desmojen

Hi guys, What colour should the cockpit and interior areas be for a Finnish Mig-21 please? My instructions call for mid grey, but my mind thinks it might be that pukey turquoise colour. Any ideas? Jen.

I was thinking along those lines too, with the leading edge flaps. I'm sure foreplanes do produce lift, but I was referring to the fixed type which are primarily there to act as a tailplane (but in the wrong place of course) like you see on the odd Rutan. The foreplanes on Typhoons and the like are there primarily to aid control rather than lift. See what I'm getting at? Sorry, thread hijack alert - woop woop woop - I can't help it if I find this stuff interesting Jen.

Canard is in fact a French duck I think the foreplane thing is meant to distinguish between control surface type canards and lift producing canards maybe? With you on the flaperons though Seamus, I've seen video of F-18's on finals and they are twitching away like good-uns, as well as being drooped like the flaps - definitely flaperons. Explain why the slats are being called leading edge flaps though, not sure on that one Jen. P.S. Nice work on the model so far by the way

Hi all! Apologies to those who may have already seen this over in the GB section, here it is again This is the Hasegawa 1/72 kit which I picked up very cheaply at Telford (£4 cheap). It is OOB apart from the decals which were donated by RichardE. There was need for quite a lot of filling and sanding, and the cockpit detail is dire (as is the canopy fit) but it certainly looks like a Prowler now! As well as the decals, I knocked up a pair of FOD guards since the intakes lack any depth or detail. The paint is a mix of Gunze Sangyo acrylic and Xtracrylix for the darker grey. Weathering wise, I have used preshading, postshading, oil wash, promodeller wash, pastels and oils! It's been an enjoyable little project - just a few minutes here and there whenever I could in between other projects. Now that it's finished I am pretty pleased with the look of it too Jen.

For once he makes me laugh Nice model Karl, but I still think it's ugly.......... Jen.

My finished Hasegawa 1/72 EA-6B Prowler. Jen.

I've finished! Walrus, I don't honestly know the options in 72th. I saw this at a show and it chittered to me, I paid £4 for it and am more than happy with it at that price! Finishing off was mainly getting the weapons done, and adding undercarriage. No real dramas with any of it, although I did have to snip some bits off the main landing gear to get them in the bays. I have added little bits here and there to the weathering too. I know there are a few aerials missing, and it could do with some RBF tags, but I don't know where they go so I am going to call it done for now I've enjoyed this build a lot, once I got the filler done. I have had a great time playing around with weathering techniques, and being non-subtle with it! I think the finished model captures the look of a Prowler pretty well too. I must thank again Richard for the decals There are some more pics in the gallery. Jen.

With the building and rubbing done, I sprayed all the extremities with Gunze H308 and then promptly stuck about a fivers worth of Tamiya tape all over it! Then sprayed it Gunze H313, a very pale brown. The brown was put over some very fine, but quite dark preshading. This highlights the panel lines without being so in your face as a wash, or normal preshading. This afternoon I have been adding the darker H310 brown camo, Ta-Da! A SkyMig Now I have it all to do again underneath Jen.

Gullivers travels anyone? Jen.

If you can get IPA at work, just use that. I only ever use IPA in Tamiya acrylics and it works fine Jen.

Hi Jase, I have the same 190D with one kit in it, and a P-51D from a slightly different boxing (different markings), also with one kit in it. One of each decal sheet has been used but other than that they are complete. How does both for a tenner inc postage sound? Jen.

I have one of each of those you could buy if you want, £20 seems a bit steep Jen.

Nine Lives has a couple of photos, and there's one in another book that I have although I can't remember which book it is off the top of my head. There was more than one Kiwi, as suggested by Silverkite, but I believe I am right in suggesting that the only major difference between them is the serial, and possibly the underside colours. IIRC the Airfix 1/24 kit represents Kiwi III. Jen.

I think all the bits are in there Les mate. Externally the only difference from the E is the probe. Pretty sure that's in the kit already. Jen.

No, not lost, I do have them. The English version is much truncated and very few diagrams are included, hence my problem. The model is about 5 inches long, I included my Swann Morton No.3 handle in one of the pics for size comparisons. I have previously built the WEM 1/700 version, and yes, it is extremely small and gem like. I also have the Matchbox kit, which I built for my Grandad when I was a young teenager. I brought it home for restoration shortly before he died, he'd had it on display for near on twenty years and it was a bit dusty and worse for wear Jen.

This one is for my Grandad.......... HMS Clover was built by Fleming and Ferguson in 1940 and launched in 1941. She served as a convoy escort throughout the war, mainly in the Western Approaches group but also in Gibraltar and South Africa. Between May and July 1944 she was attached to Operation Neptune to act as a convoy escort for the Normandy landings. She was actually one of the first RN vessels to arrive at the beachead on the morning of the invasion, and ferried back and forth continuously with the convoys dropping off supplies for the landings. After July she continued convoy escort duties on the East coast and in the North Sea and English channel until the end of the war, when she was decommissioned. She was I think a lucky ship (aptly named) and I believe I am right in saying that she holds the record for picking up the most downed airmen of any vessel on convoy defence. My Grandad told me many tales, of living under the forecastle, in a hammock under the bridge, his duties as a gunner on the 4inch main gun, the Pom Poms, the Bofors 40mm and of dropping depth charges. He spoke of Stukas and Junkers 88's, and U-Boats and of chipping ice from the decks in the early mornings. Captain Fanshawe attending my grandparents wedding, and I have no doubt that my Grandad had a special place in his heart for HMS Clover, right up to the day he died. The kit I have for this is the L'Arsenal 1/400 resin kit. I bought it in 2006 for the not inconsiderable sum of £35. The biggest problem I have is that I have never managed to find many photos of Clover, and those that I have show her in the earlier format with mast in front of the bridge. I am building her as she would have been later in the war, with the mast behind the bridge, and extra gun placements at the rear. The same goes for colours and camouflage. All I have to go on is a model he made from wood when he was living aboard. It was painted with actual ships paint, and had a wavy camo of two greys. I no longer have access to that model unfortunately, so I can only attempt to do something similar from memory. Caveats and history out of the way, lets get on and build it! Here is the kit... There's a one piece hull, and a lot of smaller pieces, a decal sheet and three frets of PE parts. The instructions are for the most part written. Not normally a problem, but since I don't speak French all that well it is a small problem this time I started out by filling and sanding the small irregularities along the bottom of the hull where it had been released from its mould, and then I built the bridge structure up. This is a chunk of resin, with a load of etch attached to it. With that done, I mixed up a batch of Mr resin Primer and gave everything a good coat of that. The idea of the resin primer is to give a good solid base for further painting, since most model paints don't adhere all that well to resin parts. It also works to highlight any small air bubbles or minor flaws in the parts, which it has done in places. I will sort out these flaws and then reprime with the resin primer before choosing some paint and getting some colour on. Jen.

Looks pretty cool so far Mike Must be the season for Tank Building Noobs, as I have one in the nearly time to do pile myself. I will watch with interest to see how you go with it. Jen.

Nice! From the photo's you'd never guess that's a 1/72 model, it looks really nice Jen.

What a nice thing to say, thankyou Martin If anyone ever wants to come over here for any demo's or help, I'm only at the end of a PM you know. I have in fact been helping out Karl (dswoofie) for the last few months. He's been over several times and chatted a lot online etc. You can judge for yourselves whether it's worked or not Thanks as well for the other comments, much appreciated I can assure you Jen.

That is because it is a model kit....... Jen.

I hate those kind of decals myself. So I'd spray all the bombs yellow and then use Jammy tape to mask the rings before spraying the green. It probably wouldn't take much longer to do that than it would to attach decals anyway I think Fantasy Printshop may well do suitable stripes if you insist on using decals though. Jen.

And he'll fly right by! For my second build in this GB, a Fujimi 1/72 A-4E/F Top Gun Skyhawk. The kit comes from Modelsforsale, for £8. A small box but chock full of plastic, much of which I sadly will not use on this build since a lot of it is given over to weapons. I started out yesterday afternoon by making the wing and rear fuselage up, and separating all the cockpit parts from the sprues. This morning I painted the cockpit up and built the forward part of the fuselage. The construction sequence means that you have to bring the front and rear parts of the fuselage together along with the wing, leaving plenty of opportunity for poor fitting and gaps. To my absolute surprise it pretty much fell together, with very little in the way of filling or sanding being needed The Gunze jar in the photo serves to illustrate the small size of the model! Because of the seriously wacky paint job which is to come, I decided to fit some of the parts temporarily to allow paint demarcations to line up. In a feature virtually unique to Fujimi kits, the undercarriage doors and airbrakes fit perfectly when closed. Even the leading edge slats, which are designed to be posed open, fit the wings nicely. So, once the intake splitter plates are dry, I can fit the intakes. Then I need to sand the wings, and the join around the forward fuselage, and then I can start that wacky paint job! Jen.

I'm still chipping away at this, bit by teeny little bit The model has been subjected to numerous phases of postshading and washing since you last saw it. Basically, every time I was spraying something a suitable colour, I'd thin the dregs down and post shade little bits and pieces. Once I thought I'd post shaded enough, I did a wash and then flat coated it again. I've since added the touch up spots, I won't be flat coating again now, so I also removed the canopy masking. So, main weathering is pretty much done. I might add a few oily streaks and accentuate the wash in a few places yet, but it's mostly about where I want it now Jen.

:o Blimey! Jen.

Storch decals? Easy! Techmod have two 1/72 sheets Here towards the bottom of the page You mentioned wanting to do an interesting TA152 earlier too. I recommend checking out Colins version at Freightdog models. It comes with decals for the captured version that was flown by the test pilots at Farnborough. That's quite a nice one. Jen.