neilh

I would have a good look at it and if you are not confident you can salvage it, take it back to where you bought it for a replacement. It's definitely made the build have less joy than I had expected and it should not happen. Poor QC at the factory.

Just came across this one Graham. I am another one with the Trumpeter kit and WE set ( and lots of Black Cat 3D printed details) , ready to build the Captain Class DE my Grandad sailed on ( Rupert). Your build is quite inspirational. I am an experienced modeller but with aircraft so this will be my first ship in over 40 years! I hope I can get something decent out of mine but can probably only dream of meeting your standard!

I agree Bob, but what I have tried to do is to reduce that effect where I can but as you say, it's hard to judge until all the parts come together. I got as far as applying glue to the leading edges today and the " twisted" kit is looking a lot better. If I can close the port fuselage seam cleanly I think it will be OK. In your case, I think the issue will be stopping the IP being removed by impact with the side pieces of the IP since the centre part is fitted to the top half, the other two to the lower with no tolerance for the gap in the middle.

I rechecked the various parts and eventually removed the floors as I wondered if the lead shot I had glued in the void beneath was interfering with fit. Re glueing the floors it did improve the cockpit side seams very slightly, however it's still a squeeze to close the halves and still did not resolve the 4 " pipes" still fouling the floor. I've now added the seat, stick, and IP's carefully test fitting until the glue dried. I then added the tail booms. One of these was effected slightly by the " twist" in that the wing spars have been forced of position out by the tiniest fraction . I was able to resolve by a little sanding of the attachment point on one side in the area that will be hidden by the upper and lower fuselage halves. It does seem that the twist has caused the tiniest misalignments in multiple parts that are contained within the clamshell halves. One example being the U/C bay liners. On one kit they almost click into place. On the warped kit they do on the starboard side, but on the port side I has to trim them to be able to fit into the locating slots in the lower wing. I think this is because the twist has increased the dihedral on that side fractionally and that has effectively shortened the wheel bay. It's tiny and not really visible to the eye but all the little misalignments seem to add up. I'll be gluing the top and bottom halves bit by bit over the next few days trying to ensure the best possible fit.

by yesterday afternoon, the glue had fully dried on all the spars, intakes and undercarriage bays. Test fitting the upper half to the twisted lower half suggested that glue and clamping alone would not reset the nose so the front gear would hang perpendicularly, and the port side joint on the side of the nose would have been frankly horrible and definitely visible inside the cockpit. Out came a hair dryer and some gentle twisting. Surprisingly this seems to have worked and whilst not perfect, the joint will be tidy enough on the inside that I don't think it will be too visible, Even on the " good" kit, I do wonder why the designer chose to have that seam line clearly running through the sidewalls when there is nothing to hide it yet it has to be fully painted in advance of applying glue to the seam. A separate sidewall as per Hasegawa practice would have been a much better solution. I also found that even though the cockpit floor is seated fully on the moulded ledges, the upper half would not sit cleanly on either kit. I sanded the shoulders and lower sides of the rear bulkhead and this seemed to improve the fit. I also had to trim off the lower of the 4 " pipes" that protrude beneath the box added to the starboard sidewall. I definitely glued that exactly on the moulded lug so cannot see why that would be fouling the floor on both kits. I wonder if just the thickness of the paint inside the cockpit was enough to effect the fit. Have to admit this kit is losing its shine for me and is becoming a bit of a chore to build. Having built 3 Alleycat resin kits, I found those less trouble than this mainstream injected kit. Of course it could just be me as there have been several reports of good builds here on BM.

OK no worries Bob. I'll update this thread with my progress although my issue is " lower" compared with your " upper".

Hi Bob, I am building two of these together at the moment. One is perfect, the other has a similar twist but on the bottom half. Having already read your post before I started I did look but did not see any twist ( because I looked at the tope halves of course) . It only really became apparent once I had fitted the intakes , front and rear spars and the U/C bay walls. Oddly on one of he kits I had real problems getting the latter together, the other fitted with a " click" perfectly. That led me to look more closely and that's when I spotted the lower half twist. Like you I am hoping the two halves will straighten themselves up when glued together as otherwise I may have to try to warm the plastic and try to correct the twist. What was the outcome for you please? Frustrating to get such warping on new modern kits. I guess they have been pulled from the moulds too quickly - poor QC yet again?

Looks so much nicer than the RS models 1/48th kit, with much more detail. I still have no idea how I can spray that camouflage well enough to model a Finnish version though! I am many many attempts in on the RS kit and still not happy.

Hi Mike, I've built the model ( finished it in time to make our club display at Scale Model World this year, but thanks for posting. I have saved these in case we ever get an injected kit of the Ouragan.

Shame to hear that - odd though since I thought the app would only ping you if you were inside 2m of a person who has been positive for at least 15 minutes duration. Maybe the queue for the competition viewing or the queue for Hannants orders?

Fear not I hope, we do plan to run the Avon show next year - provisional date in the Diary is August 7th. What our show team will be doing is starting everything much earlier, assessing Trader and punter attendance, balancing those revenues against our costs so we are better prepared this time. We did order too many tables and chairs this year, we could on reflection have challenged the venue cost as what else where they going to hold of that size etc etc. Lessons were learned but frankly unless some terrible new strain turns up, with current vaccine status, hospitalisation and death rates being lower ( whilst any are bad), and the fact our show is in the middle of summer, we can actually hope things may be far more like normal in August 2022. It is possible we may have to consider charging for the use of a table over a standard minimum as per Telford, but that is still very much in the thought process. What we can't do is make it unprofitable for traders to attend, but also we cannot afford to upset the modelling audience. It may be that we limit the number of free entries per club, we have done that before and it is not uncommon, but this year I think we just let anyone in for free if they were with a displaying club and that also hit the income. I'll put more info up here on BM as plans firm up.

I have certainly seem some of our members bring models to Telford and display on the club table until the competition area opens ( or until the queue in " normal" years dies down) . maybe it was something like that, since once in the competition on Saturday there was no collection of them until 3PM on Sunday. I did however see a Fiat G50 in the competition that at a glance was remarkably like the one I was displaying for our " Desert " Theme on IPMS Avon's table.

Fantastic. Thank you Markus- that is absolutely perfect. I can now clearly orient the gun sight - the square pad and the semi circular marked section are clearly moulded on the resin sight.

There are plenty of cash points just up the path in the shopping centre. The nearest was next to Costa about 200m up the slope. There were at least 2 banks with multiple external cashpoints in the shopping precinct. Google will no doubt advise if they remain open post lockdowns.

I'm trying to finish the 1/48th JGMT resin Ouragan for our club display at Telford and although this kit has fought me every step of the way I am nearly there. I painted up the gun sight and its really nicely detailed but there is absolutely no hint in the hand drawn instructions which way it fits, ie which way is up or down or front or back! I have looked and looked on line and every image I can see of the cockpit is either from too low to see the gunsight at the rear of the coaming or its not there at all. Hoping someone may have something in a book or stored from on line that could help me. Thanks in advance.

Thanks Troy - I think I have my answer!

Sorry, to clarify I am talking 1/48th ( did not realise Zvezda also produced a 1/72 model). There does seem to be a turret equipped version ( Pe -301), so I can perhaps build the Zvezda model and have a Pe-2 in Finnish War Paint. I cannot find anything telling me what version the Zvezda kit represents but it is most likely what is generally known as the 2FT version as this is the most numerous. The Pe-3 is described as a long range nightfighter version but looks very similar to the turreted Pe-2 model. I have plenty of decals but as Troy suggests, if there are no aftermarket especially from SBS it would suggest there are no easy from the box options for the purchased aircraft.

Thanks Mike, that suggests the Zvezda kit is the incorrect type as every boxing I can see on Scalemates suggests all have the dorsal turret. I do have a part built HiPM kit with the other canopy type that was given to me by a colleague at my IPMS Branch but its a bit of a daunting build so I was hoping the well fitting and highly detailed Zvezda kit would fit the bill. I may have to take a chance and get one anyway to see if I can adapt the canopy from the HiPM kit to the Zvezda one. It would like to get an example of the Pe-2 in my WWII Finnish collection.

Before I buy one, does anyone know if it has the necessary parts to build a version flown by the Finns? Thanks.

I am certainly looking forward to going, even though I think it will be a different event this year. I collected plenty of built models for transportation to Telford from our display at our IPMS Avon club meeting last night so in some respects I have started packing to go already ! Although our own club attendance will be diminished this year, there are still a good bunch of us going and looking forward to a decent social weekend, and I suspect more than a few lovely local beers to be consumed in Shrewsbury.

This is the issue with a growing show. When space becomes a problem when you have a successful show that has a waiting list of clubs and traders and each seeking more space, unless you restrict space and decide not to expand, the hire costs of larger premises are entering the thousands of pounds. Tables and chairs will be additional costs unless included within the hire of the large "professional" venues. Costs are now very high and certainly a failing show could mean large financial losses and the closure of a club. This has been a very interesting thread to follow, but I am still not sure if there is a solution to securing the success of a larger popular show, other than to continue as we do today, but ensure that a) traders are happy with the cost of their pitch and are given as easy as day as can be provided by the hosting club, b) revenues are as certain as possible from both trader bookings, extra tables ( where charged) and a reasonable if pessimistic view of numbers through the door in advance of paying any deposits or entering into any contracts, c) possible limit the number of " free" entry per club, and finally d) drive down costs by firm negotiation with suppliers ( not something people are always comfortable with). We at Avon have a committee meeting this month to discuss the viability of a show going forward ( this years ran at a heavy loss) so the ideas and opinions given in this thread have been very useful indeed.

Just experienced this issue of disintegrating decals. I keep all my decals , both kit and aftermarket in plastic folders in ring binders and these are kept in my model room so at ambient temperature. Hopefully this helps to prevent the decals fracturing a bit. I try to test a spare on if there is first, then at least I have an idea of what to expect. I am building a JGMT Ouragan and the deals are pretty old with oddly opaque carrier film. They completely fall apart as soon as wet. The smaller numbers I have been able to slide off the paper and reassemble on the kit but the large shark mouth was destroyed. I did try to use the Microscale decal film on some other decals like the ejection seat triangles and they had a noticeable effect holding the decal together but in my case only for a second or two before they fell apart again. I suspect on lesser damaged decals, the film would be a good solution to recover them. I'm now going to try to cut stencils to spray the shark mouth to finish the kit as there is no aftermarket set available.

Having had a wash or the wearing of any kind of deodorant has never seemed to be a pre req for entry to SMW in the past. Neither has washing ones hands after using the facilities been universally practiced so one good reason I will be carrying hand sanitiser in my bag as I have done at Telford even pre Covid 19.....

I've built a few of the Spitfire kits. As Socjo1 said the Eduard kits are easier to build and overall better, but if these are too pricey, the ICM kits are pretty good. Earlier mouldings had some QC issues with short shots and moulding flaws. Later ones were fine. They are a little fiddly in places, with test fitting and a little sanding needed here and there- examples being the ailerons which are too think as moulded so need thinning down. The control column has a square grip which should be round. I would leave the engine out and trim the bulkhead a little to improve the fit of the cowling panels. In its day, Ultracast made some useful replacement parts that avoided some tricky seams but of you bought those now, your outlay would be more than just buying an Eduard kit, especially if you can get a weekend or over trees edition.

I have recently picked up a Classic Airframe rag wing Hurricane. I have built one before as a Finnish example. Overall it was a decent kit , but a real sea of flash so I used some spare cockpit parts from a trashed Italeri Hurricane and replaced the U/C with metal replacements which for minimal cost saved me a load of boring clean up. Since this one was apparently clearly based upon the Hasegawa kit, I was wondering how close the design is such that O could try to pick up a Hasegawa kit that sometimes pop up at a reasonable price and then use this to kit bash with the CA kit , saving myself a lot of time for a better result ( fortunate to have more spare cash than spare time). I do have a built Hasegawa kit but because I cleaned up the seams pretty well I cannot work out if the wing roots and under fuselage cut outs are in the same place! I know both kits have some inaccuracies but I can live with most of those and try to correct any I can't . I have read that the Hasegawa kit has the underside join through a fabric section but the CA cut is on a panel line. Has anyone given this a go or measured up the parts to see if it would work?