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... Did I do something wrong here? I'm building the 1:72 FW 190 kit from Revell, everything's going together more or less fine, then the rear canopy goes on like this: I'm totally thrown for a loop here, I can't get it to fit with either the frame or the front canopy, and trying to split the difference makes it look even worse. Did anyone else have this problem or did I miss something totally obvious?

Hi all and here's my latest finish, built for the F-16 group build here. The short build thread is here but to recap: Kit: Revell 04363 F-16A - lovely kit to build! Build: OOB, masking tape for belts Paints: Mr Hobby, Klear, Flory Models Wash, W&N Satin varnish Decals: Aftermarket by Astra ASD-7219 for the 60th anniversary of 323 Squadron, Royal Netherlands Air Force. Very brittle decals and found them really difficult to use/conform to the tail surface. Cracked in a number of....delicate places! Kit supplied stencils & walkways. There's also a 'winter' version of Diana on this sheet so another option for the next build. Thanks to @Col. for leading the group build. All the best and happy modelling. Dermot Revell_F-16A_MLU_Diana_done (10) Revell_F-16A_MLU_Diana_done (8) Revell_F-16A_MLU_Diana_done (9) Revell_F-16A_MLU_Diana_done (5) Revell_F-16A_MLU_Diana_done (1) With some other Vipers, all Revell. Revell_F-16A_MLU_Diana_done (6) Revell_F-16A_MLU_Diana_done (12)

With the 206 build hitting a problem with the decals I decided I'd try crack on with something else. All the parts seem to come neatly inside one big plastic bag, containing sub-bags... Instructions are usual modern Revell affair, lots of decal choices, 66, 67, 68, or 69... I maybe nearly 50 but I'm still childish so you can probably guess which variant I'll do! Interestingly the body is formed of 2 parts, luckily that does make painting easier (the rear part is red, the front section white and blue, though has a couple of small red bits to mask and paint. Also the windows come with pre-painted surrounds (I'm not sure I've ever seen that before) and there are some clear red parts for the tail lights. The lower shell is a fairly flat single piece for the underbody aero - the vertical strakes on the rear diffuser look a bit out of scale. Overall the kit seems nicely moulded (not much if any flash) though the detail does look rather soft. I decided to cut out the air intakes on the front, though I didn't do the neatest of jobs. I also drilled out the side exit exhausts ports. After a days work I had separated and build whatever sub-assemblies I could to aid painting and mounted lots of parts on temporary sprue handles to aid airbrushing. The wheels and tyres look pretty similar but there are separate front and rears (I think the rears are marginally wider) so the wheels I marked with sharpie and added some masking tape over the marks so I can later see which are which if I remove them from the sprue. Ready for primer. The instructions call for lots of mixes of black, grey and silver for the internal parts in various ratios. For now I'm going to prime the shell in white and everything else in black/dark grey (will just add the black to the airbrush without flushing it fully).

Allright, finnished s build yesterday First Timer Modelship So now continue with the Maritime theme, Modelkit, well picture needs no presentation, got it second hand on eBay, part sealed in bags. Will use AM this time wich i do not do often at all, so this time go all in with AM, all isnignias and markings will be painted, also some scratch. Yes....here it is and here goes. First things first reset the workplace. Nice boxart. Some reference books and all AM that ill use. And the build officially have started

Hello all ! Here is my take on Sgt Peter Durnford's Spitfire Mk.Vb Night Fighter, JU-H (W3848) of 111 Squadron, Debden, December 1941: Kit used for the build was Revell's Mk.Vb, a kit which to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised with. Overall, it's a great little kit with sublime recessed detailing and a very good shape, but which seems to get little RFI exposure. I decided to improve a bit on this detail by fully riveting the fuselage and wings. The only real let down were the upper wing cannon blisters, which were awful. These were removed and replaced with the ones used in the earlier Revell Mk.V kit, where interestingly, they are separate items. Addons Used: Replacement De-Havilland propeller Eduard PE harnesses & belts Quickboost resin exhausts (for Tamiya kit) Rob Taurus vac formed sliding canopy (for Tamiya kit) Pilot from Airfix RAF Personnel set Many scratch built items IFF aerials donated by my wife. There seems to be a lot of debate as to whether these night fighter Spitfires had their upper wing roundels painted over or left on. To be honest, I couldn't garner a consensus, so I hedged my bets by masking and spraying the roundels, then overspraying them so that they were still there, but barely visible. Unfortunately, this effect doesn't seem to have come out too well in the photos, unlike the dust, which seems to appeared from nowhere !!! Paints used were all acrylic from Vallejo, Humbrol and Mig Ammo. Varnishes were Pledge, Mr.Aqueous Gloss and Winsor & Newton Galeria Matt. Weathering was a Flory wash followed by oils and Tamiya weathering powder. Decals were a combination of Xtradecals for the coloured 'bits' and Ventura for the lettering. Thanks for reading and taking the time to look. Comments and critiques will be most welcome. Gary

Hi everyone, This build has been a long, long, time coming but what better time to start it than after a first COVID vaccination! To cut a long story short, over the years I've often seen the helicopters of the Midlands Air Ambulance charity flying over- whether it's coming into the QE Hospital in Birmingham, flying over our home now and again, returning to Cosford, or even while out and about. They do remarkable work and it's only right that I have a go at modelling such a fantastic machine. My previous foray into a 1:72 G-OMAA can be found here, but this time I will have to make my own decals and have a much better go at the interior. Here's the base kit: Colour scheme-wise, there are a few variations when it comes to decals. Although the 2 photos (from Cosford 2019) shown below would be good to use, I also have other reference material with the "Babcock" logo replaced by the "Bond" logo- it's a minor point, but I think the white lettering makes for a slightly more aesthetically interesting model. As you can see from the above, there are a lot of decals to try and replicate. Let's get cracking! All the best, Sam

I started this about a month ago (well after the GB started) and though I would share it here. Hope it is OK with the mods to run a thread on this build here? I am building the Revell kit and using 26 Decals for the BAWC scheme The kit has some warping issues which was sorted with tape and cutting mat It goes together fairly quickly when you have the time Major assemblies in the first of many test fits

Finished this one a little while back. Solid kit for the price. As a small departure from how I normally build car models, this one does feature some slight weathering.

With the launch of the 599GTB Ferrari announced a 20,000 mile tour, starting in Brazil and ending in New York having taken in 16 countries over 84 days. Two 599s, one red, one blue, would be driven by 50 international journalists. I had picked up the Revell 599GTB for cheap when I was on a building Ferraris journey and came across a set of decals for the Panamerican 20,000 whilst browsing a new to me decal website (Dominomodel). As is the way with these things I did a google search about it and a plan was formed. Get 2 sets of decals and do both coloured cars As a rule, I tend not to build my cars in their usual schemes. I.e. my Ferraris aren’t red. I think it comes from my military modelling background where schemes are relatively proscribed. With autos I feel there is a bit more freedom. My plan was to start with the blue one (partly to annoy a mate of mine that insists on Ferraris being red 😀) and then do the red one to surprise him. Upon checking my blues though I didn’t have the required shade so the red one became the first of the pair. i started by sanding down the mould seams and then primed the body in white. I use Tamiya White Laquer primer straight out of the can for this. At this stage I began to question my choice as I think it looks really good in white I then had to figure out how to deal with the white stripes down the side. The decal set provides them as decals but I considered masking them. Stupidly I didn’t. I added the decals and soaked them in MicroSol but I couldn’t get them settled to my satisfaction i left them as they were for a week and then sanded down the wrinkles as best as I could, added masking tape around the decals and got the white primer out again. This isn’t perfect but it is as good as I am going to get it. When I do the blue one I will mask and miss out the decals. Whilst carrying out my research I came across a fair few pictures on the web, the one below in particular stood out and I will do my best to replicate this finish, the blue one can be showroom shiny but this should help cover some stripe issues

Here's a little kit I finished as part of a Ukrainian themed GB. It is a lovely little kit from Revell in a scale I am not used to but thoroughly enjoyed. It is painted in Tamiya's NATO colours with decals from Star and loosely based on a gun that is out fighting in Ukraine. Cheers all, have a great week and keep on modelling.

Good afternoon, gentlemen, I’ve recently finished the rather underwhelming Revell 1/48 Horten Go 229, with only a few “minor” enhancements thrown in for good measure. The kit, in all honesty, left quite a lot to be desired — not especially detailed, and lacking in some fairly obvious areas. So, in true modeller fashion, I set about correcting the most glaring issues: rescribed the panel lines, added some scratch-built leather seatbelts, sorted a few major alignment problems, and dressed up the Junkers Jumo 004B turbojets with some wiring and plumbing. No aftermarket bits were used (aside from the wire), and the paintwork was done using Ammo Mig acrylics, along with their primer and satin varnish — all of which performed rather nicely, I must say. Having gone through the full build, I now see why this kit isn’t exactly a crowd favourite. The decals were particularly frustrating — they didn’t even provide matching types for both wings, which led to a bit of creative problem-solving on my part. If you're considering building a Go 229, I’d strongly suggest opting for the Zoukei-Mura version instead. It’s pricier, yes, but you’ll likely avoid the hair-pulling. Do feel free to have a look at the build on my YouTube channel, where I show the kit in more detail:

Now that the Tamiya jeep is nearly done - just have to spray a matte coat and add the windshields - I'm turning my attention to the Revell 1/48 P-51D. This is a release of the old Monogram kit that was originally released in 1977 and that I built in the early 80s. I'm pretty sure there was limited paint involved - just build it and decal it! I picked this kit up at a local hardware store that actually has a small stock of Revell kits and Testors paints. I'm planning on doing the Robert Welch scheme which I find more interesting than BBD - plus the checker cowling decals are a bit beyond my skillset right now. All interior parts were primed with Mr. Surfacer 1000 and then given a coat of green chromate (4:1 ratio of Tamiya XF4:XF5). I was going to airbrush the instrument panel today but it's too cold in my garage where I do my airbrushing - even with a space heater on the bench the paint wasn't flowing well through my Paasche H.

Revell is to release a new tool 1/72nd Messerschmitt Bf.109E-3 Emil - ref.03781 Source: https://ipmsdeutschland.de/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/WhatsApp-Image-2025-01-30-at-15.26.54.jpeg V.P.

I've been looking for a Ferrari 308 kit for some time but they don't seem to come up very often, scouring 2nd hand & new kits, online model shops & that auction site I'd found nothing other than one ridiculously overpriced example in more than a year. Come the end of Feb, this appeared on fleabay for £20 & I jumped straight on it. Un-started, it's in very good condition, a little yellowing evident on the decals & a small crease in the box It arrived & was duly added to the stash, but after a week I couldn't resist making a start. After all I only have 4 WIP builds going on concurrently 😛 I freed most of the parts from the sprues in preparation for paint, cleaned & matted with a soft toothbrush & some Cif as I always do. Since the kit is a rebox of the old Monogram 308, the quality & fit could possibly be somewhat variable, however, upon inspection the parts are all cleanly moulded with very little flash & good dry fit alignment. I cleaned up the parting lines & seams, then shot a coat of Mr.Surfacer 1200 over them. Those who've seen my other WIP know I just can't leave well alone. I really wanted a GTS because that's what Tom Selleck drove in the Magnum PI tv show (for those of a certain age range) so I started looking at prototype photos, spare parts etc & concluded a couple of angled but straight cuts would let me remove the roof quite easily, leading to this; By this stage it was obvious that opening the doors was going to leave the front & back halves only connected by the sills & that was pretty much a recipe for disaster. Tamiya XF1 for the underpan Tamiya XF59 Desert Yellow for the seats, door cards & other interior leather. Switches & fittings touched with Molotow chrome plus Tamiya X18 semi gloss black for the dash, door handles etc. Next step on the shell was to make the gap look more like it was supposed to be there. The weather stripping is round rubber or neoprene gaskets on the 1:1 so a length of 0.5mm styrene rod glued on was going to be a passable representation in this scale. The other obvious difference between the Berlinetta & Spider is the rear quarter window being fully louvred on the Spider. Initially I tried to replicate this with individual strips of styrene, but the chances of getting it to look even weren't good & being only glued by the ends they tended to flap about too. Measuring the GTB louvres revealed they were conveniently 1mm spacing so I began scribing some black styrene with angled grooves & elected to leave the whole panel closed. If I can find another 308 kit I may try scribing them out fully but for now this is "good enough" for me. The sections were cut roughly to shape with scissors, then filed & sanded until the fit was good in the recess. Hindsight being what it is, I should have removed the original kit louvre & replaced the whole panel, but I've been making it up as I go along all the way through the build, ah well, it's all experience. Another shot of Mr.Surfacer followed by four light coats of Tamiya X3 & we have this; Looks like a Ferrari to me ? The louvres aren't perfect but will be all but invisible from normal viewing distances once painted black.

Hello all, Here are a couple of pictures of my Revell F-101B kit, that I converted to a recce version RF-101B. This is really a nice Revell kit, with good level of detail and a good fit overall. I did put some work into the following modifications: riveted the tail section, exhausts, fuel tanks and the wings (a bit); opened and detailed the nose avionics bay (not particularly aiming for accuracy); added some detail and wiring on the landing gear struts & bays and drilled out a few scoops; sculpted the camera section under the nose and removed the IRST fairing on top of the nose; added a blank plate under the fuselage, as the recce versions didn't carry armament under the belly; added splitter plates inside the intakes and reinforcement points between fuselage and intakes; added a Pavla resin cockpit, Armory weighted wheels and a Master pitot tube. I also replaced the kit's windscreen with a Valom RF-101C spare one, as the Revell version (I got this kit second hand) was damaged beyond my abilities to repair it. Paints are Gunze/Tamiya acrylics mainly, weathering with oils and some pigments. Decals come from various spare decal sheets. Credit background picture: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/beautiful-hay-field-country-side_17240056.htm#page=2&query=open field distant mountains&position=5&from_view=search&track=ais Really pleased to have this recce bird in my collection. In 1/72 scale, only the venerable Matchbox kit exists of this Voodoo version as far as I know. As I now also have a Valom single seater kit in my stash, that will be a future project. Thanks for looking, comments always welcome! Cheers, Patrick

This is my second plane attempt, I only usually focus on AFVs but now I am broadening my fields a bit. While the model release is new, the mold is an old one so the fit was horrendous in some places...... The front part of the jet and the fuel tank were very complicated to fit and keep in place. The decals were massive and I don't think I did a great job with them but at the same time I don't think they look all that bad. All in all I like the way it looks and I am happy with the result. One thing though, how would you recommend fixing decals? I use microset and microsol but it seems there is a bit of silvering lately when using them, should I just fix the decal without any medium then just soften it with Microsol and opt out of Microset completely? And how would you recommend gluing parts to an already painted model? like the missiles, landing gears and other pieces? I just do the weapons separate now but I want to go further, I only used super glue for them, any other methods you would recommend? Hope you enjoy this build, and if you have any criticisms or recommendation please let me know Thank you

I don't usually do WIPs, but decided for some reason that I'd make the effort with this one, as it's an unusual subject, not least that it's a helicopter in a proper aviation scale. I bought the Revell kit at a show last year for a good price. The kit is in Revell's new box and style, and it was only later I discovered that it was first issued in 1996. This is not a problem, it will just need some work. The box has some colourful options, but I settled on going off-piste and doing a British one. The Army Air Corps bought 16 or thereabouts in the late 1950s/early 1960s to fill a capability gap until the Westland Scout was available. I'll be doing XR385 (c/n 1645) as it appeared at the Middle Wallop Army Air Day in 1975. So on with the show. First the box, illustrating how I deal with those end-opening boxes: cut the top out and tape up the ends. It's a simple kit. Three grey sprues, one clear sprue, instructions, decals, and safety info slip At the moment I can't find any aftermarket for it, any suggestions welcome. (Edit: just found some Eduard Etch - we'll see.) I'll add a set of generic seat belts and some home-cut masks for the markings, otherwise it's from the box all the way. Back later with (hopefully) some actual work accomplished.

This kit needed quite long to complete. After so many years of modeling, although with long breaks, this was the first time I tried myself in plastic surgery. And I had to pause the construction for months, since - also for the first time - the decals of this kit, stored in the basement for twenty+ years, broke apart on application and were thus unusable. Thankfully, my favourite online hobbyshop (Hannants) came to rescue, since I found that Caracal had released a shett with early US Starfighters, including nearly the same scheme that was present in the kit. So, finally, I completed this nice little kit, now showing open panels with the battery and flight computer compartments behind the cockpit, a nice resin C2 seat (CMK) and the decals. I love decals, and especially stencils. The more better - I thought. So I was delighted to find a decal sheet dedicated only to F-104 stencisl, around 300 individual microscopic decals. Needless to say, I found my master and gave up after having applied some 150 of them. And I was annoyed to find that even after two days of drying, these tiny decals would not stick firmly to the model, so that a few of them were displaced just by the blow of the airbrush when sealing them. Marcus

This is not a completely new thread. Rob started it back in May and let me tag along adding what I could to help with the conversion. I won’t be reposting all those build photos I posted but will pick up where we left off when the build(s) stalled somewhat when we encountered a problem and hadn’t decided on what to, or whether to, do about it. The thread is here if the subject interests you and you weren’t following to begin with. Quite a bit of scratch building experimentation and Rob’s handy work with aluminium sticky tape. This is the donor kit, Revell’s really very nice Lockheed Ventura. This is the look we were aiming for, or at least what hoped our build would resemble. And This was the problem we encountered. The belly of the Ventura was fairly flat. Rob recons it eas squared off to accommodate the bomb load and no doubt he is correct. He’s leaving his model as is since it is closed up and foiled. Perhaps a modelling nightmare to de-foil and reshape the belly. The belly should look something like this: not completely a semi circle but not too flat either. And this is how, after much mulling over, I’ve decided to deal with the problem. TL: To get the shape I thought I needed a made a template of the top of the nose piece and tacked it to the bottom. Note the “corners” which will be eliminated. TR: that piece was removed and a block of balsa carved to match the shape of the template. BL: male and female moulds were fashioned. BR: a new forward piece as plunged out of .040 styrene. The rest of the belly, right back to the end of the bomb bay opening will be done this way. So, that’s it so far. I welcome any comments, suggestions or criticism. I will no doubt have do a little editing but just wanted to get this posted. Thanks for lookin in. Dennis

It's that time of year again when I find all sorts of new projects making their way towards the workbench...! I know I have plenty on the go already, but most of these are awaiting paint which requires better weather - I spray outdoors and need warmer, drier conditions. As @Paulaero will understand, these other models are generally at least 95% built, which qualifies me to start on something new in the meantime! 😁 This build is partly a new challenge and a bit of repetition too. The new bit is refurbishing one of my older models and this will form the bulk of this thread. The repetition part is concurrently building two untouched Revell 767-300 kits, which I did here a couple of years ago and I don't see any point in documenting it here again! However, these kits will throw up a few challenges along the way (more on this when I get to those parts!), hence their inclusion into this thread. Let's start with the model to be refurbished. I would guess that I built it around 20 years ago, when my modelling skill set was rather more limited than it is now. It is the Revell 767-300, with RR engines and built to depict G-BNWA which I flew regularly at back in 2003. The model has been in the attic for years and I think it must have been dropped at some point too - luckily I still have most of the pieces: It's certainly been neglected and the attic did it no favours - it's covered in grime: The refurbishment will consist of the following tasks- 1. Open the fuselage up and fill the windows with Milliput 2. Removal of the damaged undercarriage and rebuild the model with the gear doors closed 3. Replacement of the missing windscreen (the only piece that I cannot find!) 4. Removal of the old paint and re-spraying with an accurate demarcation line and correct shade of blue 5. Production of custom decals to give the model a new identity To complete this introduction, the other two models in this build were purchased cheaply but with a few pieces missing. More importantly though, they both have the sprues for the RR engine option, so these will be built as BA aircraft. Here are the sprues: And another shot, showing the first task completed - Milliput is applied: It is well past its 'use by' date and quite dry and crumbly, but perfectly good enough for this job!

I'll be jumping in with the Revell 1/144 kit to start with and some decals made by a local. I'll be out of the country on the start date but will dive in when I return!

Revell's boxing of Dragon's kit, not the easiest build due to the instructions being a bit ambiguous in some places. Engines are meant to be posed either cowled or uncowled, but I don't think they are detailed enough to be shown off without a lot of additional work and the cowls don't fit properly over them (might have been builder error to be fair). Easier to leave the engines off and blank off the cowl openings before fixing in place. Only other major issue was the multi-piece canopy which required a bit of minor surgery to fit (again, could have been my fault). Still, it builds into a quite imposing model which sits nicely alongside my Tamiya Mosquito: Thanks for looking, J.A.

As part of my effort to clear my backlog of started kits I have dug out my Matchbox Spitfire. I started this literaly decades ago, but didn’t get far. I have looked at it occasionally, but no action. Then I bought some Xtradecal decals for it, SAC MkIX undercarriage legs, MasterCasters interior, Master gun barrels. Finally I found out about the Grey Matter correction set for the nose, which of course I immediately ordered on a wim. Having now spent about ten times what the original kit cost, guilt has led me to this, my first WIP. It will not be a tutorial, I am not that good, it will not be a guide to the ultimate accurate Matchbox Spitfire, but posting about it will serve to prod me to get it built. With a little luck, at about the halfway point, somebody will announce a new accurate Mk 22/24 for you guys waiting for one. We will start with the nose, the Grey Matter nose is one seriously large accurate lump of resin. I may scratchbuild the u/c legs out of brass because even the SAC legs might fold under the weight! It also might be the first Spitfire build to need weight in the tail to prevent it becoming a nose sitter. You can see the difference with the kit item. The panel lines look much more to scale than the Matchbox lines-lol.

Even though I mainly make things with propellers, I actually signed-up to this Group Build because I have more Starfighters than I ought to have. Anyway, I'm going to assemble this one: It's the Revell kit and i believe is has an issue with the front canopy shape (which I am going to ignore). I'm going to do it as one of the 435th TFS planes based at Udorn, Thailand from June 1966. As they were used for CAS missions (as well as CAP), I'll dig some M117s out of the 'things that go bang' box and hang them under the wings. I'll probably start this after finishing the F-16B I'm currently making a mess of in that Group Build. In the meantime, here's an interesting piece about the F-104s use in South East Asia: https://www.i-f-s.nl/vietnam/

Revell 1:72 F-105D : Started in Sept '24 but came to a halt when the thirty-seven year old kit decals and forty-five year old Microscale decals both turned into molecule sized fragments the moment they hit the water. Now here is Memphis Belle II in all her pigeon-toed, knock-kneed glory - there's just no fixing the stance without investing in a brass, white metal or rigid resin replacement set. Other than the loadout and new AM decals from Kits-at-War, this is straight from the (1988) box. Mr Color lacquers for the camo, didn't even try to add a wash or weathering as it's only ever going to live in the cabinet. 'Owt much else to say. great nostalgia build. Cheers from NZ.