opus999

I forgot to mention that I noticed you got the yellow dot in the center of the spinner! It took me a few tries before I was happy with mine, but my wife taught me a neat trick for making paint dots in the process, so it was practice well spent!

Beautiful work. What did you paint the exhausts with? It almost looks like a polished aluminum from over here. I'm interested to see how you treat those -- I'm never happy with my exhaust stacks. (boy, that doesn't sound right, does it?).

Isn't it amazing? It's like the IJA version of the F-104. Still, like you said, its odd design has really won me over... I really like its look! Glad I've got another in the stash. Ah good... frankly there are days I just want to post pictures and not write...

Thank you! It wasn't the worst modelling experience, but it was one of the more challenging! Thanks! In the end it was worth it... Thanks! I like these early Mustangs... a little skinny looking, but also nimble looking too! any day now... Arma will make an announcement any day now... .right? RIGHT??? Thanks Jackson! As always it was fun to have you along for good advice, or at least some helpful observations!

The paint job looks terrific. The decals settled in nicely. The gloss coat always gives me a bit of a thrill because I feel like my careful weathering has gone away, but it always comes back. Lookin' good! Close to the finish line, too.

Paints were great... colors weren't. The RLM 76 blue was fine, but the 81 (Brown violet) and 82 (Light Green) obviously weren't. I made acceptable versions of them (at least to me) by mixing 1 part Hataka RLM 81 (Braunviolett) to 1 part Hataka RLM 79b (Medium brown) and 2 parts Hataka RLM 82 (light green) to 1 part Hataka RLM 79b (Medium Brown). You can judge the end result for yourself: Hope this is helpful! FWIW, I like the early luftwaffe and desert luftwaffe colors they make. I think its just 81 and 82 that are off.

Thanks! If I've started this even 5 years ago I might have set it aside by the time I got to the wings. Of course, having people watching is a great motivator!

Sometimes I've used my finest razor saw -- it just depends how much clearance you have around the part. +1 for this method too.

This is an interesting project! I think I'll follow along if I may?

Oh, yes! I had quite a feeling of accomplishment after finishing this kit!

I set my sights on the Tojo today. It has finely engraved panel lines, as opposed to the Frank, which has small raised lines. All of the Tojo parts looked good, except for this part which seemed to have sunk along the seam: In the end, that was easily sorted out with some CA and a little sanding. The fuselage fit together nicely with practically no sanding. The wings, however really gave me fits. The underside wing tips had a step that took a lot longer to fix than I liked. Where the wings met the fuselage toward the back, the seam was pretty bad, which seems to usually be the case. After quite a bit of sanding and filling, I finally got it looking OK. Surprisingly, despite the troubles the wings were giving me, the wing root joints needed practically no work. The gear bay set up is a little strange. Where the wheel goes, there is nice detail, but then where the rest of the gear sits, it's open to the top of the wing. Although it's probably not very accurate, I put a little ribbing in to give it some visual interest. I was trying to figure out a way to fill that bay in, but I couldn't come up with a good solution, so this will have to do: So, here's where it is at tonight -- pretty much the same stage as the Frank. The cowling is tacked on. I think I will keep from permanently attaching it until the end so that I can paint details like the exhaust stacks and under the cowl. For fun, when I took the Tojo wing off the parts tree, I put it on top of the Frank's wing. What a difference! Wow! Hopefully I can start painting tomorrow, but I need to fix the kiddo's laptop and I don't know how long that's going to take. So who knows?

That's beautiful! The paint and weathering are superb!

Very nice! I like the subtle variation in the color.

Beautiful finish! That's really nice looking.

Terrific save! You can't tell that there was any mishap. This is a beautifully finished model and a subject I'm not familiar with... so I guess it's time for me to do some reading! Nice work!