Jari Lehtonen

Two and a half hours spent with decals, and yes @modelling minion, they settled down nicely Still missing are the decals from the rockets and propeller, I'll haven't painted those yet. Another gloss coat to seal the decals and then I'll concentrate on the missing pieces. /Jari

Thank you everyone! Couple of days doing odds and ends here, gloss coat with VMS HD gloss varnish, assembling the landing gear, painting small parts before fixing to the airframe. She's beginning to be ready for decals, hopefully tomorrow. /Jari

That cockpit is simply gorgeous! Amazing work, Craig!

James, Steve: thanks for the compliments and encouragement! Not having any Extra Dark Sea Gray available I pondered the topside colour between Vallejo 71.097 Medium Gunship Gray and 71.273 Ocean Gray. Airbrushing both on a mule the Ocean Gray looked better so I went with it. Anyway, it's named after a sea so how wrong could it be? Here's the result. It looks ... a little too light, perhaps? Nevertheless, I'm inclined to go with it, since it sprayed on very nicely. Maybe weathering makes it a little darker? The bottom side I am very happy with: I still need to paint the tail white, but that's for tomorrow. /Jari

Thanks, Craig Monday was primer day, the whole airframe and additional bits got coated, yesterday I fixed some seams and primed things a bit more, today so far I've tried to do some panel line shading and staining/mottling to have a varying base for the main colours. I think the panel lines are a little too heavy-handed, I don't seem to get the hang of it /Jari

Rainy wet Sunday is well suited for modelling. Some progress has thus been happening: wings and tail feathers have been installed, some seams have been filled and sanded, and in general the whole plane is almost ready for priming. /Jari

Well I'm back with this, after a weekend doing 1:1 stuff and this week busy with work. Tonight I finished the cockpit assembly, did some light painting and weathering on it, and put the fuselage halves together. It's beginning to look a lot like a Spit/Seafire! Hopefully more building this weekend, but the apple trees don't trim themselves... /Jari

Thanks Craig, I've been following your build, you're doing fine over there! I got started on mine straight away. Some priming and painting, cockpit assemblies mostly. And the Eduard 3D decals. I have to say that they are much, much more pleasant to work with than photo etch details that I've encountered, and they look good. (Might also be that I just suck at PE, dunno.) I will definitely use them in the future more. All of that needs a coat of varnish and some weathering, but it's a start! Some Vallejo primer (gloss black) lifted out with masking tape but those places will not be visible in the end so I'll let them be. /Jari

Hi, on this group build I'm moving back to my preferred scale and also to the beginnings of NATO, and I'm building an Airfix 1:48 Supermarine Seafire F.XVII (A06102A). It is all too easy these days, seeing Leopard tanks and F-35s being presented in NATO social media posts, to forget that NATO was founded soon after the WW2 and thus most weaponry, aircraft, tanks and vessels included, that was used by NATO nations in those early years, was of similar vintage. Here is the box: It is a big box, and it contains big parts, which is a personal relief, having just built three models in 1:72... Speaking of parts, here they are: As you can see, I'm using aftermarket parts for masks and cockpit decoration. I plan to build the version on the box, from the No.767 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, Somerset, England, 1950. /Jari

Thank You, gentlemen, I am honoured! And James, it was my pleasure to be again part of this GB! /Jari

Dornier Do-335 A-0 "Pfeil" WHr. 240102, as seen at Oberpfaffenhofen, in October 1944. Built OOB from the 1:72 scale Hobby 2000/Dragon kit 72059, painted and weathered using Vallejo and Hataka acrylic paints and Vallejo Model washes, varnished with VMS HD acrylic varnishes. The build thread is here: Again, big thanks to everyone who liked and commented, and especially to @81-er and @vppelt68 for hosting this Group Build! /Jari

Thanks @Peter Lloyd & @81-er, your comments are appreciated! A lot has happened to this "strange bird" since I last posted - I'm calling this done. After the previous update there was quite a lot of attaching small parts for the undercarriage etc., gloss varnish, decals, another coat of gloss varnish, then some weathering (mostly panel lines, from the pictures I could find these were quite clean), and finally today a matt varnish on top of everything. So this one is going to the display cabinet and I'm ready to start in the NATO 75th Anniversary GB in a few days! I'll try to post the gallery pictures tomorrow. Big thanks to everyone who followed this build! /Jari

Some small fiddling, painting details and fixing overspray, landing gear installation, and here we are: She's proudly standing on her legs, nose down as it should. I'm pretty happy with the paint finish; with the leading edge boxes, less so. I should have compared this earlier to the Pfeil walk around pictures at Cybermodeller.com and filled the seams, as there are no seams on a real plane. Live and learn, eh? The pictures in the walk around are a goldmine of details, recommended for anyone building this plane. /Jari

@81-er to be fair, I put some weight into the wing leading-edge boxes as well, so total is somewhere between 15-20 grams, I guess. Some progress on the Pfeil: After the previous post I masked the canopy, glued it in place and proceeded to prime the plane with Vallejo Gloss Black Primer. Some UK BSC-64 Portland Stone to highlight panels, and then on to camouflage. Bottom side is Hataka Light Blue (RLM-65/78), top side Vallejo Light Green RLM-82 and Dark Green RLM-83. Looking at the pictures I probably need to go over the light green areas once more to tone down the highlights some more. /Jari

No, the weight wasn't enough; or at the very least, it was in the wrong place. The plane was a definite tail-sitter. I removed all the weight I had put behind the cockpit, and started to think where I could put some ballast. The front engine came into mind, so I removed the radiator assembly, drilled a hole into the front engine, and filled it with some 2mm lead shot. Nice, but not enough. Next I carved out the radiator assembly and filled that also. Not enough. In desperation I decided to put some shot into the cockpit, being sure it wouldn't be visible anyway. To my suprise, the shots disappeared with a faint plink: there's enough room under the instrument panel to let the shot roll into the space reserved for the ballast in the first place! Total amount I put in the engine, radiator and behind the firewall is about 10 grams. I think this came out pretty well in the end. /Jari