Vanroon

A couple of shillings worth from me. 1. *155 Sqn had a red dragons head in a yellow football in this location at this time. 7. Me too. Grant

Wow. I was expecting to see a pale blue motorcycle. The carriagework! Grant

Aldi are/were only offering wooden ship kits in West Oz. Nice compressor airbrush kit and a decent ultrasonic cleaner. Various tools which had little appeal to me, but ok if quality checked.m

That's great. Now I'll have to remove the upper roundels on my model. Grant

The gallery linked here http://ultimatecarpage.com/car/4225/Chevrolet-Corvette-C6.R-GT2.html May have useful images. Grant

Thanks for posting that Martin. I'll be glueing my wing tops to the fuselage based on your experiences. Grant

Hi again. No photos exist to my knowledge. I do remember testing paint on different brands of tape to achieve the best texture. And pencilling lines on the roof to get the overlap even. Grant

Over the years since plastic bags with folded paper headers I have come to distrust box art. Some art is a lure to buy old plastic while fine kits often have unprepossessing illustration to tempt the buyer. Photos of models aren't art. That isn't to say I don't appreciate many renderings and box treatments. I have a filing cabinet drawer full of box tops and instructions to back that. And aviation themed calendars. And envelopes and stamps .... Grant

Hi Nigel, Vinyl roof Donkeys years ago (45) I had success with a technique which I must try again. In 1971 I was working for a Rambler dealership in West Oz when they received a black Rambler Rebel 4 door with a black vinyl roof. Inspired, I bought an AMT? 1969 Rambler AMX kit and set about making it look like that vehicle. To mimic the roof, some half round strip stock was added to define the covered extents of the C pillar and across the rear scuttle. I masked the roof and painted the body gloss black to the best of my ability. Once that had cured, I masked the body and sprayed the roof with spray (photo) adhesive to which I applied ordinary tan masking tape panels to the pillars and sides of the roof. Trimming the tape to provide parallel edges over which I applied more of the tan tape. I sliced the new tape back to keep a 0.8mm overlap from the first pair of applied panels. As the body was still masked, I then sprayed 2 coats of matte black over the tape. Buffed with a soft cloth, it came to a nice low sheen. Trimmed around the roof gutters and my added half round then painted that silver. No foil back then. Unmasked it looked a treat, just as intended. That model was on my brothers shelf for at least a decade, so the durability was good. Perhaps this technique may work for your Capri. Grant

Currently trying to build both the High Planes Beaufort Mk.VIII & a Special Hobbies Beaufort Mk.VIII. Lots of work needed to get HPs parts to fit tightly, about the same as building a vacuum formed kit. Lovely white metal undercarriage, control column, guns and air scoops and accurate vacuum formed canopies. Great decals too. Very disappointed in the shape errors in the SH kit. The fuselage changes shape from an arch at the cockpit to a filleted square shape at the turret. Quite hard to correct accurately. Neither kit is rewarding me much at this early stage, but I'm sure the HP will be a better model than the SH once both are completed. Grant

Perhaps building both then comparing will resolve this dilemma. I'll do the Hasegawa. Grant

More measurements? They're both back in their boxes now and it's 22:40p Somebody else's turn. I will look in tommoz. Grant

I came back and saw confusion, found the torch and went to the stash, dug out the Airfix Beaufighter kit A04019 and sawed off a half fuselage and a complete wing. Taped up the half measures at 126mm x2= 252. Pics So it appears Airfix has gone large. Grant

Dry fitted the Hasegawa Mk.VI #00027, it measured at 245mm. Perhaps the Airfix could be oversized? Pics. Grant

Do you have the metal bits? I get a bit frustrated threading them together but I'm a duffer. They work though. Grant

The Merlin Mk.I was like a teenage girl, scooting about a hockey pitch. Once war broke out, growing ever stronger faster and deadlier with successive variants until the Mk.VIII, the equivalency of full womanhood. Then her offspring with the genetics of Mk.I~VIII and the Griffin became even more awesomely beautiful and so powerful and lethal as to totally out shine dowdy Messerschmitts, capricious Capronis and delicate Mitsubishis. Even Mustangs look lumpy by comparison let alone stout Grummans. Athletic good looks that endure, faithful performance and responsiveness to a pilots touch endeared her to most who took her up. Cor, phew. Grant

I once attended a rally where a Britten appeared in temporary road going guise. (1987) The riders girlfriend was on a Bimota Tessi. My ride at that time was a Moto Guzzi SP1000 which I would have loved to strip down to something more interesting. or just build a retro custom like this XS650 or the KR200 behind. However age and wobbly legs have me doing the milk, bread or more likely beer run on this 200w beauty. Grant

There is a timeline for both Hasegawas 1/72 P-40s on Scalemates which briefly notes part and decal changes since 1977 original release. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/843274-hasegawa-02510-p-40n-warhawk Grant

Being at the furthest point of a long and confused supply chain has that effect. Grant

Thanks for the photos, even if not recorded by Frank Hurley. Are we sure this is A29-435 in the photo, or another with the same artwork. Still without the nightie. Grant Edit, the airframe in the DK set is A29-347, possibly the original wearer of the "Little Audrey" panel.

NickBy instructions, you are referring to the decal set? Indeed, it was the demarcation and pattern to which I referred as acceptable as it closely matches IKBs profile. Those US colours certainly would not have been used in an RAAF repaint given orders at the time. I don't know the delivery scheme (perhaps DuPont Dark Green & Sandy Earth over "pastel blue" as some were) for it had by now disappeared under fresh coatings for service in PNG with its rich red soils and greens. As a hobbyist, I'm happy to match colour chips with mixes of model paints to decorate my plastic. Monographs such as IKBs which contain paint samples of service colours and oddities which arrived here in the scramble to arm, are of great help. Grant

Hi BrendenS, To allay some of your doubts, re: decal colour scheme reliability, I delved into my archive specifically Ian K Bakers Aviation Colouring Book #17 which has a description of Kittyhawk III A29-435 marked as SV*K. The decal instructions are quite close to IKBs description. So, verbatim I quote him. * A29-435, SV-K "Little Audrey", one of several "Little Audrey's" in No. 76 Sqdn., Hollandia, late 1944. The nose art consists of a winged naked female figure with halo, flying along with arms outstretched. (For a close up of a later version, see Pentland Vol. 2 p.60.) After the name there appears to be an RAAF crest. Completely repainted, the scheme is probably Foliage Green, Earth Brown & Sky Blue. Note the canopy is unpainted. Spinner believed to be dark blue & white. Absence of fin flashes & the yellow lightning flash appear to have been a No.76 Sqdn. eccentricity for a time. Serial believed to be light grey, & codes Sky Blue. Rather than send you searching for the period correct colours, follow this link to a reliable article on RAAF Colours. http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/foliagegreenrefgb_1.htm That's all for now. Have fun with your build. Grant