Foxbat

Well, didn't quite make my own deadline (why do 4 day weekends involve so much time in the pub?), but have made progress. Construction is essentially finished - I copied Giogio's trick of carving off the mounting lugs in the intage, but otherwise everything is out of the box. Weathering is a little heavy, hopefully it will settle a bit under the final varnish. Got to add the airbrakes and canopy, and do a little detail painting, but it's about there. One tip for others building this kit: using blue tac to make the bulkhead behind the rear seat is quick and effective, but it undoes all the weight hidden in the nose. Doh!! Anyhoo, a pic: Andy

As this is a quick and dirty build as light relief, I won't be spending any time on detailing or improvements - this is a build purely for slapping some interesting decals on. With that in mind, this is the end of building on day 1: This is really the end of day 1 with the upper surfaces decalled and some of the detail painting done. Aim to have it finsihed by Monday: Andy

As a morale booster after the Il-2 part 1 and a battle with a Hobbycraft Foxbat (of which more anon), I thought a quick morale booster was in order. I'd previously got hold of the Hobbycraft MiG-15 but researching the more interesting colour schemes suggested they actually belonged on the UTI rather than the single seater. That's not a problem, you can't have too many MiGs. So, this is the kit: And the Hobbycraft decal sheet: With the intended colour scheme: Other pictures found online suggest the zebra should be further forward with the number between it and the leading edge of the wing, so that's the way I'm going. Andy

You're a braver man than I am with that camo but the results should be great. Looking forward to it. Andy

That sounds good - all white wheel rims and track guard edges? Top smart. Andy

S'all valuable learning experiences, right?

Had another look at this... thing. Nothing was square, so I tried to tweak things into line and SNAP. I've pulled the starboard wing off, and given the amount of glue and filler it took to get it on in the first place I've made a bit of a mess of the wing root too. Given how little fun I'm having wrestling this thing into submission, and how badly I've managed to build it so far, I'm consigning it to the parts bin. I've got an Eduard replacement, so a Mongolian Shturmovik will still appear, just not the one I planned. Might slap something together in the meantime as therapy - about half the stash qualifies for this GB so I'm not short of candidates. A Tanzanian MiG-15UTI sounds interesting. Andy

Progress, though galcial, has been made. Got the cockpit and rear strap seat installed, and the fuslage buttoned up last weekend: Today has seen the rest of the basic airframe put together, and an initial coat of primer brushed on: I can confidently say this kit is even more horrible than I remember it being the last time I built it 25 years ago and I'll be glad when it's over. Got some much nicer things in the pipeline as a reward for finishing it. That one of them is the Tamiya T-62A speaks volumes. Andy

Slowly. I spend the working week 240 miles from my workbench and last weekend I was away too. Might have been better postponing the start until I actually had time to build something. Still, onwards and upwards; got to finish this to make room for the big pile of interesting jets I've accumulated. Andy

My first BM build of any kind, so no pressure - basing it on the Airfix kit but with cockpit and some details from the ZTS version. Box shots - shiny. Airfix sprues - note almost total lack of cocpit detail (although the gunner gets a seat he never had in real life), the odd landing gear retractors and the curly wurly prop blades - a result of the sprue being longer than the box. Lots of lovely 1960's rivets too, but I'm leaving them coz they feel appropriate for the subject. ZTS sprues - note the abundance of flash, sink marks, short shot landing gear and fog-o-matic canopy. Some cockpit detail and a nice prop though. The decals. I'm using the Mongolian ones. Andy

Angolan. I have an unhealthy fascination for sub-Saharan colour schemes. Andy

I've got both in the stash and keep getting a mad urge to hack them both in half and add the two seater tail to the single seater forward fuelage to make a Fitter-H. As you say though, not enough time in this GB, but one day... Andy

Time to nail my colours to the mast - got a few ideas in mind: a Mongolian Il-2 to start, possibly followed by a Algerian Foxbat, an Angolan Fitter and a Sri Lankan MiG-17, depending on time. Andy

Thanks for the info Mike. Looks like I'll have to keep saving and rummage through the stash for something to do in the meantime. Andy

I'm of a mind to add an F/A-18F to the collection (in the colours of VFA-11 natch). Decals are easy to come by in both 48 and 72 scale but kits less so, and I baulk at the thought of paying £60+ for Hasegawa's offering with the decals in the box. So, which is the best alternative route to go down? In 1/48 there's a Revell kit out there, is that another Hase re-boxing? The Italeri kit can still be had, but vaguely remember it getting less than glowing reviews - is the Growler any better, and close enough to the same airframe to fool a blind man on a fast horse? Are there any others I've not even considered? Is there anything in 1/72 other than the two Hasegawa boxings? They're slightly less eye watering than the bigger kits but still a tad rich for my tastes. Andy

Bingo - I think the Tamiya solvents explains the first paint job going screwy. I was in a hurry so I didn't do my normal varnish/decal/varnsih/wash procedure, just slapped everything on. It sounds like I got a reaction and the base coat started to lift. Still not sure how I managed to kill the second paint job. Contamintaed brush? Stars out of alignment? Too much of a hurry? Could be any or all of those. I'll re-prime and try again using a single make of paint on each kit and see how I get on. Cheers guys, Andy

Your whiteboard thing is exactly what I was getting, glad it's not jusy me. Although you can thin and clean brushes with water, my understanding (at least from using Games Workshop and Vallejo paints)is that once cured, the paint is waterproof, so you can use thinnned washes over unvarnished base coats with impunity. As long as they are all the same type as Greg explained above. Andy

Yesterday I was brush painting Tamiya acrylic onto a kit that was mostly already painted with Vallejo acrylic when something odd happened; as I stroked the brush around, the original coat showed through. I thought at first the colours were mixing (I've had a similar effect with enamels when the base coat wasn't as dry as it felt), but in this case the new paint wasn't mixing with the old - as far as I can tell it was going back onto the brush and refusing to 'stick' to the paint that was already there. Later I decalled what I thought was the good paint, and went apply a wash. The wash was going on much more thickly than anticipated so I slapped some water on and swirled everything about to try and fix it, but not only did the wash come up, the paint underneath did too - all over the decals. 'Never mind,' I thought, 'stick it to one side, and get on with kit number 2'. This one had been brush primed on Saturday with Vallejo white primer. Again I was brush painting acrylic over the top, and expected the usual smooth matt finish. What I actually got was a blotchy, streaky satin finish, with sme areas of primer showing where the colour coat simply refused to cover it. None of the paints were new, and I've used all of them successfully within the last couple of weeks. Anyone else had similar problems and have any ideas on where I went wrong and how I fix it? Cheers, Andy

Sweet. I was just looking at getting some of these, and seeing yours has definitely tipped the balance.

Thanks both - an 'interesting' time cross referencing those with various instruction sheets and references has got me down to a set of 30 colours that should cover everything I haven't already got. Off to ask SBX if they have them all in stock - hurrah for B5G5F. Cheers, Andy

Hi all, Most of my painting over the last few years has been with Citadel and Vallejo acrylics brush painted onto figures, but recently I have returned to aircraft. Having made a complete hash of brushing enamels, I've decided to bite the bullet and dip a toie into the world of airbrushes. I would like to continue using Vallejo paints but I'm having a devil of a job decising on a palette that will suit the kits in the stash, as their colour names don't map very well (at all?) onto the colour names I am used to. I've managed to cobble together a list that will cover WW2 subjects, but can anyone with more experience give me some pointers as to a range of greys that will cover modern RAF (Phantom FGR.2, Harrier GR.7/9, Typhoon), and 70's/80's Soviet (Su-17, MiG-21/23) jets? TIA, Andy

A pleasure. While you're there, they do a green for wheels/di-eletric panels too, which are more generic than the cockpit colour. By the 'other' end of BHR do you mean Milkhope or Pont, or am I in totally the wrong place? Andy

Xtracolor 629 or Model Master #2135 cover the MiG interior in enamel. White Ensign ACSM 07 is the acrylic equivalent. Vallejo Game Colour 26 (Jade Green natch) isn't a million miles away either. My limited references suggest the Su-7 should be grey inside, but I don't have anything definitive on what shade. Andy

Ah. Still nice to have one though, even if the finished model is going to be a lot harder to store than the box. Too late. Already dark here

A quick search didn't find anything relevant so I don't think this is teaching grannies to suck eggs - the Airfix site currently has Nimrods reduced from £42 to £16. Stumbled onto it by accident and got one before they changed their minds. Cheers, Andy