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From the sides, however, the front panel lines are lower than the rear on both sides… While the bottom fit is quite bad. This may have been created by the insertion of my plastic pipe intakes, but I don’t think so, because the fit was not forced. In any case, sanding all this down while retaining the fine detail will be very tough. After a LOT of sanding and rescribing, I think I have the join licked. Again, ghost panel line detail can still be seen under clear CA glue filler. As expected, this bottom join was a bear to fill and re-scribe, but it turned out pretty good after all. With that out of the way, it was time to attend to the front intake parts. As you can see, there are 6 moon crater pin marks on each side and a lip at the rear. The curved cutout may be there so that you can see the engine fans from the front of the intake, although with nothing but plastic junk inside, why bother? That rear lip, I assume, may be for future or failed intake parts, that never made it in the current kit? The pin marks were filled with CA glue and sanded smooth, while the rear of the intake was filled with sheet styrene, to smooth out the intake and create a thicker join to my pipe intakes. A view from the rear, showing how the styrene parts are interlocking, much like the rest of the intake parts. My plan is to not paint the white styrene, but paint the forward portion gloss black as found on my subject. That way your eye will see a sharp demarcation from black to white, with nothing but white found behind in the plastic pipes. To get a good and smooth paint finish, I am going to paint the intakes before assembly both front and back. I will also paint the sides of the fuselage where the intakes attach, again for the same reason. This needle-like jet is now really looking a bit menacing and mean. I love it! Cheers, Chuck

Pre-shading. It needs to be fairly stark as the top colours are going to be dark. I’ll be using MRP paints for the colours and they are very nice at gradually building up the opacity so it hopefully looks just right... Guy

Hello all, I must confess to being a bit of a HPH Models Groupie. Iv'e got five of their kits and pre-ordered this few months back; It is simply stunning!!! It cements, in my opinion, why HPH are the best model 'artists' in the world... It's up there with the PBY which is my next project; I simply had to have a go at this one first! Here's what you get when you take off the sleeve and open the box; Here's a sneak preview of the size; I of course, had to purchase the Landing Flaps which are sold separately; Now, to the subject (which I have the support from HPH Models for); I am going to get unique decals produced for this project and will update you on what I did of course. From the that's all brother.org website; Nearly 75 years ago, on June 6, 1944, That’s All, Brother carried the first of the paratroopers from the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions. Piloted by Lt. Col John Donalson, the plane led over 800 C-47s that dropped over 13,000 paratroopers into a battle that changed the course of mankind. After serving on D-Day, and in Operations Market Garden, Repulse, and Varsity, the airplane returned to the United States and was sold to the civilian market in 1945. During the course of many owners over the next several decades, the historical significance of the airplane was lost and it was eventually sold to be scrapped. Fortunately, two historians from the United States Air Force discovered that this historic airplane was lying in a boneyard in Wisconsin. The Commemorative Air Force was able to acquire the airplane, and through a large group of donors and volunteers, restore the airplane to flying status. So all, there you have it, now to get all the stuff out and get going!!! Thanks for looking. Cheers Steve

OK - pretty big update: Both LG doors are done and installed, the wings have been glued to the fuselage, the wheels are permanently fixed to the axles and held on with the axle caps. And, the centerline bomb shackle and sway braces are installed. Take a look at some pictures: First, here are some real live sway braces from Dottie Mae, along with the defining engineering drawing: And my version: They were not the easiest of projects what with the complex (and really small) shape. Here is the bomb shackle: Now the belly of the aircraft looks like this: Addition of all these underwing parts have added much needed completeness to the look of the model: Note the axle caps - I made them a couple years ago! Finally they are installed!! OK enough enough (got carried away). Not done yet! This aircraft will soon receive the wing mounted bomb pylons which are going to be rather involved. Like usual I will take you through it blow by blow. And let's not forget about the pitot mast - last because it is fragile and gets in the way. Next post you will see that, and the wing decals. Then I will need to transfer over to ready for inspection. How does one do that?

Regarding the new 1/32 scale Beaufighter cockpit, the model should be ready by the weekend. The last bit of research is to confirm the radio location and radio rack configurations for typical Mk.I, Mk.VI and Mk.X aircraft. Otherwise, the last cockpit features have been designed. Here are left- and right-side canopy sill instruments. These features are to be fixed to the interior of the Revell kit's fuselage sides. They are depicted in the renderings below in their approximate positions in relation to the other cockpit parts. The next project nearing completion is an upper cowling with accurate shape and profile for the classic Airfix 1/24 scale P-51D kit. The upper cowling of the otherwise excellent Airfix kit is noticeably not as "full" on top, forward, as it ought to be. The 3D design is based on high resolution scans of original North American Aviation blueprints. Photos of the first test print are below. And now for the 1/24 scale P-51D upper cowling for Airfix kits:

March 20/19 Back again after a few weeks on a cruise to Hawaii and back, where my wife and I were able to meet Scott Wilson and his wife, who helped me so much on my long F-4E build. As mentioned in my first post, Scott sent me the 1/32 Hasegawa version of the F-5E and the now very coveted Black Box cockpit, which has been instrumental in “kicking up a notch” the cockpit of this Kitty Hawk kit instead. Scott and his wife Lei took us on a full tour of Volcano National Park on the Big Island and we learned many things about the recent volcanic eruptions and how they affected his community. Scott now flies an air ambulance in a Beechcraft King Air, so he has hundreds of photos of the eruptions from the air that he shared with us. Very cool- as was our all day island tour. I hope to return the favor if he and Lei ever make it to my neck of the woods in Calgary/Banff, so thanks again Scott! Obviously, I haven’t had much time for modeling lately, but I did manage to get the main fuselage assembled this week, complete with my hack seamless intakes made out of PVC plastic pipe. Since the pipe is so thick and hard to sand, my plan is to create a bit of an optical illusion within the intakes, so that all you see at the join with the front portion of the intakes is white and if you’re lucky with a flashlight, the front of the engine fan. After heating and bending the plastic pipe to fit, I cemented it in with lots of thick CA glue, much as I did the resin cockpit. To fill the remaining gaps, I used good old Poly Instafill, primarily used to fill cracks in drywall. This worked really well, because the filler dried quickly, was easy to sand smooth and more importantly, I didn’t have to paint it white. Although really hard to photograph, here’s what the intakes look like inside and if you squint, you can see the front fans. These pics also show the challenge of creating seamless intakes for this kit, because they must flex up and over the landing gear wells. While the prototype Phase Hanger Resin intakes appear to do this, an email exchange with Gary of GT Resin indicates that he may try to incorporate the gear wells in his F-5 intakes as kit replacements to reduce this arch, much like his F-15 seamless intakes that I used on my Aggressor last year. In any event, any new seamless intakes will be better than my plastic pipes and, in the meantime, until they actually become available, plastic pipes are better than nothing! Elsewhere, the fit of the top fuselage to the bottom half was quite bad in many areas and not so bad in others. The panel line and rivet detail isn’t bad, but using several references I did make some changes. The seam line from the rear to the horizontal stab pin is real and should be retained, but forward of that it should be filled completely, as shown in purple below. Other vertical panel lines should be deleted, also in purple, while adding the two blue panel lines instead. And here’s the same pic without all those colored lines for reference. Unfortunately, the dark wash I used earlier can still be found in “ghost panel lines” that I have filled with clear CA glue. For the rear, I used both kit and Eduard PE parts. For some reason only the left of the 4 holes at the top is open, which I found in many different reference pics. This hole was drilled out, along with the loop in the middle from the top. FYI, the wing will cover most of the seam line along the front, so repairs to this area are mostly unnecessary. Before attaching the front intake parts, the front and rear fuselage halves should be cemented together into one unit. This join is poor and weak, so I used the old styrene strip trick to reinforce the junction, fusing the two parts together solidly. From the top, the panel lines line up fairly well, albeit a bit lumpy and no, this join line should not be there as a panel line, as I’ve seen with a few builds of this kit.

Close examination of photos revealed a small change was required on the underside of the fuselage. Italeri had the same layout of panels on both sides of the fuselage whereas the photo of the RAAF aircraft showed a very different story. Here is the panel in question, a double up of what it looks like on the other side. The excellent photo of the underside reveals a different configuration in front of the APU exhaust, with raised detail and shapes. I removed all of the raised detail and filled the panel lines. notice that I also continued a panel line through to the rear corner of the wheel well by scribing it along the raised panel that Italeri have in place. Using Studio, I traced the new panels required from the photo above and manipulated them to fit. I cut these from oramask to check for fit and did this a couple of times until I was happy. Once happy, I cut these on plastic card. I had marked the position of each part when I had the Oramask parts in place. This enabled me to glue the plastic card parts in place with Tamiya Extra fine. Primed.

there is a lot in the full list of ambitions), and this is only a small part of which we are currently working on. About ambitions, how about B-2 at 1:32?

I've got Mr. Bell's Volume 2 on the way so I'll have that in my hands soon. The seat belts have been glued into place. I gave the seat a light gloss coat and then a dark brown wash to dirty the harnesses up and yes, the stitching did get highlighted as advertised. One of the sub-assemblies that have been painted. They are hydraulic bottles of some sort.

we will also have to sell a lot while we will be doing a B-2, so for now let's deal with those planes that fit into the mailbox and do not require sales of internal organs))

Moving along...

https://de.imgbb.com/ works better than flikr nose and intake installed from the bottom,the front wheelwell is an integral part of the intake the pit is primed.ip assembled with the film and some white backing

Ready for mass production... Cheers: Kent

Jennings I have a selection of their Luftwaffe colors. Have not had the time for testing other than to try RLM 79 on a piece of aluminum plate. Out of the bottle it did not spray without spidering a bit. Added some Mr Color self-leveling and it worked fine. Very glossy as advertised. Coated with their 40% flat and it looked good. Haven't tried mottling yet, that's the most critical test for me. Initial impression is it's good paint, doesn't spray as well out of the bottle as Mr. Paint, but that's not a deal breaker. Will follow up on testing as time allows. Cheers, D.B.

Built completely out of the box with Xtradecal decals to give me a colorful test aircraft from China Lake. Simple build, kit fits very well, so I if you can live with the funny looking intake...give it a try. It will be going into my display at work, so didn't really want to weather it much. Will be putting on some drop tanks donated from a member of the boards...thanks (the kit drop tanks are just terrible). Cheers Collin

Today update.

Fingers crossed, toes too!

Don't have a link, but you might check out AIMS recent Late War 109's decals. They include layouts for several 109s. I don't know if they cover all of them, but should help. I will be posting a review later today or tomorrow, but here is a teaser:

If you have read my recent build thread on the Ki.84 you will know the story of how I had a plan to build some Japanese subjects, if not then read on, if you did skip this bit. Back in 2017 I decided to build some Hasegawa kits as they tend to be quality kits that fit well but do not have the complexity of open panels, detailed engines etc. My completed model collection contains only two Japanese subjects so I was going to build three Hasegawa kits of Japanese subjects. The first one up was the Nakajima Ki84 Hayate, which I finally completed in January 2019 having been sidetracked by house extensions and redecorating. Sticking to the 2017 programme next up was the Hasegawa 1/32 scale J2M Raiden I still know very little about Japanese aircraft so again I turned to Nick Millman’s Aviation of Japan Blog. And I certainly looked in the right place as Nick has a PDF called Mitsubishi J2M Raiden Colour Notes, from which I gleaned enough information to get on with the build. The usual box art. l And my one and only dedicated reference book, which was quite disappointing As usual I cut all the cockpit components from their sprues leaving a “tail” to hold them with for painting. Using Nick Millmans Mitsubishi J2M Raiden Colour Notes I started painting, as there is only one surviving airframe and that has been painted and repainted over the years Nick’s notes were very handy. I airbrushed the cockpit components with Xtracolor FS34151 Interior Green, the fuselage cockpit areas were also airbrushed at the same time More coming soon. Cheers Dennis

Your upper cowl for the Airfix P-51D looks amazing. Any chance of doing a main wheel well insert for that kit as well (possibly with a substantial rear wall/spar to set the proper dihedral)? Thanks! D

As normal I m a little bit further along than my first post, I tend to save a bit up before the initial posting. After starting on the cockpit I got distracted by the cannon inserts which I had read on another build were a bit tricky so I did that next and ended up assembling the wings, this was quite a robust bit of construction but it all went well though my first attempt with the cannon covers was a bit crooked. Next back to the cockpit Cheers Dennis

My Hasegawa FW-190A-8 in Heinz Bar colors.

Me recently completed Tamiya F-14A in VF-84 livery. Paint is primarily MRP. Only extra bit was the Fine Molds metal pitot.

Here's the one I built a couple years ago. On my two copies, the canopy fit wasn't the greatest but not impossible. The lower chin was also a bit short. Most people splice the front part of the lower cowl with the section of the kit part that forms the centre of the wing. The pink PR Spitfire is a bit easier. You just need to drill a hole in the side of the fuselage and paint it pink. I did that one as well but keep in mind it's a IX and not an VIII. Barracudacast make decals for this one but I used custom masks for mine. Hope that helps. Carl

Now, I don't have to make a post myself:)!!! Here is the port side Aires part. It's missing the linkage for the throttle and mixture controls, cowl flap lever and wing nut to adjust tension and threaded stock to adjust, hook to attach parachute to, and some other plumbing and controls that Ryan can probably tell us what they are (LOL)! I sure wish I could read Japanese! There's also a flexible romex cable for the cockpit light. The dyno shelf needs to be added too. Once completed I will run the cables back through the rear bulkhead, I left them extra long for that purpose. The starboard side has the added tail hook indicator and cable to the crank to retract it. The zero tail hook could be "opened up" to release the plane from the carrier arresting cable. I need to tighten some of them up. There's also a twist pair of leads to the cockpit lamp. The morse code shelf is empty. Ryan indicated probably only shotaicho or higher likely had them. I scratch build a separate more panel Here is the cockpit floor. Note the bottom of the rudder pedals. I ground the bottom out and added rod styrene to replicate the wrapped hemp pedal bottom. Later models (A6M3) had the design in the kit parts. They are also missing some rivets. I added the foot straps from wire and added the brake lines and PE brackets, and of course the rudder pedal cables. There's a spring missing as resistance for the pedal adjustment star wheel (PE part) I also re-shaped the control stick boot and added the 3 snaps. There are a few lines missing, and the T handles I replaced with styrene rod The rear panel is pretty much stock w/ PE and lead solder for the bungee cord for raising the seat: Unfortunately, my seat pictures suck:( Out of focus. I thinned it down, drilled the side lightening holes you picked out, added back the rivet details and missing brackets on the rear for the seat belt attachment. I also replaced the rear main horizontal bracket, I had to sand the original off to get the thinnest possible seat. I made the brackets seat belt retaining brackets (look like ears with 3 position holes) but don't have pics. I'm in the middle of cleaning up and painting mine so hopefully I'll have better pics soon, looks MUCH better with a coat of paint! Note the wire around the perimeter. I filled the seam w/ super thin CA glue to remove the seam, cut the corers off to replicate the outer wire frame the sheet metal was wrapped around.

the quality is pretty good, no bubbles i see. i expect the same as with their Su-22 that i built. i always start with pinning the main assemblies: 02 by karl holubar, auf Flickr on the fuselage i used resin pourblocks cut to shape and pinned to get something to mount the wings on 03 by karl holubar, auf Flickr stay tuned...

One gear door down, one to go: A very dirty door - pretty lazy weathering. Maybe I will do a little more later. The placement of the door opening cylinder in the landing gear bay months ago was really a question mark. But I had no need to worry - it's just about right. The thin silver lip that is just above the door I added to the gear bay cutout on the fuselage. It's really supposed to look that way. That lip, or shelf, is why the hinge fittings need to be goose necks.

AIMS Late War 109 decals is now live!

Hi guys, Time flies! I've been busy putting the hinges on the weaponbay doors, but forgot to take pictures. I will take them later. Meanwhile I decided I did not want to correct the too flat tyres of the kit wheels. Instead I bought these: No comparison! Another focal point of the model is the canopy. The internal frame is provided by Italeri, but according to the instructions, it has to be build-up in the transparent part. Not ideal to avoid glue smears and to paint it. I decided to see if it was feasible to build and paint the canopy frame separately. The side frames have nasty mould seams over the rivets: The easiest way was remove them all and re-instate the rivets with Archer Rivets. One of the sheets I have contains strips with the right pitch. Indeed it was feasible to build up the canopy frame separate. Do several dry runs to ensure everything fits as it should! The Eduard interior set also includes useful parts for the lower edge of the canopy, its securing latches and the rear bulkhead. Here is the result. The other etched parts are from the kit: Two small mounting plates for the canopy hinges were added on the forward ledge, as seen on pictures The black dots are the Archer rivets. The frame is now ready to Paint it Black. To be continued. Cheers, Peter

I then painted the IP with Humbrol 85 (satin black) and spent some time adding the instrument dials using MDC Japanese instrument decals, this went very well and I was pleased with the result. The MDC dials fit the moulded Hasegawa IP dials very well and do not have excess carrier film that needs trimming, which is good as it would be a pain otherwise. And the just about finished article. However looking at a lot of other builds which I always do, I realised that I might have got this wrong, as a lot of them had green IP's, an email conversation with Nick Millman confirmed my worst fears that the control panel should have been green. So if you’re looking at the cockpit photos of the preserved Raiden then ignore the black IP. There was nothing left to do but airbrush it with some Xtracolor FS34151, and start all over again. Once again I was very pleased with the result, and it will teach me to check more thoroughly next time. The green IP. More detail painting followed, the various control levers had their ends painted red, I really don’t know how accurate this is but it sure beats plain boring green ones. The radio boxes on the sidewall, and a couple of other bits were painted with Humbrol 105 (FS14097) according to Nick’s colour guide. I did not think I had any H105 but being a “captain sensible” type person I had noted down on my paint spreadsheet that I had a tin and after a short search it was located in my “spare” Humbrol paint drawers. The parcel shelf behind the pilots seat was painted with Revel 09 Anthracite and the radio that sits on it had a coat of Humbrol 105 to match the other radio gear I then picked out the dials in black. I could not remember what the paint was that I normally use for leather so I tried Humbrol 133 and it turned out to be the right one. Then it was a case of picking out the details on the side walls and other components with small brushes and cocktail sticks. I do not know how accurate all his is but I followed a colour cockpit drawing that I found on the internet which to me looked quite plausible, this was taped to my desk during the painting so it was handy Then I decided to sort out the seat belts, as is becoming my norm I again chose RB seat belts, they do test my eyesight but with the help of my magnifying lamp I can get by. All ready to start, note the cockpit diagram taped to the bench just to keep me on track, I got this from the web so do not know how accurate it is. Instructions, which even I could understand. And that brings us slap bang up to date, however I have had an aftermarket knee fitted which has distracted me a bit so things have been slower than even my normal glacial pace, but progress has not stopped completely. The painkillers tend to make me lose concentration and fall asleep so modelling is difficult, but things are improving. Cheers Dennis

Thank you, D! Yes! Wheel well bays with spar for the Airfix kit are in the design queue.

This looks like a neat subject. Should be a pretty looking plane when you're done!

a B-2? gulp.. still no plans for a fencer?

Bryan, You've done an amazing job on the exhaust. I can't believe it's all Tamiya - not wishing to denigrate the brand! I've just bought a KASL exhaust for a future project and now I'm wondering why I bothered - even though it is a beautifully cast facsimile of the P&W exhaust. Funny enough, you don't see many Tamiya 1/32 F-16's built with the P&W exhaust.

Good yarn with lots of clichés and obviously not a lavish production, but I'll watch anything with Stephanie Martini in it. The underlying message of the poor treatment of some of the Poles at war's end disturbed me. I met two Polish fliers in the 1960a-1970s who had made a home in Britain so some stayed and made a success of life here. Tony

Seriously, how often has this actually happened, and for those times when it did, how many times has it caused one of the companies to abandon their plans? Plus, Tamiya is the big dog. If they announce a kit, people will buy it just because it’s Tamiya, regardless of who else makes the same kit. Also, these days kits have usually been in development for a quite a long time. If a second company announces a kit, it’s much more likely that they’ve already been working on it for a while, not that they just started from scratch just to poach sales from another company.

Hello Gentlemen, Scott is giving you some pretty good advice. The one item you want to add to the right side of the cockpit is the Air Fuel Mixture Analyzer Control Box. I found out I still have a Flickr account from back in 2010 and so I finally loaded two pics onto it and am going to see if I can post these images here. These illustrate the control box that was found on all A6M2s. This box was then deleted on later models of the Zero. Ryan https://www.flickr.com/photos/54116416@N02/shares/5htHU8 https://www.flickr.com/photos/54116416@N02/shares/605X4Q

Sure would have been nice of 20 rounds of .303 would have caused the wings to fall off of Bf109s and Do17s.

End of the seat bulkhead, with cabling and extra details

Hi everyone! OMG I have a problem! I have been working on the wing with some interruptions due to my job. It' on a good way. The today update does make me optimistic and it adds suddenly quite a big additional work. Something rang a bell in my mind when I saw this. Take a look On the left, you have the Trumpeter canopy and the Fisher's one is on the right The Fisher canopy is too flat and too wide. The canopy and its fairing are exactly the same on the F-8 and RF-8 Here is the evidence here below. Sorry for the poor quality but these two pics are self explanatory. They are a shoot of my Ipad screen. They are exactly the same indeed. It seems to be logic on the manufacturer point of view to have the same canopy for costs and the management of the spare parts. Well, let us have a look on the differences between the two fuselages now The cut front part of the Trumper And the RF-8 resin part Fisher is a bit short on the front and logically too flat The both side by side now Conclusion: --> If I take the Trumpeter as a reference, that's sound quite good to me, the Fisher fuselage is too wide on the aft part of the cockpit by 2 mm and too flat by 3 mm at the canopy the fairing section. Corrective actions: --> I will cut the both fuselages along the black lines shown on pics and I will adapt the Trumpy part on the Fisher's one. I will insert next the Aires tub coming with its Avionics part as I did on the two other aircraft. It will give me the wright cockpit width. This the best solution to me to be able to display the three birds side by side without suffering of a big difference in the shapes. That's all for now. I have to put all of this into practice now. I am on vacations next week. So updates will come regularly. Cheers Eric

Wheel bay before painting.

Great work! congratulations! Really this is a pleasure to watch! Paulo.

Hi, Just for fun DFV Cosworth piston and rod. Voilà. Pascal

7yrs later and still treading water but at least I can swim! Watch this space 'cause I'm doing my best to get back to this and, well, everything in general! Be Peace, Shawn and "Float On"! Alfonso

That cockpit is INSANE!

A bit more good news: I pulled out my trusty copy of the excellent "Naval Weapons of World War Two" by John Campbell and found a fully dimensioned drawing of the British 18 inch Mk.XII torpedo. According to Mr. Campbell, this was "the standard airborne torpedo for the first half of the war and was still in use later in aircraft and to a limited extent in MTBs." If there is demand, I can design an accurate 3D-printed torpedo for your 1/32 scale Beaufighter and Fairey Swordfish models. Here is a photo of a Beaufighter armed with a Mk.XII torpedo. The Beaufighter was also known to carry the US 21 inch Mk.13 torpedo. The US torpedo was much shorter than the British Mk.XII (13 feet 5 inches compared to 16 feet 3 inches) but much heavier. If there is demand, I can design the US torpedo, too. Here's the Mk.13:

Thanks, fellas! The 1/32 scale Bristol Beaufighter cockpit design is nearly complete. Some of what you see here will change. Need some help from you Beau experts. Reference photos of wartime and restored aircraft do not agree regarding the position of the RT.9D radio for early aircraft (BoB) nor the TR.5043 radio for later aircraft. Perhaps the position differed from aircraft to aircraft and over time. Any help confirming radio positions of the TR.9D radio and TR.5043 radio is hugely appreciated. Also, detailed reference photos of the pilot's seat cushion and heater box have eluded me.

Just to let you know I am alive, work has begun on the inboard landing gear doors. Here is what I want them to look like (Dottie Mae): I mean to include the following features: 1. The hydraulic actuator rod attach (rod not shown here). 2. The stainless steel doubler that has a clearance dish for the tire. 3. Two rollers that help lock the door in place with gear up (one shown above on bottom of door). 4. The two goose neck hinge fittings along with matching fittings on the wing rib. Here is my progress so far: The outer skin is .020 plastic sheet, the build-up is .156 tall by .08 thick strip, and the inner skin is .015 plastic sheet. The hardest part is to file and grind the spherical shaped dish on the inner surface, and then get the inner skin to lay down inside the dished area. Next post these will be finished, and mounted onto the wing. At that point, it will be time to permanently install the wings to the fuselage and permanently install the wheels onto the gear struts. I am approaching the finish line albeit very slowly! To go are bomb pylons, centerline bomb shackles, and pitot mast.

Some work on the right aileron With a dry fit on the wing with the flap Stay tuned Cheers Eric

Some more work on the FOD cover. Due to the complexity of the mask that I will make for spraying the 3 SQN logo, I wanted to have a few covers ready to practice in case I stuff it up. The cover is quite simple and lent itself well to being copied using a simple Pinkysil mould. No degassing or pressurisation here. Just make up a box around the part, mix your 2 part silicone in equal parts by weight and slowly pour it over the part. As can be seen, there are a few bubbles that have risen to the surface of the mould but as long as they are there and not around the part, then there won’t be any problems. The first cast in resin inserted into the exhaust. I have made a few copies for later use. The handles will go on once I have painted the logo. I am reasonably happy! Everything looks a lot better in resin.