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First in! My entry will be this Tamiya FB.VI/NF.II which I will be building as an NF.XII of 85 Sqd Using a Quickboost resin radar nose. I will be building this aircraft, flown by the Mosquito ace Branse Burbridge: The sprues: As with my AV-8A in the 80’s GB, as I will be away on holiday and miss the start and first couple of weeks of the build, I have jumped the start by priming some parts and shooting some interior green on the cockpit and aluminium on the undercarriage, but kept well below 25%. I’ll pick this up again around Easter and get on with build proper. Looking at the parts, I can’t wait! AW

Didn't feel like painting today, so decided to start a new project. This time I chose Cromwell MK. IV. It will be done out of the box with a side order of 3D printed tracks and it will have marks of 1st Polish Armoured Division. Here is the progress that I have made so far. Next stage will be to prime and paint the lower hull.

Gene Hunt's Audi Quattro from Ashes to Ashes Tamiya, 1/24 "A word in your shell like, pal." It's pretty self explanatory, I'm aiming to build the red Quattro as featured in the BBC's Ashes to Ashes, the 2008 time-travelling cop drama set in 1981-83 and sequel to Life on Mars*. I preferred Ashes over Mars because a) I'm an 80s child, b) Keeley Hawes, c) it had a bolder aesthetic, d) great soundtrack, e) Keeley Hawes and f) the Quattro. The Audi Quattro itself needs little introduction. Iconic gets overused, but in this case entirely justified. Launched in 1980, it was a game-changer and is the granddaddy of every rally car that followed in its tyre tracks. There's one small snag - I'm waiting for a kit. Tamiya are quite fortunately repopping their classic kit (which has got to be better than the Esci/Italeri offering) this year and it's meant to land in April. I've got one on pre-order with my local model shop, so until then I'll just sit tight and maybe occasionally post stuff in the nostalgia thread No doubt there will be Quattro related content and quotes from the Gene Genie and Bolly Knickers to follow. *There were jokes at the time that a 90s series would follow called Hallo Spaceboy. A third part in the trilogy called Lazarus was muted by the creators post-Covid, but it got shelved in 2023.

Presenting my entry to this group build: This is the recently re-issued kit from Tamiya that comes with a Motocompo folding scooter and middle aged man pretending to be a student. The sprue for the scooter isn't very well thought out and would involve seams and way too much masking for my liking (the car already requires a load for black trim), so I got the resin version from ZoomOn that is much more logically thought out. Also, I have the Aoshima Honda City Turbo II kit, so will use the spare Motocompo for that, when the time comes. The sprue shots... The car kit is quite basic, possibly originating from a motorised version looking at the rear axle area, and it has no hub or brake components at either end. 🤔 Now to the plan...! Obviously, I'm going to lower it and swap the wheels! I feel like this car need slamming on the floor with some aggressive camber and fat wheels/stretched tyres... BUT! Because this is the 80s, and that sort of nonsense doesn't exist yet, I'm going to refrain (and save that for the Turbo II ) and give it tasteful 35mm lowering springs with -1º of camber and a set of 1 inch wider, 15 inch (1in larger diameter) Work Equip 40s that were available at the time. In the process of creating the lowering/camber system, I'm planning to model the missing hubs and brakes and get rid of the metal axle and screws that hold the front wheels in favour of the current Tamiya wheel fastening system. Finally the colour scheme... and this is entirely inspired by @Toftdale's builds of a few months back. Specifically some shots of the paint in progress where the car looks pink. I thought the colour suited it so well, I'm going to paint this one, and the Motocompo, in Porsche Frozen Berry over pink primer from ProScale Paints. As you can see, the pink primer really 'pinks' it up a bit Anyway, that's it for now. I need to go and finish my Trabant for the 'Give Peace a Chance' GB. Thanks for looking! Martin

This is a really excellent kit from Tamiya, the 1/35 M10 U.S. Tank Destroyer with additional stowage from Def Model and the a few extra's from Miniart like the 50 cal. My first time with the correct olive drab, well XF-62 which seemed too dark to my eyes but the weathering toned it down a little phew. Anyway thanks for looking. Regards Trace

Hello chaps, Waiting my dental scanner to work again soon and help me so to get convincing wipers that will add the final touch to my Ford Mustang Indy 500 Convertible at 1/16 scale... ... I begin here a new thread dedicated to my next build, the Porsche 934 Vaillant Tamiya at 1/12, a big scale! For this build, I decided to buy the expensive Scale Lab detail set, hoping this set will allow me to get a very nice result, even if I am sure you can get a fine one just with the Tamiya kit. Will this set worth it? I will give you my opinion independently. This set was bought on Spotmodel, it is about 300€, much more expensive than the Tamiya kit itself so (about 140€). Below are some pics of both boxes and their contents: The first impression with the Tamiya kit is very good despite its quite old age, 1976, it has been reissued more recently with a PE detail set and a Cartograf decal sheet (both very nice!). The Scale Lab detail set is impressive with 9 PE plates, resin parts and a sheet of masks for the windows frame painting job. It will require a careful study before use because the instructions sheet above seems to me somewhat succinct... Well, I hope I'm wrong on that point, we shall see. A word about the choice of the Porsche 934 Vaillant: as usual, the choice for a model is for me first aesthetic. From this point of view, I could have chosen the Jägermeister version, orange (I love this color) but I ever have the huge 1/8 Pocher Lamborghini Aventador in nearly the same color. This Light Cobalt Green (lighter than what the Tamiya box-art suggests imho) is though also quite to my taste, in addition to be more original. It is also very possible that the name "Vaillant", even if it is here just a sponsor (Vaillant was and is still today a heating systems manufacturer), resonated in me and more or less consciously recalled the adventures of Michel Vaillant, famous racing driver in the comic books albums of Jean Graton (the French and Belgian members of this forum will understand me very well). Looking in the Net, I found a pic of this Vaillant version showed at Autoworld Brussels. Pity, when visiting this nice car museum last year, the car was missing... The documentation will be consequently quite poor, a priori... For the paint, I decided to use mainly Gravity products, but most likely Tamiya and Vallejo ones too. Well, let's go to the bench now, hoping this build will arouse interest from the Brit community. Cheers, O

Tamiya is to release a new tool (?) 1/72nd Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II kit. Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=615777313890734&set=pb.100063754112187.-2207520000.&type=3 V.P.

Bit busy at the moment with two other GB's on the go, but will hopefully get round to this one in the next few weeks. I've gone for the good old Tamiya classic, so should be a nice easy build! I've also got the Xtradecal 72209 1:72 Vought F4U-1 Corsairs decal set. Some great options, but i have gone for the below. A NZ Corsair made from two damaged aircraft, hence the "cut and shut". George

Hi All. Here is my recently completed Mosquito Racer KB377 as part of the Mosquito STGB. The kit used was the Tamiya B IV kit in 1/72, Humbrol, AK and Vallejo paints were used with decals from Thunderbird Models. Typical Tamiya quality, the only filler required was the top wing to nacelle join. Tamiya's mounting system for the undercarriage doors makes the door openings to wide, doors should be much closer to undercarriage. I don't like colour matching to decals but I was lucky to find a near perfect match to the green by using Vallejo Deep green. Slight issue with the long fuselage decal as it broke at the narrowest point across the top wing. Build log here: Thanks for looking. Stuart

This will be my kit for this GB. I picked it up recently and after a bit of research realised that New Zealand's army bought a fair few of these tanks, mainly Mk2, Mk3 and Mk5 variants. Because the kit is a Mk2 this'll most likely be one that was used for training in New Zealand, (I'm waiting for some decals to turn up so I will be a bit more precise soon.) I also bought a couple of books to help me on my way.👍 I am currently finishing off another project so once that is done I can get on with this. All the best.

Here is my entry for this GB, a Mosquito Racer using the Tamiya FB Mk VI/ NF Mk II 1/72 kit and Thunderbird Models decal set. Don McVicar purchased KB377, a Mk 25 from the RCAF for $1500 with the intention to race her in the Bendix Race. Before the race started there were certification issues and a lack of major sponsorship, then the mechanical problems started enroute to the race start; a flat tyre, carburettor problem, an exhaust stack fire and the coup de grace, a conrod failure on the starboard engine. Firstly, the compulsories: The box. Bags of intact plastic. Decals. There will be a slow start as I need to get my Norseman in another GB nearer the finish line before I can put more effort into this. Stuart

My first entry for this GB is the Tamiya 1/72 kit of the F-16C Block 50. Just look at all the Tamiya loveliness here! There are two of these sprues. The kit was marketed in two boxings, one with "full equipment" i.e. stores for the SEAD role. The other didn't have the stores. I find this rather bizarre as the stores seem to be moulded onto the same sprues as some major airframe components such as the tailplanes. I wonder if Tamiya moulded a seperate sprue with these parts for the second kit. If so, that seems a little counter-intuitive. Why not just mould on the stores together on one sprue and leave it out of the second kit altogether? It also seems as though Tamiya originally had the intention of producing a T-bird version and versions with the earlier smaller intake. I wonder why they didn't. I will be building this one in the current Have Glass V scheme, in the markings of 148 FW of the Minnesota ANG based at Duluth AFB. The Have Glass scheme will be far easier to replicate on an F-16 than an F-35 as there are no RAM tapes to laboriously mask. I think the model will have a lot of contrast and vsual interest as the nose come, pylons and stores are all in their original colours. The decals will be from FabScale, a company which is new to me.

In the general cemetery at Hoorn in the North Holland province of the Netherlands are headstones belonging to four RAF personnel of World War II. https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/2059219/hoorn-general-cemetery/ They are, in grave order, from left to right. Flight Lieutenant Victor George Brewis https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2620167/victor-george-brewis/ Sergeant Jack Ratcliffe https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2620168/jack-ratcliffe/ Sergeant David John Young https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2620170/david-john-young/ Flight Lieutenant Arthur Whitten-Brown https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2620169/arthur-whitten-brown/ Sergeants Ratcliffe and Young were killed on the night of 15 February 1944 when Lancaster LL689 of No. 115 Squadron was shot down by a Nightfighter flying from Leeuwarden airfield. Flight Lieutenants Brewis and Whitten-Brown were killed on 6 June 1944 when Mosquito VI NT122 of No. 605 Squadron was lost, crashing into the IJsselmeer at around 02:00, having left RAF Manston at 00:31 for a Night Intruder mission against Leeuwarden airfield. Some of you may recognise the name Arthur Whitten-Brown. This is because Sir Arthur Whitten-Brown was one half of Alcock and Brown, the first to make a non-stop transatlantic flight. Flight Lieutenant Arthur Whitten-Brown was his son and only child. This build will be of Mosquito VI NT122 and will be respectfully dedicated to the memory of Flight Lieutenants Victor George Brewis and Arthur Whitten-Brown. I'll put some more details on them up during the build. The Tamiya 1/48 Mosquito seems to be rather popular and I’m hoping will make this a relatively straightforward build. I think there’s some aftermarket hanging around for it somewhere in the stash but I’ve not found it yet… My main concern is probably going to be actually making a space on the bench space that’s big enough to work on this; there might be a slow start as I try to clear some other builds. Cheers, Richard.

He is my second Mosquito build. I bought this in error for my Mosquito Racer build and some smarty-pants suggested that I build both, so that's what I'm going to do. This will be an OOB build of a FB Mk VI using the 1/72 Tamiya kit and will be built in flying mode with wheels up, fitted with a crew and will be destined for my ceiling. The box. The plastic. See you soon. Stuart

This kit has been in the stash since 2013...Time to build it 🙂 This one will be a lovely and interesting GB, thank you!

Hi, I would like to start and share my new build of a De Havilland Mosquito 1:48 scale. The kit is the old, but still very nice Tamiya of the FB Mk VI. I believe that neither a presentation of this aircraft nor of the kit is necessary. Since long, I wanted to build a model of this aircraft because of its fame and because of its remarkable design. For me, this is the first mosquito build as a grown up modeller if I exclude the ancient Revell 1/32 kit that I built when I was a kid. To start my build, I followed to the letter the Tamiya instructions which called the engine nacelles as a first step: I just thickened the frames for added 3-D effect and added few interior details. The white panel shown on the inside of the walls is an artistic license of mine having used a piece of thin styrene to hide annoying ejection pin marks which I didn't want to fill and sand. In the following, the nacelles are shown completed: Finally, they are test fitted with the wings and the main undercarriage struts to check that no interferences with the new parts are present: That is all for this first instalment, I hope you will enjoy following it. Best regards, Dan

Here's my second GB entry is this tiny (especially in 1/24th) Fiat/Giannini with a KMP transkit... I've already started but hopefully not crossed the 25% mark... The work so far has been to fit the even wider arches from the transkit (I had to sand down those on the shell a little first), add in the firewall, attach the 2 engine halves and gearbox halves together, glue the inner wheel parts to the outer rim tube and attach the new hub parts to the kit parts with the polycaps inside. Body inner and outer parts have had an initial primer coat but could do with another to hide the contrast in the green 3D printed resin colours and I need to add some filler around those arches. Oh and the rollcage has had a first primer coat too. Here are the rest of the transkit parts - thankfully they've included spares for lots of parts (wheel pins, the fragile looking engine/boot lid supports, etc. The transkit is a bunch of 3D printed parts, decals and a rather limited instruction pamphlet (double sided) and paint/decal diagram. Here's an image of the car with the arches on, pre-primer... Here's the rest of the Tamiya kit pieces... And the Tamiya instructions... This is an older boxing of the kit, it looks like Tamiya have re-released it (hence the yellowed plastic). Here's a link to a YouTube video of the cars in action:

First post in this Group Build, and first Group Build. I had the Tamiya Mossie in the shed for a couple of years. I'm just researching at the moment. So far the build looks like this - I still haven't finalised a subject... leaning toward a Banff Strike Wing 235 Squadron plane, now diving into reference material as I couldn't find decent images on line. In an ideal world, I want the EDSG upper colour, with half invasion stripes... still looking.

Hi everybody, long overdue RFI for this model, completed last February: it's the well known 1/48 Tamiya kit representing Capt. Blackburn mount, "BIG HOG", an F4-1a as seen in Ondonga, Solomon Islands, in November 1943 (according to the kit instructions). The WIP thread has seen the usual participation of the BM hive with lots of great tips and pointers, and even donation of parts and bits, so many thanks to: @corsaircorp, @Corsairfoxfouruncle, @Cookenbacher, @VT Red Sox Fan, @72modeler, @steh2o, @Troy Smith among many others, apologies for not remembering all. Here's a brief summary, before showing other pics (there's plenty of them, so beware 😞 - Kit: Tamiya no.070, typical Tamiya of that era, nicely detailed from the box and good fit overall - a bit tricky on the outer wings, TBH - Aftermarkets: the seat is a resin one, kindly donated by Alain @corsaircorp, I think it comes from an Aires set. The pilot standing on the ground is also a resin one, again donated but by @Cookenbacher this time, made by Plusmodel (CZ). The pilot on the wing is supplied with the kit - Scratch building/Improvements: I scratch built the framing inside the engine cowling, cutting the frames with my Silhouette Curio from styrene sheet; the engine was detailed with various wires, and the same goers for the cockpit and the main wheel wells and main struts. I also scratch built a gun camera for starboard wing and its clear cover, although only the latter can be seen. Cowling flap actuators were reproduced using plastic rod and copper wire; the antenna wire insulator was scratch built form brass pipe, while the wire itself is AK elastic wire. I replaced the kit exhausts with brass pipes. I replaced the kit gunsight with a completely scratch built one, made from CD cover plastic, clear acetate and brass sheet. The gun through patches and the tape stripes covering the spent shell cases holes were made from the white paper used as protective sheet on top of the kit decals (hanks to @Cookenbacher for the tip ).The base is an MDF square cutout, with some real sea sand sprinkled over it and glued with PVA glue - Decals and markings: the insignia and numbers were all airbrushed using masks I cut with my Curio, the rest are the kit decals, including the friendly fire damage patches on port side of the fuselage. Following @steh2o hint, I also reproduced and additional damage patch, from the same incident, just aft of the engine cowling, using a punched out circle from a spare decal. I also printed an additional set of kill marks, as during the build it turned out that on the real AC those were painted also on starboard side of the fuselage - Painting: hairspray technique was used for the chipping, so I airbrushed decanted spray can Tamiya Gloss Aluminium as a base coat for the main AC, then a hairspray coat, then YZC (a concoction of Tamiya Flat Yellow and Flat Black), more hairspray and then the final camouflage, airbrushed freehand using Tamiya Flat White for the bottom and Lifecolor paints for the rest. Details on the chipping and painting can be found in my WIP thread. The figures where brush painted with various Lifecolor paints. - Weathering: a mix of tempera washes and oil dotting The WIP thread is here: Now on with the pics! Engine and cowling details can be spotted in the next pics Gun camera detail The scratch built gunsight Some interiors details, apologies for the overexposed pics The resin pilot and plastic Capt. Balckburn more details on chipping, fading ad markings Here you can just about see the cowling flaps actuators Antenna wire Now, a few pics without the base Bottom side (or "a dead one, according to @CedB ) Scratch built exhausts detail: more underside details All comments welcome! Ciao

Being a long way unto the build of the Tamiya FB VI (see below) i wanted another crack at the Tamiya Mosquito, knowing I could do better. So it will be largely OOB, with AM seatbelts and some cockpit scratch build. So this will be my second entry in the build.

Back making stuff again after a long break. Managed to construct the engine for this beauty Now just got to build the bike around it 🙂

Having become bored with my more elaborate builds, I thought it might recharge my modeling mojo to take on a simple Japanese destroyer – and perhaps actually finish it! Tamiya’s of the 1/350 scale IJN Kagero seems like a perfect choice. If it lives up to the Tamiya reputation of great fitting parts, assembly should be a snap. Just to keep things interesting I picked up the Infini brass upgrade set for it too. I’m hoping to complete this one fairly quickly with a minimum of the scratchbuilding which tends to bog down my projects. We’ll see, but this should be a fun, straightforward build! True to form, Tamiya’s Kagero hull parts fit beautifully and the hull went together quickly. My only quibble here is the split hull design. While the waterline/full hull option here is nice, molding the lower hull separately builds in a bit of extra effort to integrate the lower and upper portions. I definitely prefer the simpler single hull approach of their earlier USS Fletcher kit. That said, the join was pretty good and only a little Mr. Surfacer 1200 was needed to blend things.

I'll be building the Tamiya boxing, with Eduard "Space" cockpit details and wheels: Probably to be finished as per the box art but I may choose another option from the kit decals. Mike

Greetings everyone, started this couple of weeks ago, usual AA quality 😂 boiling water and hot air has come into play, quite a few poorly cast parts with bits missing as well, but moving along, a few areas have me stumped, especially the cupola parts for the GPMG mount, trying to work out how it goes together as instructions are the AA picture assembled and not the side needed. so far this is the state of play cheers all Mark

This kit is my first real attempt at an aircraft model, after the horrendous disaster that was my rendition of Airfix's Messerschmitt Bf-109E-3 in 1/72 scale. The kit is not exactly up to modern Tamiya standards but is not bad either. There was quite a bit of flash, particularly on the single cockpit piece, and the fit wasn't perfect in places but the main problem was that one of the wings was stuck at an awkward angle, but I managed to fix this with some pressure and Vallejo putty. I later found out that if you build the aircraft with the landing gear down, the doors stick out and prevent you from attaching drop tanks to the inboard pylons, much to my disappointment. Knowing I would need to paint and attach the cockpit before painting, I began to paint the cockpit, which was lacking in any real detail, so I did my best to replicate some reference images with a paintbrush, though this was difficult with a cockpit as big as a five pence piece. I was then confused as to where the decal for the instrument panel was, as I could not find it on the sheet, so I asked Blanketyblank where he had found his, only to find out it was made from the instruction paper, which I then cut out and stuck down with a bit of Markfit Extra Strong. Once that had been done I sealed up the canopy , masked it, and began priming the rest of the aircraft. When I have finished painting I will probably leave the bombs and drop tanks separate, and I will post the final product here on Britmodeller.