Leaderboard

Thanks gents! Still in a holding pattern on this build but there is some movement on the latch decals. Hopefully, I'll them soon. In the meantime, I've decided to start on some of the post-shading...

Fin bonded in place - and panel lines/joints filled: And with rudder in place - all coming together quite well! Have fun! Iain

after long time not building a plane i will start this one The Su-25UB from trumpeter i didnt founduch online builds off the twin seater What ihave to start with I still note sure what paint job i will give here but im thinking the grey digital camo Just a few things i have to think about is the rivets on the back off the plane that are in real life raisd Will i go for it or not More progress later when i start the beast O and thanks Jack for this kit Mark

First coat of flat yellow. Lots of work still to go but , I likey! Dan

While I'm messing about trying to finish my 109e-3 thought I'd post my build of Tamiya's gorgeous Corsair F4U-1A I did a while back (I know, another one! But it's such a beautiful kit). The subject is Greg "Pappy" Boyington's 833 from the famous Black Sheep squadron VMF-214 based on Vella Lavella in late 1943. The kit was a pleasure to build with excellent engineering from Tamiya and plenty of detail to play with. As such, aftermarket was kept to a minimum only using Barracuda cockpit stencils and placards and Montex canopy and insignia masks. I scratchbuilt some additional engine detail, the cowl flap pulley system, and wheel well plumbing. Scratchbuilding the cowl flap pulley system in particular sent me a bit nuts and, given my time again, would probably just stump up for the Vector replacement set. Paint was mainly Gunze and Tamiya acrylics, weathering with hairspray chipping, salt fading, and oils. Cheers, Kirby

Dan

This was a fun build. The kit shows it's age but goes together well. There is quite a bit of flash on the parts but easy enough to clean up. Most of the paints are MRP, the engine is Vector resin and the decals are Yellow Wings. Thanks for looking

Hey all- I installed the square receiver tube for the inflight stand- and I started the prep for replacing the recessed rivets with raised ones. to fill the rivets, I applied Waterfiller Putty from True Earth. They claim it is a water based resin (?) . I simply brush it on over the rivets. When it is dry, I wipe away the excess with a rag dampened with 91% isopropyl alcohol. Any filler that wanders into a panel line is easily removed with a brass toothpick- Once you wipe wipe the filler away, check it under good light, inspecting the rivets at a low angle- if you see shadows from incompletely filled rivets, just repeat the process. the white filler will help me position the Archer raised rivets- cheers Pete

Thanks John! Glacial progress as usual, I have made up a wiring loom and have wired up the Impact switch. Lucky for me Mod 683 (15/5/1945)was for the removal of the Gravity switch (under this Impact switch) and bolts to be fitted into the holes. Being that TE758/NZ2328 was complete in mods thru 1946 I filled the mounting hole and punched out 2 tiny discs to represent the 1/4 BSF bolt heads. This was no longer required as the new valve in the engine fire extinguisher now enabled it to operate in the inverted position. The wiring was to be disconnected and the ends taped up. Slowly getting there

Here is my another P-40E Included all sets from CMK All colours MRP

Just watched the SpaceX launch. It was just as exciting as I remember from the 60's. I will say todays screen quality beat the heck out of our old 19" black and white TV Hope the rest of the mission goes as well.

I will also enlarge this little Meteor I started by converting F4 to F3 F4 are long engines and short wings In F3 it is the opposite

Problem solved (I think!) I ended up carefully breaking off the intakes from the main bays to make them free float while I mess with various fitments. I tried pushing the intakes further forward, expanding the rear fuselage vertically: And whaddayaknow, the fit issue has disappeared, at least for the area behind the main bays: The forward intake area now has a huge separation, but that should be solved when I push the intakes further back after sending the cowlings to the paint barn and attach them to the rest of the intake assemblies. Thanks, as always, for stopping by the hangar!

Okay, here is the end result of mounting the wings and struts. Whew! It was a fight. The bigger heavier jig helped. I still had problems and with all but one N strut mounted, I had to pull it all apart and start over. I ended up removing the mounting pins on lower ends of cabane struts so they would seat. With everything all said and done, the lower rear N strut attachment points came up short about 1.5-2.0mm too short. You will be able to see in photos a short piece of rod I added to reach. This fairly realistic to how the rear lower N struts attache to the real airplane. This is part of the paint touch up needed along with some detail repaint. I expect this will be an average, for me, model when done, I hope. The leaning is photos, especially those on turn-table is the platform, not the model. I'll likely adjust and leans with the landing gear at the end. I hope I can get it pretty close to level. Unplanned, but the Stearman has already had some weather simply from extensive handling during this process. I had to do some touch up paint and will have to go back and finish it tomorrow. Not that this one was ever meant to be a show piece, but this one has a few bumps and bruises. I'm glad this part is behind me. I have a few more items before beginning to rig. I won't likely attach landing gear lowers, rudder, elevators/horizontal stabilizer, engine, etc until very end after rigging and decals. On the upside, I'm enjoying my new to me Iwata HP-C airbrush. The gravity feed is awesome and does great work and is easy to use. Here are a bunch of photos.

almost done?

Roy has just confirmed that it's a technical issue that they're currently working to resolve. Kev

I got some paint on the tail wheel...

Time for something else. I pulled out the Tamiya kit which had been on the alley for many years and got started with it. I have some aftermarket, the Aires cockpit and seamless intakes and burner cans but I do not know who made them, a great book for references and I have some MK82 Snake Eyes coming from Eduard. DSCN2099 by Rick Martens, on Flickr DSCN2103 by Rick Martens, on Flickr DSCN2104 by Rick Martens, on Flickr It should turn out in one of these two planes, haven't decided yet which one Untitled by Rick Martens, on Flickr Untitled by Rick Martens, on Flickr So far I installed the intakes and the splitter plates and I have made a modest start with the cockpit. DSCN2102 by Rick Martens, on Flickr The modest start with the cockpit was mainly spending a lot of time on my knees trying to find part number 1 which I dropped. Offcourse the carpetmonster was ruthless. DSCN2108 by Rick Martens, on Flickr Maybe somebody has a spare? And a question, what would be the load on a Marine Phantom, I have the Snake Eyes and on what kind of pylons would they go. Are the kits pylons good enough? Did the Phantoms use Sidewinders or Sparrows in combination wth droptanks an bombs and how did that look? I have seen a lot of beautiful Phantoms over here and I hope I can get close to one of those. Rick.

OK, I stand corrected. They are a Polish Lim-6, an Egyptian Shenyang J-6 and a Polish Mig-21MF all built from Trumpeter kits. The 17 was an early offering by Trumpeter and isn't one of their better kits. With a bit of work, however, it can be built into a reasonable model. The other two Migs are nice kits and can be built into respectable models straight from the box.

And, going back to the tail... "I love the smell of automotive primer in the evening, it's the smell of progress!" Or, something like that... Initial primer coat on the tail - wet sanded after drying with 800 grit wet and dry: I may have to take a break from this and do something else for a few days. Iain

Finally finished the wings other than thinning down the ailerons which will be easy compared to what was already done. I have moved onto the interior which is quite a few parts, for the most part all fits good except for a couple of the small bulkheads in the tail and the cockpit bulkhead, floor and instrument panel need to be reduced in width a little for the fuselage to close up. Also put the Eduard cockpit set in . I wanted to make the engines look a little better, I had purchased HK models B-17 engine sprues a while ago when this B-24 kit first came out, figured I would use the props and tires, hopefully the engines... Well I was able to take the cylinder rings and cut 2 cylinders off cutting center between the adjacent cylinders , then I sawed a notch in between the remaining 7 cylinders about half way through the ring and then gently bent them all until I had a smaller ring and glued the joint where the other 2 cylinders had occupied. Worked well and I did the same with the push rods. Unfortunately I haven't been to work still, I could draw a new crank case in 3D really quickly that would look more like it should and print them.. I also have Harold's AMS propeller governors that I added.

Hi everyone I'm still battling away with the construction of the tail section of this B17G..... long old slow process but I have made some good progress! I was about half way through constructing the tail out of balsa wood in my last post ....so here are some photos of where I am at the moment. Here you can see that I have filled with scrap balsa in between the longerons on the section I built in the last post... The next 3 photos show that I have built the rudder and temporarily attached it the the tail assembly...... After giving it some thought I decided that the rudder would eventually look better if I skinned it with tissue. So after sanding down the rudder as smooth as I could get it , I applied the tissue with a couple of coats of shrinking dope....time to get as high as a coot!!... The trim tab I left as solid balsa wood..... The fun really started then as whilst looking at the scale plans I am using I realized that the tail gun position was of the old "stinger" configuration!...as shown in this next photo.... I needed the up dated Cheyenne turret...as in this next photo..... Well this caused me all sorts of worries as I would have to some how build the Cheyenne turret with out any scaled plans. I down loaded and printed off a drawing of the turret using Foxit reader and tried to get it to the same scale as my existing plans...I got it as close as I could but it was really just a guide of sorts! I then basically had to take a look at photos and transfer what I saw into some sort of balsa construction! So it was a bit of a challenge to say the least! So first up .....I placed the built fuselage onto the drawings and literally drew in the shape that I needed to get the width of the turret ...trying to remember that the drawings were slightly out of scale and then looked at photos of the side of the turret to get as close as I could the height and shape dimensions!....crazy way of doing it but this was all I could do. Here is that process on the go...... I then filled in between the stringers with balsa and literally whittled the shape of the turret!...getting the aperture shape for the ball was a nightmare but managed to do it in the end... To make the ball that fits into the hole....for want of a better description!!....I thought best to make a plug in the correct shape out of balsa and do a plug and mold procedure! I placed the mold into the hole!....to check out what it looked like....I thought ...so far so good! I got the mold ready to push onto the frame where I attached a piece of food packaging plastic ready to be heated... ...and fired up my old Bulgarian grill machine!...perfect for the job! Placed the prepared frame under the grill.....waited for the melt!....and boom!....managed to get it right first time...something that doesn't always happen for me! After cutting out the slots for the machine gun barrels, I cut the mold out and super glued it to the turret.... ....and finally here it is attached to the fuselage with pegs!! The fun and games doesn't stop there for this Cheyenne turret as I have to somehow get the perspex enclosure built....again this will be done by staring at photos all day!! Thanks as always for taking a look guys and see you next time round! Cheers Fozzy

F-16 is of much higher quality. Their F-4 series is actually quite dated and has some problems requiring quite a bit of AM if you want to make it right. The F-16 is great right out of the box, and can be a real jewel with a new cockpit and exhaust set.

So its gonna be a 2 helicopter build vietnam dio. I have started on the H.43 until the conversion on h34 is done.

Ok, I am working on some preshading on the wings and tail. I have first filled in the center of the panels with a random application of Radome Tan. And then I have sprayed the panel lines with a light grey. Both of these applications are rather light in nature realizing that I will be overcoating these areas with yellow. I will be aiming for an overall faded appearance since this plane has been sitting under the China Lake sun. I know how brutal the sun can be out there. Dan

Hi all, The engine is finished now. The only changes I made (not that you'll see much once installed): Valve push rods made from 0.4 mm diameter Nickel-Silver tube with 0.5 mm bases. Ignition leads from 0.148 mm diameter black mono-filament. Ignition lead plate at engine rear from 0.5 mm thick plastic card. Mike

Started looking at the fuselage sections - looks like I'll have to modify the front port side fuselage section where the side door attaches at the top, in order to allow the floor section to be slid in after assembly of the fuselage halves. Nose section in place - a lot better since sanding and primer: Note the way the cockpit floor section slides onto support sections printed into the nose section - some really clever thinking by the designer: And now planning how to attack the interior sections: Iain

Added two Zacto-sets to my growing Mig-23 collection: intake splitters and missle pylons. Cool stuff! Thats what I have now - not to forget the Gordon/Komissarov book about the 23/27: Regards - dutik

Having won an HK Lancaster in the big anniversary draw here on LSP, I've picked up the latest upgrade from Iconicair for it. Graham is making a bomb aimer's blister without the antenna holes in it so I picked up a pair. I also got his Spitfire cowl correction set and Dambusters set for the HK Lanc. Carl

www.facebook.com/mikro.mir.dnepr/ Juraj

And a bit of progress.

Here are a few shots of my Pfalz. I used Gaspatch guns and turnbuckles as well as Taurus models rocker arms, springs and spark plugs. I did as much of the internal piping as I couldfind space for. This kit itself was fantastic, as per usual with WnW kits, I'm glad I have a few more sitting in the stash. The only parts that needed shaving or filling there the fuselage/lower wing join and the interior frame just in front of the fuel tank. Full Album here WIP thread here Cheers!

The time has come to enlarge "Le Grand Charles"

Not sure exactly where but their packaging says "Made with Pride in the USA".... For those that have never checked them out, I highly recommend hitting the website once it's back up. They have a wide range of resin and decals (unfortunately, many of the decals are now OOP). His stuff is of very high quality and the prices are very reasonable.

Hi Albert I have a slightly different sentiment to my models, I value the ones I worked on to get a good result more. It really depends on your style of modeling. If you want a no frills, easy build, get the F-16 from Tamiya. In my collection I like my Iranian F-4E the most as it took much more work and research to get it right. Happy modeling Nick

They're definitely still around, so I'd say they're having technical issues. Possibly even a website upgrade. I'll contact Roy and confirm. Kev

I corrected the nose strut gear and made a folding mechanism for the nose gear.

Pheon decals..Snipe..Ordered this sheet couple months back..finally arrived very late. Brilliant decals..lots of work and research went into them... Very happy they got here,didn't think I'd see them.

This was the late Edgar Brookes take on the Revell kit from https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234962817-new-revell-132-spitfire/ I've been loaned one, for a couple of hours, so have had a chance for a quick assessment:- 1/. it needs a "Mk.I" oil cooler. 2/. it needs the crowbar deleting, unless your model dates after January 1942 (the fit was retrospective.) 3/. 2-bar rudder pedals are o.k., but need the fabric straps over the top. 4/. gun button was brass, with a silver surround, not red (post-war elfin safety?) 5/. Very pistol cartridge rack was normally left off, and Castle Bromwich had (red) plastic seats, not (green) metal. 6/. seat armour is missing. 7/, seat backrest has an odd depression moulded in, which I've never seen. 8/. I have no idea what part 40 is, and 41 (oxygen bottle) should be black, not green. 9/. part 42 (compressed-air bottles) was silver, not green. 9/. rudder and elevators' "stitching" is overdone. 10/. I have no idea what the two "lozenges" (on the top of each wing) are. 11/. unless your Mk.II dates from 1940, the rudder "prong" shouldn't be there, neither should the aerial. 12/. post 1940, IFF aerials were fitted, and the position of the discs is marked. 13/. if you drop the flaps, the door, in the top of the wing, needs to be cut out, and opened. 14/. 50B is/are/were "station keeping lights," which might have been coloured like the navigation lights, but that remains a mystery, for now. 15/. while over-prominent, the "rivets" are nowhere near as bad as the photos appeared to show. 16/. the fuselage is about 2mm shorter than the Hasegawa Vb (all at the spinner end,) but it doesn't "shout," and it appears to have better curvature than the (somewhat slab-sided) Hasegawa fuselage. 17/, wingspan and chord (minus wingtips) are identical to the Hasegawa Vb. 18/. Revell have matched Tamiya, in the wheel wells, by providing back-sloping walls - very well done - but the "orifices" are too oval. 19/. there are three oblong "protuberances" on the spinner, but Revell do tell you to file them off. 20/. Revell have confused Sky with Sky Blue (oh, yes, they have.) 21/. instrument panel is fixed, but is missing the landing lights control. Sorry, the owner wants it back, so any further "conversation" will have to wait. Edgar For my build I used the following Barracuda sets Seat and seat armour Cockpit upgrade kit Spitfire Mk.I/II wing correction set Spitfire Mk.I-V cockpit door without crow bar Spitfire 5 slot main wheels Cheers Dennis 6 Rick Brown, JohnT, Jens and 3 others reacted to this Go to top

I’m committed now. After fiddling with wing, fuselage and strut alignment, modifying my jig to allow adjustment of the angle of incidence between wing and long axis of fuselage and adjustment of lower wing dihedral, I was never quite getting everything exactly line up exactly. So, I decided on a different tack. As best I could, I squared and trued wing to fuselage, locked everything down in the jig and glued in both cabana struts. Leaving the fuselage and upper wing locked down in he jig, I freed the lower wings. They were free to flex slightly. I lightly fitted the end struts and they were close. I believe with some gentle persuasion and super glue, I’ll be able to get everything in place with everything fairly well aligned. Maybe. At that point, I called it a night and left everything in the jig to cure overnight. Reviewing this week’s challenges and hurdles with this build, I’m left with two thoughts. 1-I think we’ve hung the wings and rigged a real Stearman in less time than I’ve tried getting this one done. 2-I’m glad no one, especially me, won’t be trying to fly this model. I’m sure it would be a poorly rigged and sorry flying Stearman. Also, some asked about the landing gear strength somewhere. I broke one of the landing gear axles tonight working on it. Had to drill out with 1/16" bit, insert a piece of hard steel wire from a large paper clip into the gear leg and a piece of 3/32" brass tubing into the wheel hub. The legs seems sufficient, but the oleo strut and axle are quite small and fragile. I'm thinking I will go ahead and pin the other side as well. Considering drilling the small oleo strut/axle assembly where it inserts into gear leg/fairing which is fairly thick and pinning it as well, as it is quite thing and fragile and will be prone to breaking easily once finished.

Work has been continuing on the engine bays as and when I have time, and now both intakes with the spinners are installed. The rear fuselage is now assembled, and waiting for the glue to cure. However, during the dry fitting for the side sections for the rear fuselage, I noticed another fit issue. This time it is both at the area just behind the main bay: and around the countermeasure buckets (which will hopefully be covered with Wolfpack's CM dispensers) I will of course defer guidance to the bug master himself, @chuck540z3 or anyone else that has used the Aires bays on this kit with success. In any case, thanks for stopping by the hangar!

Starting assembly...getting everything fit and jig aligned. Nothing is glued yet here. After this photo, I set the lower wing. There is only 1.5° dihedral on lower wing which looks almost flat. Finally settled on TLAR...that looks about right based on rigging diagram and photos. Mostly I was concerned each wingtip was same height from surface.

As I promised myself, the exhaust section has been through paint barn the past two days. Gave all the shown parts a black primer yesterday, then shot Steel from MiG's jet exhaust set this morning. I then gave the burner section a treatment of jet exhaust burnt iron from the same set to show the discoloration and fouling from the augmenter. Next up is the nozzles themselves, which are luckily in separate pieces for the inner and outer petals. The outer will get an overall coat of gunmetal from the same set, as all the reference photos I've seen show a pretty uniform coloring. The inner I'm still debating on whether to do a base coat of white then grime 'em up, or go down the Citadel route and use a bone color and their contrasts to simulate the ceramic panels. Once I've decided on that, the PE flame rings will get the same treatment, as it looks like there's ceramic on them as well. As always, thanks for stopping by the hangar!

addendum to my previous statement of being finished, outer gear doors on right...dyslexia? and exhaust stains added; thanks for looking

I missed it live and am watching a rerun on National Geographic Channel right know. I remember the thrill of watching the Apollo moon missions and being so relieved when the parachutes popped and then the hatch opened and the guys got out waving. They were my hero's growing up.

I would still sand the casting marks down a bit; Ron is right: they are a little too proud. Look good though! Somewhere in my stash I have some PE letters and numbers I got for the same reason. They are in the stash...somewhere... We should twist Woody at Archer to do some more casting marks, he has some Sherman stuff, but we could use more generic sheets in different sizes. Archer Sherman casting marks:

LtCol Grunke and I after he was presented with the model. Had a great time spending the day at the squadron and evening with the SNCO's and Officers at a cookout.

These just arrived. I hate stencils.

On the fuselage, the metallic turned out to be too contrast. Corrected. Also painted identification marks. little problem further - weathering