Sepp

Yes - fortunately for me, the top coat usually hides all sorts of horrors.

Me again... Decals on. In the end I mainly used the kit's stencils, with one or two from HGW that looked better than Revell's offerings. Roundels are Xtradecals, fin flashes are from the kit (the Xtradecal ones were slightly too big to fit on the fin). The non-slip panels are strips of Archer's texture decal, with some scratched away and applied over Ushi metallizer: The only minor inconvenience was one of the upper surface roundels cracked up over the tiny bulge. I discovered that Vallejo's blue wash is almost exactly the right colour, so it touched up AOK. It looks a bit "gobby" in the pic - couldn't get a decent pic due to the gloss - but it's fine in the flesh: Then I had the bight idea to add some paint wear round the blast tubes and outer guns (just visible in first pic) to suggest repeated patch applications and removals before adding the 'current' red patches. After removing the masking tape I'd used as a limit guide: No idea how that happened, as everyting was under a good coat of gloss - I must've missed a bit! Oh well, can't win 'em all... Time for coffee, and a sulk while I wait for a replacement from Hannants. Gawd the paint looks crap in these pics, lol. Back soon (hopefully) Sepp.

Thanks, Kev. I'm working on doing a full A-Z and 0-9 in a couple of styles. When done, yep, I'll gladly upload them

After (another!) hiatus, more progress. I added some Archer rivets which will also do duty as raised screw heads (I don't have the patience to go the whole hog, so went for the areas round the nose and tail where I'll possibly show some minor paint wear): Knocked up some masks. The serials have strokes that scale to 1.25ins, because the 1in version looked too .... spindly. And - finally - started throwing paint around: The edges between the green and brown are too soft - I need practice to tighten them up in future. No pic of the underside because plain sky isn't really interesting. And she now has an identity. Not a good picture - apologies. There are one or two bleeds to touch up, but nothing disastrous. Next job is the exhausts while the paint sets up, then I'll give it a gloss coat and start on the (HGW) stencils. Back soon...ish, Sepp

Lovely work. And it reminds me that I really must get on with mine!

Excellent film - thanks!

W00t! Success... early birthday present to myself confirmed

Much as I love the 109, gotta be the DR.1

I hugely admire your attention to detail ... I think I'll wait for one of those HGW sets to appear

Well, it's been a while... apologies in advance - this will be a long post as I have made some progress. First up, landing lights. I experimented with strips of styrene sheet and PE offcuts, behind and outboard ('F' rib) of the opened up frame: but I didn't like it at all, so I dug out the Cameo and drew up a section of rib and cut several from thin styrene sheet, then doubled-up these up with some square rod to form a box. I cut the sides off the kit's frame and discarded the rear bit; the edges were then glued flush with the aperture, rather than protruding slightly from it as the kit would have it. I added the supporting rod using brass tube and a thinner lower frame from styrene strip. This all sits in front of the spar and rib sections: I didn't add the inboard 'E' rib, as it doesn't really show up on photos of the real thing, unless the observer is really close to the aircraft - the bracing on the 'F' rib is far more noticeable. The kit side frames are still quite clunky; if I build another of these kits, I'll make my own frames. Not perfect, or even wonderful, but at least it [a] fits in the wing, [b] was fun to do (which is the main thing) and [c] does at least adds some depth and make it look like something is going on in the wing behind the lights. The lights themselves needed modding to fit the new frame; studs cut down and a tab added to hold them in place on the support rod. I added a PE bulb support frame (thanks, Tolga ULGUR) and fuse wire for the leads: Not too bad when painted up. Leads could do with being a tad lighter, to show up: and - finally - mounted. Moving the side frames allows the lights to mounted inboard, as they should be, rather than central in the frame as the kit has them. The kit also has the lights pointing straight ahead; they should normally be angled 15º down. With the help of the gauge, they are! Hopefully you can see I also drilled out the outer gun barrels - I may yet replace them with brass because the lack of detail dismays me. I also added the hinge cover to the camera panel on the other wing, but no pic, sorry. Fit of the various wing inserts varied from OK to "ohhh". And so, on to the undercarriage. Lots of cleanup required: here I've started work on the part on the left; the unmolested part on the right appears to have a halo (this was also apparent on the gear legs): The gear doors feature moulded on brake lines, which end abruptly at the gear leg. I dislike moulded on things, so replaced these with (slightly overscale!) fuse wire, and silver tubing for the bushes: under paint, with flexible piping added and gear legs in place (I added the filler port and brake hose connector to each) they don't look too bad. I used strips of Tamiya tape for the hose clips. Axle stubs had to be trimmed to allow the Eduard wheels I'll be using to sit up against the leg base. Fit was, as usual, loose - there was quite a gap between the straps on the legs and the pads on the doors which all needed filling. The unpainted sections allow easy handling; I'll paint those before final assembly. The brake lines having now reached the top of the legs, the rest needs to be added. More brass rod and silver tubing: these fit into the outer section of the gear bays (here just dropped in, so not quite in position): and finally under paint. I will add the flexible sections between bay and legs just before fitting the latter. Major milestone: after opening up the vents in wing root and right-hand upper cowling (I may yet also do something with the two vents/pipes below the exhaust opening), the wings are finally attached - after a lot of uncomplimentary words about the fit. As others have commented, the root leading edge join (particularly) was not good and took a lot of work to get it to look even vaguely acceptable. I see rescribing in my future. [Side note: it required quite a bit of effort to close the horizontal join properly - I felt the usual thin liquid would not be strong enough, and regular glue would take too long to set, so I used MEK which provided an almost instant, strong weld. I will be using it more often!] Next up: radiator tub and exhausts, then I'll run out of excuses and will have to start throwing paint around. Cheers for looking - me, I'd rather look at Pastor John's beautiful work! Sepp.

Very much me

Thank you for the information and education - I shall persevere.

Oh yes! I hope the UFO series sees the light of day, and they make a good job of them. thanks for the heads-up!

Astonishing work and level of detail - following for sure. May I ask - how do you deal with resin shrinkage? (I know pretty much nothing of 3D printing, but understand it to be a consideration; iirc, it will shrink in X and Y axes, but not in Z) Do you compensate in design stage? Or find it is not much of a problem?

Thanks for the preview shots and commentary, it's helped enormously with making my mind up - I'm in! One on order