pacificmustang

So again, you've vandalized one of your kids games for modelling materials That looks seriously good Calum. I really like the worn finish, and the base sets it off nicely. Bruce

Great job as usual Tony, and I agree having just finished the kit myself. Its a shear joy to build Bruce

but wait!!! There's more masking to be done the underside wheel wells were masked off to be painted white. Also the intake lips needed painting in silver as you can see, only a thin lip needed to be painted silver on the intakes so rather than airbrush it as that would mean EVERYTHING would need to be masked to avoid overspray, I used AK Real Metal applied with a cotton bud. It worked a treat. If you have not seen this product, its sort of like Rub n Buff. Finally.......finally.!!!! I could remove the masking to reveal the painted fuselage. Ive started applying the wash before the decals these days as it means one less clear coat to fill details, I was happily applying MIG deep grey panel wash, until this happened Thank goodness I did not have any parts sitting on the bench. Surprisingly (to me) the stuff iis brown, but marked "Deep Grey" on the lid, so not sure if that related to the colour you use it on, or the colour of the wash With that cleaned up, I could commence decalling Theres a reason everyone does the VF-84 scheme Ive decided, and thats because it just looks GOOD Could not resist a dry fit of the wings to see how its coming along To make the wear marks on the wings, I applied some 40mm tamiya masking tape to the wing top and bottoms, then pushed the wings into the fuselage in the swept back position. A pencil was then run around the wing glove, the wings removed and a scalpel run over the pencil line. Pull the cut tape off and theres your mask! Neat black oil paint was then applied in arcs and blended with a dry brush. Mine are probably a little bit heavy to be honest. You can see anything on the real jets from a hint of wear through to badly stained To Be Continued

Magnificent Tony, a very different looking tante Ju I go wonder about some of Xtradecal’ s research though lovely model Bruce

Surprised the interviewer didn't ask Roy what his favourite pieces were

It was here whilst preparing fuselages for priming I realised I had made a mistake as I now had to describe the wing glove vanes back in. I should have added them as although they were wired shut, photos still show they were quite prominent, so I scribed new vanes in. That done, I also made new canvas coverings for the instrument coamings out of rolled milliput. These were black in colour when fitted, but quickly faded to a dark leather colour through to tan. The rear covering was made in two halves and the port one got replaced more often due to wear and tear through crew and ground staff accessing from that side of the jet. Here, the covering took on a purplish colour due to heavy staining from hydraulic fluid and jet fuel. I mixed tiny bit of vallejo red and grey in with vallejo Leather brown to represent this colour. With the airframe together, all parts were preshaded along panel lines with german grey and then various random squiggles of dark grey and white sprayed across the whole airframe In the above photo, you can also see Ive scratch built an ECM blister on the beaver tail out of plastic strip. Next Mr Colour Gull Grey was laid down in multiple thinned coats leaving a mottled faded look over this thinned white and a medium grey were again squiggled before another thinned blending coat was applied Although this was a C.Os jet, photos I have of the actual jet show it decidedly battered with many touch ups in various greys. Next, the wings were masked so the red areas could be sprayed but wait! Even more masking for the tail fins and skunk strip around the cockpit as soon as the Humbrol yellow dries. Its only been on for 36 hours The tin has gone in the bin now, and will be replaced with Mr Colour or Mr paint, as are all my enamels as they get used

Julien, try Mal Mayfield from Miracle Masks. Hes done that sort of thing for me before. He is on FB too Bruce

I pack my models on a bed of loosely crumpled plastic shopping bags, and then pack more around them before closing the lids on them. They do not move at all using this method, in fact, I just transported five models to a competition which was a ten hour road trip away . They all arrived intact. I noticed a lot of other entrants had there models packed in shredded paper, which also seemed to work well. I used to just place mine on non slip mats in large plastic crates, but after having two sets of landing gear shear off, went to the plastic bag method. As to entering competitions, I held off for many years, but eventually summoned the courage to enter. Kalisti nails the attitude to have in his post. If you start taking it seriously, it can kill your enjoyment of the hobby . I have a friend that fell foul to this. Yes it stings a bit if you get beaten by something lesser than your model, but it happens sometimes. learn to put it behind you is the best thing. As other people have mentioned, all judging is to a degree subjective whatever system is used . Putting a model on the table is one of the best ways to meet other Like minded modellers at shows and gas introduced me to several new modelling friends Go for it, I say bruce

A few articles I have read on it seem to suggest its a good thing as yahoo left it to languish. I guess we will just have to see what happens. I did read all Flickr functions will eventually be migrated across to SmugMug, which is not a bad thing, as long as we still have a free option. But it makes you wonder, how accessible all these photo sites will become and their long term future. I may have to start keeping photos in albums again!

Its weird. I got all my best shots when you weren't around

Attention now turned to the wings with the first order being to fill in all this rivets as photos showed no such detail on the real wings Weapon of choice being Mr Surfacer 500. Sanding down revealed the rivets are still there, but they certainly are not as prominent as before, which I can live with. The tailplanes also got the same treatment I also decided to attach the extended slats at this stage, mainly to stop me knocking off the little slat actuators you can see in the above pic, which I manage to do one every kit with this feature I build. Another reason was to provide a stronger glue joint . HobbyBoss provide one piece parts for the flap eyelid doors which seal up the rear of the wing when the flaps are deployed, I found the fit a bit wanting to replaced them with plastic card. You can also see the attached slat Honbbyboss mould a small ECM blister underneath the wing gloves but all photos I have seen of hets fitted with these blisters show a pair each side with larger one also being fitted to the intake sides I wasted about a half hour trying to make them out of off cuts of sanded sprue before realising they are actually provide in the kit, but not called out in the instructions! parts E26 and 27 are what i needed, a strange omission by HobbyBoss and Eduard. Anyway, it saved me scratcbuilding them, and sanding my fingers to nubs in the process.

absolutely magnificent. One of my modelling ambitions is to build a 48 scale CC Liberator This is just stunning Bruce

A friend (A4s4ever) and I went on a bit of an aviation odyssey to the U.S last year, with the highlight being the EAA Airventure airshow in Oshkosh. Wisconsen. Here are just a couple of my favourite pics. I was a little disappointed at the number of warbirds that were listed to appear, but did not fly or appear, but thats air shows for you This aside, it was an amazing experience, with two highlights being a flight in a B-17 and a formation flyover by a B-1, B-2 and B-52. Truly, a sight to behold. Naturally, I was inspired enough to buy lots of plastic upon my return

love this Russ. Looks fantastic. You must have quite the collection of Vietnam era builds now. Any chance of a group shot? Bruce

With the "danger Zone" boxing, Eduard have you not use the original Hobbyboss engines at all, instead replacing them with some nice resin engine faces once painted they were added to the rear of the intake trunks Hobby boss ( I'll refer to the kit as HB as it is their plastic) also provide separate workable glove vanes should you be building an early F-14A. There is a pin on them that fits in the elongated channel shown below, and you need to open up a flashed over opening. I was going to highlight it with arrows in photoshop, but gave up after an hour of trying to work out how so you just get the photo As the two jets I am modelling had them wired closed, I didnt bother, I simply mention it as I had not seen it mentioned in any of the other builds I looked at. The two fuselage halves were now brought together Fit was good until it came time to fit the belly panel, where I was left with a gap that needed shimming I have no idea how I introduced it as previous dry fits had shown no problem, but it wasd easily fixed. On the other jet, I transferred it to the front So, at end of day's play. I now have these sitting on my cutting mat.