Stephen Pryke

Well that`s all folks! It`s been suggested I invest in the `Modern Airfield Background & Base` from Coastal Kits Display Bases for my Diorama. I`ll definitely look into it, but for now, I`m calling this project DONE!

how did you find the build? Did you keep your sanity dealing with the horrible plastic & that awful seam around the fuel tank?

hi sorry for delay. couldn`t remember my password & kept getting locked out of my account ha ha. your trucks are looking fantastic. After all this time, I`ve finished the truck so will place it with the other models & take some pics to post here.

forgot to add these 2 handrails before painting. They refused to stick in place with poly & even with superglue (took several attempts, which spoilt the paint work so a respray is needed.) This plastic is HORRIBLE! That`s better. Time for gloss varnish. Decal time. Now to add the final parts. First the cab mirrors & lights. It`s now I discover one of the mirrors (pt17) is missing from the sprue!!! Have to try making one. Hobbycraft tool + spare sprue = Mirror. Then one part 16 breaks in half when I look at it for 2 seconds. After repairing with Tamiya thin, it later pings away from me during an attempted assembly, never to be seen again. Out of sheer frustration, I make 2 replacements from a steel sewing pin, and use them instead of the plastic parts. Final few parts nearly finished now. not good enough! No paint where the sprue was, so will need to be done again. I thought if I left them on the sprue, they wouldn`t get blown away. I`ll have to stick them onto tape & hope it holds, cos if one blows away, it`s adios amigo! Better & didn`t lose any. Almost finished................................because I`ve run out of glue!! Sorry!!!!! I just need to add the mirrors, & the rear ladder (- so close!) When I get these last parts on, I`ll get some decent pics with & without the rest of the dio. Back soon.

Hello All Sorry about the delay but my mum passed away Jan. 22nd, & obviously the build had to be put on hold a while. Anyhow, now on with the Skunkmodels R-11 refueler. First job is building the chassis. Then I`ll build the 3 main top parts - cab, power unit & fuel tank. Once they`re on, it`ll be a matter of decaling & adding small parts like the mirrors, etc. So.........................................I noticed the plastic is very horrible. Has a strange, orange peel look in some places. Glue & sanding turns the plastic a much lighter shade of green, plus it`s very brittle. Very powdery when sanding, like resin. Small parts break just by looking at them - BEWARE! One thing you`ll want to do is drill out the end of the exhaust pipe to give the impression of a hole at the end, as the kit part is flat. Simple fix. with the chassis parts assembled & fully dried, it was time to prime. While the primer cured, I can continue with the cab. Cab parts ready for assembly. The kit doesn`t include a driver figure, but I wanted one for some strange reason so it was time to raid my Hasegawa ground crew box & look for a suitable donor/s. One figure provided the seated body (although 1 leg is straight out at 90 degrees!), while another figure was needed for the 1st figures missing head! straightened the leg by holding it over heat & gently bending it into position. Cab interior primed & painted.. Ear protectors gone. Now to remove his head! (DIABOLICAL LAUGHTER............!!!!) A quick mock up. Because of the steering wheel being already in place, I found I had no choice but to build my man around it. olive drab applied joins filled just needs his head! That`ll do pig. That`ll do. I`ll spray the cab outer when I have the other sections ready to paint, as they`re the same colour. now onto the fuel tank. What a freakin` nightmare this was to become. The kit tank is basically 2 sections - top half & bottom half. This will leave a join line/seam running all around the middle of the tank, which will need to be worked on to make it as near invisible as possible, as there is no seam on the real thing. And there lay the problem; the fit was terrible & the seam didn`t want to go! What follows are pics of the tank, showing the bad join with sprue goo liberally applied. After several attempts of filling, filing & sanding, (4 I think, including 1 after I`d primed), I got to the point where I felt it was ready for a coat of paint. And a straight-jacket! sprayed so close, the primer orange peeled on me, yet the seam STILL showed through! By this point I was contemplating using thin plasticard along the sides, as well as throwing it hard against the nearest wall!!!! Luckily, after sanding & a final re-spray of primer, it looked good enough to paint. I needed a break from the tank after all that so decided to do the wheels. Another downer is the tyres have no tread on them so I had to replicate some using a mini saw blade. not super detail but looking much more acceptable to the eye than nothing at all. On to the cab. A quick mock up couldn`t resist! Tamiya XF-81 Dark Green 2 (RAF) going on.

thank you. next up is the refueller. pics soon of complete build

Revell F-15E 1/48 Scale 494thFS (Panthers) 48FW Based at RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk but here wearing nose art (Texas Ranger) as worn during undisclosed operations in Syria 2018.

Decals. surprising amount of small fiddly stencils even for 1/48! Wasn`t happy about that film showing around the LN so gently drew around the edges of the letters with a fresh scalpel blade, then picked the film away with a toothpick. Much better! I added a few little extras like a helmet left on a seat, & a mission map tucked into the canopy. I drilled out a pilot head from the Hasegawa crew set, & made the map using paper & coloured pencils. And that`s pretty much that! Time for the long awaited final reveal pics!

Undercarriage: Time to do the FOD covers now, as easier to insert while she`s on her back. The nav & targeting pods can go on too. Then it was varnishing all over & on to the decaling. Finally on her wheels & not a tail sitter!

Hello all, Sorry for the long delay updating. Personal things going on behind the scenes etc etc. Anyway, a lot of progress since last time. The F-15 is FINISHED now. I have also finished the R-11 refueler too! I will simply continue the build updates here as before for anyone still following the progress.

Engines: The accentuators were VERY fiddly. Take your time & be very careful with these as you only get 2 spares. All the engine/nozzle parts were sprayed with AK Extreme Metal steel, then given a light over spray with jet exhaust (a shade of black.) I added charcoal dust to the nozzles & fans then fitted the PE part onto the fan. Then the fan part was glued to the bottom of the engine tube. WOW what a difference that makes!!! Nozzles glued on next Then finally the rods. Gave the insides of the nozzles a rub with a paintbrush dipped in white charcoal powder to lighten them up a bit & provide some contrast to the outer nozzles. I think I`ve cut them too short as they're not long enough to reach across from the outer to the inner surface, although I don`t have anything left behind on the resin sprue. Maybe they`re made too short? As I said, it`s probably my mistake. No matter. They`ll have to lie alongside the nozzle. Some dark wash will help add some depth. That`ll do pig, that`ll do.............. They`ll look great when they`re finally in place. I`m very happy with them & that`s what matters eh?

building up the FS36118 (in my case Vallejo AV71097). Although you can use Vallejo model air neat, I added a few drops of distilled water to thin it down to help spray the coats thinly. This helps the black shading along the panel lines to fade slower between coats & avoid fading too much or disappearing altogether. I left the nose blank because as radomes weather differently to the rest of the airframe (radar?) I wanted to paint it separately with a lighter shade of 36118 when the rest was done. Although it looked ok at this point, when it had fully dried, it looked much lighter & I felt there was far too much contrast, so I`ve had to paint over it. also getting the aluminium/steel areas done top & bottom. Starting to look recognisable as a strike eagle now so I must be on the right lines lol! not forgetting the sway braces........ which I didn`t dry fit & discovered they needed filing to fit right before assembly - very fiddly! once they fitted, it was easy to put each in place, adding a little Tamiya Thin to keep them in place permanently. My advice? File each to fit, paint, then attach. The joy of hindsight eh? Also I noticed this strange option in the instructions: door up OR down even though the wheel strut is out. The model is clearly intended to be displayed `` on the ground`` so what`s going on here? After asking on a few F-15 sites, I have the answer: the door opens/closes to allow the strut to clear the airframe so it`s shut almost all the time apart from when the strut enters/leaves the wheel well. It`s usually opened & left down by crew during maintenance. Although I`ll have some groundcrew in my dio, most pics depict the door closed, so mine will be too.

Hello all! So, back again. I`ve been busy with several things going all at the same time & as I went from one thing to another, I forgot to take pics. SORRY. I made a start with pre-shading the Eagle, then began on the tool box, flight line trailer, starter & generator. Going from one thing to the other & dealing with problems (I`ll come to that later) it was easy to forget to take pics along the way. Anyhow, here`s more pics............ Pre-shading. 1st I painted the airbrake area white as per Revells call out. MISTAKE!!!! I`ve since discovered this area is painted with same grey as outer fuselage so this step is unnecessary. TBH I did such a good job with the white, I simply couldn`t bring myself to paint over it ha ha! then I built up the resin kits: Toolbox (sorry no build pics!) Generator & starter (again no build pics) Flight line Trailer: The main part was 1 big piece of resin! Assembly was simply attaching the axles, wheels etc to the bottom. Once done, (didn`t take too long as using superglue for resin is much faster than plastic/poly), it was primer time. Once cured it looked spot on so I applied a similar light grey coat over everything then painted the tyres using Tamiya NATO black. After gloss varnish was dried I began the decal process but these disintegrated....had to carry on without them. Disappointing. I`ll paint the figures last as I`m c!"p at figure painting & those 3 grey camo uniforms they wear look HARD to replicate! Now to start applying the main paint & make this start looking like an F-15E......This is what I`ve been waiting for.....