monsjmse

Thank you Robert. For anyone with an interest in Defiants, make sure you check out this extraordinary collection: Back to my single Defiant and I made some progress last night getting the cockpit parts ready. There's not much to clean up on these parts, just a little tickle with the knife here and there. I've opened up the hole in the rear bulkhead to accommodate the seatbelts. Not bothered with the 2 marks on the bulkhead piece as these will not be visible behind the seat. And before I start snipping, here are the PE parts from Eduard which should add a little more interest:

Oh, and apparently I'm officially not a 'newbie' anymore as I celebrate over 50 posts

Thanks Matt . I forgot to mention my first attempt at using chipping medium (Vallejo). I only did this on the port wing root, layering some dull aluminium on top of the primer and adding the medium on top before painting the camo pattern. I had to attack it fairly vigorously to get the paint off and when it started coming off it didn't feel very controlled. As the top paint layer is a bit thicker than I would have liked, you can definitely tell that the aluminium colour is underneath, rather than above as it would have been if I had dabbed it on. It certainly seems more random than I could have achieved with a brush or a sponge and some alu paint. I've made a little progress and managed to get all the decals on now... Gone for 65 (East India) Squadron markings. The underside roundels gave me a few headaches with all the lumps and bumps they are 'painted' over. At one point I seriously considered binning them and trying to paint them on, but in the end I opted to cut a hole to accommodate the worst of the protruding parts. A load of Microset later and the result was satisfactory. I'll paint it white later.

Fantastic set of Tornados - thanks for sharing. I hope that they survive the dinner intact .

Stunning collection. Looks like the sort of display you'd find in a museum.

Wow, you've nearly finished and I haven't even started . Nice work - looking good.

My first Group Build and I will be putting together the 1:48 Airfix Defiant. I've admired this aircraft ever since I built (if built is the right word) the old Airfix series 1 1:72 night fighter version a long time ago. The new Airfix kit looks amazing - it's the first new tool Airfix I have bought since getting back into the hobby and first impressions are very good. Haven't yet decided on what markings to use, but needless to say I can get going and decide a little later on. I've supplemented the kit with Eduard masks, the PE kits for interior/exterior details and flaps. Not too sure about the flaps now though, as I think Defiants were parked with flaps up and I intend to have the wheels down. Finally, just to note to say it's been fun so far looking at all the WIP threads starting up for this GB. The subjects will truly cover the RAF's 100 year history and should provide an interesting and varied gallery by the conclusion. Happy modelling everybody .

Easter has been and gone, so I missed my deadline . I saw my brother and showed him the latest pictures, which went down ok. I guess there is no rush for delivery as I probably won't see him again until Christmas - it will definitely be finished by then . I have a Defiant to build for the RAF 100 GB, which I'm itching to get started, so I'll have both on the go at the same time. I don't want the Spitfire to gather dust on the shelf and I know if I don't start the Defiant, it won't get finished by the end of the GB. Anyway, I peeled off the masking and took half the W&N gloss coat with it - I either need more patience or to try a different varnish. Thankfully I didn't lose any of the underlying paint and despite my mistakes and re-sprays on the top camo, the lines look sharp with no visible paint ridges, thankfully. I didn't fancy the long black stencil line decals for the wings, so I put some masking tape down and painted some on. Turned out ok .

Love it & can't wait to get started on mine now. I'm sure I'll take a little while longer though. Great job

The IP turned out nice! Black's a tough one, but I like the effect you've got. Think I'll stick to green/brown camo when I build mine . I've seen some photos of battered Defiants with peeling and scratched black paint revealing some of the daytime camo scheme underneath.

Time flies - over a week since the last update. I have made some progress, so will try and get this back up to 'live' status. I added a thin coat of W&N gloss varnish to the underside, left it about 24 hrs and stuck on some masking tape. It was still maybe a little tacky, but I was being impatient. I'm still experimenting with different gloss varnishes (I must have 5 or 6 now), but haven't found one I really like yet. Painted the upper surfaces and fuselage black. The idea was to get some tonal variation when I put down the green/brown... But the tonal variation plan mostly went wrong after I started by putting green down where the brown should go and vice versa. So I ended up with a much thicker paint layer than I had originally intended. I started out trying to use blue tac for the camo pattern, but I didn't really get on with it. I ended up taking it off and spraying it on freehand. It took a while, as there was no masking so I was being very careful to avoid over-spray. Got there in the end and I'm reasonably happy with the result.

I'll be watching to see how this goes together - I love the Tamiya 1:20 F1 series, though all of my F1 builds have been of cars up to the early 90s, where the main body shapes are so much more simple . Will you be going for Seb or Kimi?

Another fine effort.

Thanks for the comments and welcome aboard . Nearly a week without an update as work has rather got in the way recently. I have started the painting, first putting a pre-shade on the underside. My airbrush was not behaving itself at all whist I did this. It was spluttering a lot, but like a fool I carried on and it ended up looking a bit of a mess. Don't zoom in too closely - it's a horror show. I stripped it down afterwards, but it was quite clean and I couldn't see anything wrong. After putting everything back together it sprayed fine, so who knows what was up with it. Managed to overlay it with enough Sky Type S to hide the splatter.

This is really making me want to do a 1:72 again, but I fear the fingers are now too big and clumsy. It looks like a nice kit - lots of parts and detail for 1:72. I have a pair of 1:48 old tool Airfix Stukas sitting on the shelf - I'll make them some day . You say you have recently switched to Model Air - what paints did you use previously?

Welcome. Enjoy the airbrush! For me spraying paint rather than applying it with a brush is THE main difference between my first foray into modelling (when I couldn't afford one and didn't really care) and now. It's just so satisfying.

That's a real beauty. Fantastic job with the rigging. One day I'll have the courage to try it myself... but not quite yet.

Looks lovely. A really nice paint job with some great tonal modulation in the colours. I'm building the exact same kit with the exact same markings right now. I also have only the seatbelts as an AM addition with the rest straight from the box. I hope mine turns out as good as this one. Great job

Hello and welcome from another Mark. Probably 95% of the 'newbies' here seem to have the same story about returning to modelling - me included . Hats off to you for the scratch building - something I just don't have the talent for. That Deperdussin is a neat looking aircraft - looks a lot more advanced than the early combatant WWI aircraft. Am I seeing correctly that it has a steering wheel?! - It'll never catch on!

Thank you. It's a nice kit - certainly can't knock it for the price. I have a Defiant on the shelf for the RAF centenary GB and have so far resisted the temptation of starting it. The plan was to finish this Spitfire before the GB start, but now that's only 2 weeks away I'm not sure it will happen. I try to keep my current build count low, otherwise I never finish anything.

That's taken shape very quickly. Those gun barrels really look the part.

Looking at the underside again after the primer layer, I still wasn't happy with the wings/fuselage join. As some time had elapsed since my last attempt at sanding this area, I felt ready to have another go. In my limited experience of priming models I had learnt to my cost that Vallejo primer doesn't sand particularly well, but this was about 3-4 days after the primer coat had gone on and I thought everything would work out fine. Unfortunately though, the primer still peeled in places, though it was less severe than I had experienced in the past. Mr Surfacer 1200 came to the rescue and covered the worst of it. Before... After..... Only after doing all this I realised that there was supposed to be a panel line running across right where the join is . I've tried to re-scribe this. Though it now looks a tad heavy, it will do. I've said that somewhere before though.

Great weathering - looking pretty battered, but not overdone. I love the exhaust staining - there's a lot going on there with the different colours.

Welcome! Sounds like an interesting project. I've always been a big fan of Thunderbirds. I'd love a decent model of Thunderbird 5 hanging from my ceiling, but don't have the talent for scratch building unfortunately.

Resistance is futile, just accept that your stash will grow faster than your pile of completed builds, no matter how hard you try Welcome to Britmodeller. Any specific type of vehicle?