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I'm sure most of us have seen this one before... Wherever possible, I used the kit part and tweaked it. I added a resin cockpit and substituted the kits radar antenna with aftermarket. These antennas were great and will use them again when the opportunity arises. I moved the kits drop tanks inboard to the correct position, lettered and dented. I vac formed the kit canopy and opened it up. Canopy frames done with decal strips. The ubiquitous bottom shot. I am converting, (kicking and screaming,) to acrylics. In this case I'm using MMP paints and they performed very well with no problems. I wish I had done the camouflaged blotches better, my airbrush failing not the paints. Clear gloss, decals then dull coat and panel lines drawn on with a fine ink pen. Are there better 110's out there?, yes, but this was great fun reworking olde plastic.

Hi all and another blast from the past finished for the recent Frog GB here. Build thread is here but to recap: Kit: Frog F-4K/M Phantom Scale: 1/72 Paints: Halfords plastic primer, Revell Acyrlics, Flory Models wash, Klear, W&N Satin varnish Build: Small panel line rescribe. Scratchbuilt engine doors. Seats, cockpit & canopy from Italeri F-4S Decals: From the kit with some extras from the spares With an equally ancient Airfix F-4 I built a couple of years back. Good fun and looks like a Phantom from across the room! Thanks for looking and happy modelling. Cheers, Dermot

Hi folks This is my first post here so hello first of all. Since I found this site I’ve learned a ton of stuff and been inspired and intimidated in equal measure. Look forward to hopefully be a bit more of an active contributor as opposed to a lurker Reading around it sounds like I’m not the only one who has picked up a model for the first time in many moons due to the COVID-19 lockdown. I can’t actually remember the last time I built a model plane but it must be at least 45 years ago. I also wasn’t quite sure whether this was the right place to post this (apologies if it isn’t)? If I’d discovered this forum earlier I would have posted some work in progress shots but as it is I’ve nearly finished the plane but I don’t consider it ready for inspection as I want to build a trolley for it. I might even have a go at a diorama but not sure yet. I picked up this kit for a fiver I’ve attached a few pictures of where I’ve got to and would appreciate any critique of the current status and also any suggestions for anything I might have missed. Happy to provide any details about what I’ve done so far too. I made quite a few changes along the way as the kit wasn’t very accurate and I’m reasonably happy with it although it doesn’t stand up to really close inspection. I kept reading about things that I’d never come across before which sounded like a good idea (e.g. using foil to make the plane look like metal) but turned out to be blooming tricky. I only came across rescribing recently at which point I almost decided to bin it and start again but in the end I couldn’t face that and decided to carry on. I don’t think it looks too bad even thought the bodywork isn’t really much like the real thing. As I said though I’m keen to build a trolley next to display the plane and I found the plans for the pavla model which I am going to use but I’m a bit stumped as to how to make the wheels and was looking for some inspiration. I wondered if anyone had any tips for making tires in particular. I’ve worked out how to do the wire spokes but am not happy with my ideas so far for tyres... all tips gratefully appreciated. thanks Daryl P.S. The decals all fell apart when I put those on and I had to slide all the bits around on the surface of the plane and reassemble them all like a jigsaw puzzle. Luckily it’s not too noticeable but it was a real pain. Is there a trick to avoiding this happening? I’m assuming it’s because they were old (I actually used the ones from the airfix kit which someone sold me on eBay)

Thought some of you might enjoy this olde plastic. I'm sure most of you have seen or built this kit from 1967 or so. Mine came to me in a baggy missing the stand and with 2 sets of unusable decals. Although much maligned for being inaccurate, it really is not that far off from drawings and it doesn't seem THAT bad... I wanted to recreate this moment when F/O Collier became the first known pilot to down a V-1 Buzz bomb by tipping it over using his own wing. I had no base with the kit so came up with my own. I roughed in the positions of the two a/c and then finished them up. I have no access to an airbrush so the spitfire was done with spray bomb. The V-1 did get airbrushed during a brief couple of hours in Connecticut. I inked in the panel lines on both a/c with a fine pen. I added a pilot from the Revell set, cut and turned his head, sanded and reshaped the nasty FROG canopy and vac-formed my own. All markings are from aftermarket generic sheets of roundels and RAF code letters. The serial numbers are press-type on clear decal. I thought about staining the wood base but decided not to. I printed a photo of the English countryside from the web and spray mounted that down instead. The flame I made from clear stretched sprue painted in different colors. I'm pleased with how this turned out and glad I didn't have a base with the kit. There is still much life to be had in old kits.

Well after 2 previous failed attempts at starting this GB... Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the Donetsk Toys Factory Vultee Vengeance, aka the Frog one made in the USSR ! I have checked beforehand with Rich and this one is a goer, pictures below. Yes I know what you're thinking who needs a Tamiya kit when you can have quality like this ! Still sealed in the bag Looks complete But isn't as the decals aren't in the kit, which isn't surprising as they didn't work anyway. Fortunately a kind fellow member of BM has come to my rescue and let me have a spare set. The box also doesn't have a painting guide like the old Frog / Novo ones used to have so I will be building the Aussie aircraft below cheers Pat

HI all and joining with this oldie, picked up at Duxford one year during the Flying Legends show.. Frog He_219_Box by Dermot Moriarty, on Flickr Here she is in all her blue plastic loveliness Frog He_219_contents by Dermot Moriarty, on Flickr For any who don't know about this aircraft, you can find out more here Plan is to build OOB but a little added detail in the cockpit Good luck with your builds! All the best, Dermot

Hi everyone, I’d like to present another model made for FROG/NOVO competition — that’s American-Spanish version of the famous British Harrier. This is the old FROG pack reproduced by Donetsk Toy Factory. As usual, this work was made in “Out of box” nomination, which doesn’t allow any modifications in the original kit except the change of the pitot tube and set-up of antennas on the fuselage (which is how American-Spanish model differs from the British one). According to the rules of the contest I had to stay within the limits of the kit — rised panel lines, geometry inaccuracies and so on. So, the result is before you. The model represents 008-9 aircraft from the 8th squadron of Spain naval air forces Dedalo for 1982. Thanks for looking!

For a change I thought I would not make a delta, though having said that I seem to recall at least one book/article I read where the author described the wing as being like a delta with a triangle cut out of the rear wingroot! Assuming it gets done, this will be the fourth Lightning I have built, the first being to original Airfix F1 from around 1963. This was followed by a Frog F6, though I can't recall if it was the reboxed Hasegawa one or not, and both of these builds have long gone, or at least I can't find them. A good few years back I build the Airfix F3, which I still have, and now I have this, bought at least 10 years ago, probably from e-Bay. Yes, it is the Donetsk version, ex Frog in a lovely Chocolate coloured plastic! I gather from Serge @Aardvark's comments in another build that the history of this kit is a bit complicated, in that it seems Frog had been considering making a kit themselves, but then found that when they teamed up with Hasegawa it was cheaper to just rebox their mould. However once the agreement ended, they once more set about making one, though it may well be that it is a modified copy of the Hasegawa one. Whatever the case, at some point they came to an agreement with Novo for it to be made in Russia, possibly whilst it was still being produced over here as well. This is one moulded by DFI in Donetsk I gather though it just says "Made In Russia" on the sprue, so whether they were making it on behalf of Novo or in their own right I do not know. It is of course a very basic kit so I will have to do some work on the interior, possily involving aftermarket bits and pieces, but more on that later. I have not yet decided on the markings so I will have to have a look though my stock of decs - I imagine the kit ones will be shot! More if and when I find time to start. Cheers Pete

Hello all, Today I have the start of a build that I don't know why I am attempting, as frankly, it is vastly beyond my skill level. It is the FROG / MSD 1/72 Vickers Vimy Commercial / Vernon. So far, I have added some bulkheads to the (attempt) at a cockpit, as well as a few for the walls of the troop / medevac compartment. Tail surfaces and the upper wing have both been built, as well as the engines, one of which has been misplaced somewhere. So far, only a little filler has been needed at the joins of the wing sections and on the engine nacelles, but I suspect that far more will be needed once I actually glue the fuselage halves together. For now, here is the dry-fit fuselage and (part of) the tail surfaces: Next up will be finishing the engines, finding / scratching bench seats for the interior, and then completing the tail. Thanks all, Wish me luck, Tweener

Original FROG Canberra PR.7 kit bought and made in 1960. Consigned to 'spares' box by late 1970s, but slowly worked on for next 10 years and fully restored and improved by 1995. The 'flat' mainwheels were cut off and Matchbox B-25 Mitchell wheels added, all raised rivets and panel lines removed, and hinge lines scored in. A 'collar' was added to the rear of the canopy. The original FROG engine cowlings are too bulbous, but have been retained. They are closer to the one-off Sapphire engined experimental version. The colour scheme was chosen to be close to and a tribute to the original FROG markings. WH778, 31 Sqdn, Laarbruch Germany, c 1956 (11) by Philip Pain, on Flickr WH778, 31 Sqdn Laarbruch Germany, c 1956 (10) by Philip Pain, on Flickr WH778, 31 Sqdn Laarbruch Germany, c 1956 (6) by Philip Pain, on Flickr WH778, 31 Sqdn Laarbruch Germany, c 1956 (4) by Philip Pain, on Flickr WH778, 31 Sqdn Laarbruch Germany, c 1956 (2) by Philip Pain, on Flickr Thanks for looking.

Hi The very last two models which I did in 2020 are two Dewoitnes D 520. One is a OOB (except decals) from a Hasegawa kit, the second one has a complex history and is very important as a foundation myth (or foundation stone) of my modelling in some way - this is a Frog kit glued (but not painted) by my Father when he returned from a scholarship on Manchester University in 1961. In his youth (1950s) he was constructing some airplane or train engines large scale models out of the scratch and also paper airplane models. As a young astronomer preparing his PhD from a country behind iron curtain he got the scholarship for 3 months at the University of Manchester to verify his calculations using computer. Those days there was no computer at all in Poland. When he was on site he found out, that the scholarship is in fact founded by NATO, so was terrified to keep it in the deepest secret, to avoid being accused for espionage after return... He told this to us few years ago only. The reason of getting this scholarship was that his PhD was about the mass distribution on Moon (so called mascons, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_concentration_(astronomy) ) which results in a kind of oscillations of Moon, and those movements allows to do some mathematical calculations to get their distribution. Those objects could be dangerous for low-level orbiting over Moon, therefore the knowledge on them was so important at this time. An the observations of those oscillations were done 50 years earlier, in beginning of XX century by professor T.Banachiewicz, Polish astronomer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Banachiewicz), when he worked in Kazan, Russia, before revolution. And this was the best (longest and most precise) set of data before the satellites era. Father got this set of data from Banachiewicz to work on this for his PhD, so to do those calculations. When Father was in UK he discovered model shops and whole world of modelling, not present in communist Polns these years, so he bought some of them like Airfix Caravelle, Comet and Vanguard in 1/144, Queen Elisabeth in 1/600 and in 1/72 F4U1D Corsair by Revell and Dewoitine 520 from Frog. In subsequent five years he did them for his children, so for me and my older Brother ( @KRK4m ). Two in 1/72 models were unpainted, since he bought only basic colors like white, black, red, brown - which enabled finishing the others. Here is a bit nostalgic photo from that era (~1963-4) of us posing with Caravelle and Comet (that is me): Then, within few years some models appeared in Poland, Father was introducing us to this hobby and within few years we started to do models by ourselves. I painted Dewoitine (ugh...- without thinner with glossy paints) and Brother did the same to Corsair, then after some time I repainted it already with mat colors and then (still some 45 year ago) third time. So it had a really thick cover of paints. Many times the prop and the legs were broken, since we were playing some children games with them before. All the time they were glued back so surprisingly the model survived 55 year with only Pitot tube lost. Some time ago I immersed it in NaOH solution for couple of weeks a removed all paint. The canopy looks terrible it was even a bit opaque due to glue, but I polished it and cover with gloss varnish. I have made some small fixes (like filling holes in cooler and main wheel bay), I shorted the u/c legs to match that of Hasegawa kit and painted. I used the decals from the ancient Esci set (for individual machine, the roundels are by Techmod), it presents machine No 105 from 2 Ecadrille of GC I/3 during 1940 defense of France: In parallel I completed the Hasegawa kit, also using mix of decals - main part come from box, but the Squadron emblem comes from the same Esci set. This is machine No 49 from Vichy AF, 2 Escadrille of GC II/6 based in Thies , Senegal in August 1941 An both together Comments welcome. Welcome also to my yearbook, the year score is 24 new plus two restored. Have a happy whole New, the 2021 year, back in normal free of epidemic fears and fully in health! Regards Jerzy-Wojtek

Hello all, Today I have for inspection one of the old FROG / Chematic 1/72 Magisters, in the markings of an Irish Air Corps bird. Originally I had planned to build a RAAF in overall aluminum, but the included Techmod decals enticed me to build something a little more colorful. All in all, I'm glad I did. I started this kit in the same way as the MB Gladiators - by adding some conjectural interior framing, as seen here: Unlike the Gladiators, the final result is actually visible, and makes the interior looks much better in my opinion. Control sticks were also added. The final result looks like this: The eagle-eyed will observe that the front windscreen was sourced from a Revell 1/72 P-26 - the included piece wasn't fully molded, and so wasn't usable. Thankfully, the Revell piece more or less looks the part and fits well. Next is a 1/72 Spitfire Ia, followed by a DH.60G in Belgian markings and then a Mig 17 for a change of pace. Thanks for checking in, Stay safe, Tweener

In progress now is the Chematic (FROG) 1/72 Miles M.14 Magister, which will be finished in the markings of the Irish Air Corps. With no internal detail outside of seats and a low parts count, I expect a quick build. Nonetheless, I added some conjectural internal framing from Evergreen .020 Strip and may yet add control sticks as well. One of the clear parts was short shot and is thus unusable, but I should have a suitable replacement somewhere. For now, this is how it looks: With any luck, the halves will be together tomorrow and then I will be able to add some of the tail surfaces. The wings will (most likely) be attached after painting to ensure a clean separation between the black fuselage and aluminum wings. Hopefully the decals, which are printed by Techmod, will fit well. If not, I have spares for a RAAF option as well. That's all for the moment, Stay safe, Tweener

Hi everybody, this should be a quick finish. 🤣 Almost finished and ready to add decal shortly. Here is the build thread from many moons ago: Cheers for now. JR

Hi everyone, At long last I have finished this Morane Saulnier 406, started during a FROG GB eons ago. The KUTA XIII GB was a perfect excuse to finalize this kit. It is old FROG: 1963! As expected, a pretty basic collection of plastic bits and pieces. But if you do not look too closely at the details, it sure looks like a MS 406. The decals still look very usable, which after 57 years is quite amazing. The colors and proportions of the French roundels were nonetheless so off, that I decided to use after market roundels. I had no opportunity to obtain MS 406 decals, so I just painted a generic French Morane, not belonging to any specific unit. Lots of fun building this little kit, which was done entirely OOB, with all the shortcomings we can expect from such an antiquity. I even left the hole under the fuselage for the FROG stand! Here are a couple of pictures. Thank for watching. JR

Just a placeholder for now but once I've progressed my builds in another two GBs a bit further I'm going to start on this - the Handley Page Dart Herald. I have a Novo boxing of this kit with BIA decals, which I won't be using. This will (probably) be Air UK, using decals intended for an F-27 (if they fit ok - if not I have BIA decals as a back-up). This is a bit of nostalgia for me as I remember a couple of flights in Air UK Heralds 38 or 39 years ago. When I was growing up we used to fly from Manchester to the Isle of Man two or three times a year to see my grandparents - until about 1980 this was with BA on Viscounts, when BA pulled out they were replaced by Air UK, initially with Heralds but pretty soon after with Friendships. Heralds can't have lasted long on the route as I only flew one return trip on them - no idea which particular airframes but one of them was still in BIA colours and the other was in full Air UK colours. As a 7- or 8-year old I loved watching the undercarriage retract! So this is one I've been wanting to build for a while.

Hi all, I'd like to join this GB with a 1/72 Bristol Blenheim 1f. It's the Revell kit, which I believe was originally produced by Frog in 1969 - I built a few Frog kits back in my youth, but not this one, I think! It's a project I intended to do years ago but never got around to, with an Airwaves etch set to tart it up a bit and decals from an FCM set, depicting an aircraft from 25 Squadron in September 1940. Cheers, David

Hi, Recently I refresher or repaired my old three builds. First is Martin Baltimore. This is a Frog kit in Stormo Baltimore Italian colors. I followed the color profile presented in the Blandfor publ. "Bombers 1939-45" book . I did this model in years 1975-77 so when I was a teenager in secondary school. Now I replaced decals (Italian insignia), washed it and applied a matt varnish Vallejo coat. I added a tail wheel lost to some reason in a span of last 45 years... It has an overpainted British markings and to frank I am surprised how precisely I was able to paint it without help of any masking! The all exploitation/weathering signs is also original Here she is: This blue my camera reproduces a bit strange, the look of exact hue of mine Azure Blue is closer to reality on previous photos, when some small areas covered with this color are seen. Second one is another Martin - the Marauder. This is an Airfix kit with hand painted nose arts. I did it in 1997, apparently I did not known that the same scheme since 1994 was in Revell box of Marauder... The kit is overloaded with lead, it weight 190 g, so in time the main u/c was sveral time broken. Yesterday i drilled it through an but steel wire inisde, I hope now it will stand witjout problems. Here she is Of course the nose arts were painted on decal, similar like the "Hard to get" names. Thisr oldi is my very old (1973-75) Bloch MB 152. Recently I cut the landing gear to make it shorter by perhaps 3 mm. Besides was I painted it with varnish. I was talkin with @AdrianMF recently about this model. It is not nice build like his recent build but i want to show it just to illustrate. Besides shorter legs it has also a hand painted amblems on both sides of tail, and this is the reason I like to keep it still Comments welcome Regards Jerzy-Wojtek

Looking through the stash for suitable long weekend kits I’ve been eyeing these two kits at the top of the to-build pile both of which I owe thanks to kind Britmodellers @Des pulled me out of a hole with a replacement set of decals for the badly yellowed and cracked Frog originals @Ray S also was kind enough to rescue me with some decals for this Lightning F1A snap together kit as the originals are rub-on transfers Mulling them over I’ve twigged that both scheme choices are from 1965 so what to do... Shackleton? Lightning? Go tonto and try to do both?

I was nine years old when I originally built this. I know that for a fact. Every now and again my mum would go out with the friends to play bingo. My dad would let me stay up late and we would do stuff together. I remember my dad and I building this one together. I can state with great confidence that it was a Friday night between 6 November and 4 December 1970. I remember that the telly was on, showing The Adventures Of Don Quick. It wasn't the first episode which is available on Youtube. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Don_Quick The episode shown on that night ended with Don Quick preparing for launch in his spaceship and turning on the windscreen wipers because it had started to rain. A long view of his spaceship showed a giant dog urinating over the spaceship! If anyone knows what episode that was, we can narrow my build down to a specific day! Hopefully this build will take a little longer that my original one.

Two thing's were a certainty for this GB,I'd do more than one subject and there would be an oldie involved.I was determined to build Monogram's kit which was a KK buy in a Revell box,it is for it's age beautifully molded with fine raised panel lines and clear well defined glazing looking forward to this one. Number two was an e-bay buy which was part of the seller's Grandad's collection which I got for a reasonable £13 still factory sealed so I'm determined to do this one justice,again nicely molded but not as refined as the Monogram offering but with some of the best glazing I've seen from Frog,it'll be interesting to see the two built side by side.

Hi All I found this model for sale at a model show last year. All the parts had been removed from the sprue and the tailplanes glued up but everything appeared to be in the box so I bought it. I wanted a Gannet to build because I remember seeing them at Lossiemouth in the early 1970s. I can't actually recall if it was the AS/COD version I saw, or the AEW3. Although not the most attractive aircraft ever built I personally prefer the AS styling to the AEW. I seem to recall the approach to landing where the Double Mamba engines seemed to be working very hard and fast but the fuselage was just plodding along. This was probably an illusion created from a combination of the sound of the contra-rotating propellers and the sheer bulk of the body. The model is built OOB with a slight modification to remove the AS radome to make the model as an AS4(COD). The only problem encountered was the pre-glued tailplane. Whoever had the model previously managed to glue one of the finlets onto the horizontal stabiliser the wrong way up. Maybe that's why the model was for sale. The kit is very basic and pretty devoid of detail and moulded crew heads in flat cockpits, but it brings back memories of building similar kits in the 60's and 70's. I have used Revell and Vallejo paints and Xtradecal sheet X72070 to represent XA466 as she appeared in the 1976/77 period. While the standard COD scheme was Dark Blue Grey overall, XA466 wore the standard naval scheme of Extra Dark Sea Grey and Sky, an unusual scheme for a COD aircraft ,for about a year. The following link to the ABPic site shows an image of the Gannet I am trying to represent. https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1384837 The images, hope you enjoy:- Thanks for looking. Graeme

During the recent Blitzbuild Group Build here on BM, I took the opportunity to drag out a long term stash resident the Frog Wildcat. Despite all the parts being off the spruces and the decals looking past their best, the kit turned out really well despite the interventions of our kitten that decided it would look much better on the floor with one wing removed ! The aircraft is a Wildcat Mk.IV. 896 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, HMS Pursuer, February 1944. Work in progress below I hope you like it, let me know what you think. Cheers Pat

Having only recently realised that in my previous 3 Blitzbuilds I've built Luft 46 projects, I felt it was time for a change. So having recently had the pleasure of Co-hosting the recent epic Frog Squad GB, I felt something from the Frog back catalogue was in order. So a quick rummage through the stash found this. Good Luck everyone Cheers Pat

This is a refugee from last years Frog Squad GB This is the reason I am keen to build it, as it served at Macrihanish with 857 Sqn, Fleet Air Arm. Macrihanish is near Campbeltown in Argyll on the Mull of Kintyre, it's a bit of local history. The previous build thread is below, Still lots to do, will post further photos soon. Cheers Pat