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September 23/24 Here is my latest “Kicked Up A Notch” model of an F-16 Aggressor, which is the first one painted in the “Ghost” camo scheme, to sort of replicate the SU-57 “Felon” Stealth Fighter. Here’s a pic I took in 2019 of 84-1220 at Nellis AFB at their semi-annual airshow. Another pic I took of this same jet flying at the 2022 airshow: Since 2019, at least 3 other Vipers are now painted in this same scheme (84-1236, 84-1301 and 86-0299) and while they all are very similar, there are a number of small differences in the digital paint pattern, so there is a bit of latitude as to what is “correct” or not, and the exact location of certain features can be quite variable. For the most part, pics of these jets show them to be quite clean with their new paint jobs, so I kept weathering to a minimum accordingly. I was fortunate enough to already own the relatively rare Tamiya Thunderbirds kit (60316), which is a Block 32 that can easily be modified to create my subject above, which is a Block 25. I also added a significant amount of aftermarket items as follows: · Aires F-16C Cockpit Set (2066) · Aires F-16C Wheel Bays (2067) · ResKit F-16 (F100-PW) Exhaust Nozzle (RSU32-0018) · ResKit F-16 Block 25-32 Wheel Set (RS32-0024) · Kopecky Scale Models LAU-129 Missile Rails (32016) · Kopecky Scale Models Horizontal Stabilizers (32036) · Master Brass Static Dischargers (came with above) · Zactomodels AIM-9L/M resin missile · Bandit Resin Factory ACMI Pod Type E (BRF-32-005) · Master F-16 AOA Probes (AM-32-032) · Cross Delta F-16C Stiffener Plates (CD32001) · AeroMasks Camo Masks and Decals- Ghost Scheme (AM32-F1643T) · Two Bobs Blizzard Bad Guy Decals (32-063) · Uprise F-16B Fighting Falcon Decals (UR32223) · Airscale Cockpit Instrument and Placard Decals (Various) For details on how I pulled all these parts together, I have a fairly long build thread here: Tamiya F-16 Aggressor, Kicked Up a Notch Although there are a few errors here and there, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and it will sit right next to my F-15C Aggressor I made about 7 years ago in my new display case. Here are some pics from just about every angle, which might be helpful to others in the future. I hope you like it. Cheers, Chuck

I have always liked this airplane, so I figured I would make one in 1:32 scale. I have drawn up and 3D printed the parts and put some of the preliminary pieces together to see how it looks, happy with the results, it is a very diminutive model even in 1:32 scale. Wanted to share some images. Pat

... overall a nice kit with the usual gap and flush issues with the nose requireing 'some' fill. This is the kit OOB plus antenae, some solder tubing on the nose gear. Looking at many many pix of 262s I only found one that had the head armor plate, most had that remove so only the mounting brackets were left. I used a few AM decals, l stenciled the serial and ID number (2). The 2 on the nose gear door is and Alps product. Fun build , recommended. Thanks for lookin' in.

Well, she is ready for some pics. Hope you like it. My first time doing something like this - with the NMF foiling, the complex staining of the panels, and many other things... Here is the WIP. Some distant pics, then the close-ups: It could easily be my most detailed model to date... The decals are so good. You could read more than 90% of the lettering in the zoomed photos, and are quite realistic too: Cheers!

September 23/24 This model is now finished, finally! Thank you again everyone for your well wishes and concern, which has been very much appreciated. After 3 weeks of IV antibiotics to kill the infection in my right shoulder, I am now on oral ones for 3 more weeks, which gives me a lot more mobility without being plugged into an IV pump 24/7. Further, I can now lift my arm a bit and although I can’t do much, I can sort of model as long as I take my time and I’m careful to not drop anything on the model or the entire model itself, which is a real risk as I almost found out! After final assembly, this model is a porcupine of all sorts of probes and static wicks that make lifting it and moving it around very difficult without damaging something. Looking back at my first post in October 2022, this project has taken me 2 years, but with home renovations preventing modeling during all of 2023 and with a bunch of time in the hospital for stomach issues and my arm in a sling for 2 months in 2024 (what a bad year!), it has really been maybe 9 months of actual modeling, which is typical of most of my builds. As indicated many times before, this F-16 Aggressor is painted in the “Ghost” camo scheme, which I first saw in 2019 on my subject at Nellis AFB when the paint job was brand new. As soon as I saw it, I just knew that I had to build it one day, so I took a few pics as shown below. There are now at least 4 Aggressor Vipers painted in this same scheme now, although each one is a bit different as you’d expect with such a complicated digital pattern. There are 3 Block 25’s (84-1220, 84-1236, 84-1301) and one Block 32 (86-0299). With brand new paint on these Vipers, they all look very clean and at the airshows where I saw two of them in person, so I kept this model fairly clean accordingly. 84-1220 in 2019 on the tarmac, which is the first Ghost Aggressor 2022 in the air For ordnance and other things attached to this model, I decided a long time ago to stick with what I photographed of this very jet, like my Sig Pic below and above. On the starboard wingtip launcher is a CATM (Captive Air Training Missile), on the port side an ACMI pod and on the center-line pylon is a 300-gallon fuel tank, which comes with this Thunderbirds kit, even though it isn’t used when they perform. Although I have the beautifully made Kopecky center line pylon, it really is made for show, because the central sway bars don’t have any pins to attach to the fuel tank and they are quite fragile as I found out. As a result, I went with the kit pylon parts which are pretty good to begin with, that have pin attachments on both sides of the sway bars that slide nicely into both the pylon and the tank. For the bolts that secure the sway bars to the tank, I used thin drill bits for added detail, drilling small holes into the tank to accommodate these new additions. The fuel cap on this tank is shallow and poorly defined, so I created a recess and placed a photo-etch fuel cap in its place to make it more noticeable. The completed fuel tank after painting and minimal weathering. Although I made a few mistakes along the way, I think my additions and modifications made up for most of them- or at least that’s what I tell myself! Here are some of the pics, with many more pics in the RFI Forum here: Tamiya F-16 "Ghost" Aggressor, Kicked Up a Notch Cheers, Chuck Yes, I know that the battery is probably upgraded to the new Blue type, but I like the red contrast and the yellow decal fits perfectly.

October 1, 2024 With my Tamiya F-16 Aggressor now finally put to bed, it’s time for another model and as usual, I follow every military jet with a military prop, because I love them both equally and I like the change of focus. I think that at least 2/3’s of this forum are prop lovers while the rest like jets the most, and that’s OK with me, because I love them both. As discussed in my other threads, this prop build will be the relatively new Airfix 1/24 Spitfire Mk IXc, which came out in late 2022 and I was one of the first to grab one and put it into my stash, just in case it mysteriously disappeared before I had a chance to buy one. A bit of overkill I suppose, but I didn’t want to take a chance to not have my favorite prop of all time at a big 1/24 scale. Hopefully Airfix will also create a new P-51B/D at this same scale one day, in which case I’ll be there again early to grab one for the stash. With 2 years since the launch of the kit for the aftermarket community to create a few improvements that I will use, I am also benefitting from some of the earlier builds of this kit in this same forum, to help me with some of the challenges that every kit has. I have gone through the excellent WIP threads by “geedubelyer”, “CraigH”, and “Shoggz” to name a few, who have paved the way. As a result, some of my improvements or methods of construction may not be entirely my own, so I thank these gentlemen ahead of time for their ideas which I will use a lot. I’ve also built the 1/32 Tamiya Mk IXc kit about 5 years ago, so Spitfire cockpit and other details are not new to me. I’ll also be using the Paul Monforton e-Book, Spitfire Mk. IX & XVI Engineered, so I’ll be referring to that as well. Based upon my review of the instructions so far, I plan to stick to the build sequence whenever I can to help make this thread as easy to follow as possible. A few years ago, I built the Airfix 1/24 F6F-5 Hellcat and was very impressed with most of it, but also disappointed with a few items that could have been easily avoided, which I have already encountered with this Spitfire kit. Here’s a pic of that monster, with the build captured in e-Book form at KLP Publishing: Building the Airfix F6F-5 Hellcat in 1/24 Scale The first challenge is the fairly rough nature of the plastic on the large fuselage and wing parts, which can easily be fixed with sanding, because it doesn’t appear to have the stressed skin of the Hellcat that you want to retain, as shown above. The other issue is the overly tight fit of many of the parts, so careful attention to trimming and dry fitting of all parts is a must before committing to glue. The aftermarket items I’ll be starting with, are the following: - Airscale Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX Cockpit Upgrade (PE24 MKIX). Like the Hellcat kit, the detail and precision of this PE kit is awesome and as many have mentioned before me, a “must have”. - Eduard BRASSIN Spitfire IX Exhaust Fishtail Exhausts (624003). The kit ones look a bit chunky to me and there’s nothing quite as good as well cast resin exhaust tips. - BarracudaCast Spitfire Mk I-IX Five Slot Main Wheels (BR24449). There’s no point dealing with a tire seam if you don’t have to and Barracuda resin is always one of the finest. - BarracudaCast Spitfire Late Control Columns (BR24502). The original prototype of this kit, which I’ve seen in person, was created by my modeling friend Mike O’Hare here in Calgary. Like anything Mike creates with his 3D printer, the detail is incredible, so I just have to use it. - HGW Spitfire Mk IX Seatbelts (124515). I used the 1/32 version on my Spitfire build and although fiddly to assemble, they turned out really looking the part, so they go in again. - 1ManArmy Paint Masks (24DET016). I want to paint as many of the markings as possible without using decals and these come highly recommended by Guy Wilson (geedubelyer), so that’s good enough for me! I might add a few more items as the build moves along, but this collection should get me started in the right direction. I don’t have a subject yet, but I’m leaning towards Canadian squadrons for obvious reasons. My Tamiya Spit was from 401 Squadron that my father served in from 1943-45 as an airframe mechanic, but this time I think I’ll do another Canadian squadron for a change, so time will tell what it is. I have the book, “Spitfire, The Canadians” by Robert Bracken to give me some inspiration, but in any case, it won’t have D-Day stripes on it, which I think ruin the clean lines of this iconic fighter. One last point before I get started, is that while I will try to build this model as accurately as possible, I’m sure to make some errors. There are so many versions of Spitfires that continually morphed over the course of the war, it’s not only hard to tell them apart, but a lot of changes in the cockpit and engine occurred within each Mark, so what is “correct” is sometimes a blur. In any case, I just want to build something that’s pleasing to my eye and if something’s wrong, so be it! Here are all the parts of the first 9 Steps on page 5, including a few of the Airscale upgrade PE parts. While all the kit parts look really good, the seat back is way too flat for scale and needs to be “puffed up” a bit. To do this I turned to my bottle of Gator Grip glue, which is a type of PVA glue that I use all the time, when strength isn’t as important as not making a mess, since it is easily cleaned up with water before it dries. I painted each of the 5 seat back sections with Gator glue one at a time, letting each section dry for about 30 minutes before painting the next, so that clean-up of imperfections was easy. As expected, the glue conformed a bit to the minor relief underneath and dried a bit lumpy, which was exactly what I wanted for a worn leather seat back. The seat back sections were built up with 2-3 coats to create some relief, but not too much, to match reference pics I have of war-time seats. Meanwhile I assembled the Airscale parts that are glued onto bulkhead part D11 on the left, while removing the raised detail to ensure a flush fit as per the Airscale instructions. I also drilled out the lightening holes to create more realism. The seatbelt rod on the armored plate was made from 0.75 mm styrene rod, which appears to be the right size for scale. On the back of part D11 there are 7 almost perfect holes that look like lightening holes, but are really pin marks that are not replicated on the front. Since you can see at least the top ones through the rear glass, I filled them with CA glue and sanded them smooth. The Airscale parts were then glued onto bulkhead using thin CA glue, leaked into the sides with a microbrush, using capillary action to suck the glue underneath and then held tight for a few seconds to dry. Any blemishes were easily cleaned up with Great Planes CA Glue Debonder. As you can see, the Airscale detail is beautiful. I usually paint my cockpits with Model Master enamels, because after spraying them you can touch them up with a brush with the very same paint. Now that these paints are no longer made in the full line of colors, I turned to my favorite overall paint, which is MRP acrylic lacquers. While they spray beautifully right out of the bottle, brush painting with them is a real challenge. You need to dab small amounts of the paint rather than stroke them, which can create a mess. The key is to spend extra time masking the parts carefully, so that brush painting touch-ups are kept to a minimum. Here’s a head on shot of the seat after painting and assembly, showing the raised black leather seat back. Not bad. The kit instructions call for most of the seat to be painted in a “Leather” color with interior green on the sides, which I think is wrong. Like all Spitfires made after May 1940, the entire seat should be sort of a rust color, to replicate SRBP (Synthetic Resin Bonded Paper), sometimes also called Paxolin if my references are correct. To get this shade, I painted the seat Black first, followed by Rust, which seems to have captured the right look. Although you can find many Spitfire seat photos with a brown leather seat back, these same references suggest that during the war they were black, so I painted mine accordingly, which looks a lot better than a light brown that’s almost the same color as the seat. I mentioned earlier that you should always check the fit of the parts before gluing them. I didn’t with the seat to bulkhead fit, which is impossible without widening the bulkhead notches by quite a bit. Although doable after painting, it sure would have been easier with plain plastic, where I didn’t have to worry about scratches. Note to self: Dry fit everything from now on! Also note that the seat tabs don't slide into the notches completely, because the vertical supports hit the cross braces. Those rough looking glue marks on the right have since been repaired. While I painted most of the green parts separately, some small bits on the seat were painted this color then masked off with small bits of tape and liquid mask. Touch-ups were then made with a brush which are tricky to do with MRP paint. Not perfect, but definitely good enough, since the right side of the seat will not be visible when the fuselage is closed. Notice that I haven’t weathered anything or added any chipping or grime. After building a super clean F-16 Aggressor, it crossed my mind that I might build a restored Spitfire rather than a beat-up warbird. Building a clean model is quite a bit harder than weathered model, where you can hide imperfections and flaws with grime and 95% of the Spitfire builds are understandably dirty. Any thoughts out there? Clean or Dirty?! As usual, my progress will be slow on this build. Besides my new challenges with my right arm due to recent surgeries, my wife has big plans to travel a lot this next year while we still can. Thanks for your patience if you want to tag along for a long ride. Cheers, Chuck

Hello All, I’d like to share my experience building the Jetmads C-21A kit, based on production number 204 out of 500. While the kit is definitely buildable, it requires significant effort and patience to achieve a good result. Unfortunately, despite my initial high expectations, the project turned out to be a major disappointment. That said, I’m still glad to have the C-21 in my collection. The kit is a mixed bag. While some areas are decent, the overall design and production quality are poor. The packaging is premium, though I didn’t care much for that. The Cartograf-printed decals are excellent, but it would’ve been great to have decals for the wooden interior parts. The kit could benefit from PE parts or 3D decals, especially for the IP, which is poorly printed and difficult to fix. The printed seatbelts are also useless; PE, 3D, or fabric ones would have been far better. It’s puzzling why they didn’t include masks for the cabin windows, given that the designer had all the data. Manually creating two sets of masks was a hassle, especially since the windows aren't uniform in size or shape. The instructions are average, with small, low-quality color schemes, forcing you to rely on references. It’s frustrating considering there’s a beautifully printed internal cover that adds no value. There’s also no front view for the wing dihedral, which is crucial since nothing helps guide the correct wing position. Sanding the fuselage was the most rewarding part, but many 3D parts were subpar. Some small parts were so poorly printed that I had to replace them with plastic profiles. The resin parts were disappointing—after six months in rather cool dry storage, both wings and stabilizers warped. All the main resin parts had some defects. Wings had visible 3D printing texture which had to be sanded down. One wing was not fully casted, where part of aileron was missing, The horizontal stabilisers are not the same size, one of it is smaller by 1 to 2mm on trailing edge of elevator, rudder is too short in upper part which needs to be adjusted by some plastic profile. Wings do not have same thickness of the profile, horizontal stabilisers ditto. All, proud moments of Jetmads quality control. Ventral fin is off in vertical geometry or to state it mildly the whole rear resin section of the fuselage is off in geometry so some compromise with proper adjustment is required here. Clear parts are disappointing as well. Front cockpit windows are too small creating 2mm gap on one side. To get some decent fix you need to sand down heavily the front fuselage part and mounts of clear parts. Another proud moment of the quality control. Cabin windows have visible layers and the guy did not consider during the design that maybe people will sand down the main fuselage part and paint the windows frame so again you will need to adjust fuselage part and windows to get some decent flat fit. The fit of the main interior parts is so bad that for the first time in my modelling life I went mad or maybe (jet)mad, because literally all parts had to be heavily sanded down sometimes loosing big portion of it including details to get decent fit. All seats needed to be adjusted by some profiles and sanded down heavily. The pilot seats are in their own league. With so many references and high resolution pics around one could wonder what was the intention of the designer to design such, and let’s stay polite, simplified generic seats (it looks like some generic simplified design for some 1/72 seats of unknown plane???), which instead of most of the interior are clearly visible through the front cockpit windows? So yet another proud moment of the quality control. Fit of fuselage parts is tricky with different thickness especially between rear fuselage resin part and main fuselage 3D part. However, the front 3D fuselage part did not fit far better and extensive use of putty, sending and polishing is required here.Most of the panel lines had to be rescribed, thankfully there is not a lot of them on C-21. To achieve final geometry of fuselage, wings and tail is undertaking by itself without any designed proper support system. And finally the wingtip fuel tanks. Honestly, once I checked the parts I was laughing. They are ridiculous low quality, with different cross section when compared to each other and definitely does not have the circle cross section. And the guy decided to split it to accommodate the front parts of the U-36A version. But why? To save cost or weight? With the wisdom of hindsight I went back through the emails I have received during the waiting for the kit to be delivered. And in the first email announcing the delay there was this statement (quote): “It has been our practice to have three independent and experienced modellers, non JETMADS members, build two kits each before we start shipments of any release. Our team makes several test builds before any production for sure and to us all seemed to be ok in general, however these outsiders have flagged out areas of improvement during their builds in early May, giving common feedback leading to the necessity of some redesign of a few parts and modification of some others for a better assembly, fit and modelling experience.” So who was checking what and when??? That remains a mystery to me. Jetmads should have done better. And I hope they’ve improved with their more recent releases. Thanks for looking, and sorry for the long post and low-quality photos. Jan

Hello, Photos of my last completed model, Infinity Aichi Val. Very nice kit, short run so some extra work is required. I built it mostly OOB. Replaced kits photo etch seatbelts with HGW belts, added spark plug wires to the engine & added antenna wire. Only issue I had was with the engine, the parts stack up did not fit well. Painted with MRP paints. National markings & all the stripes are painted. Very minimal weathering applied. Thanks for looking. Larry

Hi everyone With my Sea Fury nearly done and while I wait on the Canopy vacform, I have started another project I have always thought the Veltro was a sexy looking aeroplane and the more I looked at it, the more the shapes and details looked a worthy challenge. I contacted Maurizio Di Terlizzi as the premier expert on the type and he has been super helpful in getting me started. It is not only his favourite aircraft, but he chose MM.92252 a Serie lll coded 3-3 of Ten. Luigi Marchi of 3 'Squadrigla. 1' Gr.Caccia, ANR ,Reggio as his favourite scheme I can't publish the pics he sent, but it is this one in War Thunder I bought a bunch of books and scoured the internet for images and am not in my comfort zone of having component drawings again so it's largely photo interpretation and a few Macchi drawings. Having painted a couple of models now, I guess confidence is a bit higher and I thought I could give this basically Luftwaffe scheme a go. It is also a happy co-incidence the Italeri kit is coming out as that will also provide info - I have that on backorder In another attempt to make my job as easy as possible I asked the guy in my local plastics shop where I buy the perspex for the keels of my models about how accurate his laser cutting is - when he said 0.25mm I thought it would be a good test to try and get some bulkhead components cut as well - 4mm for the keel and 2mm for the bulkheads.. With some 3D parts made for either complex, or structural elements, I have a basic fuselage to start with.. ...same story for the filters, exhausts & tailcone.. ..also made up some cockpit parts before the decals I am having made arrive in a few weeks.. and the San Giorgio Tipo B gunsight.. ...all these will look much better when finished So that's it, off again - looking forward to a trip to Rome and Milan in the next few months to meet up with Maurizio and crawl over the c.205's in Venegono and Vigne de Valle TTFN Peter

well, thank you while not quite an RFI, I have the canopy and tailwheel doors to make, this is my second ever proper paint job and I must admit I think it worked out pretty well MRP paints over tamiya X22 clear, weathered with wire wool and flory wash, all markings masked (thanks Max!) with the exception of stencils which were frighteningly expensive dry transfers.. erm, I took a lot of pictures so don't fall asleep... ..so i am having the canopy made from a mould by Tigger Wilkes, that's the last major component and then this one is done I have started setting out my next model - a single engine axis prop TTFN Peter

paint's on ..took 5 days and i hated every minute of it... came out alright though thankfully TTFN Peter

Thanks guys! I'm not completely happy with the engine compartment but I don't have enough skillz/knowledge to do much more and I want to move forward so on we go! Oh, I forgot to mention... One of the modifications that I made to the Folgore kit that I didn't mention was removing the corrugated pipe that was molded onto the triangular spar part and creating a new piece of corrugated pipe by wrapping copper wire around a piece of thicker lead wire. The molded pipe wasn't very convincing and I also get added flexibility in getting the pipe parts connected. Previously, I drilled two holes in the bottom of the oil tank and added two brass tube sleeves to accept future plumbing. They are now difficult to access but I was able to get to one and routed a section of lead wire capped with brass tubing to the hole in the leading edge of the port wing root. I also routed some wires from the AiP cylindrical oil tank. With the wing bottom and fuselage parts in place, we can see the possible view we'll have into the engine compartment. I don't think I've come close to the density and clutter of the real thing but the added stuff is at least filling up what would be empty space. The Breda guns have been painted and temporarily mounted. No other enhancements were made here since you won't be able to see much from the wheel wells. I've lost the filler tube from the oil tank and have not installed the breather tube from the oil vapor tank. Neither are visible from the bottom and may potentially interfere with the fit of the cowlings so I'm not planning on putting these small parts on. The gun assembley adds, while not readily visible DOES contribute to the visual clutter of the engine compartment, which is one of the goals. You can see the one of the brass tubes sticking out of the bottom of the oil tank.

Been working on a lot of different projects involving 3D printing, this is the Civil War era C.S.S Hunley which was the first successful combat submarine. I have painted it overall black, but I am going to paint over the black as a base coat with dark gray colors. Pat

the last one left the workshop at the same time as the mustang entirely covered in kitchen aluminum:

Hi all, just a few perhaps slightly better photos to enjoy, thanks. John

thank you chaps High praise indeed John, thank you - your painting skills are the bar to which I aspire landing gear is done.. ..and it's fitted to the airframe with the wheels, so leaving it tonight for the JB weld to set TTFN Peter

Thanks guys! Appreciate the comments. Roger that on the MG17 guns. Since only the muzzle tips are showing, I'm just going to go with what I have. And I actually have the Prien/Rodeike book so I'll take a look, Mike! Moving on to the Airscale photoetch instrument panel. I much prefer hard-molded instrument panels in brass, resin or even plastic over the newer 3D decals like Quinta and Red Fox. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the Airscale instrument panel looks like. The kit instrument panel is quite excellent actually and you can get really nice results using the kit plastic panel and decals. But I'll need to shave down all of that beautiful raised detail if I want to use the Airscale product. One of the drawbacks to photoetch is its flatness and I'm afraid of losing the 3D relief that the kit panel provides. The Airscale panel is made up of multiple layers of photoetch stacked up on top of each other. First, is the base panel face. Airscale would have you paint and decal each layer of the instrument panel as you assemble it but I prefer to put the panel together and make sure its nice and clean before applying paint and inserting the instruments via punched decals. Each successive layer builds up the 3D relief but the effect is limited due to the thinness of each metal layer. I decided to try to give the center instrument cluster more height by augmenting the spacer with thin sheet styrene. Here is the assembled panel. I'm happy with the modification that I made to add more depth to that center panel. I think the Airscale instrument panel compares favorably to the kit panel in all aspects. The instrument panel after a coat of primer. The Airscale Cockpit Detail set includes a Revi C/12D gun sight that I'll be using.

Today's RFI is something a little different. I was in the mood to build a diorama and I had a Trumpeter F-5(mig-17) kit in the stash that was missing some pieces, and well we all know that these are not the best kits so I didn't feel bad damaging it! I built this one in 2022 and completely forgot to post it, someone in the Help section asked if you could weather foil and while writing my reply I realized I never posted this build! This Dio is representing a Korean War Mig-15 (I know I know its a 17 but this is what I had on hand ) that was damaged in battle and abandoned in a field. The finish is kitchen foil with gold leaf adhesive i used my Cricut to make all the masks for the markings. I used the salt weathering technique for the chipping of the paint and weathering. from the rear to the left wing, I drilled some holes to represent bullet holes and added leaking oil stains. Since the cockpit is meh, I decided to cover it with a tart made of white glue and tissue paper, unfortunately, it was very fragile and didn't dare to add washes to it, so let's assume it was placed there way after the plane was abandoned! The base is one of that hard cardboard found in picture frames, that i glued onto small square off cuts I had left for a woodworking project. I then used woodland scenics for the ground. Hope you like it !

collecting some ejection seats, tamiya, eduard, aires and Sparkit working on the cockpit, the RIO bulkhead was transformed into horizontal angle I started also 3D designing the instrument panels

Aims 1/32 Bf 110 G-4 update and finish! And so on the same day that the Ju 88 G-6 book is available - I also finished my Bf 110 G-4! Yippee. As this was a retro finish I did not have the luxury of planning out the upward firing MG FFs etc so all I could do was put back the equipment as best I could. The cut outs in the canopy on Schnaufer's machine are much further to the rear than normally seen, this makes the MG FFs stand at approx 10 degrees. I put them in free floating and placed over the top the canopy part to trap them in - no glue was therefore needed. For the canvas boot around the MG 81Z I dabbed Mr Hobby Mr. Masking Sol and when dry prized it off around the weapon. The receivers were put into the FuG 110 pylons next and then the little knobs for pulling off the Peil Gerat G 6 panel were added. The rest is history - got the canopy parts all finished and put the FuG 220 SN2 on as best I could. For the antenna wires to each fin I used my AIMS Luftwaffe Insulator cones for the first time. Schnaufer's machine has one each side. I drilled through the fin all the way to the rudder and threaded in fishing wire which then went through the insulator cones. At one side the fishing wire went all the way to the antenna mast, via a small length of tubing. On the other side the wire went through the fin, through the cone and then was glued inside of the tubing just above the MG 81Z position. All I had to do next was pull both lengths through the fins with equal pressure and I got a nice V shape from aft of the tubing. This was my first ever Bf 110 and I loved every minute of this retro finish. Thanks. Better photos perhaps one day after I recover from Monday's surgery.

my latest built :

Continuing on the aftermarket tour, we take a look at the Airscale Bf109G2/4 Wheel set. It looks like the tires are traditionally cast resin while the hubs are 3D-printed. These look beautiful with really fine detail on the tires and hubs. One of the drawbacks with 3D-printed parts is the random occurence of heavy striations. You can see this on the hub set to the left while the hub set on the right looks perfect. Not sure why that happens but I've seen it more than a few times. Luckily, the back side of the hubs, where the striation is the heaviest, will be hidden against the landing gear cover when mounted. Before I received the Airscale goodies, I had purchased a set of wheels from Reskit. Interestingly, when comparing the two (with the Reskit on the left), the tire tread is handled differently. The Reskit treads are recessed while the Airscale looks like a balloon-style tire with raised ribs. Not sure if one or both are correct... will have to do some research. The final piece of the Airscale suite is the Cockpit Upgrade. This is an extensive multimedia set comprised of a big photoetch sheet, decals and... gulp... transparency for the metal canopy pieces! The photoetch covers a lot of the cockpit including instrument panel, rear decking, trim wheel and drive chain. And it looks like some external parts are included as well like the landing gear covers, wheel well components and the aforementioned canopy frames. Not sure I am brave enough to utilize the photoetch canopy parts but I'll give it a shot. I assume you prime and paint the frames before attaching the clear window parts? These fabric-covered control surfaces from Barracuda should address the known issue of exaggerated stitching details and overly large moisture control discs on the kit parts. A special shout-out to Damian at Synthetic Ordnance Works. I was one of the guinea pigs as he was testing his idea of making reinforced landing gear for various aircraft models. I still have a few copies of his 109 legs and happy to use them here. The attachment point on the kit legs has been known to break and the shiny oleo portion is already shiny stainless steel. Strangely, Revell omitted the metal corrugated foot pad needed for the G-2 and instead gives us the later wooden floor. The G-6 kit offers both floor parts but someone got mixed up and put the wrong floor into the G-2 kit. I have multiple copies of the G-6 kit so I can pilfer one of these for this build.

Thanks guys! Appreciate the comments. Slowly plodding along here! Because I am using a few of Eduard's pre-painted photoetch parts, the order of construction changes from my norm. Usually, I like to assemble as much as possible, especially any additional wiring, before painting. But I've been forced to paint things individually. Here are most of the painted components. The painted components are slowly glued into place. Here are the sidewalls... The cockpit floor... The instrument panel... The major sub-assemblies are now ready to be glued together. I decided to glue the front and rear bulkheads first so that I can pose the cockpit tub with one sidewall in place for photos.

Took a break from 1/32 and pulled out this Hasegawa 1/48 F-8J. Building gear up on these older kits takes some effort. Now it’s time to look back in the stash and decide what to build next. Cheers Collin in Washington DC

Wow, thank you Peter! I can't really take too much credit as I'm just painting things! Your G-2/G-4 improvements are wonderful and are surprisingly extensive, covering the cockpit internals as well as external features such as the landing gear covers and canopy frames! I think my favorite is the instrument panel. I love the sharp edges that PE can provide and your approach to layering the parts gives the modeler the opportunity to enhance the 3D relief, which is sometimes lacking in photoetch. Unpainted PE is my top choice when it comes to instrument panels, followed by resin. Painting of the cockpit parts continues as I've completed the Airscale instrument panel. The panel is RLM 66 Dark Grey (Mr Hobby Aqueous H-416) with the instrument bezels highlighted in black. The instruments were punched from the included decal sheet and placed individually. My intention was to place punched disks of clear acetate into each instrument face but for some reason, my punch set (RP Toolz) has a hard time punching clean discs for the larger sizes (2mm+). I went ahead and secured the painted Revi C/12D gun sight into place. Here is the completed instrument panel. BIG thumbs up on Peter's rendition of the panel. I messed up one of the instruments (air speed) but was able to pull another copy from my collection of Airscale instrument decals. I also had the Barracuda G-6 instrument panel and stencil set as a back-up but the Airscale instrument decals have noticeably better resolution. The multi-layer stacks of photoetch fit perfectly together and give the piece a surprising but satisfying weight to it, like a small coin.

Thanks guys! I've not yet cut the reflector glass from clear acetate but added a wire from the Revi C/12D gun sight that plugs into the instrument panel. Finally got the exhaust situation figured out. As much as I'd like to use the Airscale exhausts, the base is really thick and difficult to modify. I have to narrow AND thin the exhaust base so that it works by pushing the exhausts in from the outside instead of pushing them out from the inside. With that in mind, I chose the exhausts with the thinnest base... which happened to be the Barracuda ones. The exhaust opening have been boxed in with sheet styrene so I can install the exhausts from the outside. Double checking the fit of the exhaust deflectors. I can now pop these off for now and re-install them later. With the exhaust situation sorted out, I can now glue in the engine side cowlings into the fuselage. The vertical joint at the back of this panel is a very weak butt join so I've used stretched sprue to reinforce the bond from the inside. The riveting process can create a bit of force on the parts so I need all of the joints to be as strong as possible. The riveting process is started with a small part first: the tail stabilizers. Guide lines for the rivets are drawn using a soft leaded pencil. The rivets are then created using a ponce wheel tool. This one is by Galaxy Tools and I'm using 1.00mm pitch wheel. After the rivet holes are made, I sand the surface to remove the raised mounds around each hole. This gives the rivets a more subtle look, which I prefer. The stabilizers will be completed using the Barracuda versions of the movable control surfaces. I'm going to use the Barracuda rudder as well. Fit on these is very good.

Finished general construction of the Eduard engine today and started doing some scratchbuilding on it; really just adding some fluid lines and maybe a control line or two. Below are photos of where things stand right now. The completed BMW 801D engine. Installing the exhausts was more then a little tense as they fit very tightly. If I build this engine again in the future I am going to change some of the construction sequence to make that a little easier. The engine is very nice and should look good on the model; I am hoping there won't be many fit issues but time will tell on that! Though they took some work to make and install, I like the look of the scratchbuilt ignition wires better then how the kit supplied PE wires would have looked. I will give the engine a final touch up once I am finished with the scratchbuilding I am doing to it. Below are some shots of the scratchbuilding I did to install some of the oil lines. The first two photos show the oil pump before I modified it. Real oil pumps for this engine had 9 connection points; the kit part has 5. Given the limitations of scale, 5 is about the limit to be fair. I added connectors to the pump to make lines look more realistic where they connect. The brown painted lnes were then added to the five connection locations. Three of the five "lines" do not terminate. The one pointing away from the rear of the engine would connect to the oil tank, but there is not one, so it will run off into the dark hidden recesses of the fuselage. Ditto two of the lines that would have run to the oil cooler, which is located in the armored nose of the aircraft. There will be no way to connect those lines with the nose in place, and they would be invisible at any rate. The two lines that have conneting points on both ends run between the oil filter (the brown cylindrical item) and the oil pump. I had considered leaving the nose off, but I have never seen any photos of FW190's with their nose removed while at their airfield. I am sure there are a few, but I have not seen any. I think removing the nose would have only been done during a major overhaul somewhere in the rear areas. Ernest

After a 10 year hiatus, the dark ages between 2000 and 2010, I became interested in building scale models again. I was always attracted to large scale models. When it was announced in 2012 that Zoukei Mura was going to release the Heinkel He219 in scale 1/32 I woke up. What a cool plane, I wanted to build it! I decided that it was a good reason to focus on planes in scale 1/32 from now on. Models where you can put a lot of detail in, you are busy with it for a while and you do not have to buy that many. We all know how that ends. The stock to be built increases faster than the models being built. Anyway, although I occasionally make a trip to a smaller scale, or larger (I still have a halfway build 1:16 King Tiger), I manage quite well to focus on 1/32. We have also been quite spoiled the last decades with new models, enough choice! Before I ventured into the He219, I wanted to gain some building experience. In the meantime, more than 10 years have passed and I thought it was time to really start on the He219. The He219 The He219 has been the subject of many books in recent years. I’m not going full on history here, but it was cutting edge technology at the time. That being said, the aircraft's performance did suffer from the relatively weak engines. In addition, the aircraft was produced too late and in too small numbers (because of political decision making) to make a serious difference. Perhaps that was a good thing. The aircraft was specifically designed for night-time hunting. The first operational production aircraft with ejection seats. Nose wheel instead of tail wheel. The cockpit at the very front and top of the aircraft for good all-round visibility. Elements that you still see in fighter aircraft today. Collecting references, I quickly came to the conclusion that I wanted to build the aircraft with a completely black bottom and a Wellenmuster (wave pattern) camouflage on top. Just like the surviving example at NASM, which coincidently was being restored at that time. I got hold of 'A research paper (3rd edition)' by R. Ferguson, one of top researchers on this subject. He concluded that there are two construction series that were executed in this scheme; work numbers 290054 - 290078 and 290110 - 290129. Both series were build as the He219 A2 variant. After further searching I came across a decal set of OWL decals. Work number 290070 - with the Verbandskennzeichen (license plate) G9 + CH. More about this later. This awesome period picture of the He219 in flight from the same build batch, is what inspired me, work number (290068). If I’m not mistaken, this is in fact the sole surviving He219: History R. Ferguson was also able to find out what happened to the specific frame I wanted to build. Like all other He219s, the aircraft belonged to NJG1 and operated from Fliegerhorst Venlo in the Netherlands, my home country. In the night of 3 / 4 February 1945, Hauptman Graf Rességuier and Feldwebel Fritz Habicht took off to intercept enemy bombers. The reports are not clear, but the aircraft was hit by enemy fire near Roermond. The pilot was slightly injured, the navigator seriously injured. Both managed to escape using the ejection seat. Rességuier landed with his parachute near Schmelendorf, Germany, just across the border from Venlo and Roermond. The registration number of the aircraft is G9+OH and not G9+CH as stated in various publications and the decal set of OWL. In the model I have adjusted the decals so that it says OH. The model Although the ZM models are known for their extensive interiors, I still prefer to build 'complete' aircraft. Why not the Revell version you might ask? I bought that one too, but putting them side by side, the difference is night and day in my opinion. The ZM version comes a lot closer to the original. Both in overall shape and detail. But, it so happens that the ZM model is made as an A0 variant. There is a lot to be said about that, but the external differences between the A0 and A2 variant are not that big. There is one element that stands out, the air intake for the engines. For the first aircraft it was round or oval shape, but it was soon changed to a so-called shark mouth shape. The Revell version does have that shape of air intake. This change was done quite easily and quickly. Furthermore, I only used aftermarket sets from ZM itself; the metal chassis and the antennas. The construction The construction was pretty straightforward, apart from the previously mentioned modification of the air intake. It is clear that the model was designed with the idea of opening all the hatches. It can be closed but the margins are very small. For that reason I used the interior parts as much as possible, but did not paint them. I left out the engines, these are nice mini models that I may use for something else. I kept the cockpit quite simple. This is because I also wanted the cockpit closed so that the lines of the aircraft come into their own. Besides that I added lead weight behind the props, just to keep the nose down. The painting After sanding, filling and priming it was time for the paint job. I was a bit apprehensive about the camouflage scheme. RLM 76 over RLM75 in a meandering pattern. Not sure if I could pull it off. The easy way is to spray RLM76 first and then apply RLM75 over it with simple dots. However, this does not match the way how it was originally done. Long story short, I opted for the original way. After many trials, the best method turned out to be to make small circles with the airbrush. Then you break up the resulting pattern with random lines and by connecting the circles in several places. It took me a few evenings of my life in any case. I almost stopped after the third or fourth attempt and had to take a break for two weeks. But in the end I persevered, and though not 100% as hoped, I’m ultimately quite satisfied with the end result. The painting was done mainly with paint from Mr. Paint. The main colors I used were MRP 65 (RLM75), MRP 225 (FS35622) (I found the RLM76 version a bit too blue) for the top and MRP 137 (Black) for the bottom. Now you made it this far, here are the pictures! Cheers, Wouter

Jumping right into the build, we start off in the cockpit and we find that the kit foot rests are bit blobby. I dug through my stash and found a set of brass foot rests from the now defunct Eagle Editions Fw190D-9 cockpit upgrade. I cut the straps off and used thin strips of brass sheet for newer straps. If I had looked at the Airscale etch fret more carefully, I would've found a set of foot rests as well. The triangular pylon on the floorboard is the mount for the flywheel and Airscale provides a replacement so this is carefully cut off. The kit seat back has a faint impression of shoulder harnesses. I consider this a violation of the "if you can't do something right, don't do it at all" rule and it needs to be removed to make room for more plausible looking belts. Unfortunately, there is also a raised triangular pad on the upper back rest that will be erased as well. The raised detail on the sides of the bulkhead will also be removed to make room for PE panels.. A lateral pen sander like the David Union D400 is very useful for this type of detail removal. After the majority of the raised features on this part are scraped off with an x-acto blade, the D400 finishes it off and leaves a nice flat surface. The Airscale photoetch fret provides PE replacements for the bulkhead sides. Here is the bulkhead with the PE added and the kit bucket seat temporarily tacked on. The kit seat also has the pesky (and unconvincing) harness detail molded in and due to the shape of the part, removal will be much trickier. Outside of that, the seat itself is molded admirably thin. I failed to mention it but the collection of 3D-printed parts from Airscale includes a clean bucket seat. And if you look closely, you'll a small triangular part included as well. I could be wrong but I'm guessing this is the thin triangular pad on the back rest that was removed when the harnesses were scraped off. Airscale provides a PE skin for the rear deck so those parts are added. So here is the rear bulkhead with Airscale enhancements added. Harnesses will be added later.

first time pre-shading and first mist coat on.. I am $hitting myself...

Attached photos of my recently completed Takom AH-64E Apache. Very detailed kit. Many, many parts, 900+. I added Quinta Studios cockpit & Reskit Chain gun, otherwise mostly OOB Painted with MRP & Model Master paints. Weathered using washes & pastels. I don't have a camera or stage, so crappy photos from phone. The flash has washed out a photo or 2. I know nothing about the Apache, so I may have the incorrect antenna or sensor installed, used the instructions. Thanks for looking! Larry

Thanks guys! Appreciate the positive vibes! Mostly working on the cockpit right now but I did check out the available tail wheels that I have for this build. Apparently, the G-2 had a smaller tail wheel at 290mm. This is about 9mm in 1/32 scale. Checking my aftermarket stash, I was relieved to find that the Reskit resin wheel set has a smaller tail wheel that I can use for this build. There is a chunky-looking handle on the port sidewall that I've decided to replace. I think it is the canopy release lever. After the kit handle was scraped off, I replaced it with brass sheeting and a punched disk of styrene. You can also see the additional wiring and linkages I added for the throttle. I've managed to paint some of the cockpit components. Here is the floor, gun cover and floor board. Did a little bit of hairspray chipping but kept the weathering effects light on this one. I've added thin sheets of clear acetate for the Revi C/12D gun sight. I also drilled a depression into the optical element and filled it with UV-activated clear epoxy. The oxygen regulator instruments were punched from the Airscale decal sheet and placed into the instrument dials after the rings were painted blue. Can't make it out in the photo, but I've added glass covers for each instrument using punched disks of clear acetate.

I worked on the wings, mated the fuselage to the wings section and worked on the landing gear legs. The Eduard aftermarket items and the scratchbuilt stuff I did went together well when the fuselage was mated to the wings section. Though I have not yet taken any photos of the wing roots they look very good with no steps and a solid join. I was very relieved that the frame located at the forward edge of the MG tray fit well to both the fuselage sides and the top of the MG tray. In the two shots below I have not yet primed and painted the bare plastic area that is the top of the wheel wells. I surprisingly good fit all around. I made brake lines for the landing gear legs out of pieces of stretched sprue, coated wire and a couple of ANYZ connectors. In most of the photos I looked at, both online and in my references the colors of the different parts varied somewhat; but generally the half looped line that fits into the wheel hub was brownish in color while the longer portion of the brake line was a dull copper color and the connecting line to the hydraulic line was black. The connectors were a dull copper or aluminium color. The connectors are overscale. I added electrical boxes (the little white rectagular pieces) to the actuating arms and wrapped a small piece of the type of tissue you sometimes find in shirt boxes around the area near the ends of the arms to simulate the leather covering on the section of the arm. Close up of one of the electrical boxes. I drilled three .3mm holes for inserting the ends of the electrical lines later in the build. The finished landing gear legs with the brake lines in place. I made the holding straps out of the same material that I used in the wheel wells for a similar purpose, namely the metal that covers wine bottles. The painted starboard actuating arm, the little metal piece protruding from the arm near the electrical box was the fastening point for the wire that actuated the retracting mechanism for the tail wheel. When the main gear retracted the wire tightened and pulled up the tail wheel into the retracted position. Ernest

Hi everyone, out of hospital now but had the wonderful news just before going in that my Ju 88 G-6 book was available at KLP. If you have it I hope you like it and it proves helpful. Thanks to everyone for their kindness. John https://www.klp.com.au/product/a-modellers-guide-to-the-ju-88-g-6-night-fighter/

Just completed this. Took way too long. Features superdetailed engine, gun compartment, cockpit and custom decals. The NMF is in Alcad 2 colours. Comments welcome. Full article here: https://www.largescaleplanes.com/articles/article.php?aid=3920

Here's a few more pics of the I.P. panel, the overhead console and the partial engine to go behind the nacelle intake... Pat

Thanks Michael! Your insights are always very timely and helpful! I was thinking about painting the filter interior part black as well to maximize the contrast. Due to the wings entering the construction process relatively early, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at the Eduard brass flaps that came with the Big Ed set that I purchased for this build. Italeri includes flaps with internal details molded in which don't look too bad, with the exception of some pesky ejector pin depressions that would need to be filled. However, Italeri includes no detail for the flap bays so leaving the flaps down would offer a very incomplete representation. Eduard includes both the flap bays and the flaps themselves. It looks pretty fiddly but in my experience, they usually fold up without an issue provided that you have some basic tools including a photoetch folding tool. I started with the flap bays and you can see the difference that these would make compared to the blank space they occupy. Thin CA glue is used to secure all of the spars in place and CA debonder is used to clean up any excess CA. The small inboard flap bays are separate and are assembled next. The flap bays are complete. Next I'll do the flaps themselves and investigate what kind of surgery is required to accommodate these brass parts.

Thanks guys! Appreciate the comments as always! Now that the engine area is mostly complete, I can move on to other parts of the build. Taking a look at the Aircraft in Pixels replacement for the tropical filter, I was stumped on how to remove the outer filter element from this extremely tight casting block. AiP includes absolutely ZERO documentation or instructions so the modeler is left to figure things out on his own. Not wanting to damage the delicate part, I went back to their website and found the answer... "the filter cover now ships clipped from supports on its own protective shoe". Ahhh... it simply slips off. This small set of four parts is not cheap ($21.50 US plus $10 shipping) so I find the lack of instructions especially appalling. The kit filter is no slouch either with three separate parts. The main difference is that the ribbed filter section on the AiP version has physical slits that you can actually see through. But the slits are so small and the effect so subtle that I'd expect the vast majority of people would never notice the difference. The rear fairing for the air filter highlights a very bad sprue attachment design. C'mon Italeri! Moving on to the cockpit, I reviewed the Eduard PE set for any wortwhile cockpit additions. The frame for the hand lever beside the seat is cleverly folded with additional detail so I considered it a worthwhile upgrade. But this truss on the cockpit floor requires a lot of work without any benefit of added detail so I'm leaving this one off. I enlarged the existing holes with a micro drill bit. I've decided to replace the bottle-style oxygen regulator with the later German style, which is included in the kit. An oxygen hose was fabricated with copper wire and I fashioned a small panel to house the oxygen level and pressure gauges. The instrument bezels are from Airscale.

Hi everyone, all done. Better photos when I recover from surgery, thanks. John

The next planned build was an FW190; I have Hasegawa, Revell of Germany and the new ZM kit covering this aircraft in the stash and had to choose which one to build. After flipping a few coins the winner is the below kit, with some aftermarket items. I have not yet decided on which markings to use, but the aircraft will be one that belonged to one of the Defense of the Reich wings. A lesson I learned long ago when using aftermarket items that will probably have some fit issues is to think several steps ahead to try and head off, or at least minimize potential fit problems. And also to dry fit the A/M stuff comparing it against the fit of the kit part, as far as that is possible at any rate. I chose to check the fit of the Eduard MG131 mounting hardware right at the start of the build. Below is some of the process I did to try and keep fit issues at bay. I built the kit MG tray and used a micrometer to check the demensions of the kit part against those of the Eduard part. The Eduard part turned out to be slightly narrower then the kit part and I cut some Evergreen strip to size and added it to the sides of the Eduard part. After some careful sanding I got to between 2/100th and 3/100th of a millimeter of the kit part size. The lengths of the two parts were very nearly identical so nothing was done in the area. The two different parts dry fit in place to check how close the fit is going to be. I think this is close enough to avoid fit issues down the road when it comes time to install the forward canopy part and the engine bearer parts. As you can see the Eduard part is close. It is also a lot better detailed then the kit part, though if one is not going to open this area up the lack of detail on the kit part is not an issue. Though it is not in any photos of the dry fitting, I did use the kit part that replicates the main spar during dry fitting; I would have needed three or four hands to stabilize everything and take photos; this is a very fiddly area to dry fit! Once I was satisfied that I'll be able to use the Eduard stuff without causing massive fit issues I pressed ahead with working on and installing the photo-etch that goes with this aftermarket mini kit. First I removed some of the molded on items from the area where the P/E will go. The P/E base part was glued onto the kit part and smaller P/E parts were assembled. This was a straight forward job and did not pose any challenges. The resin ammo boxes/ejection chutes are dry fit to check how they look; which is good enough for me as it turned out, so they are going to be glued in place in the next step. Ernest

Hi all, Albatros D.V, Serial No: D.2006/17 as flown by Ltn.der.Reserve Bernhard Kilian of Jasta 21b during September 1917. Thanks for your comments and support during this build. As usual my web site has a fully detailed PDF build log, which can be downloaded from the 'Logs' page. Mikes WW1 Aircraft Models Mike

Thanks Matt! Appreciate your support, as always! Thanks Gaz! I got the Barracuda control surfaces in a purchase of a Revell G-6 kit from an LSP member. Thanks Mike! Good to know, Damian! That's a mistake that I can easily make. Thanks Ernest! Yes, I just roll the rivet along freehand without a guide. It's pretty easy to control with practice. It's all about getting the line completed in one motion. But I will get the errant rivet line from time to time. Make sure you hold the rivet tool fairly upright as you make the stroke. Too much of an angle and the lower corner of the tool will scrape the plastic. You'll see what I mean if you play around with the Galaxy tool. Yup, that's where I usually get my stuff from Roy. Incidentally, I have an order in for a couple of radiator intakes and the status (unfulfilled) hasn't change for five days. Back to the build... Remember the mishap with the oxygen regulator? Not happy with the repaired hose so I am going to attempt a tricky repair. First, I cut off the brass tubing section. Luckily the end of the hose is attached to thin wiring coming out from the regulator so it maintains its relative position. This makes cutting and shaping a suitable piece from lead wire much easier. The lead wire section is glued into place with CA glue. Wow... that turned out much better than anticipated. I've added some wiring to the floor and sidewalls. Only the wiring bundle coming out of the electric box is painted yet. Since there is a lot of photoetch and metal wiring, I'm going to prime all of the cockpit parts with Mr Primer Surfacer 1000. Next step is cockpit painting.

As per October 24 SAM Interesting Bob

I've temporarily shelved the Italeri Folgore project and am looking to start up something new to work on. Something familiar but different. I think this one fits the bill. A Bf109G-2 on the Eastern Front. A while back, Peter from Airscale graciously gave me a suite of aftermarket upgrades that he produced for the Revell Bf109G-2 kit to try. It's a very extensive combination of 3D-printed resin, photoetch and decals that apply to both the exterior and the cockpit and I've been wanting to check them out. That's one of the big reasons for starting on this particular build. I've not built the Revell G-2/G-4 kit but I've done two Revell G-10's and converted a Revell G-6 into a G-6/AS. So it would be familiar yet different. And Luftwaffe subjects are definitely in my comfort zone. So much so that I've collected quite a bit of aftermarket parts for the Fw190D (my favorite aircraft) and the Bf109G. A lot of them came with 2nd-hand kits that I bought from the LSP Traders Board. Not everything pictured will be used, especially since there are some overlaps (three versions of the exhausts, for example) but it'll be fun to pick and choose the enhancements as I see fit. Here is a preliminary list of the upgrades that I've initially gathered for this build: Airscale Pro Bf109G-2/4 Cockpit Set (Phototech) Airscale Pro Bf109G-2/4 Cockpit Details (3D-printed) Airscale Pro Bf109G-2/4 Seamless Spinner Airscale Pro Bf109G-2/4 Wheel Set Airscale Pro Bf109G Exhaust and MG131 Gun Set Barracuda Bf109F/G Separate Control Surfaces Barracuda Bf109G Standard Tailwheel with Boot Barracuda Bf109G-6 Intake and Exhaust Set Barracuda Bf109F-4 through G-14 Prop and Spinner Barracuda Bf109G Cockpit Stencils, Placards and Instrument Panel Henri Daehne Bf109G-6 Prop Set Eduard Bf109G-6 Exhaust Stacks Eduard Bf109G-6 Mask Set Reskit Bf109F/G Early Wheel Set Master MG131 Gun Barrels Synthetic Ordnance Works Bf109G Main Landing Gear Struts 1ManArmy High Definition Paint Masks for Bf109G-6 Early Let's take a closer look at some of these upgrades, starting with the Airscale stuff. First up is the Cockpit Details set and the one that I'm most excited about. It features four components: Revi C/12D gun sight, control stick, oxygen regulator and throttle quadrant. Very useful upgrades, especially the Revi gun sight... kit-provided guns sights molded in clear plastic never work out well, IMO. Check out the wiring on the oxygen regulator! It's amazing! Hopefully, I can extract these parts without breaking the fine wiring. The Airscale spinner is 3D-printed and replaces a 2-piece kit spinner whose joint is awkwardly placed right through the prop blade openings and not corresponding to a real panel line. Since the spinner is 3D-printed, you can make out very fine ridges which will need to be removed with a combination of fine sanding and primer. I have a lot of choices when it comes to the spinner. The Henri Daehne prop set on the left, the Airscale spinner in the middle and the Barracuda prop set on the right. Henri Daehne no longer offers his beautiful props so I am hording my little collection tightly. I'll probably set the HD set aside and consider using either the Airscale or Barracuda prop. Another area where I have multiple choices is the exhausts. The Airscale set combines the exhausts with a pair of MG131 gun barrels. I've also have a set of Eduard exhausts (which come with photoetch deflectors to replace the thick plastic) and a set of Barracuda exhausts (which are bundled with a supercharger intake and hollow air scoops. All of them look good and feature hollowed out ends and realistic weld seams. The Airscale gun barrels are also exquisitely molded with open cooling holes and built in mounts for a drop-in fit but they look to be slightly warped. The Master brass barrels are obviously perfectly straight but would need to be surgically joined to a mount for use on the Revell kit. To be continued...

Airfix 1/24th Spitfire Mk.IX, 244 Wing, Malta 1943 flown by Wing Commander WGG Duncan-Smith; Atchashikar- Hindi for 'Good Hunting’,…. Was the name applied to most of his Spitfire`s and alluded to his early life in India. Group Captain Wilfrid George Gerald Duncan Smith, DSO & Bar, DFC & Two Bars, AE (28 May 1914 – 11 December 1996) was a WW2 RAF fighter ace and also the father of Sir Iain Duncan- Smith, Conservative Party MP and former Guards officer. To avoid confusion it must be mentioned that Wilfred George Gerald Duncan Smith was given his mother's maiden name (Duncan) as a middle name—a fairly conventional practice of the Edwardian period—but his father's name was "Smith", not "Duncan Smith" and, in WW2 RAF records he is always listed as W. G. G. D. Smith, not W.G.G. Duncan-Smith while his nickname was `Smithy’. It is not known precisely when he started using his mother's maiden name as part of his surname but he decided to pass the double barrelled name Duncan-Smith on to his children and as he appears to have chosen this name himself later in life, I shall refer to him here as WGG Duncan-Smith. WGG Duncan- Smith was born in Madras, India (now Chennai) on 28th May 1914, the son of a Mysore Post Office Superintendent, Wilfrid Arthur Smith and Anna Cecilia Smith (née Duncan). He was educated at Nairn and Morrison's Academy, Crieff, in Scotland, where he joined his school's Officers' Training Corps. Returning to India in 1933, he became a coffee and tea planter, but in 1936 returned to Britain to work as a mechanical engineer, and then was a salesman for Great Western Motors in Reading. With war looming, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR). At the outbreak of war Duncan- Smith was a Sergeant under training but he was commissioned as a Pilot Officer on 29th September 1940 at 7 Operational Training Unit before being posted to fly Spitfire Mk.I`s with 611 Squadron RAF at RAF Hornchurch in October 1940. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in June 1941 and joined 603 Squadron in August 1941 as a Flight Commander, although by this time he was due for a rest from operational flying. On 20th November he was taken ill during a convoy patrol and upon landing he was found passed out in the cockpit. The prognosis was double pneumonia, brought on no doubt by the exhaustion of a long operational tour and he was hospitalised for treatment. Upon recovery in January 1942, Duncan- Smith rejoined the Hornchurch Wing which was now flying the much improved Spitfire Mk.IX. In March 1942 he was promoted to acting Squadron Leader and given command of 64 Squadron RAF. During the ill-fated Dieppe Raid on 19 August, Duncan- Smith was shot down by an enemy fighter but rescued from the English Channel by a naval gunboat with injuries and eardrum pain. In August he became acting Wing Commander flying at RAF North Weald and in November he was rested from operations to take charge of the Tactics Branch at Fighter Command, his input eventually leading to the formation of the Fighter Command School of Tactics at RAF Charmy Down. While Duncan Smith's non-operational tour was recognised as very productive, he wanted to return to operations, and in May 1943 he was posted to Malta to take over the Luqa Spitfire Wing. He flew his first sortie on the morning of 3rd June as escort to Adrian Waarburton in his PR Spitfire bound for Syracuse to take photos for the forthcoming invasion of Sicily and for this Duncan-Smith`s mount was Spitfire Mk.V AR560 which still wore the JMT codes of its previous owner Wg Cdr Thompson whom he had replaced. This aircraft appears in a series of well known photos taken during the opening of Safi Strip. At dusk on the 12th July 1943 Duncan-Smith was flying his own `personal’ Spitfire, JK650 (see model notes for variant!) bearing his DS initials when it was badly damaged in combat with the fuselage, elevators and rudder being holed by cannon fire but thankfully he was able to return and land safely in Malta on Safi Strip. He later commented, “My Spitfire was in a mess. Cannon shells had blasted a couple of large holes in the side. One had burst against the radio and armour behind my seat. Another, having made a hole the size of a football, had torn the control wires to shreds. The elevator was hanging by one thread of frayed wire and my rigger neatly snapped this with a sharp blow from his fingers. "You will not be needing that anymore, he grinned at me, it all looks very untidy – doesn't it? Another cannon shell had torn big pieces out of the elevator and rudder surfaces”. His adversary that day could have been Lt. Franz Barten of 4./JG 53 who claimed a Spitfire east of Ramacca, Feldwebel Heinrich Steis from 4./JG 27 or even Oberfeldwebel Günther "Hupatz" Seeger of 7./JG 53. After a shake up of the wings based in Malta prior to the invasion of Sicily part of the Luqa Wing moved to the new Safi Strip and Duncan-Smith moved to Desert Air Force control to become Wing Commander Flying of 244 Wing at Luqa under Group Capt, Brian Kingcome and they helped cover the Sicilian landings, eventually moving there. On the 2nd September 1943 Duncan- Smith suffered engine failure while test flying a new Spitfire MK.VIII, JF405 when a switch between fuel tanks failed. He was forced to bail out into the sea and injured his kneecap in the process when his leg struck the tailplane. After more than six hours adrift in his life jacket he was spotted by a Spitfire from 145 Sqn and an Air Sea Rescue Walrus from 283 sqn arrived to pick him up but just as he was being dragged aboard the amphibian it was strafed by three Bf109`s! Describing this incident Duncan-Smith said “The Walrus was badly holed below the water and a cannon shell had pierced the wing tank, but luckily, though petrol spewed all over the place, the old bus did not catch fire. The blow I felt was from a bullet that tore through the collar of my Mae West grazing my neck before smacking into the Walrus. We got down at Milazzo safely, after a brilliant landing by the pilot, and I was whisked off to the American field hospital close by. There they were very kind and after fixing up my leg and dressing the neck wound tried to keep me for the night, but I managed to talk the doctor into letting me return to Lentini. The Walrus was a total wreck having been damaged in too many vital parts”. South African Spitfires from 1 Sqn SAAF were flying top cover for the rescue but they were attacked by FW190`s and Italian Mc202`s and Re2001`s and sadly Lt. Richard `Dick’ Cherrington SAAF flying Spitfire Mk.VIII, JF405 was shot down in flames and killed, possibly falling to Unteroffizier Alfred Scharl of 1. /JG 53 who was credited with a kill at 1720hrs on 2nd September 1943, 15 km north of Tropea at low altitude. The identity of the German pilot who severely damaged the Walrus is not known. After suffering from severe sunburn whilst adrift plus the effects of his various operational injuries, wounds and the return of his ear pain from Dieppe in 1942, Duncan Smith was considered unfit for operations, so as an acting group captain, he took charge of 324 Wing in a limited flying role until March 1945, although he did still fly operationally and his final claim of the war was made over Anzio with 324 Wing on 29th February 1944 when he damaged a Bf109 while flying Spitfire Mk.IX, MH884/DS which was his personal aircraft that he flew from 1944-45 based in Corsica and later Ravenna in Italy. During WW2 Duncan- Smith was credited with 17 enemy aircraft shot down, two shared destroyed, six probables, two shared probables and eight damaged in aerial combat. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Bar and the DFC and Bar and he later wrote the book `Spitfire into Battle’ about his wartime exploits which was first published in 1981. After returning to the UK, Duncan- Smith returned to civvy street post war but rejoined the newly established RAFVR on 3rd December 1946 as a temporary Squadron Leader but reverted to Flight Lieutenant in November 1947, with seniority back to 1942! He rejoined the RAF full time on 22nd March 1948 with a permanent RAF commission as a Squadron Leader and he received a second Bar to his DFC for leading 60 Sqn with Spitfire FR.18`s in the Malayan Emergency in 1952. Promoted to Wing Commander in January 1953, WGG Duncan-Smith retired on 24 November 1960 as a Group Captain. Wing Commander WGG Duncan-Smith with the 244 Wing mascot Bonzo. The real JK650, a Spitfire Mk.IX flown by Wing Commander WGG Duncan-Smith when he was Wing Commander Flying of 244 Wing based on Malta in 1943. The serial JK650 falls within a batch of Mk.Vc`s so may have been re engined at the factory to make it a Mk.IX, the article has more info about this aircraft. Photo courtesy of DK Decals. The Model; ,…. From Airfix is the lovely 1/24th scale Spitfire Mk.IX and it was built straight from the box with the addition of decals from DK Decals. I have already posted a few `in progress’ built posts and was very impressed by construction which I enjoyed immensely. The engine is a kit in its own right and the cockpit is superbly detailed too but I did struggle trying to retain some of the excellent detail on the cowling panels as the fit was not brilliant and some filler was needed. More filler was needed along the main seam lines due to the soft plastic employed by Airfix which seems to cause me problems when trying to sand the seams flush! The gun bays in the wings are also nicely detailed. The model was brush painted using Polly Scale acrylic Azure Blue for the undersides and US Sea Blue to replicate the dark blue applied to many Malta based aircraft between 1942-43. There is some controversy about what the exact colour was and it ranges from old pre war Royal Navy motor transport paint from the dockyard, a mixed blue or RAF Dark Mediterranean Blue. The RN began to paint the submarines of Malta`s 10th Sub Flotilla and Manoel island a similar blue colour which was so effective that it was later introduced officially throughout the Med and I like to think that this stemmed from a cache of pre war MT paint which the RAF also managed to get hold of after seeing the subs from the air and talking with their naval colleagues `down town’ in Valletta over a few `scoops’. Many of the blue Spits were indeed polished to a very high sheen which would bear this theory out and the blue would have been mixed with other colours such as black to make it go further. DK Decals include the serial JK650 for Duncan-Smith`s but was this a Mk.Vc or a Mk.IX? The serial falls right in the middle of a block of Spitfire Mk.Vc`s and it has been described as being a Mk.Vc in some well researched books,….. BUT,….. it is also described as a Mk.IX in others too and to back this up it appears as a Mk.IX on this website; http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/abbreviations.html) as a solitary Mk.IX surrounded by Mk.Vc`s within a block of 42 aircraft serialled JK637-JK678 under order 81687/39 from the Castle Bromwich factory and its history cards reads; JK650 Mk.IX CBAF M63 9MU 16-3-43 47MU 29-3-43 'Essex Trader' 10-4-43 Casablanca 25-4-43 126Sq Caught in slipstream and crashed on t/o Safi CA 31-8-43 Sgt DE Minton safe CB 28-2-44 SOC 15-3-45 Another internet source agrees with this and the movements card reads as; model: IX factory: CBAF engine: M63 9MU 16-3-43 47MU 29-3-43 Essex Trader 10-4-43 Casablanca 25-4-43 FAC2 28-2-44 SOC 15-3-45 So,…. Was JK650 a Mk.IX? The only photo that I have available as reference is inconclusive as the serial is hard to read! Another Mk.IX flown by Duncan-Smith in 1943 was MA281 and a later Mk.IX was MH884/ DS which he flew as his personal aircraft with 324 Wing from Corsica to Ravenna in 1944-45 but this appears to wear the day fighter scheme. He damaged an FW190 in this latter aircraft over Anzio on the 29thFebruary 1944, his final claim of the war. A few build and painting pics; Cheers, Tony

wow, thank you everyone what a kind welcome for this build Well thank you Paul & lovely to hear from you again I hope this one turns out as well as the Sea Fury dd Thats a great question - I would put them somewhere if the right environment came up. I offered the Fury 1 to Tangmere museum as I am in their club and the aircraft was based there, but the curator said he would only have it if I gifted it (they don't do 'loans') and I couldn't bring myself to do that yet. The Spit was requested by the experience flight people at Biggin Hill, but I thought that would be a small and in some ways privileged audience so that didn't sit too well for me either. As of now they just sit in a glass cabinet but given the Sea Fury doesn't fit in it and I am moving soon I am going to have a custom cabinet made in my new house. Always open to offers though I would never say never Matt and it would make a great companion to the Sea Fury, plus once I get my new cabinet it will fit which was always a worry I have been back to it once (the only model I ever went back to), so I think there is a definite possibility Hi Tony, I like perspex as a keel as it is nice and stiff (and easy to work), whereas when I have used even 3mm card as a keel it bends and it is easy to build a banana. I have never used it for formers before, but as the plastics guy could cut them to within 0.25mm I thought why not Hmm - don't think I haven't thunk about that one... the problem I think is less design but production, especially in 1/18. Even if I had a kit of parts for say a Veltro it would take me a week and litres of resin to print them - then you get into high costs in a very small market. I am in love with the idea and may try something modest in the future, but then as I own carscale.co.uk and milscale.co.uk domain names I also may branch into other stuff one day too - alloy wheels and a Matador Bowser anyone? (or even alloy wheels ON a Matador Bowser) Perfect! thanks Alain - I love having feedback like this - much appreciated Erm, yes, you got me there is no way I was going to attempt that given my very mediocre painting 'skills' Well firstly welcome Henricus! you will love it around here - best folks on the internet Quite apart from you having a dream job, I am very grateful for your offer of help - I will definitely be in touch So not much actual building in the last week or two - as with the Sea Fury, what started out as getting a few key bulkheads and stringers mapped out in 3D it soon developed into getting the basic structure to build upon... and printed & primed.. enjoying this one very much TTFN Peter

OK - ready for an update? After getting that cockpit squared away with the seat installation, a couple of obvious things needed to be done. First, the thought of my engine cowl assembly falling over on its side and chipping off an exhaust stack just horrifies me. More and more I am hearing stories of 3D print breakage tragedies, some from yours truly. So I decided to make a protective stand for it, 3D printed: Performing its intended function: If it tips over, it may damage a protruding fillet fairing, but not an exhaust stack. But it isn't going to tip over. That is a nice effective stand, and exhaust stack protector, and can be used for that even after the engine cowl is bonded to the fuselage, especially then. Which is actually pretty soon!!! OK, let's see how I moved the ball forward. In preparation for the fairly soon to come wing-to-fuselage join, the visible portions of the coolant and oil lines needed to be created. I certainly didn't design attach features, but I was able to use some convenient surfaces anyway. Three 3D printed parts: The P-51 expert knows that these lines can be seen when peering into the landing gear bays. But they can also be seen looking at the inboard end of the wing flaps, with flaps down. There is a small triangular unskinned portion of the fuselage exposed, adjacent to the aft most fillet fairing, where these lines can be seen. I know - perhaps overkill. But it wasn't that hard to do. Here: The exposed hole I speak of: I glued it to the underside of the cockpit floor. Why not.... Later in the build, you will see what I mean about these lines actually being somewhat visible. The attach angle will be unseen, BTW. I think.... Here, dry fitted are the forward portions of the coolant and oil lines along with a dry fitted firewall: Note how they run through penetration holes in the firewall (duh). Look closely and you will see my rendition of the rubber seals which I suppose work to limit fumes. I like that picture - it offers a tantalizing preview of what I hope will be an amazing gear bay. Here again, the lines are attached to the cockpit floor, and the attach points will be completely hidden, I think. Next, the wing box structure needed to be finished. It lacked the OB skin panels, and the aileron hinge fittings. Like so: So here they are (one set of two), all printed up and ready to go: I also show some weird looking trailing edge reinforcement parts that will hide in front of the aileron. I do not want a repeat TE breakage I had a while back. And, a milestone for me, the completed wing box assembly: I am just fired up about this wing. My build plan is working so far. There is so much to go, but by golly the structural box is done. And remember the unfortute aforementioned breakage that occurred a while back to one of my wing box panels? This: Ugly. Well now it is fixed: Needed that OB panel to help back up the repair area. I am happy with it, and of course it will be covered with aluminum skin ultimately. At this point, my brain was befuddled as to what to do next. Sequencing is becoming increasingly important and I must not screw it up. So, I have begun a working breathing task list, with prerequisites - here is the first part: I can juggle this a bit here and there, but I have to pay attention to the prerequisites of course. You can see some pretty darned important stuff is coming up right quickly. Also, the time has come to deal with that wing tip. Prior to a couple days ago, I had not even created the surfaces. So the last couple of days have been dedicated to that Rhino task. As usual, complex surfaces are quite a headache for me. And unlike the baic wing, point ordinate data was not availabe to me (there is an ordinate drawing apparently, but Airscale Library doesn't have it). So I just scaled the assembly drawing. Here you go: I cannot wait to turn this into Rhino parts, and then real parts. Rebel yell!!! Well, if I follow my task list, next post you should see some wing leading edge work, the firewall installation, perhaps more. And, I want to design the wing tips - they are complicated little buggers. Take care until then. Thanks for looking in.