Leaderboard

aeroscale.kitmaker.net

A bit more progress. decided to mask/spray the mouth using the decals as a template for masks on my cutter. Came out better than I thought, so happy with that. I've applied a pin wash all over (photos to follow), and then it's just a case of putting it all together. Thanks for all the generous comments

Here is another glass nose version, looks like the tape had been removed, also note the hand/foot holds: here is a crew getting ready to board: Jari

The days I strived for perfection and accuracy have long gone. These days I'm just happy to finish something. This is my 5th model this year. Paints are Gunze, decals are from HAD - a bit brittle, otherwise excellent - conform to panel lines beautifully. seatbelts are from Radu (superb!). Hope you like. I've also finished a Revell P-51D which I will take pictures of later today. Lothar

This has been on the back burner whilst I was building the hellcat, but had time to do a little painting over the last few nights. I’m learning a lot and having fun. Cheers. Matt

Stormer, Thanks for getting back to me, I do appreciate it. I do take time to measure out proportions when I pose the mannequins prior to sculpting. I also usually use 360 degree photos of me in the pose too. Perhaps I have a big head in proportion to the rest of me I will continue to keep checking proportions when sculpting and look out for the observations you have made. I recently released the 100th Elan13 Miniatures figure hopefully more are right than not.

I've been doing some bits and bobs, like the undercarriage, wheels and the fairings. I must admit the incredibly simplistic and ambiguous instructions had me pondering for quite some time about what was required for the main u/c leg fairing but hopefully I'm on track now. I've done a lot of pondering! I also pondered about the firebird stencil, which I think may now be usable. On my 1/48th Hurricane mule I've sprayed the basic yellow background and, whilst I think the rest of the masks may be too fiddly to use, I reckon I can freehand the flames and eye detail. Time for trials later. I've also pondered about my Fw44 Stieglitz and reached a decision about the way ahead with the rigging for it, but that's a different thread!

OK, time for a long overdue update. Lots of progress since my last post so there's a few pics to show this; This is a resin detail set bought from ebay. Can't remember the name of the guy who makes these but do a search and you'll find it. Well worth the cash but not sure how much you'll actually get to see on the finished build. and painted.... Instrument panel - all out of the box Engines painted Build complete and ready for paint; I have to say, the fit of some of the parts is poor for a modern kit. The nose/gun section was particularly bad and required lots of superglue/rescribing. It also needs LOTS of noseweight to avoid a tail sitter..!! On to painting then; All main markings are sprayed using home made masks cut on my Portrait cutter Paints used were Mr Paint for the Olive Drab and Neutral Gray, Mr Hobby for the yellow and green on the markings. I'm using an Eagle Cal decal sheet of 'Clana Louise' but have found the nose markings to be quite ugly (lots of creases) when applied around the complex curves, so I've removed them and will mask/spray them instead. She's still to weather/decal etc so still a lot to do. This needs to be ready for Telford in four weeks time (gulp..!) for our local IPMS branch (IPMS Cleveland) 25th anniversary group display. Come and see this in the flesh

Now....Firstly I know HK is doing this as a full kit, and I have probably wasted my money etc etc. Second, I dont want this to turn into a burn session either...Good constructive and informative info is what I am after as I am no Phantom expert, but have always LOVED the FGR2 with the fintop RWR, grey scheme and beefier 'look' as opposed to the American ones. I am relying on expertise from you guys to help me out. I originally had one of these ordered many many moons ago and was like many of you here and never got it. But thanks to Mike (Serian01) here on the forum he sold me his and has realized my dream of building this kit and conversion...thanks buddy, I owe you one! I have done a reasonable amount of research on the conversion (Great review on here on LSP) and there is a lovely conversion being done over on LSM with Cees. Couple of areas I want to check on when it arrives, but the kit wont be here for a little while yet when my friend brings it over in the Global 6000 he flies (LOL only the best courier for this kit!) What are good resources/books out there worth buying (I sold all I had when the conversion never turned up)? Can I use an Aires F4J cockpit upgrade set...as in....Is much of it comparable to the FGR2? Does anyone make the big strengthening 'Doubler' plate that is on the lower centre section? (can always make that out of plastic card if needed) What about wheels, are there any aftermarket ones better than the Tamiya kit ones? Seems like the Spey exhaust may need extra detailing? From what I can gather, Frank Mitchell and Klaus/Meteor did a really good job of revising Franks original model to correct a few more issues. As I said I know little of aviation modelling outside of my interest in NZ Aviation, so any help would be much appreciated. I want to gather all I can so I do this conversion justice when I eventually start on it. Cheers Anthony

As someone who regularly flys a 40 year old jet; without the benefit of military funded maintenance, I find comments like this amusing. Having interacted with the Snowbirds, I can tell you that these jets are meticulously maintained. Clearly they have the spares, support equipment, and infrastructure in place to operate these jets safety on a very public stage. Accidents happen. This is a single-engine jet- but to infer that this episode was somehow related to the age of the aircraft while the wreckage is still smoking is unfair and unfortunate. BTW, There are more Tutors in the CAF inventory than Hawks. P

Hi All! Time to get some work on the engines…. Both engines painted and washed with my usual mix of artist Oil (Lamp Black/Burnt sienna and mineral spirit; Air inlets painted inside and outside… A brief dry-run…. ... WTF???? Oh well, Aires strikes again! Aires makes wonderfully detailed stuff, but they never consider whether their parts will fit the designated kit or not! The exhaust pipes must end at the end of the nacelle, so I had to cut the pipe quite a bit. I had to remove a little more then 10mm (about ½ Inch) from the tailpipe to get a good fit. The fit of the nacelles was quite good after some small adjustments, but it´s very tight! Much sanding and polishing later, but no filler. This is all you´ll ever see of the engine front…. …and the tailpipe…. Oh, well…. I KNOW they are in there, somewhere... More to come soon…. Stefan

Hi everybody! Here we go - an assembled wing. Coloured and washed 0,4mm plywood... ...an assembled rib.... ... a pile of splinters ... ...and finally an assembled wing. I am just happy with the result! I am pretty surprised with the properties of the plywood. It seems to be very fragile, but even when a single rib is assembled and glued, it is really solid and tough! Love the work with a real wood

My plan is to crank this out by November then start something really big. The Fa330 always interested me as a unique aircraft with an equally unique mission. This was towed by a U-Boat so the pilot could see beyond U-Boat horizon view and report any enemy activity. I also walk by an actual Fa330 a few times a week. Finally there is a lot of rigging and I will use either RB or GasPatch turnbuckles. This will get me feeling comfortable for my WNW build, next on the bench. That's right Kiwi Mike...no typo here. 30 minutes into this build I was already regretting this. This aircraft is mostly tubular and the parts are typical short run injection. Loads of flash and seams. Cleaning these tubes are going to drive me batty. So I will cut all remaining tubular parts from .5mm, .4mm and .3mm styrene rod. This will actually be easier than cutting from sprue and cleaning. Building balsa wood and tissue models experience will come in handy. Resin main control pully wheel (feel free to correct me on correct definition) and control stick installed with epoxy. I also wrapped the control stick handle with .2mm lead wire. A brush coat of paint will give the handle a ribbed appearance. Spar and 4 sub control pully wheels are cut from styrene. More fun with .5mm and .4mm styrene rods. The rudder gets a .4mm rod on both sides and will be sanded down and this was fabric. Will also add grab handle I cut out at top of rudder.

Hi guys. Here is a little Spitfire I built for a boy's birthday. Having been given this and his not knowing what to do with it, I offered to build it for him. Due to a lack of time I didn't mask it gor hard edged camouflage. He won't care.

Hi guys! Take a bit of time to view this video of a cool Canadian boneyard! Lots of nice and surprising stuff there, and I would love to go pick a few things from that fantastic place! Regards, Alain

Hi All, the big airfix hellcat is finally finished! An enjoyable build of a really Great kit. No real issues just took some careful building and plenty of dry fitting before glueing in place. The blue was tricky to get any depth and variation and didn’t really like being worked with oils. I used a neutral wash for panel lines and as a filter. Resin wheels was the only after market and all markings are painted. cheers Matt

Part 2: bare skin-less pylon, with rocket stubs: full pylon, also note one of the wing guns has been removed: Jari

I think the cowl shape may look more off than it is because the cowl flaps are open. I did a quick photo-shop with them closed: Again, I do think the shape is off, just maybe not as bad as it appears. I'm more concerned about the other shapes and details. WARNING: Cold Water alert! If you don't want to read about potential problems with the kit please skip the rest of this post. I'm not kicking HB, just the kit that I have seen in the pictures... First, they're calling it an A-26C but the box art shows an A-26B which was featured on a Bombshell Decals sheet (page 2 of pics, last pic): http://www.hyperscale.com/2012/reviews/decals/bombshell48bs013reviewbf_1.htm The canopy on the kit appears to be the early flat top rather than the bulged clamshell version. I assume they will include both in the box as the box-art plane had the clamshell canopy. It also has the ventral turret, so I assume they will include that in the kit as well. As for shapes: The upper nose glass looks much too bulbous. It's pretty streamlined on the real thing. High-rez pic here: https://media.defense.gov/2010/Jun/18/2000556599/-1/-1/0/090609-F-1234K-005.JPG The canopy side panes should extend further down as should the lower corners of the windscreen. If you draw a line along the lower side pane it should be just below the top of the wing intersection (or is the top of the wing too low?). The continuous curve shape of the windscreen intersection leads me to believe that the forward fuselage is too rounded or the windscreen itself is mis-shapen. The side panes should be flat and almost vertical. They appear to be curved and angling inward. The upper fuselage sides (between the windscreen and rear glass) should be flat with a relatively small radius on the top corner. This is pretty obvious when looking at the corner intersections of the glass areas. The kit appears to have curved sides with a pretty big radius along the top corner. Pic found here (lots of good pics!): https://hiveminer.com/Tags/douglas%2Cinvader/Recent The turret also appears to be too small in diameter. This is likely what they had to do to accommodate the fuselage shape that they made. Had they made it a larger diameter it would have appeared to dive down too much on the sides because of the larger fuselage corner radii. The shape of the turret also looks off. It should have a flatter curve. What they have looks more like the turret was replaced with a fuel tank as shown on the Bombshell sheet listed above (3rd pic in review). I'm going to stop here for now... Disclosure: I know almost nothing about the A-26 but I do like the plane. I built the Airfix kit when I was a kid. I more recently began gathering reference material for a 1/48 project that never got off the ground and in gathering those references became somewhat familiar with the plane.

Hi all, I've been hammering away at the fuselage internal details. Everything is fitted to the right side of the fuselage with regular testing for the fit of the left side. Included are control lines, trigger cables, control rods to the engine etc. I still have some bits to do, like the two machine guns and final weather etc, but I'm getting there, Mike

the cockpit interior of french Hawk was painted in "cockpit green" over the shop coating of Lionoil Prussian Blue. here seen on H75A3, probably No 224, starboard side between frames 3 & 4 and windshield frame of H75A2 no 151, starboard with bracket to maintain the release canopy cable. The part in ZCY is a inner side of doubler of the fuselage door the grey card and background are grey, neutral chart 18% to set white balance and exposure. Your shade is near this cockpit green color

No I don't Alain, more's the pity. Silver Wings have done the Hart and Demon but for some strange reason not the Fury.....I'd be all over it if they did! I'm not aware of anybody doing a 1/32 Fury, others may know different? Those photographs are something else aren't they, a modeller's dream. Belay that about Fury kits, apparently Alleycat make one in our scale.....I hope so because I’ve just ordered one!

I like that one. I'd really like to see the trumpy kit against the RoG kit.

Aviation Discussion

Thank you my friends, it wasn't that hard to be honest - all a question of having the right tools! When I was at Telford last year almost my first purchase was a brush from the Zoukei-Mura stand which cost me £10.00, quite a lot for a very small brush I thought. But the quality of the sable hair is what tells of course, so it holds the paint well, goes beautifully to a point and is a pleasure to use. Needless to say I take great pains to clean it properly every time.

They always say money is the root of all evil............... Im not sure about that, but I know if I didnt have to worry about money, Id be at Telford with you guys for SURE! Its still on my bucket list, and I'm a bit sad I never got there during Iain's reign of 32nd Sig.

Not too shabby for the first attempt, I'll have a couple more practice goes before doing "the real thing". I think the main difficulty will be securing the Hunter in a firm angled position so that I can paint it easily. By the way, the freehand bits were done with MRP Aqua colours:

I for one am gutted that Iain has stepped down. It has been a pleasure and I sincerely hope that his association with the LSP / 32nd sig continues in albeit a visiting capacity. As a facilitator he has performed relentlessly with Talisman like properties. I look forward to the 32nd Sig / LSP stand continuing to be a regular feature at Telford under Roy's direction for the showcasing of the large range of aircraft subjects we are now lucky enough to have available to us as modellers. I will certainly be attending Telford this year although my build count has not hit anywhere near the possibly overoptimistic levels I outlined on the first post for the navy theme. I will be bringing the Dambuster Lancaster Not a Naval subject, although water was involved .......

Had a little bit of a break from this as I finished off some other models on the bench and started back at cricket. Only made 16 on the weekend, dragged a wide one back onto off stump...ugh. Anyways, sanding sanding and more sanding then a little more scribing...probably need a bit more but it's getting there. I decided to put the main gear legs and doors on before painting. I've looked at a lot of pictures and could not come up with a definitive colour for the wheel wells or the gear legs. Some were just blue, others silver other a mixture of colours. Well, blue works for me. Fitting these is fiddly and I did try to close the two doors that are normally closed when the aircraft is on the ground, but this was going to involve a fair bit of cutting and hacking, thus I decided not to try. If you want to be correct for the Su-25, only the inner rear gear door is open when the aircraft is on the ground (usually). Ahhh ordnance. I reckon half this kit is weapons. There's 10 hard points, I've decided on large drop tanks for the inner hard points and the outer will mount a single K-60 air to air missile each. As for the others, well I'll stick as many bombs on it as I can. You get missiles and rocket pods as well. I think there''s napalm tanks too. These are the outer missile racks and launchers.

I’ll be there on the Saturday only though. At this time I’ve no idea what I’m going to buy, but I’m sure they’ll be something. Steve.

Thanks Chek, the similarity is obvious! See I told you all I know little of the Phantom....but learning fast. You guys are awesome being so helpful Edit: the Armory ones specify J/K etc, and look really nice...I will go for those ones, thanks Andy

I think Derek did. See post #46, not much bigger. The wheels were the same as the navy ones.

I actually, have purchased all three of the 1/32nd offerings Nautilus has. The F-4 jig is nice for setting the correct wing angles (Tamiya has them wrong), and the floor section for the DML P-51D was nice, too, though I think I sold them off.

+2. Haven't actually done it yet, but had looked at it and that was my plan as well. Thin the trailing edge of the slats, and put a strip into the well just wide enough that it fits under the thinned slat and nearly thick enough to fill it.

Depending on what sort of references you're seeking, these two books are pretty cool generic books on the Brit Phantoms, at lest as far as I'm concerned. McDonnell Douglas F-4K and F-4M Phantom McDonnell Douglas F-4K and F-4M Phantom II

I think the Spey exhausts is one of the weak points. I was hoping an aftermarket exhaust would come out once the HKM kit comes out.

I am thinking of going for the Saturday only, although I'll arrive Friday. Hope to see some of you there Rich

Stormer, thank you for the feedback, I would be interested for you to elaborate more on the "off Proportion" of our figures. Anything that helps make the sculpting better is a good thing.

Corsair Number 11 & 13 Tamiya Model HGW wet transfers, seat belts, stencils Barracuda wheels Eduard instrument panel & engine set Grey Matter Figures Engine bay All colours MRP Killefer: Blackburn:

I think I’ll be using Prym, not sure yet!

Thanks for that Kev, looks like my aviation library is going to grow!

Hi Richard, I blew up the photo and it’s definitely two parts going back into the bag. And as you said, it’s whipped in two places, just as it meets the shackle and and about half way back to the bag. I’ll use ultra thin lead wire for that. Yes, the two cables attached to the shackle are just that, metal cables. They run out to anchor points on the ends of the axles, but looped in the run so that they will angle back at about 60 degrees to the centre line when deployed. They are tied up to all the support legs and the back of the axle with either thin metal wire or nylon breaking cable, probably about 25 kg breaking strain as the wire cable needs to be quite hefty to stop the trolley which is going to be travelling at well over 100mph when the chute opens. Edit: the shackle is a 912 pattern (914 is the round type) but I’m not sure of the size, probably F or G. Regards, Bruce Crosby

i found a few decals like these ones : but were there other units ? from the RAF , or allies ? however i dont know wich D they are . 5,10,15 etc ?

You can check out HL-10's (I think that is Steve Budd) build on Britmodeller where he shows how he did his own conversion. I am using his as a template for my own conversion. Although my FGR is stalled at the moment due to the Manchester. Cheers Cees

Yes they are

Yes, that would be Gary, LSP moniker: ghatherly.

Michael, I just couldn't resist after I first heard about this kit coming out. I've wanted a large scale Valk for a while, just never thought it wouuld be this large. But you're right in that I have no idea where it will go once I'm done. Carl

Sensational. I too have this in my stash. I have nowhere to display it AMT. Your model is inspiring me to get a dust free display for it. I too would like to see your build if there is one.

Hi Guys, A little more work on the Mistel braking chute. I made the springs from fine brass wire. The lanyard to the shackle is made from twisted lead wire and the shackle itself is from a Takom 1/35 Panther tank kit. Springs made from brass wire wound round plastic rod to get the shape. Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr Springs superglued to the casing: Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr Twisted lead wire for the lanyard: Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr With the shackle in place: Untitled by Bruce Crosby, on Flickr That's all folks! Regards, Bruce Crosby

I see that "real life" struck on several intentions regarding visiting Telford, and i'm sorry to say i'm one of them not being able to either, but this might be a "bucket list" item, though that would be pushing it a bit. I hope you all have fun joining a LSP gathering, must be great to meet all of you, have fun!!!!

OK, So I bit off more than I could chew, sorta. Looked at the panel in the kit, And it is remarkably close to accurate with regards to the pilot and middle, only the observer's side is not correct. So instead of building the entire panel from scratch I removed the details from the Observers side, installed a 'quasi' radar screen, the 3 instruments that go on the side, and a bar to represent the radar conrols, and one to represent the pubs shelf with cover on. I could make the radar screen smaller with the keyboard on the side, but I decided to just leave as is, likely I'm the only one going to care anyway! I removed the details from the dual controls, such as the mounting plate for copilot cyclic, the pedals and pedal adjuster. I will remove the collective from the unit itself lare, attach and get ready for paint for this part. I hope to throw the center console on and start picking out details and perhaps fire up some cabin work! The kit details are certainly very much better than the Revell kits of yore... Kit Box: Decals (some will be substituted by paint): Sealed parts: Cabin floor: Instrument Panel original: IP Modified: Cockpit Mocked Up: Cheers!