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Was walking along a night flea market in Pattaya, Thailand when I came across an old man selling this kit. Of all the places to have found a kit. Managed to buy it for about the equivalent of GBP8. It seems to have all the parts but the decals are gone. Some of the parts have been cut from the sprue but it seems all there. Now wondering what to do with it. Should I build it? I mainly do jets. Have to stencil and spray the decals though. Too bad the fella is not selling a 1/48 F-14 or something.

Here's the 2003 Honda RC211V which Rossi led to victory. The kit is awesome with some additional details like the clutch, gas cables and some other minor things from top studio.

Tamiya's still superb wee Universal Carrier: Built pretty much from the box with just some 'tarps' and an Italeri 'Boys' rifle from the stash. Markings are from Star-Decal (35-C-1148) - which are a quite thick in my opinion - for a vehicle from the 19th Bt. 2nd NZ Divn' in late '41 / early '42. Not too much else to say, the 'Caunter' colours are 'home brewed' using so many other folks builds as reference and the always (un)reliable Mk.1 eyeball method. Not too shabby for a 43 year old kit... as ever all outrage, questions and comments welcomed. Best from NZ Ian.

Here is my attempt at painting the figures from Tamiya's Spitfire Mk IX kit along with a couple from Ultracast: #54009 "RAF Fighter Pilot, Battle of Britain 1940" and #54011 "RAF Fighter Pilot Mid-late War 1943-1945". Both of the Ultracast figures were beautifully cast and Mike Good's sculpting was wonderful and full of crisp, accurate detail. I highly recommend them to accompany your 1/32 aircraft. I will eventually put the Battle of Britain pilot and the Special Hobby Airacobra onto a base. Goodness knows when I will get around to building the Spitfire - but at least I'll have some figures ready for it. Thank you for looking - and any comments would be much appreciated!

Hello all - I started this kit a few nights ago but have only got round to posting tonight - I’m going back to 1/72 land after a brief jaunt into 1/48 - which I thoroughly enjoyed but I have a large stash of aircraft in the smaller variety so I reckon I’ll try to get as many of those finished before buying any more kits - that’s the plan in any case 😇. Here’s the kit - the new tooled Il-2 from tamiya - I bought this from a supplier in japan as I couldn’t find it anywhere else - took about 2 months to arrive but I was v happy when it did. I love Soviet warbirds - so utilitarian - brutish and gnarly. I want to build a load of them but this is the first on the hit list. Not much in the way of aftermarket- some resin wheels and a canopy mask. Starting this off - begining with the fuselage. This went together nicely as you would expect from a tamiya new tool... With that complete I got into the pit... which I’ve just about finished... sorry I neglected to take pictures. Forgot I was Wip ing 😌 I added some eduard seatbelts - after gluing into place they got a coat of tamiya panel line wash - brown. The instrument panel was quite nice - the decal went on nicely - I painted on some details and then put on another wash after a gloss coat. The fuel tank was painted black and then I dry brushed on aluminum- followed by a panel line wash. The rear section has some nice detail but is still pretty sparse. After the initial coat of tamiya xf22, I dry brushed a lighter colour - base coat with added white. Then picked out some details with a few more colours. There was a pretty big seam line on the floor of the back section- so I added some wire to cover this up... So a quick dry fit to make sure everything was on track... Fit is very good. I’m enjoying this immensely so far - hopefully things continue in this vain. More to follow shortly - thanks for looking in !

Mk.IV Tamiya 1/35. Straight from the box Un saludo.

Greetings this my first post in this forum Juan C.

Hi folks There's been a couple of these posted recently I think, but as this is only my third completed build this year I've decided to put it out there anyway. Regards J.A.

This is one of my more recent builds. It was my second Tamiya kit to finish and it was well-engineered and thoughtfully designed. I started this Skyray in 2012, only to put it aside about half finished. I returned to it and finished it in August 2015. I took her out to the Cameron Airport for a little photo-session. We have a new hangar out there and I wanted to use it for a background. It was quite hot even in the time I was there, 10am-noon, building up to a heat index of 108 in the afternoon if I recall. The Douglas F4D was a carrier-based American fighter. The 1947 Navy requirement for which it was designed called for an aircraft that could reach 50,000 feet in five minutes, enabling it to intercept enemy bombers. Some interesting facts from Wikipedia: "Although it was in service for a relatively short time (1956-1964) and never entered combat, it was the first carrier-launched aircraft to hold the world's absolute speed record, at 752.943 mph,[1] and was the first United States Navy and United States Marine Corps fighter that could exceed Mach 1 in level flight.[2]It was the last fighter produced by the Douglas Aircraft Company before it merged with McDonnell Aircraft and became McDonnell Douglas." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F4D_Skyray) Even though the Skyray didn't see combat, it's intriguing to imagine how that might have played out. It's first test flight occurred January 21, 1951, during the Korean War. A couple of it's early test pilots, Bob Rahn and Major Marion Carl, said this about the Skyray: " Rahn called the machine a "fighter pilot's dream", the best machine he had taken into the sky since flying the Spitfire. Its instability made it supremely agile for a skilled pilot, and Rahn claimed that he out-flew every Air Force chase plane sent up with him. Marine Major Marion Carl, one of the top test pilots of the era, flew the Skyray and claimed: "If we had this airplane now in Korea, I could just pop off the MiGs -- one, two, three." (https://web.archive.org/web/20070805072633/http://www.vectorsite.net/avskyray.html) The Skyray was also the only Navy jet fighter assigned to NORAD. "The F4D not only served with the US Navy and Marines, it also served under USAF command, though not with USAF pilots. One Navy Skyray squadron, VFAW-3 out of North Island in San Diego, was assigned to the North American Air Defense (NORAD) system under Air Force control, scrambling to intercept intruders entering the southwestern corner of the USA. The Navy Skyrays participated in Air Force interceptor competitions and walked away with their share of prizes. VFAW-3 Skyrays deployed to Naval Air Station Key West in Florida during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962, protecting US airspace from Cuban intruders. There were radar contacts with MiGs but nobody ever tried to force a confrontation." (https://web.archive.org/web/20070805072633/http://www.vectorsite.net/avskyray.html) The gull gray on top and insignia white underneath are Model Master enamel, and the wingwalks are Humbrol dark gull enamel. The leading edges were done with Humbrol matt aluminum. Paint was applied with my Paasche H using CO2. The paint scheme was deceptively simple at first but turned out to require a lot of masking, compounded by several mistakes on my part. The final finish is MM semi-glass acrylic clear and Future was used for a gloss-coat for decaling and weathering with Flory washes and pastel chalks. I used the kit decals for the most part with a few from my decal spares stash. EZ Masks were used for the canopy. It is pretty much all out of the box, with tape seatbelts added to the ‘pit. Originally, I intended to build her “clean” to show off the Skyray’s cool lines but in the end, I did gaudy her up with a full load-out. 😉 Looking back on my recent progress, I realize several were 1950s jets! Man, I just love the planes from this era. The Navy and the Air Force weren’t afraid of trying any new designs it seems now, and new designs were coming off the ‘boards at a fast rate back then. It doesn’t help that all these cool aircraft were coming along when I was a tender youth, zooming their plastic lookalikes around my room and yard! Thanks for taking a look at my “Ford” and as usual, I do appreciate your interest! Gary

This is the Tamiya Messerschmitt Bf109 G-6 in 1/72nd scale. Apart from the EZ-line antenna wire, the model was built straight out box. Vallejo Model Air paints were used for the main colours. Thanks for looking. Joe.

Greetings this is my A6M3 Zero Tamiya 1/48 straight from the box.

I spent most of late 2014 and 2015 building and painting for the IPMS Scale Model World Battle of Britain, display, so much so that to paraphrase Sir Steve Redgrave, 'if I even start using Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky, shoot me'. Three things changed that, the upcoming 2020 Anniversary display, buying and reading the Battle of Britain Archive series from Red Kite and the fabulous Fundekkals sheet for the early Spitfire. Realising my stash was BoB free, I bought an Airfix Spitfire Ia and a Tamiya one at a knockdown price. I planned to build both in parallel but the real world go the way as it tends to do. Compared to the Airfix kit it is up to £15.00 more expensive here in the UK ( though I picked mine up for a mere £4 more) I wondered if it was worth it. In the end, I will now speak heresy, it a nice kit, not perfect and a little quirky. I expect to get hammered for this view. let me explain. The fit is fabulous, I used absolutely no filler anywhere, it is probably the nicest kit I have ever built in that respect. The way the undercarriage is moulded and the covering panels mean the undercarriage legs with be at the right angle and a lot stronger than the fiddly way Airfix did theirs. On the downside there is no back or head armour provided, both essential for the BoB markings provided. It is also a shame that no two bladed propeller is offered, the rest of the options to make a mid production Mk I are there but not a two blader for the very early machines. The flying surfaces unmodified are not able to be posed in anything other than straight, unlike the Airfix one where they can be easily animated with no modification. Also, the way the cockpit inserts (which fit beautifully) mean that the canopy can only be pose fully open or fully closed. By moulding the radio aerial with a lump of the fuselage, you cannot add this vulnerable sticking out piece of plastic without having to remove and lengthening it, not very modeller friendly. Finally the way the front armour is a separate piece from the windscreen is trial to fit and in my case my hamfisted modelling allowed paint to seep under it. I much prefer the Airfix way of providing two different windscreens. I feel like I am damning it with faint praise and using it as an excuse for my shortcomings, I really enjoyed building it but for the price in the UK........ Here she is with the Airfix one I built a month or so ago. The Fundekkels markings are brilliant and the instruction PDF is a goldmine of information. There are still half a dozen more never been seen in decal form Mk Ia s I want to build on the sheet, The choice of which kit to buy is still the balance. Thanks for looking

Hi guys, I will build the early version of the Tiger I. This operated first in North Africa. The kit is from Tamiya and it will have a few extra's on it. I have got some etch for the air inlets, a metal gun barrel and some friul tracks for the early version. The tracks are already build as I nicked them off from a older kit. Here are some pictures of the box and content. Cheers,

So after the B-25 I'm changing era's & scales launching straight in to my next build, a Tamiya F-16C-50. Will be doing a Spangdahlem machine from 2003, using an old Superscale sheet, adding the Eduard pre-painted etch set and a turned-brass pitot. Not quite OoB but close. Please feel free to comment, question and shout during the course of the build. Hopefully it won't give me too many headaches. Have a great weekend everyone. Best from NZ. Ian.

I have finished with the seascape for my IJN Shimakaze. The base was made with blue insulation foam, which I cut the wave pattern with a knife. It was then coated with Vallejo white stone past. I sculpted bow wave with magic sculpt. Base colors were vallejo acrylic, on top of which were coated with acrylic gel medium. Finally white foam was added with white oil paint. Nanond

Not content with having 2 kits on the go (KITT and a lamborghini Murcielago) I've started this A birthday present from my sister. I wanted (but she couldn't find) a Mk 3 to build as a memory to my dad who died last month as he had one in the mid 90's. Ive started painting with with thinned paints and what a difference (after all those years of paint straight out of the pot!!) I'm very happy with this so far.

We now have the full range of Tamiya's Lacquer paints in stock and ready to ship! They come in a 10ml bottle and are suitable to paint plastic model kits and come in three finishes, gloss, flat and translucent. The Tamiya Lacquer Paint range can be brushed straight from the tub over small areas, or thinned to be used in an airbrush. Tamiya's lacquer paints feature a quick drying time, robust finish and can be over painted with either acrylic or enamel paints once dry. These paints also do not require the use of a primer and even the gloss colors can be applied directly to the plastic parts. Due to the nature of lacquer paint they should only be used outdoors or in a well ventilated area. Eye protection, gloves and a vapor mask should be worn at all times when using lacquer paints. See the full range here; https://www.wonderlandmodels.com/model-paints/paints-glues/tamiya/lacquer/

Hi all, Just finished this for the Lockheed GB, have been working on it for the last 3 months or so. Wanted to do something different with the F-117a, so not only did I do the two-tone Grey Dragon (trust me, there are two shades of grey on the model!) but I also found this pic: so I decided to try to recreate the black lines/panels as well. Of course, I shouldn't be showing you this pic, as you can then just compare it to the model and see everything I did wrong! Anyhow, it's a Tamiya kit, so an enjoyable build! Used some Eduard PE for the cockpit/canopy and TwoBob decals for the Grey Dragon scheme. Also made a little 'Ladder Guard' that I saw in a couple of pics. Hope you like it, but please do send any constructive criticism my way, it's the best way to learn. And sorry for posting so many pics. Thanks! Kit: Tamiya F-117a Nighthawk Scale: 1:48 Paint & Weathering: Airbrushed with Mr. Paint, Weathered with Pastels. Extras: Eduard PE, TwoBobs Decals, little bits of scratch building Build Log: Here

Hello everyone, my latest build of Tamiya F-16CJ Block50. Extras used: Eduard PE for cockpit and ladder, Eduard resin seat, Master model pitot set Paints and colours used: Tamiya and Gunze acrylics, AK Interactive Extrememetall, Florymodels washes, Abteilung 502 oils I hope you like the result.

Hi everyone, this is my first WIP on this site... I'm already some weeks into this build so no real 'in progress' pictures. I don't have too much time for modelling so my focus lies on building rather than taking pictures on the go. But now I found some time and thought I share some pictures. The kit should be well known, its the 1/350 Tamiya Tirpitz. I got it as a present from friends last year for my birthday and used the time to obtain some goodies for it: the eduard big ed set and a wooden deck from a chinese companie I do not know... So here we go: bridge assembly upper bridge full bridge assembly: and with radars all radars: funnel: scratchbuilt interior: ...aaaaand how little you see when the funnel cap is attached... I don't want to imagine how it looks after painting... At least I know its there! Now the hangars, first the only WIP I can show: side hangar before and after PE both done: big hangar: Now the big pieces: and everything together so far... looks like theres more brass than plastic and next the wooden decking... there are many issues with that... for example 1 easy to fix problems where eduard replaced the 'balconies'... 2 Big problem where eduard corrected wrong fittings on the deck... I still have no idea what to do with that... maybe fill in pieces out of sheet to simulate hatches...🤔 3 Huge problem where shields where moved to the correct positions... see also the first picture of the wooden decking aft of the 2nd tower in front of the bridge... I dont know what to do... as shown on previous pictures eduard provides etched decking but I know my painting skills will never be good enough to stand up to the real wooden decking on the main deck... Any input is highly appreciated. Thanks for looking Konrad

Hi guys, been hard at it this last week burning the midnight oil to get this glam rocker done. I left the front mudguard in the packaging until I needed it and was amazing to find that it was a real metal item that had been chromed, I think it was done to keep the front forks straight. I noticed that the front brake caliper was missing the metal pipe that ran from the caliper to the brake hose, I made this from a piece of silver solder which was easily bent into shape to go round the back of the fork leg and I added the brake bleed nipple as I felt at this scale these items needed to be added. Also I have included pictures of the building instructions to show how intricate Tamiya made this kit. I hope you enjoy this blast down the 70's bike era.

I bought this kit from a model shop in Beijing about 6 years ago, but never had the courage to build it. However after cutting my teeth on the last two Tamiya bike builds I thought I would crack on with it, I plan to paint it in the candy gold colour. I found the engine side covers were in a chrome finish, but they should be a polished alloy, so I have buffed them with a Flory polishing stick and I will give them an oil wash to dull them down a touch. I should crack on with the build with this 70's glam rocker over the weekend.

Hello; Latest piece is ready for its inspection. I am prepared for a thorough review, please don't hold back if I've done something that could be improved, especially in terms of accuracy. Almost all the markings are painted, Tamiya and Vallejo for the paints. Airbrush and silver pencil for the weathering. A full description of the build, lots more pics and why I chose this subject (and its context) can be found on my site, Making-History.ca Cheers; Mark.

Hello again, all. After a couple of non LSP kits, I decided I'd get back to the Master Scale. My lovely wife bought me the MkVIII Spit for Father's Day, so I thought I'd get right to it. I just have to say, this is, as we all expect from Tamiya LSPs, a beautiful kit. It could be built straight out of the box and look fantastic. So, naturally, I bought a bunch of after market . Actually, as I'll discuss later, I think I may have actually bought too much aftermarket (is such a thing even possible?) I went with HGW seat belts, Barracuda decals and cockpit upgrades, the Eduard exterior photoetch set, and a Yahu IP. My first attempt at HGW belts had been frustrating, so I have left that part for now. I do, however, want to talk about the interior resin upgrade set. It is of course, beautiful work from Roy as always. However, more to the praise of Tamiya than to the detriment of Barracuda, I'm not sure that it is that much better than the kit parts. I've posted below some comparison photos of the relevant parts. The seat is the one clear winner for me. Fortunately it's sold as a separate piece. Tamiya elected not to mold the very prominent backrest cushion, which Barracuda has corrected. The other thing I do love about these particular parts is that they're made to be drop in replacements to the kit parts, complete with attachement points of the correct shape to fit to the sidewall. (I have since removed the flare rack from the front of the seat, which to my understanding is not correct for this mark. The compass is nearly identical. I honestly can't even tell you which is which in this photo The throttle quadrant does show a couple of nice additional details, but the kit part is very good on its own. As you can see, I still struggle with cleanly separating parts from the casting block. That handle is askance because I had to glue it back on after breaking it during sawing. Undercarriage controls. Again, a few nice details, but not a stark contrast as there is with some kits. The control column. The barracuda part comes with wire and asks you to drill three tiny holes to accommodate them. I used a #80 drill bit but still managed to break the part. I ended up using the kit part, with the resin handpiece, which does add some nice detail where the lines attach. Sidewall painted up with paint scraped away for the bulkhead attachments. Rather than try to drill again and ruin my only remaining control stick, I used lead wire and just cut it where it's meant to be going through, picking it back up on the other side. Some solder added for the hydraulic lines from the undercarriage lever. For some unknown reason, Tamiya have chosen to leave very prominent defects in this door. After trying unsucessfully to fill and sand them, I scraped away the detail, smoothed it over with some Bondo, and re-added the detail by scratch. The open door below shows that in progress. I deviated from the instructions and added the sidewalls to the fuselage halves so that I could add some wiring. I just noticed on the second picture that I'm missing a couple of bits that still need to be glued down on the starboard side. These upclose photos also unfortunately are demonstrating my sloppy painting. I usually brush paint Model Master Acryl semi gloss black for these parts, but have been unable to get it appropriately thinned - it either runs everywhere or goes on too thick, as below. I'm expecting a bottle of UMP universal thinner, which I'm going to try on it before switching brands entirely, but does anyone else have a favored paint for this? I prefer not to try to mask and spray all these little parts, so brush painting is a must. Control column and rudder pedals. There is a trick of the light, here, the starboard pedal has not suffered from green overspray. I added straps to the rudder pedals from Tamiya tape. Here's my door. Need to clean it up a little still. Waiting on a new bottle of MRP RAF interior green. The crowbar has yet to be built, but I am thinking that I'll whittle it out of styrene strip. While waiting for my Yahu panel to arrive, I decided to paint up the kit part. It has the usual coke bottle effect on the instrument glass, due to the way Tamiya engineers them, but looks pretty good. The Barracuda set also comes with placard decals. I will add those as well, and may save this pre-made panel for the next 1/32 spit I do (there will definitely be another, as I love Spits and this kit - probably Skalski's MkIX). I just realized looking at this that I somehow lost the bottom three instrument decals! D'oh! And the Barracuda resin seat. First with a base coat of MRP ochre wood, then dabbed and swirled with some burnt siena and burnt umber oils for the Bakelite effect. I was going to give this a top coat with MRP clear red brown, but I think it looks pretty good as is. Thoughts? Anyway, I'm about to go away for the holiday weekend, so I'll leave these oils to dry for a few days and hopefully my IP will be in the mail when I return! Gloss, decals, washes, and seatbelts still to go before I can close up the fuselage halves. Thanks for looking - as always comments criticisms are welcome!

Hi All, I'm on a roll at the moment. I have really found my enthusiasm again. This is one that I have had for about 35 years, or there abouts. It's been part built for a seriously long time. I have built a few 1/20th Tamiya F1 cars over the years and have found them a challenging but rewarding build. This one has been a bit more challenging the some of them ... The box top: A truly bizarre but quite beautiful car. This was in the days of classic F1 cars, I think. The modern stuff looks a bit anodyne in comparison. I had built the engine and transmission a long time ago, and that's where it stood for quite a while. At some point in the past, the transmission fell off the engine, and disrupted the rear suspension somewhat. Trying to re-assemble that caused a number of head-aches. The springs for example, were attached to the cylinder heads and the bottom suspension arms. I attached the gear-box back on the engine, then attempted to thread the rear springs into the gap. This proved to be a problem, and caused me a bit of a head-ache, but in the end, I managed to get them fitted, Them as I was manipulating the engine about, the stacks kept falling off! The big problem however, was when I tried to attach the engine to the chassis. There is a small screw that taps into the engine block, holding the engine and chassis together, but also at the bottom was a small 'clip' that you had to put the block over and push down to lock it in place. Every time I tried to do that, one or more of the stacks would come off … again and again and again …. again. Eventually, I removed the clip bit of the bottom pin, and araldited the block to the chassis and screwed in the screw on the top. After about 24 hours, the block doesn't seems to be going anywhere, and I can call that bit done. So, this is where we have got: The back looks a bit skew. I'm blaming the camera. I think that the link rot from the anti-roll bar has come adrift yet again. Again, as you can see, one of the stacks has fallen off! I have fixed that. So, on to the body. I had primed that a while back, and have got the initial colour on: I have cut the paint back a bit to remove any inevitable imperfections and it's ready for its second coat of Tyrrell blue. The ever brilliant Zero paints. More to come. Thanks for looking. Cheers, Alan.