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I've had this one sitting around half finished for much too long. Finally I took the bit in my teeth, knuckled down and finished it. It's the Welsh Models kit straight out of the bag. The fuselage is the basic standard Welsh Convair 440/540 fuselage so the door outlines don't match the decals. I found that out too late. It's something I'll have to keep in mind when I do the 1/72 kit later on.

Greetings folks, Another one saved from the shelf of doom, however, I still wonder if it was worth saving - does it look like an MD-90 to you? This is the Welsh Models conversion for the Minicraft MD-80 kit. The conversion includes a replacement vacform fuselage and a pair of resin engines. The fuselage nose is a poor representation of an MD-80/90 and so as recommended by N5016R, I chopped the nose off and used the Minicraft kit nose. For all that effort, I might as well have just extended the kit fuselage, sigh. Then the resin engines, err, look nothing like IAE V2500 engines, sigh. I used milliput and plastic strip to add some girth to the engines, to correct the engines as best as possible, but the fan diameter is still too small. I wasn't prepared to commit to the BraZ engines at this late stage, but in hindsight I could have used the spare V2500 engines from the Zvezda A320 kit. The Delta decals came with the Welsh Model conversion and are laser decals so a bit soft, however they responded excellently to Microscale Set and Sol, and with the use of a hairdryer (first time attempted) conformed perfectly around all the raised and recessed detail on the tail fin. I will definitely be using the hairdryer for complex decals in future. Paints are Zero Paints white, Xtracolour Boeing Grey and Alclad aluminium, all sealed with Alclad Aqua Gloss. On with photos. Darren

Handley Page Hermes IV BOAC, early 1950s This was from the Welsh Models 1/144 kit – vac form fuselage / resin wings & tailplane / white metal undercarriage. I started off my Hermes project using the FRsin kit because I wanted BOAC markings which Welsh Models don’t do, but I gave up on that. The FRsin fuselage is a large, solid resin moulding and in my kit the resin had not cured properly, this resulting in the resin bubbling up through 4 or 5 layers of Halfords white primer & appliance white. So thank you Denzil at Welsh Models for producing a very usable kit on which I used the FRsin decals. Finish is Halfords Appliance White on top. The natural metal parts are Halfords Nissan Silver with a coat of Daler Rowney ‘Goldfinger’ silver (which seems to be the current marketing name for what was ‘Rub N Buff’). This was then polished and sealed with Klear before decaling. The Hermes was not the most successful airliner ever, but it fills a gap in the BOAC collection. It has a marked similarity to the DC-4, and hence the picture with my Minicraft SAS DC-4.

Here is my representation of Court Line’s second Tristar, G-BAAB. I used the Welsh Models kit with 26 Decals supplemented with bits and pieces from the Nazca detail sheet. The light pink is Tamiya TS-25 and the salmon pink for the lower surfaces was custom mixed to RAL 3017. White is Halfords Appliance White apart from the belly stripe which is a double layer of white decal. Natural metal is various Revell and Tamiya acrylics. Building the kit was easy and straightforward although for some reason I got a bit bored half way through and the partly-built Tristar spent about a year looking sad and forlorn while I got on with other things. Eventually I took pity on it and finished it in parallel with an overall orange Easyjet A320 which made for an interesting clash of colours. The decals were also “interesting” although in a different sense. Applying the pink stripes, particularly around the tail, is an experience I’m in no hurry to repeat. 26 provide a generous amount of spare decal which perhaps should have been a warning. It was one of these jobs which looked simple on paper but in reality was anything but. I had a few “why don’t I take up a sensible hobby like stamp collecting?” moments. Weirdly, the left side which I did first went much better than the right which is the opposite of what I’d normally expect - must have been some kind of beginner’s luck! In addition the decals were rather brittle with a horrible tendency to break into flakes when I tried to trim them despite using a fresh scalpel blade. In a few areas, particularly around the stabilisers, I found myself sticking bits back in place with varnish. Eventually a hair dryer, copious quantities of Daco strong setting solution and a hefty dose of sheer bloody-mindedness got everything more or less in place although at the cost of extensive patching and touching up (Humbrol 200 with a tiny speck of red). Quite honestly it’s a bit of a mess and although the model looks OK from a distance close inspection isn’t encouraged. It’s definitely better viewed from a distance of six feet or more! The 26 windscreen decal was replaced by an old ATP item which I still had in my decal stash. It’s a bit black and monochromatic but it fits the kit far better than the 26 one. I’m sorry that Kurt Lehmann only does window decals for the kits which he produces since the Tristar’s big cockpit windows are crying out for the photo-real treatment. Anyhow, Halcyon Breeze is finally done. For all its flaws the result is definitely eye-catching. Who says airliners are all white and boring? Thanks for looking and constructive criticism is welcome. Dave

This should be my third, and final, entry for the group build. Being a glutton for punishment I have decided to attempt a vacform kit and will attempt to build the Fairey Gannet AEW Mk.3 by Welsh Models. Mike

Finished this one yesterday, the rarely modelled HP Herald. It is the Welsh Models Vacform kit with resin engines and white metal undercarriage. I used my usual method of a keel in the fuselage halves rather than transverse bulkheads, it is so much easier and stronger too. Ther are a few things to watch for if you are building this kit. 1) The resin engines attach to a 'plinth' moulded on the underside of each wing. I attached mine nice and precisely, but something didn't look right when I dry fitted it on the fuselage, the starboard engine was off the centreline with the front being further from the fuselage than it should. Finally I traced it to the 'plinth' on the underside of the starboard wing. On the vacform sheet measure the front of the plinth to the wing root. Then the rear of it. The rear is just over a mil closer the root, kicking the engine out of line. No problem now that you know about it, you can correct it when gluing it on. I tried removing my resin engine to correct it, but the vac wing started to split, so I have to live with it. 2) The Upper wing has constant dihedral, resulting in a 'V' shape in the above fuselage section. This is not right, it should be a flat airfoil section. Simple to fix with milliput and sanding. 3) The undercarraige was too long. Whan I fitted mine it looked awfully 'stilty' standing way too high. I trimmed the legs down until I was happy with the sit, taking probably 3 mil off each main leg. 4) The white metal props are broad blade, square tipped, I filed mine down to thinner round tipped ones used on Heralds. The decals come in the kit and are laser printed by Twosix decals, and go on very nicely. My only query is with the painting instructions which show pale grey tailplanes. The pictures I can find all show black or dark blue. I went for the dark blue to match the fin & rudder. The starboard (left hand in this picture) engine is a touch out of line, as explained above. You can correct yours if you build one! And finally my usual 'two ship' picture, this one with is more succesful rival, the Fokker F-27 which outsold it by more than 10 to 1. Thanks for looking, John

You don't see too many of these, either as the 1:72 Airfix kit or this 1:144 Welsh Models Vac-form. I remember building the Aifix kit in this scheme as a kid, with opening front doors that you could load matchbox cars into. This one of the sligthly more difficult Welsh vac's to build, but the mouldings were very good indeed, hats off to the guy who made the masters. It was a slow but enjoyable build, and a pretty rare addition to my collection. It is not very big, the picture below is close to full size. With its recently completed freighter companion! A few notes on building. I cut out all the glazed areas and after completion filled them with Microscale 'Kristal Kleer'. The engine nacelles are just flat fronted. I opened them up and scratch built a couple of rudimentary engines with cylinders from plastic rod. The whole model was assembled before priming and painting. although the props are only push fitted here. Paint was Halfords Appliance white and various shades of Alclad. The real 'Achilles heel' with this kit is the decals. You only get the red 'British United' tiles and the registrations. Everything else you have to do yourself The dark blue/black area around the cockpit and down the nose I masked and sprayed. The cheatline was a real headache, dark blue edged with gold and sloping down at the front. Eventually I came up with a plan to use decal film. I had an A5 sized sheet of gold, so I made a 'cheatline' out of plasticard that fitted on the model. Then I used it as a template to cut out some gold decal. The same template was then used on some dark blue decal (Old Airfix Lufthansa 727!) a sliver cut off along the bottom edge, and the applied over the gold. Same thing was done for the wide band on the fin. Now I can build that Roden 'Carvair' to park alongside it! Thanks for looking, John

Last completed build of 2012. Kit picked up at Telford and decals from TwoSix Decals. Cambrian DC-3s bring back fond memories of the early 60s at Lulsgate Airport (now Bristol International). The decals are aimed at the Minicraft kit and needed some adaptation and use of paint, particularly around the nose. First build of a resin and white metal kit. DC-3 C by jonbru0903, on Flickr DC-3 D by jonbru0903, on Flickr DC-3 B by jonbru0903, on Flickr DC-3 F by jonbru0903, on Flickr DC-3 G by jonbru0903, on Flickr Thoroughly enjoyed the build. Forgot to sand down the cargo door hinges, never mind.

This is the Welsh Models 1/144 resin kit. It was a bit of a struggle to fill the gaps, as may be seen in my build thread in the Airliners II Group Build. I'm not terribly happy with the propellers; they're very roughly cast and full of pits. I built it straight out of the box except for the VOR antenna above the cockpit, which was made from plastic scraps, and I replaced the landing gear doors because the metal ones were too thick.