Leaderboard

I've used the Hasegawa 1/32 Canadair Sabre Mk.6 kit to build this F-86F on the beginning of Dec 2018. I was interested in exploring the visual expression of Natural Metal Finishing type of aircraft. I've used the Alcled II lacquers for the painting. With the limited colors and experience I have, this is best I can do at that time. F-86F Sabre 40, Hasegawa 1972 kits, rebox on 2005, 1/32 with raised panel lines.

The 2nd 1/32 kit in my Natual Metal Finishing projects. I spent most of my 2018 Christmas and New Year holidays on it. F-100D Super Sabre 1/32 Trumpeter Kit with Alcled II Lacquers. I've tried not to ink on any panel lines. Instead, using the delicate control of airbrush and compressor PSI to express the idea of metal panels.

Back to the wings... Wing tips lopped off by cutting along the relevant panel line with a fresh scalpel blade - taking care and multiple passes, the plastic is pretty thick. We'll come back to the tips shortly and concentrate on the main body of the wing just now... Strengthening webs removed completely from the rear half of the lower starboard wing, using Tamiya side-cutters followed up with some coarse sanding boards: Comparison with port-side equivalent: And current gap at rear - this will grow as we still have more material to remove from the upper-surface moulding: But - wing root - shape pretty well sorted now! Note - none of the webs further along have been cut yet - so there is a twist in the wing - this will go as we move down the wing with formers. First image - as kit - with some material removed - behind former: Upper and Lower wing sections wrapped around former - rear upper surface of wing will be straighter once bonded: Better? Iain

small progress fit was so far great after I have attached the nose I have realized that I dont like the shape of the lower part of fuselage behind the nose, will check some reference pics fuselage taking the shape 30mm cannon, it will be almost completly hidden wheels wells thanks for looking jan

Cheers Ryan... More work ahead - but really confident of a working solution now! Wing tips: earlier in the thread I mentioned the tip thickness - and this is one of the reasons I'm doing so much work on the wings. Thickness of the kit wing at the tip panel line is 11.66mm Chord is 50.79mm Thickness/Chord ratio on Davis B-24 wing at tip - 9.3% So - 9.3% of 50.79mm = 4.72mm - not the 11.66mm measured!! Of course a picture is worth a thousand words (or 2 thousand of mine!), port wing tip: But the real givaway is looking at the tip cross section: I'll be removing about 6mm depth (about half the kit thickness) to make things look a whole lot better - removing the wing strengthening webs, as shown in my previous post, is just the start of that. Of course, the knock-on is the alierons and flaps are too thick and will need fixing too - but let's get the wings sorted first... Right - off to put more stickers on a certain Spitfire. Have fun! Iain

It's all hangin' on the model now... the X looks like it does in Jakes's book, Jake's book is the last word and that's that Also note the finished little Elta jamming pod: Here's a look at the completed ACMI pod: Cheers, Marcel

So I'm moving along just great on my phantom when I knocked it off the desk onto the floor. Not just any fall but a hard disasterous fall! It broke both wing tips off, broke the nice seal from the wing to fuselage, broke the HUD off and the seam to one of the exhausts busted open. This came the day after I dropped the canopy frame on the floor. No big deal except when I moved my chair back and rolled over it with the chair wheels! So this thing was destined to the shelf of doom but I'm one of those that can't just let if go. I have a few unfinished models but only because I got bored with them. So I took a break for a few days and decided to get back to it. I had a hard time deciding if I should display the wings extended or folded so since I had to start over, I decided to fold them. This is taking a lot of work to clean up the parts and remove the evergreen strips I added on to get the correct wing angle. The wing fold mechanism broke into several pieces on one of the wing tips so that is proving a challenge to fix. I got the HUD glued back on but the join just doesn't look as clean. I had to separate the wing to fuselage join to clean it out. I used superglue last time which I think may have caused it to separate on impact. This time I used extra thin cement and the join seems fairly strong. I just need to re-fill the small gap with surfacer. Here is some work that I had done before the disaster: The little intakes near the nose are too long. They are even with the nose which isn't the case with the photos I've seen. I cut off about 2mm but I probably should have taken off 3mm. At least it's better than it was. These don't have a hard line where they attach to the fuselage, they have a blended look. There is also an AOA that goes in this panel for the Naval version phantom. Not sure how this happened but the splitter plate was in the way of the sparrows. The only option I had was to sand them down a bit. I also thinned the little intake part to the splitter. Oh and thanks for the photos of the rocket part of the sparrows guys! Hopefully things go a bit smooth from here, this model is fighting me every step of the way. I'm gonna have to build another corsair just to get my mojo back haha. Thanks for stopping by fellas... Bryan

Hello everyone. This is my maiden post here on the forum although I’ve been lurking around for about a year now. I really enjoy following the amazing builds on the site, what a talented bunch here. I’m 43 years old and have been an aviation buff since early childhood. I am new to modelling, as I never had the opportunity when I was a child. One of my favorite toys growing up was an already built Corsair model that I found. It was only the fuselage and wings, the rest had fallen or broken off before I found it. Regardless, I loved it haha. Now some 35 years later I’m building my own Corsair. I’ve built four 1:48 scale fighters over the past year and I’m now stepping up to 1:32. I’m still very green at this and the only thing I have going for me is I have a cutting mat and I use Tamiya thin cement (so I at least look the part!) I will do my best with this build and I would surely appreciate any feedback. Please don’t be afraid to give it to me, you won’t hurt my feelings. After all, I would like to improve and advice from others will help me tremendously. I may not always make the suggested corrections with this build but I will certainly take the advice for future projects. Hopefully others new at the hobby that are following this thread can pick up some tips from my mistakes. On to the build. I’m building Tamiya’s 1:32 F4U-1a, everything straight from the box and I’m not adding any scratch built parts. Just keeping my fingers from being glued together will be a challenge enough for me. I’ve read great things about this kit so I thought it would be a nice introduction for me to larger scale planes. I haven’t decided whether or not to do the engine as I like the look of a closed up bird. So far I have the cockpit pretty much buttoned up. Here’s my progress so far.. Thanks for looking and allowing me to share this build here. -Robert

First coat of stain on the first three sets of wing ribs. Went with English Walnut - wanted something just a little dark so that the brass and aluminum work will pop.

Thank you for the kind words. I made some more progress: installed the cockpit and radio operator compartment. It’s a very deceptive kit: it looks like it is going to be an easy fit but actually the main components do not fit at all without careful sanding. I was forwarned by Wouter’s build but it not expect it to be so difficult. Since these pictures I have managed to close the fuselage. I need now to clean up the seam and rescribed the lost details. More pics this week-end. Cheers, David

Finished this workhorse. My first Roden kit. Nice detail, but panel lines are wide and shallow. Added details include an aluminum spinner, turned on the lathe. Thanks for looking, comments welcome.

This found it's way on to the bench last night but, may get bumped for a Revell He 111 H Some of the parts in the box...

The only to see if it can be done: Jari

...

Thanks Az! Still fitting cockpit together and found something that may creep up on your build of this model. Watch out for the clearance of this small forward panel, you'll need to dry fit and trim it down a little to allow the instrument panel to fit. B-25J by The 3rd Placer, on Flickr Ryan

the 3 cardinal rules of an aviator - Always look cool Never crash If you do crash, at least try to look cool

Here are some photos to show that I have been getting a little accomplished. I've also managed to lose several parts on this kit. First was the throttle console which flew off into oblivion when I was trying to bend the Eduard PE part to match its contours. I am working on my second scratch-built replacement. On this one, I think I will just use a paint marker to mark the grooves for the throttles, etc. Scribing the grooves didn't work very well the first time. I still have the Eduard PE pieces, but other than the levers, I am going to forego the PE for the throttle and use some Airscale placard decals and scratch-built details. The other part I lost was one of the MG17s. I have no idea what happened to it, but Shawn M (and Max, aka Mozart) offered to send me a replacement that he wasn't using. Sorry for the lousy photos. I have been having to use my phone to take the pictures because my good camera is on the fritz. My lighting is a little bad because one of my light stands is out of commission. Thankfully, I do not have a dead cat, as his chewing is what put the light stand out of commission. The seat harnesses are HGW, some from a set for a 2-seat Ar 234, and some from spares from other builds. I've also got the instrument panel done, but the photo is so out-of-focus that I'm not going to post it. Hope to have more to show soon. Bill

It's Tamiya kit I've built on Nov 2018.

Since I got back into the hobby last year, I can't seem to concentrate on just one build. In addition to the Bf 110D-3 I'm working on for the group build, I just started this Trumpeter kit. I had never used a clear instrument panel before, so I was looking forward to seeing how this one turned out. Alas, it was not to be. I had the glass parts of the instruments masked with Vallejo masking fluid, and while I was prepping some other parts for priming, the IP vanished. I think it stuck to my arm or shirt and got carried to some other part of the house. I will probably find my 'problem' cat playing with it one day. Luckily, I had an Eduard Bf 109G-6 IP available. It has an extra panel (external armament controls?) below the main IP, but I figure a photo-recce 109 would have a similar panel for controlling the camera(s). Here is a pic with the Micro Kristal Clear not yet dry (and a couple of unknown things stuck to the IP): The kit didn't include the fuel flow inspection line on the starboard sidewall, so I made an attempt at adding one. Hopefully it will look the part after painting. That's it for now. Bill

HobbyBoss and Trumpter are know for mirroring things. If there's something on one side it has to be on the other. This isn't always the case. Trumpeter's A-4M is a good example of this. Excellent work so far on the Harrier, keep it up. Steve

Thanks for support guys! Iain

Some progress.. Painting mostly done: Colors are RLM81/82 over RLM76

My decals arrived so I can start! These are Two Bobs decals for the aircraft as it appeared after the 65th Aggressor Squadron was disestablished and the aircraft went to California.

A little more photo recon revealed an access panel that shouldn't be.. so have to fill, too bad I didn't notice until after I opened all the fastener holes for photo-etched parts, well at least I didn't glue all those in .... this panel is only on the left side of the cockpit.

Thanks SHawn i have got the engines done up.... moving along to the cockpit. hate the masking job ahead. the seats....still deciding if a crew should be included thats all for now rgds

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

Thank you for the offer. I have the WWP publication with a very complete walk around of the Cosford museum Me 410, highly necessary reference given the fact that HPH instructions are rather vague. I plan to scratch build the BK5 and leave the bay open. My understanding is that with the BK5 mod, the Me 410 was not retaining the usual opening mechanism of the bomb bay but the two doors were screwed or riveted together and the whole thing was coming out as a unit when it was time to load or service the gun as shown in the picture above. I will cut the two doors, glue them together and I will look into embedding some tiny magnets in the door so I can show the bomb bay or close it at will. I made some good progress but this kit is not a run in the park, every little piece needs to be cleaned up and you need to be careful doing that as some parts are actually pretty fragile. A set of micro and pico saw from Radu are an absolute necessity. I have started sanding the fuselage. As was noted by Wouter in his build, you need to remove about a millimeter on each side of the fuselage (and more at the tail) otherwise the tail and the cockpit glass will not fit. I am in the middle of doing that but it takes time and it cannot be a rush job, plus it's bloody cold outside so the resin sanding sessions are always short... I am 90% done with the pilot cockpit and 60% done with the radio operator / gunner. I have chosen not to use the HPH/eduard colored etch for the cockpit as it is in a strange shade of blue which does not match the RLM66. I have used the resin pieces as they have pretty good details and used airscale dials and placards plus some careful painting with acrylics. I have cut a few items from the eduard photoetch when I could use them. All in all I am pretty happy with how it looks. On the pics below everything has been gloss coated in anticipation of some light weathering. I still need to add all the levers but will do that when I am ready to install the cockpit in the fuselage to avoid breaking them. As was the case for Wouter's build, you only have one half of the control stick in the box, the top half is missing. I followed Wouter's path by carving the top half from a piece of sprue and added bits and bobs, I still need to add some wires but you get the idea, should look better under paint: That's all for now. It is amazing to see all these ambitious builds going on at the same time, highly motivational. Cheers, David

Howdy Gang, I don't know where my old thread went. So, I will restart it. It's tough displaying some of these large models so I look for alternative ways. One of my solutions is to show the model in transport. I like seeing them out of context. They are easier to display with the wings off. The display is more interesting because it is on a flatbed trailer or something. Anyhoo, let's start this again.

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

The model I made a long time ago, This is a model from the OLD SCHOOL category. Model Hawker Hunter Revell 1:32 Model straight from the box, and the other I try not to build.

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*

I'm new to this forum and new to model plane building, but I thought I might share some pics of my previous project. I'm just getting ready to start a Model Airways Sopwith Camel. My intent is to replace all of the pot metal parts with scratch built pieces in brass, aluminum and copper. Wish me luck.

In paint Tamiya Matilda Takom M3 Tamiya Challenger

Gorgeous- especially the weathering! There's a fine line between not enough and far too much weathering, and you just nailed it. Where did you get the ACMI pod? AMS (Harold)? I'm going to need one for my Tiger. Cheers, Chuck

wow that is superb work Iain! thanks that you are sharing this with us! jan

OK - photos time... Special parts delivery I mentioned earlier? Well, that was a box of 3D printed depth charges suitable for the maritime patrol Liberators, designed and printed by Tim Perry (wunwinglo), Flying Start Models - to an incredibly high standard. Two types - the Mk VIII and Mk XI: Look out for a review of these, and other items soon. These will be available from Tim's website in the near future. Back in a mo... Iain

Just a dirty cotton bud Mark - sorry to disappoint. Well we are never happy are we! I convinced myself that the only RLM 83 (old name) out of the bottle I had was too light - indeed the Polyscale bottle said 82 'Dark Green' and their 83 was the lighter green instead of the other way around - anyway I had no other 'Old name 83' dark green and there was a big difference between the 83 chip in the Ullmann book and that on the card provided with the Merrick volumes and so believing that what I could see in most photos was darker than what I had done and seeing that the 83 chip in the Ullmann book was darker than the Merrick cards I opted to mix Xtracolour 73 with 10% Xtracolour 71. The photos came out terrible as I was losing the light at the time but most of the model is now more a 'bronze Green' than an Olive Green and fits the Ullman chip and I think the photos better than what I had.......I think haha? O what have I done??????? Please do not think that I am going for a two-tone green machine - it is just the way the light is hitting the middle of the right wing but that being said I have not put too much paint on

Hey Chuck, Great minds think alike. I'm right behind you, just trying to wrap up my Corsair. Ziggyfoo's linked threads should help. Those AIM's decals are the only ones out there (that I've been able to find). They are nice (no idea how well they will go down) but still a bit lacking. For decent HAVR's I plan on buying the sprue from the Tamiya F4U-1D Corsair kit and probably the decals since they have very details stenciling markings for those rockets. Other than those items, you should be good to go (unless you need to add a black box or two in the cockpit, on that I have no idea). The Tamiya D/K kit comes with appropriate drop tanks to use as Napalm bombs (gonna paint mine that garish yellow color that was often used). Only other things you'll need to decide on is whether to putty the wings or not and whether to go with an upgraded overall black cockpit or leave it in the original WW2 spec green. I'm still not sure I fully understand those issue, will be doing more research when I get closer to starting this project. Despite these details, for me the hard part is going to be replicating the "beat to ****" appearance of these aircraft. Faded natural metal and covered in dirt and grime. I'm not sure my finishing skills will be up for the challenge. Here's a good example I posted elsewhere. I'm going to be struggling with that finish. No shiny chrome paintwork on this one, like you see on so many other models. Good luck, post plenty of pics. I'll be taking notes.

Back on decals today - pics later. Took her to my club on Thursday evening (Chippenham, Wilts) and she survived inspection by my peers - so that was encouraging! Iain

Try this... Working on it at the moment - should have some updated photos in my build thread later today. Tips are already cut off my 'test' wing. Iain

HI everyone, I've been motoring on in spurts and spitz with this projekt. I had a bit of a fuzzy primer disaster because I forgot to thin it with self-leveling thinner. So, I had to sand down the black and lay down a second bit of white. White because I will be making the markings, which are mostly white. Here are some pics: It's been a fun build so far, but my joy has been marred by some sanding detritus that didn't decide to show until the canopy was sealed. Thanks for looking! Gaz

Sound about right. I had been hacking away at molds for a LSP Foxbat, and now ICM is kitting one.... I guess the old Chestnut about starting a scratch build ending with an IM release is true.

Preparing to build the wings this weekend.

Crashed on D-Day : http://www.americanairmuseum.com/media/19648 Painted something like this : http://www.americanairmuseum.com/media/8611 hth

You did a fantastic job on that old kit! Kev

First up, I finished the elbow rest for the Ruhrstahl X-4 control stick. Since no pics of the actual elbow rest exist (that I know of) and the fact that this is a later iteration of the X-4 this is what mine looks like. Its not perfect but looks the part IMHO. It actually swivels and locks out of the way, swinging back toward the console, but I have it locked in the extended position so people can see what its actually for: Next up it was time to make sure the fuselage was closed up. I got the fuselage closed up, and the spine graphed on. The fit on both was actually pretty good: Next up, I got the QB exhausts painted and installed. These were not rusted out, nor super weathered ,but I used Alclad jet exhaust, followed by some Alclad pale burnt metal, and then some flat clear with soot on the tips. All sounds complex, but the colors sort of blended more than I expected They actually look much better IRL than in pics: Then I took some time and got the engine covers installed. This took some doing, as the rear engine covers were a tight fit, and getting the trailing edge around the exhausts was a bit of a task. For this, I was in a quandary about how to mask all those exhausts stacks off. What I ended up doing, was some fancy dancy masking, by actually making a pocket of tape for the exhausts and attaching them to the panels before gluing in the engine cover panels, both front and rear. This seems a bit odd, but it resulted in a very tight mask around each exhaust set on each side. So far this has worked out better than I hoped, but the litmus test will be once the model is painted, as I will see if the tape comes off as easy as I hope it will. I made sure to attach the inner portion of the tape with minimal attachments to the inside surface of the engine covers, so when it does come time to remove the tape, there wont be a lot of tape holding things in place from the inside. I also could not resist putting the cowl, cowl flaps, rad front and both props on as a mock-up to see what things are going to look like: As you can see, I also cut down the port side exhaust intake shield, as I thought it looked odd extending so far beyond the rear of the exhausts: Both rear engine panels did fit, but they were tight, and will need a bit of finish sanding/tidying up: All in all, Im very please at how fast this one is going together, and how well its turning out: Tomorrow today (starting right now actually!) we are supposed to get 6 - 10" of the white stuff, and hit a low of -5F, so the boss just said to work from home. That means its Friday and Ill be working on work model stuff here. I think tomorrow I will be hitting the spares drawer to see what I can find in the way of louvers or scoops for some extra rear engine cooling for the A-2 Trop. I also got the Eduard exterior in, so am also going to try to get the rad screen painted and installed as well. As always cheers and thanks for dropping in on me!

Ok friends a post with two objectives. First: I have begun the weathering on the 1/32 Hasegawa P-40E. Using both a cheap set of oils and Abteilung 502 paints. I want to give this build a finish that suggests a story of an aircraft that has seen some hard use but is still airworthy. The aircraft was based out of India and supported flights over the Burma hump. Now the second objective is the quality of the pictures. I have spent quite a bit of time over the last four or five days trying to dial in a better quality picture. These are the latest in the test. Please all comments, critiques, and criticism are encouraged. Joe

I got the wiring done behind the IP, of which there will be a surprising amount showing. There is the IP itself, and then an angled panel ahead of it that follows the contour of the base of the windscreen. The windscreen got finished off with some various sizes of plastic rod for instruments in the back, followed by some yellow wire used for car spark plug wires. Yes, I know, its overscale, but I still think it will look good under the windscreen when done. The forward angled panel I painted raw aluminum for some variation, and used some EZ Line in bundles to busy that area up: The angled aluminum panel went in first, as it dictates where the upper cowl/gunbreach panel sits, so I glued that in, then glued the top/gun breach panel in to that. You can see here I also glued in the forward nose ring, as it mates up to the top gun breach panel: I then glued in the two gun cover panels. Both of the panels fit fairly well with only a bit of force and a tiny bit of CA to take up a very minor gap. Sanding still to come: MORE..................

engines done perfect fit and great fun to glue it together thanks for looking jan