jmustarde

Boring! Let's see a Mk. XII or a Mk. 22/24.

One of my day dreams is inheriting a secret 'stash' of WW2 planes collected after the war by a secretive relation. Weird, I know :). I've driven to work imagining an arrival at Oshkosh in an airworthy He-219 or a TA-152H. Wouldn't that be amazing! So go on, let your imaginations fly and share your dream mode of transport to Oshkosh!

Mind boggling! I just want to crawl under a rock or take up knitting. Your work is exquisite. Thanks for sharing.

Sure, go ahead Kevin. Thanks!

Literally just finished putting the aerial on this one. Used some aftermarket control surfaces that were originally for the Eduard kit. Needed a little work to fit. Also used Montex masks for Yellow 15 but had trouble with some of the crosses - used the kit decals for the upper wings and went on extremely well. Not a great fan of the 109 myself - prefer building 190s. This is two kits completed in less than a week. A record for me

551 FTS/495 FTG, Boxted, UK, July 1944

Took me a while to finish this - a regular problem of mine. First real use of Alclad too and reasonably happy with the result. Sorry about the crappy pics. Need to work on that skill too.

Hi Folks, Did anyone ever offer an aftermarket 300 ltr drop tank in 1/24? The Airfix one I have would require a ton of work to make it usable. Google says 'no' to the idea, so Plan B would be to beg a 300 ltr tank from a Trumpeter 109 from anyone that chose not to fit it to their build. What's the chance of that? All comments, opinions, suggestions and offers greatly received. Thanks so much. James

Hi Folks, Jerry kindly made me some FW 190 wheel well, cockpit and A8 update resin, but he's clear out of instructions. Does anyone else have a copy from the same sets they could scan? As Jerry said, probably fairly straightforward, but my Dad always drummed in to me the importance of reading the instructions Thanks folks. James

Hi folks, Here are three that I just finished (almost). All were started a while back, but I was determined to get something out the door in January! All are awaiting RB Productions seatbelts, so the canopies are not attached and the 190s need aerials. Fisher Sea Fury Hasegawa 1/32 Fw 190D-9 bigtail with my interpretation of Brown 4 Planet Models 1/32 Fw-190C V-18 Kanguru conversion Supermario's build is an order of magnitude better than this, but I like it nevertheless. Fun build. Thanks for looking! James

Thanks Guys. I'm having a lot of fun with resin at the moment. The MDC Typhoon, Planet 190C and Fisher Sea Fury are all wonderful kits and they're all on the bench at the moment. There's something about the imprecise nature of resin kits that makes them slightly more interesting to build. I've had this long standing dream that I'd win the lottery (or my company would be acquired) and commission master pattern makers like Paul Fisher, Radub, Derek,Jerry and others to make limited run 1/32 models I've always wanted. This would be a total loss-making business of course because nobody would want to buy the kits I'd have the guys master! Like the Blackburn Firebrand and Skua, Supermarine Spiteful and Seafang, Fairey Barracuda. Oh well, kinda nice to dream. Or scratchbuild! Have a nice weekend folks. James

I just added a long post and then fat-fingered something and it all vanished. Here we go again.... I decided to attack the spent ammo chutes on the 1A. Originally I just filled the cannon chutes and scribed the 6 new chutes... ... but I thought that looked a bit naff, so I got a big drill bit and went to work opening up the chutes... ..and fitting some plastic extrusion. Magic Sculpt and Bondo brought the surface back to what it needs to be... ..only to discover that I was a bit off in alignment on one side. Too bad, I'll move the panel line a bit later A little Mr Surfacer helps with fine filling... ..and I end up with what I think is good enough chutes. I need to tweak the gun barrel openings a bit on one side and rescribe both the underneath where necessary and then I'm done on that little chutes project. Next step will be to give the 1A a good priming and surface prep before tackling final panel line and latch restoration.

Made a little more progress this weekend. I fitted the extended canopy fairing and blended it in. I'm pretty happy with the fit. Rudder is taped on for position only. I still need to add some internal framing and the pilot's armor headrest. Next major stage is to get the roof line and windscreen right. Here's a better look at the 6 gun wing line-up. I originally just scribed ejector chutes on the underside, but I've decided instead to drill them out and insert rectangular extrusion to create a more authentic look. That's next. Here's a loose formation of the 1A and 1B. 1B rudder is taped on too. Both required a lot of Magic Sculpt on the upper wing roots, but the stuff is so easy to sand that it was real easy to get the right blend. A bit of rescribing will fix the lost panel lines. Any hint/tips on restoring some of the engine cover fasteners that got lost in the sanding? I was thinking little dabs of thick super glue followed by a pin prick before it's really hard. Any others? I also did a lot of work on the Spitfire PR XIX, but that can wait for later... All for now. Bye all.

Blimey, it's been over two years since I last posted on this project. Here's an update and some reasons why it takes me forever to finish anything.... Here you can see progress on the 1A. The extended, solid cockpit fairing needs to be reduced in height a bit before it's attached. Some internal framing is required and the pilot's headrest needs to change shape. The resin oil coolers were quite badly molded, so I cut off the fronts and installed some mess. I'll put the front ends back later. Here's one wing reconfigured for 6 machine guns. Here's a comparison with the late 1B. That's a pretty straight forward build, although quite a bit of filler will be required on the upper wing join. And here are a few distractions that have gotten in the way of Typhoon builds.... PCM Spitfire conversion to PX XIX using old Warbirds set Revell Mosquito conversion to FB VI using Paragon set Hasegawa big tail 190D Planet Models Fw 190C V-18/U-1 Kanguru Conversion Set I'll not wait so long to post more updates on the Tiffys.

Morning Guys, I've decided to reface the front of my MDC Typhoon radiator as the casting is pretty bad (no criticism intended). I'm stuck as to what material to use to simulate the radiator grill. I've seen people use some kind of mesh, but cannot find any builds that references it by name. All hints, ideas and suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks, James