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This is my Monogram Piper PA-22 Tri Pacer. This vintage kit was manufactured from 1957 onwards and is listed as 1:32 scale although there is some opinions that it is 1:33 or 1:34 scale. It was close enough to meet my needs however and when I saw the kit for sale at a model show, it immediately appealed to my esoteric taste in large scale model aircraft. The kit boxing that I have appears to be similar to the earliest release of the kit, although it was still shrink wrapped and in excellent condition for its apparent age. The decals were not quite up to scratch and having a mask cutter, I set out to find an appropriate and attractive scheme upon which to apply to this model. I wanted to have it retain its classic Piper looks but have a modern take on it. The one aircraft that was jumping out at me was VH-OLD, a Western Australian based Tri Pacer. I was able to tick a few boxes here; Australian subject, beautiful retro scheme, great Rego (with the emphasis on the OLD part!) and of course some nice clear photos of the aircraft which would enable me to use my Silhouette Portrait mask cutter to full advantage. I recently made contact with the owner of VH-OLD, Philip Maley and he was able to send me a comprehensive history of the aircraft which I have partially reproduced here. The aircraft started out as VH-RST, purchased brand new by the Royal New South Wales Aero club in Bankstown in 1958, where it was unpacked from a shipping crate and assembled. It then changed hands in 1963 and became VH-BST, based in Queensland where it also carried out flying school duties. Sometime after that it then moved to Western Australia where it was owned by various farmers. During this time, it was repaired after striking a sheep in 1969, and then unfortunately being blown over on its back at Wongan Hills in 1981. The aeroplane was then comprehensively restored by Mr R. Devenish to the state that it is in now, then passed along to another owner before being purchased by Philip in 2006 where it has been ever since. (photos from the Geoff Goodall collection) Some historic images of the aeroplane: As VH-RST As VH-BST at Wongan Hills During restoration: After restoration: Whilst wanting to keep this model as out of the box as possible, there were a few details that I felt needed to be added. I was keen to retain the retro look and feel of the original release as I know that a lot of the older generation of modellers would have cut their teeth on these kits many years ago, and it was important to me that it would bring back memories of a far simpler time in modelling to someone who had built it in the past. The openable doors had to stay although I filled and rebuilt the hinges, losing the `snap fit’ nature of them. I retained all of the raised detail. I scratchbuilt: exhaust pipe spray deflector and torque link behind the nose wheel tail bumper anti collision light bell cranks to the ailerons and rudder with corresponding rigging antenna wheel covers landing lights. pitot tube diagonal bars inside cockpit seatbelts from metal foil. tailplane rigging with knitting in elastic I flattened the kit tires to simulate the weight of the aircraft. The model was finished with Gunze Sangyo acrylic over white Primer. Enjoy!

Here are the updated images with the ****ing canopy mask removed.

Hi Guys, Still with the Mossies! Radiator fronts in place. Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr Lower wing parts in place. Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr Screwed and glued. Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr It's a big beastie! Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr And the wing tops on! Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr Regards, Bruce Crosby

Hello all- been busy painting the Live Resin (and other) figures for the upcoming Kitty Hawk HH-60G Pavehawk. I’d like to get the figures done before the kit is released so I can simply concentrate on the kit once it is out- more to follow- Pete

Hi All, Here’s the rather huge Hobby Boss 1/18 Fw190. It’s a much maligned kit - not enough detail, over simplistic etc. However It’s actually excellent in lots of ways; it’s pretty cheap for the size of kit, I picked this up for £65 and yes, it is simple and lacking in detail for the size, but it makes up for that in quality of fit and the surface detail is exceptional, so it’s basically a great canvas for detailing and paint. I had fun making it. This thing is huge! Guy Build thread here:

My entry into the Multi-Engine Group Build is B-17E 41-2446, the aircraft that would go on to become the famous "Swamp Ghost." This site gives a good overview of her ordeal as one of the first handful of bombers the USAAF would throw at the Japanese. In short, she left Australia on February 22nd, 1942 to bomb Japanese positions at Rabaul. Shot up over the target and leaking fuel, the pilot, Fred Eaton opted to put her down in a grassy field north of the Owen Stanley mountain range in New Guinea. As it turns out, the "grassy field" was actually the Agaimbo swamp and the bomber settled into the mud. The crew abandoned her after dutifully disposing of the Norden bombsight, and ultimately returned to combat duty later. For many years, she lay undisturbed. Rediscovered in the 1970s, visited in the 1980s, and ultimately recovered and exported over many years beginning in 2006, she is the only B-17E still in original battle condition. My intent is to build this kit into 41-2446 as she would have appeared at some/any point during her short career prior to her loss. This presents a couple of challenges. First, there are - to my knowledge - no known images of the aircraft before she was shot down, so I'll have to make some educated guesses as to configurations and whatnot. Secondly, and perhaps the biggest challenge, is that she was equipped with the Sperry remotely-operated belly turret. The HKM kit which I'll be using does not have this, so I'll have to take a shot at building it from scratch. I've never done any scratch building of this magnitude, so any guidance is appreciated. Lastly, general references for the B-17E (particularly internal photos) are pretty hard to come by. Boeingimages.com is turning out to be pretty helpful, though most of the pics of E models appear to be pre-war, factory-fresh aircraft. There were a handful of post-crash photos taken during the war which give some clues as to her general configuration and painting. She carried the early-war insignia with red center, her rudder was striped red & white, she likely had the large "US ARMY" marking on her underwing, and her vertical stabilizer was a slightly different/lighter OD green than the rest of the ship. Beyond that, I'm guessing she was a pretty standard early B-17E. Happily, I visited her in her new location in June of 2018, so I have some first hand pics. Sadly, however, she's pretty well stripped of most parts and you aren't allowed around the rear of the ship. So, the pics I could take were limited to the forward section. Here is the album of my trip. I'll be using the Hong Kong Models B-17E/F kit for the build with some Eduard extras thrown in. I started this kit in February 2017, but my heart wasn't in it and the build stalled. I'm excited to get back to it now as I feel my skills have improved over the last 2 years such that I can make an actual attempt at doing this kit and aircraft justice. You'll see in some of my "current-state" photos that my initial efforts were sub-par. I didn't realize much of the floor work is plywood and my chipping efforts were very unsatisfactory. That said, I'll be repainting almost everything that's been painted so far, so we'll be taking a few steps back from what is the current state. In discussing it with the mod team, I've been given the green light for the sub-25% rule. That said, here is the current state of affairs. Work bench on the left, paint bench w/references in the middle, and the big plastic parts in the kit box on the right. Organization is key to my sanity in the workshop. I usually spend about a half hour every evening straightening up after a bench session. Assembled references. Taking suggestions for anything that shows the remote-turret or other interior fittings in detail. Everything you see here is the current-state from my 2017 efforts. I have to eat crow here and fess up to the fact that I clearly did not do my homework with respect to painting the interior. Sigh. The guns turned out passable. The step where the previous project died: Cleaning up the bombs. I remember clearly having a "screw this" moment and immediately boxing the kit back up. Fortunately, I had the sense to mask the inside of the windows before painting. I shouldn't have installed them in the first place, but apparently I was off my medication or somesuch that day. With that said, I'm ready to start tackling this kit properly.

My Macchi 200 built with a little help from my friends and months of patience, most of the parts had to be scratched : For example the engine.

Hi all, I’d like to share my recent build- Hasegawa’s 1/32 Bf109 G2. This photo recon fighter was from 2.(H)/14, La Marsa, Tunisia, March 1943. The spinner originally was 2/3 RLM70 and 1/3 white but the white part was darkened for some reason. I tried for an overall worn appearance for this heavily used plane. Thanks for letting me share this.

Hi folks been busy working on an Airfix test kit to bring you a cockpit upgrade for when the new F6F is released.. ..will be a nickel silver photo-etch set with bespoke colour instrument & placard decals should get a PE test shot next week so hopefully have something to show then TTFN Peter

Still need to paint boots... plus a bunch of other details Pete

This PJ will be riding up the hoist on the stokes litter with a wounded Afghan - this will be an in flight display- the Crew Chief will be running the hoist cheers Pete

Excellent paintwork, Pete! Cheers, D.B.

All hand painted with Vallejo paints- cheers Pete

Nah, Tamiya will do a Mk I for the upcoming Battle of Britain 70th Anniversary, complete with raised rivets on the tail and flush rivets elsewhere, and details to do all types of Mk I from first production to last production, AND include a little model of a flying pig. PR PS In 1/48 they'll do a Mk Vc

Concrete was poured a couple of weeks ago, moment of truth turning the slate over from the mirrored pouring... The result is better than I expected, no big air pockets or anything... The division of the concrete slabs have been made with a hobby knife. Some nice irregularities add some texture to the concrete... Surface detail... That's it for now: Kent

Ya, surprise, surprise!! I'm going to annoy the whole world until it happens.

Ready for mass production... Cheers: Kent

Yes, a P-47 would be good. Provided they include RAF/SEAC markings - a razorback in in RAF camouflage has a certain, shall we say, business-like look about it.

Many thanks Brian! Thanks Terry! Yours and everyone else's ceaseless words of encouragement are what keeps a build like this going, especially after all this time! Well now, where did that last month go? Oh yeah that's right, I was in NZ for a week, then two days at home, then down to Avalon with work. Oh how times flies - literally!!!!! I finally had a quietish weekend (notwithstanding getting my house broken into and laptop stolen) and I really wanted to have a crack at covering the waist windows with aluminium. As these are riveted over the top of the existing skin, I can get them all ready to go now, then place them on at a later date (about June, 2035 at my rate!). This like many other aspects of this build, promised to be highly challenging, especially as there is a formed depression in the metal to meet the rear of the window, as well as the openings for the wind deflectors and the forward observation window. Have a look below at how the adventure unfolded...... First up was to cut the piece oversize and anneal if for forming the depression. I did this over the "inside" of the acrylic frame I had already made. The unfortunate by-product being that the metal was now very soft, so removing the three apertures for the windows was quite tricky and very time consuming.... Slowly, I began to make headway, but I really needed a solid support so I didn't unnecessarily distort the shape. I vac formed another piece of the fuselage section and taped the piece inside so as to keep the curvature.... Trying to get a nice shape to the front window was extremely difficult, and took a lot of filing then rechecking against the reference pics... I finally got there though, and with rivets applied (heaps of fun!) it was glued in place on the acrylic window sill.... A close up of the front showing the rivets to good effect. A little more shaping of the wind deflector port there and it's not looking too bad! Yet a bit more whittling and the previously shaped waist window fits nicely! Still got to line the windows with aluminium, but it does fit! Yay! I also redid the top cap on the tail cone to make it look a bit neater..... not entirely how they did it in real life but this piece is small!!!!! I promise I'll start the tail wheel soon! Cheers, Craig

This has definitely been a build of innumerable firsts Terry, but at the end, what have I got to lose? If I stuff up a part, I make a new one and hopefully learn from the mistake and not repeat it! Hahaha Many thanks Peter! I remember all the "fun" you had with your Spit, but you DID nail it in the end! I feel I have come to an understanding with Acrylic, and it seems to be working for me, so I'd very much imagine that you'll be able to coax it to your will with your magician-like skills Acrylic definitely is the way to go my friend! Thanks Wolf! Great to hear from you! Hahaha, yes you're right! I'll have not very much of a HK B-17 that took an awful long time! But it will be worth it! I can't wait to get the fuselage all closed up, and get working on that beautiful aluminium finish! Mid-week mini update before things get hectic for about a month again! I thought you guys would be keen to see what the tail cone looks like with the rest of the tail in place (I know I was!) Not bad... line-up looks good, but how does it measure up with the rudder in play? Not too shabby at all! For those that are familiar, the tail cone does stick out a little further than the edge of the fin. For a while I was worried I was going to come up short! I'd love nothing more than to fit it to the fuselage now, but there's some hoops to jump through first.... Hoop 1. Polishing..... I think it was Torben who was asking about how I was going to polish the acrylic, the answer is SLOWLY and WET. Only done a little tonight on one half, but it seems to be working so far. Both inside faces had a fair amount of distortion due to imperfections in my hydrocal casts (Should have had a better finish on these!), but patient sanding with a 400 grit sanding stick, followed by progressive grades of 3M sanding sponges, up to microfine, seems to be going well. I haven't use any form of polish or micromesh yet, so it should look even better after that, if the one on the right is anything to go by! Hoop 2. The tailcone needs to be one piece prior to final fitment onto the fuselage. This can't happen without Step 1, so each side needs to be internally as flawless as I can make them, as I won't be able to get inside once they're joined together..... Hoop 3. Both fuselage halves need to be joined. Well hoop 3 is going to take a while to sort out for obvious reasons, but in the meantime there's plenty of polishing practice for me! Cheers, Craig

Alrighty, after replying to 11 comments I think it was time to summarise the latest effort in a new post The latest little adventure in the journey has been aimed at trying to wrangle some acceptable looking transparent parts. Now, as you guys know, the early B-17's had some really interesting looking clear parts, prior to the introduction of power turrets on the E model. First of all, and perhaps more importantly, is that after lengthy discussions with Terry (TKB) about cowling shapes and always referring to this build as a C/D as I hadn't made up my mind, I finally decided that I will be making this a C model. The two mains reasons are a) cowl shape and no flaps (just to differentiate a little more from later models) and b) single .50 mounts in the radio room and bathtub, so there's more room to see the detail inside! Anyway you guys came for the pics, so here they are.... First of all, I made patterns in Hydrocal for vac forming an assortment of clear parts. What's the big rectangular one you might ask? hopefully, that will be become clear soon (pardon the pun....) First of all, I did the observer's dome. This came out looking pretty good, and best of all, a nice match to the hatch I'd already made in the laser cutter.. *disclaimer - I have yet to polish theses too Seeing I was on a win, next came the waist windows. This is where the rectangular piece came in - it is a representative piece of fuselage with the correct curvature at the waist window. I would form oversize pieces then patiently whittle them down to fit in the previously made holes in the fuselage. Then, I made the removable window separately, including its triangular shaped depression at the rear for the gun barrel. This was then traced onto the waist window and the excess carefully removed. This took most of the day to do, with many, many dry fits!!!!!! Till I finally had a very nice fit in the existing window Now the real trick. I also had to continue the relief on the back side of the existing window (although this is formed in aluminium on the real thing, so I didn't include it in the master shape. I had an idea that I could just vac-form and extra 2 removable windows and graft the triangle piece onto the rear. And so with much more careful "whittling" of the acrylic, I ended up with this.... And now for the "in-use" shots... Yes, they still need a lot of cleaning up, but for something I have been absolutely dreading doing for so long, it didn't really end up being that hard, just a lot of careful and laborious filing and sanding to get things to fit. Not completely there yet, but I'm chalking that up for the win!!!!! I think I'm finally starting to tame this beast!!! Craig p.s. Luckily the Townsville floods did not affect the house, or much more importantly, my workbench!!!!!!!!

Elevators and rudder now have copper pins added to help with rigidity, once glued firmly in place. (These obviously still need to be trimmed shorter.)

Thanks a bunch, Ray. Just when I now thought this IP was finished, I noticed (after uploading the pics), that I have not yet added the ammo counter markings. Oh well, back to the bench for me, I guess.

With the exhausts now spritzed with MM burnt metal and given a couple of dirty grey/black washes, they look quite acceptable now, at least to me.

With the stacks now dry, I've opened them up a bit (enough, anyway), so as to look more the part. I must say that this would have been a whole lot easier to do before they were attached, so I definitely played this one wrong.

After a somewhat lengthy delay, the remaining six stacks (port side), are now added and include weld seams. They obviously need to be straightened a bit, but that should be pretty easy.

Ok tank is all welded up and this is fresh off a coat of Mr Surfacer I am really happy how this turned out! Perfect welds with Archer Panel Lines, such a great product And sooooo easy to do. A couple of little jobs to finish off and the 400 gal tank and pylon is done. Cheers Anthony

"Glamor shot".

I also added more wires and whatnot to floor, as well as port fuselage wall (still not quite finished yet, but almost).

Tonight was very productive. I fine tuned the cannon cover top.

Here's some paint slopped on the IP. After adding whatever of the Airscale stencils I can use, I'll re-photograph it, as this is really not such a great photo.

All exhaust stacks now finished for this side, and I've commenced real work on the remaining six. These actually look pretty decent to my eye, and I hope will look really cool once painted up.

Though actually not too bad on this kit, I've still went ahead and thinned the exhaust shields for a better appearance.

.010 chunks added to fill in the P.E. slots in the rudder, as I will definitely not be using those on this effort (or probably any others for that matter).

A fair amount of good work done here today, but not a lot that's photo worthy, save for perhaps this, the slow clean-up and installation of the exhaust stubs, followed by the addition of weld beads as I go along.

Once I made the commitment to not bother with the main wheel wells (quite a relief, actually), upper wing halves are now secured in place and super glue being used to fix all seams and problem spots.

The gorgeous Barracuda wheels now given some primer,... and paint. (Sorry about the darkness, but the tires are a pretty dark grey with very dark grey hubs.)

Thanks Peter! Thats a real compliment coming from you after following your F-15I, thank you. I just wanted to say that I received these decals from Simon (KitmodellerNZ) and they are Awesome with a capital 'A'. If you are planning a Kiwi Scooter in the overall green scheme, then this is a must have! The extra attention to detail etc is second to none. Along with the names for the pilots for the last flights etc. If you want them, then his email is KMNZdecals@gmail.com I have nothing to do with his little production, just feel you should know. Cheers Anthony

Hi all Well now I have the masters for the cockpit panel and HUD all boxed and ready to go to Roy, I have a clean conscience that I can get to work on this again for myself! Although it has been a struggle not to go back to my 32nd or 24th Mosquito models....I have a HUGE shelf of doom in case anyone is wondering! Just digging this up now so I can start posting updates again. I have paused the cockpit for obvious reasons and have gone back to ordinance stuff. Presently I am working on the Fisher 400 gal centerline fuel tank and the pylon it fits too. I made the master for Paul many many moons ago. Anyway, there are one or 2 areas that I now feel could be slightly improved. I bluntened the nose a little but in the process lost my nice weld beads on there. Tried fixing it and made it worse....ugh! Now it is all sanded smooth to re-do. I am adding stiffener circular plates to where the sway braces contact the tank and have drilled several holes in the top (and also going through the pylon) to give solid attachment pins going right through the lower wing and be able to epoxy it in. I don't want it jettisoning on the display cabinet in a few years time LOL. But the good thing is that it serves as couplings and transfer lines to be replicated. Also reworking the sway braces like I did with the other pylons. All this weight means I am going to have to look at making new stronger (and much shorter) main u/c legs. The kit ones are awful. We need to petition Ali to make us some nice new ones like he did for the Phantom!!! Sorry for lack of photo's, but hopefully soon when I have something more to show I will start posting again soon. Cheers Anthony

So, I've had some days to digest Telford and I finally made it back to the 'workstation'. I'd better try to finish this Arado. all that inspiration, accumulated at Telford, really has made my head 'buzz' with new idea's and plans. What still needs to be done, is to finish the Luftwaffe 'Portalkran'... I do not know what this part is called in English, it was used to attach the engine to the hook of the crane. The winch with wire and chain. Attaching the winch to the crane... I did a temporary base used for display at Telford. I think it maybe needs to be bigger now? Cheers: Kent

Wait a second ... Hope this helps

One boo boo that I didn't discover until after the fact, was that the addition of an .010 shim to cowl panel front end, just ended up pushing the cowl backwards, creating larger gaps around the lower part of the panel. I've now shaved off that shim (not yet done in this photo though) and will just shim it at the rear, as that's where the biggest gap appears to be anyway.

Much as I'd suspected, in this big honkin' scale, supercharger intake will definitely be visible, so I'll go ahead and add a proper debris guard to it, and quite possibly a compressor face, assuming I can conjure up something appropriate.

I also have some gorgeous Master 1:24 MG's to use on this, leftovers from my aborted K-4.

As is typical for me, I'm building a few sub assemblies to work on outside (once the weather here cools off a bit). There's little that I enjoy more, hobby wise, than to sit on the deck when the weather is nice, with a mug of coffeine, some sanding sticks and parts, enjoying the fresh air and working on some hobby bits.

Videoaviation pylons are very nice but they are not the specific pylons for the Kormorans. I think you will have to build them from scratch. Fortunatelly, they are not the most difficult part to do. But references are hardly available.

Thanks for the interest and comments guys! Glad you're all approving of my amateurish efforts so far! Well I figured I couldn't really go any further without putting some paint on. Tommy P informed me that the early model B-17's would most likely have been natural metal in most of the interior, apart from those parts covered in soundproofing of course. Now I am absolutely rubbish at metal finishes, I think a large part of it has to do with poor choices in undercoats. For this I chose Alclad black primer, which I will never do again. It came out very dusty, which was almost impossible to remove and so easily showed through onto the silver surfaces. I used Alclad duralumin, which I know works, as I've seen other people achieve great things with, so I put this one down to operator error. In the end it's probably not the end of the world, as this area will have a floodlight, but its positioning will cast some rather large shadows, so hopefully it will hide my shoddy paintwork. I'm also going for the "hard pressed" look, so I played around with some washes and the like. So here is before: And after: I still had to add another 5 control cables on each side running from the pulley box. Instead of making actual pullies on the outside, I just used styrene rod to create a 90 degree bend for the cable runs as this area will be covered anyway. Having never built a Biplane model, I can only imagine how sporting running rigging is after dealing with this lot.... .... yes I'm still working out camera settings So the underfloor area is almost finished, tomorrow I'll be able to paint the flight deck floor and make a start on the centre pedestal and instrument panel, which of course will have to be scratch built as it will now be a different shape. This will be my first foray into using the air scale etched instruments and I must say I'm looking forward to it! Cheers, Craig

thank you !I'm glad you like it ! here's now the propeller ( Eagle resin spinner .... great shape and molding ) cya Fanch

hello again ! thank you for your kind words, guys ! I worked on the wings with alclad shades and touches of RLM76 according to a photograph in the blue Japo book. Unfortunately metallic variatons dont appear that much on the pics I did a wash in panel lines with sepia ink ( work better than oil on metallic paints, I think ) With a fiber pencil I showed back the scratches I did before the exhaust stains but removing more or less paint. I also did scratches aroud the exhaust stains on places where pilot or ground staff could walk or scratch them cya Fanch

hello here are the next steps of the weathering: I used highly thinned Gunze Smoke to whip the leading edges of the wings, to make stains, and marked some panel lines blowing the paint at 90° from the panle line and irregularly to give a tressed effectc and highlight some rivets. Next was the painting of exhaust stains with a mix of tire black and red brown to make a first stain. With pure tire black, I whipped this mark at 90° to give an irregular drawing to the stains. cya Fanch