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Finished, first for 2019! No WIP because I shook the box and it more or less fell together. I had fun building it and decided to go for an alternative colour scheme. Apparently, WNW believes that the original was painted black but it could have been red. That was enough for me. Also, I decided to do unpainted wings, because I could. As you can see, all the effort to detail the cockpit was well worth it, not. And some B&W just for giggles That's it. On to something else now.

Talking about going round the bend, every little modification has a knock on effect down the line with a styrene kit, and it is often this that drives me nuts! The holidays have re-focused me however, and I have got quite a bit done in the meantime. The other half of the fuselage was filled and reshaped including some stressed skin as I did on the other side. The louvre intakes are quite simplistic in the kit, so I added a bit more depth and detail to them so that they look moveable. Then I discovered what cib2265 was talking about when he said he was curious about the lip on the front of the canopy. This lip... Looks to me like a Trumpy engineer's fix for a poorly fitting windshield. The whole angle is actually too shallow and should parallel the panel line ahead of it. I then decided to whittle away at the fuselage, but that was going to have a nasty knock-on effect. I should have ADDED styrene from the beginning instead . I eventually added quite a lot, including a lip to the canopy walls which actually exists on the real thing, as well as the bit that bends around the back and has the inflatable canopy seal on it. Not all bad in the end! The panel lines on the starboard LERX (in the kit) are just a mirror copy of the left. In reality however the gun is on the left, and other goodies like avionics or nuclear stuff on the right - so, different panels. At last, time to mate the halves of the beast! This is a 0.5mm shim to fatten the LERX a bit. The profile of the forward fuselage is now a bit closer to how I perceive the shape of the real thing. The lumps and bumps at the back are better too. Although the wings are actually very "clean", there is this slightly odd strengthener plate near the tip. Could it be a later modification? Now its time to so(L)der the remaining engine exhaust... Cheers! Sean

Thanks guys! You're not wrong Terry! And yet, even MORE HK plastic has had to go in my latest adventure! Happy New Year everyone! Definitely high time for some work on the big girl. First of all, I really wanted to get back into some litho-plate skinning and the new fin was the target. Left and Right sides were carefully done, then the nose cap was added. Apart from the fact that I totally forgot to anneal the side pieces, which meant they were a little springy to try and stick down, but I got there in the end Just before Christmas, I came into possession of some very good information about the location and dimensions of the observer's dome and hatch. Looking at the cabin roof I had made out of acrylic, and knowing that it was imperative to align the hatch accurately in relation to the aircraft's centerline (the actual hatch is offset, not the dome on the C/D) I decided the only reasonable way was do use the laser cutter and redo the piece as one. I wanted to have a solid foundation for the cockpit window frames to attach to, so with considerable difficulty, I machined a small recess in the edges of the bottom side. While I had the "roof" upside down and mounted on the mill, I channeled out the excess material, hoping I wouldn't go too deep as I still had to shape the piece from the outside. As this was the first real opportunity to check out the alignment of the windows between the left and right halves, I was expecting some issues. Also, what was interesting to note, is how far back the hatch opening sits, with the #4 Bulkhead sitting about 1/5th from the rear of the hatch. This also meant that the entire roof piece had to be longer than I had initially planned for, which now called for removing MORE of the old HK fuselage!!! What was also of note, was that after I had adjusted for length, the right side window frame was sitting about 1.5mm higher than the left (correctly positioned) towards the rear of the frame, which meant it was crooked. It must've stemmed from when I soldered the windscreen sections on, in my efforts to line them up. Unfortunately for me, not only had I puttied, painted and detailed the interior of the cockpit where the "soundproofing" was now very well attached to the brass window sections, I had also JB welded the exterior to make sure they weren't going anywhere........ This is where Past Tense Craig did not do Present Tense Craig any favours at all!!!! So how do I fix that? *WARNING - THE FOLLOWING IMAGES MAY BE DISTURBING TO SOME VIEWERS* I VERY carefully cut, aiming to hopefully get under the brass, into the exterior of the fuselage and along the front of the windscreen, praying that I didn't cut too deep into the instrument panel! I then used a sharp blade to carefully part the soundproofing putty away from inside...... Not pretty, but it worked. Knowing that the windscreens were out of alignment, I very carefully melted the solder joint and removed the left hand piece. Despite my best hopes, I also had to remove the left hand side windows as well, as they were too far forward to suit the new roof. Am I a glutton for punishment or what? Still with me? I'm sorry, but that had to be shown.... Now for the comeback. With the new roof sitting nicely in position, I "hung" the two side pieces from the top with some superglue to get their alignment correct. So far so good, now to the front windows... I had resigned myself to having to make these again to ensure a nice fit of all the angles involved, but I was very happily wrong, with only some very slight shimming being temporarily wedged under the right side.... Once all looked good, I held my breath and soldered the windscreens back in place.... Well just look at that!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not going to lie, I'm absolutely ecstatic about how everything came together, with a nice close fit between the windscreen halves to boot!!!! Before the modelling Gods realised I was having too much good fortune and withdrew their support, I mixed up some JB weld and glued the windows back in their new, PROPERLY ALIGNED places! Edit: I still have quite a bit of shaping of the roof to do yet, so the profile will still look a little odd in these photos..... So ends another saga involving some very brutal reconstructive surgery. It is a step I had been dreading for a long time, not really knowing how to proceed. In the end, a sequence worked itself out and I was on a roll. Soon hopefully I'll have the hatch and dome under construction, and with some more good fortune and information now at hand, I have the correct shape and dimensions for the waist gunner's windows and the clear tail cone. Yes friends, things are finally starting to happen! Cheers, Craig

It seems I spend as much time at this table as I do at the actual work bench, that said the extra effort pays off. I completed the modified exhaust openings with the help of my dremel tool and some good whisky once that portion was done I had to figure out how to mount the exhaust manifolds as the conversion doesn't use the engine blocks, After assembling a kit engine block, some measuring and more math I came up with a solution. Here is the void: my solution then I started to work on the actual exhausts. While Johns flame suppressors are just fine, the amount of time and high risk of FUBAR led me to making my own. Seen here pinned to the modified manifolds. I've got a plan, so stick around

evening & thanks chaps Been working on the air intake and the exit duct - after wondering if the interior was painted I found this shot of another aircorps P51 and can see where there is closed airframe it's painted and where there is airflow it's natural metal so thats what I went with... inside the underwing airscoop is an oil cooler (I think) that is oval and sits in the formed fairing seen above - behind that is a big square radiator (I think) - I made the radiator from scored black card and litho framing (from a plan, and oddly the dividing bars are offset like in the pic) and I made a balsa form to vacform the fairing the oil cooler sits in... ..this was the skinned while still in the form - I left it in and just cut away what I didnt need later on - vacforming over balsa causes the plastic to virtually bond with it as there are so many airholes in it... ..I have started to tap in the indentation with the ball end of my ball pein hammer.. ..I forgot to have the oil cooler made in my etch run so I had to make it - I just used pipe screens but had to join two down the middle.. ..and the finished assembly - this sits nicely in the airframe... ..the exit duct on the model was out and it was hard to make sense of where the internal skinning is so I just made a pack of parts from the plan so I knew it was right.. ..some ultra violence was then committed... ..to make the two interface together... ..this was then rough filled with P40.. ..another exit duct was needed so this was laid out... ..and a bit of primer to see what's what... ..lots more work to do as the exit duct especially is quite a complex collection of shapes & fillets... TTFN Peter

So first cuts made to this massive project yesterday with getting the already massive fuselage rady to accept the 70mm extension piece. Well, No going back on this one now and the fit of the extension is very good. Need to concentrate on the cockpit now and convert it from an A-4 in to a late G variant. Regards. Andy

Thanks guys for all your comments! really apreciate it! I din't have much time during the week but at least the cockpit area is almost done and everything glued together thanks for looking jan

got the 'kink in the exhaust and did some final test fitting, note that the glued assembly will not have the angle relative to the centerline shown and then, primer happened! now this will get the rest of the day to dry, then I can start painting the interior surfaces of sub assemblies, its almost time to start gluing stuff together for good!

Work on the wooden plug for the cabin roofing has begun... Cheers: Kent

Ughh I feel like I’ve been working on this cockpit for a year. Time for a motivational sidetrack! I drilled and pinned the wings this morning. Put some tape on the tail to hold it in place. Now it’s starting to take shape small compromise on the wing position. They’re aft about 2mm due to where the main wheel bays are on the belcher kit. Anything else looked stupid because the gear doors on the wings didn’t line up.

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I'd say it's pretty good  A bit of tape to hold it shut while the glue set and a couple quick swipes with some sanding sticks was mostly it. I might need a smear of Mr Surfacer on the bottom but that's it.

This is my build of the FM models Breguet Alize in 1/48 scale. It is an older limited run kit so you need to be prepared to put a bit of work into it to get a nice model but saying that it is the only 1/48 Alize available although pretty hard to find one now. I did a lot of modifications to the kit and scratch built the wing fold rather than use the resin wing folds that came with the kit - all detailed in the WIP. BERNA decals were used to finish her as number 17 of Flottille 4F in the type A camouflage scheme Alize service history & information on the aircraft can be found here - http://www.ffaa.net/aircraft/alize/alize.htm Happily there is still an airworthy Alize in France & plenty of photos of the aircraft easily found on the internet via Google - there are several preserved examples in various museums. WIP is on Briitmodeller - https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235035388-fm-breguet-alize-the-gallic-gannet-rfi-posted/ Photos taken on iPhone5 - best I could do. Size comparison - The last photo shows the 3 seat Alize posed with the single seat Wyvern (Trumpeter) thanks for looking CJP

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Thanks didt a bit more work now front ip and dry fit the seat in to the pit Mark

Next step was a marbling coat with white like so to which I added some brown and buff shading to the rear of the aircraft where most the grime accumulates I'll be keeping weathering minimal as I'm depicting a 74 squadron aircraft at a Tiger meet in 1988, and the airframes look quite clean on the refernce images I have. That said it is a phantom.... Then , with aching wrist, hot compressor and going crosseyed got the topcoats on. I used the main camo coulours, very heavily thinned and sprayed 6 to 7 coats. The end result looks like this... Barlley grey and medium sea grey on the top. All mixed from tamiiya paints. and a coat of home brewed extra light sea grey on the bottom In areas it looks a little stark, (and bloody difficult to photograph) but my thinking is a couple of coats of gloss coat will tone it down. If not I can always do another pass with the blending coat. All in all I'm fairly pleased with the result. IMHO blackbasing certainly has a place, especially on large grey aircraft. I was tempted to try and reproduce the colours put on these phantoms befores export from the US, (the well documented blue/green tint to the upper grey) however the decal sheet I have depicts and aircraft thet would have been overpainted by the time 1988 came around so I'm going with the standard RAF camo.

The next step of the windscreen mod was fitting a small piece of plastic over top to complete the lip that the clear part sat in. I also filled along the top of the cowl toward the nose with plastic card to make this area straight. The windscreen needs to be pushed in to fit, hence the Xacto handle. Very happy with how this has turned out. I decided to replace the photo etch cowl flaps with some plastic card ones. The photo etch flaps did not fit very well, and I felt that I would be able to scratchbuild better ones from plastic card. I wanted to add the hinge fittings and these would be better off being in plastic card as well, the other benefit being that when they are all fitted to the model, I will be able to wick Tamiya extra thin into the parts of each seperate flap that are touching, making them stronger overall. Each flap was made from 4 parts, being the flap, two hinges and the small part that slides against adjoining flaps. I cut several long strips of different thicknesses of plastic card to make the parts out of. A dry fit of the basic flaps, without the hinges or the inner sliding parts. Each flap asssembled Final dry fit

Really? Been there, done that I'm afraid, but I'd love to see your diorama when it's finished. Including my Spitfire above, these bad boys are pretty weathered already. Thank you! I generally use Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color (TPLAC) after a gloss acrylic clear coat like X-22 and now I no longer highlight every rivet or panel line. While that can look cool, it's not very realistic, because not all of them should be accented. For my Spitfire, I didn't use any dark washes and instead highlighted some panel lines and rivets with light metallic pastels instead. Here's the back of my Eagle. There is some highlighting with TPLAC, but most of it was left alone, like the tiny rivet detail along the spine. I will be doing the same thing on this model, but since it will likely be black, I will be using lighter washes instead. Cheers, Chuck

Spending a lot of time getting the hull halves up to an acceptable finish, but they are slowly coming together. I had to move the two triangular windows since they were too close to the wing, 'someone had run off with the measurements'... The sliding panels for the openings of the rear passenger cabin. I've been using some of the leftover parts from the kit to close some of the gaps of the hull. Some necessary extras from RB Productions. British terminals and some honeycomb mesh for the Liberty engine radiators. I've also invested in some tools and wood grain stencils, they may come in handy... Cheers: Kent

Hi Guys Well at long last I have a solution for the undercarriage of this kit. As the brass caster was away over the Christmas holidays I could not conform before now. After a long contemplation I have decided to just cast up the kit internal parts that should have been supplied in metal, I think that this still offer better options for assembly and detailing should the modeller wish. Also a full set cast in brass would have also increased the price quite considerably, and the brass inserts will offer just as much support as a fully cast undercarriage part. These can be ordered as of now, although production is just commencing. They are available from my website http://www.aerocraftmodels.com Direct link https://aerocraftmodels.bigcartel.com/product/internal-undercarriage-set-for-hobby-boss-b-24-liberator cheers Ali

Hi everyone, Back in the late seventies I was a young boy with no money and little on his mind but models. One summer my father gave me this while I was visiting him on Summer vacation: Until that time, the only 109 I had known of was the Monogram 109 E Adolf Galland kit. Needless to say, it was the best gift I ever thought I was given before I became an adult. But the story was to take a bad turn. My father lived with a neat-freak on-and-off again girlfriend. I had set the kit to dry after adding the wings to the fuselage and was then shipped off to the grandparents for a few days. When I got back, the kit was gone. Nobody copped to it, not did anyone offer to replace it. Pretty much ruined summer vacation. Since I returned to modelling a few years ago, the kit had occasionally come across my memory and when I saw the box at the local big model show show, I grabbed it like a drowning man would grab a life preserver. I was going to recapture that stolen part of my childhood! After having the kit for 6 months, I got down to it. Old fashioned sprues and parts with hinges... I can tell that man y of the parts are a bit... shall we say... inaccurate. Because the decals are only a few years younger than me, I decided on a great profile by a great artist Claes Sundin. Did I mention I have a Silhouette Portrait? Image for discussion only. Painting the pilot was the first hurdle. A hurdle because my figure painting skills are pretty unskilled. No point in doing the boots... they'll disappear. He's pretty huge and completely blanks out the sides and bottom of the cockpit. This allowed me to dispense with doing more to the lower cockpit than a coat of RLM 66. What was supposed to be a simple exercise in thinning the trailing edges of the wings turned into opening the radiators and dropping the flaps turned into some major transplant surgery as a slip of the saw ruined one of the Revell Cooling flaps. The Trumpy ailerons were too narrow in chord as they neared the wing tip. So, no more gray parts. This was supposed to be OOB. The engine didn't deserve too much love as it wasn't going to show anyway and the IP wasn't even close, so I blackened the instrument faces and dry-brushed the indicators. It doesn't show so well but the pilot is so big, that I don't think it'll matter. The pilot was only painted with tube acrylic paints, so I covered him with the tip of a rubber glove for protection. I filled all of the hinges in with milliput and used white card to shim the cowl and wing-to-fuselage joint. You may have noticed hints of brass in the machine gun troughs. These are some Master Barrels MG 131's that also came with a brass Pitot tube. The Kit is inaccurate. I know that... but I've really enjoyed getting to this point. I've fabricated some small parts with card, and I have some scribing to do to add some details like the fuel hatch behind the canopy. Thanks for looking! Gaz

Not often l post a build here anymore. Quite frankly takes me a while these days to finish anything due to general life getting in the way. l managed to get this one done as the renovation industry is slow this time of year hence why l have time . This is the older Pacific Coast Model boxing of the Fw 190A-1/2/3 without the new A-4 conversion. Fortunately l have an old Haseagawa kit in an old Revell rebox version that l took the engine out of and bit and pieces for this build. l did it in the markings of an unknown pilot that flew this aircraft during the Battle of Kursk. For the BMW 801 engine l started out with this oldie that used to be in the old Hasegawa offering l made this engine with a lot of modifications and bits and pieces of brass, plastic wire and solder The wing gun bays were also scratch built . l used the MDC 20 mm cannons in th wings Eduard PE landing flaps that were meant for the Hasegawa A-5 kit which l believe this PCM kit was based on Thus here is the end result. This project was without it's problems with solutions but to be honest if l was to do Another PCM 190A l would just build it straight out of the box with scratchbuilt flaps only. Do not mind the work but l think l will stick to kits with either the engine already there like the new Revell offering. l have done other kits with some scratch built interiors but this one extended the envelop for me a bit. Hacker.. 190A-4 dusted, bench cleanup in progress, beer in hand *hic*

As I wrote in WIP... I bought very old Revell F-104 and after buying I started to think what I've done and what to do with it In grim and cold night I hit upon an idea - not black but white eagle, nod yellow but red plane - polish whiff I've ordered masks for eagle, seat from Aires, Pitot's tube from Master. Side panels in cockpit were scratchbuild ,exhaust had to de detailed and here it is. Polish F-104 in occasional scheme Painted with Mr.Hobby range. Many thanks to my friend Bogdan Zolnierowicz for masks !

Thx guys! I was really surprised at how weathered this particular aircraft is since the paint job is relatively new. Here is the Zacto Aim-9X training round. The resin is just incredible, it just doesn't get any better. So wish Chris would produce some Aim-120's. And here are the completed Aim-120 dummies. These seem to have become standard wingtip equipment on the Aggressor F-16's. Note the blunt nose (vs what would be a pointier nose for the live round). You can get these blunt-nosed bodies from the Tamiya F-15E kit. The wings are from Cutting edge and thus realistically thin with the correct diamond c/s. I painted the back end bright orange after seeing that on some of the dummies in Jake's book. Note the "peeled off" paint revealing the yellowish primer on some of the pylon leading edges above. And here a little WIP of the Elta EL/L-8212 pod that is often carried by the 18th Aggressor Squadron (but not by any other unit)... I have been busy scratch-building this. Cheers, Marcel

+1. I think 2 months down the line the word "initial" in the title might have passed it's "sell by" date ? Plus when a lot of the recent posts are now about the company rather than the kit itself it could be time to call it a day. Just my humble opinion of course.

50,000 hits. I'd say the discussion is over, let's go put paint to plastic and finish something this year. Ryan

While looking though Roger S Gaemperle's excellent Captured Eagle's Vol 1 I came across these shots of G-10 Mistels, this is 460066 which I am building. Particularly like the last shot if you can call it a complete Mistel with the Fw 190 just dumped on top of the 88. Regards.Andy

It looks like there is a generic problem regarding accuracy when one considers most continental China model companies. I believe this is probably linked to a combination of factors such as cultural perception of historical or technical accuracy, easy access to relevant data, national pride, perception of user-friendliness importance, business-oriented time to market approach and surely other things. This explains why this will not change soon. Western or other eastern companies that manage everything themselves except the final plastic production in China do not have the same amount of issues but they are not perfect either. The problem with companies like HB is the fact their learning curve shows hectic rather than regular progress. This is the frustrating part but who else was going to release such a monster for such a price in 2019?

Today, coming with the air intake adjustment, I worked on the auxiliary wheel well. The building sequence will be the following: - first attaching the wheel well on a half fuselage. This why the dry fit must be initially perfect - attaching the air intake Fortunately, the depth of styrene of the air intake is enough for milling a print in. I created a small gap to be able to attach separately the air intake and the wheel well on one half fuselage. The pic here below is self explanatory after milling the cast and the styrene After having cautiously removed the cast carrot from the wheel well with a milling cutter, I made print on the air intake After some adjustments on each half fuselage, the dry fitting reveals that the Aires kit excellent Eric

Stick a fork in it, I'm calling this done. Actually, it was done some time ago but I have been lax in posting any photos. So, here it is in all it's glory... As you can see, my photo set up is not configured for large planes: Did some messing around with B&W, because it is a WWI plane after all... That's it. I am not putting this into RFI because it does not bear close inspection!

Thanks checksix, glad you're enjoying it! That nose is going to take some artistic talent for sure. Couldn't agree more with you about it adding character to the plane. Slow but steady progress today. This cockpit is going to take another 2 weeks I bet before it's done. Putting the canopies up I found that they weren't square to each other so they didn't lay in a straight line. At first I couldn't figure out why, then I remembered neither KH or Hasegawa made a closed canopy, the only option was open. Which made me realize I was missing the loop that separates the two canopies...DUH. So that's what I custom made tonight. Took me 2 tries to get one that fit in nicely. Now I'll have something easy to mount the rearview mirrors to. The top of a Vallejo 17ml bottle worked great as a backstop to keep from breaking the piece while sanding. Now I need to adjust my pilot height and I'm all set. Looking at pics from the references I have the seat seems to look about right here but, then again I've stared at it for days so let me know if your eyes think the seats should be moved any at all? Tomorrow I hope to work on the coming. Then I can start putting things in solid and filling and sanding to make everything come together smoothly. Night All...or even Good Morning to some lol

Hi Kage, I did get it finished. Don't have too many pics thanks to Photobucket but here's a couple pics. Here's one with the XVi that I finished at the same time. Carl

You know where you are in a threads usefulness cycle when the tightness of the lid of the box and the box art is being discussed..

Hi all, Just a few more showing weathering. For those who are wondering what the four black things under the fuselage are and the 'ears' sticking out of the engine carburetor intake: This aircraft was photographed with under fuselage attachment brackets for a 'Cooper' bomb rack' However no photographs I could find show the actual rack as being fitted. Sopwith Camels serving in the Italian theater had a field service mod carried out to fit 'funnels' to the carburetor air intake tubes, to increase airflow to the engine as they operated at higher altitudes than on the Western Front. Barker's B6313 had both fitted, Mike

When I started this project I told myself, "Self...don't go crazy with all the details and corrections". Well here I am going crazy with all the corrections, at least the ones I could find. I just can't seem to help myself! Tail attached: Need to remove and add some panel lines according to the photos I've seen... Another thing I said I wouldn't bother fixing... I ended up using .13mm sheet styrene to make the covers. I tried using thin metal but I just couldn't get it to work. After I glued the vent covers in place, I sanded them down as thin as I could. I might have sanded one of them too much! The fix wasn't all that great but I think it looks better than it did before. I also fixed a few more panel lines. The black lines you see is the black superglue I use as filler. I really like using it because it dries almost instantly with the use of accelerator so there is no waiting to sand. Using the accelerator also makes it dry less hard making it easier to sand. The color makes it east to see if the lines are filled. Another nice thing about using superglue is you can rescribe through it better than most other fillers. And finally the landing gear. If I had to do it all over again I probably wouldn't have worried about the tie downs. It was such a pain getting them off and them gluing the new ones back on. I use styrene for the main gear leg tie downs but I might change them to metal. I'm just not sure I like the look, I don't know why I didn't think of using metal initially. Let me know what you guys think... I use .3mm styrene rod for my gear lines. I could never get the hang of using metal for the lines. The styrene is much easier for me to shape and glue. I used to dread making and attaching lines to the landing gear but now I actually enjoy it Thanks for stopping by fellas and please don't hesitate to let me know if there is something I need to change or fix. I especially welcome any help from Phantom experts.

I guess with everything else in life that was tight at first use - you just have to keep it up to get a loose fit that becomes easier with time... Cheers Alan

Thanks for the comments, Today I'm still working on the surface detail. I've glued in place the different access doors on the fuselage. I'm finally satisfied of the adjustment before sanding. After sanding I will scribe the doors after the primer coat at the end of the build The stabilazor is on the bench. I applied the same process for the scribing A death il very important for a scale model to look real, is to obtain thin trailing edges still by sanding the surfaces Here is here below the result on the left compared to the kit stabilizer not yet sanded on the right More updates to come this week end. Eric

Pics of today’s work building up the engines....quite a bit there...... and finally its huge ..... rgds

Howdy folks, Ray Peterson reviews the new Yak-9 kit from Silver Wings: Silver Wings 32-021: Yakovlev Yak-9 M/T Thanks, Ray! Kev

Hi Folks, It’s a New Year and I am planning to start my 1/32 Intruder. Decided to get cracking as it will be entered into 2 local g/b - one on Vietnam and the other on carrier crafts. Been ages since I entered a local group build, so I’ll try my best to enter both and kill two birds with one stone the kit will be mainly OOB and thanks to Mark on this forum, I have nice decals to use on the kit. Not going to correct the seats....might just put two crew figures in there..... pics of box and decals. Hope to start by next week hope all goes well....got a new PS4 for Xmas.....eating into Modelling time....I must admit best regards and happy modelling in 2019....to all brian

Just ordered two sets of replacement brass undercarriage inserts from Alistair @ Aerocraft Models. Photos and review when I have them. As to overall project - nothing further to report just yet. Iain

Max I'm afraid both the FAA and US Navy pilots will be in Newport on Tuesday in the queue to be cast into resin at MDP.

That's a very neat solution Shawn, and far easier to assemble I would imagine than my individually pinned exhaust stubs, it was a bit of a nightmare getting all their faces aligned and level to be able to glue easily to the flame damper. I'm sure you've given the potential painting/masking task a lot of consideration too!?

Bad deduction. I too own plenty of their kits on the armor side. They are mediocre, no doubt about it, but that doesn't mean I don't like or enjoy them. I enjoy fast food and sodas too, that doesn't make them any better. Never said they are a crap company, that's all you. They are mediocre. They were never an A company as ZM or Tamiya /limited releases/. Nor will they ever be one. The kit is mediocre. There is no alternative. That is pretty much self explanatory, correct? Either have it and build it, or complain about its flaws. Already mentioned that in the thread. A lot of folks are spending hours and hours criticizing the kits instead of building them. Probably justifying the lack of will for the actual work.

Great progress Max! I have found some cockpit info that could be of help! At least for painting some little bits here and there: And something for later in the build: Alain

I was going to add the tail parts after painting. It looked like everything would line up at first glance but after dry fitting several more times, I decided against it. My biggest worry was painting the metal areas with the stabs in place. I was afraid to cut the stabs apart because I thought it would lead to alignment issues. The more I looked at it made be believe I could cut it in a way that would make alignment possible, at least that's what I hoped. Here is what I did: Looks like this after cutting Had to do a few more adjustments so it would fit after the tail was attached... Needed to ad this shim so there wouldn't be a gap

The whole rudder is red.I already finished it with the swastika. But I won't show it just yet.

Sorry Buddy, but that Iranian scheme doesn't do much for me. Having said that, this one does turn my crank! Tempting.... The masking alone would be weeks of work! Cheers, Chuck

So, with IP done, I was able to finish the cockpit assembly. From here, I'm ready to close up the fuselage shortly. Carl

Thanks for the kind words guys, I appreciate it. I had time today to take out the scroll saw and work on the bottom of the front fuselage. Draw it and saw it. Sand sides nice and even...………….. This is just the buck to form the plastic around so it has to be .030 smaller so that the plastic card on the outside of the buck will be the same width as the rear fuselage. My plan is to make the bottom of the fuselage out of 3 pieces of plastic card, the bottom and two sides. I've never tried it this way before so we'll see. The difficult area will be the front of the fuselage. If all else fails then I'll vacuform it. Here you can gauge the size that it will be in it's final form. That's it for now, little by little. Thanks for looking in. Mark