elger

Tada Really finished now; RFI here:

I finished Eduard's reboxing of Hasegawa's B-26 Marauder kit. Background and progress photos in this thread: I feel like I went a little bit too far with the weathering - tried to tone the chipping down with some OD but still looks quite heavy. Other than that, pretty pleased how this turned out. Finished with Spanish acrylics (various brands) and weathered with oil. The truck is from Airfix and the figures are from CMK sets. My interpretation

Thanks for the suggestion guys. I've done this and toned down the worst of it. Will try to take some pictures of the finished model today. In the meantime, here's a photo of the finished Airfix Autocar fuel truck. So much fun to work on! Thanks for all the comments & support throughout this build, all

Thanks! It needed a little bit of extra weight that I ended up putting in the navigator's compartment behind the cockpit.

All but finished with the model. I have to admit I'm not happy with the heavy chipping I ended up with - I feel like the effect is overdone. It was a bit like how Father Ted tried to fix a dent in a car in one of my favourite ever sit com jokes: It's only one aspect of the finish though, and the rest I'm pretty happy with overall I'm quite pleased with this one as it's coming across the finish line.

I will withhold judgment until there's some plastic, but I agree that the CAD images do show a bit of a squashed looking canopy, and HK Models do have some issues with shape accuracy in various previous model kits of theirs. But we won't know for sure until we see the molded parts assembled.

Most evidence suggests the inside of the landing gear bays was painted silver/aluminium as well as British interior green. The top part and roof was interior green, and the lower half (with the ribs) was painted silver (or aluminium). The gear bay doors would have been painted silver (or aluminium) on the inside as well. Firewall may have been green or silver, can't remember off the top of my head. Inside the bomb bay and the bomb bay doors on the inside interior green, probably. Inside of cockpit is indeed also interior green.

Adding some figures. These are from CMK - USAAF pilots and US Army drivers. Replaced the drivers' heads, one with another CMK head from a ground crewman and one from the old Airfix figures set because I really wanted him to wear a hat instead of a helmet. I used oil paints for the faces for the first time - some of the faces turned out better than others in the experiment, but overall I'm pretty pleased and will be using oils more. I'm also finishing the Autocar tanker truck from the Airfix USAAF support vehicles set to go with it. A bit of fla

Decals are on. It was a bit of a journey! The Superscale decals sheet depicts the aircraft quite late in its career. The mission to Leeuwarden was Hangover Hut's 41st, so I simply cut away the bombing mission markings that would not have appeared yet. I also added something resembling the name of the pilot, W M Sanders, underneath the pilot window by cutting individual letters from the crew names of a 1/72 decal sheet of the Memphis Belle. These yellow letters were so small I almost couldn't see them on the backing paper as I cut them out and if you look cl

Thanks but I am liberated out for now myself

Looking good! I ran into the same issue with the bulkhead when I built my B-24H. It looks like Hasegawa cheated a little there. I used the kit's bulkhead and cut out sort of a T-shape. You are right that nothing can be seen in that compartment though, so if you do need to add some more weight other than that tungsten you're using it's a great spot for it. There's a photo my "solution" in the first post here:

This is exciting news!

Hi David - Today I actually asked some of the folks who are restoring Spitfire AA810 via Facebook about these issues. They tell me that there are actually quite a number of "unknowns" about the type and they're discovering things as they restore the wreckage. They confirm some of the things above. Interestingly, they mentioned that the lower wing surface of AA810 was the same as a Mk 1 (including gun hatches!), but that the surface was different on top. I asked if they knew where the filler cap for the wing oil tank was located, but they haven't found that out yet. As far as they k

In the chapter about the PR IV, Wojtek Matusiak in Classic Warbirds no. 10 discusses the type being sent to the Middle East. No specific date of the incident is mentioned, but BP882 reached Egypt in March 1942 according to the book (p.22) so presumably the incident happened after that. Discussing modifications made at Abukir to the examples sent there, Matusiak writes

Hello all, I'm looking into the characteristics of a Spitfire PR IV. Specifically, I'm interested in an early IV, from the AA-serial range. The IV was the first factory built photo-reconnaissance type, and from what I gathered so far by looking at various photos of the type there seems to be some variation. Some points I'd be interested in hearing y'all's thoughts on. The PR IV was the first factory built PR Spitfire with the "bowser" type D-wing. Since the vent pipes at the upper wing-tip surfaces were added after BP882 blew up, I don't think the aircraf