81-er

That's a nice start, particularly the cockpit James

They do, but scale-appropriate and not overly stark. As for Alclad, I’ve used them a fair bit (and absolutely love their black primer), but wholeheartedly concur on the fragility of the finish. The look great but need protecting. Having just tried the AK Xtreme Metal (wonderfully named for a fan of extreme metal music like myself), I have to say it’s gone on just as nicely as the Alclad. I’ve yet to thoroughly test the durability of the finish, but initial impressions are indeed that it’s tougher. James

The kind of person who may have put a monkey on it reaching page 200 before completion (at 20/1) with a dodgy geezer in a camel-hair coat, carrying a large bag, trackside at the local dog stadium? James

It's shaping up very nicely James

It'll be worth it, Pat It's shaping up to be a fine looking model James

Thank you Other than the invisible IP and the belts, it's all OOB too. The Tamiya kit is far more detailed, but the Academy one scrubs up nicely with some paint, dry brushing, and washes James

Very nice work there, Rod James

Those invasion stripes look very good indeed, John, nice work on those! James

Some significant progress with this one. The seats got their belts, then glued into the cockpit and given an Agrax Earthshade wash. The tub was then glued into the lower wing and the wing/fuselage pieces joined: I’ve checked the fit of the rear canopy and it fits, so thankfully this one doesn’t have the issue the other kit did. Even the gaps at the wing roots are more reasonable: The tub doesn’t look too bad in there: I nabbed the IP cowl from the other kit as it had the Eduard PE IP attached to it, but as you can see from the shots above, it’s entirely invisible now. I’ve shelved the idea of using the resin wheel bays. The roof sections are taking an age to remove from the casting blocks neatly and I just don’t feel I’ve got the time if I’ve any hope of a making the deadline. I’ve reverted to using the extremely basic kit bays, but I may see if I can make the resin doors work with them. No one looks at the bottom of models anyway, right? With that choice made, I managed to get one of the booms together. It looks straight, so fingers crossed. There’s a lot of seam tidying to do still: Being able to access the nose on this one, I’ve added a fair bit of weight. I managed to get two 5g wheel weights into the gunbay, followed by a substantial amount of Liquid Gravity fixed with thin superglue. I added that in layers, compacting it as I went. I added more Liquid Gravity to the nosecone as well: The tape you can just see the ends of was used to seal the gaps so the superglue didn’t end up where it shouldn’t. I’ve got about 30g in there in total, which should be enough as the instructions say 20g. I’ll do a check before permanently attaching the nose and the fronts of the booms. The final bit of progress is the props are primed & now have yellow tips: James

Just a small update. The Quickboost guns have arrived, which meant I could attach the nosecone after adding their mounts in. Then I finished painting the airframe in aluminium: Next stage is going to be some mottling over areas not being chipped, followed by some hairspray to areas that will be chipped. I’ve decanted about 15ml of hairspray into a bottle so I can have a go at airbrushing it. I’ve also painted the yellow tips on the props: James

Yet more fantastic work, Steve. I'm pretty sure these will be the best 1/72 Hawks ever modelled by the time you're done here. I don't remember the JP build, I think it was before I joined (just to be contrary) James

Just read through this one, that's one hell of a build! I'm flabbergasted at how many improvements you’ve already made, with plenty still to come! Fantastic work indeed James

Lovely work there again, Bill! I completely agree on the Alclad Pale Burnt Metal, I used it recently and it doesn't look much like burnt metal at all to me. Regarding the exhausts, hopefully this photo is helpful? James

Thanky you, John James

I'm also having the same issue on the jump to new posts, on more than one machine (but always in Chrome). I cleared the browser cache, which fixed the issue on some threads, but not all. Sometimes it takes me further back in time than it did on the previous visit to that thread as well. James