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I wasn't going to post this one up until I started it properly, but here goes anyway. At the moment, I'm just doing the spray painting bits while the weather allows. The build will be later in the year, but with my spray booth in the garage I have to do the spraying while it's warm and dry enough. So first job is to decide on the colour. The instructions are for the car in beige, but I wanted to try another of the factory colours. Unfortunately, the choice of colours from Trabant demonstrate the wow factor you would expect from the Eastern Bloc - as well as beige the choice is Invalid Carriage Blue, Dirty Off White, Pale Grey, Baby Sick, and two shades of green, one of which resembles the glowing stick of uranium from the Simpson's opening and one of which resembles dying grass. I decided to go with the grey as I think it might suit the car. The kit is Revell's Trabant Universal. On first glance, and from what I've read, it looks a nicely detailed kit with lots of parts... and also lots of steps to the instructions (46!). The body looks pretty nice apart from some sink marks front and rear on each side so those have been filled, and the mould lines are hidden behind what will be a trim line from front to rear with only small lines on the front of the car. The door lines are also quite shallow so I scribed them too. There's quite a lot of bits which are body colour, which means quite a bit of spraying with this one. I'll only put up the chassis and the body for the spraying, the rest would just be repetitive. The pic below shows it very early on, and I've put the roof panel, bonnet and boot in place to give an idea of how it will look. This pic is after the scribing and the first attempt at filling the sink marks, the ones at the front needing quite a bit of filling. The spoon in the foreground shows what I hope to be the final colour - this one is Revell's USAF Light Grey, which being a matt paint will need a couple of goes with the clear where there are decals. As usual, the primer showed that this wasn't the best filling job, so all the sink marks needed filling and sanding again before it got another coat of primer. And here we are with the body finally complete and wearing it's coat of primer. Meanwhile, the chassis paint was running in parallel to the body. This one is mostly in matt black and I managed to get it painted relatively easily. However, the rear wheel arches should have the finish in body colour, so I had to break out the foil and the masking tape in preparation for colour coating them. Two weeks later, after adding the colour coat (directly over the black), I added the clear coat and then removed the masking. I have to say that I am quite pleased with the result. There is some detailing required to parts of this (principally the handbrake cable), but that will come when I reach that stage of the build. And then my paint woes hit. First of all, that can of spray paint which was fine for the chassis wheel arches decided to lose pressure two weeks later. And the other can I had ran out very quickly only doing a few larger parts and a mist coat and a half on the body before running out. So this is where it is now: So I'm out of spray paint and have a very unfinished car. Fortunately, I've just got myself a new, but cheap, airbrush which I was only planning on using at first on areas where it wouldn't be that visible. Having managed to extract about 20ml from the low pressure can I guess I will have to try with that. Would I be right in thinking that the paint from a spray can will go straight through the airbrush ok without thinning? And has anyone any experience of spraying with Revell acrylic paints from the tub if I need to go down that route? Would I be better off just getting another spray can if so required?

Since I started modelling again nearly fifteen years ago, I’ve kept a spreadsheet of my stash and my builds, and it turns out I recently completed my 99th model. Obviously, my 100th has to be something of significance, so I returned to an idea I had a couple of years ago. Way back in the mid seventies, for my tenth Christmas, my Uncle John bought me the Airfix 1/24 Stuka as he knew I’d been making models for a couple of years by then. I owned the grand total of two tinlets of Humbrol Authentic Colour, dark green and black, and my Dad suggested that for such an expensive kit I ought to buy some paints and “make a good job of it.” I duly traipsed to the more distant of our local paper shops, the one “over the iron bridge” and spent some of my Christmas money on a selection of Airfix Enamels – M1, M2, M6, M17, M20, M22, M25 and so on. 17p a tin, as I recall. The model was built, probably fairly averagely, and went to reside on the top of my wardrobe due to its size. Over the next few years, the rough and tumble of a child’s bedroom saw it dinged, damaged, and eventually broken up. But although most of the airframe parts ended up in the local landfill, for some reason I kept the engine, propeller and cockpit parts in my spares box. Fast forward a decade, and I’d been off to college, got my degree, and was languishing around on the dole waiting for the right job opportunity to come along. One day I was firkling around in my old stuff and came across the old bits of Stuka. To relieve the boredom of unemployment, I dug out my old enamels and repainted the cockpit to the best of my (then) ability, along with the propeller and what was left of the engine. The instrument panel was tricky without the online reference sources we enjoy these days, so I simply made a lot of the detail colours up. They sat on a shelf as models in their own right for a while, and then got packed away later when I moved house. Fast forward another thirty years or so, and I’ve recently retired, and finding myself with a lot more time for modelling I dug out the old Stuka bits again. I went online, and with the help of the Echo Bay Trading Company I managed to find a copy of the original issue Airfix Stuka, complete with swastikas, and the same registration T6+KL as my original build all those years ago. It’s now sitting in my hobby room. So the plan is to do a nostalgia build, incorporating into a single airframe: The original cockpit I built as a child; That same cockpit I then painted as a graduate; and That same painted cockpit installed into an airframe I built as a retiree. Child – before career – after career… three stages of man, geddit? I’m intending to do this out of the box, including Airfix’s erroneous colour scheme of all-over dark green for the topside, as that’s how I built the original. Here’s the box: Here’s the original parts I have, which need a good clean: The instrument panel shows a bit of imagination in the colours used, and the instructions were a bit vague as to where the gunsight glass went: If you’ve stuck with it during this lengthy preamble you must have some interest in it, so feel free to tag along… Cheers, Dean

My next one for 2017. Must be the third, I think. I handed it over to my daughter last night, and she was well pleased! The smile on her face said it all. (She's 20 by the way) So, here are the images: I like the 'arty' 'up-hill' look. Actually, it was me with the camera at a skew angle! On the whole, a very pleasant build. I had a few problems during the build. Some of them were my own (The clear-coating being the major one) and one was the kit (The wheels!). I have just noticed that on these pictures, the little 'sting' aerial is a bit off straight. I corrected that after the pictures were taken. Any comments, positive or negative are welcome. Thanks for looking, Alan.

So made a star on the 1/24 scale kit, this is a resin sculp of a bit of art work by Shunya Yamashita. I'm painted it very similar to the original but with a few tweecks https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pinterest.com/amp/pin/479492691550596236/

My newest project is a bit different, maybe not. I have had a 1/24 UH-1B Huey lying around for a few years(bought back when it was $34). I was looking online at forget what, just going further down the rabbit hole. I come across an art project made from an actual UH-1D called Take Me Home Huey. https://takemehomehuey.org/ I'm not American, well I understand my original dad was, but he died before I was born and mum don't talk about it so I don't really know. I have some strange draw to the Vietnam war, I don't know what it is, maybe because I was born a little after the official end of it. Perhaps it's because I grew up hearing about it. Anyway I did want to try to make a D-model from this kit. Turns out it's a bit more than I had hoped. Also there is no conversions for it. I also had the idea to put this on a semi trailer as a fresh restoration or derelict. I also thought of making it a Canadian CH-118 Iroquois. It's a good kit for a 1969 design. This will have the trailer and the Freightliner. I dug around online for whatever pictures of this one and side profile views. I found a couple of ok pictures and some rough when enlarged drawings and did my best to make them 1/24 for a pattern. I made the first mistake of cutting the fuselage in half through the door to lengthen it. Turns out, the door opening is longer and the rear of the fuselage up to the tailboom is moved back and reshaped. The belly is also deeper, the cowling is quite different from the tailpipe shroud forward. I decided to make a rib structure much like a wooden airplane or house walls and then sheet them. After I thought I could have glued on a block of wood and took a belt sander to it. I cut the tail boom off to make it easier to finish the rear joint area without damaging the tail. The floor was started but will be replaced with new sheet plastic. I don't know how yet to remake the texture on the floor. I'll let the first pictures speak for themselves. I have a couple of ideas for reproducing the decals. The real one is a wrap. I've been in touch with the Huey group but I'm still waiting for certain pictures, namely the roof I need, because it's so tall, no one gets that shot but I need it. I'm not sure if it will be 100% accurate when done, but it'll be very close. It is a big model, about 20" just for the fuselage.

OK, so I decided for my next project to have a go at the legendary 956. Namely though the Jacky Ickx/Derek Bell Rothmans sponsored No 1 car. This one: I used to live near the Rothmans Factory in Spennymoor, Co. Durham as a kid and a couple of times in the 1980's they brought these cars down to the factory ( with the Bikes ) for their open days. They'd close off a bit of the industrial road and run the cars and bikes up and down showing them off. Of course as a youth I was totally in awe of these machines, the noise, the raw power, the smell. I can still hear and feel it like it was yesterday. I even had my own race tuned NS125 in the Rothmans livery which I'd ride around the town in my Rothmans racing jacket thinking I was king. I also raced ( not that successfully I will add ) the bike in a couple of amateur races so it's definitely going to be fun building one of the Porsches. Now I know this has been done in threads before here, but I'm not going for a standard build, I'm going for this: Basically the bodywork off, up on jacks, pit in version of the car. Thing is though the Tamiya kit is very basic so I'm going to have to scratch build a ton of it ( especially the front end frame work which basically doesn't exist in the kit ) I know that this super detail kit exists that was a collaboration between Scale Motorsport and Tamiya ( a more in depth look at the kit here ) and I've managed to track down one ( for a price ) if I want it but I just thought: you know what, where's the fun in that? So I've decided to see if I can scratch-build all the parts I need myself. So I started to do so a month or so ago armed with zero knowledge of working with styrene In at the deep end again. I however have the small photo etch parts kit that is commonly available to add some detail. So armed with some styrene profiles and sheets, the Rothmans decals and the Tamiya Porche 956 Canon kit here's where I'm at: The kit: All pretty basic stuff really. First job was to lop off the front and doors from the main moulding: All good. Then these awful looking moulded into the bodywork exhaust manifolds came off. I'll be replacing them with 1mm solder. Out came the Dremel for some hacking. Then some filler and sanding: Then I turned my attention to the front end frame and bulkhead build: First some paper cutting templates Cut out in styrene and test fitted Then I cut the holes and formed some rivets by pressing on the reverse with my scribe Then made a rough bulk head piece And primed and painted up with some alclad airframe aluminium Added the tiny brake, clutch and water reservoirs to the bulkhead using various bits of styrene and a cut up plastic milk carton for the bottle caps ( needs a bit of cleaning up ) also need to add clear tubing and wiring to complete the piece: Made the front end brake duct inlet frame from styrene. Bit of a headache this one, took ages to get right at this scale and I hummed and harred for hours over an actually design from the original walk-around pictures which don't show enough detail. Plus how it was going to actually fit onto the car, again the walk-around pic revealed no secrets here. I bought some clip on magnifying lenses for my glasses which are really helping with work at this scale. Ms Borez says that I look like a mad professor. I made and scrapped three others before I finally arrived at this design: Added the aluminium top frame and painted it up. I'll be adding some styrene hex bolts to the top for detail and obviously the brake ducting. The original piece on the car: Next up is priming and painting the car undertray and to start work on the actually frame which shouldn't really give me any issues as I have aluminium tubing of this size left over from the C9 build. The front hook is one of the photo etch parts I have too. This bit: Then I'll start fitting all of these pieces together before concentrating on the rest of the front end i.e. suspension and brakes. And that's where I'm at right now. Pretty pleased with my bits so far, all going to plan. Thanks for looking

I've been pondering what to make my first build of 2018 and this is something that's been near the top of the pile since I bought it not to long ago. As seem obligatory these days the box shot. A brief look into the a kit that I've made in the past with relatively good result. This was completed in January of 2016/5 I think so the experience has improved since then I hope. From the above kit I am now pretty aware of the areas that need a little more care and also areas where I myself can improve. So for this current attempt at this model I managed to pick the kit up rather cheaply from eBay as it had no decals but as it was the same kit as the finished fina car above I still have the majority of the decals left with only the rear gtr one and 1 other missing. Right so then it was the mindset of I have this kit now what to do with it? Test car? Another race version to go with the fina car and soon the be made gulf version? I couldn't make my mind up, then as I was half way through the Liberty Walk Nissan GT-R I came across a set of carbon decals that cover the whole exterior in a carbon wrap. So that the plan. A full carbon McLaren f1 gtr, possibly with the yellow and pink decals on aswell but I won't make that call until the body is finished. The set includes 4 sheets of pre printed templates to cut of that from what I can see covers most of the car in carbon, there are a few bits not on the sheets(or maybe I just haven't found them yet) but these bits will be easy to make myself with the leftover parts of sheet. Now on to the plastic. The shell is as nicely moulded as it was the first time with no really bad bits to clean up. I need to decide if I should just glue the rear parts on for the engine cover or maybe detail the engine bay a little. And then finally for the first update I need to decide whether or not to cut out the front hatch to show the details underneath that incuded in the kit. I guess if I do the rear it would be silly not to do the front and vice versa. Also in this picture you will notice that I have started to clean up the few mould lines that are on the body and filled the small dips with ca glue ready to be sanded off very soon. I think body work wise this kit will move pretty quick as it is only going a gloss black after primer with then the whole raft of decals to put on. More soon Shaun

Hi All, Finally. I'm calling this one done. I managed, after some considerable time just sitting in the 'to complete' pile, to finish this at the weekend. The build wasn't without its problems. Like the fitting of the wheels was a bit of a nightmare. They kept falling off! In fact one fell off this morning! I finally finished all the little bits, like the roof-rack and mud-guards and so on. I was trying to think of the best way to attach these to the car. I considered CA glue, but I didn't have any and I don't like CA glue very much. I seem to stick the thing to myself rather than the intended destination... So anyway, here it is. The 'Monte Carlo' plate is a lot wonky. The problem was I used Mr Setter setting solution, and by Jove, did it set it! It wouldn't budge. So I gave up and left it where it sat! It's even more obvious here! On the whole, I am pleased with the outcome. Another one to add to the car park. Sorry about the background. I need to set up a proper photography set up, but don't really have any to put it. Thanks for looking, Alan.

Hi Chaps. Firstly, just wanted to say hi, I'm new to the forum and just back in the modelling game after a rather lengthy break of 35 years, one build in and loving it. So here is my question, I pushed the boat out and purchased the Airfix 1/24 Mosquito in the black friday sales. Really looking forward to getting started. Doing a little research on schemes and I have fixed upon The dark grey scheme with yellow spinners from the original 1/24 release (sorry I can't find a reference to which squadron etc) Does anyone know where I can purchase decals for this? Looking forward to your responses. Thanks again Simon

If the gear on this Huge Harrier remains unchanged (I mean you keep it OOB and retractable) does the nosewheel stand properly like a Harrier nose wheel should? Or does it suspend completely down so the tyre is almost touching the fuselage?

Hello All, This one has also been on the 'shelf of doom' for some time. Probably about 4 or 5 years... It's the Hasegawa Ferrari 348 tb. It'll go well with the other Ferraris that I have been working on. What with the 308 having been finished, and the 288 GTO nearly complete, I thought that I would clear the decks of old builds and add this one to the list of 'in progress'. The box. A pretty car, if not quite so beautiful as the 308 & 288... The sprues. It doesn't look a lot, but the engine is already built and almost ready to be put aside. ... and, the instructions. I'm hoping that this Hasegawa kit will be a bit more successful than a couple of others I tried... I tried to construct the 1/24th Ferrari F189, but it went completely pear-shaped on me and the body work would not fit. I binned it! I also tried the 1/24th Jaguar XJR8 (or was it the XJR9?, I can't remember). That was going well, then I managed to split the rather large wind-screen! That ended up as spare parts... On the other hand, the 1/32nd F-16 seems to going rather better. Anyway, more pictures... The body has been painted with Halfords acrylic spray paint. I can't remember the colour. But I don't need any more (unless I screw up with the cement!). If I do, I'm pretty certain that I can mix up the right cocktail of (Tamiya) colours to get a near enough match. The engine, not quite fully assembled. Again, I have added ignition leads. No engine looks right without ignition leads, except a Diesel. Actually, my wife's Meriva is a petrol, and the ignition leads are nowhere to be seen. Each spark-plug is fed by it's own coil in an ignition block that sits on top of them. Anyway, utterly irrelevant in this case, as the 348 has separate leads to each plug, and they go ... somewhere! (More on that later!) The wheels. Matt chrome seems to work on car kits. I always thing the the high-chrome finish looks too toy-like on 1/24th scale! (Actually, I built the Revell 1/8th scale Jag, and the chrome on that looked too bright and toy-like!) The windows, door-mirrors and the engine cover. That's it for the moment. Thanks for looking, Alan.

Hello All, I have had this one on the back-burner for years. I have finally decided, what with the FIAT 500 nearly done and another couple of cars nearing completion as well, to resurrect this one. It's the Fujimi 1/24 246 Dino. It's one of their 'enthusiast' kits, meaning loads of fiddly tiny parts. I have already done a couple of the Porsche enthusiast kits and apart from a few niggles, they went together well. I just wish I knew where I had put them in the loft for safe keeping. I started it a while ago and then put into storage, where it got forgotten for a long while. I have painted all the major body parts in Halfords' 'Broome Yellow'. It has come out quite well, even gloss cover and no serious imperfections. This is the dinky little engine: I have put a few more parts together since these photos were taken. I am planning to add ignition leads as it looks a little bare without. Thanks for looking, Alan.

Hi guys, well I got this bad boy finished, not an easy build but I am happy with how it turned out for my first truck build. I weathered it up a bit to avoid the truck looking like a diecast model, also I scratch built the airlines and the air unit to add some realism and airbrushed over some of the decals to tidy up the lines a little. I've also added a few winter snow shots of the Scania. Finally, you can see my work in progress of this build in the box below.

After finishing my two Chaparrals (see them here: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235043149-texas-roadrunners-chaparral-2c-and-2d/ ) I wanted to do one more automotive subject before moving on to some aircraft sitting on my "To Do" shelf. The Chaparrals were supposed to be a quick "out of the box" project, but they turned out to be more complicated than expected. What to do? While researching the Chaparral 2D coupe I found this photo from the 1966 Daytona 24-hour race: Ford's GT-40s dominated that race, earning four of the top five positions! I found a Revell boxing of the winning car, #98, on eBay and chose that as my new project. The Revell kit is, in fact, a Fujimi GT-40. Good news is that the Fujimi GT-40 builds up very nicely. The bad news is that Revell simply added new decals to a generic Fujimi GT-40, leaving out details particular to the #98 car. As a result, this project wasn't exactly the "out of the box" build I had been hoping for. I would have done better to purchase Fujimi's version, which is more accurate: More on that, later... On to the pics! U As I mentioned earlier, Revell's kit requires some modifications to better model the Daytona #98 GT-40. For starters, two air scoops on the rear deck need to be removed, as well as a "blister" on the roof over the driver's head: Also, I had to re-build the radiator outlet to replicate that on the #98 car: I replaced the front grill with some wire cloth left over from my Chaparral project: There are other inaccuracies in the Revell kit that I didn't attempt to fix. For example, the fuel filler cap is on the wrong side, and there should be blisters on the body over the front tires. The Fujimi kit fixes all of these errors, thus my statement that I should have bought that kit instead of Revell's. If you've followed along this far, let me show you a few more in-process pics: All in all, this was an enjoyable build. Aside from correcting Revell's errors, the only problems I encountered were of my own making. I foresee building a few more Fujimi GT-40s in the not-too-distant future!

Hello, It's been a long time since I post something new. Well, may be because I am not a big producer! So, here is my Ferguson Petit Gris from the 1/24 Heller kit. Very fine in details, Heller released a very nice kit. As I am fan of weathered models, when I felt on this picture, I knew that this one will inspire me. And with my VW Split panel And here is the link (in french) to the little WIP: WIP Petit Gris Thank you for watching and keep modeling! Lolo

This one is my build of Tamiya's Honda S600. The car itself is very small, so naturally the kit is likewise. I was quite pleased with the end result apart from a couple of relatively minor issues, and this seems like a decent kit. I had been concerned that the bonnet was going to detract badly from the model, but now that I have the brightwork on the car the bonnet sort of fades into the background. But, if you want to read more about it, this is the link to my build thread: The build is completely stock apart from being a non-factory colour so I'll just go straight off an post up a load of pictures. Hopefully this isn't too many! As with any of my builds, comments and (constructive) criticism is welcome. Quarter shots: The interior - I know it's a bit of a sea of black, but this is the correct colour scheme for the silver version of the car so I figured it was appropriate for the car finished in grey: And under the bonnet, unfortunately I used the wrong part for the top of the radiator but I suspect only the real Honda afficionados would notice. Incidentally, the windscreen isn't really on wonky, that's just an artefact from the angle of the camera. And finally just some shots from front, rear and side on: Hope you like it, despite a few small issues with it I'm pleased with the result and hopefully will continue to progress as I build more models. (Picture in the sun added)

Now that the Cuda is finished, it's time to move onto my next project. I'm not sure if there will be much interest in it - my MO is to build straight from the box and take a long time over doing it. So this weekend, I made a start on Tamiya's Honda S600. Well, that's almost correct as since the weather warmed up I have been doing the necessary spraying of the body and other body coloured items. But this was the weekend when I made a start on assembly, albeit a very slow start. From what I can gather, the kit has a good reputation, and I can't really disagree. But what really strikes when you first open the box is that this thing is tiny. To demonstrate, both the Corvette and the S600 in the pic below are 1/24, and the rear end lines up on both cars. IMG_6396 Closer examination reveals very little in the way of mould lines, so I presume they are concealed within the chrome strips which will run along the body. What mould lines there are are generally pretty small and not very noticeable. So not noticeable in fact that I completely missed one that runs along the corner of the boot lid until after I'd primed the body. Having resanded that bit, I had to respray the back of the car which has meant that instead of having the body in the intended colour, that and the bonnet will have to wait a couple of weeks. Other body colour items have the colour coat on now, so hopefully I can get the clear on before too long. IMG_6395 This is where things stand at the moment, very early days. I still haven't even got the second coat of aluminium paint on the enginem and only have the block glued together. Not a lot else really, so I guess this is a good point to leave it.

Well after completing my first build, (a 1/72 Mk1 Hurricane) its time to give its big brother and my xmas pressie a good crack. I have definitely caught the modelling bug and im looking forward to putting some of the techniques learned to good use as well as trying out some more! Please forgive any boring photo's that you have all seen a million times before, just kind of want to see the whole journey from start to finish (Humour me im a newbie lol) Here goes nothing! The storey so far (In my head i have the opening bars of the Star Wars theme tune playing )- Firstly the sprue shots Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Untitled by andrewbudd2, on FlickrUntitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr So according to the instructions the first thing to tackle was the merlin! so a bit of dry fitting and a load of flash removal commenced (Think there could be alot of this required in this kit) Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Not sure if i missed something at this point but was slightly confused regarding the pin that holds the prop in the engine, The instructions say to place the pin inside and then but the top of the engine on meaning the prop would then be permanently in place before painting as the pin would just push out if adding the prop later? Anyway i solved this by glueing some old sprue in behind the pin so it cant drop out when adding the prop later. (Go on somebody tell me what i missed :-)) Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr After a spot of priming i sprayed the engine black as per instructions except for the cam covers which i thought would look better aluminium (Have seen pics of both so i thought its not gonna look to out of place!) Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Then picked out some details Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Painted up the engine mounting frames Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Next my first attempt at dry brushing (Think i was a bit heavy handed in places) & glued all the other engine parts on. Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Untitled by andrewbudd2, on Flickr Overall pretty pleased with it, think i want to put a bit of a wash on the cam covers to make them look a bit more oily but other than that all good. That's were i am folks, thanks for looking and any comments/tips/observations gratefully recieved Cheers Andy

Hello again, Here is one of my old builds that i dusted down and took outside for some new shots in the garden. I have to apologise in advance for my lack of photography skills, but hey, you can't have everything! I built this kit as a nostalgia build some years ago, when my modelling was getting in to a bit of a rut. It took me about six months to complete and was not a shake and bake experience. Many of the parts were warped and the moulds have clearly seen better days. However i persevered and beat it in to submission. I added seat belts in the cockpit, infilled the wheel wells, and added strenthening plates to the cannon on the leading edge of the wings. The whole thing was brush painted for the greys, and i used a rattle can and masking for the green disrupive camo. Despite its age and lumpy surface details the Spitfire still looks an imposing model when complete, and is one of my favorites from my collection. Thanks for looking, and hope you like Cheers Greg

Long, long ago, well 1974, I bought the 1/24 Airfix Harrier kit when it appeared, Inspired by a conversion article by Alan Hall and Mike Keep, "Updating the Harrier" on pages 118 to 123 of a magazine I no longer seem to have, I started work. As with may kits I purchased when at Brunel my modelling went into hibernation when i started work in 1975 and then found a wife in 1977...and bought a house...then Airfix in 1997 issued big Harrier as the GR3. My conversion continued its hibernation. Time passed and I thought that it would be a good project to finish, so earlier this year I painted the body and started the last stages, painting and final assembly. I acquired a sent of the Airfix decal sheet for the GR3 I'm going to finish it as one from 56 Squadron with the multi coloured fin from 4 Squadron, RAF Gutersloh. Why? Because in 1968 I went, with Esher ATC, to RAF Camp at Gutersloh, Germany. Long story, here it is, the fin ready in black. It still needs some additional painting. I used vintage Humbrol paints HX1 and HX2 from the NATO paint range. They are slightly glossy and cover well, using a brush. Getting the overall camouflage pattern to join up was "interesting" ! The next stage is to spray with gloss acrylic, then apply decals, and finally attach the underwing stuff, outrigger legs and so on. I'm building this in parallel with the Hurricane and Typhoon, previously mentioned.

These are both Revell kits, loosely based on the real thing from the Los Angeles County Fire Department. First up a general purpose utility pick up truck, straight out of the box no frills. Second is the rescue squad from the TV series "Emergency!", brought forward in time to the late 90's or early 2000's with a scratch built rescue box. They have both been built for a while but I have only recently gotten round to take some photos of them. Both are brush painted in Humbrol enamels, the utility is scarlet red and the rescue squad is scarlet with a touch of yellow to bring it towards the vehicle colour of the day. Emergency lights are from police car models, the locker locks/handles are from KFS and the decals are from JBOT, these are particularly fine & require some delicate handling. All is sealed with Winsor & Newton Galeria gloss varnish which was brushed on. utility 1 by phil da greek, on Flickr utility 2 by phil da greek, on Flickr utility 3 by phil da greek, on Flickr utility 4 by phil da greek, on Flickr squad 51 - 1 by phil da greek, on Flickr squad 51 - 2 by phil da greek, on Flickr squad 51 - 4 by phil da greek, on Flickr squad 51 - 3 by phil da greek, on Flickr Thanks for looking.

Completed this one end of last year, so it's my most recent completed build (I build slowly, even though I build as the kits come). The kits goes together pretty well, apart from a few minor bits which I'll mention as I go through the pics. Hard to believe the kit is over 30 years old - it's much better than the Corvette I did before it. I'll start with the engine bay. Sadly, this is the only time it will be seen as there were 'negative clearance' issues with the lid so I had to superglue it down to stop it popping up half a millimetre or so. I'm not sure whether that is down to an issue with the kit or with my building skills. Certainly it was also a tight fit getting the body over those exhaust pipes too. IMG_6328 A couple of pics of the interior, because this is where a lot of the careful painting is needed with those seats. The seats and that red in the engine bay were my first attempts at mixing paint so I'm quite pleased with how that came out. Unfortunately, in getting the body on, I managed to dislodge the right-hand-side glass, so had to stick it back on using a paintbrush handle through the windscreen hole as that goes on later. All things considered, I can live with that small gap near the A-pillar (it only shows up on the camera anyway). IMG_6329 This pic below also shows the line around the rear spoiler where it joins the boot (bonnet?) lid. I was in two minds as to whether to join the spoiler and fill the join before painting and risk having poor paint coverage in the gap, or to fit the spoiler after painting and have that line between the two which doesn't exist on the original. If it had been silver as most of these seem to be then I would probably have gone for the first option, but as I'd chosen a dark colour I figured the join wouldn't show as much. But if anyone has any tips for this sort of thing, I'd be glad to hear from you. IMG_6342 Finally, a set of pics from around the car. The original plan was to use Revell's matt anthracite, but I ended up with a can with almost no internal pressure so it just spattered on the side. I had to sand back the paint on the side of the car and on the (front!) bonnet, then reprime. With the colder weather approaching, I decided to change to Halfords paint for the colour coat for time reasons which has given me the effect I was after. IMG_6335 IMG_6336 IMG_6339 IMG_6340 The view from the front. The Tamiya instructions call for a silver surround to the headlights, and show that on the box so I followed the instructions. But, they should really be body colour so that is a little bit annoying. Not the end of the world though, just wish I'd checked first. IMG_6344 And the view from the back with the engine cover fitted. So now, the engine is only visible from underneath or through the grille. IMG_6345 And finally, this is it when the sun gets on it. IMG_6366 I bought the kit because it was a car I like, and as an added bonus it's also cheap so it wouldn't matter if I messed it up. Looking inside, I was expecting a quick build as there didn't seem to be too many parts, but the interior painting slowed me up a bit. However, in the end, I'm happy as it represents another step forward for my modelling skills. Hope you all like it too.

One of the wonderful Subaru Impreza's that I was lucky enough to actually see in action. Made from the Tamiya kit with no modifications, painted with Zeropaints blue and gold, weatherd with Flory sand wash. Dave

And so here it is as promised in my Lancer build. Pic of what I'm starting with: For those that haven't followed my Lancer I wont be building the Acropolis Version depicted by the box top. It be Monte car I's a knocking into shape. (Title gives it away a bit ) Although I have a couple other Hasegawa Delta's in the stash this is the first I'll be building. Therefore like with the Lancer i'll leave the suspension till last to gauge wheher the ride height needs lowering. Given Hasegawa's history with these rally kits I'm fully expecting it'll need a couple mm taken out but you never know lol. There's quite a bit to drill and sand on the body shell. Even had to fill a couple marks after removing the moulded on side indicators. The body is currently under it's first coat of primer and may even get some white on by tonight. I assembled and painted the rollcage: I did deliberately miss that small section. After all I did have to hold it somewhere haha. Next up was removing the moulded on detail from the instrument cluster. Some very creative use of a needle file and sand paper was needed lol. Not the best pic but it's hard to photo lol: I've painted the interior tub too: I have read in an Abarth book written by ex Abarth staff that all the cars they built featured grey interiors, but all the pics I've seen of these cars seem to show them either unpainted or maybe it was a silver/aluminium colour paint So I just went with Humbrols 56 Aluminium lol. Strangely there were some large recessed parts on the rear spoiler that I haven't seen on the real car so those have been filled: That's all so far. Thanks for looking. TTFN Ashley.

After 3 long months of sporadic fettling, my Li’l coffin is finally complete. As many of you will know, the sixties kits were nowhere near the quality of what we get these days so sometimes it really is a case of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear when one of these early kits is tackled. This isn’t a cop out for the poor quality of my finished article, but early kits really are a challenge to complete, mostly because the parts only fit where they touch and the plastic is usually brittle too. Anyway, here’s the car, warts and all so please feel free to have a chuckle. Li’l Coffin and Tweedy Pie posing with an original 60’s Esso man key ring. I think black & white photos can sometimes look better.