Rudolf_Filip

Here is the "little radiothingy" that Christer is talking about. It's the control box for the radio that was used in Swedish fighters during WW2. It's a rather prominent detail in many cockpits so I wanted to add it to my builds. So I managed to get Christer to design and print those "radiothingys" for me... Result! No detail is too small!? I've come a little further on my Reggiane cockpit. I decided to add the many rivets on the floor. I doubt that they ever will be seen again though... It's time to start up the compressor and dust of the airbrush. Despite what Special Hobby tells me I think that I'm going to paint the interior in white aluminium with a black instrument panel.

Thanks Christer! Yes, there will definatly be a "little radiothingy" in this cockpit. You will be able to quit your regular job and make a living on those things soon enough...

I started building this morning. I'm amazed how far Special Hobby have come since I last worked on one of their kits. The cockpit is one of the best I have seen in a standard kit. No need for any etch or resin here! I started assemblying the many detailed parts that go behind the seat. There are a radio and a small tank. Very nice. However... When checking my references I discovered that the Swedish Air Force did put in an armoured plate behind the seat soon after delivery. Oh well... I guess that the nice detail wouldn't be seen anyway. I have rather decent references when building this kit. I have access to the Italian manual (in English since the Italians actually tried to sell the Re.2000 to RAF!). I also have the Swedish manual and a photoarchive full of nice images. We even have the tail section of a J 20 complete with original Italian early war paint. I have also taken a few pictures of the preserved J 20 at the Swedish Air Force museum. So I'm pretty well prepared for this build...

One of my favourite aircraft of all time is the Reggiane Re.2000. It was a really good looking fighter and certainly was put to good use during the war here in Sweden. I work at the local museum at former Swedish Air Force base F 10 Ängelholm. This wing was the only one equipped with the J 20 in the Swedish Air Force. It served between the years 1941-1945. Sweden was neutral but the south part of the country was not far from the action. Many damaged bombers and fighters from the fighting nations had to be escorted to save landings in Sweden. I've been working on and of correcting the old Classic Airframes kit for several years now. I was just going to finish it when a brand new kit from Special Hobby arrived. I'm going to add the finishing touche to that kit as well in this thread. The Special Hobby kit is actually based on the old Classic Airframes kit. Not that shows all that much. I think it's mostly the wing sprue that is identical. Ok. Lets pick up the plastic parts! Really nice detail on the smaller parts. Cockpit looks great! The clear parts are thin and crystal clear. The decals looks usable, which is seldom the case when it comes to Swedish markings. I think that I might want to take it slow with these small parts in the cockpit. It looks great on paper though. Ooops! I see an embarring mistake here! Special Hobby have managed to mix up the main landing gears on their instructions! I'm going for a Swedish J 20, but maybe not one of those in the kit. We'll see... All in all it looks like a great kit. It should go together much easier than the old CA kit. Here is my Classic Airframes kit by the way. I've spent so much effort on that so I think that it will be finished along with the SH kit. I see a lot of rivets in my near future...

Good choice of kit! I'm a big fan of the Safir. I have flown in those a couple of times. Perhaps not the most beatiful, but it has quite a lot of character. I have (almost) built three of these kits. They are not finished since I'm still haven't bought the last decals for them... The Tarangus kit is short run and need a little care to minimize the amount of work. The main thing to look out for is the fit of the canopy. It is a little wider than the fuselage. I solved this by adding a small piece of plastic card in the nose. Thus spreading the front of the fuselage to fit the clear part. I will be following your build with interest. Andreas

Excellent! I will follow your build and will be taking notes... I've been looking for this kit for years and it's starting to be a bit rare. Now and then a kit is up for sale at Ebay, but the prices are ridiculous! A couple of weeks ago I finally found and bought one at Tradera, a Swedish web auction site. It was very cheap and I'm very excited about this one. I'm a big fan of Classic Airframes. I know that they are usuallly a pain to put together and these kits often are lackning in accuracy. But I still love them. The Gannet is my Classic Airframes kit number 20 in my stash! So... I'm definatly going to look forward to this build... Regards Andreas

I'm going to try and go for the splinter version. I will probably regret it when I'm stuck with all those little pieces of Tamiya tape... I have bought the correct colours from MRP that will be exciting to try out. Hopefully they will look the part since I'm also hoping to use them on my many Viggen kits in my stash.

I really like the old Monogram kit. The shape is so much better than the Occidental/Italeri kit. The quality of the molding of detail is also better on the Revell-Monogram kit. I also agree with MilneBay about the raised rivet detail. Here is a pic of the belly of a Swedish (SK 16) Harvard. Quite a few rivets... Andreas

Right! I almost forgot that I signed up for this group build. I've had this kit in my stash for at least 15 years. I think it is about time that I actually build it. As you can see in the pictures I did start painting the cockpit floor many years ago but somehow I never went any further. This will become a Swedish HKP 4 which I have some fond memories of when it was still in service here in Sweden. The only aftermarket will be an old (slightly yellowed) decal sheet from Flying Colors. I think that I will keep this build simple and concentrate on the exterior. Wish me luck...

I'd like to join this party with this lovely kit. Not what you would call a modern kit, but I think the basic shape is there... Andreas

Please sign me up! I have had the Fujimi 1:72 kit in my stash since forever... I started it some years ago but I only managed to paint the cockpit floor. I have some Swedish decals for it so it will be HKP 4-build. Andreas

Well, why not? Here we go... Some extra fuel is always nice to have! Front fuselage joined with the rear. Almost perfect fit! The thing I worry the most about is not the kit... I've already had a few beers and I might not be sober enough to finish this "barrel" before I'm to tired...

It has been a while since I last worked on this kit. Tomorrow we are going to celebrate the 70th anniversery of the first flight of the SAAB J 29 Tunnan. We are having an event at the museum and I thought that it would be fitting if I have this model on display... So tonight I'm going to be rather busy finishing this old project. To be continued...

Lately I've noticed that I suddenly have become very fond of building british aircraft, although with a swedish flavour... Here is the Hunter that I originally thought was going to be a Swedish Air Force J 34. But now it will be a F.4 from RAF, just to be a bit different... Hopefully it will be finished in a few days so that I can return to my Spitfire. Just to show that I can actually finish something, despite my glacial pace. Here is a Classic Airframes Vampire (1:48) that I built last year. "Slightly modified"! I must try to fix that silvering on that intake decal! I'll be back soon with my more on topic Spitfire build. Andreas

Thanks gingerbob! I felt like an idiot when I couldn't find that tail part in my box... I couldn't find my old scrapped Spitfire 22 so I've decided to build it myself with plasticard. I got a bit distracted when Airfix announced that 1:48 Hunter. I couldn't help it, I love the Hunter. So I dug out my old Academy project from the stash and decided to finish it quickly. I know it's propably illegal here in Sweden but I want to build a RAF one... Andreas

Very unexpected, but very welcome. I will certainly look out for this one! The Swedish Air Force had two Canberras and both are actually "preserved" today. One is standing outside the Flygvapenmuseum (Air Force museum) and the other is in the Svedinos Museum in the south of Sweden. Both have suffered badly after standing outside for many years and they really need some TLC. However, on the positive side, they haven't been scrapped so thats good... That nose is sexy isn't it? Andreas

Lovely idea to build a F 10 aircraft! Why didn't I think of that...? The F 10 wing was unfortunatly disbanded and the airbase closed in 2002. I work as a volunteer at the museum we started in one of the hangars. It's a very popular museum that is completely run by volunteers. (Around 20 000 visitors/year). About the kit... The Hasegawa/Revell kit is a wonderful, easy to build kit. The fit is decent if you're careful and the only place where there will be a gap to fill is below the tail section. There are a ton of aftermarket for this kit, both resin and etch. Most of these aren't really needed since the cockpit is really small and if the canopy is closed none of it will be seen. Here are a few detail shots of the J 35J cockpit (the J 35F is similar). I have lots and lots of leftover aftermarket stuff and decals for the Draken in 1:72. If you're interested send me a PM and I can send you some for free... :-) Andreas

Hej gingerbob! The "under-the-rudder-thingie" is the only thing that is missing from the Seafire-kit. I thought that I had an old started Spitfire 22-kit somewhere in my "stash" that I could steal this part from. However I can't find it right now. Well, I don't think that it will be difficult to scrathbuilt a new part when I get to that part of the build.

Often I get a bit carried away with my builds. This is one of those... I found that one can buy decent copies of manuals and in this case pilot's notes on Ebay. As soon as I spotted this one I knew that I had to have it. Not so much for the modeller but still very interesting to read. The cockpit pics with some information of the various instruments was also useful. Anyway it wasn't expensive and I've been having trouble finding decent pictures of the Spitfire 22-cockpit. I'm using the instrument panel from Yahu. If you're not familiar with this brand I can certainly recommend this range. Absolutely lovely prepainted panels! However they don't do a correct panel for the Spit 22 so I bought one for the Spitfire Mk.IX/XVI instead. The main visable difference are the two colourful instruments to the right. I chose to correct this with some quick licks of paint. I wasn't entirely happy with the result so it took a few tries before I gave up and just decided that it was enough. I also painted everything except the instrumentfaces with a matt varnish. It will do. It looks so much better irl than in the pics. Now it's time to figure out how the rest of the details in the cockpit should be painted... Andreas

That is a J 29F wing... I thought that the J 29B version would be released first. Not that it matters since I really want a Tunnan in that big, lovely scale...

Finally my order from Hannants arrived! I guess that I have no more excuses now for not continuing with my Spitfire... Andreas

Wow! I'm impressed. That looks absolutely fantastic! Now I want to see lots of pics of this one finished... I didn't know that Flying Colors had a website. I've been using Sten's (not Sven) decals for about 20 years or so... Thank you for the link. Regards Andreas

I took a good look at these sprues at the local contest a couple of months ago. I like what I saw. It seems to me that they actually listened to some of the feedback from modellers. For the first time we will get the RAT (Ram air turbine)! The main flaw that Special Hobby haven't corrected from the 1:48 kit is the wheels. The nose wheels are horrible and have no detail whatsoever. The mainwheels are better detailwise but the are way to thin. They belong on a bicycle, not a Mach 2 fighter aircraft! Maestro have made some resin wheels for the old Heller kit that will improve the look on this Viggen as well. Andreas

I hope that this mean that we finally will get an accurate Re2000. It's a beautiful aircraft that have been treated rather badly in plastic. I've finished my 1:72 one a couple of months ago. In an effort to make it as accurate as possible I used parts from three different kits. It was mostly based on the Special Hobby one. The engine and cowling came from the Legato kit and wheels and some other small parts came from Italeri. A few parts like landing gear covers were scrathbuilt. However we really need a modern, easy to build Reggiane in all scales! Andreas

As usual I put all the small pieces on toothpicks for easy handling when painting. Here is my little forest of Spitfireparts... I started with an almost black also known as "Viggen-black" from MRP. I really like this shade, mostly because I have a lot of it at home. I ordered quite a lot of MRP-bottles from a Swedish hobby shop and they managed to send me the wrong shades. All black... Highlighting with quick sprays of white. And then it's time for the grey-green. I used Humbrol Acrylic 78 for no other reason than I already had it on my desk... Now it's time for some weathering and some painting of detail. Andreas