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after 3 months bending wires finally finished this little one , hope you like it

Hello, everyone. If you've been following along the build thread, you're well aware that I was nearing the finish line on Hong Kong Models' new A-20G Havoc kit after starting it the day it arrived in June. If you haven't been following the build thread, but want a painfully verbose treatise on the inner workings of this brand new kit, feel free to dive into it and its ~350 photos. If you'd just like to see the photos, here's the gallery. Anyhoo, as I've stated in a number of other threads, I'm fascinated by the SW Pacific campaigns in the early-mid war years. I'm also a fan of big twins in attack configurations. Thus, when I heard that HKM was coming out with an all new A-20G Havoc in gunship configuration, I was excited to say the least. Unfortunately for me, their boxing was strictly marked and built for the European theater. Not to be deterred, I decided to embark on a bit of a journey. For this build, I'd be doing several firsts. To make a Pacific bird, I'd have to scratch build wing bomb racks and teach myself the art of printing my own decals. I'd also push the idea of masking farther than I had ever done before, so that was fun too. In the end, I'm very happy with the results and they feel pretty close to the original. The photos turned out a little weird, unfortunately; I suspect that's due to my camera trying to compensate for the failing evening light. So, things like the speckling on the nacelles and the dust pigments on the wings are much more pronounced than they are in real life. I found a few close up pictures of A-20s with extensive oil spatter all along their fuselage and nacelles aft of the engine, so that was the inspiration there. Anyway, here's "STINKY" of the 3rd BG, 12th BS in New Guinea. According to Michael Claringbould in Pacific Profiles vol. 3, this aircraft survived hostilities and was scrapped in situ after the war. The photo below is one of two taken of her supposedly while she was in Sydney, Australia. The squadron insignia and serial number were the first decals I ever printed for myself. The nose art was done with a mask. I painted the dark drop shadow, then moved the mask to the 10 o'clock position and painted the yellow. Turned out pretty sharp. For grins, I got my SW Pacific fleet out for a photo op, largely because I wanted to see exactly how the B-25 and A-20 compare in size.

Hello, Here is my last build, a very long one with a lot of sanding, test fitting and sometimes the help of boiling water to straighten parts.

Project 7/23 1/32 Trumpeter kit, Kits-World decals, Barracuda wheels, HGW wet trasfers stencils & national insignia, All colours MRP

Hello guys, this is my recently finished Kotare Spitfire. While I have no special interest in Spitfires and I have very limited knowledge of the subject I have to say that this is the best kit I have ever build so far! Especially from buildability point of view, with logical build steps, great fit, almost no cleaning required, extensive decals and best in class instructions with detailed color callouts and great profiles, the kit has the highest probability to get finished once started. I did not used any other references except the instructions. Truly OOB build except HGW seatbelts and Artscale double sided masks, which btw fit perfectly. I hope that Kotare will raise enough cash to become major player on 1/32 market. I have no doubts that I will buy anything they will release (and I don't mind that it will be small collection of Spitfires ) Jan

Trumpeter 1/32 model, Kagero decals, Reskin wheels set, Phoenix cockpit, All colors MRP

This is my recently completed build of the 1/32 scale Trumpeter P-47D Razorback kit depicted as Lt. Frank Oiler's mount christened "Eileen" of the 78th Fighter Group of the 84th Fighter Squadron based at Duxford, England in 1944. The list of aftermarket items is relatively short: 1. Barracuda Studios P-47C/D Diamond Tread Main Wheels in resin 2. BarracudaCals P-47 Thunderbolts Part 1 Decals for the Eileen artwork and maintenance stencils (Special Thanks to John Stambaugh!) 3. Montex P-47D Razorback (Trumpeter) Super Mask set for the engine cowling checkers 4. Yahu P-47 Early Instrument Panel 5. Eduard P-47D-20 Interior for Trumpeter The majority of the major markings were painted using custom cut masks. The complete build can be found at:

Hello. I had a pleasure to build at the start of this year my first tamiya 1/32 model, i had it over 3 years along with 2 mustang and mosquito from tamiya in stash but never had a courage to tackle these rather expensive kits before. Well after some smaller scale planes and two years of competition where i achieved over 30 awards, I decided my skill are high enough to take the challenge of this kit. I used HGW seat belts and cockpit decals rest of the kit is OOB with some scratch build detailing love. Im happy to say it already been to several competition and even won some awards! Cheers! I prayed not to summon Cthulhu on this one. I had to add the engine shot because its the best engine i made to this day.

Evening guys and gals! I’ve been working on the huge flaps on this beast of late - they are absolutely massive and I imagine vital in providing extra lift to get this behemoth off the ground. These two pics (used purely for illustrative purposes) show them fully deployed as they often were seen when parked up: I set about them by carefully cutting plastic card to the correct shape for the upper and lower skins, bending the upper surfaces carefully in some very hot water (ouch!) to best replicate the aerofoil shape. I then cut out the runners for the flap tracks and scribed some surface detail - incorrectly at first as the plans I was using were wrong! The uppers and lowers were then carefully glued together over a wooden dowel to act as a spar and help keep the aerofoil correct: As with all scratch building, test fit, test fit, test fit… I then made all the rough edges good with Milliput white and added the distinctive bullet fairings beneath - these were actually old and spare H2S scanners from 1/48th Sanger Halifaxes and with some minor mods did the job perfectly! These will then fit the wing like so: And the undersides: I’m well ‘appy with those! Onwards and upwards! Until next time, Tom

Some more pics...

Hi All Yes, another F-16 - I cannot help it.. This is the Royal Danish Airforce F-16AM E-191 - otherwise known as "The Mighty Dannebrog Viper". E-191 was painted like the Danish flag "Dannebrog" in 2019 to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Danish flag. It is the oldest unaltered flag in the world and something that we Danes are mighty proud of. Not every country use their flag for celebrations but in Denmark it is used in abundance to celebrate anything and everything so this paintjob turned out to be rather popular. People who have no interest in aviation at all seemed to all know of the existence of this Viper. Because of its popularity, it was decided to leave her in this livery until it was to be retired or sold as the F-35´s would make their way into service, and it has flown in this paint job ever since. Both as an airshow display Viper and on active duty on QRA. You have to wonder what the Russian pilots think when they are intercepted over the Baltic Sea by this F-16... I managed to get myself an invitation to the recent ceremony marking the first F-35´s arriving in Denmark. "Dannebrog" was on static display along with the display pilot "TEO". He let slip that it would be the last time that we would be able to see her in these colors as it was scheduled to be repainted in Grey. Someone asked if it was because the aircraft would be donated to Ukraine and the reply was just a polite smile.. The model is the Tamiya Thunderbird kit converted to an F-16AM. I used a few other aftermarket items to complete the build: PWMP Tail conversion Cross Delta strengthening plates Reed Oak Pilot Quickboost Old Style stabilators Reskit Sidewinders Phase Hangar Resin JHMCS Sensor Custom Masks in cooperation with DN Models I reached out to DN Models @Eagle Driver to see if they could help me design a paint mask set. I cannot thank them enough for dropping everything else to make this happen. Within a week of emailing back and forth with test designs we had a complete set of masks that worked. How cool is that!! It is not the easiest thing to work with bright colors like Red and White and keep some tonal variation without ending up with that "toy look", but I think it turned out ok in the end. I am super happy to have this iconic Viper on display on the shelf. I hope you like it too.. The Dannebrog Display Team have a facebook site if you want to see more of this aircraft and what they are up to: F16 Solo Display /Niels PS: The canopy is not glued into place which is why it sits a little proud in some photos

Hello i fairly recently finished this beast. Of course our know suspect is B-24J from bobby boss in 1/32 I used Eduard interior and seat belts PE set and resin wheel, Quick boost proppellers, montech propeller decals and DN models mask set. Kit wasnt that hard to build, lots of dry fitting helped along saly even tho i ommited 90% of rear interior 350g of nose weight erent enough to hold it so i had to use leg to support it in my first attemt then i made some simple diorama stand fot it and glued wires to the wheels and made a hook in fron tone to latch it in place. Personaly i know abaut the wing issue but decided not to get bothered with it and just enjoy the fact i have one of a kind models in my collection. The model comes in four parts, well rather 7 if we count each propeller invidually as i intend to take it to modeling convections and already did! Wing and fulseage are separate and then the proppelers come off. Really challenging was painting the model but it was easier since the wing are removable, dots, roundels, numberts etc were easy, but sharkmout was challenging in the end some brush paint tuch ups were neccesary especially since this "camofluage" was used on H not on J so the chin glass it bit different and lover jaw was 4mm short of the glass so some artistic freedom was used. Hope you guysl like it! Is this some mummy movie reference i am missing? Mentioned gap on charkmouth due to different chin glass After the hand paint correction The mentioned "diorama base"

just finished the excellent model, best helicopter a have ever built, in fitting and details

well, I had a thought one night about how 3D might evolve so things that don't exist, might one day exist This may go nowhere, but is a bit of interesting fun for me. I am going to try and make a whole airframe and do it in such a way that it could be printed as a kit of parts. I will say this though - don''t get excited it may take years and may not work, but it's good practice for me and is a fun side project. I have the Airfix 1/72 kit on it's way for reference, but for now, I just started playing around... ,,and tried printing it out much to learn, not least of which is part thickness & orientation and making it so it can be assembled. Mega challenges like the transparencies I will have to figure out along the way and also things like structural strength in areas that matter, so as I say, little chance of going anywhere, but thought it may be of interest TTFN Peter

thanks all Right - it's done... started 29 December 2021, finished 9th May 2023 so 17 months in the making... there are still a few bits to do - mainly the flaps - jury is out on these as while I spent a lot of time making them, I have not seen one picture with the flaps down at rest so I may just close them up... Max helped me out with the masks and they were perfect (thanks Max :)) & lots of bits done in the last weeks to get it pretty much done. i really enjoyed the build and learned a lot so here are some pics... so thats it onto the next one - thanks for coming along for the ride TTFN Peter

Hello, all. If you've been following the build thread, you know that this project was nearing completion. Tonight, after taking the afternoon off, I finally crossed the finish line. As has been my modus operandi of late, I wanted to more or less recreate an historical photograph. For this project, I chose this photo: It's from a fairly well-circulated set of photos and film that were taken either for training purposes, propaganda, or the news reels. In some of the other shots from this series, there's a movie camera crew just out of frame to the right. So, there was something big going on. Also probably explains why the pilot's exiting the wrong side of the aircraft. Anyway, this photo was taken in July of 1943 on Espiritu Santo. The pilot here is one Lt. Virgil Ray, great uncle to our own @ARay87. He did a pretty great write up on Lt. Ray at the WW2 Aircraft forums, so I'll point you there for a great in depth look into the man. Sadly, Lt. Ray was lost in a storm on 13 October, 1943, just a few months after this photo set was taken. Rest in peace, Virgil. I wanted to do this particular aircraft because it had red insignia surrounds (and I've never done those before) some pretty (ahem) unusual weathering. It wasn't until a few weeks into the build that I really realized what I'd gotten myself into. A couple highlights: I sculpted the crew chief from the waist up, using only premade hands and head. I also had to modify his ankles so he would stand up straight on the wing. The base figure was the standing pilot figure included with the Corsair kit. I had to resculpt the pilot's lower legs because the Black Dog Resin figure was in ETO heavy gear. It's still not perfect, but it's a lot better than it was. I also had to resculpt the pilot's hands as the stock figure's hands were nowhere near where they needed to be. I had to build 2 palm trees from scratch. I used Luke Towan's method, but also wrapped the trunks in masking tape to give them a little more texture. Each tree has 38 fronds. I could fit 12 fronds on a sheet of paper in my cutter. Each sheet took 65 minutes. You do the math. I added a ton of wiring detail to the cockpit, engine, and landing gear bay So, in all it was a pretty challenging project and a lot of fun (except the palm fronds) that really pushed my limits, especially the sculpting parts. See the build thread for full details on the sculpting adventures. Aftermarket parts used were: Barracudacast plain tread wheels Anyz canopy frame Quinta studio cockpit interior and harnesses Black Dog Resin pilot figure Though my dio is not a perfect 1:1 recreation of the source image, I feel it captures the essence of the scene. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. Tomorrow, I have to build new floating display shelves in the model cave as I have officially run out of display room. Sorry, no under belly shots. The plane is not attached to the base, but there's no good way to set or hold the a/c upside down with the figures in place. It looks nice, you'll just have to trust me.

I present to you the well-known trumpeter kit in which I have used the following aftermarket products. Undercarriage,seat belts and mask by Eduard Cockpit by red fox Pitot tube by Master Wheels by Reskit PE by profimodeler The camouflage's colours are by Gunze

So here we have the final pics of my mammoth HK models 1:32 Lancaster Mk. B.I Special build. The finished aircraft looks spectacular from a sheer size perspective, as you can see from the picture with the 1' rule for scale. The inaccuracies for a kit costing over £300 are well documented and the fixes I've employed are far too numerous to list fully here. But a few have been: Complete rebuild of pilot's plinth and replacement of seat Removal of erroneous dinghy hatch on port wing Lengthening of Navigators table to match specs Addition of accurate instrumentation for a BI not the Mk. X Fit a B.I Flight Engineer's seat as opposed to a Mk. X Fit swivel navigator's seat as opposed to fixed one supplied Install "washing line" canvas sunscreens in canopy Remove erroneous wooden slatting from upkeep mine Built and fit hydraulic submarine motor to spin up mine. Move trailing radio aerial from starboard to port side. I've tried to take a few pics of the iconic shots from 1943 prior to the mission and I've included these as a bit of fun. It's now on its way to a new owner, which is just as well as, with a 1m wingspan, the wife would kill me if I said I was keeping it. Thanks to: Peter at Airscale for his always immaculate cockpit upgrades Top Notch for the insignia masks Thanks for looking as ever. For those interested, the link to the build is HERE

With apologies to my P39, it is time to nail something new together... I was inspired by the exquisite models on show at Telford to go back to old school model making. My P39 started as an experiment that proved I could make a whole airfame in 3D, but after a long break from any modelmaking as I focused on airscale I found it hard to pick it back up.. Add to that a chance conversation with my friend Torben at SMW about subjects that could inspire me, he mentioned early racers and a bulb in my head went off :). Both he and I like ther S5, but the S6B has so many attributes that suit me - one being it is all metal rather than fabric winged and the other being that the real one is accessible at the Science Museum in London... So here we are... S1595.. ..a beautiful machine.. ..with inspiration in place and many hours of trawling the internet for images, I set off for London to get reference pics - unfortunately it is really badly lit, but 457 pics later I had enough with the disparate plans I found to start drawing out shapes... ..the rear of a float for example.. ..and this aeroplane is covered in a LOT of rivets, especially the wings as the surface doubles as the radiators (which were removed from the slipstream for streamlining).. typical is the float again... ..though where I have been doing complex cockpits in previous models, this one is pretty simple.. ..still room for 3D though, this will become the fuel tank under the instrument panel.. ..with drawings created, I made lots and lots of parts from 1mm card & 2mm cores... I also designed a 3D printed matrix with the bottom of the fuselage and the top of the floats to set the angle and give strength to the struts.. ..the cockpit is going to be tricky as there is just skin and very small thin formers so for now it is part of the core and with brass 'U' channel running down the sides where the real one has a strengthener I hope to cut it all away later ..the 3D core in the fuselage includes holes for the wing spars and you can see on the forward end one of the holes for 3mm brass rod for the strut cores (the other is just visible under the back of the wing).. ..Same for the float tops, though the scars from me getting the angles wrong on the first pass are visible here.. there is also a slot running around it to centre the cores... ..and assembly has started, the fuselage is super slim, literally the size of the engine cross section - the shape will be created by filling the gaps with hard sculpting foam and a skim of P38 filler before skinning.. for now there are just placeholders for the engine blisters as I need to refine the drawings - they are a complex shape.. so that's it - underway with a new project and I am glad to be back at the bench TTFN Peter

Hello, Here is my last built and my first helicopter. Very difficult to take good pictures as it's really big.

The Douglas TBD-1 Devastator was the US Navy’s premier torpedo bomber when hostilities broke out on December 7th 1941. Six months later it was completely obsolete and removed from combat operations. The subject of my build is from the USS Yorktown VT-3 aircraft (0303) crewed by Harry Corl and ARM3 Lloyd Childers. One the morning of the 4th at approximately 1200hrs Petty Officer Childers spotted smoke 25 miles away to the starboard. Machinist/pilot Harry Corl was able to get the squadron skipper Lt Cdr Massey attention. The skipper made a course correction to head for the nearest carrier (Hiryu). It was reported that at this time the squadron was jumped by approximately 30 Zeros. VT-3 was lucky enough to have 4 F4F Wildcats with them to help fend off the attackers. After what I could only imagine as an agonizing 20-minute slow approach, they were able to release 5 torpedoes. Corl and Childers 0303 had been badly shot up on the approach and the only way to keep airborne was to jettison their torpedo. The following is from Machinist WO/Pilot Harry Corl Mission report date 6-15-42: The free gun had jammed during the fight. Childers, Arm3, my gunner used .45 automatic during the 10 minutes of the attack. Childers was hit in the right ankle causing a compound fracture of the same. He received two hits in his left leg above the knee no broken bones in that leg. I arrived at the Yorktown at 1425 circled it twice and saw that there was no chance of getting aboard. (Yorktown was bombed by Hiryu Vals) So I proceeded over the Enterprise. I attempted to land aboard, but discovered I did not have enough tab control on the elevator to keep the nose up. I landed in the water head and to the starboard of the carrier alongside the destroyer USS Monaghan. The time of the landing was 1510. Ensign Harry Corl was KIA(VT-3 TBF-1) 25 August 1942. Lloyd Childers survived the war and became a Marine Aviator and retired as a Lt Col. This is the Trumpeter 1/32 TBD-1 Devastator from VT-3 USS Yorktown on June 4th 1942 Midway. I added Air Scale products such as the Photo Etch, propeller set, wheels and the single .30cal machine gun. I highly recommend their products. I did bits of scratch building such as adding cockpit wiring, relief tube, two internal windscreen braces (removed the molded on external windscreen braces), wingfold braces and leather pad for the bombardier under the pilots area. I used AK real color for the light grey bottom Model master Blue/grey for the top and AK for the interior green for the crew areas. I have seen some debate on-line about this, what color? But for me seeing the pics of sunken TBD’s aircraft from the discovery of the USS Lexington at the battle of Coral Sea. Interior green is also stated in TBD’s Devastators in action book(The Old One). Another debate is whether what squadrons carried the twin .30’s. It is very obvious that VT-8 for sure had them and I have seen some documentation that VT-6 (USS Enterprise) may have also had them. After many hours of research, I came to the conclusion that VT-3 only had the single.30. I came to this by listening to several recorded interviews With Mr. Lloyd Childers. And in the end, there is just no conclusive proof they carried the twins. I also used Hawaiian Air Depot masks for the A/C numbers and the insignias. I had previously bought the Gold Medal decal but figured painting over the corrugation would be far easier then decals. But I am glad I purchased it because they come with aircraft data. If anyone has seen what Trumpeter did with their data decals….well. Rod WIP Pics

Howdy, partners… I’ve now completed the main bomb bay structure as well as the wing bomb cells on the Stirling. 250+ pieces of individually cut Evergreen has got the job done - quite tedious but the results are worth it. There will still be some more to add when the bomb load goes in such as racks and some piping, plus the doors of course. On the real aircraft the divider between the gear bays and the outermost bomb cell is actually open with the truss work exposed, but I’ve gone for strength over accuracy as beefy card is needed for the wheel bays and general wing structure to give it enough strength to support the model. I need to finish off the main gear bays but I’ve had enough if cutting plastic strip for the time being so will focus on something else! All the best, Tom

Hi guys! Italeri newest release, overall fine fit with raw surface and good interior details. I changed look of elevators and rudder, corrected fuselage wide lines and erased few on wings, added some cables and missing things in engine compartment. Corrected by a bit spinner too. I've made some rivets by painting from handmade masks and using watercolor crayons. WIP MC.202 Duo Camo

Here she is, done! Thanks for the research support I've received for the build, especially from Jari. I seem to have lost my photographic skills, most of the pics are overexposed, in some the model appears a lot more patchy than she really is. I am really pleased with the way the hinge mechanism turned out, thanks again Severin. Here and there I used old-school detailing techniques, e.g. the fuel dump was done by squashing some brass tube in a vice to get the oval shape, then sawn off to correct length and worked into the trailing edge. Those Eduard photo-etch stencil masks are gems. Don't pay too much attention to the base, it's somewhat temporary since the end-game is to have this and an A-6B stand on a large Coral Sea base. Cheers, Marcel

Hi Gents, Here is my Tamiya Zero, a good kit except for the silly mechanisms to make the landing gears and doors movable - corrections are time consuming. You'll also need to work on the engine/engine mount for a perfect fit with the cowlings in place. I used the excellent tweak list available here. I used RB production seatbelts, master barrels, Barracuada tires (for Spitfire originally), all excellent. AK Real and Tamiya paints, painted markings and HGW wet transfers. Tristan

I have always wanted to do this project and now being able to draw and print in 3D it makes things more inviting to me than scratch building. I plan to cover the airframe with embossed(rivets)aluminum and leave it "Bare Metal", Hopefully.... The parts are as large as I can print on my printer which is a Anycibic Photon Mono X. I printed the airframe parts with relatively thin skin, .030, so that it won't get too bulky with the aluminum skin applied to the surface. I hope to be able to use a fairly heavy primer on the interior surface so that I can spray a bare metal finish to the interior of the bombardier/navigator's compartment and the area below the flight deck. I plan on installing the "cheek" gun positions but I have had difficulty trying to draw them for printing, I want to print them as vacuum form patterns so that I can pull clear petg for the windows but I also want to form the aluminum skin over the same pattern for the clear piece to live under and add the assembly to the airframe. Pat

Hello all and i hope everyone is well This is the my Tamiya Spitfire which was going to be Johnny Johnson's Triple X beer barrel bomber but it......didnt. The issue arose that i was going to try and have the barrels and pylons removable as i do like the clean lines of the Spit, but the magnets that i had installed werent strong enough to hold the resin barrels and pylons flush to the wing surface, so i ditched the idea in the end. This kit build nice and easily, i add the Red Fox Studio IP set, painted with Tamiya paints plus used my own mask sets for the camo and all the insignia and serials. All comments welcome :-)

This kit is a pure magic. Absolutely fun build. It took about a week. I messed up few things due to my own arrogance and clumsiness. But the overall feeling is a pure joy. Thanks to William for the kit itself , I missed out on the initial order and he was kind and generously thoughtful to get extra one for my grubby fingers. He also provided guidance along the way. I have to admit my knowledge of the subject is minimal and his help was immense and badly needed. And finally a big thanks to the Kotare team for their efforts resulting in this amazing kit. Cheers Martin More pictures HERE

Hi all, The engines have been my recent focus, and considering the Stirling shared the same ‘power-egg’ as the Beaufighter, I utilised the cowls and engines (from the Revell Beau) which has made work much easier - considering all you get in the kit are these bumps in plastic: First up, I assembled the cowls themselves, tarting them up a bit with some Evergreen and plastic card: The engines from Revell are actually quite good out of the box, and considering everything is black and very little will be visible, I built them OOB, painted them satin black and weathered them lightly with some oils. Atop the engine nacelles are big carb and supercharger intakes. The MkIII Stirling had a longer intake than the earlier MkI, and handily the Revell Beau gives a good starting point to use. These were sliced and then extended with Evergreen: And then blended with filler: Next, the finished power-eggs were mounted to the plastic card firewalls I’d made previously when constructing the wings, the intakes added to the 12 o’clock position on the cowlings, and viola! A lot of this work has taken place al fresco as it’s been so warm of late: So, here we are as of now: I need to have a think about the oil coolers which hang low under the nacelles, but that’s a job for another day. All the best, Tom

More transparency work of late, this time huge steps have been taken with the canopy. The kit part was always suspect in my opinion - it just looked too big, windscreen shape was totally off and the sides too vertical: Something like this would really bug me, so I was thinking about making my own by either doing a master and vacforming it or alternatively doing the framing, much like the bomb aimer’s section, and dropping in the clear pieces using acetate. Then I had an idea… why not get in touch with one of the greatest model makers of our time, Peter at Airscale? And low and behold… And a comparison with the kit part: Here we now have a beautifully printed cockpit framing that will sit on top of a new vac canopy. As the pictures show I originally cut the fuselage to fit the kit part so some work is going to be needed here to get the fit right, but I’m delighted with Peter’s handy work! I’m currently working in finishing off the gear bays so the cockpit will have to wait for a while, but for once I can’t wait to get started on the cockpit and it’s interior - which is usually a job I hate! More when there’s more… Tom

Hello, Some photos of my last finished project. Trumpeter MIG-29. Painted in a Ukranian digital camo scheme. Paint used was MRP & I used DN masks for the digital camo. Added Quinta cockpit set & Reskit HARM missiles & adapter rails. Added wires & pipes to the landing gear & some details added to cockpit. Thanks for looking & all comments welcome.

my last assembly, another mustang but with a nice halberdmodel conversion

Within a month or so Archer will be operating again under new management, and there's a little twist that might just interest you, but don't tell anybody, it's a secret. The website is back for training purposes, and you can order from it same as always. ARCHER LINK

Edit: 19 November - see end of thread. Not exactly, but...... Most of you know that Harold of AMS Resin announced his retirement from resin casting recently, and that AMS Resin would close up shop as a result. However, Harold has been gracious enough to allow my wife and I to acquire all of his molds, masters, equipment, and his blessing to continue producing his great designs under our own business! So, over the next month or two, we will be sorting through everything, cataloguing it all, getting set up, and casting some tests to make sure we can match the level of quality that AMS Resin delivered. We will also be adding some new items of our own design to the lineup. While I’ve done quite a bit of casting for my own use, I have nowhere near the experience Harold does, so please bear with us as we develop our business plan and get things up to speed. As both of us have full time jobs (and I have a second part-time one), we will not be able to spend as much time on this as Harold did, so we will likely do it on a much smaller scale. Stay tuned, and I will keep you posted here as those decisions are made. In the mean time, what you can do to help us is to let us know what AMS Resin items you would most like to see come to market again. As we sort through things, we will watch out for those items and make sure we give those a shot first. Feel free to post it here, or contact me via PM. Once we get the business properly set up, I will provide a new e-mail for direct contact. Thanks a bunch, and a BIG thanks again to Harold for trusting us with his excellent work! Tim & Christie B&B Resin Design

A bit of progress on the bomb bay. An exercise in Evergreen and patience! I’ve made 238 pieces of individual strip so far - and counting! The wing bays will be next - more piccies when done! Tom

Hello all, this is my effort to do a Lakenheath F-15C from the Tamiya kit. I choose to do 84-0027 as it had an odd 'camo splat' on the horizontal stabilisers and it had quite a hard edged camouflage, the F-15C's seem to have a mix of soft-edged and hard-edged schemes. So to do this scheme i made my own mask set for it, which made it a lot easier. The add-ons to the basic kit were Red Fox Studios cockpit set, Reskit AMRAAM's and burner cans plus i used PK Productions 'BIG USAFE MOD EAGLES' decals.....all three are excellent products, plus my own masks DM Scale Models Camo and Canopy set. Hope you all like it, it was a nice build and turned out well i think.

Hi gents I am happy to share with you my last build . this is the Tam’s E converted to the G version ..as I didn’t want to spend too much money on AF market sets ( but little bit though ), I sratchbuilt the main components, namely the chin pod, the vertical fin antenna, the belly reinforcement strap... I focused the main improvements in the cockpit , I scratbuilt the rear bulkheads as well the side walls , I used the "Redfox" IP and console sets, however dedicated to the Revell kit . I admit that I naively thought that they only needed a few adjustments, but obviously , they are not intended for the Tamiya kit , I struggled a bit to adapt the aft IP.. indeed it seems that the Revell IP are oversized compared to the Tam's kit, well the result is not so bad . Some wires into the gear bays as well on the legs ... the seats are from " quickboost " , decals are from " speed hunter graphic ", outerwing sections are from Isracast ....... hope you 'll like her bad smile ... was it a cool "trip " ?? I struggled a bit sometime , but .... not so bad .... so as I usually say ............enjoy ..........or not cheers Alain pictures were taken outdoor pictures indoor

Hello! So! finally finished! After an almost 3 years stand by. I used some aftermarket: - Eduard photoetch - Master barrels - Legend bays and folding sets - Werner wings stencil decals - Reedoak figure paints are Mr color laquer c308 and mrp 105. Weathering with oils, mostly mig oilbrushers. Again I felt very frustrated with the figurine painting. I tried again the uncle Nightshift hack with black primer, zenithal white and filters. But... Again I did not succeed. The base color are acrylics from vallejo but I tried to paint the highlights and shadows with oils. And I think I liked to do that way. The build will be detailed in a 2024 edition of french magazine Cocardes. Now some pics! Romain

Done! Lots of firsts in this build, and Improving my photography skills wasn't one of them. Overall, a typical of Special Hobby's earlier offerings, with plenty of opportunity to use good ol' Basic Modelling Skills The paint scheme was surprisingly straight forward, if a bit monotonous. The drawn out build can be found Here Make sure not to stare, lest it traps you in its gaze... All hail the Hypno-Fiat! Paints used were MRP. Thanks for checking it out! Denzil.

Well, finally das is it! My first 109. OOB, with PE seatbelts, canopy masks and Quickboost tropical filter. I made many mistakes from which I have learned for the future. It is what it is and I'm mostly satisfied with how she turned out. Among other things, I obviously need to work on my canopy painting skills. I was lazy and just wanted to finish her so the tires are not weighted, although it would definitely look better. Maybe I will do it one day... Anyway, on to the pics: And some WIP cockpit pics: WIP link here:

This is the model of one of many G.3s serving in Bydgoszcz Pilot School in the years 1921-1927. The example 15-18 was photographed around 1926. The lovely CSM model had to be modified to the Polish post-war version which most striking difference was in the aileron lateral control replacing the original wing warping - I have done it basing on a couple of blurred photos and unconfirmed scale drawings from several sources, let me call it an educated guess. The decals with numerals and masks for Polish national markings were provided by Mr. Decal. All in all a very pleasing project ended in a result, which I deem differs substantially from many other great builds of this great CSM kit. I hope you will enjoy these couple of photos.

Since I have been calling in research favors to help me with this build, I thought I'd show some quick phone-pics. Contrast of these pics is a little excessive. Almost everything, including the shark eyes, has been masked and painted, and not decalled. VF-111 F-4B's looked really weathered and worn towards the end of the '72 cruise. The yellow touch-ups are as per a period pic. I struggled fitting the exhausts, the fit looks clean and symmetrical but the fairing/nozzle transition isn't 100% accurate, unfortunately. One thing that did work out is the separation I scribed between the horizontal stab and the slat, the gaps are really consistent (not the case on my other F-4 builds). Cheers, Marcel

Hi, everyone! Because I just can't stop building big twins for which I have precisely zero room, it's time to add the HKM A-20G Havoc to the display shelf! My SprueBrothers pre-order just arrived today (sans the promised mask set, which SB is already fixing) after several months' waiting. To say I'm excited for this kit is an understatement. I have a soft spot for SW Pacific gunships and when I heard that HKM was doing an A-20G, I vowed that it would be a bench clearer... and here we are. My aim for this is to build the kit out of the box with the exception of the paint scheme and markings which will likely be custom done via my mask cutter. I will be doing something from the SW Pacific, but exactly what is yet to be decided. My super awesome wife bought me the Pacific Profiles A-20 volume for Father's day, so that should be here soon and will help me decide which aircraft I want to model. I'm going to try to document pretty much every step as I go along so that those who follow in my footsteps may learn from my (admittedly often self-induced) mistakes. Here's the box. Everything is nicely packed and arrived unharmed. Note the nose weights in the small bag stapled to the inner box (far left, just barely visible). I like the way HKM seals their bags. The adhesive strip on a flap makes it easy to get at the sprues without having to cut everything out. Everything is out, organized and ready to go. I'm not going to dive into detail on the sprue layout or molding quality as that's been covered in quite a few places in the run up to release. Steps 1 and 2 have you build the cockpit. Here is the factory seat and PE seatbelt. The PE is nice and thin and, after annealing, sat nicely. Note that I think the lap belts are illustrated backwards in the instruction manual. I believe I have them placed correctly here with the square tip across the seat and the triangular anchor at the side of the seat. The instructions are a little small for the seatbelt PE, so take your time and test fit. It's not overly complex like an HGW set, so it's fairly straight forward, but for some reason, the way the instructions were laid out for the PE was hard for my brain to visualize. Basic dry fit. I tend not to glue bulkheads together until I can see how they slot into the fuselage halves. Nothing like getting all the way through an interior build just to find that you glued them together incorrectly and now the interior parts don't fit into the attachment points of the fuselage. The armor plate aft of the pilot. This part contained the only ejector pin marks that I've thus far felt compelled to cleanup. Ejector marks don't bother me too much if they're in an area that won't be seen after construction, so I don't bother cleaning them up. There are a few on the aft bulkhead behind the seat, but they'll be invisible, so there they shall stay. And the doodads and whatsits behind the pilot's rear bulkhead. Step three has you move on to the nose landing gear. It goes together well without any major fuss, though the fit of part H54 (the little knob sticking up off the side of the strut isn't super well illustrated in the instructions. You can see it more clearly in these shots. On H54, there is a small cutout for a corresponding knob on the gear strut which wasn't obvious in the instructions until I got out my magnifying glass. Here you can see it in the proper position. The nose landing gear fully assembled (but mostly dry fit). The nose tire has very nice molding detail for the treads and sidewalls. The hub is keyed to the yoke so that the tire's flat spot (presumably) sits right where it'll need to. You can just see the flat spot on the bottom of the "axle" which provides the key in the photo below. Here we have the instrument panel. A decal is provided for the instruments, so we'll see how that turns out. I've had mixed luck with decals over IPs in the past. If I were patient (I'm not), I would have waited on building this kit till I could get the aftermarket IP that... someone... (I forget) is coming out with soon. Outside of that, the molded detail is very nice and crisp and should paint up splendidly. I've left everything dry fit here so just in case the decal IP goes to hell in a handbasket, I can replace with aftermarket as necessary. This pic also shows some of the detail molded onto the back of the seat... which will absolutely never be seen once the cockpit is together. That's it for tonight. I'm pretty jazzed on this one, so I intend to move pretty quickly on it. Be sure to follow along!

Here I present my build of the Fokker DR.I #425/17 in its early days. This Meng kit is well detailed and mine presented additional work due to mis-aligned mold halves, in addition to the usual warped wings and broken fuselage panel. Thanks for looking in!

I needed to do a reality check on this ambitious dream I have here. To get a better idea what I am up against. How well did I model the engine cowl surfaces, including the "smiley face", that I have created so far? How well is the printer set up (exposure times, etc), and how well have I designed my supports and is my part orientation for printing acceptable. So I designed and created some test parts. Already I had a part defined for the cuffed propeller, done a couple years ago just for kicks: I could go on and on with this effort. It was a ton of fun. To make a long story short, Airscale Library has some Hamilton Standard data on prop blades including the one used for P-51's. Data is available for cross-section shapes at various prop stations from root to tip, and their twist angles. Create curves in Rhino of all these shapes, at the right angles, loft between them, do some tweaking, and you get what you see. Then I had to define other test parts using the cowl surfaces I created over the last few days, which I described last post. And also the spinner surface. Here: And after many hours of 3D printing I got these parts: Except for possibly the prop blades (they are practically perfect), these are merely test parts. Parts I make for the model will be much more detailed. So this was a test. What did I find? The printer is probably set up about as well as I can do it. No print failures, and part quality looks good. I certainly expected no less; I have already produced some parts for the Corsair. The "smiley face" part has excellent surface smoothness. no lumps, no ripples. What a victory! But it didn't print that great. More work to do on that score.... The cowl surface is actually pretty good. There is one seam between patches where I didn't do a good job of getting it smooth (I can fix that), and some edges are a bit ragged as can be seen on the smiley face part below. I hope I can fix that with a locally more dense array of supports on the 3D print file. I am a bit concerned about that. It could possibly be addressed with some putty though. Here: Fit between the two parts is pretty good, but I was expecting perfection. The 3D printing process is not yielding theoretically perfect results. Any imperfections will show up when trying to mate two parts together. And I do not like those ragged edges. Hope I can get that taken care of. I should say now that I intend to skin this model in aluminum litho sheet. So the final fuselage parts (wing too) will be under the defined surface by .005 inch to allow for the thickness of the litho sheet. And that will cover up some imperfections in the 3D printed parts. And speaking of imperfections: The spinner halves didn't fit together worth a sh_t. And edges are ragged similar to the cowl parts. The spinner will not be skinned so it has to be right on. Again - more supports locally should help with most of the shape problems. Also, the prop blades didn't fit in their holes at all. The holes need to be a few thousands of an inch larger, just like holes for a bolt need to be slightly larger than the bolt diameter. Instead of being exactly the same diameter. I am a dummy. Also, I am finding that 3D print parts might be just a tad expanded - so the prop blade roots might be a tad oversized, and the holes a tad undersized. On the bright side, these parts look very cool, and have the potential to be transformed into excellent ready-for-primetime parts. I will be doing some substantial redesign, and will probably make the prop blades and spinner my first effort at production parts. A stand-alone unit that will gather dust for a long time waiting to be installed on a complete fuselage. I combined test parts to see how it looks: I am both encouraged, and discouraged. It sure looks like a Mustang - that's great. But fit-up is going to be a challenge. This is not going to be as easy as I envisioned. But we all experience learning curves, and I hope to experience that here. Stay tuned - I will post progress on a greatly improved prop before long. Meanwhile I have alot of surfacing work to do on the computer.

Let's inspect some details - The underside with the gear bays: The main landing gear: Most of the landing gear and gear doors are 3D printed. Tim Perry in the UK printed these up for me from Rhino 7 digital models I created myself. Scratch built tail feathers: Aluminum skinning should be in evidence - the tail area was the most difficult of all to skin. Tail wheel: Almost the entire tail wheel and support were 3D printed. Also the tail hook and the doors Wing trailing edge (flaps and ailerons): That last one shows the effects of the "double hairspray" method of chipping two layers to expose both yellow zinc chromate and bare metal. The ailerons, BTW, are 3D printed. The prop and nose cowling: Both items (prop hub and blades, nose cowl) are 3D printed. This aircraft (#17 VF-17 Pilot Roger Hedrick) had a white painted prop spinner to identify his flight. Other flights had other colors (black, red, etc). Also note the open cowl flaps - another big sub-project. Cockpit, windshield, and canopy: Windshield is scratch built; the canopy salvaged and heavily modified. The cockpit is a bit dark (sorry) - other than the engine, it was the largest and most complicated sub-project of all! Engine compartments open: There's that engine! The cowl panels are held in place by little magnets. More: You can see the magnets. The engine accessories compartment is chalk full of 3D printed parts. I am especially proud of the engine accessories compartment - it was an integration nightmare that had a good ending. Many fellow modelers helped me out on this effort. I got technical advise from Kaeone57 and TAG and OldBaldGuy. I got modeling technique advise from Airscale, Thunnus, and others. Painting advise from Chuck540z3, Thunnus, others. Airscale also provided me some of the decals, and aluminum sheet for skinning - all free of charge. Thunnus provided stencils for the numerals - also free of charge. It also helped to have a retired Naval Aviator looking in - Easixpedro. I am going to forget somebody, darn it. I'll come back and edit if/when I recall. I must give a shout-out to Airscale Library for all their technical information - drawings, manuals, catalogues. It's just amazing. Also the books I bought - Dana Bell volumes 7 and 8, Lee Cook's "Skull and Crossbones Squadron", and the huge "R-2800 - Pratt & Whitney's Dependable Masterpiece" by Graham White. I would like to thank all my dozens of followers on the build thread who were patient during 4 1/2 years, and kept me going with kind and enthusiastic comments - it's great to be an LSP-er! I hope you like the big F4U. It's a far cry from its beginnings. Thank you for looking in!

He-219 A-0 Zoukei Mura 1:32 My experience with Zoukei Mura models is very bad. This set is also poor. Fitting is bad Details for a scale of 1:32 are poor I can't say anything good about this set.

thank you all, very kind time to build out the fuselage of this curvy girl.. started by black outlining all formers with a sharpie so when I sand I can see when I hit the outline, then it was filled out with hard foam blocks in between all the formers .. then those were cut and sanded to the base profile - litho cockpit sides were added to keep shape integrity while filling / sanding.. ..then the structure was given a thin skim of P38 filler.. ..and sanded to shape.. this is the 'rough cut'.. ..lots of sanding and re-filling & re-priming and the base fuselage is complete for skinning in metal later.. ..the big definitive rocker cover fairings were a challange and I pondered how to do them. Eventually, I made up a basic 3D version which my skills in no way allow me to get all the subtle shapes so these just serve as something to start with - though the exhaust port blocks will be separate as they will ultimately be scale.. ..I started the refinement by getting the position and relationship to the fuselage right. This is done by covering the fuselage with aluminium plumbers tape that pretty much defies anything sticking to it for long and the fairings spot CA'd in place followed by filler so they become a close fit... they can then be easily broken off for final shaping.. .. then after they were permanently fixed, a definition needed to be made to start to represent the fuselage break where the fuselage and engine fairings meet.. ..this was done with lining tape and filler added and sanded until the tape can be seen.. ,,and the all important nose profile starts to take shape.. ..and thats it for now TTFN Peter

Months after finishing the model, my friend Mário Serelle finally took some great photos of it for me. Thank you Serelle!!!!

This is my first topic over here at the LSP forum & I didnt think I would make one for this kit but it has surprised me. So I am usually a 1/72 & 1/48 scale modeller but last year I just got burnt out with the whole process. I entered my first model comp and won a couple of gold and was proud of myself, but after that I decided I needed to step away and have a break. I dont know if it was the fiddily small bits, or the posting on forums/facebook, or just the high demands I put on myself but I just kept making excuses as to why I couldn't go down to the bench anymore. Anyways a couple of months ago I decided to change it up & (with possible influence from this forum) I decided to start a large scale kit. My victim was the Airfix 1/24 Fw190A, a kit which has a reputation for being a dog. The difference was going to be that I didn't mind how it turned out, I wasn't worried about posting it or taking pics along the way, I decided I was just gonna have fun. So what changed you may ask, why am I posting? Well I just layed down the camo over the weekend and I am quielty surprised at how this kit it turning out and though some of you guys might get a kick out of it. I have had this kit for at least 20+ years, was a present when I was a teenager and I have always paniced when I got the box out because I didnt want to stuff it up, so it went back to the stash everytime. This time, being such an old kit, I told myself what does it matter any more, I will use it as a learing curve, the bits are huge, so scratch building should be easy and hey, at least it will be a fun ride. My kit had it all, dead flat bottom wings, warping on the underside & nose, tons of flash, etc. I did my research on the pitfalls of the kit and set away on the build. Unfortunately because I didnt intend to post this build I never took andy pics of the engine or cockpit, but I built both up as per instructions. I read that the engine protrudes out of the front of the cowl by about 5mm but I was able to build it fully without leaving out any parts, I just took about 1mm to 2mm off of the engine bearers and it seemed to do the trick. I think by building the cockpit up fully and placing it into the assembled fuselage helped with the engine placement. I didn't superdetail the engine at all as the FW is going to be buttoned up, but I did add the ignition wiring. What pics I can get will come once the masking is removed. While I was doing to bodywork to the main kit I did decided to build up and paint all the other bits and pieces Starting with the prop, I sanded down some of the length of the cooling fan ring attachement to the spinner as it was just to long, then assembeled the hub and inserted the props into it. The props had some pretty big sink marks in the back of them Landing geard was next, all stock kit parts other than the addition of the brake lines and the bolts holding the gear door to the leg. Still more to add but will install the wheels/gear before the remainer of the brake lines go in. Also threw on some Airscale cockpit placards to add detail As this brid will be an A-5/U4 I will be adding a bomb to the centreline ETC rack, so I built up the kit bomb. I added a slight texture to the main body with thinned down Tamiya putty, added the attachement hook, replaced the fin supports with brass rod & made some fuse covers & a nose cap from wine foil punched into small discs. I decided to paint the bomb in RLM65 to represent a pre July 1942 bomb that was sent to North Africa. Markings were masked and painted on. Finally I will be using the kit guns (as they came up alright) but I do have some turned barrels fror the 20mm cannons. This all leads me to were I am right now with the kit. As I mentioned earlier, I had a dead flat bottom wing so to fix this I bent it back to shape with some boiling water and then epoxy glued in a wooden dowl as a main spar so it would keep it's dihedral. I also had to use the boiling water on the underside of the fuselage to bend the rear wing connection back into something resembling a propper shape, all held firm with some epoxy putty once glued. To tackle the bad connection up front, I assembled the 3 top cowl pieces first, taping them to the bottom half while it was still setting off, then added the front cowl ring to conform the shape. Yes there was a ton of dry fitting and finessing before commiting to glue but after all the hard work I was left with a pretty good fitting kit. I also cut and opened the cooling gills & lowered the tailwheel as it sits to high. Please excuse the poor pics, the kit is just to big for me tiny light box, maybe time for an upgrade! Still need to block in some of of the camo but it's taking shape. Camo is the classic RLM 74/75/76 With the RLM 76 I did add some Grey green to the mix, just to bring some warmth to the colour otherwise I just felt it was to cold. All the camo colours are under a silver base for a natural look and I tend to post shade my colours. I also have build up the gear bays. The kit only supplies the rear main spar and the covers over the centre fuselage. I scratch built the rest. Not 100% acurate but it gets the job done Finally the sliding canopy. It's been a pain and the first time I added the glass the liquid glue ran under the tape and marked the plastic so it had to be removed, sanded and polished before a re attempt. Least it looks right this time around. And this is where it stands at the moment. @airscale has answered the call for some aftermarket wheels to replace the crappy rubber kit parts and they are little works of art, cant wait to see them in person. I will look to cut some masks for the markings this week and will hopefully start to paint them in over the weekend as well as the MTO markings (white band on the fuselage & white wingtips), yellow underside of the nose and the black over the exhaust cooling plate.