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As posted over on britmodeller Mr.Bobek from HGW has announced on his FB page there is some progress on A-20G The big change which has caused the delay is that it will be IM plastic kit instead of resin and it will contain all AMs possible to create in Czech republic (most probably PEs and resin stuff from Eduard + Wet transfers and seatbelts from HGW in one package) for reasonable price They need another year to finish this project Looking forward to it jan https://www.facebook.com/jan.bobek.96/posts/2469150143102264

OK - have a 22% Davis airfoil, as applicable to the B-24, that I'm reasonably happy with - and that appears to match photos of the real aeroplane. Have done a quick overlay in Photoshop and have a plan - will start a build thread later today and illustrate what I'm thinking. Also going to glue the two halves of that infamous turret together and polish - ready to copy a pattern for vacuum forming. Will also do a full review of the kit, with observations so far, for this site over the Christmas period. Laters... Iain

P-51D-20-NA "Ridge Runner III, Maj. Pierce W. McKinnon 1/32 Tamiya HGW wet transfers & seat belts Barracuda Wheels & seat Eagle Cals EC#141 Metal colors Gunze, Alclad II, MRP Classic colors MRP

Here she is: I picked the kit up at the Volks store in Tokyo (missed the release date of 12/22 because I was flying ) but close enough and Merry Christmas to me! Shelf price was 13000Y which at today's exchange rate is $117. Not a bad price (we'll see what the US retailers price it at next month when they get their kits) but after opening the box I gotta say it looks worth every penny! I'll look more closely at the plastic tonite but so far the only negative I can see is the instructions are a little more complex than usual for ZM due to the construction and parts difference of the two versions in the the box. A big bonus is ZM included both clear and regular plastic for all the exterior pieces. Warning: it comes in a pretty big box! Cheers, Mark

Seasons Greetings folks Happy Christmas to one and all.. Just a final one before it all starts as I got out of the cockpit for a bit of fiddling about and hope to spend the nect 10 luxuriant days I have off work doing some proper P51 time ..first on scaling the spinner drawings we have a bit of a big nose - you can see about 1.5mm too big all around.. We also have an offset carb air intake under the spinner.. ..oddly its a bit uneven.. ..I made some scale templates so I can at least get an idea of where shape work may be needed - these were taken from NA drawings.. ..the btop one is a plan of the nose, the bottom a side profile and a few others around the chin intake.. ..also got the layout & spacing of the chin carb intake to correct the offset.. (X 4 as I use them at different times..) ..getting the chin right... ..and the top profile at the last former - again a plastic templete from the drawing, although to be fair to HpH I probably made it this rounded while reducing the spinner disc size.. ..you can see the flat top & 'ears' that need building out with P40 fiuller ..as I did a lot of reshaping the nose needed strength so I filled it with Alec Tiranti expanding foam - this stuff sets rock hard.. ,and hopefully some of the profiles start to take shape.. Have a great Christmas everyone TTFN Peter

Hi guy's, I haven't been posting for while, but nonetheless, the build has passed a 'milestone'. The fuselage frame has been rigged using RB Productions photo etched turnbuckles Rudder, tail plane and landing gear has been temporarily fitted to get a sense of how it is going to look. The rigging of the fuselage frame was a nightmare, but it finally went together... This really has tested my scratch building skills, to farthest corners!!! Been experimenting with the use of real 'micro' plywood. I haven't made up my mind, whether to use it or not... The top wing has gotten the basic colors, ready for some 'wood treatment'. Cheers: Kent

Exactly and looking at the reflection of the light on it the "frosting" isn't particularly deep. I don't know why there appears to be this fear or perception that clear plastic is going to take hours and cost a lot of money to fix. Polishing clear plastic is very straightforward and not too hard. A good sponge sander set costing a few quid or even cheaper, one of those four sided nail polishing sticks will sort this in about 10 minutes and shouldn't take off enough plastic to need rescribing or rivets replaced. We used to do this sort of thing all the time with canopy seams and nobody was moaning and asking for aftermarket canopies then. It's called modelling.

DannyVM Love that library addition! Definitely has a spot in this thread! Today I opened up a model I got a few months back, an old Revell Baa Baa Black Sheep kit. My Uncle Dennis was reminiscing and told me he used to shoot his toy bow and arrow at these Corsairs as they flew over. He lived right by the old Goodyear AirDock in Akron Ohio. So I went looking for something to build for him. Picked it up at my LSP. When I asked about a Corsair kit in 1/32 the owner said he thought he had one in the basement. Sure thing he did. Always thought the box was a little heavy and when I opened it up today what a surprise. Someone had dropped in a Meng Air Modeller highlighting a Corsair build!

A kind member who loves you all and wants you to be happy has kindly offered his turret parts to me and has them in the mail. ( I hope ) I will be releasing a resin and vacuformed replacement set for this model. and as I did in 1/48th for the Monogram Liberators, I will offer two different sets. one Emerson/ Consolidated pairing, and a twin Consolidated pair for those wishing to do birds so equipped. Realizing time is money. Winter is setting in, and folks have lots of building time, I will have these sets available in my Ebay store within a day of getting them from our friend. So maybe next week? Watch this space for details.

...well, i studied every In-box review of that B-24..., except the turrets, it looks like a B-24 to me and for 118€ i don’t need to think twice... Merry Christmas to all and lots of plastic beneath the trees for you guys....

I am calling it done. It is my first attempt to a jet and it was a fun ride. Hope you like it. Wishing everybody a merry Xmas and all the best for the upcoming year!! Rick

Thanks Jack! Hi James, Your F-35 is looking very good! I didn't know that a mask set existed. That would have saved me a lot of work! For the others here's the link to the mask set of DN models: https://dnmodels.com/product/ram-panels-paint-masks-f-35-italeri/ Well, many parts of the kit had ejector pin marks, which had to be filled. Marred were the parts for the weapon bays, the wheel bays, the parts next to the exhaust and the air intakes: I only filled the visible ejector pin marks in the intakes. Ofcourse, also all the weapon and wheel doors had ejector pin marks on their inside faces... I marked the doors with their part number so they could be removed from the sprues for easy sanding: All the internal parts were sprayed satin white (Revell 301) While this lot was drying, wings and tailplanes were assembled: Fit was fairly good. Seams were mostly present next to RAM tapes and were filled with acryl filler of Vallejo. This can be smoothed with a damp finger or cottonbud. There is a fair amount of detail in the wheel- and weapons bays. According to pictures I found online, the wire looms in the weapon bays are black and tied-up with light brown clips. The wire looms were made black with a marker: To be continued. Cheers, Peter

So I've got the intakes attached. They fit well for being aftermarket, just had to do a lot of cutting and dry fitting. I glued in the cockpit sidewalls after some serious dry fitting. I'm not sure it was the best way to go but it was the best I could come up with. I also sanded off all the pesky raised panels and rescribed them. That was a real pain but they just don't look realistic compared to photos I've seen. I like to work on my canopies early in the build since I still do the future dip. It gives them a good amount of time to dry nice and solid. I first sand them with micro mesh starting with grit 3200 and working my way up to 12000. I finish them off with Tamiya polishing compounds before dipping them in Future. In the past I would have problems with little specks in the future after it dried. I tried everything thinking it was some kind of dust. Turns out it wasn't dust at all, the future just wasn't completely adhering to the surface. So I got a flat, soft brush and brushed the future on while dipping them. That completely solved the problem. I'm really happy with how they came out.

...and here are some detail pics along with the cockpit

OK - count me in then - 1:32 Red Arrows Hawk: Can you add my name to the raffle Kev Iain

Mr.Bobek is now explaining on his FB the story in deeper detail. Everything was prepared with HPH for past 3 years so masters are done by HPH. But they get a chance to make it as injection molded kit so they change their minds recently. This will be released under HGW brand, not HPH. Based on his article it looks that they want to achieve oil canning effect and Mr. Bobek will post more pics in upcoming days. He is currently playing with several preproduction wing parts (as far as I know he is still active modeler) jan

Just for a further bit of info regarding cleaning up clear plastic/seams etc, here's a topic I did on the subject previously. https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/30048-removing-canopy-seams/

Hello everyone, my name is Woody and I’m a rivet counter. Before we get started, a little more about myself. I started building models “seriously” in the late 80s, but building a business doesn’t leave time for much else so the last time I actually finished one was back in 1996. Keeping in mind that I’m now 72 with cataracts developing (surgery is scheduled) and hands that are slowly turning into boxing gloves - onto the build. The Wildcat would never have been something I would choose to build, but in the course of developing our line of aircraft rivet sets I figured it would be a good choice for no other reason than it’s small. My opinion of the F4F was probably typical of what most people who know little about them thought, but after I started researching the plane my opinion changed considerably. That fighter, and the pilots who flew them during the darkest days of WWII proved to be up to the task of holding the line until the Corsairs and Hellcats became operational. The Wildcat’s contribution to victory in the Pacific may be a footnote but it’s a BIG footnote. I always start with the engine and promptly screwed up my first attempt so bad I had to buy another kit, which is usually the case for me - for that very reason. Regardless, I got that together without any major disasters and even wired it with .010” lead wire used for wrapping fishing lures and stuck one of our generic placards (not visible in this picture) on the case. Exhaust is Ammo Track Wash over AK Extreme Metal Steel. Not sure about the gloss black…. things like this happen when you use “restored” aircraft pictures for reference. Having survived that, it was on to the cockpit and wheel well. Since I had already gone off my original intent of building OOTB by wiring the engine I decided to make a set of cockpit placards and instruments which we now sell. I guess it turned out okay especially since almost none of this is visible once installed, but I developed a serious dislike of acrylics in the process. I’ve always used enamels and found out the hard way that my technique for chipping and weathering simply doesn’t work with acrylics. Okay, lesson learned and more on that later. Ignore that "interior green" on the instruction sheet, the correct color is bronze green. Then it was on to riveting the fuselage. First order of business was filling the recessed kit rivets which slowed down my progress considerably. At first my plan was to use diluted Tamiya putty. Thinking this would be quick and easy I thinned it out and filled every rivet hole. I was feeling pretty sure of myself until I started sanding and realized no one in their right mind could ever suffer through this mind numbing process. I had to find a better way so it was back to the “lab” where I came up with a way to fill the kit rivets with minimal to no sanding. For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to go into details on the process of making the filler or the actual process of filling the kit rivets here - it’s all outlined in our manual which you can download HERE. You have to break eggs if you want to make an omelette. Some tests. With the kit rivets filled in I highlighted the panel lines with a #2 pencil sharpened to a chisel point. This is a great help getting the rivets on straight and an even distance from the panel lines. Once that was done I shot a coat of Aqua Gloss over the parts, but I’m not sure this is entirely necessary. Kit rivets filled and panel lines highlighted. At this point I figured that it would be a lot easier to rivet the kit parts prior to assembly leaving off the ones where I would be sanding. As of this writing I don’t know if this is a good idea or not, but I can honestly tell you that during the entire process the rivets never gave any hint of coming off. I also learned about Gunze Mr. Mark Setter… this stuff is outstanding because it has adhesive properties. To avoid having to keep it mixed by shaking it frequently I just put some in a paint palette. You don’t need much; I use a micro brush to put a series of small drops along where the rivets will go to keep it from puddling and running. As for setting solutions, I use MicroSol, Solvaset and Mr. Mark Softer and can see no obvious difference between them. Don’t be stingy with the setting solution - slather it on. I started at the bottom of the fuselage halves to get the feel of working with the rivets figuring these would least likely to be seen and by the time I got to the more visible areas my skills would have improved, which they did. Frankly, applying the rivets is surprisingly easy - much easier than working with PE. Yea, it’s tedious as hell but other than that it’s just a matter of time. Call it therapy. Again, for the sake of brevity here, detailed rivet application instructions are in the manual which you can download HERE. Starting to apply rivets Both sides finished. (Ignore the turn lock fasteners on the cowling for now, we’ll get to those in the next installment.) I started with the longest continuous runs and I think that works best. After I had all those laid in I filled in the gaps with individual pieces rather than long pieces over the others which would result in rivets on top of rivets and irregular spacings at the intersections. I also ignored much of the kit rivet placement for several reasons too technical to get into here. Let’s just say that my four years in the USAF as an Airframe Repairman is a curse. We can stop here for now so if you have comments or questions we can deal with those before proceeding.

Hi guys, Maybe you are wondering why there are almost no build threads of the 1/32 Italeri F-35A? I think I know why. Until recently, all the F-35 aircraft had a myriad of lighter grey lines of radar absorbent material (RAM) over their body. Although Italeri provides a few masks, you still have a lot of masking to do by yourself, as the next pictures show: Topview: Bottom view: The white masks in the topview is what Italeri provides, the rest has to be done by yourself... Last week, I had a masking mojo, after having this model on the SOD for at least 6 months! With this out of of the way, it was time to start a WIP. It will begin in the past, I started this kit more than a year ago, in April 2017. Soo, any good advice during the build cannot be incorporated anymore until I am up to date again! Let's start. Cheers, Peter

I am posting this work from way back in 2010, some of the stuff I have been doing since I stopped posting my work on LSP for various reasons, mostly lack of time. If this is inappropriate just let me know and I will stop since this is not exactly a work in progress but someone might save on research by seeing what i did to these two kits. One is the Dragon C-7 which is near perfect and only required minor additions. The other is the old Revell model, whatever mark that was supposed to be, which was converted with lots of scratchbuilding into a G4. These models portray the aircraft flown by Wolfgang Falck and Martin Drewes respectively, two great men whom I was lucky enough to communicate with. They therefore have special meaning for me. Well here goes. Although i worked in parallel on these two birds, since the Revell model was the one requiring major work, it is the one which features most in the following process. Here goes. This is the reworked cockpit floor from the kit.cockpit sidesTwin rear gun ammo containerFrame for twin radio operator/rear gunner seatsRight hand side ammo container for twin schrage musik cannon Left hand side ammo container for the 20mm including the oxygen regulator and instrument panel with oxygen pressure gauge and indicator. Combo twin seat for radio operator/rear gunner. One was made of netting and the other from woven fabric strips, not the most comfortable ride it seems. i made the netting from surgical gauze and the woven strips from masking tape. The belts were individually made from masking tape and buckles. all the above sub assemblies placed in the cockpit. the cockpit starts to look busy now. More progress with my next update where work starts on the instrument panel and other equipment in the cockpit.

The F110 is in! Even my wife approves of this scheme :-) I have been doing some fine-tuning of the black sections. Black is really tricky to work with. "Absolutely stunning. I love the colours you have chosen for the wash, it just looks perfect. Can't wait to see more!" Ben, that is my usual custom medium gray wash I use for almost all washing... I generally like that to not be too dark, in this case it really pronounced the surface detail on the black sections also. Merry Christmas to all of you! Cheers, Marcel

Hi Guys, I bought the Italeri F-35 almost immediately when it was out: The box is crammed full with sprues. The tinted clear sprue and the etched metal set is packet separately: If you like it I will post some sprue pics as well. First I'm off to do some final christmas shopping. Cheers, Peter

I wasn't aware that cigarette ash is used for polishing, but this sounds like a good reason to start smoking as a New Year's resolution Cheers Alex

Well I reached a good stopping point, to coincide with holiday visitors. I finished up the insignia: For those unfamiliar with an insignia stencil process, here is the one I used for the Maketar stencil: 1. Finish the basic wing paint job 2. Apply the entire stencil, background frame and all. Use Tamiya tape on the insignia itself to hold it together. 3. Remove insignia, leaving the frame behind. Further apply masking. 4. Paint white. 5. Re-apply insignia. 6. Remove the insignia outline, leaving behind the star and bars. 7. Paint blue 8. Remove remaining stencil. It worked great, but keeping the insignia stencil parts taped together without shifting was a chore. You like? Also I finished the RH wing tip to look like the LH one. Here are a couple of shots of the flap-less P-47: Have a great holiday!

Gun is done. AVAILABLE ON WERNERS WINGS ANY DAY NOW.

Thanks guys. I enjoy these types of challenges as it requires a bit of thought and it keeps the hobby interesting. Something you don’t get modelling from the safety of a Tamigawa box. As far as your first resin kit, this is the easiest resin kit that I have worked on to date!

A couple of panel line fixes. According to Daco's book these panel lines were for earlier versions.

Finished mine a year ago now. With the help from the DN Models stencils

Hi Kev, A bit late, but I'd like to join the raffle. Please add me to the recipients list. And I like to donate these two books (1 gift): TIA! Cheers, Peter

just had the postie deliver mine, it's big and beautiful - my biggest issue is that I keep changing my mind about colour scheme, think it will be RAF coastal command but I need to put more effort into this.

Local Hobbytown had three on the shelf a few days ago. Stopped in yesterday to kill some time and all three were gone. Fortunately for me, I fall in the "TLAR (that looks about right)" category when it comes to the B-24. Would love to do a PB4Y-1 of either VMD-154 or VMD-254. It won't be perfect or 100% accurate, but it will look cool as s#!t when it's done!

Here is the comparison between the Monogram on the left, and the HObby boss on the right for comparison.

These are the Monogram "J" turrets. Note that they are clear This is the nose turret from the Hobby Boss kit. It is frosted. As mentioned with some fine grit sand paper, Brasso, or Cigarette/cigar ashes work great to polish the plastic. At least it will be clear, seam not withstanding.

As far as I'm aware, this is HGW's baby, with HpH doing commission design and mastering work, so I wouldn't expect a kit from them. And I'd say that, with the move to plastic, this is probably even less likely - it's impossible to tell if HpH is even still involved any more. Kev

The old BoB building was demolished and replaced with a new hangar. This houses an exhibition called "RAF Stories" with aircraft, lots of interactive exhibits, simulators and a gift shop. The entrance to the museum was rearranged through this first hangar, then from there you go to the Grahame-White Factory (all WW1 Aircraft rearranged nicely together) and then you move on from there to the historic hangars. Many exhibits were moved and rearranged. It is still great, you need to give yourself a few hours to see it all Radu

Alclad II Today I made rivets on the wing:

Mark - how's this? protectors for the flap linkages: Truth be told, I only did this after I popped off the innermost flap support rib. Anyway, I did that just before I dug into the tip lights. Things are moving quickly. Recall that I cut these out of a lathe turned piece of acrylic: And I wanted it to look like this: So I painted the inside two flat surfaces of the acrylic pie slice with yellow zinc chromate, drilled a partial hole and added red (LH) and blue (RH) paint, and bonded the pieces to the wing tips hoping they would stay in place while i went to work sanding and polishing. And it worked! Here: Only thing is, the solid acrylic greatly distorts anything inside, so the red lamp looks nothing like it's supposed to, except at certain fleeting angles. What I like is how the clear surface conformed to the local contour. It polished up well too with 1500 grit sand paper. Meanwhile, Miss Velma, who has been relegated to a smaller corner of the man cave to make room for the Thunderbolt, needed some attention. Here she is: Any of you remember her from a few years ago? I digress. As a side project, I have begun the heavy modification of the flaps. Look at the terrible items I have to work with: Job number one is to create some sort of airfoil cross section by grinding/filing/sanding down the nose and raised flat surface: That took some strenuous work. You will see much more of the flaps soon. The RH aileron is done, even a cute little decal: It received lots of drill starts for rivets on its newly sanded leading edge, and a nice paint job. It is ready for installation onto the wing, and the LH aileron is not far behind. Wing surfaces have been painted a couple of shades of natural metal silver, and the guns are now in place: Alot better than what the toy came with. The guns were a tough modification as I described earlier. With 1/18, you have to make your own decals as you know. Here are the ones I created for the wings (two sets): And lastly, I am into the process of using a Maketar mask for the large US stars and bars insignia for the RH lower wing surface which was poorly represented on the toy (the LH upper was fine and I kept it): Next post that insignia will be done as well as a bunch of other stuff. Til then, and Happy Holidays folks!

I'm going to stay off this thread now - but will start a build thread in the New Year, as part of the Group Build, and go through some of the things I personally want to improve and get feedback from any interested parties - like we did with the He219 project - which was very much an LSP team effort with a host of members chipping in with constructive thoughts, observations and information. Hopefully there will be a few other builds too... *If* I can find a definitive wing root cross-section then I'll have a go at improving the look - I definitely believe it's doable. However, nicely built and painted from the box I still think you'll have a stunning model. Yes - it appears to be a bit of a curates egg - but I'm still more than happy for what I have, for the price I paid (same as a Tamiya Spit XVIe). Lots of modelling fun to be had with these I reckon. I've revised my plans though - now leaning towards a Coastal Command GR Mk VI, as well as the Privateer I mentioned a while back. I stayed away from the forums for a while earlier this year because of how wound up people could get over what should be a fun and relaxing hobby! Iain

Thank you everyone, I appreciate your kind comments. As mentioned above the cowling fit is only so-so, so here's what they look like test fitted. Since the fit is a small distraction rather than an enhancement of the model, I likely won't put them on again, because they are a bear to get everything placed together properly and you risk damage in doing so. From now on, they will sit below the engine area. Cheers, Chuck

I think I'll pull this off. I got a flat coat on it, which toned down the camo; it looks much better. The elevons and canards are still not fully attached. I did manage to get the vertical stab reattached...full functionality was restored. I still have to attach the landing gear, weapons, and the various antennas. Or antennae, if you prefer. After removing the masking that had been in place for two years, I found that the cockpit suffered a bit more than I had hoped, and it needs some rehab. I thought "No matter, I'll just go closed canopy". Then realized my vac-formed windscreen does not match the main canopy in cross-section, so....canopy up it is. Thanks for looking, and Merry Christmas. jp

We don’t know how much WNW has invested in CAD resources versus HKM. They could simply have more available to be able to do oil canning.

Bezels drilled through Back panel with instrument facesboth parts mated together.Radio equipment made from scrap resin blocks and other material. Throttle quadrantForward cockpit RHSForward cockpit LHSLHS consolesTrial run all closed upModified pilot's seatRudder pedalsJoystick

Moving on to the instrument panels and the radio equipment. All grey plastic is the dragon stuff, green, white and other materials are my mix.Bezels and other details on aluminium back panel

OK, to flatten or straighten copper wire, I use a slightly modified version of your technique. Rather than using a roller on it, I use a short metal ruler (6"/15cm), and aggressively roll the flat face back and forth over the wire. This will usually deal with everything but actual kinks. Kev

Hi! I am offering these as prizes. I am already on the other participant list. Item one: Winners choice, either Kitsworld KW132063 War Birds B-17F Flying Fortress 'Ye Olde Pub' or TwoBobs Aviation Graphics 32-036 F/A-18C Feline Hornets, VFA-131 Wildcats Item two: Mosquito wooden wonder by Edward Bishop. Br, Jani 2018raffle

Here are some of the salient features on the outside of the intakes. The boundary layer ducting on top of the intake is clearly offset to the inside, the upper edges are rounded and there is a distinctive angular bulge at the wing join. The kit intakes get many of the other features right, but the points I mentioned above will need to be enhanced. Here is my initial pencil note making from a photograph of the panel lines that will need to be added. These are actually minor improvements, and despite a lot of criticism of the intakes when the kit was released, I think they are quite good. I added some styrene card to the bulge to give it a bit more depth. The kit has razor sharp corners at the upper edge, which will need to be rounded. After sanding this edge round, it still looked wrong when joined to the wing, and I eventually realised this was because the boundary layer ducting was the wrong shape, and centred instead of offset to the inside. I elected to cut the ducting off the LERX and rather add it to the intake so I could shape the whole lot as a unit. Now you can compare the "improved" intake to the kit intake. The lower engine cowls are also well represented by Trumpeter, and all I felt it necessary to do was add some omitted vents and vent pipes. This will help with weathering later down the line. For those who do, I hope there are huge plastic filled boxes waiting for you in the stocking or under the tree! Cheers, Sean

Not sure how I will tackle it yet Matt. The completed cockpit (minus the throttle) just before close up. There is a large gap which will be visible in the rear of the cockpit that will require some attention. i made up a small bulkhead with plastic card. With the ejection seat in it may be possible to see behind it, hence the fix. It was apparent fairly early on that the nose section was going to be a poor fit to the rest of the fuselage, especially around the intakes. There is a reasonable size difference between the mating parts here and it could be a difficult fix. Here is the problem: It would be easy to dump a stack of filler behind the intake lip and blend it back toward the rear of the aircraft, but there would be no way of saving the prominent vents in the top and bottom of the fuselage. I decided to approach this from two ways, to shift the area that needed to be blended to a different part of the model where there wasn’t so much detail to be lost. Firstly, I split the fuselage join a fair way down the line. I haven’t actually glued the intake lips to the fuselage here, as I had anticipated this issue and fix. Rather, the area behind the splitter plates has been glued allowing me to align the two parts but keep the intake lips free. I drove some thick plastic card into the cut to expand the radius of the fuselage, fixing up approximately half of the mismatch in the parts. I will probably pour some very hot water over the rear of the fuselage to relieve the stress in the join further back. I filled the rest of the gap with plastic card. This still left me with a fair bit to fix up. I made a cut straight through the intake lip (this is why I didn’t glue this part together), allowing me to tighten up the top part of the lip against the fuselage. Next up I cut the bottom fairing of the intake lip off aiming for the corner of where it joins the fuselage on the outside and the corner where it meets the splitter plate Glued back in place and blended in, it is 1000 times better now and I haven’t had to use any filler apart from the bottom part of the intake lip. Some extensive work to get it to fit but it didn’t take too long and is fairly easy to do if you are comfortable with a razor saw. Whilst I was dealing with the intakes I noticed that the leading edge of the lips are very blunt and could do with some work. A few minutes with a sanding stick and they were fixed. The state of play on my workbench at the moment. No idea how I ended up with two resin kits of fairly obscure types at relatively the same stage of construction on my workbench at the same time!

I'll revisit my earlier comment that some people have a negative bias against Trumpeter. They've put out some absolutely gorgeous kits in 1/32 but some people still stick with the "everything they do is garbage" rhetoric. Yeah, some of their kits have been a disappointment but that's true of nearly every other manufacturer out there.

Small box delivered by Andy from Antics to our model club on Thursday night (for anyone in/near Wiltshire, UK - Wiltshire Scale Model Society, 3rd Thursday of every month, Pewsham Community Centre, Lodge Road, Chippenham, SN15 3SY)... And the gathering references... Like a 6 year old at Christmas! Iain

Thanks to everyone here for your support during "Part 1". I really appreciated it. Cheers, Chuck