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hello I'm not used to that, but I hav a second project in progress. I've been collecting and documenting VFC-12's 08 Hornet because of its weathering, and some decals have been issued recently. When waiting for some parts for my twin B&W project, I couldnt resist starting that project, which will be rather slow, though. Aires cockpit in progress: Cokcpit has been painted with several layers of shades with hairspray between each one of them, then a wet brush chipped the worn areas. Thanks to Miro Medzihradsky for the negative film tip ! I'v been using Anyz' products for hoses, leg straps and knob decals on the consoles. Very good products. That etched stencil has been issued recently by Radu Brinzan. Great product for weathering. bye Fanch

Painting and adding grass to the 'Grove' base... The corner with the 'Rasensteine'. I had to put glue into every single hole to add the grass to the grass concrete slabs... Detail of the concrete surface. Some stains and 'shadows' to enhance the texture. The rainwater drain alongside the runway. Detail of the drain. This wasn't too bad after all, quite fun doing actually! Cheers: Kent

The boxart is apparently out! But no info about decal options yet. I assume White 4 will be one of the options. But White 4 was never equipped with R4M. It was a training aircraft attached to EJG 2. It was also fitted with the experimental wooden vertical stabilizer and rudder.

Finally after years of wanting to know information about my friend Joe Pascetti's bird he crewed down in Mogadishu-Super 63, I have been able to befriend many crew chiefs and pilots who were there and was given many pics of OGS and their MH-60L's. So tonight I finally started building it. First I had to correct the instrument panel and center console to represent close to what they looked like on the real MH-60L. The caution/advisory panel is located on the bottom left of the console on the real thing. KH's panel, though very nice, represents a later year panel and has the CA on the instrument panel itself. So I took and cut down and sanded the Academy part and shaved off the detail on the console and glued it in place. Next i shaved off the detail on the KH IP and replaced it with some PE detail parts from Airscale.  Here's 2 pics of the C2 bird taken while down in Mogadishu. Tim

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!

Straight in with the next build and it's for a gentleman who's asked me to build a 1:24 Airfix Mosquito as the NFII variant. Going to be interesting on the paint job but I've a few ideas to liven up black, black, black. , I decided to start with a double pronged attack on cockpit and engines and the main bugbear that's going to haunt me for the whole of this build soon became apparent.....bloody ejector pin marks. They're everywhere and mostly on visible surfaces: So fill and sand is going to fill a lot of space up. On the engine front it's the same engine as on the Hurricane but times two of course. They went together really easily and a coat of matt black set things up for the first stage. The spark plug assembly has those horrid moulded leads for the plugs so off with those and drill through in their place ready for some real wire ones in a bit Result? Rubbish! Drilling the plastic has left it too weak so manipulating the wires into place is a no no so I decided to make new harnesses up from turned down cocktail sticks which are much stronger and more rigid than the plastic and just look so much better. It also means that I can attach them with some braided cord then, painted silver, it resembles the real thing. But meanwhile the engine(s) and cockpit are coming along nicely Engines gloss varnished, every bolt head picked out in silver with a cocktail stick , most of the bits and pieces added and the "Rolls Royce" picked out on the rocker covers, they need a few more pipes adding then ready for weathering. Cockpit floor and back wall also painted up. I've pre-shaded the areas in shadow then sprayed cockpit green for the wall and gunmetal for the floor. I use Vallejo metallics as I think they're brilliant and the gunmetal here looks fantastic. The fabric/ leather shroud around the control stick still needs painting and the brown colour will be the wooden area where the pilot's feet go. Just some graining to add and a bit of wear. The ejector pin mark at the front of the pic was left un-sanded on purpose. The rudder assembly will cove it nicely...hopefully Hope to post more soon. Thanks for looking. Comments greatly appreciated.

Sure thing Terry; and a little "Tripoli" in an oxygen mask too! Well the last two months have been absolute chaos, but I did finally manage to slip in a few days at Easter to regain my sanity and do a little work on the Fort. I was at a classic procrastination point. The bathtub needed the internal walls so I could start detailing the gunner's station but the internal walls also formed the basis for the floor near the entry-way into the rear fuselage. The internal walls needed to be positioned so I could make the gunner's cushion, but the bathtub couldn't be positioned permanently because I hadn't closed up the fuselage, and wouldn't be doing so for a long time....... After much dry fitting and fettling, I made the two internal "walls." These were painstakingly shaped to fit and lined with litho. They also had lightning holes which also had to line up with the outer observation window when everything was together..... No pressure.......total chicken and egg scenario! Like the radio room, I made a slot of the gun ring to slide in and did my best at trying to simulate a cushion (sculpture is clearly not my strong point!) Each side, once lined and detailed had to be glued in place using the bathtub taped in position to ensure alignment.... never have I wanted another hand and smaller fingers than now!!!! After a fair amount of effort, I had both sides in and glued. Surprisingly, both the bathtub AND the left hand fuselage could still be removed! Win!!!! Now for a few shots to show you how it all fits together.... Note: Bathtub position can still be adjusted to line up the holes better This one is from the radio room hatch looking down.... And it's still all removable! Pretty happy with that! Now I can finally get to grips with that floor, which will led to gun mounts and all the other details that I've been needing to do but couldn't until I sorted this! I'm taking some time off work soon, so hopefully I can get a good run on this and edge her a bit closer to the end! Cheers, Craig

As Ade said, the thin clear acetate sheet is sandwiched between the backing sheet with the dial decals, and the photo-etch instrument panel. The result is thin and convincing, and the photo-etch dials line up absolutely perfectly with the openings. This is the Airscale P-51D in 1/24 scale as an example, from my Airfix Mustang build: Richard

Hi, all. Well, I've definitely made some progress on the Ghost. The bomb bay is done as is the radio room (save for sticking on the RO's chair). After looking through the Eduard PE kits, I decided not to use them in either compartment and just built the kit out of the box. I did this for a couple reasons. First, I don't feel as though the bomb bay kit adds much and the RO's compartment is so closed off you won't see anything anyway. Likewise, I've decided how I'm going to display this, and have opted for a wheels-up, bay-closed, cruise configuration to hang from my workshop's ceiling. Long story short: I'm not putting a ton of time and effort into the bomb bay or RO compartment. So, with those two compartments done, I'm moving on to the biggest challenge of this kit... Converting the lower turret to one of the remotely-operated belly gun turrets. I've got my work cut out for me, but things are progressing nicely. While there are a few pictures out there showcasing the externals of the Sperry belly turret, I basically have this picture to work with for the interior. If anyone has any others, I'd be thrilled to see them. There are a few major points that I have to address. 1. The turret itself (including mounting the guns inside) 2. The parallel floor boards - the kit parts are angled and follow the contour of the fuselage. 3. The raised platform next to the turret (it's on the right side of the ship in the above pic, but the kit has it on the left) 4. The gunner's station and sighting mechanism on the floor - to include the sighting blister and windows in the fuselage. 5. Mirrored mounts for the waist .50s. The kit has the left gun mounted at the aft end of the window. I've been tinkering with ideas of how to recreate the belly turret and I'm happy to report that the kit has pretty much everything I need (so far). I'm going to use one of the spare upper turrets as a stand-in for the belly. For the cylinder that extends into the fuselage, I hit upon a pretty solid idea... ...the unused chin turret. After a little surgery... The styrene blocks are there to help me set my depth and therefore the protrusion of this part outside the fuselage of the aircraft. The tape is there to take up some of the gap between the frame for the kit ball turret and the chin turret shell. These were prototypes and have been cleaned up. I sleeved the chin shell with some thin styrene sheet to give it a nice uniform appearance. Test fitting into the fuselage shows that the part is protruding just about the right depth. That large gap around the turret will be covered by a flange of styrene sheet. I found a reference photo that clearly shows a ring of aluminum around the turret, so that should cover that gap nicely. I just need to get a drafting compass to make a good circle. Riveting a circular line ought to be a hoot too. Dry fitting the turret in place shows that things are looking pretty promising. Next, I'll figure out how the heck I'm going to mount the guns. But, that's tomorrow's problem... Meanwhile, I've been working to straighten out the two walkways. This was fairly simple to do with sheet styrene. I filled some gaps, so I still have a little cleanup to do here. That long center piece will have to be cut so that I can build the gunner's station. That's the day after tomorrow's problem. While waiting for stuff to dry, I've been picking away at the right wing and engines. The good news about this kit is that there's so much to do, you've always got something to work on. Tonight I made some good progress on getting the engines assembled and painted up. Left to right are engines 4-1. Only #3 is complete at the moment. The rest need a bit of detail painting and weathering. Then they're done. Dry fitting the right wing. I've done the initial round of sanding, but I have quite a bit of scribing and rivet work to do, particularly on the engine nacelles. Their fit wasn't all that great, so I had to fill and sand quite a bit. Generally speaking, the rest of the wing went together fairly well. I painted up the turbos at some point too. And that's where she stands. Next is more work on the turret and floorboards. Wish me luck. This is more scratch building than I've ever attempted before. Yeah, I can see through dry fitting that the upper fuselage will be a nasty fit. I've already resigned myself to having to sand and re-rivet a bunch of lines as part of this project, so the upper will just be part of the process. Generally speaking, I'm not overly impressed with the fit of a lot of the bigger parts. C'est la vie. For such a huge aircraft, it's kind of inevitable.

I got side tracked, and so excited that no serious issues developed, that I decided to close the engine up. Im hoping, but doubtful, that the painting goes as easy as the build. The engine hood fit was a pain to get straight, but I’m pretty happy with it, right now. Next... On to small bits.

hi gentlemen., thanks for the encouragement. By the way the sawing into the fuselage turned out not as bloody as it looked, the whole construction was quite stiff so it was easily put together again. So all in all not undoable corrections, but most of them quite unnecessary really! Speaking of unnecessary corrections, did some work on the model after the Easter holidays when I stumbled on the shape of the stabilizers. top one is in the right position, with hole and locator pin aligned. Bottom one is aligned, based on the curved shapes of the stabilizer and fuselage. This way the whole stabilizer is at least 5 mm too far to the front! Other way around: mount the stab as indicated by Revell and you end up with a huge gap which must not be there...sigh! Looking at photo's I can only conclude that te fuselage shape is not correct here. Nope not going to correct that! Thinking about adding some strip to the stab, let's see. btw see where I indicated with a cross where I will add a plastic bar to hold the plane in the air, like it is doing a deck landing with landing gear and tail hook lowered. I do not trust that all-plastic landing gear for one centimeter! Yet another one: the tips of the tails and of the stabs are not sharp, but end like they have been cut off. Stabilizer has been sanded sharper in the photo, tail is still blunt. Come on Revell, this kind of inaccuracies is really unnecessary! And yes I am still enjoying this build!

Today update.

And "Miss Wanna II" has landed

Hi Guys, Painting the cockpit floor. Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr Test fit of the bomb bay rear section. Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr Another test fit, somewhat short of hands! Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr More bits painted. Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr That's all, folks! Regards, Bruce Crosby

"Excellent work, Chuck! As you are putting so much effort into the surface details, you may want to have a closer look at the bare metal section in front of the nozzles - the rivets in this area are big raised ones. Micromark or Archer to the help?" Great idea! I was going to use Archer raised rivets on the exhausts, because the resin ones are rough. I'm going to sand the exhausts smooth which will remove the raised rivet detail, then replace them with Archer ones. Looking at the pic above, I now realize that the rivets on the exhausts and the titanium panels are identical, so I may as well do all of them. This will be a ton of picky work, but I've done this before on my A-10C as shown below. I will do this at the very end before paint, because the resin decals are fragile and can get knocked off easily. Luckily, I have some rivets that are just about the exact spacing as what I have punched with a needle, so I don't need to fill them first. Cheers, Chuck

Thanks man brad.... it went to the gb....got few shot taken there by others..... on the way back....one wing came loose....need to repair it and....take some shots.....for the gallery n RFI...might just keep the wings extended.....too flimsy....anyways will see...the final pictures will reveal my final choice..hehehe Rgds n happy modelling....

I agree on all points. Henri makes beautiful props! On my D-9 build, I was able to use a magnet to make the spinner removable so that you could see the detailed hub. But this one has a cannon firing through the spinner so I don't think I'll be able to do that. Yes, this one is going to get riveted. I actually prefer the look of manually applied rivets versus the usual 1/32 molded rivets (Trumpeter and some Revell). Wow... that is great information and an impressive piece of hardware. It looks brand new and it looks modern... for a restoration? Since it is so hidden, I'll probably leave it as is. I'm sure I'll have more questions as I move through the build. Thank you Vincent! I played around with fitting the Eagle Editions cockpit into the fuselage. First, I wanted to check fit of the kit without the cockpit. The molded details on the interior of the fuselage walls has to be removed. I scraped it off using a curved x-acto blade and then finished it off with rough sandpaper. The rear sill needs to be trimmed to accommodate the new sill. Once that is done, I stick the sidewalls into place using blue-tack. Then the cockpit rear wall, front bulkhead and floor and slipped into place and secured with tape. Hmmm... not bad. The junction between the rear sill and fuselage has be repaired but otherwise fit is pretty good. That rear bar resting on the sill was sawed away from the resin piece since it seemed like it will obstruct the fit of the canopy. I may have to shorten it. The wing assembly has a spar so I wanted to check to see if it would conflict with the resin cockpit. It did so I had to trim two of the mounting tabs on top of the spar. Once I did that, the wings sat into place fairly well. The fit is ok but there are some gaps that will need to be addressed once it come time for glue, I'm guessing.

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

When I had to spend some time in the ICU earlier this year I made a promise to myself: Should I get out of this somehow, I would build and COMPLETE a model as soon as possible - and I did. It's the Trumpeter A-4M kit with IsraCast conversion and IsraDecals. Colors are Gunze. Hope you'll like what you see. Lothar

Here 's my last product. This kit is correct and of course we could enhance some parts as we want. My sources to make my kit are mainly: French magazine Wing master n°44 Heinkel He 162: From Drawing Board to Destruction: the Volksjager Spatz Classic Publications / Ian Allan Publishing and a french web site http://memorial.flight.free.fr/He162.html The paint are for the camo RLM 76.....Gunze 417 RLM 82.....Tamiya XF 26 RLM 81.....Gunze 421 Well , I hope you like See you for a next one....

Hi All, in looking at the new Airscale bits for the Airfix Hellcat I was noticing that certain switches need to be added. It reminded me that there are a ton of 1/24 scale after market bits that might be useful for your Hellcat build. I am linking just toggle switches but if you starting looking for automotive subject matter there is some amazing stuff out there that can be used for 1/24 planes: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=1%2F24+toggle+switch&_sacat=0 Top Studio, KA models and Model Factory hiro supply a lot of bits in 1/24, 1/20 and 1/12 scale that can fit various uses on bigger LSP’s like 1/24 scale.

https://airscale.co.uk/store.html#!/1-32-scale-MODERN-JETS-Cockpit-Dataplate-&-Warning-Decals/p/59136694/category=16298053 That sheet, Chuck. There are even front/rear stencils for twin seaters ! Used along with individual knob decals from www.anyz.io , both sources make a good combo !

REALLY!!???? I can't begin to imagine what it means to you Yanks, but then you torture the English language anyway!

Gobsmacking work, Fanch! Kev

Some eye candy helps with the wait........

Simply fantastic. Dave

Airscale http://store.spruebrothers.com/product_p/ascas32sch.htm

Me too. I debated, but I have absolutely no interest in the real bargains (e.g., Felixstowe), and I have several unbuilt WNW kits of the more mainstream subjects already which, at my current build rate, will last until I'm over 100 years old.

MD-1 Nosewheel Aircraft Towbar, for different types of aircraft, used from the eighties until today.

The model and forum both will be here when you return Mark, family/life first.

guys im sorry to say this is on hold, not becasue of the kit but because of a few personal issues at home i WILL finish this but i dont know when im going to be able to do ANY modelling properly for a while, i really cant talk about it at the moment as its too emotional but ill be back at some point Sorry

You get the etch parts, decals with dials and whatnot that you stick down on a backing plate. A thin acetate sheet that you then place over the decals you just put down on the backing, its a square sheet so will need to be trimmed to the panel shape.( I however cheat and dont use the acetate sheet. I skip it and use a UV Glue for the dial faces after the panel face is added and dried in place and the whole thing has been completed and matt coated and is ready to add to the cockpit). You then add the final part, which is the instrument panel face. So basically you sandwich the layers to get the final product.

Owing to circumstances somewhat beyond my control, I realized that I don't have the time to finish both of my planned projects for a show here in September, so I needed to pick one of the two. I've chosen this one for completion.

The kit gives a choice of early or late wheels. I went for the late, with no tread.

Hi Quang, I've been following your build on BM while I build mine (and you're doing a much better job than me!): I just finished decaling with weathering to go before a final flat coat so the colors to me don't look quite right yet, but to my eye every paint mfg mixes all three colors to the FS base standard or close and none seem to match the fade common to the SEA birds. From all the photos and videos I've seen (plus some less accurate eyeball memories up close) the colors seem to fade at different rates - i.e., the lighter colors fade faster than the darker colors. I normally use MM but this one was painted with Mr. Color (303, 309, 310) and I mixed white in with all three colors at different ratios until it looked right. I lightened the 34079 the least, 34102 more and 30219 the most. Maybe the color experts can chime in here, but it seems to me that colors closer to the infrared end of the light spectrum fade faster - colors with red, yellow, etc. in the mix. I'm probably wrong on that but I'm sticking to my theory for now Cheers, Mark

And, the finished tail.

Thanks Kev! Hello all- so here is the mock-up of how this should work.. the magnets are doing their job and are super strong- now that this is essentially complete; where do I store this part of the build until I’m ready to hook it all up at the end? Well- simple: the magnets allow me to hang it on the steel frame of the drop ceiling in my shop! cheers Pete

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

Hi all, my another Mustang 1/32 Revell (new) Lifelike decals set HGW wet transfers Barracuda battery, wheels, cockpit decals. Eduard LooK instrument panel Colours MRP, Gunze, Alclad II

You've caused a bit of excitement in the Devenish family! We lived and breathed the rebuild process that my dad (Robin Devenish) undertook over many years. The level of detail in your recreation is wonderful. The paint job is fantastic. And like you, my dad was pretty impressed with being able to secure VH-OLD as the registration. Dad is 90 now but still takes a keen interest in all things aeronautical. We have forwarded your build to him but yet to hear back. I'm sure he will be inspired to recount a few extra stories about the plane. So, on behalf of the Devenish Family, thank you so much for taking the time and care to recreate such a beautiful aeroplane.

Gents, the updates: Kit nº1 panel assembled: nº2: The joint glued, corrected with CA glue, sanded, and rescribed: The front unit glued: Result so far: Now let's bring the 2nd kit up to that point Paulo.

some more Peter

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.

"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.