Search the Community

Well, back again for another round! As stated at the end of my last build, I decided to dig out a decades old Shelf Queen. This was started with the old Paragon? 1/72 resin XB-40 conversion set and the old Hasegawa B-17F kit for "Hell's Angels": I had started this kit years ago, and had gotten this far: As you can see in the photo, there were a few problems with this kit. First off, it had the wrong windows set-up in the nose compared to the XB-40, which was based on a very early B-17F-1-BO. Also, the windows didn't fit very well, and while I had been able in years before this to glue in clear windows with CA and then sand and then polish them, it didn't work out very well this time around, particularly where the gun holes were already in the clear parts; they also turned out pretty hazy, rather than clear. The next photo shows the nose gun conversion, which later became standard on the B-17G: In the picture above, right, I even re-located the waist gun on that side forward, as the few pictures around at that time indicated. The waist gun windows were masked over from the inside using Scotch tape, which I figured could be fished out after painting -- a good idea at the time, not as good after the tape sat for more than 20 years! At this point, I become frustrated with the windows problem, and she became an official Shelf Queen, but I looked at her every few years, but didn't come up with a solution. Fast forward to this week, and seeking a project that for once had no natural metal, I decided to drag the old girl out for yet another look, having gleaned a few more photos on-line over the passing years. And that's when I realized.....I'd screwed up, as the following picture shows: The waist gun on the right side of the first XB-40, 41-24341, had NOT been moved forward! All my work moving it was a wasted effort. To be sure the gun position HAD been moved forward on the "Y"B-40, but not on the "X"! After pondering whether I could cut open the fuse and redo the waist gun, I decided to take a look the the Academy B-17E kit I had in the stash, awaiting birth as a Midway B-17; since the B-17E and B-17F are said to mostly be the same externally, except for the nose glazing, it seemed worth a shot: The very first thing I checked was the fit of the clear windows -- how much filling would be required. The two small ones I took off the trees and fit to the model fit perfectly. Also, they were almost entirely correct for the XB-40! So far, so good. Next, I noticed that the Academy B-17E kit had provisions for you to cut out the right side waist gun position that you preferred: So, I cut out the rear-most or non-staggered position. Again, so far, so good. Next thing was to make the cutouts for the rear top turret part of the conversion: The conversion part turned out to be 38 or 39mm in length after I used debonder to remove the part from the Hasegawa kit. It turned out to be 20-21 mm in width, which fortuitously happened to correspond to existing kit lines of the Academy B-17E kit. So, as is my custom these days, I used Dymo tape and a scriber to scribe very fine, precise lines to guide a very fine-bladed razor saw for the cut-ous: This method provides a very precise cut-out, as can be seen below: At this point, there was a very slight difference in height between the Academy kit and the resin part: This is taken care of by two strips of 40 thou card glued from the inside with liquid glue, and aligned carefully with the outside of the fuse, to reduce later sanding and filling: Above right, the bomb bay door were glued in place. Since this was a bomber escort, it's carrying capacity was for ammo, not bombs, so there wouldn't be much to see if the bay was left open. Contrary to remarks of another builder on-line, I found the doors to fit very well. I re-enforced them with small strips of card on the inside of the ends, and set the whole shebang aside to dry. Well, looks like I'm off to a good start -- praying for smooth sailing... See you soon, Ed

A smashing little quick build, the hobbyboss mi-17 kit in 1/72 built in the 80s front line asia gb, It represents an afghan mi-17 from the soviet conflict, built oob exept for some old pe seatbelts from the spares box, btw, windscreen wipers to be painted when i get my new spectacles 😳 Cheers

Aeroclub T7 1/72 with homemade decals. Converted from single-seater G-AIDC Steve

This is the AMP kit in 1/72 with Classix Ford Thames ET6 (lengthened chassis and new flat-bed), both are with homemade decals Steve

Hello all... Im going to be building a P-47D of the 201st Fighter Squadron Mexican Air Force. Stationed at Clark field April 1945. I will be using the Revell 1/72 P-47 kit for this. I will be using these Decals from Aztec models. Like my recent Bearcat build these decals are a gift from @RidgeRunner and are very much appreciated. While talking about the decals i presumed i was just going to get the ones for my plane. Nope he sent me the whole set minus the ones he needed. Needless to say i was very shocked when i saw them, however the benefit will result in a Cuban P-47 as well in the near future( just need to by another kit). This will be a slower build as I've currently got five builds on the go, and the other four are for group builds. This will be a fill in build while something is drying/setting in those builds. Questions, comments, good stories, and or thoughts are welcome. Dennis

Hello all - I started this kit a few nights ago but have only got round to posting tonight - I’m going back to 1/72 land after a brief jaunt into 1/48 - which I thoroughly enjoyed but I have a large stash of aircraft in the smaller variety so I reckon I’ll try to get as many of those finished before buying any more kits - that’s the plan in any case 😇. Here’s the kit - the new tooled Il-2 from tamiya - I bought this from a supplier in japan as I couldn’t find it anywhere else - took about 2 months to arrive but I was v happy when it did. I love Soviet warbirds - so utilitarian - brutish and gnarly. I want to build a load of them but this is the first on the hit list. Not much in the way of aftermarket- some resin wheels and a canopy mask. Starting this off - begining with the fuselage. This went together nicely as you would expect from a tamiya new tool... With that complete I got into the pit... which I’ve just about finished... sorry I neglected to take pictures. Forgot I was Wip ing 😌 I added some eduard seatbelts - after gluing into place they got a coat of tamiya panel line wash - brown. The instrument panel was quite nice - the decal went on nicely - I painted on some details and then put on another wash after a gloss coat. The fuel tank was painted black and then I dry brushed on aluminum- followed by a panel line wash. The rear section has some nice detail but is still pretty sparse. After the initial coat of tamiya xf22, I dry brushed a lighter colour - base coat with added white. Then picked out some details with a few more colours. There was a pretty big seam line on the floor of the back section- so I added some wire to cover this up... So a quick dry fit to make sure everything was on track... Fit is very good. I’m enjoying this immensely so far - hopefully things continue in this vain. More to follow shortly - thanks for looking in !

Hi all, first work I'm posting on here. Relatively new modeler, this is probably my seventh completed build. Open to any critiques and constructive criticism! The model is of a YF-19 test jet/mecha (they call them variable fighters) from the anime Macross Plus. The story pits this conventionally controlled fighter against a neural-controlled YF-21 in test trials to see which would be the replacement for the current fleet fighter. The photos might hide some of the horrors, but from my own critical eye there's a noticeable amount of silvering in some decals, I butchered some areas I tried to re-scribe, and there are some joins that could have been puttied and sanded better. Also, I snapped apart one of the foot/engine nozzles, which is why they are uneven. I tried making my own stand for the first time, converting this to an in-flight model. This meant drilling a hole and plugging in a styrene tube to support a brass rod. It actually worked out pretty well, but it is very back heavy. I'm hoping the base I'm making for this will support it hah, but wanted to snap some photos first. In the stash is the 1/48 version of this plane, but I'm waiting for my skills to improve before I tackle it. Thinking a color closer to white for that one. This 1/72 version was good practice, and I will be building the YF-21 companion soon as well. Stynylrez grey primer Mission Model paints, Mission Model & Vallejo Metal Color for metals Molotow Liquid Chrome pen & Tamiya clears for the lights Mission Models gloss & Allclad Klear Kote Matte Mig enamel & mechanical pencil for panel lines (I generally like subtle panel line colors, but figured with an anime subject black was the right choice)

Righty-ho, here's another completion for the year, KP's re-issue of the RV Aircraft 1/72 MiG-21UM in Cuban colours. Colours are a mixture of Humbrol and Xtracolor; an old tin of Humbrol Authentic HG10 German WW1 Blue combined with 117 US Light Green for the uppersurface and 65 Aircraft Blue for the underside. Xtracolor X629 Soviet Cockpit Green/Blue, X628 Eastern Bloc Wheel Hub Green, Revell 6 Tar Black and various Humbrol colours were used for the details. Decals are from Aztec Models' "Castro's Raiders" sheet. The model is semi-fictional as I went with the theory that MiG-21UM "Black 526" was probably initially camouflaged in the typical Green/Blue scheme and later repainted in to it's current Green/Sand/Brown one. I also used THIS image as a guide with some interpretation of other pictures of Cuban MiG-21's from THIS page and elsewhere. A little history culled from the 'net: The kit itself is OK, but is typical limited run offering in that plenty of test fitting and filler is needed. It comes with two canopy options - a single part one for display closed and a three piece one so you can display the canopy open. I cracked the single piece one and had to use the three part one instead. Surprisingly the multipart canopy was a better fit! I used NH Detail's MiG-21MF Exterior and Quickboost's MiG-21MF Air Scoop sets as the kit is missing a few items (namely the "Odd Rods" IFF antennas) and the kit air scoops are a bit "blobby"! Now for the photos: Comments welcome! Mike.

Bf-109G-6 | 1/72 | Airfix Fliegerkompanie 7 | Swiss Air Force | 1945 I finished this on July 29th, 2019. It is the much maligned Airfix kit. I had to wait for some enamel to cure on my Banshee and decided to give this one a try. I'd wanted to do a Swiss Bf-109 since seeing one as a computer desktop wallpaper, but heard bad things about this kit. After seeing @John D.C. Masters build of this kit and reading how much fun it was, I decided to give it a shot. It took me about 2 days as there wasn't a lot to it. It was ready to paint within 2 hours. Much of the criticism of this kit is deserved. Airfix did something unforgivable by merging the 2 blisters ahead of the cockpit into one, for reasons unknown: I can understand how this would be enough to put someone off of the kit (and even off of Airfix!), but I decided to fix it with an Xacto knife and some sandpaper prior to gluing the fuselage together and it looks good enough from a distance that I am satisfied. It's very hard to take a picture of, but here's the best I could do: Other criticisms have to do with accuracy, but most of which didn't concern me because I don't know as much about 109's as other planes. Others were unhappy with the lack of cockpit (just an inaccurate seat), but I found you can't really tell when looking through the tiny frames of the canopy, so I wasn't too concerned about that either. The good points of this kit are that it is well engineered, so I had little seam work before painting and the parts fit together beautifully. The wings were a bit of a challenge as the wing tops taper in such a way that you can't mate them to the fuselage if you follow the instructions. I had to kind of gently bend the wing assembly into an anhedral to fit the fuselage in the opening. My suggestion is to glue one wing-top on, glue to the fuselage, then glue the other wing top on. Another good point is the decals: with a strong enough solvent, they settle in nicely and have lots of tiny stencils that really add to the build. My only concern was that the red of the insignia was brighter than the Insignia red they have you paint on the fuselage and rudder. I don't know if that was the way they were in real life, but I suspect not. Painted the aircraft by black basing with Mr. Surfacer 1500 black, and used Mr. Color paints, except for the testors enamel insignia red. Thanks for looking! Comments, questions and constructive criticism always welcome!

... and not just hoard unbuilt kits, here are a couple of aircraft that I've completed recently. The TSR.2 Eagle was completed a couple of months back and is the Airfix kit with a load of resin bits and bobs and Model Alliance decals. This was the first time i used Hataka paints, and I have to be honest is saying that I'm not entirely happy with them and don't really give a smooth finish, but that could just be me. The B-17E is on the Hawaiian Air Deport scheme that was used shortly after Pearl Harbor for a a period on a select few aircraft and was completed last Sunday. Decals are a mix of Kora and Printscale. The Sperry remote turret conversion is from Kora, the engines and cowlings are by Quickboost. Masking the glazed nose was a right pain and one wonders why no one does a mask that includes the E nose!

Greetings Frog Fans! Here is the first of my three entries to the GB. Its the Kannone Vogel Stuka, which has long been a favourite of mine. I will try and add some basic details to the interior as i go along but it will mostly be OOTB as i have triple booked myself with GBs this year: Tiger GB; D-Day GB, and this one! Its going to be a busy old time, but hopefully an enjoyable one....pics Tanks for looking, cheers Greg

Hello again! My second entry for the GB is the Dornier Arrow. This is a Matchbox issue but Scalemates confirmed that it is the Frog parts from 1974. One of the great Frog esoteric subjects it was never actually used in combat as a nightfighter (i think) but the two seater certainly did exist as a trainer version. Cheers Greg

Hello! My contribution for this GB will be the F100F Wild Weasel I. I've had the deepest respect for all crews involved in the SEAD/DEAD mission (or rather, I remember how tricky it was in the good old PC flight Sim EF2000 back in the 90:s) During the Vietnam war it was clear that something needed to be done about the SA-2 threat on a more permanent basis, and the Wild Weasel concept was born. A fast(ish) two seater was needed, and suitable modded to pick up and and locate the SA-2 radar. Once found, they would then mark the target to lead a bunch of strikers to take the site out. The aircraft chosen was the old (that that time) F-100F because they were available, not because they were the best choice. Equipment were different radar detectors and homing devices and to deal with the threat it was then attacked with cannon, rockets or napalm. Unfortunately the F-100F was slower than the strike team the were supposed to protect, and after less than a year it was replaced in theater by the much more capable EF-105F and the F-105G, which had the speed, equipment and weapons to be a better Weasel. This little picture sums it up best: There is a lot more to read up on the F-100F and its Wild Weasel missions on the net, and I might add that to the reference thread later on. Anyway, the plastic I've chosen is this: Trumpys model is lovely detailed and has plenty of parts which is always nice. I know about the fin having the wrong sweep angle, cockpit being way too long and its also missing all the stuff to make a Weasel out of it. I do not plan to change the cockpit nor the fin, but will make an effort to scratch all needed ECM and radio stuff. Just to show that I haven't started yet, here are the runners: Since I'm almost unable to build models without some AM stuff, I tried to keep my AMS in check and have only got this: LAU-3 and napalm canisters will be taken from the old Hasegawa weapon sets. I can already say that I have no idea of how to paint the rear fuselage with it's massive heat distorted paint/metal but I look forward to experiment on it!

I'm building Zvezda's re-pop of the Dragon MiG-17 Fresco A in another GB in aftermarket markings but... One of the kit options is for an aircraft of the NVAF and it depicts the machine that caused the US's first air to air casualty of the Vietnam War, an F-8 Crusader, on 3rd April 1965. A couple of months later I showed my face and things would never be the same again for so many people on three continents Couple of place holders while I wait for the postie to deliver my second kit, these are the box and sprue shots from the other build. It's 25 years old now but still builds easily and quickly. Incidentally, the new Airfix MiG-17 featured in their Workbench article today. Looks good, but it's the after burning version with the big air brakes so there's still a place for this kit for early Frescoes Andy

Hi All, please forgive the late entry but I was only given this one today by a friend I hadn't seen for a year and I thought it would be ideal for this GB. Its bit on the old side as it has 1963 on the inside of the wing and the interior is none existent, it has raised rivet detail but still fine compared to some kits. So some sprue shots. Note the price. 59p reduced from £1.20! When did this go on sale. Not many parts and quite a bit of flash on some. Raised rivets.... but not the mole hills that later airfix kits suffered from. The whole instructions is just 2 A4 sheets. Kit decals, don't look to bad but I wont be using them, I think being 56 year old they'll probably wont come of the backing sheet. I found a picture of a captured Hudson in the Asian theatre with Japanese marking's so I'll go for that. Made a start spraying the interior.

Platz is to release a 1/72nd Heinkel He.219A-7 Uhu kit (manufactured by Dragon) - ref. AE-1 Release expected in July 2016 Sources: http://www.platz-hobby.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=5446&language=en http://www.platz-hobby.com/products/5446.html http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10383511 V.P.

Hello everyone... Well I'm happy to say this one is done. As I mentioned in my build log this is a tribute to Lieutenant D.H.J.Owen (R.N.). While i was looking for some answers during the build process i found my aircraft XV348 was a part of 237 OCU. It was lost in a crash on 31/10/1977. The plane had left Bødø Norway for the U.K. and struck power-lines shortly after takeoff. The back seater survived the pilot did not.  This was my first ever build of a Frog kit, it was a pretty bare bones kit. I was able to scratch the wheel bays and build a cockpit. I have an Airfix Data-link pod given to me by one member for the Martel's. I am using an A/M pitot for the kit given to me another member. And finally i modified one of the Martel's to a T.V. guided variant. I hope the Buccaneer meets your expectations. I used this photo from Canberra kid as the basis of my model. This build is Dedicated to Lieutenant D.H.J. Owen (RN). R.I.P. ... Questions, comments, or thoughts ? If you're curious here is the build log link. Dennis

According to their email newsletter.

Hi there I recently completed my second Norwegian Air Ambulance using the Revell EC-135 kit. The first was using the Airfix MBB BO 155 kit. To make an up to date EC 135 I had to steal the radar nose from a Heller EC 145 kit. Both were finished using the excellent Lima November decals produced by one of our local IPMS club members. I see the EC -135 flying over my house sometimes when they are on a mission. These helicopters are often in the news for their rescue operations. There are some good clips on Youtube showing their rescue’s which are often very risky. Look for: Norsk Luftambulanse. There is a very good clip of a helicopter balancing on the roadside crash barrier to let the doctor out due to insufficient landing space on the road next to a cliff wall.. Unfortunately there was a fatal accident a couple of years ago when the helipcopter struck power lines when landing. Anyway, on the the pictures.

Sometimes you have yourself a kit that is pretty much faultless, the build goes through without issues and it restores your faith in life. This for me is one of those - great package, great book that comes with it, huge colour profile book (32 to choose from!), perfect fit of parts. Probably only couple of things to say is maybe too many parts/bit over engineered for 1/72 (cockpit took me ages and now can barely see it!). Really wish Eduard would do more of these special boxings in 1/72 but they seem to focus on 1/48 recently. Vallejo model air paints, I chose the following markings: #1 S/L Tom Trimble No. 457 squadron, Sattler Airstrip late 1944 #2 F/O Norm Turnbull No 79 squadron, Morotai, April 1945

Hello all, for my entry I will be building Italeri's A10. The kit come with four decal options 2 European green schemes and 2 low vis grey schemes but one has the shark mouth and the later the snake teeth options. I haven't decided which on to build as yet as the kit is not right for a or c model. Just found the Print scale decal sheet which has an experimental camo with warthog tusks and nostrils, 3 tone brown camo looks unusual. Now that the Blackbird is finished I can get started on this one. IMGA0746 by neil Connor, on Flickr

I would like to add a late entry. I have singlehandedly failed to do much modelling recently so I need a GB to kick me into gear. Buried in my stash (so deep it took some time to find it) I have this little gem. I cannot remember where I got it from but it must be 10+ years ago and the kit is obviously much older than that...raised panel lines anyone. The plastic also looks very shiny and a bit brittle. I am going to build it OTB. The main aim to (a) have fun and (b) complete a build. All comments welcome as always. Dave

Seeing as the my last request got some brilliant replies that let me score what I wanted in hours, here's the latest : Do any 1/72 decals exist/are about to exist for this? Maybe my Google-fu is weak today but I couldn't easily spot any in usual places. Cheers Anil

According to Hannats, Roden will release a new Great War model, Type B WWI Omnibus Ole Bill kit, in 1/72 (no 732). It is nice they are slowly but steadily add new kits to WWI ground range in 1/72 scale.

Number 3 for July and 13 done for 2019, our Russian Tank Factory is humming along nicely : Ghastly abomination of a new tool kit from Revell AG, the RFI will show more but truly awful release and vastly inferior to their not so great 1996 effort. That said it looks pretty, even with the wrong markings for a clip tip but necessary as the right ones had opaque carrier film, As usual my integrated Surfacer 1500/Mr Color/Mr Super UV Cut III all thinned with Mr Leveling , system was employed. No drama in this quick build, As its headed out for auction no aerial wire and pre attached pitot of course. That said if you're looking for an accurate MKVb, then keep looking, Buy this and you will regret it the minute you open the box. But awful kits don't really bother me as long as the basic shapes are right so more than adequate for me but YMMV. WIP Beauty shots Mazeltov! Anil