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  1. I got this out of the stash, it’s missing one propeller and shaft, but I think I know where it is. If not, I have plenty that can be reshaped to match the original. I no longer have the box, it was too far gone, but I have a scan somewhere of the back. I am going to do Yankee Doodle from the 97th BG 8th AAF. Ages ago I converted a Hasegawa B-17F to an E and used the Suzy Q markings from the FROG kit. I will use the kit decals and this will be primarily OOB. This kit isn’t as bad as the old Revell or Airfix, but still has some quirks. I will try and use vintage Humbrol and some vintage glues to try and get as close to what I did in the 70’s when I built it and gave it to my youngest brother. (It was also Yankee Doodle). Jeff
  2. Ok, this WIP won’t be a very difficult build. It’s a FROG D.H.20 Beaver(The title in itself tells you how rare this is). It’s really a DHC-2 DeHavilland Beaver. The kit is 1/82 scale, so very small, it only comes with the wheeled landing gear. The glue capsule is still very fluid, so I plan on using it, however I have somehow misplaced my instruction sheet and decals. I am probably going to use a different paint scheme, because I already have a built up one that I found at a flea market. Whoever built it had some skill, because it’s not painted, yet the fuselage seam is almost invisible. The plastic is 100% opaque and matches the illustration on the box top. I also built one myself when I was 7 and remembered the kit very well, I used the glue capsule back then as well. It was also unpainted except for the wheels and propeller, it’s long gone but now I have another kick at the can. It was my second kit, my first being the Lindberg F-80C in 1/96 scale. I am more than tickled to be able to add this to the GB. Believe it or not, all of the panel lines are recessed and very fine, including the spaced corrugations on the control surfaces. It is representative of a very early production Beaver, with the oil cooler under the fuselage between the landing gear struts and offset to port. There were no little round windows aft of the cabin doors. The Beaver depicted on the box was brought to the UK in 1949 as a demonstrator, it later flew in Africa and was last registered in Oklahoma in 2012. I painted quite a few of these in 1/1 back in the 90’s, and the kit certainly looks pretty accurate in shape and outline. Here is the start, with parts laid out. Notice the difference between the 3 glue capsules. I found this on EvilBay probably 15 years ago and it was a bargain at $10! There’s currently one up for auction, being sold out of Canada, and last time I checked there were 5 bids up to $35 US. Below is the built one, because I didn’t build it, I felt uneasy about posting it in the inspiration gallery. It sure is a little sweetheart of a kit. The decals are a bit yellowed, not too bad for a kit one year younger than I. Cheers Jeff
  3. I guess it comes as no surprise that I've started with the cockpit. I simply love the wicker seats which come with the kit I think they look superb. Everything falls in its place without any problems so far.
  4. Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the gate: “To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his gods[?"] -- Thomas Babington Macaulay, The Lays of Ancient Rome, "Horatius at the Bridge" "Your son is in a burning house. Nobody can hold you back. You may burn up, but what do you think of that? You are ready to bequeath the rags of your body to any man who will take them. You discover that what you set so much store by is trash. You would sell your hand, if need be, to give a hand to a friend. It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself, and there is no other you. Your body belongs to you: it is not you. Are you about to strike an enemy? No threat of bodily harm can hold you back. You? It is the death of your enemy that is you. You? It is the rescue of your child that is you. In that moment you exchange yourself against something else; and you have no feeling that you lost by the exchange. Your members? Tools. A tool snaps in your hand: how important is that tool? You exchange yourself against the death of your enemy, the rescue of your child, the recovery of your patient, the perfection of your theorem...Your true significance becomes dazzlingly evident. Your true name is duty, hatred, love, child, theorem. There is no other you than this." ―Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras Nie damy miana Polski zgnieść Nie pójdziem żywo w trumnę. [We won't have Poland's name defamed, We won't step alive into a grave.] -- Maria Konopnicka, "Rota" Earlier this year, which seems about a hundred years ago at this point, I built some Polish Spitfires. As you know, I always try to only build aircraft I'm interested in, flown by people I care about. Weird old H P Lovecraft, whose grave I visited earlier this month in Providence, once wrote that "without interest, there is no art." (He probably capitalized art, because ol' HPL raised pretension to an art form in and of itself.) In any case, in some stupid little way that merely exposes how sad and tawdry my own little life is, the builds were acts of love, a way, however imperfect, to express how I feel about those men and women (and children, too), now mostly long-gone, dead of old age or stolen from us by the war. In any case, I guess some people liked the thread, because I got a PM from @GrzeM , who had seen I was interested in building IBG's RWD-8 kit. As it happens, Grzegorz does some work for Arma Hobby, and he had a hand in the resin correction sets they've produced for IBG's kit. He offered to send me the resin sets for free, which was incredibly graciously of him, and, as if that wasn't more than enough, he even dug up a set of custom-printed decals for a WWII-era RWD-8, "White 8", WWII markings for the type being otherwise impossible to find in decal form. The package turned up at my office in May (which gives you an idea of how behindhand I am these days.) 2017-05-23_12-44-36 by Edward IX, on Flickr Needless to say, I'm not only deeply touched by his generosity, but also wholly unworthy of it. But I shall do my best. 20170819_152506 by Edward IX, on Flickr The RWD-8 was a small high-wing monoplane, not unlike the Tiger Moth in terms of both looks and pre-war popularity as a civilian aircraft. Most of the civil RWD-8s were impressed into service by the Polish Air Force at the start of the September Campaign and subsequently lost in action. Today none survive, but they were the last Polish aircraft flown in Poland during the fighting in 1939; a handful of RWD-8s flew during the Battle of Kock in October, the last major battle of the German invasion, in support of the last remnants of the Polish Army in the field. Though the planes themselves were unarmed, their pilots carried grenades and flew at low level to lob them out of the aircraft at enemy troop concentrations. The Germans had not yet fully realized that while they could kill Poles, they could never conquer them. I did the usual thing and washed the kit off, paying especial attention to the resin, which I clumsily extricated from its casting blocks. 20170819_160658 by Edward IX, on Flickr This mostly went well, but the entire leading edge of the wing (the kit wing is slightly the wrong shape, and, get this, too thin) is connected to the casting block, and I'm rather inept, so I took a bit out of one side of the inner starboard (I think) leading edge which is very visible in person. I'll either need to sand down the other side or somehow extend the leading edge on the damaged side. 20170819_152556 by Edward IX, on Flickr The resin cowling isn't exactly a drop-fit (there are no instructions on how it attaches to the kit with it, but let's be real: we all know where the cowling goes), as one needs to remove the kit cowling first. I accomplished this mostly with a Tamiya scribing tool, but this still leaves the raised "lip" that was the rear edge of the cowling attached the fuselage. 20170831_210341 by Edward IX, on Flickr No problem, I'll get out my X-acto knife, and -- FB_IMG_1504231184664 by Edward IX, on Flickr AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Fortunately, I keep isopropyl alcohol around to thin paint, and so I immediately sterilized the wound (after rushing upstairs to take this picture for you all, blood pumping lustily from my finger the whole time) and bandaged it. We think we can save the finger, but if not, I'm left-handed anyway. Then I finished up on the cowl: 20170831_210436 by Edward IX, on Flickr And checked the fit of the resin item: 20170831_212607 by Edward IX, on Flickr Hmmm. This will likely need some filler at some point. I also pulled out some of the Hataka Orange Line paints for the Polish Air Force. I've heard a lot about Hataka lately, little good, but what other choice did I have for Polish colours? None, really. I was pleasantly surprised, however! 20170831_212401 by Edward IX, on Flickr I thinned their Interior Silver (a tricky colour to work with for any paint manufacturer) with Gunze Self-Levelling, and sprayed it right on the cockpit floor and sides. It looks pretty good to me, and came out smoothly. Anyway, more later. Mrs P is days away from giving birth (due 15/9, but the midwife thinks this weekend), so who knows when I'll update again.
  5. For my next build I have gone modern day and will build the Great Wall Hobby 1/48 MiG-29 Fulcrum C 9-13. I don't think this kit needs too much introduction as it has been widely reviewed and many great builds have been completed. Hopefully I can do it some justice! I intend to build a modern Fulcrum based on the Linden Hill Decal sheet 'Pavlov's MiG's', these aircraft are depicted as they appeared in 2015 and sport typical MiG-29 grey/green camouflage and markings for contemporary MiG 29's. I addition these aircraft sport quite interesting individual markings after they were blessed on there arrival to Erebuni AB in Armenia, where the aircraft have been operating in the QRA role. I will add the Eduard Big Ed photo etch set. Paint will be from the Akah lacquer acrylics, AK interactive Xtreme metal and Vallejo for anything else. A couple of shots of the kit unboxed: the quality of the presentation and packaging is second to none. The slide moulded missiles are exquisite. The engine detail is also impressive, some mad part of me wants to depict the aircraft with an engine dropped out for servicing/replacement. Finally a comparison with the Fulcrum's cousin the Su-33 (Kinetic kit), this really shows how much bigger the Flanker series is compared to the MiG-29! Thanks for looking!
  6. Hi, I am new to the scale modeling. Currently I am working on three different projects (2 1/72 Eduard RAF Spitfires and a 1/48 Kinetic HAF F 16). I am pretty familiar with modern jets (camo and variants), but I have almost no idea on WWII airplanes. So, as the theme says, I would like to ask what finish did the RAF Spitfires have MATT or Gloss? I am building two Mk XVIs one with PRU scheme and one on standard day fighter scheme. As you can see I am trying to paint the airplanes with different wear grades. The day fighter was in service for more time.
  7. Hey. Thought I'd share some pics of my current project, the Bandai 1/72 BTL-A4 Y-Wing Starfighter This is my first kit and build in close to four years, and the first I've ever tried to weather up/varnish etc, so any feedback would be welcome Not yet complete, of course. The cockpit section isn't fully seated because it'll be easier to weather the back panel with it off, heh.
  8. OK guys, I have hit a point where I am tired of waiting to get all the new tools and supplies, I want to stop being just an observer and start being a builder! (again) I have not built a kit since the late 80's, things have changed and I have already learned so much, thanks to many of my fellow modelers here on BM. I had planned to build a pair of ( )H-6J's, but do to a goof on my part, I needed to start from scratch. My replacement kits are on the way, but will take a least a month to get here. So I decided to build this Tamiya #6424 1:48 F-15A. As you can see from the pictures, the decals are in bad shape, very yellow. Tamiya was kind enough to replace them free, but they only have C decals. So I am kind of in a bind, not sure if I can convert to a C without new exhausts, which I can't find. Anyway, decals be damned, at least I can build most of the kit before deciding which version to make. I might be able to find aftermarket A decals on evilbay, but I will test the yellow decals before committing to anything. Here is the kit. Here is what little I have done. Some of the parts off this old kit, were already off the sprue, so I tried my new scraping tool from Alexen to clean off the stubs, it worked better than expected. Then a test fitted the top and bottom fuselage, taping it together while checking the fit. It is not great. Next, I cut the cockpit and seat from the tree/runners, then cleaned up the flash and stubs, using the scraper and finally, a series of runs across some sandpaper. Then I tacked the seat together with Elmer's gel glue, just to see how everything will go together, what needs cleaning up, what is hidden and the fit is. Here are the decals, the old set it obviously the left. I have tried to sun bleach the decals with limited success. I also read on here that the decals are fine, it is the glue that is yellowed. If I use boiling water, it will remove the yellow glue and they decals will be fine. We shall see, but I have a long way to get to that point. I will try to do some painting on the cockpit tomorrow, not sure if I will spray the small parts, or try hand painting them. So here it is, my first build log! I warn everyone that this will probably be slow, and the results will be average at best, everything I am using is new to me, the tools, the supplies, I have absolutely no experience with most of it. So this will be more about learning hands on, and any/all ideas, hints, criticism and support is VERY WELCOME! Thanks for looking! Anthony
  9. Hi. I am starting a Tamiya 1/48 Fairey Swordfish Mk. II, and I will make a series of videos of the full build. The first video is about the cockpit. Here is some pictures of the cockpit as of now: You are all welcome to participate and help me out. Thanks.
  10. Hi everyone this is my first post on here (I accidentally posted this on the wrong discussion earlier but haven't found a way to remove the post) and I thought I'd share my first build in years. Revells 1/48 Tornado Gr4. It's thankfully gone together with no issues, I was assuming it was going to be a headache but so far so good! Also if anyone has any tips on highlighting panel lines or weathering in general I'm all ears as I'm useless at it. Also can anyone recommend a good clear matt? Ive tried Humbrol and Mr Colour and they even after being stirred thoroughly were coming out gloss. Any info would be appreciated.
  11. Hi everyone this is my first post on here and I thought I'd share my first build in years. Revells 1/48 Tornado Gr4. It's thankfully gone together with no issues, I was assuming it was going to be a headache but so far so good! Also if anyone has any tips on highlighting panel lines or weathering in general I'm all ears as I'm useless at it. Also can anyone recommend a good clear matt? Ive tried Humbrol and Mr Colour and they even after being stirred thoroughly were coming out gloss. Any info would be appreciated.
  12. great downloadable instruction book on high level gundum building and modification. its a pay what you can thing, from $1 to $25 , i paid 5 bucks personally felt thats about right seeing how its only digital. heres the link to website. https://www.joshuadarrah.com/zeta-plus-wip-book
  13. Hey guys, finally got my MiG together. The Zvezda tooling is actually turning out to be quite nice, although looking a bit rough around the edges. The kit is quite nicely detailed. The instructions and decals are awful, they don't include all the parts and the decal sheet includes no stencils and are about as thick as the box it came in. The only problem with the plastic that I have encountered is that there are no discernible roots for the wings or stabilisers so setting them correctly was tricky. Other than that only a minute amount of filler at the base of the tail and wing roots and the kit's a cracker. Seeing as the decals are as rough as they are I'm going to try wing it, and paint a scheme I seen online. This MiG is for UKscalemodeller's group build on Youtube. Ill be uploading this build video to Murrodels Thoughts/tips? Cheers! The new scheme, I roughed up what I'll paint on the kit's examples... About half of all of the wee bits...
  14. Hiya guys! Just posting to ask for some C&C on this WiP (still needs a lot of detailing and some covering of the white paint still showing through) paint scheme... this is the first time I've painted 28mm Brits. I think I've got the colours just about right but I'm scared the mini is too dark... I thought I might put a dry brush/highlight of some desert yellow over the top just to make the details pop? I've two pictures under a lamp and one picture in natural sunlight (I figure the latter is better for gauging how it'll look on the tabletop). With WW2 miniatures I've had problems where my minis were too dark; hence why I used a white undercoat for this one.
  15. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses" 'They might say, it seems to me, "you are rich; we are poor...You have had the past; let us have the future." Above all, I fear they would say, "you are weak and we are strong."' -- Winston Churchill, 16 November 1934 Mr Edward Heath (MP for Bexley): Can the Secretary of State be certain when confrontation over Indonesia will end or when the certainty of the independence of Malaysia can be assured? Mr Dennis Healey (MP for Leeds East): No, I cannot be certain about everything but, I think that it is possible to take some decisions now and that a Government with any sense of responsibility to the British people must take those decisions which it is possible to take... -- Hansard, 7 March 1966, "Defence" During the 1960s, a curious sort of undeclared war was waged between Indonesia on one hand, and Malaysia, Singapore, and their western guarantor, Great Britain on the other. In early 1960s, the Indonesians had fought a similar war against their former colonial masters, the Dutch in an attempt to gain control of what was then Dutch New Guinea. This had involved paratroops, aeronaval combat (a Dutch P-3 and surface warships sank three Indonesian torpedo boats), and ultimately attracted the attention of the Soviet Union, who supplied a Sverdlov-class cruiser to bolster Indonesian naval capabilities. (This was the Ordzhonikidze, which Lionel Crabbe had famously been killed while trying to secretly inspect in 1956.) Ultimately, the overstretched Dutch, who had won every battle, were persuaded to give the Indonesians everything they wanted in a 1962 peace conference. President Sukarno was confident this strategy would work again. As it happened, things didn't quite work out that way, and in a remarkable campaign, conducted largely on the cheap, the British, along with their SEATO allies from Australia and the Malaysian and Singaporean people, emerged triumphant. One of a handful of RAF squadrons to participate (and one of a very few to fire weapons in anger after WWII) was 20 Squadron, whose motto is, appropriately, "Facta non verba". During the Confrontation, they flew Hawker Hunters, a jet which, to be entirely honest with you, has never been my favourite for looks, but I still have at last count nine Revell 1/72 kits of it, so here we are. I'm using a RAFDecals aftermarket sheet, and Freightdog's corrected wheel set -- I can't see the difference, but I trust Colin on this one. God knows how long it will take to build.
  16. Hello all, This is my first WIP thread but is my second 1/48 model to hit my workbench. I have been really looking forward to getting into this bad boy. I will be using the Eduard "Danger Zone" Hobby Boss F-14 reboxing. The kit is absolutely beautiful and even with some dry fitting everything just clicks together and even has a lack of release pin markers that plagued their F/a-18d. For this built I will be pulling out all the stops as well as all the ports that the kit comes with...and some! Still undecided as to weather I will fix the wings extended with all the flaps and slates showing their red underbellies or if I will keep it simple and leave the wings swept back. One point I think is important to mention as I know some people may point it out if I don't mention, although I will be trying to create the model as close to the real thing as possible there will be an element of "Poetic Licence" regarding some parts/features/processes. I have so far been unable to find more than one picture of this particular jet, NL 212 on the USS Carl Vinson, so I am going to "assume" a few things. This mainly relates to weathering and any scratch building. With that in mind I plan to "Imitate NOT Replicate" Right enough waffling, let the games begin!! I started with an unusual point, rather than the cockpit and seats I went straight to the P&W TF-30 engine. I plan to open up some of the larger access panels around the back to show off this bad boy as well as all the other panels that kit gives you. First I need to get some strips: Followed by some dry fitting, measuring and measuring again and then a bit of cutting. Once the cutting and fitting was sorted I dove straight into the detailing. Phase one: Phase two to...well I lost count of the phases from this point but here is the result so far And then I had a final dry fit with all the extra details added: I plan to open up the largest panel on the underside of the engine to show it off a light similar to the image in the link below. http://www.aviation-militaire.com/Galerie/NAS_Oceana_98/015_07P.jpg From my research I have only ever found that when this panel is opened/removed the opposing panel also has to hang down. Can anybody clarify this for me? I would probably prefer to not have to open up the second panel. Mainly just to remove the chance of making any mistakes. if I can get away with one panel it would be fantastic! If anybody has looked at this before or has some references they can check that I don't have available to be can you please let me know? It would be a great help! Anyway, thanks for dropping by, all comments are welcome and encouraged!! Enjoy!
  17. So I thought I would pick up something nice and simple to keep me going until my SU-33 & MiG 29 arrive from China. Browsing around the many excellent stalls at Bolton model show I decided upon this gem (ÂŁ16): I have a 1/32 Eduard Bf109 E-4 on the bench which kind of swayed me to this kit, as I have found the Emil a nice model to build, apart from the shocking fit of the lower wing to the fuselage. ( I have had to strip the paint off the Emil as I found that Humbrol clear over Gunze Sangyo Aqueous is a non starter , I will probably paint both together to save on paint / time) Not knowing anything about this kit, I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box to find 9 sprues and a photo etch set.... So much for the quick build. I am no expert on the Bf110 so I'm going to build OOB, there is more than enough detail in this kit. As for any inaccuracies with the kit, feel free to point them out and I may try to correct. I think I will go with this colour scheme: No being one to hang about, I have started on the pilots tub. The white lever is replacement after I had a dose of the death grips with my tweezers and the original is now the property of the Carpet Monster . Thanks for looking WildWeasel Finished article is here!
  18. Hello, i started my new project. After my B-17 I am back to my love - 1/350 ships Here are some photos of box content: And some work from past few days: That is all for now
  19. Boulton Paul Defiant Mk.I. No. 264 Squadron, Martlesham, Suffolk, England, July 1940. This is the new 1/72nd scale Defiant from Airfix. I will use an Eduard Zoom set for the interior detail, Set No SS525. For the camouflage colour paint, I have Hannants Xtracrylix. The markings will be the standard kit decals. For weathering and panel lines I intend to use gouache. Thank you for looking, Joe.
  20. Gentlemen. If you'll allow I'd like to share my current WIP with you. I've decided to start 2015 with a build that's a bit more ambitious than I'm used to. I was getting to the point where I felt like I needed to try a ZM kit. I thought for sure it was going to be the Horten, but a lot of WIPs of those have popped up around the web. On top of that, I had wanted to do the Revell Uhu last year, but opted for something else. Anyway, I wound up with this kit after the holidays, so here I am. This is a massive undertaking, and it would be easy for my obsessiveness and ADD to make things messy, so my approach will be to address each portion of the instructions as a kit of it's own. So updates will be a major milestones in that vain. First the engines. I won't really detail the process of finishing and weathering, but any questions anyone may have will be answered. I still need to get a clear coat on these and add some washes, filters, etc. So these aren't complete, but close.
  21. Good afternoon everyone! First of all something needs clearing up, the vulcan build will not be proceding in the immediate future due to my realisation that I had made the whole thing wrong, I won't go into detail but I will consider that practice for scratchbuilding :| Anyway, let us begin on this build! I came across this large kit at the Cosford model show, only a few days ago, and as it happens I had purchased a book on the Tupolev Tu-22 "Blinder" as I am very interested in "the other side's" technology and aircraft. While the Tu22 may not have been the most prolific aircraft in the Soviet arsenal-due to the high landing speed and relative obscelence after the development of the Tu22M. So what do I plan to do with this kit? Well, I would like to have one side as a standard "out of the box build" with the other half containing pieces that have been cut away to reveal sections of the engine/payload bay/cockpits and nose section. The key feature that I would love to implement is the downward-firing ejection seats that would be wound up into the cockpits before taking off. I am always open to any suggestions and tips that anyone wants to incorporate into the build and will do my best to try and do this with a decent level of quality although I will apologise if I don't do particular features of this aircraft-I model for my own enjoyment, I am sure you all understand. Alas! Some photos shall follow: The box The book... The downward firing ejector seats-not suited to low level operations More to come! Sam
  22. Du muĂźt herrschen und gewinnen Oder dienen und verlieren, Leiden oder triumphieren, AmboĂź oder Hammer sein. [you must rule and win or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer.] -- Goethe, "Geh! Gehorche meinen Winken" "...Another example is the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about[.]" -- George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" Having delayed a planned Blenheim build with an errant foot, I have decided to take upon myself an unpleasant task; I'm going to build not one, but two kits of my second-least favorite aircraft of World War II, exceeded in my dislike only by the ugly and brutish Fw190. I'm going to build two 109Fs by Fine Molds, arguably the best kit of this unpleasant-looking aircraft, the F model being probably the apex of its development. I'm going to be building a 109F-2 Trop of Hauptmann Eduard Neumann, Gruppenkommandeur of I/JG27, and a 109F-4 of Hauptmann Karl-Heinz Krahl, Gruppenkommandeur of II/JG3, both c. 1942. Eduard Neumann was born in 1914 and fought with the Condor Legion alongside Franco's Fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War, where he claimed two victories, before becoming Adjutant of JG27 shortly before the Battle of Britain. He was promoted to command of I/JG27 when his predecessor in that post was dispatched by RAF fighters over the Channel. Neumann was apparently an early sponsor of Marseille -- and I suppose there are two kinds of people who know about Marseille, those who think he was an amazing pilot with a propensity for overclaiming, and those who think he was a stupendous liar with a propensity for intermittently shooting down aircraft -- and by the time of Marseille's death, Neumann had risen to command the whole of JG27. Wikipedia diplomatically notes that "Neumann was a believer in leading his squadron from the ground", not quite the stuff of Wagnerian legend, perhaps. In any case, during Neumann's tenure in the Western Desert, JG27 went from victory after victory to being broken on the wheel of Allied airpower: Canadian ace J F Edwards killed 40-claim ace Gunter Steinhausen on 6 September 1942, and John H Curry, an American Spitfire pilot with the RCAF eliminated 59-claim ace Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt on 7 September; Marseille himself was killed in a flying accident on 30 September. These three pilots accounted for almost half of JG27's claims between April 1941 and September 1942, and the unit never really recovered from the blow. Additionally, during Neumann's tenure, there appear to have been some problems with false claims and a near total failure of the much-vaunted German claim verification system. Neumann survived the war and lived to be 93, dying in 2004. Karl-Heinz Krahl was also born in 1914, and also served with the Condor Legion, albeit as a bomber pilot. He retrained as a fighter pilot after the conclusion of the SCW, serving with JG2 in the Battles of France and then Britain, rising to command I/JG2 at the very end of the latter. He then became Gruppenkommandeur of II/JG3, flying out of Sicily against Malta, where he was killed by ground fire from the Royal Artillery on 14 April 1942 while strafing Luqa. (Krahl was the second Luftwaffe ace to be shot down over Malta within a week's time; Hermann Neuhoff was shot down either by a 185 Squadron Hurricane or a 249 Squadron Spitfire on 10 April.) I will be building both of their aircraft; I've never built a Fine Molds kit before, so this should be interesting.
  23. 't becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence or even with sanity. What kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible that they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?' -- Winston Churchill, 26 December 1941 Hello again, I'm pushing my luck and trying your collective patience now, I know. I'm going to be building Liberator B.VI KH283/B of 159 Squadron based at RAF Digri, Bengal, in the Southeast Asia Command. KH283 was often flown by B Flight commander Squadron Leader John "Johnny" Gauntlett, DFC, a Canadian from Orilla, Ontario serving in the RAF. (He had been studying history at Bristol University when the war came, and joined the army on September 5, 1939, transferring to the RAFVR in April of 1941.) Gauntlett happily survived the war; he passed away in 1994. Here he is: KH283 is notable because she had not one, but two striking pieces of nose art: a redhead ascending a ladder on the port side, and a blonde reclining on a surfboard on the starboard. The redhead has some resemblance to Mrs. Procopius, which was in truth why I wanted to build this particular aircraft, instead of one of the many other interesting RAF Liberators out there. When I informed her of this, she replied, "grrrrreat," in a dead, emotionless voice. In any event, here we go again: The Hasegawa kit has extensive internal partitioning, and can be built with the bomb bay to open, to which: no thank you. I will need to cram as much weight up front as I can; the instructions recommend 90 grams, which is going to be troublesome to fit in there. The front part of the aircraft is molded entirely in clear plastic: Oh Hasegawa. You shouldn't have. So that's going to be fun, figuring out how I can go about masking that and painting the interior and exterior. Finally, I have the decals. I have SEAC markings from three manufacturers, and none of them agree with each other. Top to bottom, Eduard, Freightdog, and Kits at War: HMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
  24. Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Thread title not a reference to the cuddliest-looking Prime Minister of the last fifty years: Awww, look at him! Who wouldn't wait at the church for him? In any event, I've made all the usual New Year's Resolutions: be a better, more loving husband; tidy up more; put myself forward at work; etc etc. I also swore blind to myself that I'd (1) try and build new additions to the stash ASAP, and (2) try and build some of the big kits I've long been putting off: Nimrod, Vulcan, Valiant, and Victor. I used to have an Eduard Minicraft LIberator VI and two Hasegawa Lancasters, but I sold all of them off when I figured I wouldn't build them. (This is changing. If anyone has the markings for decal option B from the Eduard Liberator VI, KH283, or knows of a surplus sheet, please let me know.) However, with the dawning of the New Year, I noted that Sprue Brothers, in an act of munificence quite unusual for them (I buy from them when I want it fast, not so much cheap, generally) had the Airfix Battle of Britain Memorial Flight set for only three dollars (21/-) less than the straight-up Lancaster I/III boxing. Well, how could I pass that up? I didn't particularly want to build the aircraft in her current guise, opting instead to go aftermarket. I chose a sheet of Aeromaster (AKA Errormaster in some parishes) decals that had the following aircraft on it: Majestic, isn't it? More sharkmouths than any other aircraft that flew in the war, I daresay. Also, based on my (almost nonexistent, please recommend a cheapish book) knowledge of the Lancaster, it appears to be eminently do-able with the Airfix kit. I will still be hoping for lots of advice, solicited or otherwise, and I hope you won't be offended if I prove too stupid to follow it. However, let's see if we can find a photo of the aircraft in question now, instead of halfway through the build, as is my custom. Well well well: The udder that houses the H2S isn't shown on the decal sheet! Bashi-bazouks! Poltroons! Other than that, though, we appear to be solid. Okay, moving along. My workspace is a little tidier than it's been recently, though this doubtless won't last: I began with a sprayed coat of Tamiya fine surface primer, as I'll have to mask off the green bits to spray the black inside parts, and acrylics have a nasty habit of coming right up with the tape if there's nothing for them to cling to. As you all know. To reduce clutter on my bench, I've conjured up a slightly Heath-Robinson-esque side desk, the cunning plan being that it, vice my normal desk, will become filthy. It's a can't-miss proposition: Yes, I know my modelling grotto is a hole. Much of the rest of my house is fairly nice! At the present, here's where we are: So far it's just the interior green (the late lamented Pollyscale RAF Interior Green, and presently I'll mask it off and spray some flat black for the black bits. I'm hoping/trusting that Canadian Lancasters followed the same scheme of interior painting as their RAF counterparts. I've painted the firewalls visible in the landing gear bay interior green as well, but would they have been flat black/Night by the time KB772 saw service? Also, I note that much of the interior will not be seen, as the windows were all painted black. So I've wasted some irreplaceable paint, huzzah! Incidentally, I didn't realize that the wing spars had a front and back, and so solidly glued the for'ard spar backwards and had to break it off and bodge it back on. Happily this seems to have worked, and it now fits about as well as might be expected. My current feeling on the kit is that it's cleverly-engineered, but perhaps too cleverly. I would not have wept were it less complex. Dropped flaps, for instance...pfah! As mentioned elsewhere here, I had the delectable experience of having a filling fall out (or fall off, rather, as it was the side enamel that had worn away) on Monday, and had an emergency dental appointment today to rectify the situation. I have no fear of the dental arts, but what I experienced was horrible and involved three gag-inducing shots of novocaine and the hideous whirrrrrr of a drill as tiny fragments of my own teeth flew out of my pinioned-open mouth while the dentist and dental hygienist cheerfully discussed his jogging regimen. This was made all the worse because I run, and I felt like I had something to contribute. Mindful of preserving my tongue for future endeavours, I did not attempt to do so. (Many years ago, in the middle of a then-experimental laser surgery, six-year-old me was insufficiently anesthetized and awoke as two of the attendings were discussing the then-relatively exotic phenomenon of cable [banned in the household of Procopius Mater et Pater]. I weakly murmured "I love cable," and was rewarded with so much anesthetic that even after I came back out, I was literally seeing treble for hours after.) Here I am after my thrilling adventure. Note the horrible ceiling of my grotto. When we bought it, the entire house was ceiling-ed with paper tiles, which did not sit well with the beautiful but uncompromising Mrs. Procopius, and everywhere else, they have been replaced with a proper ceiling. Not in the grotto, though. My shirt has a sloth on it and the legend "live slow/die whenever", which is roughly my philosophy as I stumble into my thirties. So I suppose I should tell the story of why I've always wanted to build a Lancaster. Many years ago, and it feels strange to say that about this period in my life, as the mind for its own preservation tends to skip over the wasted and lost decade which followed, when I was in high school, I attended with a very intelligent and talented young woman with whom I am no longer on speaking terms. (Not uncommon, my associations, when they dissolve, tend to do so acrimoniously; I am not particularly likeable, and was even less so then.) Her grandparents were Polish displaced persons who had after the war gone first to the UK, where her mother had been born, and then to the United States. Her grandfather's first wife had been killed during the war, fusillé pour les allemands, as they say; his relationship with her grandmother, his second wife, was quarrelsome. Her grandmother had worked as a slave laborer for VW under armed guard until the end of the war. Neither of them had anyone else; their pre-war world had been obliterated by the great conflagration that defined their lives for sixty years afterwards. Even in the late 1990s, they always stockpiled food. I asked my friend to ask her grandmother, what, if anything, she felt about the RAF bombers that she heard passing overhead many nights, bombing German cities and industry and suffering terrible losses. I felt that her perspective as a slave laborer would be interesting to hear, as she too would have been a target, however inadvertent, for the bombs. Her response to her granddaughter was succinct: "They gave us hope." And I guess that's enough for me.
  25. What am I getting up to? Okay, I realize you don't care, but a strange impulse compels to me want to write every now and then (not only am I a failed graduate student, I'm also a failed writer*), and also I have a bizarre urge to complete as many builds as possible each year. I reckon my fear of failure** will impel me to keep on building and babbling. But possibly not! I'm inconsistent and unreliable, that's part of my charm. Blah blah blah. I'm wrapping up work on the AZ Spitfire IX Joypack; I decided to do all three at once, because otherwise I would have only built three Spitfires this year, and it's actually worse than that, because one of them is a Seafire 47, so really only two. As that would have meant I built more Mustangs (two Commonwealth P-51Ds, one Mustang IV) and Meteors (an NF.13, an F.4, and two RAAF F.8s, plus a Meteor III ruined by a disastrous superglue/noseweight accident) than Spitfires this year, radical corrective action was required. It turned out to be a good idea, because my initial positive impressions aside, if I'd only built one, I'd be unlikely to return to build the other two without a lengthy refractory period. From simply stupid engineering choices (there's not really a good time or way to put in the exhaust stacks -- if I had to do it again I'd put a strip of plasticard on the inside of the housing for them to rest against and sand down the edges of the little flat piece of plastic all the exhausts come out of so I could add it later easily), to the continuing frustration of attempting to get the right sit with limited run kit landing gear (Airfix has hit upon a genius solution, with square pegs; you have to work VERY hard to put their gear on wrong), and just the constant stupidities that can derail any build -- I knocked over my only bottle of flat clear; the flat coat went cloudy on one model and one model only, though all were sprayed at the same time; I've dropped everything I've picked up: a near complete Spit, wetted decals, very small parts, a can of cola, glue, etc -- I think I'm ready for the projected Eduard 1/72 kit for 2015. I plan on buying at least ten of any double boxing they make, and I rarely buy more than two of any kit: I am dead freaking [stronger language available] serious about Spitfire IXs. They are the most beautiful anything ever to have existed, and the fact that they came into being expressly to kill the hated (by me, intensely) Focke-Wulf 190 just makes it all the sweeter. So here's one of the Spitfires earlier: This is an LF.IXe of 318 (Polish) Squadron in Italy in 1945. Not visible here is the hideous gap between spinner cone and backplate, which I did not mention earlier but which is arguably the kit's worst and most annoying flaw. Suggested workaround is to only build black-nosed Spitfires of 2TAF, so you can glue it all up before painting and sand at your leisure. Here's a group shot around 2 PM Sunday: Yes, my workbench is super messy. In the foreground is a Spitfire IXb using markings from the Print Scale "Presentation Spitfires" set, which was kindly sent to me last Christmas by Ed Russell, of I believe Red Roo. The decals are not as terrible as some of the stories about Print Scale might have lead me to believe, but I should not have flat coated them today, (I applied them this morning), rather letting micro-sol and -set work their dark magics on them overnight. Past Me often screws himself in service of creating a sadder but wiser future me. In any case, this is "ZD-B/Turf Club I" of 222 (Natal) Squadron, and the last Spitfire is now done up using Southern Expo decals as MH434 when she, by curious coincidence, was also ZD-B in 222 Squadron, a year later. I built a Fw190 likely shot down by MH434 earlier in the year, so that's my first dogfight double, as well. Edward. These are not the Beaufighter. You have lied. You are a liar. I am not a liar -- unless it's convenient and easier to do so -- and I'm getting to the Beaufighter. I'm going to build this boxing: https://www.scalemates.com/products/product.php?id=122025A good old fashioned Beaufighter X. But I have a thing, I prefer to build aircraft that saw combat, or could potentially see combat (like RAFG), and the cool thimble-nosed decal option is for a postwar aircraft, as its underwing serials clearly indicated. Freightdog to the rescue! Their "Brits Abroad, Part II" sheet has decals for a thimlbe-nosed TF.X in 1949 during Operation FIREDOG in what was then Malaya. As the Malayan Emergency is another area of interest for me, this rings three bells: thimble-nose, aircraft on active service, and weird little 20th century war. FIREDOG is especially interesting to me, because it's basically what the RAF was doing instead of fighting it out with MiGs above Korea, and lucky for the RAF, too, given that the Meteor and the Vampire were its frontline fighters at the time. In any case, that's what I'll be building. The Spitfires are almost totally done -- I have to swear a lot and cram in their exhaust stacks tomorrow morning -- and then I can tidy up and start on the Beauf. The plastic has already been washed. God willing, I might manage to finish it before the new year, wouldn't that be something? I now leave you with a song whose title describes me at least thirty percent of the time; you may not like it so much as I do, but it does have Karen "Doctor Who" Gillan and Paul Rubens of Pee-Wee Herman fame in it, too. Karen Gillan does nothing for me, I have my own, far superior redhead. But I like the song. *Some might say frustrated writer, but frustration would imply I've not accepted that my destiny is to do none of the things I dreamed of in childhood. I'm not that naive. **Having sampled it at length, I don't much care for it.
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