Leaderboard

Here it is finally finished ... the paintings ak real are great to use ... a little rest and zou it will be necessary that I finish the other 109! A huge thank you to Vincent Kermorgan and jean-claude Mermet for their invaluable help! See more on my FB's page: https://www.facebook.com/125768474675320/posts/431152264136938/

Once again I find myself struggling for quality time at the workbench, but I've managed to squeeze a few short sessions in here and there, so here's the latest progress update. Firstly, I managed to fix the too-wide fuselage at the forward end, by slicing away some of the upper section of the forward bulkhead with a #11 blade, until I could press the fuselage sides into a better position to much the upper cowling part. This at least eliminates one fit issue. Rather than plough on and try to get the nose to fit at this stage, I decided to switch to dealing with the lower fuselage section that goes between the wings. This needs modifying to accept a resin forward part. I decided to use the chain-drilling method for removing the unwanted plastic area (which is what I should have done when modifying to fuselage, too): Note that the resin part is positioned backwards in the photo above. Here's the assembly after the removal, and much test-fitting and refining of the mating surfaces: The conversion instructions aren't completely clear about how to handle the subsequent assembly of this area, so I decided to take what seemed the most logical approach to me. Since everything becomes a bit of a jigsaw puzzle at this stage, there's plenty of room to get things wrong, so I elected to glue the kit's plastic spar to the two remaining locating holes, which I figured would help anchor the resin section in place while the CA cures. However, the join between the resin and plastic parts has a lot of vertical flex, and I could see it becoming too concave or too convex if I wasn't careful, and getting the spar sitting at the wrong plane in relation to the two parts would have made things worse. I decided to tape everything up and fit it to the fuselage, and the poke the Tamiya Extra Thin brush into the wing roots to run some cement into the plastic locating holes and pins. This meant that the spar would set up in the correction position, and I could then CA the resin part into place, confident that the geometry of the assembly as a whole was as good as I could get it. I know that's a pretty confusing explanation of the process, but here's the result: The next step was to fit the new resin locating socket parts for the landing gear, which you can see in the photo above. But these introduced some new fit problems, as you can see below: The solution here was pretty straightforward - reduce the width of front tab on the upper wing root: Much better! But now you can see that the roof of the landing gear sockets is forcing the leading edges apart, so I'll have to reduce those before everything sits how it's meant to. I'll be back after some filing and sanding! Kev

After 7 months of work, the Albatros D.Va (OAW) is finally complete...The build is based on the Wingnut Wings kit and finished as Hans Von Gössel's flying skull, circa mid 1918. The kit was extensively modified in order to make the small details more accurate. Additions were Bo Monroe's 3D printed wing radiator and Fuel tank, HGW Models textile harnesses and Yahu photoetch instruments. I completely scratchbuilt the air valve assembly behind the starboard instrument panel and linked the piping based on the NASM plans for the restored Albatros (the restoration book was of tremendous help with the plans and detail photos). The kit received a new windcreen made from thermoformed clear acetate to thin it to scale, and the coaming was modified to add wrinkles and retaining washers for the leather. Master brass jackets were used for the Spandaus. For the engine, i had run out of Taurus resin overhead cam so i just scratchbuilt the valve springs, the induction manifold was wrapped with teflon tape and the heat shields were made from lead sheet and MENG styrene bolts. Taurus resin spark plugs were used and everything wired using Modelkasten rubber thread. Rexx metal exhaust attached. The Niendorf propeller was my first hand carved propeller and i used different veneer sheets and then coated it with MR. Paint clear. The wooden fuselage is finished with Knotless decals from Uschi van der Rosten and a few filters. The decals are just flawless in their application and in the result you get. I initially had the rigging attachment points 3D designed and printed by my friend and ALM Studios team mate Imad Bouantoun, but they turned out too big due to their hollow nature and limitations on SLA printing so i ended up scratchbuilding those using styrene and thermoforming the domes with styrene sheet to be able to use the Gaspatch Models albatros specific turnbuckles. Rigging tubing is from Bob's Buckles and rigging is done with EZ-Line thin. The lozenge linen is Aviattic and is superb as are all the linen decal series from that manufacturer... Alot of additions and scratchbuilt items which would be too long for me to itemize here, or which i might have forgotten over the period of time since. The figure is to give a sense of scale and was painted by my friend and ALM Studios team mate Bernard Bassous. You can find all the juicy details in the build log . Id like to thank everyone who encouraged me to push the envelope so to speak. As i mentioned on the wip log, it looks like the stars were aligned for this one! Thanks again, Stay safe and happy modeling! Karim

Thanks Brian. I do like your white EZline idea it looks great. I was a little concerned at how it might react to paint and washes over time though. Another action shot of Graham. Some more work. I tidied up up the wiring, glueing short lengths of plastic rod onto the fuse boxes to simulate plugs and sticking the lead wire into them. They should look pretty good once painted. I carved some T shaped fire handles from plastic card and installed them on the rear IP Much has been said about the way the wings, booms and fuselage join together. This is one area of the kit that I think could have been done a bit better. I assembled a long spar that went from one wingtip to the other. This was made from plastic tube for ease of glueing it into the wings with styrene glue. I then used a length of brass square tube, to allow me to bend and set the angles of the wing in case of any alignment issues and then used some think music wire in the middle for overall strength. Wings attached.

Ju-87B (Trump) + BigEd + ...

Hi All, i remember when Airfix first announced a new 1/24 kit was on the way and all of the speculation started.. maybe a p51b, a gloster gladiator, A Corsair (how awesome would that be!). Or even a P38!! So when the hellcat was announced I was a bit disappointed and a little underwhelmed! That didn’t last long and as more and more details of the kit emerged I came around to the idea and nearing release I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it! I’m not disappointed, what a great kit, the plastic is great to work with, the detail is brilliant. And the finished model will have real presence in any collection. I’ve made a start on the cockpit and engine. The plan is to have all the panels open like my bubble top typhoon. And if I’m brave I may also fold both wings but may end up with one out. cheers Matt

Wait till you see THIS The pink JS-2 is the gate guard. And the yellow and green "Armoredslidedevice 2000" above is part of the museums playground for children Otherwise all of the display items are properly painted in camo colors or factory finish. Regards - dutik

It's been slower progress on the build for the past week or so after I finished the cockpit, although we're moving along. For the past couple of days, I've been laboring in the world of "why am I doing all of this nobody's ever going to see it!" with the Eduard PE set. I must say, though, having completed it (without losing a single tiny part - a first for me!) it is satisfying. The enjoyment of modelling for me is the process at least as much as the finished product. PE addons to the main landing gear and radiator fairings (chiseling off the "L" on the left part was more for practice with a new tool - discussed more below) I had a glue misadventure, unfortunately, while attaching the gun cover panels, and had to do a little rescribing, re-riveting, and sanding. I sprayed a coat of black primer to see how my work looked. I decided to wipe it back off so I would have an even surface for final paint, so I sprayed it down with IPA and wiped it off. This inadvertently gave me a panel line wash/preshading effect, which also gave me a really good look at where my scribing was and wasn't adequate. Starboard wing got the worst of the glue trauma, and unfortunately lost a few of those beautifully fine raised fasteners, as you can clearly see here. In other exciting news, though, my backordered Yahu panel finally arrived, so I was able to do this: Followed by this: Unfortunately, I did something wrong with that landing/ID light that is sandwiched between the fuselage halves, and ended up with about 1mm x 5mm gap along the bottom of the fuselage, which I filled with thick CA glue. I take issue with that light, actually, as well as the one that they ask you to delete in the instructions. Both are, I think, contrary to Tamiya's usual elegant process. The one involves trying to cut out a perfect half circle from the bottom of the fuselage half, and the other involves removing a prominently molded piece of detail from the middle of the wing section, which includes both raised and engraved detail. I'm leaning towards being inaccurate and leaving that as is, because I think the likelihood of my messing up the beautiful detail in surrounding areas is great. I also wanted to take a minute to praise a couple of new tools that I'm using during this build. The first is this micro chisel I got from UMM: http://umm-usa.com/onlinestore/product_info.php?cPath=21_28&products_id=7431. It's a very precise and beautifully (even dangerously) sharp tool, and I've found several good uses for it already. Highly recommended. I also am trying Gator's Grip for the first time. It is a nice thick PVA glue that dries quite fast and strong. I've used it as well as CA for my PE in this project, depending on the particulars, and found it very useful. FInally, these little guys retail for 8.99 at Harbor Freight, and I got them on sale for 5. The 1/8 shank means that they can be used in my Dremel, but it also happens to be a perfect size for using them as hand drills as well. These have already been very handy, and I'm sure will continue to be.

So, here I am with another update. The roof is finished - or finished enough for now. It's looking pretty good to me. It's hard trying to keep it all in scale but I think I am doing alright. A test fit of the bridge and neck was okay but I had to remove some stuff off the back left sidewall to allow the neck to slide all the way in. The fit is not the best - I'll be honest, I'm not sure if it's all me, or part me and part kit or just the kit itself. Either way, I'll have to think carefully about how the final construction is going to go. Well, that's me done for another couple of weeks I think. I'll be making a start on the lower level sidewalls tonight hopefully, then the main body which will be very time consuming I think. Till then Adios amigos Si

I've seen modelers using black primer, but I didn't know the real thing has black primer: Here's the link to the article: https://strategypage.com/military_photos/military_photos_20190713153130.aspx

A little something I threw together watching the Cricket World Cup the last two weeks. This is Bronco's 1/35 40mm Bofors gun. It's a good kit, well detailed and fitting but with some frustrating points. Some sections are over complicated with detail included that cannot be seen once completed or photo etch that could have been included as molded on detail with a loss of detail. Also make sure you read ahead in the instructions as parts often need to fit into others in steps down the road, if you mess up the alignment you will have trouble down the road. It would also be nice if Bronco included some extra smaller parts as they are easy to lose. It's finished with Gunze Olive drab and weathered with MiG pigments dry mud and European dust.

Given we have a beautiful Mossie in 32nd and Strike wing Mossies are a popular subject would you think a dedicated Mossie rocket set would be a good seller? Id be up for at least two sets...

I am crossing my fingers for you. In any case you should cut the rear wing as this kind of undercut is very difficult to cast. Resin casters typically separate the shapes to get correct casting results and avoid damaging the molds.

This is my scratchbuilt Hanriot HD.2 I built for a group build on WW1aircraftmodels.com. The only commercially made parts are the engine (WNW), machine guns (Eduard), and instrument face decals (Airscale). Enjoy!

Ok so some of you may know, I had every intention of producing a HPH Catalina in respect of this GB, and I must be completely honest, of late, I had felt a little burnt out with modelling, that and other "real life" projects getting in the way of any spare time. That said, I am now coming out to play but for various reasons I cannot do the Catalina as intended, (bearing in mind the 32 Sig table theme for Telford was Navy) I have now committed to producing the HK version of the Dambuster Lanc which Neil at HK has graciously made available for my to build in time for Telford. I now have approaching 5 months rather than the 5 weeks I had last year so hopefully I can 1. produce some sort of WIP as required by this GB, 2, savour a little more of the engineering involved in this kit and 3. produce something resembling the famous aircraft. OK so, the kit goes without saying, It is HK's brand new not quite to market yet, Dambuster. I will be adding only Petes Airscale panel set and replacing the kit guns withe the set from master barrels. Started the Airscale panels a while ago as a "standalone" model before even the Dambuster hoved into view. This is where I am at the start. So hopefully I can build and post as I have a very poor track record of WIP builds. Tons of Plastic. A full lancaster with the addition of the upkeep mine and launch mechanism, a second addendum to the instruction booklet and a set of decals representing Guy Gibsons famous special 464 Lancaster. Here goes nothing!

Here the IP has now had some paint slopped on and is awaiting clear coat and Airscale decals. Admittedly not the best bit of painting, but I think I can live with it.

In an effort to see if I could close up the fuselage before adding the IP, I taped the fuselage halves together to check. IP will most definitely not be able to be added "after the fact", so I've moved on to the IP itself. I'm hoping to have the fuselage all zipped up in a week or so, but I guess we'll see about that.

Actually, it’s on the RF-5E Tigereye too.

Thanks Kevin and the rest of the gang for the "likes". I'll be starting on the engine assembly and painting next. I've been doing my research so as to build as accurate of a 004 as possible. Stay tuned: Here's where the completed main part of the build is as of now....

They do not necessarily reply quickly but I always got a reply from them, typically from David Lajer. Hth Thierry

Here is photo.

Hello gang... For this update there will unfortunately be no photos as there is nothing really worth photographing in terms of step by step or work in progress type photos. The Albatros is finally finished and sitting in the middle of the shelf, reigning over every other single model i have built in the past ten years. The wings lined up exactly on the strut locations which is typical Wingnut wings, and the rigging went smoothly and was very enjoyable. I added the scratchbuilt flare rack on the left side and finished off by adding the photoetch latches to the lower wing panels. I also painted the bottom of the tail skid iron and finally installed the various subassemblies like the wheels, the home carved prop and other little parts. Touchups were made to the parts that either lost their luster or where paint had flaked off due to handling during the building phase. I am in the process of preparing the text for the RFI section and posting her there... The stars were really lined up for this one, so to say! Thank you to everyone who has checked in during the build and encouraged me and pushed me to go beyond my skill limit! You have all a part in the end result ! Karim

I was thinking about having a go at a Banff Mossie but it appears all the Aviology decals are out of stock. Anyone else do Strike Wing subjects for this kit? For that matter, any resin night fighter conversion sets out there?

I answered my own question. I found an old file envelope that was mailed to me in 1994 from the Grumman Corporation. I wrote at the time asking for some wing fold details for the Hellcat. What they sent were some engineering drawings of the wing fold hinge and photocopies of some overall drawings. On the last page is a fold-out drawing of an F6F-5. The caption at the wing states “ ROCKET MOUNTS When used, 3 Rockets were carried under each wing and protective covers fitted to bottom of fabric surfaces of outboard flaps.” It has the Grumman Hellcat logo on the page so I guess that’s as “official” as it gets. I totally forgot that I had this.

Eric, you can't receive messages. I have OV-10A & D manuals on cd if you're interested. Sincerely, Mark

The David Brown should be ready during August. Graham

Been busy this weekend making the mould. First part of the mould : Second part : And the first test shot : I'm quite pleased with the result. There's very few air bubbles and most of the details are present on the test shot. Before I cast a second shot, I'll do some clean up on the mould cause there's a couple of spots were the rubber has formed 2 layers in stead of one. The mould could have been a bit wider, I'll take that into account for a next mould. I took out the first test shot (after 24 hrs) before the resin had fully cured. According to the instructions the resin is fully cured in 7 days (!) Should be able to cast the second shot on thursday or friday, will take photos of all angles when the resin has fully cured. Sincerely Pascal

Hello, Little work on the fin: Contrail profile and Gaspatch turnbuckle. Left upper wing And a blank mouting to motivate me.

I've got printed Well, not the whole book. But there is a fistful of my photos inside Regards - dutik

Hi, guys! After some time in posting the updates of the kits, besides that I had made progress in the kits, I failed in update the jobs. So let's go: I was unhappy with the Wheel bays, so I decided to made some scratch to get a better results. I sanded the original tubing. and created the tubing of the bays using brass tubes. The results: This work gave me so many troubles, tat I decided to made the scratch in only one kit, leaving the other one OOB. Here the two planes completely assembled: Here a modification (I can't resist). The position lights of the kit are quite ugly, and not create a good shape in the wingtip pod. So I discarded them and made new ones, with colored plastic. Much better, I believe: Here, finally I received the Archer rivets set. One part absent in the kit, as the Kittyhawk kit are not an F-5E, but an F-5N, is the windshield cleaning pod. I copied in resin from the pod included in the hasegawa kit. Here applied: So after the correction of some issues, finally I started to paint them. First color in the two(Brown in the 4870 and grey in the 4857) Soon, more updates. Cheers, Paulo.

Amongst some recent goodies from Harold I received these F-5E wheels and a counterweight for the RF-5E and F-5F, sadly missing from the kits, as is an ACMI pod which he also makes, which I've bought previously.

Got some washes on, placard decals from the Barracuda set, a little touch up painting, and a final dull coat. My Yahu IP is on backorder, so this is as far as we go on the cockpit for now. Mar on the starboard sidewall is where I had the oxygen hose attached, but realized with test fitting that it needs to go on after attached to that fuselage side. [/url] My second attempt at HGW belts was much better than the first. I threaded the belts through the buckles while they were still on the sprue, which made things much less likely to go pinging off into the ether.

Nice work! If you need more or thinner scale wire bundles, I found that white EZ Line stretched and held together with sections of the thicker EZ Line work tremendously well \

Hi, The counterweight is for the F-5F only , and is located at the very rear of the aircraft's underside just in front of the exhaust cans, in the groove between the engines. It is used to counter-balance the weight of the radar in those longer nose of the F. See the pic of the Swiss F in the link directly above this post. I have been told that the three original Topgun F's BuNo's 160964, 160965, & 160966 did not have the counter-balance weight due to the fact that they had their radar's removed, and the weight was not needed. HTH, Fred K.

Thanks, Max. To be fair, I think the conversion set is terrific, and most of the difficulties are either of my own making, or just inherent in the process of combining multiple parts from multiple sources. The roof of the landing gear sockets is actually where the casting blocks were located, so I just need to reduce the excess resin some more to make for a better fit. All in a day's work! Kev

And there you have it! Mid-August is a great start date for this project! LoL!!! Steve great to hear you will have a spar kit on the way soon... I'll be standing by. Thanks Everyone!

Had an amazing experience yesterday on what I thought was going to be an uneventful Sunday. Decided to dash on over to the local Wally Mart for a few odds and ends. To avoid city traffic, I took a back road the runs past the Caldwell, Idaho, Municipal Airport. Approaching the airport, I couldn't believe my eyes. Parked in front of the operations building was a B-17 in WW II camouflage. I had to stop for a look. Only a few people were there, including one of the crew, who had set up a info booth. Realizing this was I rare opportunity, I headed for the aircraft --which was named "Ye Olde Pub" Previously, I had only seen B-17s at crowded airshows. I chatted with the crewman for a while. I asked him what model the aircraft was. He said it was a G which had been backdated to an F. I asked if I could have a look inside, and he said yes. A rare opportunity. At the aforementioned airshows, an interior tour had always required a long wait in the hot sun, which I declined. I took a number of pictures of the exterior and then went inside. I had heard that the interior of a B-17 was cramped, but until actually seeing it first-hand, I never realized just how cramped it really was. I'm not a big guy, but to me it seemed almost claustrophobic. I could barely squeeze past the upright in the bomb bay. I can only imagine what it must have been like wearing a bulky flight suit. Bailing out, with the aircraft going down in a spin, would have been a very dicey proposition. I continued taking pictures of the interior. Then returned to reality and my shopping expedition. When I woke up this morning, the first thing I thought was did that really happen, or was it a dream? But I have the pictures to prove it. I'll try to post them later today, once I get the hang of Photobucket.

Lovely model. Tony

I would recommend Graham's products any day of the week! They are simple to build IMO and if you buy more of those products then I'm confident more will follow! The prices are very fair and the quality outstanding! I've bought several items and I'm very satisfied with all of them. All you need is some five minute two part epoxy glue which is easy to mix, and apply, and it's job done! Give them a try, you won't regret it!

started the metalizing process

So you've never bought any of our products then, which proves my point. Graham

good evening my fellow model nuts :) well, I have to confess there is no witchcraft, the pedals and the lettering on them are simple etch parts derived from the plans - the etch drawing just says dissolve a layer of metal (and create the shape) but leave the lettering untouched - bingo you get nice raised letters - I did the same on the fuel tank selector panel you will see in a minute... ..as for the tiny parts, they are just made by deconstructing the thing I want to make into simple shapes and then cutting, filing, drilling stock to get the same ingredients :) again, not a huge amount to show, but I want to try as best as possible to keep a weekly log, so this week's challenge was the collection of fuel control gubbins that sits below the main instrument panel (in fact the switchpanel below that but whatever) - seen here: ..for the central control selector I designed two methods - I had a decal made, and I tried making an etch part with all the lettering so I could paint it black and sand off the top layer to leave the letters and lines.. ..the remaining parts were made up from sheet or bits & bobs... ..these were then painted & assembled - you can see I used the etch part for the fuel control rather than the decal.. ..and they were added to the lower switch panel using templates to set the angles they all sit at.. ..and thats it for this week - told you it wasn't much :) ..need to start getting the cockpit pod ready for assembly now, at which point the weathering will be added to make it a little less toy like.. TTFN Peter

Rudy, thanks for your kind words, but I'm sure of these lights. And a curiosity: The lights on the sidewinder pod are red and green, but the round ligths in the wing are red and blue, in the same way of the ones in the inlets of the fuselage. At least in the Brazilian jets. Cheers, Paulo.

Just finished this one. This was on the shelf of doom for quite a while. I had purchased the kit for quite cheap and, due to the shape issues of the kit, it ended up being the last Bf 109 in my kit stash, so I figured I would go ahead and build it. However, I managed to destroy the canopy/windscreen parts before completion and also started to be really annoyed by looking at the shape issues, so I just shelved it. I finally decided to use a vac canopy from my spares and modify it to fit. I also sanded down the huge sharp corners that come off the trailing edge of the wing root fairing, into the rear fuselage. The fuselage cross section still leaves a lot to be desired, but this did improve the overall look of the fuselage, even if only slightly. But, don't even get me started on shape of the nose! In any case, I was able to complete it by adding the canopy mentioned above, MM enamels, oil and pastel weathering. The main decals were from the kit, but the unit/number markings were from a few different sources in my spares and represent an aircraft flown by 1./JG 2 around the Battle of Britain. I also added a few bits from scratch in the somewhat strange looking cockpit. In my rush to finish it, I introduced plenty of problems on my own, but the goal was to just finish it and then decide what I'm going to do next. I would really like to get into the Multi-Engine GB, but not sure what I'm going to do next. Anyway, I'm calling this one done (and I'm also likely done with Trumpeter, spare a couple of kits I already own that are from their "A team", which has apparently disappeared). Thanks for looking, John

Sorry to have disappeared so abruptly! The LanceR is back on my bench and moving forward at last. I've spent a bit of time updating these old posts with crisper images, better caption fonts, and improved content. You may have to refresh your browser- how does it ook? I hope to have a fresh post up soon (after my latest freelance gig is complete.) Cheers! chuk

Howdy Ladies and Gents, It's been a while since I posted pictures of my battleship. I thought I'd update you on where it stands now so I got out my tripod, cranked up the f-stop on my camera, and took some decent pictures for once. NO, I didn't do all this since my last post! This series of pictures (26 in all) will bring you up to date to where I currently am. From now on however, my posts will be a lot less frequent because a) it took me 2-1/2 years to get this far, and b) I AM working on my Monogram 1:48 B-17 at the same time. I just don't have anything interesting to post yet. So, here is my "Plastic Toy Boat" as it stands today. Hope you find it worthy: Here it is - 4-1/2 feet of pure enjoyment. At least for me. I love doing this. My big thrill is building models. Once they're finished, yeah, I take pride in them, but sitting there looking at them isn't like the work of building them, right! There are (2) 20mm antiaircraft guns and a flagstaff that are supposed to be at the very bow of the ship. Because I keep the ship covered with plastic for dust purposes, I haven't mounted these yet for fear of knocking them off. Note the railings along the hull are also missing. They won't be added until the ship is almost complete. In this next photo You can see where I made a big mistake. There is supposed to be a ladder made up of individual grab-irons up the hull at the stern. With the handling and messing around, half of them have been knocked off, reglued, and knocked off again. I'll fix this, but I'm going to wait until near the end so it doesn't get damaged again. The screws are real brass and the silver rectangles are anti-corrosion plates. On the Iowa Class battleships, the inboard screws were 5 bladed and the outboard screws had 4 blades. Also, the starboard screws turned clockwise while the port screws turned counterclockwise. You always thought a battleship was gray, right? These are the actual colors of the USS Missouri in September 1944, when Japan surrendered on the deck of this ship The chain hanging down from the bow is called a "Paravane" chain. Paravanes are towed from the ship and are used to bring floating mines to the surface where they can be detonated by gunfire. A view of the foredeck up to gun turret #1. The deck in front of the capstans is steel and the remainder of the decking on the ship are teak boards. OK, that's 10 pictures for this post. More coming on post #2 of this set.

Hi Pascal, Well, doing some home casting is not necessarily easy if you do not have a pressure pot. However, this is a hard fact getting one for some rare castings is overkill... The first thing I would recommend you is to assess which type of rubber you need. This may look weird but without a pressure pot, I realized it is sometimes easier to cast in a latex mold rather than in a silicone one! Professional casters will never use this "poor man" approach but I succeeded in casting copies of very intricate instrument panel parts from an OOP CE Phantom set that were not perfect but at least usable after some work whereas I never succeeded in getting such a result with silicone molds (too many small air bubbles in the mold). Indeed, one thing you must keep in mind is the fact that before avoiding air bubbles in your resin castings, you must first avoid them in your rubber molds and to me, this is more complicated for intricate parts. Obviously, this is not a major problem if you just want to create a mold for a drop tank! For simple shapes, silicone is the way to go. Latex has also one other noticeable advantage: it is far, far cheaper and if you add tissue paper between some layers, it can become very strong. Working with latex is nonetheless awfully time-consuming as you need to paint latex very thin layers after layers with a cheap paintbrush on your parts whereas you simply pour once the silicone rubber on them to create the mold. So, creating a mold may ask for two weeks of daily work with 20 minutes per day whereas you can create a silicone mold in less than one hour depending on the fact you need a single or two parts mold. Latex is simply more forgiving as you have more control on where the rubber is going and can more easily remove bubbles in the thin layers you add. Obviously, this is only critical for the first two layers! To paint latex, simply dip the tip of you brush into some dish soap before using it to protect the brush hair and be able to clean it easily after use. Otherwise, you will destroy your brush with a single use! If you use a resin that asks for more or less twenty minutes for the initial curing process, use a toothpick to push the resin and remove the air from the mold holes and crannies of the latex mold. This asks for some practice but can give acceptable parts. However, without correct equipment, whatever is the rubber your use, single-side molds are generally the only ones that will give you acceptable parts. For more complicated parts, it is generally more efficient and cost-effective to sub-contract to someone who has the correct equipment. For your information, I did that for some parts that I sent to Harold. They finally became masters of parts he added in his range. So, this is a win-win situation: you get some copies of your original parts for free whereas the garage industry gets a master for free. However, this is not necessarily obvious as this asks for a minimum knowledge of how casting may be optimized while designing your parts. Finally, even if you will never get the results of someone who has the correct casting equipment, casting yourself simple parts may be a time and money saving approach and this is sometimes the only option as, for copyright reasons, no garage industry should/will accept to cast copies of parts made by someone lese, even if they are OOP. Hth Thierry

tell us how it works and what you used, i thought about casting myself

Today update.

Harold / AMS... Dan.