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Finally finished another one. Happy with some aspects, bit disappointed with others. This is the Tamiya MkVI Beaufighter in 1:48 scale. The build thread can be found here: So the kit is pretty much OOB - the only aftermarket addition was some Eduard seatbelts to improve the cockpit a bit. Paints were acrylics from AK Interactive, with gloss finish by pledge, final matt finish by Model Master Acryl matt clear cote. I made use of Flory washes for some weathering, with some AK Interactive dust and dirt and pigments for an extra touch.

Hi, What would be the best Tamiya paint references or mixes for a Marineflieger F-104G in the 2 tones camo (RAL9006 Weißaluminium and RAL7012 Basaltgrau) ? For the white alu, it seems that the color oxidised quite easily into some kind of light grey so I guess any reference will do. For basalt grey, XF-66 seems to be a good start. What do you think ? Cheers, Antoine

I bought this kit on a whim when I was in the model store a couple of weeks ago. Having access to the intertubes via phone is dangerous, because I looked this kit up while in the shop and the reviews were all very positive. So that was that. Anyway, this is a build I have going so I can turn to it while the paint is drying on my spitfire. It's a lovely kit, really well designed, with very clean moulding details. I started off by undercoating with vallejo grey acrylic primer (after washing everything in soapy water of course), and then airbrushing interior green on the cockpit tub and inside the fuselage. I am using Ammo of Mig acrylics for the interior. I also washed the interior fuselage with Ammo of Mig interior wash. My original plan had been to basically paint everything for the cockpit on the sprues - but after reading a couple of other build threads, and thinking it through, I realised that would just result in having to redo and touch up a lot of stuff, so today I assembled the cockpit tub somewhat. The decal sheet comes with some instrument dials. They are a little bit off register, but I don't think it's going to be possible to make that out through the cockpit windshield, and they will likely add just a little more detail to the instrument panel, so I will use them. I'll also make some seatbelts, but first I have to finish painting and weathering the tub.

Hi guys, I will be building the 1/48 Tamiya Mosquito FB mk. IV/NF mk. II. It will be build mostly out of the box. Foto's will follow later. Cheers,

Good evening all, I have decided to jump in with this GB. Over the last few weeks I broke my elbow and have generally been quite 'meh' about model making so I need something to get me going again. Now I know next to nowt about this aircraft type but saw this kit in the LHS for little more than a tenner. Here will be my build The moldings do look very nice and being modern Tamiya hopefully even I can make a half decent effort! So here are the kit shots. I haven't decided what option yet, there are 3 7/JG26 looks like blue underside and green / violet (?) Upper 2/ JG 27 sand/blue with mottled effect And finally Major Helmut Wick of JG2 looks like green/grey upper and blue lower So looking at my paints I have (All RLM) 76, 79, 04, 71, 02, 70, 72 Now not being an expert I reckon I have the blue (76), sand (79) and yellow (04) insides (02?) Leaving just the option 1 and 3 uppers. Not sure if I have what tamiya call grey violet (AS4) but what would AS3 (grey green) relate to? Or their mix of RLM grey and khaki or olive drab and khaki refer to. I am hoping this will be my Biggers headache lol Hope to get this kicking off by the weekend. Cheers now Bob

What an excellent kit and photo set. Loved this build and I can see why Tamiya are still selling this kit. One of the best £10 I have spent. The full build is available at http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235018264-135-tamiya-panzer-kampfwagen-ii-ausf-fg/&page=1 Anyway here are the finished photo's.

I built this a couple of years ago, number three in my list of Cromwells and Centaurs. It's basically the Tamiya Centaur kit with a few modifications, most notable being the substitution of Tamiya Cromwell wheels for the Centaur perforated tyres. I rebuilt a lot of the rear of the tank. The rear of the air box had a first aid box moulded onto it, but I was fairly sure that this tanks didn't have one. I could have just cut it off and filled the resulting hole, but I like to do things the hard way. So I made a new rear for the air box from thick card and detailed it with bolt heads from Calibre 35. I also replaced the rear track guards with ones from Aber. Many Cromwells had parts if not all of the sand shields ripped away, so I replicated this using the kit parts but thinned down by scraping with a blade. I used the Normandy Cowl from the kit, but replaced the sides with ones made from thin card. The lids on the stowage bins were replaced with ones made from thin pewter sheet. Stowage was a combination of Accurate Armour and Black Dog and the etched brass was curtesy of Aber. The base colour was sprayed on using Tamiya paints for the SCC15 and the disruptive cammo pattern was brush painted on with Vallejo acrylics. The tank that I was depicting belonged to the Czech Independent Armoured Brigade and this unit spent most of it's time after D Day keeping the German garrison in Ostend penned in, and the 95mm howitzers of the Mk.Vl's were used to shell the port. The decals I used were the rub down variety from SKP. The 95mm shell boxes came from Accurate Armour and the empty cardboard shell tubes I made from plastic tube. The figures are Miniart with Hornet heads. The base was built up using balsa wood onto a photo frame from Wilkinsons. Thanks for looking. John.

Hi! Decided to participate on this GB with my M41 Walker Bulldog, at 1/35 scale from Tamiya. It was a simple and cheap kit. http://

My first attempt at doing any weathering . I've tried to make it dusty, rather than beat up, with muddy road wheels. I'm not sure if it works...so any tips and feedback whatsoever are very greatly received. I primed with Halfords grey, brush painted with Vallejo Model Color and weathered with Pinnacle pigments.

This build is being posted on other forums, so please accept my apologies if you have seen it before. This will be my first attempt at an AFV since coming back to the hobby. I'll be looking for suggestions etc. from those more experienced AFV builders on here, if they are willing Anyway, I picked this kit up from ebay for £30, which i though wasn't bad. The box is a bit battered and a few pieces had come off of the sprues in thier bags. The decals are yellow but its all there. I am going to attempt an Israerli version in Dark Yellow. I Know that their current vehicles are painted Yellow-Grey, but I don't think that the early Centurions were done in that colour. I'm happy to be corrected by those more knowledgable. These first few shots are from the internal turret detail. The light grey is just Vajello grey primer sprayed liberally and dry brushed with tamiya metallic grey XF56. The chipping was applied by hand with a very fine brush, dabbing on MC214 Dark Iron from Mr.MetalColor. A Mix of Dark And Rust wash was applied. The light grey primer sprayed over the Mid Grey-Blue Plastic showing the contrast. The shell cases were sprayed with MC217 Mr.MetalColor Gold. Images showing the bits before they are all hidden:( The Ammo Boxes were Sprayed with Mr.MetalColor Stainless Steel. Turret Base with seat, the cushion was coloured dark green and gently weathered with Tamiya weathering powder/paste 'Sand'. Box edges chipped with Dark Iron. The Main Gun Breach component Turret Gearbox and commanders seat. Here is an update on the turret internals. Most of the 'innards' have been welded to the turret ring. Feel free to comment if you wish. The interior of the turret is now complete. The main issue was poorly fitting turret halves which necessitated a bit of filling with Vallejo white filler and some sanding. A couple of points of interest - The radio pack face was sprayed with buffable Dark Iron and when dry, I rubbed my finger over it to shine the protrusions. The white dials and small needles were painted and and then a drop of Krystal Clear added, which when dry gave me a nice glass face effect. The completed the turret. It was airbrushed with a base coat of Vallejo grey primer. A graded coat of dark brown was added to the shadow areas underneath with a gradual fade to the grey undercoat at the top highlight areas. A preshade of matt black was then applied around all of the edges and join lines. Heavily thinned dark yellow was then sprayed in 4 applications to build up the effect that I wanted. Once dried I brush washed the whole thing with a 'grime' clay wash and removed it in such a way to allow it to sit in the recesses and leave some dirt streaking. Chipping was then applied by hand using a teeny weeny (technical term) brush and some dark iron paint. The track pieces were airbrushed with buffable dark iron and when dry, the high spots were buffed. Rust pigment was brushed into the crevises (Ooo-err Missus):eek: The cable on the cable drum is just weathered fuse wire wrapped around. The whole lot was then dry brushed with Tamiya weathering light sand to highlight the edges. Coats of matt varnish were applied in different amounts to different areas to give a variation in 'Mattness' (I'm sure that's not a real word) I made some camo netting to scale and coloured it in desert shades. The retaining straps were made of lead wire which I rolled flat with a bottle of tamiya XF-1 and then shaped the straps around the netting and barrel. They were glued at the bottom with Gator Glue and painted in Dark Yellow. I think this adds a touch more realisms to the stark barrel. Comments welcome.....:cool:

Here is the `tentative' list from Tamiya https://tamiyablog.com/2017/04/official-english-tentative-list-of-tamiya-items-scheduled-for-display-at-the-56th-shizuoka-hobby-show-2017/ 【 Scale Models 】 ◇ 1/6 Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin ◇ Assembly Chain Set for 1/6 Scale Motorcycle ◇ 1/700 Japanese Navy Destroyer Shimakaze ◇ 1/48 German 38cm Assault Mortar Sturmtiger ◇ Zimmerit Coating Sheet for 1/48 Scale Sturmtiger ◇ Cable (0.5mm Outer Diameter/Black) (0.65, 0.8mm & 1.0mm varieties also on display) ◇ 1/24 NSX (White) (Finished Model) ◇ 1/24 NSX (Red) (Finished Model) ◇ 1/24 NSX (Blue) (Finished Model)

Greetings all, for my first post I wanted to share two hornets in 1/72nd scale that I have slowly been progressing on. For the Tamiya super hornet I temporarily placed decals for VFA-106 just for fun until I can get some from twobobs as the kit decals are kinda lame IMHO. I have only been in the Modelling scene for a little over a year now and hope to learn anything I can to improve, also forgive me as I seem to have lost the photos I took of the build leading up to here. Please let me know what you all think. Cheers.

Hi All, Another F4 question... I'm just getting up to painting my F4J in the USMC scheme with the blue nose and fuselage surround. I've seen lots of pictures with varying shades of the same colour, but I was wondering if anyone knows if there is one paint out there that's as close as possible to being the same blue that is on the decals? Cheers, James.

I have this week received a sizeable delivery of injection moulded ship kits from a friend who's model shop venture unfortunately didn't survive to sell on. It's quite an eclectic mix! Tonight I have listed the Tamiya kits: https://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk/collections/tamiya There are kits from Academy, AFV Club, Airfix, Dragon (Type 42 Premium Editions anyone??), Fujimi, Gomix, Hasegawa, Heller, HobbyBoss, Matchbox, Mirage, Plast Aero, Revell and Trumpeter still to be listed!

As a Swiss, I decided to build some aircraft models in Swiss markings this year and the first model will be the Mosquito PR Mk.IV in the colours of HB-IMO used by Swissair for a short time. This aircraft has an interesting history, being delivered to No.1 PRU at RAF Benson with serial DK310 where it received code LY-G. More about how it ended up in Switzerland in my next post. I will use the Tamiya 1/72 kit of the Mosquito PR Mk.IV for this build. I like to dedicate this build to Rolf Blattner who is known here as popeye. He past away very suddenly last October which came as a big shock for all who knew him. Rolf was a founding member of the IPMS Swiss branch in the Seventies and the reason I got into building plastic models after meeting him and seeing his already then huge collection of built 1/72 aircraft models. Sadly I missed the opportunity to get in touch with him after my return to scale modelling two years ago. Rolf’s passion were reconnaissance aircraft from the Luftwaffe, but he also built other PR aircraft including DK310 in No.1 PRU markings, which is why I dedicate this build to him. Cheers, Peter

Dear fellow Britmodellers, here's my latest model kit, 1/72 Tamiya's Ilyushin Il-2M. Built with the addition of Eduard photo etch. Painted with colors from the Gunze/Sangyo range. Represents a machine from 566th ShAP, Leningrad 1944. On Tamiya's decal sheet, the red/blue fuselage symbol seemed slightly oversized. As this marking variant is also supplied with Eduard's 1/72 Il-2, I used the smaller symbols. The model is missining it's aiming device on the nose; the small photo-etch part had disappeared when I arrived at my photgrapher's place ... All pictures by Wolfgang Rabel of IGM Cars & Bikes. Thanks for your interest, best wishes from Vienna Roman

Hi All Here's my latest project, and my first WIP in a long time Updates will probably come in batches few and far between but I'll try and keep the thread updated. Plan is to build it with number 4 engine exposed and think i might open the rear door too. I don't usually use much etch and even less scratch building, so looking forward too the challenge. I have big plans for this build, the actual aircraft will be phase 1, phase 2 will be a base with vehicles figures etc. Plan to do the aircraft as Picadilly Princess of 424 Squadron which was based at RAF Skipton on Swale in 1945.

Hi everyone, Here's a build I finished a while back but neglected to upload photos of. I built Tamiya's wonderful 1/20 Lotus Coventry-Climax 25. I finished it in the livery Jim Clark (in my opinion the greatest racer of all time) won the 1963 South African Grand Prix with. Clark led every single lap, won by over a minute, and lapped every car except Dan Gurney. It was his seventh win of the season - out of nine races. I used Tamiya Racing Green for the body and a combination of Alclad and Vallejo acrylics for everything else. The kit was a joy to build. The only problem is the engine cover doesn't quite fit right, but I'll display with it off anyway. I used IndyCals for much of the build, they were great as always. I'll be checking eBay and my local hobby shop for another one of these, it was a wonderful kit. As always, comments and critiques are appreciated. Thanks for looking, Jake

Hi, I haven't built a Tank in 25 years and have very fond memories of the 1/35 Chieftan by Tamiya which I have bought. I am also planning to eventually build a Challenger 2 in early spec and colours. The exact Tank I want is modelled by Trumpeter in their Challenger Mk.2 Boxing but I have come across numerous threads about various innacuracies and (compared to Tamiya) poor moulding on this kit. I wondered the Tamiya Challenger 2 desert kit or the Tamiya Challenger 1 kit could be combined to make a more accurate Challenger 2? It seems that the reactive armour is moulded into the Challenger 2 which would make it hard to back date, is the lower hull and running gear common between the Challenger 1 and 2? Could I then bash a Mk1 and Mk2 by Tamiya together and use the short skirt armour from the Trumpeter kit to complete it? Does anyone make a really good Early Challenger 2 in 1/35 given that taking potentially 3 1/35 Challengers and trying to create 1 tank will cost a lot and give me an interesting spares box! Thanks. :-)

Hi all,I started on the 1/48th P-47D Thunderbolt just over a week ago and I've managed to get a fair way with it. There's enough superfluities around for this kit as it has been around for almost twenty years. It's going to be built as 'The Reamer' as flown by Captain Jack H. Reams of the 347th FS, 350th FG.This is what I've managed to get done. Additions so far are the Eduard Super fabric seatbelt and the Quickboost engine. Main paints are painted in Mr Color zinc chromate for the cockpit and yellow chromate for the wheel bays. Once the seams are sorted and the fin is installed it'll be onto priming, hopefully today. Cheers, Mick

Long story short, I have not had an enjoyable day of modelling. My new airbrush+compressor, bought to replace my previous one that had started acting up, turned out to be even worse both in the compressor and the airbrush (low power spray, spitting, popping from the brush) despite being the exact same make and model. Shaken my confidence in my airbrush (even a new one) to perform as expected. To make matters worse, when I finally got a bit of painting done, two things happened. I recently purchased two pots of Tamiya Flat Black since I was always running out. In using the first one, not only did the new airbrush seem to eat up more paint than it spat out, but I got weird wet sploches throughout. After switching over to the other pot, an even worse result occurred. Bear in mind this is FLAT Black, it came out looking like Gloss Black. It dried as a Gloss as well. Capping off the day was a bottle of Vallejo paint that was unbelievably tedious to use and spray. Ordinarily I never have any problems with Tamiya paints other than a bit of spitting when I use white, but this was truly unbelievable. I can't tell if the paint has been mislabeled or what. Both pots were thinned in the same way as all previous pots of black have been. Airbrushing used to be quick and easy for me, but since mine went on the blink I've been stalled. Today was supposed to be a glorious return with maybe an hour of work, but turned into a 6-hour nightmare While many people swear by Vallejo, I'm less than impressed with this bottle of Model Air. I just wish Tamiya would add some new colours to their range...and not put gloss paint in a matt pot. Anyone had similar troubles with Tamiya? Gaz

Hi. It's my first post here (well, i put one in "Welcome" section"). I'd like to present the build of T-55A. It's Tamiya model in 1/35 scale. I got it as a gift. I prefer WWII models, but i decided to have a go with this one. There we go: Lower hull. And upper hull. A turret. Fuel drum racks assemled. Road wheels. A put-together. Some storage boxes. More work on a turret. Headlights. The grills. They come from Eduard PE set. A/A gun. Grills in place. Barrell. This is ABER. Everthing i build so far in place. Be back for more. Cheers.

I've decided to put my other Work in Progress on the back burner for a while because I am missing one vital part.....enthusiasm! So while the Centaur becomes a Shelf Queen for a while, I'm going to make a start on Tamiya's IDF Sherman M1. M1's were based on M4A1 76mm tanks and the majority of them came from French stock. Tamiya released this kit a few years ago and is bit of a mixed bag. Two of the sprues are a bit long in the tooth and originated in 1987, first appearing in Tamiya's M4 and then the M4A3. The small sprue for the .50 cal.mg is a bit more up to date, 1998. When the M1 was released in 2011, Tamiya included two new sprues which included a new upper hull and a new turret, along with a couple of IDF crew figures. Another good thing they did was to include parts to fill in the open sponsons, something that had been lacking on Tamiya Shermans. Unfortunately, they still used the original lower hull which has a problem, albeit a small one, with the base plates for the suspension units. This is best illustrated by the two photos further down. The VVSS is also not the best available. Because of this small problem, I decided to use the lower hull and running gear from Dragon's M4 Hybrid. Most M1's used T54E1 tracks, but the one that I wanted to depict used T49 tracks, so once again I placed an order with Panda tracks for their set. I've used their products twice before and they make up into a very nice set of tracks. It pays though either to purchase Pandas track assembly jig or make your own. I did the latter and it makes a hell of a difference. In addition to what I have shown, I also bought a set of decals from Sabingamartin for the M1, and an M1A2 76mm main gun from RB Models. I chose this manufacturers main gun because it includes the muzzle brake, something that Aber doesn't do. You have to graft on the brake from the kit. The next two photos show the nearly thirty year old sprues. The next two photos show the newer (2011) sprues and the 1998 mg sprue. In this photo can be seen the lower hull and VVSS from the Dragon M4 Hybrid. Finally, these two photos show the discrepancy between the left and right side VVSS base plates. So, now to get some work done. Regards, John.

Good morning! As stress relief from the god-awful Revell Mosquito I decided to build a Tamiya kit and chose the Beaufighter TF.X. Loosing sight of my plan for a nice easy build I added the following: Aires resin cockpit Changed Elevators to the correct earlier style and added droop Added the internal exhaust pipes and braces to the engine cowlings Quickboost hedgehog exhausts plus stretched sprue braces Internally detailed the navigators station to match the cockpit Scratch built Yagi/Rebecca aerial and bomb rack Rescribed the wings to represent the gun panels and dingy stowage Plated over the landing light Doped fabric over the cannon ports and wing guns as well as deleting the extra set of ejection ports Rockets pinched from a Tamiya Mosquito to replace the pitiful kit items, arming cables and plugs added Xtradecals decals Paints were by Vallejo and final flat coat by Windsor and Newton. There is some confusion as to wether this a/c had the serial NE425 or 825 but since I did not have any suitable decals to change this I stuck with Xtradecals' NE425. Coastal Command's early 'pimp-my-Beaufighter' configuration with bomb racks, rocket rails and the ASV aerial certainly makes for a busy looking model! Thanks for looking, Chris EDIT: Here are some photos showing the cockpit and elevator mods: