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Thx guys, the encouragement is very motivating! Thx Jaws, the flightline look is exactly what I am going for Well, she is done! Here are some preliminary pics, taken under poor lighting conditions. I plan on taking some better shots and Chuck has very kindly also offered to edit them a little more professionally, once I have those shots I will post them in the Ready for Inspection section. But here goes for now: And the double is officially complete: Thanks for looking! Marcel

Hellcat Pilots build log. Part: The Last (sculpting) Things have advanced since part 4 and the final set of smudgy snaps show the two pilots primed and awaiting their final checks before heading off to sunny Newport for the Welsh Wizard (and Tom) at MDP to perform their moulding and casting magic on them. The Fleet Air Arm pilot now has two fleet air arms and his parachute has been added, carried over his shoulder. There were no real problems with this stage of the process. The US Navy pilot (who looks rather grumpy!) had to have his legs altered ( possibly why he looks grumpy) and straps amended to match up with the strapping of the parachute that he is wearing. For both figures the extra additions were sculpted in Magic Sculp or Duro both from Sylmasta. Although it seems I am well on target for having both these pilots finished in time for the proposed May release of the Hellcat by Airfix, things will actually be tight. Moulding and casting has to be done. Boxart and photographing has to be completed and resin castings boxed ready to be dispatched. I'll keep all of you loyal readers (optimistic use of plural here) informed of how things are going.

LOl, Jan, it's a monster of a kit. It even makes my 24th Mosquito look like it's 32nd scale! I have done a 'first look' review for LSP and Kev has it. I have a look at some areas there have been concerns, particularly in the nose shape.

Some updates on my Crusader (s) I have to admit that the Trumpeter panels lines are very accurate compare to the real thing. Nevertheless I modified a little bit the chamber vent for alternator turbine and environmental cooling system heat exchanger. Trumpeter has forgotten to represent the engine compartment cooling vents The black harrow shows the new location of the air scoop If the canopy is opened, the integral and center steps must be opened too. To make them more realistics, the kit engine compartment vents are removed to make anothers in styrene sheet Thanks for looking Eric

Not much progress to report I'm afraid... Work keeps getting in the way! The Vector cowl arrived and I'm impressed! the level of detail is incredible: I haven't decided how to tackle the removal of the existing ribs in the Tamiya cowl front piece... any advice would be greatly welcomed. I've made a start on the engine (another Tamiya work of art! I shot tamiya flat aluminium on the cylinder heads, painted the crank case grey and then gave the whole lot a black wash to pick out the fin detail... looks ok to me! I made a start at attempting to add the HT leads to the Vector part. I think this copper wire is a tad too think, but it's all I have. If I'm not happy with it, then I'll revert to the kit part. That's all for now... thanks for looking.

I should really be moving on to something else but I just can’t resist tackling my third F-16. I started on the Academy two-seater back when I was doing my F-16A and I have been building some subassemblies here and there as made synergistic sense with the other F-16’s. For example, the canopy is polished, Future-dipped and good to go. The (Tamiya) tanks are done with a first coat of paint on them, the ACMI pod is entirely complete, the AIM-9CATM is almost done, the Zacto intake is already painted white inside and the Aires wheel well is ready to be dropped in. In short, I think completing this model will take less than half the time it will take me to do the Legendary Grumman Product project I have lined up next. Here is the exact aircraft I will be doing (pic has free for use rights): I will be using the AFV Club F-16B kit, which is essentially the Academy kit with all the plastic that you would get with the various variants of that plus some resin parts. The most important parts for what will be an F-16D Block 30 are the correct wheels required for a Block 30 and also the non-bulged main landing gear doors. I will use the heavyweight legs when I should be using lightweight main gear but I honestly find it almost impossible to recognize the difference. More important is that I don’t need to use the bulged main gear doors of the kit, which look off from far away (more on that later). I will be using the Two Bobs Arctic Aggressor sheet together with some custom serial number decals and a second red/yellow “6” from the spares box and that should be about it as far as turning this into a Block30 Aggressor. The Tamiya F-16 kit is generally superior to the Academy kit but the Academy kit has some advantages. And of course it is the only two-seater in town. Here is my summary of the ADVANTAGES of the Academy kit (roughly in order of importance): 1. Zacto makes beautiful small and big mouth intakes for the Academy F-16. These are drop-and-go and do away with the tedious seam-filling required for the Tamiya kit. 2. The Aires wheel well fits absolutely perfectly into this kit. I would speculate that Aires designed the set for the Academy kit and then only modified the little panel between the bays for the Tamiya kit. I would strongly advise against using the Aires set on the Tamiya kit, the fit is poor requiring a chain reaction of modifications. 3. The wing leading edge is molded as part of the wing. For the Tamiya kit, I find that the separately produced leading edge is difficult to glue in such that the gap, especially around the hinges, is perfectly neat and consistent. No such worries on the Academy kit. 4. Academy added some nice detail in places where Tamiya didn’t provide any, e.g. on the underside of the center wing pylons. And here are some of what I consider to be must-fix problems of the Academy kit. I am sure there are plenty of additional inaccuracies on the kit but these are the ones that I consider to be too glaring to ignore: 1. The kit intake is spaced too close to the fuselage. Apparently the intake is also misshapen but I have a hard time recognizing that. This is a must-fix issue in my book but fortunately Zacto has turned vice into virtue with his fantastic intakes. 2. The Academy gun muzzle has the slots vertical instead of being slightly slanted back. To my eye this makes the kit look wrong from across the room because this error is right in the focal point of the model. You can address this problem a few different ways and Academy supplies two muzzles so you can mess around a little to see what works. I ended up throwing money at the problem and bought the respective sprue from the Tamiya kit, the Tamiya muzzle fits into the Academy kit almost perfectly. Going the Tamiya route will also ensure a consistent look as my various F-16’s are displayed together. 3. The Academy wingtip and outer wing launch rails (LAU-129) are far too skinny. Simple fix is to use some Tamiya LAU-129’s from the spares box. 4. The bulged main gear doors look way too bulged. I didn’t need these anyway but I think these could just be sanded down to get a better look. And with that, I am launching this thread! More to follow… Cheers, Marcel

Thanks for the info and pics! Quite some difference! I checked them out on Facebook, and there are a few that could be useful. There was even a pin-up girl! Håkan

Cool Anthony now I’m officially jealous jan

I hate to say it, but that zimmerit just looks so much better than my hand made stuff. The only thing my hand-made really has going for it is that it fits any vehicle and is ridiculously cheap. Every time I look at your model I get a little more jealous. Gaz

I was just talking to William and we both agreed that this is the future of modelling. I am so impressed, please keep them coming. Cheers Martin

Ace - thanks to a very kind person of this parish (Bob @ MDC), I've just taken delivery of the Koster 1:48 Privateer conversion for the Monogram B-24J! This gives me lots of shapes/dimensions to scale up and play with - a great source of information - combined with photos and drawings of course. Need to get the wings sorted on the Liberator build before I do anything on this one. Have fun! Iain

That's funny, I have had them land in my slippers, and catch on a pc. of clothing...but never on the head! Ryan

That's for sure. Without a complete restoration ala the 262, FW 190F, etc. visually separating the original paint from the post war 'exhibition' paint from what's there now is extremely difficult. Once the restoration happens what's left is only the museum's educated approach to the a/c's original scheme. It's like they didn't have future modelers in mind at the end of the war! How dare they!

I will go for the DC-3 Mark

I think a flying dutchman is always a good idea.

One set for me , please.

Been working on this one on and off for a while now. It is the much lauded Tamiya rendition of the venerable F-14A Tomcat. The kit was built with the addition of Fine Mold's plastic seat belts and weighted wheels from DEF Model. Painting was done with Mr Color lacquers and weathered with enamels and oils. Decals from the kit but they were a little thick. With superb engineering, this kit was a joy to put together. Feedback welcome and hope you enjoy the photos! Mark

The first and second photo below show the leading edge of the Model Airways 1:16 Sopwith Camel. The third photo shows a 1:1 Sopwith Camel is restoration. If you look at the three red boxes, you can see that the model uses a tiny wooden insert at the leading edge between each wing rib, while the actual plane shows a metal strap in that same position. I've seen other photos of actual camels and they all seem to show the metal strap that winds around the front of the leading edge of the wings. I'm leaning towards the metal strap, but I'm wondering if anyone has any insight into what's right.

According to Messerschmitt Bf 109 F, G, & K an Illustrated Study Jochen Prien & Peter Rodeike, the first G-6s came off the Messerschmitt Regensburg line in February 1943, commencing with W. Nr. 61313 to 16675. The first WFF machines also started production in February with W. Nr. 19093-19999. Note that the WFF production included some G-4 machines. The first Erla machines started production the following March with W. Nr. 15202-16000. Falcon's Messerschmitt Bf 109 Hanger has a lot of info but it is in German.

Thank you very much! I think the first block should fit my need. Gaz

Tim I've got this set. "Hot Box Annie" looks good. https://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=646 Cheers, D.B.

I like Tigers.... I wish they'd do a good, "affordable" one in 1/16. Maybe Trumpeter will consider the Tiger IE in 1/16 with an interior... Oh boy that'd be nice. Anyway, It looks as though you're modeling a factory fresh final model TigerIE and doing a very nice job of it. Those Archer weld beads are a little too uniform for my liking but they do look the part. Is that the 40mm turret roof on that kit? I can't tell if it is or if it's the 26mm turret roof. One thing I noticed is the exhaust guards; they're a little thick (as they are in every 1/35 scale kit I've ever seen). Does not affect the looks of it but these guys were sheet metal and pretty thin (material thickness). I don't know off hand what the thickness is but I'll be David Byrden does. If you've not see his site it's http://tiger1.info/. You can usually find him on Missing-Lynx if you're at all interested. As a tale.... When I built a Tamiya Late Tiger I (that was all that was available at that time...so you can guess how long ago that was), I took a rat-tail file to the insides of the guards and thinned them until they were almost see-through (I don't like photo-etch that much). I then used gentle heat to bend them around the exhaust castings so it looked like the tank backed into something that crushed the guards showing the outlines of the armored castings.... LOL, mine was NOT factory fresh. I also found the Modelkasten wingnuts superb in representing the tow cable clamp securing nuts on the upper hull.

Marvellous work Robert, this has been a really interesting and educational thread to follow. I've learned a lot, I can see there are still many skills and techniques yet to be revealed like the best way of reproducing smaller areas such as belts, buckles, pockets etc., no doubt all straightforward when you know how, but it's knowing the how that remains a mystery!! One loyal reader!

If you can find them, the Kagero Topcolors P-38 books (P-38 Lightning At War Pt. I, P-38 Lightning At War Pt. II, and Pacific Lightnings) all have some early P-38 options in 1/32. - Dennis S. Thornton, CO USA

Nice!

Thanks for the clarification Kev... Matt

No, the AWM is in Canberra, whereas Point Cook is an outlying suburb of Melbourne, probably a half-hour drive from where I live. Point Cook is where the RAAF Museum is based. Kev

Thanks Gaz, .........although I'm absolutely certain not all Zimmerit application was as neat as mine so yours may very well be more accurate than you think. And you're obviously not as lazy as I am either. You have nothing to be jealous of Gaz! Cheers, Wolf

Thanks Brian, It's nice to finally have something on the go after a 4 month drought even if it don't got wings! Cheers, Wolf

Looking forward to that Anthony

Looking just excellent. Hard to go wrong with any Tiger, really. At least as far as I'm concerned.

Well, not to be contrary or anything, but any of these machines that have been painted over rather than stripped and 'restored' are still very valuable because the original paint is still there. The layers can be sanded down through and notes made of the paint layers. Two examples come to mind, the AWM have done an 'excavation by sanding' on the Me 262, black X and most remarkably, the Fleet Air Arm museum at Yeovilton (not a million miles from me) have sanded a FAA Corsair back down to its original markings.. I mean it isn't pristine, but it is the original finish. That's why I believe anything now left with original paint underneath more recent additions should be either left as is or taken back to its original finish (as far as is practicable (NASM Ta 152H would be a candidate, while the Horten is, I believe in need of serious attention to the actual fabric of the aircraft [plywood delaminating]). Lovely 163 images Andreas.... Matt

Hi Tom Haven't been here in a while - as an FYI Please note that the Kermit Weeks "Sunderland" is actually a Sandringham. In 1963, NZ4108 a Mk V/MR5 was purchased from the RNZAF, flown to Rose Bay in NSW Australia, where it was converted from a Military Sunderland to a Civilian Sandringham - the whole of the interior including flight deck was completely changed. Anyone thinking of using Kermit's "Sunderland" to model their Sunderland will not have a Sunderland at all. Because the conversion was not done at Shorts in Britain, the aircraft could not be termed a Sandringham so is called a Sunderland (semantics semantics). In the second video especially, Kermit opens the "Oven" or "Church" door from flight engineers position, you see the Sandringham cabin - the photo below shows what you would see on a Real Sunderland Second Video shows Kermit climbing from lower deck to flight deck straight up the lower bulkhead, in a Real Sunderland the ladder is angled and climbs into flight engineers position - note additional equipment not on Kermit's aircraft Hope that helps PS - figured out how to post my images Regards Alan

Harold, please put me on the list for 1 set. Thanks.

Just amazing wirk as always Brian!! Cheers Alan

I say metal strap.

The masks that I prefer are from Mal at Miracle paint masks but he longer does custom masks, I find the vinyl masks easier to work with than the Kabuki (Tamiya style) masks but then again I have only used one set of Makatar masks. The Montex masks work well but keep an eye on their accuracy. The paint I used for the French roundels (or cockades) was Blue: Humbrol H89 Matt Middle Blue, white Xtracolor X141, Red: Xtracolor X14 Red Arrows Red BS537. Along with lots of other information I found an article on a French site that gave the following: French Roundel Blue leu cocardes : Teinte approchante Federal Standard : FS 35200 Peinture maquette : Humbrol H89 + Blanc Mister kit : FC-14 (éclaircie) French Roundel White Blanc cocardes : Teinte approchante Federal Standard : FS 37886 Blanc mat French Roundel Red Rouge cocardes : Teinte approchante Federal Standard : FS 31105 Peinture maquette : Humbrol HM09, Tamiya X07 Mister Kit : FC-15 Cheers Dennis

Wow, tremendous work! They look magnificent.

Looks good to my eye

I don't think one would learn much from the paint on it

+1

Gorgeous, excellent work Marcel !! You should be very proud of your efforts with these two. Two more masterpieces for the display cabinet. Steve

I agree. Satin finish, or what I call "scale gloss."

Great woodwork. I can imagine that the wood was high gloss. After all, flying was luxery. But a semi gloss will do the job I think.

Great work Mark.

Yes, a great shame it was repainted. At least the 109G-6 is still original. Point Cook 163 in original colors: More 163's: Cheers, D.B.

Forgot to tell you that i filled all panel lines with putty and roughly sanded them since it was done that way on the real planes. All panel lines except places which were continuously accessed like the gun bay and engine panels were puttied in to reduce drag.

I wish you could come to the USA IPMS Nationals. You would get alot of my $. Mike

Stupendous on such a large scale. Going to look nice when you peek through the windows to catch sight of a Flapper!

Yes, I knew I'd seen that before!! Man, I love that one!!