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Hi everybody, back to a propeller build and in 1/48, after a few jets in 1/72. At the beginning of WWII, the Regia Aeronautica acquired a number of JU 87 B-2 to equip its dive bomber wings; these were nicknamed "picchiatelli" (plural, the singular is "picchiatello") by the Italian pilots, referring to its role (dive bomber in Italian translates into "bombardiere in picchiata") but also to the fact that "picchiatello" means "slightly mad", 'cause you had to be like that for the job ... . I'll provide more info as I go, meanwhile here's the boxart the doc a (relatively) clean workspace and a brand new Optivisor This replaced the cheapo version I used till now; since I'd been using it more and more, and it had no ability to raise the whole magnifier overhead, I decided it was time to invest in something a bit more professional. Here are some sprue shots Clear parts PE fret and decals ... although I planned to paint most of the markings. Instructions and the AC I'm going to reproduce This was Capt. Giuseppe Cenni's mount; the first WIP I posted on BM, back in 2014, was of then Major Cenni's RE2002 - he was shot down in that airplane a few days before the armistice was signed, during a useless sortie. Such is war. Anyway, if anyone is interested, here's the link to that old build: and to the RFI I'm not particularly proud of that build, so I'm hoping to make up for that with this one, and honor Maj Cenni's memory in a better way. I haven't really started it, except for a quick dry fit/tape together of the main parts: here are the fuselage halves, nicely detailed and crisply molded Same for the wings, with just a little flash on the flaps and the wing tips The join at the leading edge is pretty good wing roots will need some TLC, but it's just a matter of correct positioning underside not bad at all Some (typical ... ) panel lines misalignment along the bottom joint And that's all I did so far. Works will resume with the cockpit. I haven't decided as of yet if I'll represent this model with the engine in plain sight, removing the cowling (one of the kit options). No aftermarket foreseen, probably some scratch building along the way. Please feel free to chime in, comment, suggest and propose. Ciao

Good evening guys, I hope everyone is well! I decided to share the photos of the build I finished today, which as the title suggests is Tamiya's Bf-109 E-4/7 Tropical, 8 / JG 27 in 1/48th scale. I attempted to do a work in progress section for this build, however forgot to upload the photos until I had just finished painting the model and so it was a bit of a short lived work in progress with only one update before completion. However as mentioned in the work in progress update, I chose to build this after watching a youtuber by the name of Keeto who was using fillable acrylic pens to do mottling work which I found pretty interesting, he made it look quite straight forward, and until I build up the courage to re- try my hand at Luftwaffe mottling, I thought this could be my substitute. I got the Luftwaffe paint set by AK interactive to test out their paints as I had never bought one of their sets prior to this, and was really impressed with them. I felt their colours looked pretty accurate to me and the paint sprayed really nicely and also flowed out the pen well after a bit of testing with thinners. The only downside for me with this approach to mottling is that it looks too well painted, rather than the usual misty outline on usual mottling, but I still kind of like this even though its not totally accurate. Its safe to say, I think I will continue to use these pens, especially being that they're around £3 or so on amazon, I've got my eye on a Japanese scheme to use with the pen next, I think its a Ki-47? I loved the build, I was making it to fill in the gaps between making my Eurofighter Typhoon, however it took over pretty quickly and now the Typhoon has been put aside as and when I feel like working on it. It was really refreshing to go back to a Tamiya kit after working on some models that have been eating away at my time. Due to the model being a bit of a test for the Acrylic pen, I thought i'd try a few different things to get a different finish, this being trying to get an interesting weathered effect. I feel it came out alright but next time, i'd be a bit more refrained rather than taking a piece of sponge and splatting away at the painted model, you can see in the photos it didn't go completely to plan. The only problem I had which was a big mistake on my part was after I put an enamel wash over the kit. I decided to use Vallejo's varnishes inbetween paint layers rather than Klear which is my usual go to and I think this might have been what caused the problem... Once the wash had dried after about 10 minutes or so, I got an old rag out to start rubbing the excess off and was having no luck, I had ran out of my enamel thinners and haven't bothered buying any more since as I never usually have an issue with the washes but started worrying, it looked a complete mess. I came on here for previous articles on alternatives to get the wash off and hoping that I wouldn't have to drive into town to go to my local hobby store. Luckily I read that I could use white spirit to try and fix it; it kind of did the trick but ate away at some of the varnish and subsequently a bit of the paint underneath which is why there are some pretty heavy stains on the model. Either way, I think the White Spirit saved the model from being a total disaster even with a few messy marks left behind. I think, with my next paycheck the first thing im gonna do is buy some new varnishes (let me know if anyone has what they feel is the best) as I always seem to have issues with Vallejo's. I hope you all enjoy, let me know on any fixes to the issues I had if you like or any criticism, its all appriciated, im still working on my finishing with models. Thanks everyone, stay safe! Ryan

Hi folks, Patrice has kindly let me join with this beast (apols for the odd orientation; haven't downloaded a photo alteration app to my phone): Yep it's the old Otaki boxing, originally from the '70s. Simple kits and some of the detail is a bit rudimentary, but generally acknowledged to be pretty accurate in outline. Here's (sort of) what you get in the kit: Nice plastic with good fit and -amazingly for the '70s - very fine recessed panel lines. This will be an 'improvement' build, making use of Eduard spares, some AM goodies and scratch building. Why not build an Eduard Spit instead and save myself the trouble? No idea; just 'ornery, I suppose. Here's the AM: . . . and here are some Eduard spares I'd forgotten I could use before buying the AM <sigh>. Some of you may have noted that I'd already started. More on that soon - plus a discussion on what Mark this kit actually represents Rgds Martin

HI everybody; here's my latest off the bench, Academy's 1/48 Messerschmitt BF 109 G6, in the markings of Erich Hartmann's Yellow 1. The kit is actually an Academy re-boxing of the original Hobbycraft; not much trouble building it, but it's oversimplified in terms of details. The idea was to do a quick build and practice painting the German mottling camouflage ... but couldn't resist and I added some scratch built items. The WIP thread is here, if anyone's interested in. Scratch built items: - Pitot tube (using a prescription needle mounted on the kit plastic shaft) - Navigation lights - Wheel wells struts and canvas covers - Main wheels break lines - Seatbelts (out oh lead foil coming from a wine bottle cap) - Fuel pipe inside the cockpit, plus various other interiors bit - Open canopy holding cable plus other minor things. Aerial was done using one of my eldest daughter hair. The crosses have been painted, doing my own mask; same goes for the ventral yellow band. The kit itself was painted using mostly Tamiya Acrylics, with an airbrush; detail painting by brush, using mainly Lifecolor. The Swastikas were not provided in the kit decals, so I used some from an Eduard FW190 kit; for this reason, they are the wrong kind and size, but since this was all an experiment, I figured I wanted to test how Eduard's decal would react (much better than Academy ones, by the way) Enjoy! Any comments welcome Some pics on an old base I had laying around Sorry for the mess up, I inadvertently posted while still writing Ciao

The answer is: no! (to me, at least ) Few words on the kit: it's well known, and as Troy Smith pointed out in my WIP thread (see here if you're interested), has some shape issues, concerning mainly wings and fuselage shape. I didn't feel like I was able to fix them, though, so I decided to build this kit as an experiment for various techniques such as, for instance, salt chipping (first time ever for me), an doing my own mask for roundels. No aftermarkets used, but definitely some scratch - building involved: - cables and wires and few other details inside the cockpit - radio switches box (cockpit again) - brake lines on undercarriages - pitot tube (using a prescription needle) - back canopy thermoformed, as the kit one is too wide and tends to break at the minimum pressure - IFF aerials, using hair probably something else, but I don't remember now. Roundels, fin flag and code letters were airbrushed, using self made masks. The only kit decals I've used are the serial numbers and the stencils. The AC I intended to reproduce is this: A quite battered one, indeed. Here are the pics: Weathering details Bottom view r More detail pics to follow

Hi everybody; here we go, back to aircraft modelling after a figure painting interlude. This time it's Tamiya Spitfire Mk Vb in 1/48, my first Tamiya kit and second Spit ever (first one dates back an era or so ... ). The idea is to do an OOB build, meaning that I will not use aftermarkets, but I intend to do some scratchbuilding. Here's the kit boxart Sprue shots I'll be doing this Aircraft (which is one of the options of the kit) So I started with a quick dryfit of the main parts: fuselage Wings Wings to fuselage, showing a couple of points that will require a minimum amount of tidying up: With tail planes fitted I'll be largely copying from Stix's thread (here) for this build. Please feel free to add any comments/contributions to the thread; as usual, I'm mainly doing it to learn from others. Next post is showing some initial surgery

Hello Britmodellers; here's my latest model, Italeri's 1/48 Reggiane RE 2002 Ariete, in the markings of Major Giuseppe Cenni mount (supposedly) just before the armistice, August 1943. For this reason, all the "fasci" on the original AC were either cancelled or over-painted, as I tried to reproduce. Sadly enough, Major Cenni was shot down a few days before the official armistice date, after a chase operated by some Spitfires, in southern Italy sky. The kit is ... oh well, as Troy says, a real pig: inaccuracy and fit problems all over; I tried to correct something, such as thinning the wings and using a resin spine, I did some scratch-building and some surgery, all of which can be seen in the WIP Thread Paints are mainly Tamiya Acrylics and Lifecolor Acrylics; the antenna wire is one of my eldest daughter's hair. White band and rudder cross are painted, only the marking on the latter was cut out from the kit decals Now the pics, comments and suggestions are more then welcome Wing guns are small copper pipes coming from electric contacts, cut to size It was while taking this pic that the disaster happened: I was outside, wind arose and ... .... disaster Well, I fixed it all, and as a matter of fact some of the pics above have been taken after the fix (which also involved replacing the antenna wire, that now stays much tighter) Details you can't see in the completed model; the rudder pedals were completely scratch-built; some cables, pipes and knob were added; instrument dials are kit decals, with a drop of PVA glue to simulate glass Engine was detailed adding some wirings I've also scratch built the radio rack, using some leftovers from an old Tornado kit (!?!) Ciao

Hello Britmodellers; here is my first aircraft WIP on BM: it's the Italeri 1:48 Reggiane RE2002. The kit box: The only aftermarket I'll be using: First damage (while removing the excess resin): Easy fix, anyway, with some CA. See the difference with the kit fuselage spine: Quick dryfit test: There's going to be some work to be done on the wing-to-fuselage joins: Even more so here: Opened up the wing gun holes: And put a stop for the gun barrel: Some rescribing (wing gun doors): Opened the radio access panel and scratch built some details of the internal structure (not much would be seen, but a minimum maybe...) See you for the next update

Hello everybody; second completed model for me here on BM, it's Academy's 1:48 Lavochkin LA7, Soviet Ace Ivan Khozedub's machine. The subject is probably well known, and the kit too; I built it as part of my learning curve, experimenting new (to me) techniques and some scratch building. Some details about the kit and my built: - first time masking with blue tac (called Patafix here in Italy, and it's actually white); I must say I'm pretty happy with the soft edge you get with demarcation lines - scratch built pitot, using a prescription needle - scratch built details in the wheel bay - scratch built minor details inside the cockpit (harnesses, some piping and control wheels) - I had a horrible time with the kit decals, so I decided to paint on the red stars on the tail rudder (I think it shows, as the inner star is a bit off center compared to the outer), the two red&white triangles on the engine covers, and part of the numbers. - aerials went south when I painted them, so lesson learnt for next time: first paint, then glue 'em in (it's a standard white cotton thread) - gun barrels are from the spare box On with the pics, any comments welcome Underside: More details: Cockpit details Pitot Cockpit again Tail Nose