markjames68

Personally im a fan of Trumpy stuff in the main and buy their products under the knowledge that if im lucky it will be good enough for me and if not i will either have to fix the problem or ignore it, both of which im. Happy to do depending on the subject or the severity. Im not a 48th fan though do have one or two 48th kits , most of mine are 32nd, the Whirlwind will be one i will skip till i can get a larger one. basically though the reason ive chimed in is that as far as i see it, Trumpeter continue to get stuff wrong because financially it simply doesnt matter that they get it right, the amount of people who wont buy one cos its innacurate is infinetesimally small in the long run compared to the sales to Joe average

Not sure if i missed it but this tooling isnt that old (1993 iirc) it was lindbergs foray into Jurrasic park merchandise, i got one when it came out and was quite impressed with it for the price, it does need a bit of filler but makes a good modern T rex

To tie in with the other threads along a similar line i thought i would post these wip shots of mine, it still requires an italeri x craft ( captured possibly?) and though about having an Arado 196 in one of the workshops at the back..... pics will be posted by my son asap...

With D Day coming up in 9 weeks give or take and the impending arrival of Airfixs' new superkit, does anyone know exactly when yet? I would love to think before the anniversary so i can get my sticky mitts on one but would have expected to see a few knocking around forums and mags for review builds but all seems to have gone quiet.... Mark

Stupid question but might it be at Waddington? I would sort of expect it to be at RIAT but after being every year for the last 18 i stopped going last year and refuse to go again when their only objective these days is to charge ridiculous amounts to everyoneincluding traders for a very very poor show, Waddington last year wiped the floor with Riat at substantially less cost to all involved

The Harvard/Texan has afaik been released, when can we expect it in England? Been waiting for one for long time, without sounding grizzly, my uncle was killed in one in Rhodesia many years ago and i have wanted to build his aircraft for a long time...

Preshading is imho rubbish, to see it the topcoat has to be too thin, post shading with faded colours and washes and weathering is the way to go .

The speed is partly testimony to the quality of the kit, it literally falls together, and added to the fact that im on half term break for a week means i have dedicated quite a lot of time to it this week, i guess 50 hrs so far prhaps a little more .

The aircraft is actually brass , yes its very east to solder, you need an iron of around 25-30 watts and liquid brass flux, not the paste stuff that plumbers use, the kit is designed with tiny location pins to ease assembly and can almost be built dry then flux is brushed onto the pins and the solder flows in and secures it, the 'pin' heads are then just filed off.

Tail surfaces complete, have made a start on the wing anhedral section today, the fit of parts is incredible to say the least

Its out..... Came into Hannants today....

Mixture of solder for the structural elements and superglue for the details to make as clean a build as poss as i want to display and finish with a number of panels removed, not decided wether it will be a factory setting or a repair station yet though...

Todays work is above, the firewall/bulkhead and about 1/4 of the cockpit detail, luckily am on half term break so making good progress. The only frustration is that anythingbthicker than the etched brass sheet is made up if laminations and getting the edges clean and even is a bear of a job, have discarded the odd peice due to this and used appropriate thickness of plastic card.

One theing about crash investigations and the few areas i have been involved in is that eyewitness accounts are notoriosly unreliable( thats not to say the blades were or werent turning, i dont know in this case though residual kinetic energy at that height seems to me to say there would still be reasonable movement from 200-300 feet, the impact point however seemed to confirm they were fairly static) At 300 ft you would need about 45 knots airspeed to stand any chance of autorotating, , at 200 , a fair bit more, 800-1000 ft is required if you are in a deadhover ( its somehat innapropriately under the circumstances known as dead mans curve ) My initial thought was that at that time of night in scotland in what would have been dark to say the least accirate eyewitness accounts would have been 'unlikely' Not trying to second guess the AAIB etc just thought i would say what i was thinking....

It is, bought it as a full set, made by Hachette, so far so good, it goes together very well indeed

In addition to my above post , i would favour this method as imho vacforming isnt really an option due to the undercutting on a car body, you could get round it with a multi part tool or having a shell akin to a Tamiya 1/10 rc car but guess thats not what you are after.

Use blue or pink foam to carve up a master , its fine so takes carving and sanding very well and easily to an extremely accurate shape, very thin rc model aircraft wingskinning glass cloth and say deluxe epoxy resin brushed on followed by another 2 or 3 layers of cloth with weaves at different angles will give you a tough shell about 1mm think. Rub down primer and polish the exterior to prefection, melt or hack away the foam and the interior can be primered and rubbed down where necessary

If you are after a decent loco, at this price, all brass and in 1/24 scale, (twice the size in effect) try modelspace for the deagostini D51, far superior imho

Just the Stuka which was only ever released in Germany, Deagostini do 1/16 Zero thats available as a partwork online at modelspace.com but personally i was never a fan of the Zero, always thought it rather bland, the Stuka on the other hand is one if the most character full aircraft ever imho. The Zero is Etched/pressed aluminium and looks quite good as a kit but be prepared to part with 800 quid and get it over 2 yrs, the Stuka can be had as an entire package on ebay.de for about 500 quid IMCTH do an aluminium skeleton Mustang and Zero in 1/32 and although superb and in may fave, most buit scale i felt they were a bit small to do the detailing i would like and a bit pricey (250 ish ) for the size...

Thanks to my son Richard we now have some (badly taken by me) photos, first WIP should be up sometime on Sunday...

Nice, agree with your shape comments too, the kit looks like a stuka to me too!

Ok, so, the Stuka arrived from Germany yesterday and i inventoried all the parts and instruction etc.... 360 page instruction book Absolutley superb and though the text is German the quality of the images means understanding the text is of minimal worry 500 page reference book good but not solely about the Stuka but more about its campaigns 1800 etch brass parts 320 injection moulded peices 30 wood peices Ive pust the instructions in a folder and am perusing all the brass with a view to making a start sometime in the next couple of days, aided by my son Rich who is looking forward to working on it too. Will try get the obligatory parts shots uploaded tommorow Having had the kit in my hands for a day or so now, all i can say is wow, it is truly superb and at 93 cm span and 71 cm long is a bit of a monster , it has a full engine kit and the most superb interior i have ever seen. It doesnt suffer in simple detail due to its size either, though there are one or 2 sink marks in the larger injection peices

Ahh great, many thanks, i already use tamiya paints and swear by them but being dead matt, assume that in the pre decal shots its already got its gloss coat then? If so, is quick shine a varnish or similar to future?

Ian, what paint did you use on this kit and what masking method for the camo? Both look particularly excellent and id like to try emulate it.. Mark

Amazingly sharp photos,!