. I used your and Terry's discussions on this forum quite a bit. Andy

A good plan! Andy

Thanks so much everyone. This represents doped fabric tape that was rather crudely applied on most 404 aircraft and others. The story goes that vibrations from the engines regularly caused the screws holding down the wing and cannon fairings to loosen so applying the pinking remedied that. Admittedly, I took a shortcut by simply applying the dope colour rather than adding a representation of the tape over the seams.

Just spent the last hour catching up on this build. What a wonderful job you are doing so far! Makes me want to get rid of my stash and start fresh with these new Airfix offerings. I will continue to follow along with interest. Andy

You are doing a great job so far Torbjorn. Welcome to the club of prepubescent turned prehistoric model builders. I seems that you have rekindled the joy of the felt as a youngster as I have. I'm so glad that your attempt at straightening the "banana" wing didn't end in disaster. As you have discovered, using an open flame for such an exercise is not the way to go and things can go badly very quickly with little opportunity for repair. Though I've not had to deal with this much, I have heard that shaping the plastic after a dip in near boiling water works very well. I for one try not to get too caught up in debates about exact shades of colours for the reasons mentioned. Different paint batches combined with the effects of wear and weather will result in variations anyway so no point in agonizing over the "exact" shade. To me, if it looks close then it's good and your blue to me looks fine. As for the red, though I'm a Tamiya paint user, I do agree that it's critical to apply a light base colour before applying red. I've not heard of using yellow but I tend to spray a coat of white first before spraying on the red. I'm sure yellow works well though too. I really like your attention to detail. for the brake lines, I would suggest that you get yourself various diameters of lead wire or fine solder if you can find it. I work in 1/48 scale and have some down to 0.2mm diameter. This stuff is great for any tubing or wiring representations. Apply a dab of CA to one end and it can then be easily manipulated around bends and secured with intermittent dabs of CA. I'm not sure where in Sweden you might get this stuff but I ordered lead wire from here. Keep up the great work! Andy

Great start. I have two bubble top versions in my stash that I need to get to one day and will watch with interest. Andy

Thanks for doing that. I'm glad it was a picture of me injecting glue into a Mossie rather than something else into my arm! Never did that so it would be a big surprise to see a pic!

Thanks very much everyone. It's my first post showing my work on this site and I'm encouraged to do more because of your kind resposnses. If you are planning to do a 404 Squadron bird like mine then I highly recommend that you get yourself the decal set from Aviaeology. Not only do you get a set of high quality decals for multiple aircraft but also a description of the various details associated with each. The information was invaluable to me for doing the RP's. The rest of my references were all obtained from a picture search on the net and from threads on this site (one of the reasons for joining here - such a great knowledge base!). Unfortunately one of my best sources was from this site http://www.404squadron.com/gallery1.html but it's no longer functioning. I did download a number of pics from there though and would be happy to share them for your build if you decide to go that route. I also used the sites listed below in addition to several more: http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/346/Buffalo-Soldier.aspx http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/342/Black-Buffalo.aspx http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/azrael_raven/beaufighter_mk.xxi/index.php?Page=3 I'd be happy to contribute to your build in any way that I can. Let me know what you will need as it's easier for me to answer a specific request rather than post my 100+ individual files that I've saved. Excellent! Thank-you very much for your observation. I agree it's one area that I've not really thought about much, other than to add a bit of chipping to the blades (not wood ones!). I will give my props more attention in the future! Andy

Hi all. Though I'd chuck in some pics of the Beau I finished earlier in the year. I used the Tamiya Beaufighter Mk VI kit with a few scratch built mods to make it a TF X. I used the excellent Aviaeology decal set which comes with extensive reference pics and supplemental detail info - more than just a decal sheet really and highly recommended for your builds when available. The RPs are actually leftovers from my old Revell Mosquito and I modified the mounts and fins, the latter being far too thick for my liking. Hope you enjoy the model and please let me know of any suggestions for improvement. Thanks! Andy

Excellent reference pics! Thanks for posting. Andy