maltadefender

Me too please. I've got a SPAD S.VII that is aching to be built, greatest kit I ever did as a kid, plus a Mosquito I think.

A small pause for thought... and dry fitting... allowed me the first chance to take piccies of what may just turn out to be a Hawker Fury. I'm delighted with the difference in tone between Tamiya's Chrome Silver and Flat Aluminium. It's subtle but it's there. And it doesn't have any weird creases in it, which bare metal foil would if it was left to my tender ministrations. Yellow remains an absolute swine to paint evenly with a brush... it's all done with hairy sticks by the way. I don't own an airbrush and aerosols would send this little thing into the middle of next week. But for all that it's a lovely old kit, is PK-1 (as it still says on the sprue). It's quite confidence inspiring for a biplane. Hopefully she won't tempt me into over-confidence. Step-by-step I'm hoping to get to the stage where I will dare to have a run at my Pegasus S.E.5, which needs its interplane struts to be cut by hand from a strip of plastic. For now, though, I'm happy to have everything pre-aligned and with just a modicum of flash to trim off! Next jobs are to run the drill bit through the holes I made last night to reopen them after painting. Then I'll start building proper. With glue and everything! Yours optimistically...

Interesting - the box art is for yellow over the aluminium. Other sources say roundel blue. Looking at this photo I'd say blue is the way forward for this one. EDIT: Apparently not. Apparently it's right. Going through this wonderful forum, I found this content from Smithy on a 2011 build of this kit: Research by those such as Crawford has shown that K2065 was the C Flight commander's mount in 1 Sqn and not the B Flight commander's. C Flight colour was yellow (B was blue, A was red). Secondly, high res versions of the famous photo of K2065 warming up at Tangmere show the tonal difference in colour between the blue of the roundel and rudder and the upper fuselage and fin. Even though there is oversaturation in the photo from it being a very bright day, it is quite noticeable between the fin and rudder (which is at neutral position shown by shadow). I have heard mention how this colour doesn't look like the colour of yellow on Fury trainers and so it must be blue, but this is misleading due to trainer yellow being a matt colour brought into RAF stores in the late 30s. The yellow used on early 30s aircraft was a brighter gloss shade. I personally think the reason for this idea that K2065 had the blue markings is because of an error from a SAM article which was a main source of Fury info for modellers and decal makers. This article correctly lists K2065 as a C Flight machine but then erroneously lists C flight colours as blue. This has been perpetuated since. Thank you, Smithy! Yellow it is...

I've bitten the bullet and started with drilling my rigging holes. I've never had a drill small enough to take the widdy-diddy bits, so it's fingertips only! I've also got the Revell repo of the Gladiator, one of my top 3 favourite aeroplanes of all time. As I wear the tread off my fingers I'm thinking: could I fit two silver jobs in by Feb 11?

No arguing that it's a very well thought-out kit of what might otherwise have been a hefty challenge for 10-year-old fingers. But for a 'paper shop special' it certainly has the potential to make a nice looking Fury.

Thanks Jason. I was toying with the idea of bare metal foiling the metal sections but that could be a bridge too far. Hopefully the difference between Tamiya Flat Aluminium and Tamiya Chrome Silver will be sufficient. A long shot but there we go!

Well, Matchbox was always fêted for its bipes so here we go with a rather breathless build of the lovely old Fury. This could go one of two ways... Here is the kit: Time to read the instructions... quickly!

Room for a tiddler? With so many tempting GBs this year and pretty well a year off from modelling I've dug out a Hawker Fury to get my eye in. Because rigging is so easy! On your marks, get set...

On second thoughts I might go in reverse from youngest to oldest. Looks like it will be a busy year of building!

I'm in for this one please. Hard to know where to start looking in the stash. Hopefully one or two to get some wind in my sails and then take a run at my Wingnut kit.

I'm in please. So many choices but will probably start with 1918 and work forwards.

Can I play too please? I've got an Eduard Ship's Camel that I will probably mess up and a couple of other bits if I do - a couple of Fulmars for sure, a Wildcat... should be enough!

Thank you all. I have got one coming from Japan via a friend of a friend in Japan who was happy to buy one of the kits for not much money and send it on at cost. Hooray!

Thanks all for your replies. It's the Mitsubishi Starion that I'm after - I had no idea that there was one. A friend told me about the kit and sure enough one exists - looks like it was from a Japanese TV show as it has gulping doors. Anyway, my Dad was involved with the Starion and I'd love to build one. It doesn't look all that great a kit, the roof seems a bit low, but I'm pretty excited about the fact that there is one!

Hi everyone, I've just been alerted to a kit made some years back by Aoshima. I know of Tamiya and Arii but are Aoshima well known/available? Many thanks

I just received my copies. I know that I'm biased but this is the first book to be printed by a new supplier... Malaysian I believe... and it's about a zillion times nicer in the hand than the Ferrari book I did last year. That one was printed in Nashville. Here's couple of shots - including AndrewE's gorgeous WNW build, which sits opposite King Kong.

Thank you 73north that would be brilliant

I'm afraid Christmas sort of got in the way of Upholder. She'll be finished before New Year. Still in a bit of a funk about the Gladiator but very pleased with the two I completed and very proud to be sharing the gallery with such fine builds from everyone else. Well done, all. And the best of the season to you.

I'm sorry to report that we lost the patient with this one. I just could not get the struts to hold no matter what. In desperation I went for superglue. That set them but they were 3-4mm off mating with the holes in the upper wing. Snapped two interplane struts and two cabane struts. The paint's a mess and it's all going in the recycling bin. Not great for someone with a passion for biplanes that I can't actually build the darn things.

Thanks, Cliff!

No - would be a fun one! It's the Bristol Fighter. So plenty of post-war Empire policing as well as its wartime career. As Rob Millinship, Shuttleworth pilot, put it: The Camel's for a posthumous VC, the S.E.5 for scoring victories and the Bristol if you want to live to see peace. I think that the Fokker Dr.I is going to appear before the Biff. Snipe could be quite a hard sell to the people who sign off on the budgets!

Nope - not enough wings!

Many thanks, Beardie! The publisher's pretty happy. In fact I've now got another one to do. Any guesses on the subject matter???

Upholder still in dock awaiting etch pieces, looking like the more likely of my two remaining builds to get to the finish. Tonight will be make-or-break on the Gladiator. I'll let you know how I get on with it...

Apologies for going quiet on you, chaps. Work is continuing at nothing like the sort of pace I would hope but she's looking a bit like a Gladiator. I've decided to do the generic early camo as in the photo in my last post - no identification of any sort by the looks of things, and night/white on the lower wings only. She'll have a two-blade prop and no weathering. The more I look at this kit, the easier it is to see the heritage of the Gladiator - it's basically a bigger radial-engined S.E.5. Designed by the same bloke, different aerofoil (RAF-28 as opposed to RAF-15), but if you take the canopy off it's still very S.E.5ish, which is rather nice. Here are the pics after the first round of painting and before the really sweary bit for me of trying to fit the interplant struts and upper wing. I'll worry about the little runs around the cowling lumps and bumps and tidying up the camo once the wings are all in place and aligned. It's very seriously doubtful now that this one will make the finish line by Sunday. We'll see. I've still got a bit to do un Upholder as well, and it's all getting rather festive with the kids around all day hollering at me. As you can see, I'm making her all closed up. Paints are all Xtracolor - Slate Grey and Sea Grey on the lower wing, EDSG and DSG on the fuselage and upper wing. Hopefully she'll look rather different next time you see her. Canopy is Klear-ed and everything is about set for mounting the top wing once I make sure that my rigging holes are all clear of paint. See you on the other side of the madness!