opus999

The stencils were all on the verge of disintegration, but the national markings were actually pretty good. Too bad about yours, but I'm glad you worked it out in the end.

Saturday I was able to get three layers of aqua gloss on so that I could put some decals on Sunday. I was only able to get about half on, and had big hopes to finish them on Monday or Tuesday, but with all the Thanksgiving prep, I didn't get a chance. Lots of little stencils In that last picture it looks like the carrier film is really bad, but it's a trick of the light because the stencil decals are dull and the paint is gloss. When I get a gloss coat over them, they'll disappear. I was a little frustrated with the Bilek decals. The national markings and numbers were terrific. The stencils, which were on a separate sheet, were very brittle unless they were in extremely hot water. They seemed kind of papery. it was weird. Unfortunately I only discovered the hot water trick after I made a hash of a good sized "don't step here" outline. Oh well...

Ahh, bummer. Well, the Beaufort will be fun to watch nonetheless!

That rework turned out beautifully!

This looks like a great kit and you've done a nice job with the internals so far. I built the new Airfix 1/72 Mk. Vc recently and it was a terrific kit. I'd expect the 1/48 to be as good or better. One of my early kits after coming back to the hobby was a rework of an '80's era Airfix Mk. Vb and I did Jan Zumbach's mount. I found a lot of the same pictures as you and was amazed at how chewed up the wing root was. I copied that wear on my model and it was fun to have a big swatch of bare metal on the wing. Following along with interest!

I have to agree with the above, the matte coat looks fantastic! Personally, I think this has turned out to be a terrific looking build, but I think everyone is their own worst critic!

I had no idea BM could be so therapeutic... I thought I was the only one wishing for a micro spatula to clean the excess off the sides of the paint cup! Alistair, the yellow looks fabulous! I'm also a bit jealous of your perfect number stencils -- my Texan had the numbers made by hand with tape and doesn't bear close scrutiny. Can't wait for the Beaufort and the Blenheim. I have the same Beaufort kit and I have an earlier boxing of the Blenheim with the free French scheme.

Wow, that has turned out lovely!

Bill, this is a really fun project! I love how you've improved the kit. I've often thought of dabbling with resin casting and was even thinking about it yesterday when I was looking for bomb pylons for my current build. I think your no holds barred build is going to look fantastic in spite of the kit inaccuracies. This all looked familiar to me so I went to scalemates to discover that the Testors F4D I built in the late 90's was a reboxing of this kit. It was one of the last things I did before stepping away from the hobby and I was torn between being proud of the work I did (some of my best up until then) and the terrible quality of the kit. The terrible quality was only highlighted when I set it next to the Airfix Ford I did in high school. I liked the scheme on the Testors kit and I've since purchased the Tamiya kit so I can do it right!

Oh, I guess I did see that statement on the company's web page. I don't know... the more spindly pieces seem awfully soft. Now, I could see using brass for strength. Yesterday, I only had a couple little tasks before I could start gloss coating. I thought they'd be finished quickly, but typical of this build, they seemed to take 3 times as long. First I masked the landing gear bays: I then painted the gears and gear bays with Mr. Surfacer 1500 Black and then with Hataka RLM 65. I thought there would be more contrast between the RLM 65 and RLM 78, because when I look at aircraft with those on the bottom, i swear I can see a difference. However, the contrast between the landing gear bays and the underside on this build is very very subtle, probably not even noticeable in the photo: After that I attached the pitot tube and probe and had to use some putty to fill in the seam and fair it a bit. I painted the pitot tube and probe and fixed the damage on the nose from the putty. Then I masked the engine can for Mr. Color super stainless, with a little Alclad steel dusted over it: Finally I glued the wheels on and it was on it's feet Except.... Dang it. I was fretting so much about the strength of the nose gear, and the instructions I was using were so hard to read, that I missed that I was putting the fork on wrong. After I put a gloss coat on and put it on the shelf, I noticed it and strengthened my vocabulary... This morning, I set to fixing the fork, which I thought was going to be a real mess, but luckily it was fairly easy to sort out. Just had to do a lot of clean up around the attachment pegs. I set it briefly on its feet, but have it upside down right now to make sure that the "15 second" super glue really sets. I've found that sometimes "15 seconds" can be "5 minutes" or more. I'm a little concerned about putting the penciled in panel lines on now that the landing gears are installed. I don't want to put any pressure on the gears, but I need both hands to hold my tape straight edge and the pencil. It will take a little thought, and maybe a jig, to figure out how to do that. Today I have a couple more gloss coats to do, which, with a 6 hour cure time, means decals won't start until tomorrow. In other news: Thanks to the info provided by @Hook, I now have a set of Eduard UB-32 rocket pods winging their way to me. I really wanted to put some of the nicely molded Soviet bombs on it as well, but I couldn't find pylons that were close enough to the real thing in my spares. Oh well. So it looks like I'll have drop tanks on the outer pylons, UB-32 rocket pods on the inner pylons, and the belly pylons will be empty. Interesting how with all the aftermarket my "free" kit now has the cost of a decent kit. Oh well, that's what it takes to make this one something to be proud of. I think my subconscious goal has been to make this the best darn HobbyCraft Fitter ever.

Yes they do! Thanks for the info Andre! I'm glad I guessed right.... I just wish I had some rocket pods. Thanks! I'm pleased with it so far. I figured out how to put the landing gears on. In my search for instructions, I ran across a review of the white metal landing gears I have and the reviewer stated that they were exact duplicates of the kit parts. So all I had to do was hop over to scalemates and find the instructions for a ModelSvit Su-17. Problem solved! Of course, it makes me wonder why you would by duplicates of parts you already have. Unless they are broken, I suppose. At any rate, it helped me out. I didn't like putting these on before the end, but with the drilling and the scratching and scraping of paint to get a good glue bond, I figured it was better to do it now, rather than later after I've finished painting the wheel wells. I can't say I'm a huge fan of these white metal gears. They don't seem to look that much better than resin or styrene. They look 100 times better than the kit parts, and that's what counts. I'm also a little nervous about the gears supporting the model. The connection points for the nose wheel (which I haven't fully assembled yet because I need to attach the wheel at the same time) seem awfully small. I sure hope it works. As it is now, though it supports the model fine: I'm going to let that sit upside down overnight to be especially sure that the glue is dried and cured. The other order of business tonight was starting on painting the wheels after drilling holes for the gears to attach to Still wet in that photo. The next thing I need to do is attach the pitot tube and probe, since I will need to use a little putty with them. Again better to do it now than later. I hate doing it this early in the build because of all the handling it's going to get when I apply decals. I'll just have to be mindful and careful. (and lucky).

I think it looks terrific! The weathering turned out rather nice.

That looks fantastic so far Steve! I bought a couple of these in the 90's and built one a couple of years ago. Great kit. I was a little frustrated with the intakes, but it seems like all jet intakes stink. I like your metal! It looks pretty realistic. Better than mine turned out.

Slow but steady this week. All I was able to do Sunday was mask for the bottom blue and the dielectric panels. Monday night, I painted the bottom with Hataka RLM 78 and the dielectric panels with Mr. Color light green (C319). After that I took all the masking off (except for the flash shields on the fuselage). The metal will need to be remasked before dull coat, but I wanted it uncovered to put gloss coat on. Last night I wanted to figure out the after market pitot tubes and landing gears. Since both were made for different kits, I was expecting some possible difficulties. Unfortunately I was right. As you can see here, It was well worth the money to get the aftermarkets: You can probably also tell that the aftermarket is not long enough. So I had to make an extension by cutting of a length of the kit pitot tube, drill a hole in the center of it (which was really difficult given the size) and gluing it on the aftermarket. It won't look terrific, but it's the best I could come up with: Tonight I have to figure out the landing gears. They didn't come with instructions, so it is going to be a bit of a puzzle. Plus, I can't figure out how I'm going to attach them...

Beautiful upgrade so far Chris!