monsjmse

I'm very taken with Mr Paint. It has an inky consistency and sprays nicely out the bottle; add a little Mr Leveling thinner and it sprays like a dream. It can be thinned to within an inch of its life and keeps a nice spray characteristic. On the jar it is described as 'acrylic lacquer paint' with lacquer being the key word.. They stink somewhat and clean up is with solvent. Their closest alternative is probably Mr Hobby. Having used them I don't think I'll be going back to Vallejo Model Air in a hurry. Model Air is very good and the clean-up is easy, but the MRP stuff is in a different class as long as you can cope with the smell. Let's see how long they last before the Wife bans them from the house .

Here is what appears to becoming my weekly update. I've managed to put most of the turret together now and given in a coat of black paint. The Mr Paint black has quite a glossy finish which I'll change to semi-gloss once I've finished and stick the varnish coat on. There is a bit of pre-painted PE to add to the turret as well which will go on after painting is complete - the main control panel at the top and another panel on one of the side pieces. I've also cut from the sprue most of the remaining pieces and cleaned them up ready for some paint and assembly. I added more of the PE to the undercarriage parts and the radiator.

Thanks for the advice Kent (and the link to that build thread - your Defiant looks brilliant!) - now closed: I'll also check out those steel belts for my next effort if they have more bend than these brass ones. Done some more PEing in the wheel wells too.

Hi Robert, yes they are the Eduard brass belts. I struggled a little to bend them to conform to the seat and had to touch up some of the pre-painted surface. Once they were in place I shaded them a bit with some Tamiya black panel liner as they were looking rather too clean. After trying the HGW fabric belts on my last build (still not finished), I prefer them to the brass ones. I've run into my first real problem with the fitting together of parts. The fuselage won't close up due the the IP (closes fine without it). I've filed it down a bit as the PE panel wasn't quite flush with the plastic, but it still needs some more attention. More fiddly filing ahead - I was hoping to get it closed up this evening.

I love the weathering on the prop blades Peter . Was that done with chipping fluid, or did you scratch the top layer off with a tooth pick?

A 1:24 Defiant - now that really would be something. I've added the seat belts to the cockpit along with some chipping and stuck the floor/seat/bulkhead assembly to one of the fuselage pieces. The 'chipping' looks a bit crude when blown up in a photo - looks more subtle to the naked eye. I tried a dry fit of the IP and 2 fuselage halves and ended up bending the PE on the panel, so that needs fixing before I go any further. The PE panel might need filing down a tad. Speaking of which, I managed to get a slightly better picture than the last effort..

That's a beast of a model. Good luck for finishing in time.

Better late than never. I'm sure you'll soon catch me up

Realised that I'm going to have to get a move on with this, otherwise the shelf of doom will claim another victim. I have made some progress on the interior, but haven't posted it yet. I'm almost at the point of closing the fuselage . After my last painting update, I added the rest of the pre-painted PE to the cockpit Bit of shading and a wash to add some shadows and grime. The reflection from the gloss coat makes it a poor picture, unfortunately. In other developments and moving to the turret, I succumbed to the Master Browning gun barrels. These made me £7.40 worse off but more than made up for that once I fitted a pair and compared them to the originals. I think. There is a little more - I'll take some more pics and give another update tomorrow.

Hurrah, someone who is actually behind me in terms of build progress. Makes me feel a bit better . Looking at those parts is giving me the urge to get mine off the shelf, but I must resist.

Nice work on the Hurricane. I love the pile o' modelling stuff in the background. I have some of the Hobbyzone drawers too, but my desk is still a mess - I just can't help it.

Beautiful work. Can't wait to see them all together.

I'd love to get hold of one of these kits, but they are not available at the moment - the same for the new tool 1:48 Spitfire Mk I. Seems crazy to me that Airfix stop making two of their new tool staple best sellers.

Very nice. I don't dare tackle even 1:72 these days

I will get round to putting up some pics eventually. I found the same - some parts were fine, but a lot seemed as though they were never designed to fit together. Especially where there were holes that locating pins were supposed to fit into, the hole invariably required widening. The front part where the radiator connects to the axle assembly I was sure was going to snap as I fought to get it into position. It was only my second model back after a long break and I had pre-painted a lot of the parts before finding they didn't fit together, so it took some extra time to fix the damaged paintwork after handling everything so much. That said, I'd still make another Ebbro kit as I love the classic subjects, but will take heed of the learnings from the first one! I'm with you re. the Ebrro McLarens. That colour scheme and lack of sponsor logos doesn't do anything for me either. If Ebbro have an affinity with modern Honda F1, I wonder if we'll see a 2018 Torro Rosso model. That might be worth a look as the blue/silver scheme is at least attractive.

Beautiful work so far. Is this the first WNW not to require any rigging?!

Nice job . I made the 003 last year which is very similar - keep meaning to take some pics and post in the RFI section. Those number decals on the sides gave me nightmares! I learned a lot whilst making it too - hoping to put it into practice when I make the next Ebbro in the stash... I too wish there were more decent F1 models on the market, though I'm more interested in the classic F1 cars than the current crop of cars. The MFH models look stunning, if only I could afford one How did you find making the kit?

Welcome. Your story sounds familiar... . I always did 1:72 too and anything 1:48 seemed absolutely HUGE. Now I have buckets for hands anything less than 1:48 seems fiddly. You're right, things have certainly moved on, but you're in the right place to pick up advice - folks here are very knowledgeable. Check out the Alclads for a metal finish on your Lightning. They stink, but give a great metallic finish.

Welcome! And good luck for the exams. A long summer of modelling ahead after those

Right. A bit of progress - 'bit' being the key word in the sentence. Finally got the time to add some colour to the cockpit. First I added some white to the black base in some areas to vary the tone of the grey-green for some shadow effect. Then on with the RAF interior grey-green. I'm using MRP's Mr. Paint for the first time. First impressions are very good - it's gorgeous stuff .

Wow. A month has gone already so I really need to be getting a move on. Not much progress to report recently. Primed the interior black last weekend. There were a lot of areas that the spray seemingly couldn't reach very well without me flooding the thing with paint, especially with the PE parts. I touched it up here and there with a brush. Not very exciting I'm afraid. Hoping that the Bank Holiday weekend will bring more time for some modelling action.

Lovely. A few weeks ago I bought the same kit with half an eye on the upcoming Eleventh Hour GB. Whether I build it this year or leave it a while is dependent on many things - one of them being overcoming my fear of rigging (I wonder if there is a medical term for this ). Have fun with it. I'll be watching with interest.

I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone else's Defiants go together . Some progress this weekend. Doesn't seem much, but it used all of my available modelling time. Adding PE takes me a while. The cockpit sidewalls were stuck in after scraping all the raised detail off in preparation for the PE. As these panels are pre-painted, I'm going to paint the rest of the cockpit first before adding them. I did add all the unpainted stuff and this is now ready for some primer. Port side.... Starboard side..... I've also done the Eduard IP, but struggled to get a decent photo. About the best I could manage is below. The details aren't nearly as sharp as the Yahu, but to the naked eye when it's half buried in the recesses of the cockpit I don't think I'll notice too much.

The Yahu IP does look spectacularly good from the pictures I've seen. The Eduard PE version is nowhere near in comparison. I will try to remember to post a close-up of it once I've put it together. The other after market I considered getting were the Master Model Browning gun barrels, but I still haven't decided if parting with over 7 quid for 4 tubes of metal I can barely see is really worth it .

Well it has been nice to put together so far. With some of the pieces it seemed a waste of glue - they almost just clipped together. Thanks for the tip on the canopy. I have managed to get some sticking in this week, so some of the PE parts have gone into the cockpit. The seat assembly hasn't been glued in yet as I think I will at least prime this part separately otherwise it will be awkward to cover. I've also started scraping the detail from the plastic cockpit sides ahead of applying the PE, which is a little awkward. The PE is pre-painted mostly though, so I'll probably stick it on after laying down the grey-green interior colour on the other parts.