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klr last won the day on August 9 2021
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A true blast from the past, wot I built in the mid-1980s. I'm not sure why I'd want to buy it again though. I actually had a second kit in the stash, but disposed of it.
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I can't find any photographs of the actual aircraft with that inscription above the exhaust stacks ("The Bulldogs"*). I suspect the inscription was added later rather than earlier. I have a HobbyBoss kit (don't snigger anyone) with 13 kill markings (compared to the 16 here), but nothing above the exhaust stacks. This page has some very useful photographs: https://www.americanairmuseum.com/archive/person/henry-william-brown *Which I presume refers to the Georgia Bulldogs American Football team. While Brown was born in Dallas (hence "The Hun Hunter Texas"), he attended flight school in Georgia. Re the kill markings: It's not clear what the background colour was. Judging from the photographs (all black and white), it definitely wasn't white. In 4 of the 5 relevant photos on Brown's page, it's a light colour. In the other it's quite dark, but that anomaly could be due to one or more factors. The boxart for all boxings of the Airfix kit appear to show a white or light grey background, but seeing the decals above, clearly the decals didn't always agree. There's no consistency amongst other kit, decal and die-cast manufacturers. Bright red seems to be popular, but that might be only correct for Brown's later P-51D, where the kill markings were against a natural metal background.
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I admire your sense of adventure/optimism (delete as applicable) 😬 It's actually from 1974. I had three of these in the stash. Two got recycled via my local hobby shop. Whoever ended up buying them, all I can say is caveat emptor. The oldest of the three (Heller-Humbrol era) could not be resold, as the packaging was too far gone. I have classified it as "Trash", meaning I will never build it, nor sell it. I may extract some spare parts however.
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Not much happening recently, but I did get a second Roden Junkers D.I, the long fuselage version to go with the short version I got a couple of months ago. The refined corrugated detail on these kits looks very impressive.
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This is has been stalled for the past week or so (partly because of intrusions from the Real World), but I'm working up the enthusiasm to finish the canopy framing. Once that's done, the rest should be downhill.
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- Heinkel He 115
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The D.H. 88 Comet Racer, with Airfix decals. Build thread here:
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... and it's done. Real life got in the way for a few days I'm afraid. I'd like to have spent some time polishing the plastic so that it was actually smooth, instead of merely looking smooth,
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- Frog GB
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I want to get this (and the Hampden) finished by mid-March at the latest. I still have one, possibly two other kits lined up for this GB. In the FROG GB, there is the minor matter of the Shackleton, which is going to require rather a lot of time and effort
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I took a break last Monday, spent two evenings painstakingly painting the main cockpit framing, first in RLM 02, then RLM 070, on top of which I will (eventually) apply the final RLM 72/RLM 73 camouflage. After that I decided I needed another break. Not only is the raised framing unsuitable for masking (IMHO), but there are also various flaws in the molding, all of which would be problems by themselves. I've since started work on the nose section, as well painting the floats. There are all sorts of ugly gaps around the nose, so this won't be done until tomorrow by the earliest.
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Ok, long overdue for an update. The undercarriage covers/mudguards were way too meaty (this is just the before), so I cut them down quite a bit. The finished kit. At this point, I didn't realise I was finished, as there was still an attachment to be added on the right side of each engine, purpose unknown (hand crank for starting the engine?). But I don't see this on any other kits, or pictures of the real aircraft, so I have left them off. I have now started painting, so it's question of how long it takes to apply two coats of slow-drying gloss black.
- 26 replies
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The Folgore it is then. I will retrieve it from "Stash B" in a couple of weeks. It may have to be surgically extracted, to prevent a huge pile of kits from collapsing on top of me.
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I am planning on starting the Shackleton "soon", probably by the weekend after next. But I would still like to build one more FROG kit over the next few months, that is not currently being attempted by anyone else. I have the following selection, listed in my personal descending preference order: Macchi MC.202 Folgore [Matchbox/Revell] de Havilland Vampire FB.5/50 [Frog] Arado Ar 234 [Revell] Dewoitine D.520C [Novo] Gloster E.28/39 [Novo] Supermarine Spitfire I/V [Novo] - a Mk. Ia and a Mk. Va from the exact same parts ??? Fairey Firefly [Donetsk Toys Institute] - terrible transparencies Republic P-47D Thunderbolt (razorback) [Novo] - requires a huge amount of work to make it respectable IMHO I didn't realise the Folgore was a FROG kit until about an hour ago, as I had previously recorded it as a Revell kit. My memory from dry-fitting is that it's reasonably good, and the decals should be OK.
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I was concerned that the undercarriage legs were too short. However, looking at a picture of the preserved red aircraft (Grosvenor House), this does not appear to be the case. That now has a tail wheel fitted instead of the skid, which is probably a relatively recent change. All pictures of the various Comet Racers during their active period that I have seen show the tail skid. One area where the Airfix kit seems to be ahead is the shape of the fuselage. The tapering of the nose is certainly better, which I had to approximate in this kit by the surgery described above. Also, this kit depicts the fuselage as being almost perfectly smooth, with no angles. This is not the case, as this picture of the ex-Grosvenor house in RAF markings shows. The Airfix kit definitely represents the faceted profile much better.
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I had meant to post pictures before I attached the nacelles, but whatever. There isn't much to do here except to ensure clean joins and correct angles. The joins between the top rear of the nacelles and the wings just need to be tidied up. The only major issue I had was attaching the port wing at the correct angle, so I added some thin plastic inserts to help get it right. By tomorrow evening, it should be ready for painting. It would be done quicker except for this annoying distraction called "work".
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- Frog GB
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Just a heads-up to those maintaining the build list: I have started the DH. 88 Comet Racer (F168), build thread here: