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Here is my Airfix Curtiss Tomahawk IIB in 1/72nd scale. This particular aircraft, GA-F, was flown by P.O. Neville Duke with 112 Sq, Fort Maddalena, Libya in 1941. The Airfix kit box art:- The following items were used:- Kit is Airfix starter set A55101. Kit Decals used. MRP lacquer paints for main camouflage. Tamiya paints for primer et.al. Rub ’n Buff metal paste for the exhausts. Quickboost resin propellor set QB 72 364. SBS resin exhausts 72039. Scratch-built bullet-proof screen and gunsight. Replaced fuselage spine aerial with brass rod. More Pictures of the finished article:- As promised @stevehnz here is a photo of the bullet proof screen. You can just about see a blob of PVA glue on the top left corner. I’m glad my eyes don’t have the resolution of my camera otherwise I’d never build another model! What I learned from this build. The spinner is red, not black as Airfix would have you believe. This is typical Airfix starter set practice so they don’t need to supply red paint. They also don’t supply stencil decals. On the shark mouth decals I would cut the lip extensions off and apply them separately. Tamiya Extra Thin Cement is fierce! Be careful how much you use and how hard you clamp your parts. MRP paints spray beautifully if you can cope with the smell. Use a spray booth! Don’t touch your decals after applying MicroSol until they are dried. Cutting out canopy frame masking in situ is not easy. There’s gotta be a better way. The carpet monster lives! I lost my landing light and had to use Micro Krystal Klear. Do not use a hair dryer to dry paint on resin propellor blades. They warp! Quickboost resin propellors are nice but the jigs are all but useless. The jig’s hole is nowhere near central and the blades on mine ended up angled back and I had to warm them up to straighten them. I’d still use them, but they aren’t a huge improvement on the kits propellor imho. SBS resin exhausts are very nice and well worth using. Getting old sucks. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Above all else choose a subject to build that you love. I made the mistake of picking this kit because although I appreciate the significance of the subject and it’s a lovely little kit, the P-40 isn’t an aircraft in which I’m all that interested. I thought I could rattle it off quickly to give myself a bit of practise because I wasn’t too bothered if I messed it up. When I built my Airfix Spitfire 1a I was always really looking forward to seeing the finished product because I love Spitfires, so I had no problem getting down to it and built it in about three weeks.. With this P-40 I just wasn’t as passionate about the subject and consequently lost a lot of interest in it. Modellers block became a serious problem and going to my modelling desk became a bit of chore rather than a pleasure, hence the seven month build time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I built it, I learned a lot and I’m very pleased with the result. However, I have more than enough kits of subjects I do love so I’ll make sure I start with them first from now on. Perhaps Special Hobby’s nice little Gnat F1. I have two of those so I can afford to mess it up. Comments and criticism are very welcome. Thanks for your interest everyone. Regards, Keith. The build thread is here:- My previous model Airfix Spitfire 1a DW-K is here:-

Once again greetings from a very balmy Brisbane, Australia (believe me, Winter can't come soon enough!). This was my second entry into what has been a very successful Matchbox II Group Build. Final entries closed at midnight yesterday and although there were over 130 promised kit starts, 96 completed Matchbox models made it into the final Gallery - very impressive. This Tempest kit was rescued from the ever present 'Spares box' and was missing a number of parts which were either obtained on here via the BM 'Wants' section or donated from other Tempest scrap kits. I've done enough waffling over the course of this build, so here is the dedicated WIP thread link and a few photos of the completed model. Cheers and thanks... Dave (oh - apologies for the amount of photos - I got carried away with my first ever WIP!). And a few WIP photographs

I'll be building Airfix's bf 110 E/E2 trop kit. This one: (sorry to nab you photos again Paul) I'm not going to do any sprue shots because: 1. I'm really bad at them 2. Paul A H has done a wonderful job in his review on the kit here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/58807-messerschmitt-bf-110-ee2-trop/ It looks like a nice kit, if a bit simple. This will be an OOB build that takes far longer than it should, because I have 1 day a week to work on my models. That being said, it shouldn't be too hard to finish the kit in time for the GB. Any advice about this particular kit would be appreciated. If the other recent Airfix kits are anything to go by, this should be a delightful ad trouble free build (please don't let me be wrong here!) K