Davidf66

No picss but, in 1/32nd, I have the Aerodynamix Buccaneer, The Revell (USA) Tornado GR-1 "Desert Storm". In 1/48th I have the Italeri YF-12 "Thing" The DC-130 "Drone Controller", The original AC-130 "Gunship" with three bladed props and Vietnam camo and the Hasegawa F-18B "Topgun"

Excellent work Steve, I'm going to keep an eye on this as I can't wait to see the finished article. The clear plastic in front of the compressor fan works really well, I'm even tempted to have a crack at an in-flight model although I'll probably be boring and do mine on the deck.

I've got an SR-71 and a YF-12, for the former, I'd recommend the Tue Details cockpit and wheels. I also managed to get a set of Cutting Edge resin A/B cans and decals. I'm not aware of any other a/m decals for these kits but the Cutting Edge set is well worth tracking down if you can find it. I made one of these years ago and the kit supplied decals were like paving slabs, couldn't get them to conform to the surface detail at all. It languished in the attic at my parents for a few years until I gave it to a friend who did something terrible to it, he turned it into a wierd-looking Sci-fi thing and painted it yellow, white and red!

HI, Tony, I've been a wee bit busy looking for a new job and doing some research for a couple of possible future projects/commissions. I've dragged the Trumpy Hurricane out of the "room-of-shame" and will do my best to have a crack at casting those bits over the weekend. Bye for now, best regards, David. P.S Kits-World decals may well be doing some Hurricane sheets in the near future.

Hi Tony, I have the Trumpy Mk.IIc Trop kit. I think you'll be O.K using the Rotol blades but it's worth looking into, I'll try to find out for you but I'm sure someone way more knowledgable will help before I get a chance. As for the spinner and vokes filter, I'm happy to have a crack at casting up a copy of the parts from my Trumpy kit for you, probably be a week or so before I get around to it but, if it's any help, I'm game.

Bugg'rit, millenium hand and shrimp, I told 'em I did,spyin' on me with rays, mumble, mumble , mumble! So, no FGR.1 then, on a more positive note, at least I can stop worrying about how the hell I'd ever afford it!

I've got the Revell Typhoon (Eurofighter) with the Two Mikes Pylons and APU exhaust as well as the Aires exhausts. The kit is lovely but I guess I'd have to agree with a couple of the comments made here regarding flash, fit and "general feel". The TwoMikes resin is beautiful. I might be putting it up for sale on here, just waiting to hear back from someone else before making my decision. The only extras I'd consider, apart from the TwoMikes stuff, is the Aires cockpit. The service from TwoMikes is excellent, I'd recommend them very highly. O.K, it's now for sale in the "For Sale" section.

I can't believe these are so cheap now! I made the F-18D "Night Attack" version a few years ago and I have to say that, until I had a go at the Tamiya 1/32nd Spitfire, this was one of the best kit's I'd ever built. I did mine OOB and was so impressed, I saved up for another one that's getting the full AM treatment (one day). Mostly it's a beautiful, if time consuming, build but you need to watch out for the intakes as they are a pain in the posterior to fit. They needed lots of scraping/rubbing down and filler before they looked O.K. If I was you, I'd try getting a set of the Rhino Models resin seamless jobbies or I believe D-Mold does the same thing. I'm not sure if Rhino has a website yet but I found their stuff on E-Bay. The other area to watch out for is the seat, it might be worth checking to make sure that the kit seat is correct for the a/c you're making. Off the top of my head, I believe the kit seat is an SJU-5/6 the other seat fitted to some of the later Hornets is the SJU-17. I'm fairly certain there was a thread about it on LSP or ARC and I'm fairly certain it was mentioned in the build article by John "Tigger" Wilkes on the F-18D in MAI issue 5 which states that F-18 C/Ds #163427 through 164068 used the SJU-5/6 and F-18C/Ds after BuAer #164196 used the SJU-17. If you can, get hold of a copy of the Daco Publications book "Uncovering the Boeing F/A-18A/B/C/D" as it's very nearly a one-stop reference for this a/c. Apologies for the rambling post, hope you have fun with your build. TTFN, David.

Hi David, it's not a bad kit. I'm fairly certain it's the Mongram kit in a Revell box. The it has raised panel lines and the detail is a bit basic, I'm not entirely sure the cockpit accurately represents the AH-64D but it goes together O.K. The Hasegawa kit leaves this one standing, way more detail and finess but it's not a quick build due to the large number of tiny parts and try finding a Hasegawa AH-64 at a sane price these days.

Sorry, think I'm a bit late to the game for this but I made the Academy Spitfire XIV "C" many years ago. They did print the stripes, codes and roundels on one decal, or at least on for each side. I didn't have any problems getting the huge D-Day/Roundels/Codes decals to fit. I think I might have had to tidy up where they joined on the underside of the fuselage but, on the whole, they worked really well. Having said that, if I had to do it again, I'd probably mask and paint them.

Many thanks for that, just got my order in. Yay!

I think the Archer rivet decals are your best bet as the HGW ones are very shallow and don't represent mushroom head rivets, at least the ones I've got don't. The HGW rivet sheets/sets are made to represent very slightly raised flush-head rivets. The effect is similar but not the same as, using the MDC rivetting tool. It could be that they produce something more appropriate but I'm not aware of any other rivet sets by them. I hope this helps, I'm just gonna keep on watching all these Hawk builds so I can learn as much as possible before I start mine. By the way Iain, if you get your flaps done, I'll have a set. TTFN, David.

O.K, I'm sorry, I didn't know that I was breaking any rules, just thought I was adding my own .2pence worth to the thread. Certainly wasn't doing any pre-planned "product placement" and my apologies if my post came across that way. To be honest, I would much rather have posted my for sale items here but I don't have 30+ posts yet and I'm not going to post just to make up the numbers as that's just plain dishonest. Hopefully we can consider my lesson learned and now, suitably chastised, I'm off for a troll around the forum before allowing myself some model-making time.

I've just read this thread and felt like putting in my take on the whole thing. I'm currently selling a lot of kits on E-Bay, I'm not a trader, just a bloke who makes models like pretty much everyone else here. I'm selling my kits partly, mostly, because I lost my job about a year ago and need the cash. The other reason is that I walked into my back room a few months ago and found I had no joy in the stupidly large piles of kits I had. I've decided to go up to 1/32nd scale and build less models, as an example, I had 12 Hasegawa 1/48th scale F-18 kits with various Aires / Eduard upgrades and decal sheets that, realisticly, I'd never have made. I've now got just two Academy 1/32nd scale F-18s which I actually stand a chance of making. Anyway, I'm not trying to defend some of the crazy prices you see on E-Bay but I always try to think about what I'd pay for whatever it is that I'm listing and give very detailed descriptions so that there can be no doubt about what you're bidding on. I used to put things on for very low starting bids but got fed up with traders buying the kits/packages and seeing them appear, usually broken down, a few weeks later at massively increased prices. Now I put my stuff on for what I think it's worth and hope it finds good homes. I try not to use "rare" unless it actually is as I'd started to notice it appearing on things that, as someone else said, could be bought at hobby stores fairly easily. Just in case anyone might want to have a look at my listings, my E-Bay user name is XXXXXXXXX I'd also be interested to hear what anyone might think about the prices I'm asking. Right, that's enough, I'm off to have a look at my PAC/Cammett Spitfire Mk.XVI TTFN, David.

Looks like I'm a little late to the party on this one but just had to add my own huge, "well Done" . That's an absolutely stunning bit of work, and yes, you're deffo the only person "crazy" enough to attack a Tamiya spit with a razor saw. Having said that, if that's crazy, I can't wait to go mad! Can't wait to see the Catalina

PM sent.

I'm lain, nice work on your Hawk. I'm sitting here taking notes and really looking forward to seeing the finished model. Thanks to my wonderful fiancee, I've now got one of these in my to-do pile.

I made one of these a couple of years ago, just a quick OOB build to practice with that new fangled Alclad stuff. To differentiate between the polished metal and doped fabric surfaces, I used different shades of Alclad, White Aluminium works very well for the doped fabric surfaces and for the polished metal, I used polished aluminiun with a light blow over of Chrome. The NMF areas needed to be primed, polished and given a gloss black base coat but for the doped fabric areas I just used the White Aluminium over polished Alclad grey primer. Anyway, just my .2ps worth, I hope you enjoy making your Fury.

I've got one of these for sale on E-Bay at the moment. It's a lovely kit. Basically it's a short run injection moulded airframe with details in resin. The cockpit, u/c bays, airbrake bays and tailpipes are resin, very nicely cast and with enough detail to suit most of us, personally, I'd have preferred an etched brass/acetate film I.P but that's just me. The plastic parts are very smooth but some of the smaller parts are a little "clunky" and there are some prominent mould seams to clean up. Having seen it made up OOB I'd recommend it to anyone except a complete novice and, of course, it is the only game in town if you want a 1/48th F-5A. Just my .2ps worth

Hi Jonathan, thanks for the heads-up and the piccies, now I'm havig to decide what to do with mine as I've already fitted the clipped wing tips and started painting it! I think I might just use "artistic license" and pretend that mine had the clipped tips fitted following a minor prang. I know it's not correct but I do love the look of the clipped wing Spitfires and, as it's not a commission, I think I can live with it not matching photographic evidence. I'm not too sure when I'll be finished but I'll put some pics up asap. Thanks again, TTFN, David.

HI Edgar, thanks for the clarification, you are indeed the Spitfire Guru. The A/C I'm making is a Mk.IXe, RK855, coded FT-C of 43 Sqn based at Zeltweg, Austria, September 1945. It's on the Xtradecal sheet X32-025. I couldn't find any definite refs for this a/c so I went with a best guess (Yeah, I know, scandalous isn't it) regarding the wing bulges. After reading your post, I think I'm going to glue the upper cowl panel in place, I'll be using the bulged one, I also decided to fit the underwing bomb racks so at least I know I have the correct 4-spoked wheels, shame I didn't catch onto the fact that Tamiya got the harness attachment point wrong before I glued the rear glazing in place but at least I know for next time, mind you, my next one is going to be a Mk.IXc in USAAC markings, desert camo and will have standard wing-tips and rudder, short carby intake and the earlier U/C without Torque links. Anyway, thanks again for all the very useful info you've provided, TTFN, David.

Hi, I've just used the Alley Cat "E" wing conversion set on my Spitfire. It includes the 20mm cannon/50Cal M.G inserts and barrels and a set of replacement covers for these as well as parts to blank off the .303 M.G apartures and top/botton .303 M.G covers. It also includes new interior parts for the U/C bays and the corresponding large tear-drop bulges over the U/C bays as well as the much smaller, longer tear-drop bulges that go just outboard of these. The instructions give details on how to place the bulges but it might be worth checking refs as they weren't always fitted/added. I had to take a chance and use them as I couldn't find any definitive info as to whether the A/C I'm making had them fitted, I went with the colour profile on the Xtradecal sheet that I'm using which showed them. The Tamiya kit supplies both the Packard and Rolls Royce Merlin upper cowls as well as the pointed or standard rudder and clipped or standard wing tips so no need for a.m parts there. As to how the Alley Cat resin fits, it's mostly excellent but the replacement Cannon/M.G panels in my set were slightly flatter than the wing surface so needed a tiny amount of bending to get them to fit. The over wing bulges will need to be sanded on the undersides until they're pretty much paper thin around the edges otherwise they'll look unsightly, the bulges on the real A/C are quite subtle. I used a large scalpel blade to scrape away a lot of the resin backing film and finished them with 180/240 sanding sticks, I used the Alley Cat drawings to measure and place them and, when I was happy that they were good to go, I tacked them down with a tiny drop of thick CA followed by super thin CA applied with a cocktail stick to bed them down. When the CA had cured, I gave them a couple of coats of Future to check the edges followed by a light sanding using medium and fine grade flexible sanding sticks. Finally, they got a light coat of Alclad grey primer to seal them in. Sorry for the long-winded post, hopefully it'll be of some use to you, best regards, David.

Hi, just wanted to say that you've done a fantastic job on your Mossie. I'm in the middle of making mine at the moment, mostly as part of the model-making/airbrushing demos I give at the local hobby store here in Southend, and loving it. I'm going to be adding some harnesses for the crew and, maybe, some of the wires and pipes that run through the bombay. I'm also thinking of making new u/c doors as the ones in the kit aren't detailed. Ah well, so much for an out-of-the-box build, just got to wait for some decent references as the ones I have are good but don't tell the whole story. anyway, well done again on your Mossie. What's next on your to-do list? All the best, David.