Dstream

Little progress with my build, to resolve the issue of the undercarriage mounting sequence, I removed the molded plastic wheel axles. I am replacing them with a brass tube 1.6 mm dia. as shown in the picture. Once trimmed in length, the new axles could be slid in place at the most convenient moment. Without the wheels in the way, I could assemble and finish the undercarriage structure properly and fit the brake lines made of lead wire. I also drilled lightening holes in the supports of the mud fenders. Here the completed undercarriages are posed within their locations on the lower wing halves which have been painted green. I read that to improve commonality of parts, the real undercarriages were not handed, but I left them as they are intended in the kit because their modification it would have been too complicated for me. Finally, the nacelles were glued in place and the half wings were completed. The undercarriages are now ready to be painted. That's all for now, thanks for following, best regards, Dan

@bigbadbadge, @Thom216, @mossieramm, thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it. I am slowly progressing (I am a slow builder), being a bit puzzled by the way I am supposed to assemble the main undercarriage. If I follow Tamiya steps, I am going to get the large wheels in the way when I will have to paint the truss structure. I will find a way to install the wheels after everything is assembled and painted. To the next installment, Dan

Hi, I would like to start and share my new build of a De Havilland Mosquito 1:48 scale. The kit is the old, but still very nice Tamiya of the FB Mk VI. I believe that neither a presentation of this aircraft nor of the kit is necessary. Since long, I wanted to build a model of this aircraft because of its fame and because of its remarkable design. For me, this is the first mosquito build as a grown up modeller if I exclude the ancient Revell 1/32 kit that I built when I was a kid. To start my build, I followed to the letter the Tamiya instructions which called the engine nacelles as a first step: I just thickened the frames for added 3-D effect and added few interior details. The white panel shown on the inside of the walls is an artistic license of mine having used a piece of thin styrene to hide annoying ejection pin marks which I didn't want to fill and sand. In the following, the nacelles are shown completed: Finally, they are test fitted with the wings and the main undercarriage struts to check that no interferences with the new parts are present: That is all for this first instalment, I hope you will enjoy following it. Best regards, Dan

You have a very steady hand and a very good control of your brush! Beautiful model. Dan

Thank you James! About the Vallejo paint, please consider that I used their specific 'metallic' paints. Thank you for your kind feedback. I also remember that in the '70s in Italy. It was not unusual even to hear their loud supersonic boom above cities. Thank you very much for your feedback! I often make models all closed up. Kind regards, Dan

Thank you! I have a vivid memory of a couple of Belgian Starfighter doing aerobatics at an airshow when I was a kid (c.a. 55 years ago?). It was awesome to watch. Thanks Pete, I also have a soft spot for these NATO camouflaged '104 with large white codes and roundels. Thank you Chris, glad that you liked my build. Thank you! Indeed, as I wrote, I enjoyed very much building this kit (which I bought in 2002). Thanks for your kind feedback! Thank you for your great feedback! Wow, thanks for your generous feedback! Thanks also to the numerous 'like's! Cheers, Daniele

Hi all, I would like to share some pictures of my model of a Starfighter 'S' in Italian Service as it appeared in 1981. It carries the insignias of an interceptors of the 51^ Stormo, based at Istrana in the North of Italy. The kit is the old 1:48 Hasegawa of the version 'S'. To improve the model, I sourced the following after market items: - Aires resin jet exhaust; - Master brass pitot probe; - Eduard resin ejection seat MB Mk7 and harness; - Eduard resin Sidewinder; - Aires resin Sparrow; - Skymodels decals. This kit is by now outdated by the newer 'state-of-the-art' Kinetic one, but I found that the plastic is still very nice with crisp and finely engraved surface details, thin and clear transparent parts and it well reproduces the distinctive forms of this aircraft. However, lazy Hasegawa didn't include the full range of modifications that are necessary for the 'S' version, hence I had to re-work the most obvious ones. The version 'S' was designed by Loockheed in answer to a specification from the Italian Air Force for a more powerful, faster and better armed replacement of the standard NATO version 'G'. The aircraft started to be built by Aeritalia in Turin (former FIAT) in the late '60. It was powered by a more powerful J79-GE-19 and was armed with the version B or L of the Sidewinder missiles and with Sparrow missiles (from which the letter 'S' in the designation). At take-off, the more powerful engine required a larger mass flow rate of air, consequently the air intakes were supplemented by rectangular openings on the sides that were not present in previous versions. In the picture below, I am showing the rectangular lids of these openings that I egraved on the sides of the air intake ducts. The colors that I used for the Italian NATO camouflage were Gunze H-69 (dark sea grey), Gunze H-309 (dark green) and Vallejo Metallic white alluminium for the underside. I think that this is still a good kit with a very good fit and I enjoyed building it. Beside the positive points, I am also listing what are, in my view, its few negative points: - Overstated rivets on the wings which shouldn't be there. - Incomplete range of details for the 'S' version. - Absence of external loads. - Decals with yellow/cream color in place of white for codes. I replaced them with after market decals. The building log can be found here. I hope you like my model, comments and suggestions are welcome. Best regards, Dan

@SebTartar, @kelly9mm, thanks for your kind comments, I will try my best with the final photos. Dan

Hi there, the last bits being assembled. The angle of attack sensor vanes glued in place; The huge tip tanks that ruin the sleek shape of the plane: The stabilizer/elevator surface of the distinctive 'T' tail: And finally, the nose cone with the long pitot probe which I managed to knock off only a couple of times: I hope you liked this build. Next installment will be in the RFI section and will contain the final pictures. Being the plane very long, it won't be trivial to take good pictures with all of it in focus. Best regards, Dan

Superb model, very well done. I have the same kit to be built, thanks for the head up about the main landing gear! Cheers, Dan

Thanks John! As said, the Eduard set was of top quality. The only difficulty was to drape the harness made of photoetched steel. Best regards, Dan

This time I concentrated on finishing the cockpit. I sourced the Eduard ejection seat M.B. mk7 to replace the one of the kit, which was overall correct, but very simplified. The Eduard resin is very nice (I wonder how they produce these things) and provided broken down in few pieces. As usual, to drape the photoetched harness made of steel was a serious test of my mental sanity. The finished product, painted and coated with a flat clear was nevertheless quite nice: The seat tested inside the cockpit: Finally, this is how it appears under the finished canopy: Best regards, Dan

Outstanding! Great model and details. Saluti, Daniele

Beautiful model! Great pictures. Congratulations, Dan

Gorgeous P-51, Jean. Contrasts between metallic and dark details and fumes give a fantastic result. Congratulations, Daniele

It looks fantastic with this livery. Great build. Dan

Hi there, few progress and a small problem. The problem first: in the following, some of the chemicals of the coatings seeped below the masking tapes and crazed the transparent plastic. There is also a mysterious whitish halo close to the yellow spine which probably was caused by the flat agent of the clear coating. I addressed the transparent by wet sanding with increasingly fine grits followed by polishing with Tamiya polishing compound. The halo was cured by spraying over it another bit of the clear paint. Next, the underside was completed with the landing gear doors. Finally, at this point, my Starfighter got its stings, the Sidewinder on the port side: and a Sparrow on the starboard side: This asymmetric configuration was commonly used by the Italian interceptors. Finally, two overall views taken under natural light to show how the real colors of the camouflage turned out: Here, in these pictures, the blemishes reported before were already cured: That is all for now, I hope you like it, best regards, Dan

Gorgeous model and its finish. Congratulations, Dan

Thank you David, glad that you like it. I believe that the finish is due to the heavy thinning ratio that I used (20% paint / 80% thinner) for the clear coats, the use of Mr. Leveling Thinner which is great and the wet fine sanding that I did to prepare the surfaces. Cheers, Dan

Thanks for the comment and the like's, I went on with my build and put in place the landing gears that I previously prepared. I committed the final coat opting, for a satin finish obtained by Tamiya clear XF-86 plus some X-22, everything heavily thinned with Gunze levelling thinner. The paints used for the Italian NATO camouflage were quite glossy when new, but then aged into a more matt finish. I am quite happy with the smoothness and reflectivity of this that should resemble an almost new aircraft. Finally, after many months, I can remove the masking from the clear parts: Here, I removed the canopy hood to check the cockpit interior. Clearly, the cockpit sills need still to be painted. Only two small blemishes on the transparent parts need to be addressed. The jet nozzle can now go into its place: That is all for now, Dan

Hi, just finished to apply the decals. I ended up by omitting a number of service stencils because they seem to be a tad too large and disrupt the appearance of the aircraft. In pictures of the real planes, they are not that noticeable. In addition, they vary according to the epoch of the picture. In general, the quality of the decals is very good, but I have the impression that they are all slightly oversized (by some 5-10%). At any rate, this is where I am now, after a coat of diluted clear gloss on the airframe and main parts which should seal the decals and uniform the finish. The underside too got the same treatment. With the sealed decals, the model is ready for the last oil color paneling. In retrospective, I should have puttied the rivets/divots of the wings which now look really unrealistic. Afterwards, a matt/satin coat will follow. Best regards, Dan

Simply fantastic! I find the discoloration of the surfaces really outstanding. Congrats, Dan

Your '109 looks very well done and the mottling is great (first time? it is amazing). Congrats, Dan

Hi there, I started with decaling and I opted for the 51^ group (Stormo) of the Italian Air Force based at Istrana in the North of Italy the badge of which depicts a black cat chasing three green mice. The three green mice were the emblem of the S.M.79's winners of several competitions at the end of the years '30. Because of rivalry between groups within the Air Force, the 51^ adopted the bad cat chasing the green mice for their badge. I was amused by this story and found the cartoon style of the badge really nice. I resolved also a problem with the pitot tube that had a thin red stripe spiraling around it. It was impossible for me to stick a thin decal stripe because the radius of the tube was too small and the decal refused to coil and stay attached around it. Hence, I masked it with tape and brushed it red: In the pictures, you can see also some of the service stencils that I started to apply (there are zillions of them) and the quality of the decals can be appreciated. Indeed, it is possible to read all the texts and they are all correct without typos (also the Italian text is correct, differently from what often happens with Chinese decals). I used some oil colors to pick up details and draw some trails of dirt. Finally, I completed scratch built pylons of the missiles along with the resin Sidewinder and Sparrow that are now ready to be attached under the wings: That's all for now, thanks for following, Dan

Outstanding! You are a master of airbrush, I would like to have half of your skills. Congratulations, Dan