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Rejoining with this Hasegawa Lockheed P-38 Lightning kit, costing me £7 and IPMS Avon show in August. Saddened that One Man's Island is looking unlikely to be successful at the Bunfight, I'll build a P-38 here - using one of the 475FG options leftover from my RS kit build - based in New Guinea. A choice between a Beach Babe wearing nothing but a garland, or a topless woman - what a dilemma! I've built a 1/72 Hasegawa P-38 previously, but this will be the F version, with smooth engine fronts. Kit parts. The instructions showing the part modifications for the F version, and the results of my surgery. I think this patient will survive and thrive.

After 2025 (thread) newsletters, the Hasegawa news for January 2026. Source: http://www.hasegawa-model.co.jp/month/202601/ V.P.

This is my version of the Hasegawa Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 (kit #24001 / CD-1), painted Tamiya TS-94 Metallic Gray over TS-88 Titanium Silver. This is very clearly early Hasegawa in form and quality, with minimal parts and lots of detail molded into the chassis and interior tub rather than separate pieces. Still, it made a nice shelf model. Grant. With a rally version I completed at the same time.

This is Hasegawa's Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 1991 Ivory Coast Rally (kit #51564 / SP64) painted Tamiys TS-26 Pure White., with original decals and otherwise out of the box. The decals have discoloured over time - particularly the 'white' door cards - and I probably should have put them in a window for a few days before using. Typical of the early Hasegawa models, with much of the detail molded into the chassis for example. The raised suspension for the Ivory Coast Rally set up was a bit..... tenuous, but did manage to survive having the wheels put on. The extra protection at the front of the car was also somewhat lacking in precision of fitment but came together okay. Overall, a nice build of something a bit different. Grant. With the road-going Galant VR-4 I built at the same time.

Back in 1977 I was posted to 19 Squadron, RAF Wildenrath in West Germany. The squadron had converted from Lightnings to the mighty Phantom earlier that year, for me it was an exciting time. I had come from a fairly sleepy airfield in Norfolk, RAF Marham where I had been working on Canberra's and Victor Tankers. The change to a front line fighter squadron in Germany was as big as they came. The two Phantom Squadrons based at Wildenrath at that time were 19(F) and 92 (F) Sqns and each squadron had to maintain a fully armed aircraft on quick reaction alert, known as Battle Flight. Each aircraft was fully armed with four Sparrow missiles, four Sidewinder missiles and a SUU/23 20mm gun pod on the centreline pylon. This duty was carried out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Two sets of squadron aircrew and ground crew were in a building next to the Hardened Aircraft Shelter (HAS) on a 24 hours on, 24 hours off shift for a week, ready to launch the aircraft at a few minutes notice. I am going to build a 19 (F) Squadron Phantom FGR.2 of that period, in the grey/green camouflage over light grey undersides. I'll be using the Hasegawa Phantom kit which ironically has the 92 Sqn aircraft on the box art. This kit has been in my stash for years so it's time it was built. I'll have to get a photo of the decals, the AirDoc set for RAF Germany based Phantoms as they are carefully stored away as they are difficult to obtain now. I have some AM to improve this elderly kit, although it's a pain to get it to fit, the Aires cockpit set really improves the look of the completed model. I also have ResKit wheels, afterburner cans, inboard pylons and Sparrow missiles and Eduard Sidewinder missiles and SUU/23 gun pod. I think that I have some Master pitot tubes and some Eduard cockpit p/e stashed away over the decades that this kit has been waiting to be built. I have some Churchill tanks to finish but, work will start soon.

I think quite a few of you have come across this kit and modified it a bit or not started yet as I've seen quite a few references, but can't think of seeing an out of box build on here. For a basic pick-up, this one seems to have proved a popular kit as it keeps being reissued in various forms. I've just gone for the basic earlier version. For something which doesn't have an engine there seems to be quite a few pieces to the kit, and generally the moulding seems pretty well thought out in terms of attachment points and ejector pin locations (cab floor excepted). This is what you get for your money. At this stage I'm just trying to get some paint on while the summer weather is here, the build won't be starting until after the Focus (assuming I get that all painted and decalled before the weather turns - I'm slow like that!). The instructions start with the body, so first job is to clean it up. The mould lines seem to have generally been designed to accommodate those people who don't clean them up, so for the most part follow edges or trim pieces and have been fairly easy to clean up, just make sure if you're building one that you don't lose detail doing this. The worst ones are on the rear corners, but at least they proved easily sandable. This is how it was looking after scribing out the panel lines some more and cleaning up the mould lines. That does seem very shiny plastic doesn't it? Hopefully the primer grips better than it does on the spoons as I'd prefer not to be having to key it if I don't have to. However, the first thing to focus on was the bed which is made up of five flat pieces. Fortunately they've all fitted about perfectly so a good start. This is another part of the build which is needed right from the beginning, so this was my first task of the build. And today that bed got its primer. I'm really pleased with how it looks, a proper red oxide appearance. If I was doing a well worn example it would have been tempting to leave it like this, but as usual I'm not it it won't stay like this. Rubbish photo in one way as this is the bit of the bed you won't see, but that cutdown BBQ skewer to help with manhandling during painting is preventing it going the right way up. Still, it gives the idea. So that's my first report on this one. I've got a pretty good idea on where I want to go with it (fairly stock). The only question in my mind is whether to go with the stock steel wheels, or to put a set of gold Watanabes on it.

This is my entry into the Group Build - an 80th FS, 8th FG aircraft based at Dobodora PNG circa March 1943. The kit is a Monogram Pro Modeller, but in reality, this is a re-boxed Hasegawa P-38F/G. I am still chasing some details and photos, which I hope to add later, but otherwise good to go, with a few after-market items I have to hand. The decals are from the Kagero Top Colors series - Pacific Lightnings Part. I may be tempted with another couple of items along the way.. still to be decided. Cheers Wez and fellow participants from the internet. Peter

Morning all. Attached final pictures of my Tomcat build which will eventually be the centre piece of a carrier deck diorama. As always with me, the pictures could be better, but hey. I was pleased how this turned out, Hasegawa kits are quite a bit of work but I think the result was worth the effort. I used quite a few extras, Aires crew and seats and exhausts, CMK wheels, 4 x AIM-54A Phoenix missiles from Reskit and a Dream model pitot. Decals were from Wolfpack Design and were very good. Paint was Mr. Hobby, weathering with oils and pencil crayons for scruff/scratches. I also augmented the panel line wash with pencil. Final varnish was VMS satin. I'm keen on an F-14D at some point but will probably go with the new Tamiya offering. I asked the Tamiya stand at SMW yesterday and apparently it will be £40, which seems like a bargain to me. Hope you like this one, comments and questions welcome.

Introduction of the use of the B-24 by No. 321 (Dutch) Squadron RAF No. 321 (Dutch) Squadron RAF was formed on 1 June 1940 in the UK at the same time as 320 (Dutch) Squadron RAF, after escaping from The Netherlands. They flew anti-submarine patrols with Avro Ansons until the Squadron was disbanded due to lack of personnel and was merged with 320 Squadron. On 15 August 1942 the squadron was re-activated at RAF Trincomalee, Ceylon, with MLD personnel escaped from the Netherlands East Indies. They were equipped with PBY-5 Catalinas, some of these came with them from the NEI, others (PBY-5A) were provided by the RAF. The Squadron was, as before, tasked with anti-submarine patrol. Although the Squadron’s headquarter was at RAF China Bay, the detachments where scattered all over the Far East, based at Mombasa, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Socotra, Masirah, Ceylon, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Aden and Cape Town. The crews became bored with the monotone patrol flights and craved for a more offensive task. The Dutch CO in the Far East, Admiral Helfrich, supported their wish and asked for B-24 bombers, but it took until October 1944 before it was approved by the British high command. As preparation for this, for 321 new aircraft, aircraft Commander Reynisse was sent to the UK for discussion how to introduce the B-24 at 321 Squadron and to gain experience on the B-24. About the same time 4 pilots and a group of mechanics were detached to 160 Squadron RAF, also to gain experience. For the mechanics this meant a lot of learning, as the Liberator was far more advanced than the Catalina’s they were used to. Between October and December 1944 the first 10 Liberators GR Mk.VI and Mk.VIII arrived at China Bay, these were supplemented with 2 Liberator GR Mk.III as training aircraft for the aircrew. The B-24’s were handed over without manuals and tools and were in a bad technical state, as they had been stored for a considerable time. This meant that the mechanics struggled to get the aircraft operational. Working up was very slow, because the squadron also had to keep flying missions with the Catalina’s. China Bay, Collection NIMH This situation became untenable, and after filing complaints about the technical state of the delivered B-24’s, 7 were exchanged with new ones. With the new aircraft 321 was able to send 4 aircraft to the Cocos islands on 8 July. During take-off KH296 “J” crashed, so only three B-24’s arrived at the Cocos islands. On 11 July these where enhanced with Liberators “M” and “Z” and the Catalinas “Q” and “J” as ASR aircraft. During the detachment 321 Squadron worked closely with 203 Squadron and they flew several anti-shipping and reconnaissance missions together. The Cocos Island detachment, Collection NIMH With the abrupt end of the war with the capitulation of Japan on 15 august, 321 Squadron was itching to return to the NEI to be reunited with their families. However, their patience was to be tested until October, when they were allowed to move from Ceylon to Java. In the mean time they flew reconnaissance, transport, red cross food packages and RAPWI missions. Last opp cancelled, Wikipedia Returning in the NEI the personnel was confronted with a hostile population and the task to repatriate and supply the prisoners in the Japanese camps. The B-24’s again were used mostly for transport and RAPWI flights and in January 1946 the message came that they had to be returned to the RAF, who in turn had to return them to the US, as they fell under the lend lease. 321 Squadron kept flying with the B-24 until April when the order became official. 5 B-24’s were parked at Morokrembangan and the remaining aircraft were returned to the RAF, 1 at China Bay and the rest at Perak, adjacent to Morokrembangan. All aircraft were then disabled far enough to ensure they would not be of any use to the Indonesian Republicans. No. 321 squadron (Dutch) RAF Liberator GR Mk.VI, KG852 “A”. KG852 “A” arrived at China Bay with the first batch at the end of 1944. As already mentioned, this batch was troubled with lack of maintenance during storage, and despite its bad bottom impressive nose art it flew no operational missions. During its Dutch service life it was used as training aircraft on China Bay. The ORB shows several training missions (bombing, gunnery and radar training), but also a lot of check flights. It looks like it was a gremlin invested aircraft. It was only on 28 October that it moved to the Cocos Islands and only 1 test flight is recorded for November. In the period from January to April 1946 “A” performed several transport flight’s (Cocos-Batavia and v.v.), training flights and again a lot of test flights. In May 1946 it was written off and demolished at Morokrembangan. Although I love to build aircraft with an interesting operational history, I also have a soft spot for attractive nose arts, so that’s what I am going to build. The kit The kit is the Hasegawa B-24J, 01559, which I bought at the 2016 Euro Scale Modelling for only € 39,95. It was marketed as Dutch “Sharkmouth” Liberator with transfers for KG991 “C”. Being unaware of the “Consolidated mess” I thought I would only need a radome for which I purchased a Blackbird B-17 H2X. With the Eduard issue of “Riders in the sky 1945” in 2018 I became aware that the transfers provided with the kit were not complete, missing the SNAKE transfers which were kindly provided by @J.C. Bahr including the Cat on bomb and the necessary other transfers for this Dutch B-24. Much later I became aware that the rear turret was not, as I previously thought, the same as the front turret. I put out a request in the wanted section and Toby aka @Planebuilder62 graciously helped me out with one. Preparation and decisions Keeping in mind that I wanted to finish the kit before or on the deadline of the STGB, I took the time to check the kit and aftermarket to avoid pitfalls during the build. Together with some dry fitting, this helped me to mentally prepare a solution. As I am prone to overthinking this will help me to avoid too much delays. So far I noticed, also helped by the 2 outstanding builds by @elger and @SaminCam; · Almost all photos of the 321 Sqn B-24’s show a support strut under the tail skit, so I won’t waste time on getting enough weight in the front. · Rebecca AN-148 antennae on both sides of the nose, scrounged from a Italeri C-47 kit. · Window on the righthand side under the horizontal stab must be covered, not present on the real aircraft. · Wheels in the kit are pants, the aftermarket wheels with a nice diamond thread have the wrong rims. Make the kit rims fit. · The instructions want you to put the radome in the hole of the belly turret, this leaves a large open space between the radome and the fuselage. After some searching, I found a photo of the underside which shows a much tighter fit, so I will have to make a hole in the belly turret cover. · The Eduard cockpit interior set has an interior green IP, replace with a Yahu IP. Mixed paint to match (more or less) the Yahu colour. · Hasegawa gives you 2 Alternate Air Intake Filters but there should be 4, every engine has one. I already made a resin copy as I didn’t trust my old resin set. In the end I managed 2 usable copies, but it took me 5 attempts. · The plan is not too much detailing in the cockpit as it can hardly be seen. I made an exception for the bombardier window, which was very empty, and purchased a Norden bomb sight. · .50 barrels will be replaced with mini world barrels, found in a drawer of my modelling desk. · Side gunner windows will be closed, seen on all photos of parked aircraft, hence no detailing necessary. For the colours I decided EDSG, maybe DSG due to the fast fading in the tropics, for the top and white for the sides and bottom. Dull dark green for the forward fuselage, aluminium for the bomb bay with a zinc chromate yellow ceiling and also aluminium for the rear fuselage. I am still in doubt about the colour of the wheel bays, aluminium or white? I am leaning to white, any opinions on this? Sjaak

Hi Folks, with my A-26 Invader racer on finals, thought I'd get another Reno racer on the starting blocks. This time it will be the P-38L Reno racer "Bardahl Lightning" from 1968 using the Hasegawa 1/72 kit and Draw Decals. First, the compulsories: The box. Bags of plastic. Instructions and decals. I have tried looking for images of "Bardahl Lightning" and have found only one real image: The Drawdecal instructions tell you that the inner and outer wings should be an Olive Green but other builders/photographers elsewhere tell you that it's a grey and this pic seems to support that but what grey? Hopefully will start this soon. Stuart

#13/2024 Next Thai Fighter finished by my dad. Hasegawa kit with Siam Scale decals, Eduard PE seatbelts, gun covers and exhaust area painted with MRP Steel, wing central areas with MRP White Aluminium, main surface done with MRP Super Silver. Red stripe is painted, the light blue is a selfmix. Build thread here https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235139539-siam-sword148-north-american-f-86f-40-sabre-royal-thai-airforce/ The RTAF received their first F-86F in 1960, in total more than 50 and different types from Spain and the USAF. At first, the 12th and 13th Sqn were equipped with Sabres. Later on in 1966 both squadrons handed their Sabres over to the 43rd Sqn which flew them until 1972. During the Vietnam War, the RTAF F-86 provided protection for US bases and aircraft in Thailand. DSC_0001 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0002 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0003 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0004 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0005 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0006 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0007 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0009 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0001 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0003 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0004 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0005 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0006 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0007 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0003 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0018 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0019 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0020 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0021 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0010 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0011 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0012 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr

Hi everyone, I may regret this, but I would like to go for another submission for this GB on this great topic. The subject: The first version of the Churchill featured a cast turret with 2-pdr QF gun and coaxial machine gun, additional armament included a 3 in howitzer in the hull to provide infantry support fire. The layout differed significantly from other tank designs of its time, leading to a rather unique set of advantages and disadvantages. Most remarkably high armour strength, great climbing ability and movement in rough terrain, on the other hand low speed and many issues after being put into mass production within a short period of time. The kit: The Hasegawa kit, according to scalemates, dates back to 1975. The kit does not look too bad for its age, showing moderate detail and decent casting quality. Although my box looked rather beat-up, the contents were perfectly fine except for one storage box which got loose from the sprue. While I am okay with most of the plastic, the vinyl tracks look rather horrible. The vinyl is relatively stiff and their is little detail on the outside and no detail on the inside. The kit includes markings for two vehicles, one for the British Army home forces, one for Canadian Army in Dieppe. Again, the kit does not include any wading equipment. The project: This one was a spontaneous build and I would like to make it a nice additional contribution to this GB. I will go for mostly OOB, probably, but I will replace the tracks, most likely with a OKB Grigorov set. Regarding markings, I will most likely go for an early vehicle in the UK using the kit markings. If the kit markings are two yellow, I may have to improvise on this one. I have some North Irish Horse markings, but that is for a Mk. I CS. Cheers Thomas

Another 037 for my collection and another driven by Salvador Servia / Jordan Sabater. This one carries the instantly recognisable colours of the Rothmans cigarette brand and represents the car that finished 3rd in the 1985 Rally Costa Brava. The kit is from Hasegawa and was built with minimal additions - wires in the engine and seatbelts from tape. The decals were from Studio 27 and caused me heaps of trouble. The roof is very poorly applied and all the stripes split multiple times. I have rescued what I could. The decals came from eBay and so I have no way of knowing how they had been looked after pre me getting them. I have had trouble with Studio 27 decals in the past but do have more to try… The blue is a leftover Zero paints version from a Rothmans Porsche 956 which matched the blue on the decals photos I have found show this version has blue seats and seatbelts. The seatbelts have Rothmans branding on them (I think). I used blue electrical tape and some PE buckles. To replicate the padded section I added some thicker tape wrapped around the belt. I didn’t have any Rothmans decals that would have worked so I added some spare Willans labels. Not correct but better than blank belts. For the receiver on the lap belt I added a yellow square cut from a yellow and green electrical tape and added a small magnet And here are some pictures of my 037 collection

Hasegawa 1/48th F-4G with some aftermarket. Here is my F-4G weasel as flown with the 23rd TFS, Spangdahlem AB, Germany in 1984. The squadron had a mix a F-4G and E models in the hunter-killer roles, respectively. I was an E model guy. Our wartime loadout was planned to include the AGM-45 Shrike, Cluster Bomb Units (CBU), and a couple of AIM-7s. We always carried the ALQ-131 ECM pod too. Pretty much all of our training sorties revolved around employing these weapons. First attack was lofting the Shrike, then a follow up bombing with the CBUs. I built this kit to replicate that mission, although I never actually saw a jet with CBUs or AIM-7s loaded. Over the next couple of years the AGM-88 HARM started showing up and the G tactics changed to take advantage of the much greater capabilities of the HARM. The E models still lugged the Shrikes along, with the G guys pointing us in the right direction to loft the Shrike. For this one I shoved an Aires cockpit into the nose, True Details pylons under the wings, and Eduard SUU-30s for the CBUs. Hasegawa weapons sets provided the AGM-45 (also in the kit), TER for the CBUs, the ALQ-131 ECM pod, and kit AIM-7s. Also the Master pitot and stab aug probe. Paints were mostly from my dwindling stock of Model Master enamels. I don’t really like the color of the FS 34102 Medium Green but couldn’t figure out how to adjust it to a less bright tone. On the nose of the right side outboard tank I used Hataka laquers to get a different shade on the dark green. I didn’t weather the jet much since the pictures I found of it showed it fairly clean. While there we would get jets right out of depot maintenance with brand new paint, so I went with that. The “low smoke” engines were only just getting to us in 1984 so I sprayed some flat black soot behind the engines since that’s what it looked like with the old smokey engines. I ran out of my supply of Mr Super Clear Matt spray so airbrushed Tamiya XF-86 Flat Clear. For some reason it left a chalky finish in some areas. I had to check the bottle to make sure I didn’t accidentally spray the Flat Base, which I did once, and had that chalky finish. I was able to rub it out with a soft cloth for the most part. I see in the pictures a little bit of dusting still there in a couple of places. Decals were a mix of a CAM set, kit, Microscale serials, and home made names on the canopy rails. I doubt the names are correct for this jet, but I just picked my first flight commander and one of the senior EWOs. For the crew chief and assistant, I just made up some names to fill the space. I also posted this over on Hyperscale. Thanks for looking.

Background Another project starts. This is a build that I’ve been intending to start for some time, but I was holding out to see if I could secure some of the previously available aftermarket parts to help with some additional details; they’re all (long?) out of production and availability is tending towards zero but after several years of periodic searching, a few months ago I stumbled on an auction of the kit “with lots of extras”, including Eduard phot-etch (although I already had a set), two sets of decals and, the much sought-for, Wolfpack-designs resin folded wings. I won the auction and the parts have sat waiting my attention since. The other parts I sought, I have all but given up looking for, these being the XMM resin intakes; but more of that later. I’ve got the Aires cockpit (early ICAP II) set, in fact I’ve two of them (probably a case of ordering parts when I’d forgotten I already had a set) and some ResKit wheels. The rest will need tinkering with the kit itself. I also bought a Kinetic kit, and some aftermarket parts, purely for research, but I’m sure that I’ll build that too one day (when I’ve more storage space perhaps). I remember that I built this model back in the 80s; I though it was quite early in the 80s due to where we lived when I made it, but I’m not going to trust my memory on this as Scalemates has the later boxings (which I think it was) only emerging in the late 80s. I think that I built it, an early Hasegawa F14A (aftermarket decals – low vis VF111) and an A-4E (or M?) at about the same time. I’d used low vis aftermarket decals rather than the hi-vis ones in the kit… so I’m quite sure it was this actual boxing. I remember struggling with the split forward canopy (why do they do it like that?) and remembering that the decals were quite pale against the colour I’d finished it in using Humbrol enamels… but that’s about it. So, here we are almost 4 decades later, with the same kit on the bench, but with a hope of producing a better end result; I’ll certainly be spending a little longer on this build… so I hope you’ll be patient with me as I go along this journey. Hasegawa Prowler project commences by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Wings The first thing I wanted to check is whether the wings were ok. I’d read that some of them were cast short, or small (?) so I kept my fingers crossed and removed them from their casting pieces and did a few test fits on the fuselage halves. I think I’d seen from other’s use that they come up a little short at the exhaust, but a slither of plasticard will sort that when they’re installed, but the test fit seemed positive. Some filler and fettling will be required to get a seamless join, but that’s just modelling. Kit parts and resin wings test fit by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr In looking at the wings more closely, I realized that both of the outer pieces were warped a little (after years of being in their bag on the casting pieces). The photo shows the extent of the warp. Slightly warped outer wings by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr I forgot to take a post-process photo, but after advice from a good mate I put some ‘nearly’ boiling water in a bowl and immersed each one (at a time) into the bowl for a few seconds then removed it and applied gentle pressure by hand to bend it the other way and straighten it. After two or three attempts on each wing, they were straight. I accomplished this during a quiet moment in the kitchen one Saturday evening whilst the good wife was watching Eurovision in the front room; I think my time was better spent. I’d been thinking about how I’ll present the model once finished; it’s a long-term plan, but one that needs considering through the build rather than at the end. I’ve a spare Trumpeter display case (316mm x 276mm x 136mm) the other two of which I made ‘concrete apron’ display boards upon which to display my wings-forward Tomcats, with ACMI pod fits) I used one of these boards to place the model on, along with an A-6, just to see if both could be accommodated with wings folded. I used my Italieri A-6E Tram for this purpose… although the Trumpeter one may arrive before I get started on that. The Italieri kit looks ‘ok’ but is a little simpler that what I’d like to model, but we’ll see how things go. And yes, I know there’s a Trumpeter EA-6B due too… no doubt it’ll be available once I’m part way through this build. We’ll see. But, a plan for the two alongside each other on a board presented as a carrier deck (I have the Brengun etched tie-downs set somewhere) will be considered. A number of Reedoak figures will be painted up, and maybe some of the Fujimi figures I have too for the background. I’ve some Verlinden tractors that could compliment the scene too... so this will not be a short build. But those resin wings will mean that such a display is possible. Planning a display by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr The model So, lets get started with the model. One thing, before we do. I’m not sure when the model I had was made, but the mouldings weren’t as crisp as I remembered. A year or two ago, I picked up a pair of kits with very tatty boxes for a very good price – which were in Hasegawa/Hales boxes: a Tracker and a Prowler. Boxes and decals had suffered damp issues and were shot but the kits are fine. The prowler in this instance is a nice and crisp moulding, so I’ll use this one for the majority of the build, although some re-engraving will be undertaken to deepen some of the around-panel lines and add a few fasteners. The fuselage is a little warped, but pulls together neatly with a little tape around the extremities. The other fuselage will serve as a practice piece for trials of modifications to come… and with a pair of Aires cockpits, I’m sure I’ll build that one too at some point. One other advantage of the older boxing is that it came with darkened glazing. I need to look at these and compare them with what I want the model to eventually look like. The forward windscreen will have the ‘armoured glass’ blue tint but the canopies will need their unique gold tint (gold plate to protect the crew from the high-energy radio frequency emissions of the aircraft jamming antennas) and how I apply that will be something to experiment with… so I might not use the dark-tinted pieces after all. I’ll be building this in an order that suits my approach; I’ll not be following the instructions except where I need to; let’s face it, this isn’t the most complicated of kits… but what I’m doing means there will be a certain amount of sub assembly done and jumping around to get to where I’ll need to get it too in the end. Cockpit So, having said the above, the first part of the build starts with the cockpit anyway. The kit parts in this regard are quite shameful. Yes, Eduard initially went to great trouble to add parts to improve this area, but the resin replacement part that came along (with its photo etch parts too) is certainly the standard to beat. The Aires cockpit in firstly removed from its moulding parts and the main components (not all of them) assembled using tape and blue tack (why are there so many spellings of this?) to look at it’s fit into the fuselage. I was prepared for some serious surgery here, knowing that few Aires cockpit tubs fit without some cleaning out of the kit sides, and this was no exception… except, where the instructions said to remove material (insides of cockpit side steps and the bits to cut away) wasn’t far off all that was needed; which was good. Aires cockpit pieces removed from 'sprue' by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr The cockpit for this kit is certainly exquisite; whilst many of the parts Aires produce are stunning, in this instance, with such a large open tub, the detail is not only amazing, but there’s a lot of it and it will all be visible once the kit is finished, so it’s worth spending time on to get right. Fuselage surgery started with removing the front coaming and the rear cockpit rear panel; I used a 0.9mm drill in a pin vice to add holes on the cut side of the parts, trimmed away with some sprue cutters and then removed the remaining pieces with an abrasive bit in a mini-drill which made short work of the Hasegawa plastic. Fortunately, the plastic in the kit is typical Hasegawa, being quite firm (rather than the soft plastic of certain Margate based companies – although that now has improved considerably) so cutting away was measured but with some success. The inner faces of the cockpit area identified by Aires were also removed using the min-drill, along with some thinning of the central arch prior to a first test fit. First cut... drill and cutaway for Aires cockpit by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr A test fit was undertaken using lots of tape and blue tack to hold it all together. Several times, this would be undertaken until I was satisfied that enough material had been removed to allow a more stress-free fit of the tub. The only real positive locating guide is that of the lip on the rear of the rear cockpit, so I let that be my guide. This suggested that the front coaming was a little short of where it needed to be and after several attempts at verifying this I decided that some research may be needed to see of more revising was required. First test fit before (lots of) fettling by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Looking at how another modeler had used the Aires part, I noticed in one photo that he’d cut and shimmed the cockpit tub to lengthen it. I decided that I would try the same… but noted that it didn’t need much. The cut, down the middle of the section between cockpits was made using a fine saw, the cut width being 0.5mm (I measured this for reference later, seeing how much material the cut would remove and thus shorten the tub… I then added a shim of plasticard (about 1mm) thus giving a net lengthening of 0.5mm. The photo shows a crude reassembly prior to test fit with a much thicker piece inserted… which I decided was too thick after a quick first fit and replaced with the thinner piece I mentioned. Decided cockpit needed lengthening by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr But a further test fit now put the front cockpit coaming closer to the front of the cut out, which I viewed as much better. Another reference point (looking at photos) is the position of the throttles (just visible in photos) and how far aft they are of the rear of the windscreen frame. Later photos will see the windscreen piece sat on the fuselage halves, that I used to make this check… and I was happy that the slight lengthening put these is about the right location. Lengthened cockpit... better fit by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Another view, this time looking forward into that delightful resin cockpit tub. Forward looking view of cockpit test fit by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr I superglued the insert in the tub and then took this forward with further test fits as I started to apply the cockpit frame pieces around the exterior. Spliced cockpit with 1mm insert by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr The side pieces needed some fettling to get to settle and some trimming to sit where I wanted them to sit. The instructions suggested glueing the side sill onto the vertical inside pieces, but I found it better to trim the inside pieces to sit inside the cockpit walls and then fir the sills… for a more repeatable fit. At this point, I was still using blue tack to hold the tub in place so ‘fit’ was a little variable. Test fit, adding the surrounds by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr With the tub held in place this way, I used a sharp pencil to mark off the underside of the tub at the front and rear so that I could add four ‘shelves’ onto which the tub would sit. To give a positive location at the rear, I also beefed-up the rear frame to hold the tub positively and to fill-in the gaps that were otherwise evident around the cockpit’s rear. At the bottom of the picture you will also see a curved piece of plasticard that I attached to close-out the remaining gap forward of the coaming; I secured this with small triangles of plasticard/plastic strut, secured with superglue. In this photo you can probably also see the tabs I added to the fuselage halves to help give a better, more positive alignment of the two halves. Note that the between cockpits arch is now much, much thinner to allow the resin panels to sit with less stress on it. Packing out the rear section and braces for cockpit by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Here’s another image of the cockpit tub with the forward frame added. There’s lots more detail to add to the rear bulkhead of the front cockpit (and a bit to the rear) but I’ll tackle that later. For now, I’ll move on to another area of the kit. Cockpit forward piece added - gap filler by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Intakes So, let’s talk intakes. The kit is quite disappointing in this area as, quite simply, they’re blank. Having failed to find a set of the Russian XXM resin intakes anywhere, I pondered alternatives. The easy approach would be to just leave them. No, that wasn’t going to work for me. I thought about scratch building some intake blanks (I’d need exhaust blanks too), but when I looked through my reference library I failed to find (m)any photos that convinced me that these were used at any time apart from when the aircraft was stored in the hangar bay (or perhaps during an ocean transit). I found just one photo and that was of the exhausts blanked! So… what to do? I decided to dig out my A6 kits (Italieri A-6E and Fujimi EA-6A) and see how they tackled it. Well… that was enlightening! Each of the A6 kits has an attempt at providing some form of passage through to a compressor disc, but the Italieri compressor disk is tiny and whilst the Fujimi disk is the right size at about 10mm diameter (scaled from dimensions for a P&W J52) the intake itself is a little oddly shaped. However, both have cut-out intake splitter plates; the Fujimi kit has a half-diameter trunking piece. The intake shapes are however varied. The first photo shows the Hasegawa kit ‘blank’ intake alongside the Fujimi kit. Intakes... to see the compressor disk or just a blank? by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr A further comparison of the three kits sees the manufacturers attempts at intake shape. Let’s be honest here… this is nothing new (ever looked at the intakes offered on A-7s, of F-100s come to that) so the shape of these seems to be a challenge for most companies. I think in isolation, you could probably get away with any of them, but together they do tend to jump out a bit. I presume that there would have been subtle differences in the Prowler intake from that of the intruder, but not too much. I think the Hasegawa kit item shape isn’t too far off, although it is still a little egg-shaped (rather than symmetrical which I think it should be), but it’s possibly close enough; the Italieri seems too squashed and the Fujimi just too round… but… that was not the point of the exercise, so let’s use what we have and move on. Comparing intake lip shapes ... prowler and intruders by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr The intention was therefore to produce some form of trunking that would allow the compressor disk to be seen through the intake. I’ll use the Fujimi disk for now (as it’s about the right size – close enough) and attempt to fabricate something. Time for some prototyping! Because I’d already invested time on the fuselage parts I’m using, and because I didn’t trust myself to get this right first time, as I’d not tried this sort of thing before, I grabbed the fuselage parts from the other kit (header photo). Approximating what I could see in the Fujimi kit, and in looking at photos of the XMM pieces online, I set about the drill and cut process, opening up holes in the splitter plate piece and the fuselage intake section. Intake splitter plate and fuselage drill cut and file by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr I’d no idea what diameter of plastic tube I’d need (and I didn’t have any!) so I made a tube section from plasticard which I formed around the body of a pen and secured the two layers with Tamiya thin. I then guessed the shape that I’d need to cut out of this for a first test fit – then fettled more and more. First prototype components by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr A first test fit revealed lots of fettling would be needed, but that the approach might produce what I sought. First prototype test fit by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Clearly, I’d need something a little stronger, so I guesstimated the tube diameter and popped out to get some from a local model shop, settling in the end for some Evergreen 11.1mm diameter tube. A second prototype was made using this tube, with more an more refining of the shape to give a better ‘sit’ inside the fuselage. I also attacked the inside of the outer intake with white (fine) milliput to sculpt the intake trunking shape. I remember using the old green stuff years ago, but this was my first time using the white – and yes, I set a 7 minute timer when mixing/kneading the two-arts mix to ensure I got a good mix of the two white parts. Once attached and cured (overnight) some sanding, filing and cutting away (with a sharp blade) were necessary to get the shape I was after. It’s not perfect, but it’s a test piece and more care will be needed for the final item(s). This also shows the repairs to the now-fragile splitter plate piece, the fuselage hole now reduced in size and the prototype#2 trunking. Second prototype components by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr A test fit shows where this will go; still far from perfect but getting-there! Second prototype test fit by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr A third prototype was then made, trying to make it to match the shape of the second, in which I’d constantly added and removed sections for a better fit. Some repairs were needed to strengthen the corners of this… but this was still better than the second. The main tube is made from two sections that are spliced at an angle to ‘curve’ the tube… it’s not enough yet, so some more curving is needed. The next one may be three rather than two pieces. Second and third prototype pieces by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr The following photos show some of the test fits that I eventually achieved with No. 3. It’s still far from perfect but it’s getting there. So, some points to make here… 1. The intake trunking fouls the rear of the nose gear bay piece. I removed a lot of material off the outer corner of the gear bay and ultimately filed a flat onto the trunking to allow a stress-free fit. It’s till tight, so some further fettling will be required with the next version. 2. The inside face of the crew-access ladder is now paper thin. The XMM parts replace this altogether on one of the A6 kit parts, and it’d be better to do so here, but I’m still experimenting. As the photos sow, this doesn’t give a seamless trunking on the outer faces, but they’ll be difficult to see with the finished model – only the inner faces will be easy to see (see photos) so it might be good enough. Let’s see what prototype no. 4 gives me! 3. The intake piece needs tidying up between the outer part and splitter plate, to fill-in the corners seamlessly. Something that I’ll need to try when I come to final assembly of these parts. 4. The outer diameter has an additional tube piece glued to the outside to allow this to ‘sit’ against the fuselage outer wall and present a bonding surface to secure it. 5. Inner face has a ‘flat’ filed away where it meets the nose gear bay corner. 6. The front of the trunking has a small tab that secures to the inside of the fuselage, again, to allow correct positioning and to secure the part with glue. Third prototype test fit #1 by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Third prototype test fit #2 by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Third prototype test fit #3 by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Third prototype test fit #4 by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Prototype 3 by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Third prototype test fit #5 by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Third prototype test fit #6 by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr Third prototype test fit #7 by Jonathan Hughes, on Flickr So, that’s it for now. I need to use the parts I’ve made, and the holes I’ve cut, as templates to try the other side and hopefully improve again on the design and assembly. It’s a lot of effort (more than I’ve tacked before) and I’m still not 100% convinced that I can pull it off… but I’ll give it a go. I still need to determine how I’ll present a seamless trunking throughout the whole of the final assembly; but let’s get it’s structure and design sorted first. I guess I could always go back to plan b and add intake blanks if the end result isn’t good enough, but let’s see how this goes. I’m in no rush. Thanks for reading… and please throw you comments my way… especially any positive suggestions that could help this further. Cheers, Jonathan

As my ‘Rider in the Sky’ has gone into painting, its time to build this Assembly Ship. Its been sitting on the shelf for a long time and this STGB provided the motivation to build it now. Some of the recent learning will be taken along with build, namely put the correct rear nacelle in the right place, don’t spread the fuselage with nose weight and maybe follow the instructions to fit the complete nose to the fuselage. Here is the starting point: Here are the box contents: Before I bought this kit, the only way to build Tubarao was to paint the stripes. This kit has them already printed as decals. There was a recent RFI of a build here on BM where the Hasegawa decals disintegrated. To avoid getting the end of the build and finding out that the decals were unusable, this build started with a decal test. Not the ‘started with the cockpit’ normal build process here. 😉 As the box comes with 2 off 491 BG Assembly ship decals, the stripes for the plane I am not going to build were tested on wing underside and a fuselage half. Both decals floated off the paper and settled down on the plastic without drama so the build will proceed as planned. The wing decal was a bit long in chord but thats OK. The fuselage decal lines up with some window appurtures at the same time as matching perfectly with the fuselage mating face. I am thinking about pre-painting the area under the big stripe decals yellow. The reason being if the decals don’t align perfectly, the gaps will be less obvious and easier to touch up with paint afterwards. This important with yellow because of the translucent nature of yellow paint. Regards Toby

My latest build is a quite exotic F-16F of the UAE 🇦🇪 air force. I used the 1/48 Hasegawa kit mostly out of the box, only adding Kelik 3d decals for the cockpit and a Reskit exhaust. I wanted to do a fairly quick build focusing on the paint job, as a little break from my Revell Victor K2 build. Painted with Vallejo and Hataka acrylics in various grey shades using photos as a reference, using my Gaahleri 0,2 Mobius airvrush. weathered with Flory wash, AK pencils and Tamiya weathering master. My goal was a worn and weathered jet, and i think it turned out ok. Thanks for stopping by.

The Lancia 037 is from Hasegawa, the kit has been released in several different sponsorship schemes over the years as limited edition kits. There are also a plethora of decal sets available from various aftermarket specialists. This version uses decals from Rejimodel to depict the car driven by A. Vudafieri / L. Pirollo in the 1983 Tour de Corse where they finished 3rd. The decal set came with a Benetton decal for the front light pod cover, I do not have any evidence that this appeared on the car in this rally but I have seen a photo with this scheme with the cover in place. This gave me another unique set up for my 037 collection with the rear bumper and light pod with covers in place. and with the other two completed earlier this year

Completed photos of my Hasegawa Mini Cooper S Countryman ALL4 'Ray Package'; kit #20262. Paint is Tamiya TS-9 British Green for the body, Tamiya TS-42 Light Gun Metal roof and wheels, Tamiya TS-31 Bright Orange for the wing and interior mirrors to match the orange of the "Ray Package" decals. I also coated the green in Tamiya TS-65 Pearl Clear, though the effect really only comes out under sunlight or very bright light. What can I say? I think this kit will be unfairly disregarded due to the subject matter. I, like many, think the Countryman ALL4 is anethema to everything the Mini should represent and I only bought the kit because it was cheap and the box art is cool. But the kit itself is really good. A nice build with lots of detail and good engineering as is the case with many modern Hasegawa kits. You may recall the model was build as part of the triple Mini, Midi, Maxi wip:

Good morning all, Here is my promised "nemesis" build, As I said earlier, I had previously tried to build this kit and due to incompetence on my part, it became either unbuildable, or I lost the will to complete it. Whatever, I binned the thing, except for the wheels and tyres, which are in my spares box somewhere... Sometime later, I began to regret binning it So, when one turned up on a second-had kit web store, I decided to go for it. It wasn't an immediate decision, it took weeks before I decided to press the button. I have a huge stash of unbuilt and part built models, and I wasn't sure I wanted to add yet another victim model to my stash. Anyway, I did and here we go... Box Art: Fairly dynamic, and typical of the time period for Hasegawa, I think. I even remembered to take piccies of the trees: Not a huge number of parts, but enough to make the assembly process interesting. The parts were not in plastic bags, which I assume they would have been when first opened. The important thing is that all the parts are there, and unscratched in any significant way. Phew! Unusually, construction doesn't start with the engine. That's step 2. We start with the drive shafts and brake assemblies: Semi-primed, then primed in grey (Tamiya XF-19, a good base coat in my opinion). You can see that I missed a couple of places, but I later gave them another coat. Each part is made up of the shaft, the stub axle with brake ventilator, a poly cap and the brake disc. There is some detail on the disc. The shaft is painted in XF-56, the hub in Abbadon Black (I love that colour). I diluted it with Tamiya X-20A acrylic thinners, which works well. Don't try too thin it with Mr Color Levelling thinners! You get a gooey, gloopy mess. Trust me, I know from experience! The disc face is Citadel Runefang Steel, and the inner part Vallejo "Liquid Silver". The disc calliper is Tamiya X-31 "Titanium Gold". I also painted the disc rim/edge with XF-56. To my mind, it came out quite well. The next two stages are for the engine assembly. I decided to assemble all the engine/transmission in one go, then paint up the details. Currently here, the engine has yet to be primed. Primed: Painted in Abbadon Black, ready for picking out the details: It needs another couple of coats to completely cover the primer coat. There are two more suspension links to install before that though. The suspension as it is, is rather delicate. The extra two links should make it more robust. I have noticed this with other Hasegawa automobile kits. They do seems to sacrifice robustness for greater "realism". There are a couple of other "greeblies" to add, but not until I have picked out all the details with colour. Well, that's about as far as I have got so far. More to come! The bit that caused it to stall before has yet to be encountered ... Thanks for looking in. Cheers, Alan.

Here is my recently completed build of a Hawker Hurricane Racer G-AMAU 'The Last Of The Many' using the Hasegawa 1/72 kit. Unfortunately I had the wrong base kit and had to mate the correct Arma wings. The kit exhausts were replaced with Quickboost options. Decals by Mike Grant. Build log here: Thanks for looking. Stuart

I am going to build this one with the aim of putting this on a base. I say aim because it is going to very much depend on whether I can get figures fitting into place. If I can I will add it to the base, hopefully with some water. Time will tell. This one will be a little different for me as I will be using the decals from the box, the scheme isn’t my favourite on a Stratos but with the safari version I don’t have a choice. I have the Studio 27 PE set which will help with the mesh guards that attach to the external bars, I am not sure yet what else I will use. First thing will be to figure out the body and get it painted and decaled

Convair Deltas - Daggers and Darts Having just finished the lovely Meng F-102A in 1/72 (32nd FIS, Soesterberg, Netherlands, 1962) it completed my current run of Daggers and Darts so I thought I would show them in one post. Other than the Meng 102 most of the others have been posted elsewhere on this forum but here they are in one place. The Meng 102 is a simpler kit than their 106. It doesnt include any internal intake trunking and the missile bay is easier to construct (though I closed mine up on the 102 with the perfectly fitting set of closed doors provided!) . Overall finish was Xtracolour ADC Grey with Xtracrylic satin varnish topcoat. I was intending to use the AK Colours laquer ADC Grey but it was a far too blue shade so went back to good old enamel Xtracolour which in my experience sprays beautifully. Meng F-102A: Hasegawa F-102A: Hasegawa conversion - TF-102A: Meng F-106A : Trumpeter F-106B: Hasegawa F-106As:

This has been an interesting return to modelling. I hadn't built a kit since 2018, only finishing off a 1/48 F-4S Phantom build from 2018 in April, which just required decals and finishing. I decided to include multiple new ventures with this kit - switching to Mr Hobby lacquer, upgrading my airbrush to an Iwata Eclipse HP-CS, use of 3D printed weapons and an ancient Microscale decal set (48-237). Ever since building a 1/72 Hasegawa VMFA-531 F/A-18A in about 2001 (badly), I have wanted to do a better job of capturing that cool early look of the legacy Hornets with that warry skull on the tail fin. Sadly, the Grey Ghosts are no more (even in 2001 they were long gone), but here is my model of what would have been a hot rod plane for the Marine pilots in the mid 80s. Paints used for the TPS were Mr Hobby 337 (FS 35237) for the glare panel, 308 (FS 36375) for upper surfaces and Sidewinders and 338 (FS 36495) for undersides and outer tail fins. Mr Hobby metallics were used for the exhausts (61 Burnt Iron), gun panel (28 Steel) and pitots and sway braces (203 Super Iron). I also used some Humbrol enamels for the pilot figures camo helmet cover and smaller details like undercarriage door edging. Also my first foray into using oil paint (Winsor & Newton) for panel line accentuation and staining/weathering. ResKit weapons used were Mk20 Rockeye cluster bombs and AIM-9-L/M Sidewinders. These are kits in their own right, with great decals and provide exceptional details. Overall, a great kit, quite fiddly in places and, in hindsight, not the most friendly kit for a return to modelling with my high expectations of producing a good outcome, but I am now very content with the result and will be able to display it with pride. Here are the pics, taking you back to the mid 80s, pale greys and the coolest USMC markings, hope you like what you see. Comments, questions and criticism welcome.

Hasegawa is to release a 1/72nd Lockheed-Martin F-35A Lightning II kit. Seen at the All Japan Model & Hobby Show 2013 Source: http://happy.ap.teacup.com/applet/runchickens/msgcate19/archive?b=20 V.P.