Bilkeau

Eduard have a 1/48 G-10 Erla slated for release sometime this year, according to their 2019 catalogue. Let joy be unconfined!

Not terribly inforamative I'm afraid, but it's in colour! Nick

Not great photos, but they're all the colour ones I have. The CP seems to be plywood beneath the flaking paint. Nick

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: spraying thinners through an airbrush fondly imagining that you're cleaning it is only slightly better than trying to shake the paint out. It's a good start though. Once you have completed your preliminary cleaning , take out the needle, and wipe it down with a thinner soaked cloth. Then fill the cup with thinner and spray through again, but this time cover the orifice (can I say that here?) with a cloth, which forces the solvent back into the cup, dislodging all manner of alarming gunk and detritus that has accumulated in the tip. Repeat until clear. Some use interdental brushes to scrub out any remaining crud, but I finish off with a couple of squirts from a liquid reamer. Cellulose thinners are the thing to use, and it might be worthwhile giving the tips of your brushes a leisurely soak before trying the deep clean. Nick

I believe it was for "political and social" reasons rather than aeronautical ones. Oh, and I've just remembered that Amtech did a decal sheet with a couple of Spanish Hs 123s on it. Nick

This should help. Nick

All my 109 refs stop at "K"! IIRC, the S.99 was just the bog standard 109G-10 (or was it the G-14/AS?) which was being produced in Czechoslovakia at the end war, and only a few were produced after peace broke out, before the warehouse with their Daimler-Benz engines burned down, forcing the Czechs to mate the airframe to a Junkers Jumo bomber engine to give the S.199. Granted nearly all the components apart from the canopy had been manufactured for the Luftwaffe, but I wanted to make the distinction that although the bits were of Luftwaffe origin, the model design wasn't, and that would be important if Derek wished to limit himself to models which actually saw service with the Germans. Nick

Here are a couple of pics of Soviet Doras culled from the old AJPress Fw 190D/Ta 152 monograph. Apparently they served with the Baltic Fleet, were disliked, and probably didn't remain on strength for long after the war. The Russian Me163s were used for tests only. The Avia S.199 was a post-war design which never saw Luftwaffe service; ditto the re-engined Spanish Heinkels and Messerschmitts, obviously, although the Spanish continued to fly Luftwaffe-issue 109Es until the 1950s. The Finns flew Me 109G-14s after the war with some funky sharkmouth and bat motif adornments, but not on the same a/c as many profiles and decal manufacturers would have you believe. I have the decals if you're interested, and MDC do (or did) the decals for the blue and white check 109 racer. Nick

Rodders, I've just gone through about 10 books and everything on my HD, but I'm afraid I haven't been able to turn up any original photos. There's something I should be remembering about "Green<<+-", but maybe it's False Memory Syndrome. Udvar-Hazy's F-8 is done up as "White 7", so one would assume that it's documented somewhere. Sorry, this is no help at all really, but at least no-one will be able to say you got it wrong! Nick

Gloss paint is a flippin' dust magnet whatever you seem to do to try to prevent it, but if you're getting other "bits" too, why not try straining the paint before loading the airbrush? Not tried it myself but apparently a pair of the Missus' finest dernier tights will do the job: I wouldn't try using cellulose/lacquer thinners with them though. Failing that, use a rattle can and polish that up. Nick

Hi Rodders, Sorry I haven't managed to turn anything yet - they weren't the two aircraft I thought they were! I'll have a proper delve tomorrow. Nick

Steven has kindly illustrated the kind of thing I had in mind: I'll have a look this evening for the particular a/c you're after, stand by. In the meantime, here's a slightly dodgy colour pic of an F-8 with old style canopy from the same period carrying Luftflotte IV recognition markings. Nick

Never tried it myself of course, but I understand that in the dark days of previous centuries when modifications to plasic kits were made using balsa, a mixture of cellulose dope and talcum powder was used to fill the grain and smooth the surface. Of course this took several applications with rubbing down in between until a satisfactory finish was achieved. There's probably a whizz-bang 21st. century solution to this by now: maybe the scale flying fraternity might know more. Nick

Late-war 190s quite often had mottling applied only to the sub-contracted tail and power egg elements, although often additional camouflage was applied in the field, particularly it seems, to F-series aircraft in Schlacht units. Which aircraft are you doing? I may well have refs. Nick

The thing about crown caps is that they diffuse the airstream at the tip of the brush so you get less air rebounding from the surface of the model, and in effect blowing away/around the atomised paint stream, which of course has a deleterious affect on one's lovingly-crafted paint job. I ordered my HP-B with a crown cap, so I don't know whether it's that useful or not! If you are very, very careful you can take off the normal cap on your Eclipse [if it's like the HP-B] to see if it makes a differencE when you are spraying close to the surface of the model. Nick