Jeff Wilson

Agreed, it's lovely boxart, and I'll definitely be picking one up to do the alternative RAAF Meteorites option. And it would be remiss of me not to point out that it's not RAAF Williamstown as Airfix have noted in the painting guide, it's RAAF Williamtown, without the 's'. Best, Jeff

Nice build @Xirurg, and I'm glad that my build inspired yours. It's a decent kit, albeit a little basic in comparison to some more recent releases, but it builds well and looks the part. Yours looks great. Regards, Jeff

The lower one is definitely 'JACKING POINT', and my feeling is that the upper one is 'HOOD RELEASE'. Increasing the contrast of the image posted above shows the 2nd and 3rd letters in the first word look just like the 'O' in 'TO OPEN'. There's another image available online at https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuM4g7HWkAMk5mD?format=jpg&name=medium. I won't post the image myself in case it's copyrighted but it's easily found with a Google search. Regards, Jeff

Hi Ed, for what it's worth, Airfix does listen to constructive criticism and informed advice. If you've got the information to back up the colour scheme, let them know - [email protected]. I've contacted them in the past and pointed them to discussion on Britmodeller on two occasions, with the Whitley (shape of the bomb aimer's window - they corrected it) and the Free French edition of the Blenheim (colour of the French cockades - they subsequently included both red and blue). If they include some explanatory info about the colour scheme and both grey and red codes, and ask the modeller to choose, that's a win-win. Best, Jeff

Can anyone point me to a supplier of pre-cut, round or oval, raw/unfinished, veneered MDF bases, with a profiled edge? The two in the photos below are examples that I picked up at a show a number of years ago for around £5 each, but I can't recall who was selling them. These are approximately 16 x 200 x 300mm and were raw MDF when bought. I'm looking for something similar but I can only seem to find suppliers/cutters of unprofiled, round/oval bases, or profiled and varnished timber bases with an appropriate price tag. Cheers, Jeff

Lovely looking model @Andwil - really good work. Great scheme too. I also like the grass mat you've got it displayed on - the leaf scatter looks really good. Do you know the manufacturer? The Fokker would look excellent on a simple, small, round, matt black MDF base, with a circle of that mat on top. Cheers, Jeff

Many thanks to all who have commented and reacted so positively about this Tojo. @72modeler @HOUSTON @MDriskill @Roberto @Epeeman @swralph @stevehnz @opus999 @Wulfman @Farmerboy, I've got to admit that it takes pride of place in my (small but growing) 1/72 Japanese collection. The Nick Millman book is a great resource for a wide variety of interesting schemes too - plenty more Tojos to consider building down the track. Cheers, Jeff

That's really lovely, Toryu. I've got one in the stash, along with a Little Fokkers resin cockpit, an old Eduard etched set and an Aeromaster decal sheet. If it comes out half as well as yours, I'd be well chuffed. Regards, Jeff

I always thought it was ex-Mania, Wulfman, but it appears that Scalemates disagrees with me - they say new tool Hasegawa in 1972. Either way, it's still a nice kit. Cheers, Jeff

Funny you should mention that, Todders. It was sitting in my stash for the best part of 30 years until UK lockdown convinced me to build it. It's a decent kit, well worth building. Cheers, Jeff

This model is built from the 1/72 Airfix kit and represents an A6M2b Model 21 Zero-Sen, of the 201st Kokutai, flown from Tobera airfield, New Britain, in 1944. The Airfix colour scheme calls for a grey underside, but an air-to-air photograph on Nick Millman's Aviation of Japan blog indicates quite strongly that this particular aircraft was an over-painted trainer retaining its original orange-yellow underside, with white outlined Hinomarus and numbers under the wings, so that's how I chose to finish it. The decals are from the kit and paints are Tamiya, Gunze and Revell acrylics, and Humbrol enamels for details. I built this a number of years ago, shortly after the kit was released, and I did a WIP here but I never photographed the finished article. Cheers, Jeff

This model is built from the 1/72 Hasegawa kit and represents the N1K2-J Model 21 Shiden, flown by CPO Hideo Nakao, 343rd Kokutai, 407th Hikotai, from Matsuyama airbase, Japan, in March 1945. I also used a few bits and pieces from an old Eduard etched brass cockpit set, but little can be seen of it except in very good light. I used Master Type 99 20mm gun barrels and Print Scale decals to finish it. Paints are Tamiya, Gunze and Vallejo acrylics, and Humbrol enamels for details. Cheers, Jeff

This model is built from the venerable 1/72 Hasegawa/Mania kit and represents a Ki-44-II Hei Shoki, flown by Captain Yukiyoshi Wakamatsu, 2nd Chutai Leader, 85th Sentai, Canton, China, during the summer of 1944. I also used a very nice True Details resin cockpit that I bought years ago, but the cockpit opening is tiny and the canopy quite thick, so little can be seen of it - at least I know it's in there. There's a colour profile of this aircraft in Nick Millman's Osprey Aircraft of the Aces #100, Ki-44 'Tojo' Aces of World War 2, and I based the underside colour and the heavy mottle on that profile and used Print Scale decals to finish it. Paints are Tamiya, Gunze and Vallejo acrylics, and Humbrol enamels for details. The gun barrels are Master .50 calibre Brownings masquerading as Japanese 12.7mm. Macro photography certainly leaves nothing to the imagination - it looks significantly less dusty in real life. Cheers, Jeff

I thought both the Trumpeter and Tamiya single-seater kits had a fuselage broken in the middle, to allow you to show the engine. The sprue image above shows a conventional right/left fuselage mould without a break. Could be a partial retool? Regards, Jeff

Three crew lost, Admiral Puff, not four. No less tragic for that, however. The aircraft involved was EC130Q, N134CG, Coulson 4, temporarily working with the NSW Rural Fire Service. I watched it land at RAAF Fairbairn while I was waiting in the departure lounge at Canberra Airport on 9th January this year: Regards, Jeff

For what it's worth, I used a mix of Revell and Tamiya acrylics (wow, eight years ago...) to get what I felt looked close to Japanese trainer orange-yellow. Images (albeit plastered with the Photobucket logo) are here: Cheers, Jeff

It's a test shot and besides, they'll take five minutes to get rid of if they're still there in the production kit. Jeff

Lovely model, Dave - really nice result. Cheers, Jeff

Born in 1916, Tetsuzo Iwamoto was possibly Japan's ace of aces during WWII, with a confirmed tally of at least 80 aerial victories, his own diary listing anywhere up to 202 kills. Serving throughout the Japanese war in Asia and the Pacific, from the Chinese theatre to the battle for the islands of Japan in the closing stages of the war, he survived only to be blacklisted from public sector employment by the allied occupiers of Japan. When the allied occupation forces left Japan in 1952, he was finally able to find work at a spinning mill. In 1953 he was diagnosed with enteritis which was later found to be appendicitis and, after a series of operations, surgeons reputedly removed three or four of his ribs without anaesthesia. This ultimately led to sepsis and he died at the age of just 38 in May 1955, supposedly uttering these final words to his wife; "When I get well, I want to fly again". This model represents one of the Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero-sen fighters he may have flown from Tobera Base, Rabaul, New Britain, in January 1944. It is built from the Tamiya kit originally tooled in 1973, which has long been surpassed by Hasegawa's kit and by Tamiya's own retooled Zero family but, nonetheless, builds very nicely and is available for £10-£12 if you shop around. It also includes five interesting finishing options and is worth picking up for the decal sheet alone, as are the original Tamiya toolings of the A6M3 and A6M5 - think of them as good quality decal sheets with a bonus kit thrown in. That said, it's the most modelling fun I've had in ages from a £12 kit. I added a set of Eduard seat belts and a couple of Flightpath etched bits which nicely replicated the cocking handles for the cowl mounted machines guns but, other than that and the elastic thread aerial wire, it's built completely out of the box. Tamiya, Gunze Sangyo and Vallejo acrylics were used for much of the painting, Windsor & Newton oils for weathering, and Humbrol enamels for the pilot figure and other small details. Cheers, Jeff

Lots of work in that and an excellent result, Ray. Looks really good in that scheme too - very striking. Best, Jeff

Extremely cool, Ray, and right out of left-field. Nice build. Cheers, Jeff

Lovely model, Libor - every bit as good as usual. Keep up the inspiringly good work. Best, Jeff

Cheers, Dave (and everyone else), comments much appreciated. Roden kits are frequently challenging but immensely satisfying to get right. Better decals would make a world of difference however! Best, Jeff

This is the 1/72 Roden Fokker D.VII (OAW Mid) kit, finished in the markings of Ltn. Rudolf Stark when he was commander of Jasta 35b in August 1918. Plenty has been written about Roden's Fokker D.VII kits and much of it is pretty uncomplimentary; most of it is also true. Although it looks very well detailed in the box and significantly more delicate than Eduard's example, very little fits without widening, narrowing, shortening, lengthening, filling, fiddling and fettling. The lozenge decals are brittle and unyielding to Microsol or Mr. Mark Softer, and even after plenty of both was used, along with very warm water, significant pressure was required to get the decals to conform, and that pressure tore and shattered many of the edges necessitating much hand retouching of missing lozenge. Roden's rib tape decals were completely unusable and split into varying lengths on contact with water, even after overcoating with two coats of Future/Kleer on the sheet. Eduard's newly released sheet of rib tapes, while intended for their recent kit, fit the Roden kit quite well, so they were used instead. The remaining Roden decals were variable, with the crosses and personal markings working quite well, and the codes and stencils silvering quite badly. There's around 120 decals on this model and, to be honest, finishing it became a chore about three weeks before actual completion, so the control lines remain unfinished for now and I'll return to them eventually. But the final result is quite pleasing and it looks good in the cabinet alongside Udet's 'Lo' and Berthold's winged sword examples, both of which I made years ago from the Esci kit. I built it alongside Roden's 1/72 Fokker Dr.I, finished in Vzfw Ulrich Neckel's Jasta 12 markings from April 1918. This kit isn't as bad as the D.VII with respect to fit and decals (no lozenge for example) but it's no shining example of state-of-the-art and was less frustrating but not completely trouble-free. Triplane aficionados may note that the upper support struts do not match the location of the lower struts. This was an error of my own making when I failed to increase the length of the cabane struts (they're about 2-3 mm too short out of the box), which threw out the wing geometry. Once again, I'll live with it; it looks OK in the cabinet. There are less frustrating kits of both of these aeroplanes offered by Revell and Eduard; choose one of them if you want a trouble-free build. But with better lozenge, care in building and a bit more planning, both of these can build quite nicely. I have a few more in the stash, especially the D.VII and I'm sure I'll build more down the track. Cheers, Jeff

Lovely work Ray, and a very effective display too - it looks great in action. All the best, Jeff