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Not sure how it goes for armor but I found recently that even with a nice Tamiya 1/48 Mosquito that's supposed to go together easy, I would have saved myself extra sanding work if I took a little more time to test fit and make sure the parts are perfectly aligned. Trying to take that lesson forward for everything I build. If you're not getting good alignment, there's all kinds of tricky little things I've seen like wedges of plastic or sticks of sprue to get mating surfaces as close together as possible. It's funny when you see a great finished product like this, you can't tell there was so much struggle to get it to look like that!

What do I know Rob

This should be good. The LC2 was a great car that deserved to be a greater success than it was but, as you say, Martini livery, what's not to like. Trevor

Beautiful finish Kieth what a great scale for the subject too.

As it should be. Glad it's working out Pete!

Cracking job Stix you still have the magic touch even in this smaller scale. Quality work as ever.

Thanks a lot for the nice comments. Decals: ✔️ Designed by Decograph, they are a bit odd. The carrier film is really thin. It merges almost perfectly with the surface when pressing the decals with a cotton bud after applying some softener. But on the other hand the coloured parts look a bit thick and they are definitely brittle. It took several applications of Daco Strong to conform them to the recesses and and air intakes, for instance. I had to "play" with the rudder decal as it was for Mirage IIIC n°91, when mine is n°46. I cut off and put upside down the "9" and was lucky to find a SAAF n°804 rudder decal in the box from which I could cut the "4"! I will have to do some touch ups with white paint but it could have been much worse!! A friend sent me some EC3/2 tail badges. Although I had the reference pictures at hand's reach, I managed to apply too low on the vertical stabiliser... Doh! Anyway, the decals bring some life to the NMF and look fine once applied: Contrarily to my habits, I will airbrush a coat of varnish because I am not sure the decals have properly adhered to the surfaces everywhere. Better be safe than sorry when I apply the washes...

Superb work,great weathering.

That's beautifully finished and interesting to know the Danish use of these vehicles.Great job.

It looks amazing.

Stencils would go fine. Letter codes too. For opacity - I have an understanding that this is just not consistent. For example white colour on Israeli markings and white colour on squadron cocards seem to be different. On squadron cocards it looks denser. But large colourful decals... Seems Special Hobby just saved some Krones on printing good paint layer. Maybe it's not the weakness of the technology.

Hi guys My latest build on the bench is one of these Lancia LC2s that italeri release not long ago, from some research it looks as its the old protar kit from the 80s/90s. From initial inspection it's nothing special and is going to need a lot of clean up before it's anywhere near ready for paint but given you can have the doors open it can have a bit of internal modification to it. So from the box shot they seem to have tried to hide the martini logos (not very well admittedly) Decals thankfully are full sponsorship but the martini stripes look as though they could be a pain The main body after a bit of clean up Fitting the doors required a bit of time a patience but they now fit well so both options of open or closed are on the table The rear diffuser is a monster and makes it pretty obvious why the class of car was slowed down in the 90s you'd lose your dog up there Not such a great picture but this shows the amount of extra plastic needed to be trimmed to get looking about right. This is what most of the spues look like so many hours of cutting and Sanding are needed for these old kits, I'm not 100% but from the looks of it I doubt that these are new moulds and probably the old one still being used from protar This build will take some priority as I love the look of the old 80s group c cars plus it's lancia and plus it's an old martini livery so what more can you ask for. Thanks for looking SN

It's a nice kit and probably good that you want a 1:72 version as I don't believe it has been produced in any other scale yet. cheers, Mike

I can only agree with the Honourable Gentleman Cheers, Alistair

Tanks @georgeusa. Yah I was surprised with the fit issues. But it was my mistake for not doing more homework beforehand. Seems this is a common issue with many of the Eduard P-51 kits. Simple to remedy as long as you know it's there. Lesson learned. I have their 109F in the stash and may give it a crack sometime as well. Nervous about the decals though. I'm fine leaving the film on, but the margins are so wide that the smaller stencils create an issue even with perfect application. Will figure it out at some point. Thanks for the comment, G

Absolutely not a problem. Thanks for those it will give me the impetus to keep moving forward. Cheers, Alistair

Thanks Keith, How much will be visible is still to be determined. Cheers, Alistair

Ive only just come back to look at how far this debate has gone and in all honesty have to say reading some of the comments has made me soil myself a couple times with sheer laughter and merriment! its obvious we are all never going to agree as to which our favourite aircraft are given how many there have been since powered flight was brought into play! it has been cool to see all the differing opinions posted given also how many nationalities got involved in the debate but going back to the original again, its the Spit by a mile, the Hunters nose is too short and wing area way to big for the airframe. Its only nice to look at from certain angles for me but again, personal taste here and not a criticism of this aircraft though no doubt now, it will all kick off again! Hold tight, fast ride, hands in the air!

nice one 👍

Hope you don't mind if I post a single pic of each as motivation/inspiration All three are brush painted and the lighting in the photographs was terrible, more so in some than others. Gondor

Every seam needs attention with careful testfitting, even then black CA and/or Mr. Surfacer 500 is needed. If you think of the kit as the world's finest vacuform, building it goes a bit better. Then again, Tamiya will never release a 1/144 KC-10 so This is the Way. Used sprue frames to spread the fuselage to allow a better fit to the lower fuselage pan. Used a brass tube for the number 2 engine intake to save me hours of modeling fun sanding the interior seams.

That's what I was thinking - some distortion is probably the payoff for the thinness of the mouldings. Cheers, Mark

Good thread. I eagerly await the result.

Nice looking Mustang. It looks like the red tail and nose fought you a bit, but you pulled it through. Thanks for sharing.

Aye the instruction are a little vague and the parts a bit agricultural. Glad to know it can be built up though. Handy stuff for tight areas as you can just pack it in. Cheers, Alistair