ScanmanDan

71chally - Thanks! I find that the white Revell plastic is a very glossy and a touch hard to scribe. Due to the kits molds being a gazillion years old the whole thing is getting a good rub down with sanding papers to level everything out. Once that's done the old girl fits together pretty well just lots of dry fitting. I am worried about getting the wings on straight and true at the wing fold and alining the twin booms. But there is no rush and I'm having fun :D Martin & Tony - Thank you for the kind comments and encouragement. Oh, and here's a shot of the seats I bashed for this kit a few years ago when I first got this kit. I will have to mess the cushions up now that I have decided to put pilots in . Dan

Latest butterfly/distraction is the venerable Revell Sea Venom. I have a love hate relationship with these older kits. I like em cause they are often of unusual types not kitted anywhere else but they can be a royal pain to build. They usually fit well in most places but then throw up the worst gaps in weird places. Have good outlines but the huge yawning gaps in detail. The plan is to build an in flight,mostly OOB kit in Australian markings, concentrating on the fit and finish. I am trying out using some aluminium tape to add some details but we'll have to see how it goes. Progress so far; The kits parts fit mostly with only the odd niggle here and there. I did use some styrene tube to fill in the cannon tubes as I didn't like their shape and thought them a bit too big, ( now they are probably a bit too small ;( ) But the real pants kicker is the total lack of detail under the pen nib at the tail where the arrestor hook is stowed. Spent a fair bit of time and epoxy putty and tube to rough something in. More work to do to get rid of those seams. Putty, sand. prime and repeat. Not very accurate but better than nothing. I will rebuild the hook in brass tube, nothing fancy as I just want better not 'this is taking forever and I not having any fun' I look forward to getting the wings and booms sorted as she will look kack if they aren't on straight. lots of pictures from the internet to look over and decide just how much detail is enough without slipping into AWS territory. Thanks for looking in.

Your X-wing is coming together nicely, I'm enjoying your progress. I always like to see how you go about painting as you have a very interesting style which I find very pleasing. A pity you couldn't go for a South Pacific coral atoll looking base. Like those WWII Marine Corsairs, all beat to heck with faded and worn paint. Pink coral sand and PSP mat ground work with the crews under canvas. Hmmm… gets me to thinking Keep having fun and thanks for sharing. Dan

A big thank you to all for responding, I'm glad you like this little beastie. Mark - Thanks! I love to paint, one of the reasons I try to simplify my builds these days is to get more painting in Joachim - Got it… No hyphen Good to know for my other builds. Duncan - You'd be unimpressed too if after strapping a possible fireball rocket to your back fuelled with fuel and oxidiser that will literally eat you alive you are launched vertically to above the US bombers. If that don't kill you, you are meant to attack a heavy bomber stream with like a gazillion 50cals all pointed at you. Then once you've fired your one salvo of unguided rockets you are to stall this flying brick, detach the nose cone/cockpit while deploying the tail sections parachute. Then kick yourself free and use your own parachute to land gently back on the ground. Piece of cake! Dem crazy Germans

The results of my quick build Fly Models 1/32 Ba-349 Natter. Nice kit which went together very well with no hassles at all. I chose to build it in flight without the rocket boosters so that I could build her very quickly, only two weekends from start to finish. Pilot is from a bf-109 kit and the nose rockets are from toothpicks Here are my results. My favourite pic Great fun other than loosing the great photo etched ring sight from the kit through my own stupidity I hope you like her and if you have a little cash and time this is a great kit with lots of potential. Oh, and yes, I know, no swastika and the nose rockets fired in one salvo but, hey, A guy's gotta have some fun. Dan

Finished While cutting off the ring sight I shot the tiny photo etched piece into another dimension from which it will never be returned. ( That's over an hour of my life I'll never get back and I'm getting too old to crawl around on the floor and curse that much ) I resolved to 1. not smash the kit into tiny pieces and feed it into the garden mulcher and 2. Finish the sucker with good cheer and move on with my life as if nothing was wrong. PICS In the hands of a good modeller this kit could be made into a stunning little plane. I rushed this one and paid a heavy price as far as finish is concerned but I'm pretty pleased with the overall result. ( Like putting the freakin' IP upside down! at least it is invisible inside the cockpit as the canopy windows are so small.) I know that the nose rockets would all fire as one salvo but I kinda like the half and half look, that waffle pattern rocks. Once my blood pressure comes back to normal I'll do some more photos and post a proper for inspection post. Thanks for looking in on my tiny bit of whimsy. Dan

Progress; Starting with some oil paints, panel line washes and some stippling to knock down and blend the decals in. Vanity shot but I like the way it came out Thanks for looking in. Dan

You really seem to be enjoying these Bandai Star Wars releases. Which is great because I'm really enjoying your builds! Never boring and alway fun and interesting, thanks so much for sharing. Dan

Progress; Decals Not going to get much farther on this this weekend, but with luck may still get her done by next weekend Thanks for looking in. Dan

Thanks for the encouragement Houston, I'm applying the decals now and I'll get some more pics up soon. It seems as if Photobucket has stuffed up my photos and left me in somewhat of a lurch. Hopefully they haven't lost all my photos as that would be a nightmare of truly staggering proportions. I have been looking into alternatives and I am trying Smugmug to see how I go. So here are repeats of the above pics. A big thank you to all who liked my pics as it is very encouraging to see that you like how the Natter is coming out so far. Dan

Thanks Martin, I read your posts before I started mine- your Natter is really well done and your WIP is full of very useful information. You should build another one as you are right, these are fun kits. Progress; Basic paint. Gloss coat before bed then decals in the morning + weathering = finished :D Thanks for dropping in for a look. Dan

Just could not stop myself picking this kit up for less than $40aus in the hobby shop. Very quick and dirty build, I have got this far a in a few hours last night and today. After dinner I'll shoot the base camo and with luck get the decals on tomorrow. If I don't get hung up on the pilot ( I used a 109 pilot from another kit) I should be zooming along. I'd be stoked if I can finish her by Sunday night. Nice little kit, has all the different tails and booster rockets that I didn't use for the in flight display. Detail a little light and soft but a good modeller could really make this thing shine. I know that it never flew operationally but I'll finish her as if they did, swastika and all. Fun kit to build. Thanks for looking in. Dan

Another year older but none the wiser. Progress; Nothing too flash, or accurate ( just a little bit of the selective gizmo-logy going on here folks). Just little bits of plastic and wire with a little bit of resin too. I'm a bit concerned about having to paint the interior first but that's the deal with the open top tanks. Thanks for having a look. Dan

Thank you PZR and Gary, I glad you like her. I have quite a few kits on the Shelf of Doom that need very little to get them finished. I have made it a bit of a thing to complete as may as I can this year to get out of the habit of just wandering off and starting something new. It is having a side benefit of improving my skills at finishing and adding those tiny little last parts. Thanks Dan

Getting close to finishing this one after it sat on the SoD for a year or so. I'm doing a few kits in flight to save messing about with detailing everything to death. Here's where she's at right now. Pilot - Underside detail - Painted - I still have a fair bit of little details to sort out but she's well on her way to getting finished. Thanks for stopping by for a look. Dan

Thanks guys you are all very kind with your comments. My advise to any and all who want to try a WWI plane is give this one a try. It's cheap, very available and goes together well. Not much rigging and can be built in so many different paint schemes. :D Popeye- I so want to try a DVII in this scale but they are so expensive and hard to find in Australia. Even if you do find one on Ebay the shipping will cripple a small nations' budget. Oh, and in Oz it is Day/Month/Year not Month/Day/Year as in the USA. Just a little quirk that I, as a transplanted Yank, have struggled with for over 25 years

This one sat for years on the shelf of doom before I finally got around to finishing her. I should do a touch more but I'm breaking things left and right and think it's as good a time as ever to move on to other projects. Look, squirrel! ( Okay, I do get distracted easily ) Here are some of my glamour shots. Thanks to all for looking in on my madness. I hope you like her. Good old kit that is older that I am! Dan

Done, finished, kaput! Well… I have had a bad case of the yips lately, you know, dropping and breaking things for no apparent reason, spilling paint and getting superglue stains everywhere . So I am stopping this build while I'm ahead. Listen, once you've broken off the rudder three times you have to think a higher power is telling you something. I hear the Tiki gods of modelling and they say walk away Renee Maybe one day I come back and put on the tip skids and the last of the control lines but for now she will go safely into the display case. I'm pretty happy with the way she turned out after sitting so very long in pieces on the shelf of doom. More pics in the RFI section. A big thanks to everyone for their encouragement to finish this one. Dan

Hi Popeye, I'm going to keep a close eye on your progress, good find to get a copy of this old kit. I hope you have a lot of fun with this one. Dan

A tiny bit of progress today; The little triplane is coming out much better than I had hoped for. I'm getting kind of jazzed up to attempt to finish my 1/28 scale Camel. I did a bit more work on the tail and started to fix up a base for the finished kit. ( Sorry about the garish background, sometimes experiments don't work out.) Thanks for looking in. Dan

Popeye- Probably….. I didn't think any of this build through. All those years ago when I started this build I was just happy to get the bits stuck together straight. Then the build was stalled for ages mainly because of the issue of painting the markings, oh, and my lack of skills. So once I got the urge to just finish the darn thing I just jumped in and started painting. Grabbing bits from different personal markings to make something easy and eye-catching. I should have painted the upper wing stripes at an angle to be more prototypical but the risk of getting them wonky out weighed my desire for accuracy. Black cowls and wheel covers and combinations of black and white stripes were very common though so I don't think I'm too far out there. I can see why they used these colours though. They were available and do make for an dazzling finish. I am jealous of your DVII. I want to try one of the Revell DVII in 1/28 scale but they are very expensive out here in Australia. And to be honest I still have a half built Camel to finish . I'm glad that you like my little dodgy triplane - I'm quite happy with the way she turned out and I'm kicking myself for leaving it for so long on the shelf of doom. Dan

Thanks Steve, glad you like the old girl. I would say as long as you aren't too fussed with laser like accuracy this kit is a lot of fun. I would say it might be worthwhile to look out for a earlier boxing The Udet one to avoid the Red Baron red plastic that Revell love to use. That said I was sorely tempted to get another kit at the shop yesterday as it was only $40 and there ae so many different markings you could build this kit in. Try one, I think you would like it.

Thanks Gremlin56. I was seriously thinking of getting the new Merit Triplane but might not as it is almost three times the cost of these old Revell kits. Progress; Still working on the little rigging . I'm finding the old eyes are getting worse and worse. Threading the line through those tiny bits of tube is a bear. I don't know how many I have launched into outer space and lost. Thankfully the Fokker has very little rigging to do. Guns in and the top wing got a shot of flat clear to bed in all the weathering and such. Belly and wheels got a dirty up with chalks and splatters. Getting close to finishing. I have to get the prop finished and some more weathering( And the wing tip skids!) I was going to scratch up a foot step but may just give it a pass as I don't want to stuff up this close to the finish line. I hope this is looking okay as for once I am pretty happy with my results. I'm so glad I dusted her off and had a go to finish her. Thanks for looking in. Dan

Kerr65 - Thanks, I built the trestle to get the little Fokker to look a bit different. Progress: Wheels on and a start on the rigging. I used the Pymes elastic for the first time. Kinda liked it. it is more constant in size than the EZ Line I have used before. Little by little Dan

Progress; I spent a bit of time today building a fixture to hold the aircraft up high enough so I could glue on the upper wing. It made it a lot easier than bending down to do the glueing at bench level. Struggled to get the upper wing on straight and true. I am now going to leave it alone as I'll only wreck it if I keep messing with it. Next up is some simple rigging and the undercarriage Thanks for dropping in for a look. Dan