Viking

Don't know if you might have seen this already, I missed it last week but it is available in the UK on the BBC Iplayer for 3 more days, until Thursday 4th August. Excellent program, about ariel photography and the trenches etc. 1 Hour long, I've just watched it, and throughly recommend it. The First World War From Above Watch it if you can. John

Thanks for kind comments, I've had this one in mind for a long time. I'm lucky enough to remember seeing standards & supers in this livery back in the 70's at Heathrow. Never thought it would end, and that BA scheme they were repainted in was just horrible. Stiil, I witnessed the era of true elegence. Well, they are slung in pairs Cheers, John

I have long wanted to make one of these, and had an old Airfix stashed away waiting for the day. It is the most beautiful combination of aeroplane and colour scheme ever known to man. I used replacement resin engines from Braz, and the decals are from Twosix and are superb, absolutely brillaint. I chose to make G-ARVM as she still exists in the Brooklands museum. Here she is in all her glory, I now need to make a BOAC 707 to go alongside! Thanks for looking, John

I'm calling this done. Airfix 1/144 VC-10 with Twosix 'Gold speedbird' decals and Braz engines. (on the advice of other members here. I had never heard of them, so thanks guys!). For a kit stamped '1964' inside the fuselage it goes together really well. The Braz engines certainly look a lot better than the kit ones, and I'd use them again although they didn't quite match and on ontake is slightly oval rather than circular. Its not too noticeable though. the outstanding feature of this is the Twosix decals. They are superb and well worth the moneyThats a 3 piece cheatline down the fuselage, and each section joins up perfectly. I've never had that before, always one bit is a tiny bit wider than its neigbour. Not here though, they are spot on. I won't bang on about it, suffice to say that from all angles I rate these as being amongst the best decals I have ever used. A few pics of W.I.P; I forgot to take a picture of the Braz engines, but cut them from the main redin block leaving a long 'tongue' of resin as a tab to fix it onto the fuselage. I then cut the kit pylons off and lined the insides with a couple of strips of plasticard to form a slot; Being based on the prototype, the Airfix kit is missing an inner wing fence. I made a razor saw cit in each wing, and stuck a roughly shaped oblong of 10 thou plasicard in. When dry I sanded it down to the required profile. I think I might have taken too much off, I would bee happier if it was a little taller. Too late now I prefer 'real' glazing for the cockpit if possible, so made up frames from strip. The opening was a bit wide so i also laid strip along the bottom edge. No other dramas after that, just build, paint & decal it. And heres what comes of it all; Hey, what's that taxying past in the background ? I'll post more over on RFI. Cheers John

Lovely job, the woodwork is great. I built one of these recently and had some debate on here whether to do the fuselage band red or black. I went for black but have to admit red looks nicer! Cheers, John

Lovely job, looks the business. I remember this being the first ever kit I bought, way back when. John

Kev1n, Whoops, it's a case of the written words not conveying the intention of the comment. My apologies if it appeared the wrong way to you. It is meant as a light hearted, humourous, and admiring response to your skill and choice of subject. More power to you mate, I absolutely agree that detailing airliners is no different to other kits. I'm tempted to have go myself on an Airfix Vanguard. I've already got the Twosix BEA red square decals, and the little diecast BEA bus. Im thinking both doors open, airstairs, and some little n gauge people disembarking...... Cheers, John

'ere, your nuts mate, thats wot you are. Seriously, a lovely job, must be very straining on the eyes. I can even see the containers in the hold! John

Having not made many airliner models for a while, my enthusiasm got fired up by looking at the lovely models on this and the 'classic' forum and I have started to look out for Revell kits in the shops. They seem to offer really nice mouldings, with superb decals at a fair price. So I've ended up with a couple of 737-800's and in my innocence searched this forum for comments on the kit. What I found was the people who know more about this accuracy stuff than I do, had 3 major problems with the kit, 1) The window line is too low. - easily sorted, just stick a strip of plasticard on the inside, slap on some milliput to fill the holes from the outside, and sand down. Use window decals placed higher up. 2) The winglets are way too short. - Not too bad, chop the tips off, glue on some plasticard and sand to shape. Or buy resin replacements. 3) The engines are from the earlier series 737's with flattened rims and undersides. They look completely wrong. - Ok, a bit more tricky this, but basically make a new intake rim, stick a bit of plasticard on the uderside to bulk it out, slap on some milliput and get ready for some sanding. I've done all this by eye and make no claims for matching up with drawings etc. All I claim is that it looks a hell of a lot better and cost me almost nothing. Some pics to help; Winglets, slice the tip off, stick a bit of plasticard on. I pre-shaped a strip of plasticard to a rough airfoil section. Glued on with cyano and Zip Kicker so i can sand & shape it straight away. Left, modified but not yet sanded, Right kit part and strip yet to be added. Sanded to shape; how it looks; Engines; I started with some thick plasticard & used my Black & Decker to drill a 10mm hole in it (yes really!). I'm not sure what thickness it is but guess at about 40 thou. Then I cut around the hole about 3-4 mm away leaving me with a rough looking ring. I made 2. These were the glued with plastic weld to the assembled engines (minus the kit intake rings), as was a roughly shaped chunk of 20 thou on the underside. All was left 24 hours to dry. Using wet and dry sanding paper wrapped around a dowel, I then smoothed and blended the inside of the ring. I first used a coarser grit and then a fine one. Then I improved the outside shape of the ring by sanding, but only to about 80% of the final shape. Next step was to plaster on some Milliput, leave it 24 hours, then get busy with sandpaper. I srcibed the main panel lines around the new underside with a needle to connect up with the existing panel lines. Finally, they were sprayed with Halfords primer, then appliance white, and detail painting for the rim etc. heres how it all looks on the taped together kit; A low cost way to improve the kit, but yes it took a bit of time to get the engines done. The winglets were only about 20 minutes work though. Heres my unmodified engines on the Haribo 737; with the new ones; I'll update this as I go along, but the hard work is all done now. (Got to finish the VC-10 and A-319 first as well!) Cheers John

Alf, I'd say they are, but also point out that mine weren't quite perfect Two of the intake rims had air bubbles in, and one intake had a distinctly oval shap rather than round. So there was a bit of clean up and preparation required, nothing too serious, I just had the feeling that mine had probably come out of a mold that was nearing the end of its life. Graeme - thanks for the pic of the winglets they definately have a more blade like appearance, I'll reduce the chord a touch. I extended them using the decals for the Norwegian shuttle as a reference. Kev1n - I'll start a separete topic on how I built up the engines, and add to it as I build the model. Thanks for the comments guys, It nice to know someone looks at my ramblings! Cheers, John

I have a Pfalz on the go at the moment, and read a tip somewhere about mixing up the Pfalz silver gray colour. Basically it is to mix about 50/50 Tamiya white and sliver. I tried it and it looks great. I would have done a mix of grey & silver, but this way looks much better and gives a really good silver grey colur surprisingly. I wouldn't brush paint it though, I've never got on with brushing Tamiya, they spray beautifully though. Cheers, John

Some say he makes great models! John

Good god, that is absolutely stunning. What a beautiful build, and those decals look out of this world. I'm almost lost for words! Cheers, John

You're a brave man Cuprar, I admire your steely nerve to take on a job like that! Its already looking beautifull Cheers, John

Alf, The glazing is the clear part in the kit, glued in & masked. The silver decal surround went on last but I had to trim it. The 2 'side' frames wrapped around and pointed upwards ruining the 'face' of the 737. I carefully cut them free with a new blade while still wet, ad re-orientated them. the top line if the whole window frame should be straight, as I now have it, From the box it doesn't do that. Rich, the VC-10 is still WIP, but nearly finished. Sneak preview of how its coming on. I've done seperate frames & the glazing still needs to go in; Next up (after the BA A319 I inexplicably started last weekend) is my next 737-800. This time though I wanted to have a crack at sorting out those engines. I've modified the kit ones and they look a hell of a lot better. The problem is the squashed intake rings and flattened off underside. Heres what I've managed to do; I've also extended the winglets; And here is what it will be. All I've made is the winglets & engines, the rest of it is still in the box but I feel that I've a good chance of making a better -800 now. Cheers, John

Wow, Thanks 487 I haven't seen that lower picture before. I was aware that it was fully checkered at some point and had its serial painted on the fin, (I wish I could remember where I read this), which is why I did mine like that, minus serial. It seems to have been painted in stages so any amount of checkering would seem to be accurate. I hadn't seen the OH decals sheet either, seems that it is 1/32 so must be aimed at the wingnuts kit. That would look fabulous, and decalling will be far easier. Nice to see that someone else agrees with me on black rather than red. The million dollar question is that knowing that the centre of the roundel is red, what colour do you think the checks are? Deriving colours from old B&W photos is a complete minefiled. I went for black as I read "somewhere" that there was eye witness evidence that they were black. I'm happy with it like that so if conclusive proof evere emerges that red is correct, please no-one tell me. I don't want to repaint it! Thanks all for the kind comments, John

Many thanks for the kind comments folks, It turned into one of those where the enthusiasm began to wear off, but I had done so much work on it I had to keep going. It ended up being more of a chore than a pleasure to work on. I knocked the rudder off 3 times, and the elevators twice. Each time re-attaching them brought a new blemish on the surface. The kit itself went together really well. No fit issues or dramas at all for such a complex aeroplane. I'd say it was one of Eduards best. I've got the other profipack boxing of it with standard PC10 camouflage, should be a doddle after this, but I feel the need for a simpler Pfalz or something next. Woody, the base is just a 18" square of 10mm MDF with plaster 'mod roc' smeard on top to make it uneven. then painted with dark earth. Finally a soultion of diluted white glue, and some railway scenic scatter on it. Its getting a bit tatty now, so I might redo some of it. Cheers, John

Like it! Interesting scheme. Cheers, John

Nice one! Looks great in that half and half scheme. I'm tempted to do one myself now. As for Roden decals, I have always had trouble with them. They look great on the sheet, but its often a different story once you start to put them on a model. John

I'll second Epeeman, nice one! Your prop looks great, and that gun arrangement on the top wing is fantastic, beautifully done. Lovely job Cheers, John

Fabulous job Rich, really lovely. Looks good in that scheme doesn't it? John

This is my take on Eduards Bristol Fighter 'The Crocodile'. This was a post WW1 machine based a Witney on Oxfordshire with a training unit, hence the gaudy colour scheme. There is some debate as to whether it was read & white checks, or black & white. I read somewhere that there was eye witness evidence that it was black so I went with that. The kit supplies hundreds of pre cut kabuki tape masks but I didn't fancy trying to place them all neatly lined up, so deivised my own simpler method described Here If anyone is interested in struts and rigging techniques, it is described in another topic Here All I can say is I'm glad its finished! Thanks for looking, John

Well its taken a while but 'The Crocodile' is now finished. More pics on Ready For Inspection. John

487, thats a stunner! beautiful job you must be chuffed with that! Cheers, John

Epeeman, Thats looking fantastic, You've got that b*****d beat! 487, If its any consolation I did jump on my first one! John