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Hi, Here's my Tamiya F-35A. I'll be using Furball decals to build 19-5495 of the 495th FS. I considered building the 48th FW flagship with the 4 squadron badges, but these are smaller than the single squadron badge on this one and I'm glad to have the 495th back at Lakenheath. I had seen this aircraft in 2022 and again this year. I'm going to keep this build simple with a closed bombbay. It's going to be my first build of anything with "Have Glass" colours. I'll see how that goes with the MRP paints. Cheers, Stefan.

Ten years ago, almost to the day, on 24 July 2014, I was fortunate to witness the rollout of the RAAF's first F-35A in a ceremony at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth plant (back when I worked in the media). Given that small connection, that jet, known to the program as AU-1, and to the RAAF as A35-001 (and wearing 2OCU tail markings), will be the subject of my first/main/only* build for this GB. Which I will build using Tamiya's state-of-the-art 1/48 kit. Just look at that beautiful styrene goodness. Like the F-35 program itself mine will have a little bit of Australian industry involvement, thanks to decals... ... and masks from Ronin Graphics. Plus (not pictured) I plan to try SMS paint's Have Glass grey (PL59) for the main FS36170 grey (perhaps in a mix with something to give it the metallic effect). I also have 3D decals for the instrument panel and seats from Reskit. Incidentally I still have some merch - a cap and two challenge coins - from the rollout event. So I should be able to put together some sort of cool display with the finished model and the challenge coins in particular. Here's just hoping for an on-time and on-budget build! Thanks for looking in, Gerard (*TBC - I would love to build one each of an F-35A, B and C in this GB, but my build rate of late suggests otherwise!)

Hallo This is my P-47 D Bubbletop from Tamiya in 1/48. Pilot Glenn Eagleston. A/C coded FT o L from 353rd FS 354th FG. This kit build was a joy. Out of a serie of 4 P-47 and on P-43. Tamiya quality. All fits, all works, straight ahead. All proper and no issues at all to remark. Surface was sprayed with Gunze SM 201. Undercoat was C 002 in gloss black. Shaded with various GX colors from Gunze. All operational markings are sprayed. Insignia and individual codes are decals. So have a look: Happy modelling

I am really pleased to present to you all my latest build, a North American F-51D-30-NA Mustang of Nevada Air National Guard as she was when seconded to the Icelandic Defense Force in 1952-53 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland_Defense_Force), based at Keflavik Airbase, Iceland and operated under United States Air Force control. This subject caught my eye many months ago and I have been determined to build her. I could have plucked any of the aircraft from this deployment but I chose 44-74482 “Nancy” as she had some of the markings that appeal to me – the stencil-type Buzz number, particularly, as well as the one named aircraft that I could identify. In building her I have used a little “Modeller’s Licence” in terms of the colours applied. You will see in the text below that there is detailed description. However, I fear that time has allowed memories to wain and so I have used “best guess” for this model, with reasoning for each difference using reference images. I have noted my changes in the following text. The following background has been extracted from Wikipedia (public domain and edited): One of the last overseas deployments of a F-51D Mustang unit by the U.S. Air Force was in late 1952 when 25 aircraft of the 131st Fighter Bomber Group, were assigned to the Iceland Defense Force (IDF) at Keflavik air base in Iceland. Most of the 25 Mustangs came from the 192nd Fighter Bomber Squadron, Nevada Air National Guard, with fillers from the 110th FBS, Missouri Air National Guard and 170th FBS, Illinois Air National Guard, as no squadron in the 131st had the originally required number of 35 airplanes to be readied for the mission. Distinctive "arctic-red" (Insignia Red) markings were applied to all IDF Mustangs before their transfer from USA to Iceland. This included the painting of the outer wingspan, fuselage aft end, and tail empennage (minus control surfaces) in Insignia Red. My note: wing control surfaces were red also. The sliding canopy frame, propeller spinner, and tips of wings and tail empennage were Insignia Blue (the standard colour trim for the 192nd FBS). The windshield frame and the anti-glare panels (between the propeller and the windshield) were black although some were Olive Drab (often not distinguishable from black in colour photos). Some aircraft had stainless steel panels around the exhaust stacks painted glossy black for easy cleaning. The landing gear strut fairings had a 6 inch colour at the panel bottom for separate flight identity, blue, red, and yellow. The panels over the filtered air intakes on the lower nose were painted red. My note: these were Insignia Blue. The wording “Nancy” was determined by me to be in Insignia Red. According to written personal notes from Col. Robert W. Gruenhagen (flight chief, line chief, and quality control inspector of the F-51 Mustangs stationed at Keflavik airbase in 1952) the deployment procedure was as follows (quote): "P/F-51 assignment, Iceland During august 27, 1952, 35 Mustangs were readied for launch from George AFB, Victorville, California with destination of Keflavik, Iceland by 1 September, 1952. The aircraft were prepared in A/W T.O. 00-25-4 for overseas transfer and modified with APX-6 transponders to provide the latest IFF capability. Two groups of 17 and 18 aircraft were flown across the U.S. in a northern and southern routing through bases coordinated for en-route support. Two C-119 aircraft were manned with 15 man crews to follow the flights and repair ant turn and launch the Mustangs at each base. Intend was to reach the east coast with 30 aircraft and proceed on with the best 25 for the final destination. The serials listed below were in place in Keflavik and on alert by 15 September of 1952. The aircraft were assigned to the 192 Ftr Bmr Sqdn. (TAC) with support crews made up from three squadrons of the 146 Ftr Bmr Wg, the 178th, 186th and 190th. Serial: 44-72708 44-73788 44-74482 44-74880 44-74845 44-74717 44-73769 44-74586 44-74963 44-72843 44-74377 44-74522 44-84769 44-74382* 44-73996 44-73826 44-74870 44-73409 44-74317 44-74811 44-84834 44-74975 44-74959 44-74368 45-11364. The aircraft served until April, 1953 and were replaced by F-94B interceptors assigned to the 82nd FIS. The Mustang unit designation changed to the 436th Ftr Sqdn on 1 December, 1952. The Mustangs were flown to England, (Renfrew) and transferred to AMC at Brookley field, Mobile Alabama and eventually to Norton AFB Sam Bernardino California were they were scrapped in May of 1954. *44-74382 was left at BW-1 (Narssasuak, Greenland) enroute for an engine change which was completed in one week. A B-26 Navigation aircraft accompanied the Mustangs on all the overwater legs and the later pick-up of 382.” Except for a few remaining on active duty, the three support units returned to Air National status upon return to the US. During this period, the Mustang units in Korea were also converted to jet aircraft with the Mustangs being assigned to the Republic of Korea Air Force and these units along with the Icelandic units were the last overseas assignment of the type with the USAF. What did I use/do? 1. Kit – Tamiya North American F-51D Mustang (60754) in 1/72 2. Decals – the aircraft specific markings were drawn and printed by Arctic Decals. The remainder were from the kit. 3. Aftermarket – Falcon Vacform canopy (9158), AML seat belts (AMLE 80 003), CMK exhausts (Q72 033), Uschi antenna line, Yalu instrument panel, various bits of rod and wire to create the radio box etc. 4. Paint – Mainly Colourcoats Insignia Red (ACUS26) and Insignia Blue (ACUS39), together with Humbrol 27002 Polished Aluminium. H27002+Humbrol 140 mix on the wings. The rudder is H11 Silver. Interior was primarily Colourcoats US Interior Green (ACUS09) and wheel wells are Colourcoats Zinc Chromate Yellow (ACUS23). Varnished at various stages with Humbrol Glosscote (first coat) and Vallejo Gloss and Satin. 5. Weathering – Flory washes used here and there – not the panel lines – plus Prismacolor Silver pencil and various Tamiya Weathering Powders. Here she is: I hope you like her. Martin

Fun little extra kit that came with a P-51 Mustang. My first time using weathering pencils for dirt and mud, they're really fun 🙂

Hello everybody, I haven't been very productive this year, this one is only my second build to date; This is a North American P-51B Mustang "Bald Eagle”, S/N 42-106839, 374th FS, 361st FG, pilot, Lt. Robert Eckfeldt and it’s the Tamiya, 1:48 kit. Based in Essex, the 374th FS participated to invasion of Normandy, mainly doing strike and bombing missions, before reverting to bomber escort after the Normandy campaign. Early in the following days of the landing, upper surfaces ID stripes were over-painted, to avoid detection by german fighters, still very active. The kit was built straight from the box, exception made for some Ultracast resin exhausts and the decals, coming from Aeromaster sheet 48214, Fighting Mustangs, Part IV. The build was, as usual with Tamiya quite straightforward, but for the under fuselage seams, which need a bit of care and putty. I screwed the pouch with clear parts maskings and do recommend the purchase of dedicated masks, thus saving both time and mental sanity …. Paints are Tamiya AS12 and TS30 from the spray can, while the green overpaint is from Gunze H330 and OD anti-glare panel is from the AK real color range. Yellow is a custom mix of Tamiya flat yellow and red, to match the decal hue. Hope you’ll like her …. As usual, comments and critics most welcome.

Hi everybody, calling all Corsair maniacs experts for this build, such as @corsaircorp and @Corsairfoxfouruncle just to name the two I'm more familiar with I always loved the Corsair, but know very little about it, so any help, hints, tips, references and pointers will be greatly appreciated This is more of a bookmark than an actual start, I still need to study some proper documentation about the subject, anyway here are a few pics. The kit: It's the well known Tamiya 1/48 box - I don't think there's much to say about it, anyway here are the sprues: The second pilot figure, in the "jumping on board" pose, is very tempting... Clear parts Decals (as usual, I plan to use very few of them ) and the scheme I want to reproduce, Jolly Rogers' BIG HOG Actual works to start soon-ish, I may venture into a foray in another field of modelling before/along this, we'll see. Meanwhile, I'm all ears Ciao Edit: I almost forgot to add that my friend @corsaircorp had sent me some resin bits to tart up this build: I'm not sure if I'll be using the whole engine or just replace the crankcase of the kit with the resin one - definitely going to use the resin seat, though

Will be building this as a Royal Norwegian AF plane. Not decided yet will it be in stealth or beast mode.

Hallo Here is my P-38J-15-LO. 43-28444 Vivacious Virgin II coded E6-T flown by Lt. Ian B. Mackenizie of 402nd FS / 307th FG from Florennes / Belgium winter 1944 / 45. The model is built from the Tamiya kit. I built the Vivacious Virgin II with Kagero decals. I took artistic freedom and depicted the model with all the invasion-stripes. Since I had to paint them over anyway. I had no sources to find out, if this nose art was there at this time with full stripes. The built with the Tamiya kit was a joy from start to end. In no way to compare it with Eduard. All over quality, clearance in parts and instruction are of highest quality. The intellectual input in the kit design and the result is just marvelous. The Tamiya people today are real experts and show what is really on! BTW: I had the issue, that I broke by stupidity my front-glass. I used the Tamiya communication line for a new part. It worked properly and within 2 months I had it. To a proper price of a few Euros. My WIP has just a few comments on the Tamiya kit, since there was simple nothing to say, just to praise. Have a look: Happy modelling

Good day everyone! I recently purchased a 1/700 Tamiya HMS King George V model which I intend to convert into the HMS Howe in her 1944 scheme. However, I need a little help regarding resources and photographs. Clear and detailed pictures of the HMS Howe's 1944 disruptive camouflage scheme are rather hard to come by, so if anyone could send some or give some suggestions as the weeks come by, it would be greatly appreciated! To add, I will also be posting logs on this topic. Thank you! Kind regards, Naval

Hi folks, here's my Bf109E-3 of 3./JG 52, France August 1940, flown by Karl Wolff. Kit is by Tamiya with decals by Xtradecal for this specific Emil. It's a lovely kit, no issues just a shame the walkway stencils decided to silver. Thanks for looking!

May I present you my rendition of Tamyia's 1/32 Corsair: The VMF-321 F4U-1A flown by 1st Lt. Robert Whiting on Guam, August 1944. Every praise about this kit is true, it plays in another league. The fit and engineering is second to none and it was a very enjoyable build. From the aftermarket came: - HGW seatbelts - Baracuda cockpit stencils - Eagle Cal Decals - Barracuda wheels For the WIP see here:

Hi all! I have the Tamiya 1/35 Pink Panther Landrover and was wondering if I could use a Firing Line British Soldier w/Wollen Pullover as crew? The instructions says it was in use from the Korea War up to the mid 90'es. Would a SAS soldier use it? Cheers Hans J

Here's a "quick build" project that I was able to start and finish in a few weeks. This is the 1997-tooled "new" Tamiya Kubelwagen which is an excellent kit. It's been in my stash since it was released 27 (ulp) years ago and I'm now wondering why I haven't built several by now. Figure is Tamiya with a Hornet head and the signs are scratch built.

I would have swore I started a post on this but could not find it to save my life. This is Tamiya's 1/48th P-47 I'm planning to use Cutting Edge decal sheet. I've been wanting to do a P-47 marked as Eileen since seeing the Academy box art years and years ago on the store shelves. Doing the checkered nose had been giving me anxiety so in a rush of inspiration, I paused another build to tackle them back in June 2022. The Cutting Edge sheet provided the checkers but so did Tamiya and I felt I was going to have better luck with Tami's decals. They were in three parts compared to CE's 2 piece. I started out painting the cowl gloss white as a base. Then came the moment of truth.... There's some wrinkles but I got them mostly out with a healthy dose of Solvaset. Not too shabby, and I like that some of the black squares "chipped" as I'm sure they wouldn't have stayed perfect with use. From there, I started in the normal spot, the cockpit. Paints are Model Master, the green is Euro Green which I like as a match for "P-47 cockpit green". The black is just MM black. I did lay down a base of Alclad aluminum before the green for the chipping effects. I used the kit decals for the instruments and I'm very happy with the way it looks. They conform really well considering Tamiya's decals reputation for being thick, same with the cowl checks. There's some wrinkles but they're really only visible in this photo. I also added some aftermarket cockpit stencils which aren't really visible in these shots. I used a resin seat with molded belts from a company whose name escapes me, but I didn't manage to get a shot of it. 🫤 That's all for now, more to come.

Hi Guys here we go. This is why Im building the F16 RIAT July 2017. Happy days Wellzy

Hello all! This is a well-known Tamiya Stug III G converted into StuH 42 with all the bells and whistles on it. Although there are better options for StuG/StuH variants, 1995 Tamiya StuG III G still holds water and can be built into a very neat vehicle, especially once it's decked up with various and colorful stowage. But before the usual painting and weathering info, here are a few words about the vehicle itself. The model is depicting a Sturmhaubitze 42 (Sd.Kfz 142/2) with a 10.5 cm leFH 18 howitzer, belonging to a SS-Sturmgeschutz Battalion 7 of the 7. SS-Freiwilligen Gebirgs-Division "Prinz Eugen", during the counter-attack on the town of Vlasotince in southern Serbia on 8th October 1944. In late 1944, as the Red Army began sweeping across the eastern Europe, once firm allies of the Axis forces (namely Bulgaria and Romania), finding themselves between hammer and anvil (or should I say sickle) started to rethink their options and on 8th September 1944 Bulgaria, just like Romania did a few weeks earlier, declared war on Germany and placed the Royal Bulgarian armed forces at the disposal of Marshal Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian Front. The 2nd Bulgarian Army began advancing from its assembly area southwest of Pirot towards the Leskovac-Nis area, the Germans rushed the 7.SS-Gebirgs-Division "Prinz Eugen" and made it responsible for the defense of Nis from Zajecar in the north to Leskovac in the south. On 30th September, forward elements of the Bulgarian 2dn Army, seized Vlasotince, 14 kilometers east-southeast of Leskovac, but on 8th October, 7. SS Division "Prinz Eugen" regrouped in Leskovac and laucnhed a counterattack against Vlasotince. The 7.5cm barrel was swapped with a metal 10.5cm barrel from RB and the fit was perfect. The stowage is various mix from Value Gear and Verlinden. The mantlet cover and tarp are made of tracing paper soaked in the PVA glue and the field modification schurtzen screens were made from styrene sheet and the concrete add-on armor is from Value Gear. Hope you like it and please feel free to leave your comments. Cheers!🍻

Welcome dear friends to my latest build. The Hyakushiki shitei lll Recon plane in 1/48 scale by Tamiya. This will be my first ever Japanese aeroplane and my return to aeroplanes in general after a few months off doing various group builds. It’s a subject (like most of my other builds) that I know little about but plan to learn on the job. I love the look of this beast and it’s been working its way to the top of the stash for a while. Here’s My typical starting position for now as I want to get the thread running. A tidy bench after the last build and a nice unopened box of goodies. I hope you’ll join along to keep me company and hopefully give some sage advice. More after Dinah. 😉 (Sorry) Johnny

found a pic of the bottom the the 1967 Lotus 49 gearbox. It's from the Belgian GP, so it's not the later strengthened ZF box, and it shows the ribbing, and the alternator bracket (missing on the Tamiya and Ebbro kits). And another showing just the bracket.

Recently I looked at how many unfinished models I have on my shelf. At first glance, there are a lot of them. But I made a disappointing conclusion that they are still not enough if I want to become the absolute champion in unfinished models. It turned out that this hard sport has a lot of competition, so I start a new model - Kübelwagen Type 82 from Tamiya. I hope that this will be another gem on my shelf with unfinished models Vytautas

Here's my third completion of the year, Tamiya's 1/48 Mitsubishi Ki-46-III 'Dinah' in the markings of the IJAAF 16th Dokuritsu Hikotai (Techmod decals). It's a nice enough kit and goes together pretty well as you would expect of a Tamiya kit. It's a bit clunky in places, shows its age a bit but it's still (as far as I know) the only kit of the type in this scale. I used the two nicely moulded but inanimate crew figures, replaced the pitot with Albion Alloys brass tube and fabricated the R/T cable with Infini lycra thread. I used the ASK inside-and-outside paint mask set for the canopies and I was happy with how that worked out. The colour scheme is wrong; I used a mix of the brown variant (Colourcoats ACJ22) of IJAAF #7 Ohryoku nana go shoku and white for the underside, but had to change my choice of aircraft when the kit transfers turned out to be shot and the Techmod replacement set specified the green variant of #7 for the uppersurface of the aircraft I chose. I don't know how accurate the Techmod instructions are but I do know that I couldn't be bothered to repaint the underside so I have inaccurate undersides and possibly topsides too. Anyway the topsides were done in Colourcoats ACJ09 - IJA #7 variant. Don't judge me Cheers, Stew

Here's my latest - and only my second - completion of the year, the Tamiya 1/48 Mosquito PR.IV as DZ383 of 540 Sqn RAF at Benson, Oxfordshire in 1943. My Dad mentioned that he likes Mosquitos so I thought I'd build one for him, my first thought was the HK Models 1/32 Mk.IV but it quickly became pretty obvious that 1) I wouldn't be able to transport it up to Aberdeenshire on the train and 2) if I did he'd have nowhere to put it So I opted for the Tamiya 1/48 kit as being large enough but not too much. It was a nice kit to build, apart from the transparencies which gave me quite a bit of grief. I used the Eduard T-face interior and exterior canopy mask set - the exterior matching the interior exactly, so I had to do a bit of extra masking so that the internal framing to the rear of the main canopy remained internal and wasn't duplicated on the outside - the Eduard 3D printed instrument panel and radio gear (lovely, but you can't see it at all) and the Eduard resin wheel set (couldn't face trying to clean up the central seam of the kit parts with all that block tread and all). It may be that the internals would have been more visible if I hadn't used the Tamiya crew figures but they were very nice and painted up okay so I didn't want to leave them out. I replaced the pitot with Albion Alloys Brass tube 0.3mm inside a sleeve of Aluminium tube 0.5mm and drilled a hole in the fuselage side for the camera window that isn't represented in the kit - I may have done this slightly too small but I felt better with it than if I'd just left it out. I also drilled out the indentification lights under the fuselage and glazed these with Micro Krystal Klear topped off with Tamiya Clear Red, Green and Orange as appropriate. I added the R/T cable from some fly-tying lycra thread, tinted with some Citadel black wash to tone it down a bit. It was finished in Colourcoats ACRN14 - PRU Blue overall and I used the kit decals apart from the red 'KEEP OFF' boxes on top of the radiators, these came from the Barracuda Mosquito stencils set. They all worked fine apart from the serial which on drying out developed a strange kind of semi-silvering which shows from certain angles and not from others. I opted not to use the majority of the stencilling as some of it appears to be absent from the original aircraft - true, you only see it from one side but it looks suspiciously clear of trestle position markings etc. The final coat was some AK Interactive acrylic varnish, a mix of Ultra-Matte and Satin. Anyway I'm reasonably pleased with it and I hope my Dad will be too. The Mark IVs were in my opinion the best-looking of all the Mosquitos and the Photo Recon ones in particular do look lovely in their PRU scheme. Thanks for your attention Cheers, Stew

Hi Folks, After 3 months of a very enjoyable time with this classic Tamiya kit from the 90's I can call her 'Ready For Inspection'. I riveted the whole kit and bought some masking for the canopies (Montex) as they were plenty of glass sections on the legendary Japanese medium bomber. Also, I added some 7.7 Lewis Machine Guns from Accurate Miniatures as the ones coming with the kit were pretty rough and oversized. Three crewmen (2 pilots, one rear gunner) added too. Hinomarus painted. Didn't find any big issue, except from some warping on the old plastic fuselage, but nothing that a fair amount of glue can't handle. As I used the torpedo in my previous Hasegawa Kate my decision went for a 1943 Misawa Naval Fighter Group 3rd Squadron based on Rabaul, armed with 12-50 lbs bombs. She is a big girl! Biggest kit I've ever build, need to buy a big box to store her. All the best from Santiago, keep modelling and enjoying the process! Cris

Hey Everyone here's my latest build. Its a Tamiya 1/48 mustang i did for the Britmodellers P-51 group build. Which was a really fun experience. -True Details resin cockpit -Custom homemade inkjet decals and stencils. -ALclad paint , Tamiya and Mr Hobby paints -Oil brushers for weathering as well as my hands moving the model around. Here's the Real Fly'n Time Bomb of the 78th fg The Model was done in parts so i could make it with the landing gear up and put a Tamiya pilot in the cockpit too make aerial shots then i comped in a Sky background. Here's the Model in the parked static position. i didn't spend much time on the Landing gear and drop tanks as i should have unfortunately. It was a real Fun build, Thanks for your time viewing this thread. Cheers -HH

Hi folks! Just finished this one up last week, it's been a productive year thus far. I had never done a plane with full invasion stripes so I figured I would give it a go. The Tamiya kit still holds up well, but I'm looking forward to a B variant from Eduard. P-51B Mustang "Impatient Virgin?" 376th FS 361st FG Lt. Victor E. Bocquin Bottisham UK, September 1944 Ultracast seat Ultracast wheels Ultracast flaps Eduard Zoom PE Riveted fuselage Hollowed kit exhaust and gun barrels Squadron vac canopy KitsWorld decals Custom insignia masks Anyways, on to the pics! Thanks for looking!