Sten Ekedahl

The obvious question naturally follows: Does anyone have a good suggestion for a suitable paint for Cerrux grey? Preferably enamels since I've been using them for some 50 years and are used to them. I have tried acrylics but don't feel comfortable with them. As we say in Sweden; it's difficult to teach old dogs to sit.

Thank you John! That pic is very good. It clearly shows which areas of the fuselage that were metal and which were fabric. It also strenghtens my impression, after having seen a few other pics earlier today, that the fueltanks in the upper wing were not covered with fabric

At least the fuselage after the wing trailing edge and the exhausts are much more correct on the Frog kit than on the Airfix. The latter one is way to small in this area.

Thank you for the answer Graham. Very helpful!

I was just about to start singing and dancing - when I realized you're all talking about 1/48 scale! So very dissapointed! Airfix has re-done their 1/72 Spitfire, Hawk, Canberra, Harrier, Gnat, Mig-15, Bf 110 (and probably a few more that I can't think of right now), so what would be more fitting than to re-do the Lightning in 1/72!

Been tinkering a bit lately with the new 1/72 Vildebeest kit. Seems to be a very nice kit. Planning to use the kit decals for a pre-WWII silver dope aircraft. Now the big question: I know what the fabric looked like inside the fuselage (natural linnen with red primer bleeding through), but what about the metal framework, seat and the metal panels at the front of the fuselage? Kit instructions says interior green, but in all the photos on this site of the Vincent being restored in NZ they seem to be silver dope. And BTW, were the aluminum panels around the nose also overpainted with silver dope or polished natural metal on the outside, like on e.g. the Hawker Fury? And wile I'm still at it, were the fuel tanks in the upper wing coverd with fabric or were they left exposed on the upper an lower surfaces of the wing? Any help much appreciated. TIA!

All sold out at the moment. But on a direct question a few weeks ago here on this forum, AW answered that these sets will soon be back in stock.

One interesting detail on the NF.14 of 60 Sqn visible on the photo Dennis enclosed in his post, are the two small air intakes under the fuselage just below the cockpit. These were normaly only fitted to the NF.13, but aparantly added to some NF.14.

Just checked the one I built several years ago using the Modeldecal decals. According to Dick Ward's instructions they were painted High Speed Silver underneath.

That seems to be it. Thanks!

Thanks for the answers - great help! My only remaining problem is all that wonderful stenciling on the decal sheet - there is no information in the instructions where they are supposed to go on the model!

Juat picked up the Special Hobby 1/72 CAC Boomerang. Very nice kit! However the instructions say that the cockpit should be painted green, but I have a faint memory of having read an article long time ago about how to scratch build a detailed cockpit for the old Airfix kit where the author stated that the cockpit should be natural aluminum. Who's right?

This is even better: Unfortunately it crashed at a later show:

Thanks a lot guys! Very helpful advice and pics.

Good thing I managed to find one, in other words!

A friend of mine is currently building a Hasegawa 1/72 F-111. This inspired me to dig out the EF-111 kit and Modeldecal sheet #91 covering all the 13 EF-111 aircraft based at Upper Heyford in 1987. It's gonna be difficult to chose wich one to build! Anyhow, does anyone have a good suggestion for the colour of the leading edge of the fin? It is described as having a "brown metallic tint". Hasegawa says dark gray in their painting instructions, but somehow I trust the Modeldecal instructions more than the Hasegawa ones. Haven't been able to find any colour photos, so I'm at a total loss here. Hope someone can enlighten me about this and suggest a pait mix. TIA

Ugly contraption - but fascinating!

And IRC they also butchered the Javelin T.3 to make the FAW.9.

At the moment I can't find my copy of "Aircraft of 100 Group" after a substantional rerorganization of my bookcases, but from memory I'm pretty sure the Norden bomb sight was not fitted to these aircraft. Also there was a curtain hanging right across the nose compartment at the rear edge of the nose glazing. Of course this would make all the details in the nose invisible. But luckily this curtain was divided in the middle and the two halves could be pulled aside and fixed with a strap to each side of the fuselage wall. Since the aircraft didn't have the chin turret there were no ammo boxes in the nose either, but on the other hand there were several "radio boxes" for operating the jammimg equipment. There is a very good sketch and description of the nose compartment in the book.

I have seen neither of them, but to my knowlege the Xtrakit and the SH are the same, just different boxing.

As a local newspaper tycoon put it, about 50 years ago: "Never check the facts in a good story!"

Am I surprised? Not the slightest!!!

I use a very similar pair of tweezers with very little problems. The main trick is don't use too much force. Press the tweezers together very lightly, just hard enough to hold the part. The more force you use, the greater the risk of sending the small piece flying into interstellar orbit! When it comes to the really small parts, don't use tweezers. Use a round tothpick and cut off one end, wet it with saliva and pick up the tiny PE with it and place it where it is supposed to go. Don't use superglue for the smallest parts. White glue, clear varnish, or even better Humbrol Clearfix, is far superior. Good luck!

Great! Forgot to ask about the nozzles. Seen pics where they are angled sort of halfway to vertical.

Thanks a lot, very helpful! Following your build very closely. I mean, why should two people make the same misstakes.