jackroadkill

Thanks James; I did make a bit more progress last night but none of it was very camera-freindly. Hopefully I can get another crack at it tonight - my new lacquers are keen to be involved in the process.

That's a superb saying. I'm going to have to use it.

I've got one in my stash, and that hinge terrifies me!

I managed to do a bit more today before the boiler tried to kill us all (long story, the TL;DR of which is that I fixed it and nobody died), and here are the results: I was all ready to go with my RLM02 but following some nosying at @Retired Bob's thread decided that aluminium was the way forward. I brush-painted the above areas, as I'm not good at spraying metallic enamels. When it comes to the wheel wells and undersides (and the Dora's gun panel) I have some lacquers that I'm going to try but seeing as you won't see much of this little lot I went with the hairy stick approach. I'll slap a bit of a wash around to stave off the worst of the shine before fitting the engines. Talking of engines: Crummy iPhone pictures notwithstanding, you can see that I've got the base colour down on the engines. I'll add some detailing but not too much as I've decided to close the cowlings up, but of course there's the gaping hole under the pilot's bum to consider, so a little effort should be give, I suppose. I'll try to get this done tomorrow, as I'm keen to move on with the builds. I'm having fun now, so I want to bat on with things before I lose the momentum I'm building. Cheers, JRK

Thanks Bob, that was pretty much my reasoning. Things were so confused by that point in the war that I suspect just getting an airframe off the production line was a major achievement, paint or not.

Lovely job Stew; this one's going to be superb!

Hi Bob, you've made a great start. I'm building the same kit (although I'm going to be making the second aircraft on the box lid, with the original tail). It's just possible you've saved me from an RLM02-based booboo, as I was going to paint the wheel wells etc in that colour. Having read your comments above about bare aluminium, I'll use my new aluminium lacquers instead, in addition to using them on the undersides of the wings and gun panel. Thanks very much for inadvertently rescuing me! Cheers, JRK

This is something I've often wondered about; do you know why this would be the case? There must have been a reason for it as it was pretty much standard practise, but whatever that reason is I can't think of it.

Top drawer there, Mark. She's coming along nicely; as others have said, don't worry about the roundel. I can't see any problems with it, and the original item was probably done with a 6" brush in a hurry, so yours is pretty much guaranteed to look better!

Time for a small update; the week hasn't been great in terms of bench time, but I've at least got a little bit of work done on the builds. I was going to post a picture of the completed (but unpainted) engines but the picture I uploaded to Flickr looks so shonky I think I'll wait until I've painted them up - not that I'll be going crazy in that respect - before I have another try. The engines have both been needlessly tricky, and, in the case of the H2k kit, not very well-fitting. I'm still debating opening a cowling on the H2k, but we'll see. So, as you can see, I've done the cockpit interiors. Painted details, drybrushed the IPs, sloshed some brown wash about.... You know the drill. The next jobs are to paint the engines and get them fitted, cutting cowlings open notwithstanding. Cheers, JRK

That's grand - you really can't buy that sort of thing. I helped my boy (boy? He's 22, somehow) replace his brake discs and pads last week and it was some of the best time we've ever spent together.

Ha, funny you should say, that, sir - I've just built the section you refer to and was about to correct myself! Excuse the TET fingerprint; I'll clean it up before this section goes inside the fuselage. As I'm not having the gun panel open you'll see very little of this at all through the U/C wells, so I'm just going to paint it simply so as to avoid the gaping void found on other kits (looking at you, HobbyBoss). I've also chucked a load of RLM66 around the cockpits, canopy frames etc. The next job is to assemble the rear of the engine in the Hobby2000 kit in an attempt to keep the builds at roughly the same stage. Cheers, JRK

Aw, mate, that's harsh. Hope you're back in the game soon, my friend.

After a long period of inactivity, it makes sense to join the year's first GB with a nice, simple, unambitious build to get me back into the swing of things. My Gannet build has stalled due to canopies that cracked down their seam lines and the Bf110 is creeping steadily forward, so again, a gentle easing back into the game makes sense. With my own sage advice ringing in my ears and the encouragement of several respectable BM'ers I decided to abandon common sense and get stuck in with one of these two beauties: Both have the full engine exposed option, which is guaranteed to be a nightmare, and both have some startlingly fiddly, teeny-tiny parts and complicated assembly instructions. I consulted my shamen, @81-er, who advised me that the only option was to seek the true path of WWEMD?, so I decided that the only sensible course of action was to build both. I know, I'm my own worst enemy.... The plan is to build them more-or-less together, so that I can share airbrushing sessions between them without having to chop and change paints too much, as the lack of regular airbrushing availability is a serious thorn in my side at the moment. The final schemes will be quite different, so the builds will probably diverge significantly at the point where I'm ready to get the main colours on. The Dora will be painted in the scheme of the lower aircraft on the box art, as it was when discovered at Flensburg at the end of the war. I'm not sure about the Ta152 - I might choose either scheme (or do both, one on each side....!) So, I cracked on really well, and managed to close up both fuselages! Okay, so I didn't; I got this far with each: This is the Hobby2000 reboxing of the ancient Dragon/Trimasters/Revell etc etc kit, and whilst it is definitely aged it's pretty detailed and goes together well, at least so far. The seat will be fixed in when the fuselage is closed up because there's no obvious way of getting it smack-on in position until then. I'm going to build this kit OOB other than the exhausts, I think, unless I discover anything that changes my mind dramatically. Eduard's Dora looks like it might build better but doesn't have the detail, at least as far as the cockpit is concerned, that the H2k kit has. I decided to build this kit without the PE, which I'll save for another Eduard Dora Weekend edition that I have. I'd just made that decision when I pinged a rudder pedal off across the room, lost it instantly forever and raided the spares box, where I (unexpectedly) found an old PE fret that had some pedals on it, so I pressed them into service and cracked on. The next job is to splash around some RLM66 on the interiors of the cockpits and fuselages (oh, I'd better do the canopies too, whilst I'm at it), and then I need to think about the engines and what I'm going to do with them. Maybe I should do one with the cowling panels open and leave the other one all buttoned up. Who knows - I'll decide that when I get to it. Cheers, JRK

Hmmm, I'd better get my kit down from the loft....

And she's a very purdy lady, ain't she?

Brevity truly is the soul of wit!

Is it as much of a head-mangler as it sounds?!

Too chuffin' right! Now, I know there's always the old WWEMD philosophy but that's just not realistic at this point. Choices choices....

Umm, I may be changing my mind. There's a Hobby2000 Ta-152H-1 eyeing me, too.

Oi, pipe down, will you?!

All fur coat and no knickers. The 1/48 Bucc is nice but will cost the earth, the rest is just rehashings, really. Ho hum.

Sigh.... A Fairey Battle. If I keep saying it, one day it will happen.

Coming, mother! Just five more minutes.... I've two D9's hovering, waiting for one to be picked.

I've been feeling crusty lately.