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Hello, Here, finally, are the finished pics of George E. Laven, Jr.'s FIRST P-38E, #41-2076. This model presented a difficult problem about exactly how is should be finished and weathered. The base colors were O.D. and Neutral Grey. The problem is, it served in the Aleutian Campaign of WW II, and was subject to harsh weather and volcanic dust and mud -- but only for a fairly short time. The aircraft was moved to the Aleutians somewhere between June and August, 1942. After registering two kills with this aircraft in September and November of 1942, Laven was allowed to fly the aircraft back to Dallas, Texas for repairs, while be had a brief R&R at home in December of 1942. Laven re-appears in Alaska, but by the "red surround" period of U.S. national markings, he was then flying his SECOND P-38E #41-2069, buzz no. 80 . I do not know when (or if) #41-2076 ever returned to Alaska, and we may never know, as official records are said to indicate that this aircraft was lost on April 04, 1942, in a fatal accident in Washington state -- clearly an impossibility! In any event, how to paint and weather a model that flew around 6 months in some of the harshest climate on earth? I don't know, and I WISH someone would write that how-to book for us modelers!! Dana Bell, do you have one more left in you.... :<) Meantime, this model is my best S.W.A.G. interpretation, and undoubtedly is NOT the final answer... The RS Models P-38E is a nice kit, but definitely has it's quirks. For more on that, see the Build Thread Thanks for looking, Ed

Hello everyone. I'm back with a rather repetitious build of the RS Aleutian P-38E. Cookenbacher did one a while back, which is worth referring to: Cookie's P-38E I also did one, representing Laven's second P-38E, #80, with some vagaries about it's color: Laven's 2nd P-38E Unfortunately, when I did mine, Cookie's pictures were missing, so I didn't have that to help out. Thankfully for all of you, he has restored them. I am building yet another of these, for two reasons: 1) my endeavor to build one of each type of aircraft associated with George E. Laven, Jr. -- he of the colorful aircraft fame; and 2) I decided to try the resin aftermarket cockpit kit offered by RS for this P-38, to see whether this would alleviate some of the fit issues that both Cookie and I encountered in the cockpit area. We shall see how that goes.... The kit and the cockpit set look lie this: I began in the time-honored (and usually necessary) tradition of assembling and more or less completing the cockpit area, which of course has to be built into the model at an early stage: It has a little more detailing than the kit, and the wheel well is not as tall. We'll see if that helps. Also new (to me) is the use of the Dap Rapidfuse, which is an ethyl cyanoacrylate for those interested. For the rest of use, that equates to a thick CA-type glue that tacks up in 30 seconds and hardens in 30 minutes -- and is odorless! The later is important to me, because over the years I have fried out my nose-holes from using CA and get burning eyes and a runny nose from the regular stuff -- which has played havoc with my building of resin models. This stuff is great for gluing resin parts together, as well as adding landing gears, doors, antennae and pitot tubes after the fact. Alas, I cannot worship it as the universal anti-solvent, because it dries with a slightly rubbery consistency, as do all the other odorless CA glues. That means that you cannot sand it to a smooth finish like regular CA. Pity, as I was looking for another minor deity to worship. (Just a joke folks, don't get crazy!) Actually the kit 'pit is pretty good, except for the wire frame you have to make for the seat back, which is included on the resin seat, as later pics will show. Next the painted and mostly assembled cockpit is shown glued to the lower wing, to center up the landing gear well. Test fitting with the top of the fuse also revealed that the resin cockpit improved upon the fit problems, it did not solve them, so more sanding was needed on the bottom of the wheel bay, as well as the bare resin part atop the instrument panel, as you can see below: The two red "L"'s above show the added lead fishing weights cut down to fit in the nose -- a requirement. Can't say how much I used as I just stuffed it full! Next, the upper fuse half was glued to the bottom half (after much sanding and test fitting!), but only at the area where the clamps are shown. The nose seams were left un-glued for the moment: As Cookie points out in his build, the bottom nose half is a little wider than the top half, so each side of the nose was glued and clamped separately, beginning with the left side: Followed after drying by the right side. This resulted in fairly reasonable seams -- but not perfect -- on either side: All the finely-etched detail is going to go bye-bye -- drats! Hmm... see that I've nicked the headrest area with a clamp. I'll have to touch that up! Until next we meet... Ed

Hello everyone! This will not be a "normal: WIP, because the model is already built. However, I feel that certain aspects of the model deserve some comment. Without further ado... I was researching the colorful aircraft flown by Col George Laven (mostly his F-104C and F-84E and F-100C aircraft), when I began to uncover more of his interesting story. While he didn't get the first kills in the Aleutian campaign, he did get two early ones, in 1942, flying in his P-38E "Itsy-Bitsy", buzz #76. (His F-100C had the same buzz #, which is why he "adopted" it as his own). He also had two additional Aleutian kills, I think in his second P-38E, also named "Itsy-Bitsy", which featured rather "unusual" markings. I believe he had the next two kills in the second aircraft, because there is a press clipping on-line showing his first P-38E #76, on the runway at Dallas, Texas, where he had flown it home for repairs. I do not know whether this first aircraft ever returned to the war. Interestingly, Laven got the last confirmed P-38 kill of the Pacific campaign, flying a P-38L-5-LO, named "Itsy-Bitsy II" -- the subject of the Hobby Boss 1/72 P-38L kit. See a pattern developing here? Also of curiosity, he is often left off the list of P-38 aces, even though he clearly had 5 confirmed kills! But, I digress. Back to the subject of THIS story, the RS Aleutian P-38E Lighting kit (which has parts to build the P-38 E,F,G,and H models, if you are so inclined. You'll have to furnish your own decals for other marks). The RS kit conveniently provided the decals for BOTH of then Major Laven's P-38E's, #76 AND #80, which is the subject of current discussion. The kit looks like this: As would be expected, the detail on this kit are finer than those of the venerable Airfix kit of yore, but that kit is still very presentable. For me, the deal sealer was the decals. I plugged along, and the first thing to be aware off, if you're a beginner, is that there are NO locating pins anywhere on this model, so nothing snaps together. You must hold the pieces in alignment and apply very thin cement, to the inside of the parts where possible, and on the outside, where not. This resulted for me, in virtually every seam needed a little (but only a little) filler: Here, let me put in a plug for the Montex Mini masks #SM 72208, for the RS P-38 model. It says it's for the G/H models, but worked fine, as you can see in the photos. They are black, as shown above, and sturdy enough that I'm going to attempt to use them twice, being the cheap sort of miscreant that I am. These are particularly useful for the canopy side windows, as trying to otherwise mask the tiny frame would be maddening. They also give you wheel masks which are not perfect, but okay, and you really don't need them anyway, as the wheels aren't that hard to paint otherwise. In any event, I had struggled along to this point, when I discovered that Cookenbacher had built one last year or so for the WW II group build. (I saw that thread one time, and wish I had had it to start with, but didn't. Also, after seeing it once, I couldn't find it again! Cookenbacher, if you see this, please feel free to post a link to your work, as there is no need to duplicate it here, when your work is certainly worth seeing! There was also another workup of an RS P-38D, but all the pictures had gone away, so it wasn't very useful -- pity. I had two major problems with the kit. One that Cookie described -- the fit of the cockpit was pretty bad. I managed to straighten out most of it, except the seat, which despite much sanding to lower it into the cockpit, still prevented the canopy from fitting down properly. I finally laid it back a bit, somewhat like a recliner! RS makes a resin cockpit for this kit, and I have acquired on for the other P-38E that I hope to eventually build, and will see whether the resin kit solves that problem. The other major problem I had was the fit if the wheel wells into the booms. I never did quite get that right. One other thing -- this aircraft has props that rotate counter to each other. On many forums, I have read of the problems that many modelers have when trying to align propeller blades that simply don't "snap" together nicely. I have therefore decided to put forth my own method, which is both cheap and certain. (Some of you have already seen this on my P2V-3 Neptune thread, so you can just skip this part! My method requires a piece of cardboard with a tiny hole in the center of a circle that is divided into four, and also three parts. You could go crazy and draw 5 parts too, for those of you who might use such things (You know who you are!) Anyway, my cardboard in the side of my Doc O'brian's Weathering Powders box, on the theory that I'll probably not lose the poders, and so therefor might not lose the propeller jig! To the left, above, are shown the box with pattern, and the props, painted and with decals installed. The second pic shows the prop hub installed into the hole in the cardboard, which fortuitously, happens to lie approximately in the center of the alignment pattern. Also shown is one piece of plastic card glued on it's edge, and on either side of it, more scrap card; these both to raise the tip of the prop, to keep it in the same plane as the hub. This is, of course, so the the prop blades lean neither for nor aft from their arc of motion. The edge-glued (all white glue) piece is simply to establish the angle-of-attack or "thrust pitch" of the prop blades, as shown i picture 3 above. You can add the extra bits and do all blades at once, or do as I do, glue up one blade at a time, let dry, then rotate the glued prop and glue up another blade, etc. End result looks like this: Since the blades are "handed", just use the opposite side of the alignment lines on the jig for the "other" sided prop. Duck Soup! The last point of interest for this project is the rather unusual marking of the aircraft, hence the "Mystery" title of the thread. There was a cover of a 1943 issue of Life Magazine that featured this aircraft: Discussion thread here: 3-toned lightning If you read the thread you will probably determine that the most likely meaning of this photo was than supplies being hard to come by in the Aleutians (The Forgotten War), maintenance crews used whatever they had on hand, probably Neutral Grey to paint surface badly eroded by the volcanic, pumice-like dust of the Aleutian Islands. I preferred to imagine that this photo depicted a trial of the "Haze" type paints, originally used on the F-4 Lightning reconnaissance type, and rumored to have been tried (and liked) by some fighter groups. Not sure we'll ever know for certain, but until/unless we do, my guess is as good as anybody's.; though probably not as informed! Lastly, by way of a teaser photo, and as a way to show the results of the canopy masks as well as the result of my first attempt at the "salt" technique of depicting paint weathering, I present the following photo of the completed model: If you want to see more, RFI is here: RFI Link Thanks for looking, Ed Insert other media

Right so I've been getting myself back into the swing of things with this since the end of Jan/early Feb. I brought this little set last year sometime: I wont be using the Hobby-Design engine transkit though as I believe its designed after the evo IV-VI engines which were turned around 180 degrees compared to the evo I-III. The decals for the '93 Portugal event are yellowed somewhat: So I took a root around in my Decal stash and decided on these for the 1993 Monte Carlo: The only noticeable difference between the Monte and Portugal cars, aside from the obvious livery changes is that the Monte cars didn't feature roof vents. I have also decided to lower the ride height. But I'm leaving the building of the suspension pars until last so I can get a clear picture of how much needs cutting out the struts. I started by assembling the roll cage, though I left off the rear bar were the seat belts attach for reasons that will become clear later lol. I did have to repair the top bars as they had broken in transit. I don't think you can see the repair unless you look for it After priming and painting all the parts that needed to be white I made a start on the decaling. The large red, silver and black swoops on the rear were a bit of a pain and I had a bit of trouble around the C pillar. The decal instructions call for the rear spoiler to be painted TS-49 so hopefully if I decant a little I can touch up the tears. I still need to paint the red strip around the bottom of the car. The decals are useless so once I've clear coated the body I'll mask and paint them on. The wheels are ready for clear too: The past week whilst the body has been left for the decals to fully dry out I've been working on the interior. I did toy with the idea of using Kevlar decals on the sump and seat backs but I wanted a simple build to restart my modelling mojo and the seatbelts were daunting enough haha. I used Humbrol 93 as the colour matches the Kevlar decals I normally use. I think it looks good lol. The last couple of days I've been working on the seat belts and finishing off the interior parts. Now some may notice the rear bar for the roll cage in that last pic. Hindsight from my evo IV build, which erroneously uses the same floor and interior as these, taught me that trying to mount the seat belts to the bar when its attached to the rest of the cage and mounted to the interior tub is very fiddly and this way is much easier hehe. I've also got the dash 99.5% complete: I've just got to paint the bolts on the steering wheel and the row of switches above the kill switch. I should have the interior finished later today and maybe the body will get clear coated too. TTFN Ashley.

Was a bit of a struggle at the very end but I'm calling it done. Build thread here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234998472-mitsubishi-lancer-rs-1993-monte-carlo-rally/ Kits built oob apart from the addition of the spare wheel and the lowering of the ride height. Pics ahoy: Thanks to those that have followed the build and as always comments are welcome TTFN Ashley

Well she's finished save for a couple of small details. WIP here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234987216-ford-escort-rs-cosworth-group-a-rally/ Kit was Tamiya's Michelin Pilot version with Shunko decals to build the Monte Carlo 1993 car. Slight troubles with the decals mainly on the bumper corners but from a distance it looks good. Will weather in the future when those skills have been honed a bit more. Anywho pics Ahoy: Thanks for looking and to those that have followed the build. As always comments are always welcome lol TTFN Ashley.

This build started about 2 years ago and after a number of mishaps was shelved until this month when I finally got the motivation to complete it. The kit came with a set of 555 logos to "correct" the livery to build the New Zealand 1993 car. However the decals weren't completely accurate. So seeing as the original Hasegawa decals were perfect except for the rally plate one, which was yellowed. I decided to build it as the Tour de Corse 1993 car. I used plain flour as flocking for the seats and applied Kevlar decals to the backs. The seat belts were a first for me and the first mishap was the belt logo decals which broke up whilst threading them through the seats. The next problem I had was with the Renaissance transkit. It included new suspension and brakes as well as the tarmac wheels and tyres. The problem was that the front brakes were too large to allow the wheels to fit and the rear suspension caused the same with the rear wheels. Finally I had a reaction with the clear coat on the roof and with that it went into the storage pile. On restarting this kit I dispensed with the renaissance suspension and brakes and just shortened the kit shocks. This solved the wheels fitment issues. I carefully sanded the roof with 2000 wet and dry hoping not to damage the decal and reapplied the clear coat. Second problem solved. However the seatbelt weren't as bad as I remembered but still aren't great. I decided to leave them as is and get the kit finally finished. Pics Ahoy: Paint if anyone is interested is Subaru 53C And the eagle eyed might notice the driver name decals are on the wrong sides. Hasegawa instructions for you lol TTFN

Well as a classic car enthusiast, I've grown up in a household very dedicated to Classic Ford's (I'm different however, building a Classic Mini ) My Step Dad has 2 Mk1 Capri's... He has had this model sat in a wardrobe for many years (dated 1987!) and handed it to me last night to build for him to go on his desk at work I've tried doing a bit of reading up on it, but am unable to find much information about the model If anyone has any info that would be brilliant! It has an Optional Electric motor which powers the rear wheels, but I do not know if I will use it, as it will only be a static display! Will update this when I progress with the build! Thanks Chris