Sepp

Following this one, for sure. Lovely work!

Thank you, Brian

I've been working away at this on and off since the last post, so time for an update... The gear legs have had some attention. I started by making the precharge safety rod thingies from 0.3mm tube threaded through 0.5mm tube fastenings, and opened up the holes in the uplocks Drilled out holes to receive the end of the brake pipe behind the hubs, joined the legs and gear doors, and after some paint and bmf for the oleo made the main part of the brake lines from 0.4mm tube through 0.6mm tube for the fitings, and tamiya tape for the straps. Added 0.4mm lead solder for the flexible lower part of the brake pipes, and after some paint we have this: To avoid endlessly knocking them off, I'll add the upper flexible hose just prior to fitting the legs to the wings. None of this is in any way accurate, but it's better than nothing or the kit's rubber parts! The prop and spinner have been painted, gloss coated and decaled. I used HGW's wet transfers - I love the system, but they have some issues with registration. The ones I used on my P-51 were perfect, but the second set of those I bought were hopelessly out of register. These are a little better, but still required some careful touching up with a small brush to hide the white backing. Some random white and blue ... bits, for want of a better word ... transferred from the backing sheet. Very odd. They were eventually edited out, too - I noticed after I took the pic that I'd missed one (right hand blade, next to the white decal). The hub can stay black as the spinner won't be removable. Some of the spinner decals broke up - if you use these wet transfers, wait patiently for the decals to separate from the backing. If you attempt to coax them, they'll break up or come away from the transfer film. It was no problem to touch up the affected ones using a small brush. Then it was on to proper, actual painting! Underside first - not shown, it's grey. What can one say about that? Then dark grey upper and roughly masked with film and Blutak sausages along the edges. My first go at attempting a feathered edge. And after the dark green: There's some overspay, some patches that are fuzzier than I'd like, and some harder edges than I'd like... still, a good learning experience and I think I'll be able to pull the errant bits back into line. I'm gong to let it cure for a while then look at restoring the bits that didn't work. Then I'll leave it a day or two before giving everything a gloss coat and starting on the yellow leading edges. It's slowly starting to come together! All for now! Sepp

Oh my word. Simply beautiful.

Superb from start to finish. Chapeau!

That is a beautiful rendition of the proverbial streamlined brick. Very nice work!

While I'll be sad to see you leave as Admin, I'm glad you'll be able to enjoy being on the shop floor - and a big +1 here for all the work you've put into this place, and the support you give to us new kids! BZ!

A busy couple of weeks have put the Spit on the back burner, sadly, although I did find some time the other day to look at the canopy handle and emergency release ball. The etch handle looks very flat, so I added a grip using a tiny sliver of Tamiya tape: Next up, the release ball. first idea was to use the end of a Lego lever/aerial thing: but that was waaaay too big and I didn't fancy trying to either cut or sand it down to size. So - fine wire from the wrapping on a bottle of what was a very decent Rioja, bent into a hook to hold a tiny roughly ball-shaped blob of Mr. White Putty. No need to make a perfect sphere - I let the rough shape set then added a dab of neat gloss varnish and surface tension pulled it into a ball. Neat After that dried, I applied a thin coat of Tamiya clear red and: Voilà! For some reason it looks a bit balloon shaped in the pic, but it is actually a nice, round, ball. Next up - undercarriage legs and start getting paint on things. Sepp.

Excellent project and superb execution! Love it.

That is ... really very, very good.

Magnificent work and great inspiration!

Well, I managed to cobble something tgether. It's agricultural and only its mother could love it but once it's under paint and hidden under the wing, at night and with the lights off it'll look OK U brackets are strip scavenged from the frame of a previously used etch set, bent round the end of a steel rule. The top rods are cut down spare wing hinge pins. I used 0.7mm brass tube for the, er, tube and the discs were punched from styrene sheet of various thicknesses. Other renditions I've seen all terminate the actuator on the cowl body itself but this would put the rod that connects them (either to the lever on the left of the pilot's seat, which my build has, or the later wiggly amp controller) outside the wing - so mine extend just shy of 2mm above the body and so terminate just below the roof of the radiator housing, and inside the wing: I'll hold my hands up and admit that I didn't check before installing the actuators but fortunately there's just enough room for the part representing the radiator face to fit behind them. Phew! I'm still not happy with that brace on the left... it may have to go although it does look OK in the flesh. Anyhoo, my replacement canopy masks have arrived so I guess that's this afternoon sorted, while I ponder the gun heater ducts. Why do we do this to ourselves? More later, Sepp

This is superb! I'm late to the party but it's been a great read... looking forward to more!

Ahoy! Now that my first build is finished, I've resumed work on this bird. Wings and fuselage are joined and all the minor sub assemblies have been built up. I had intended that the next step would be to polish the (very minor) seam off the sliding prt of the canopy and get all the transparencies masked up and sprayed - but as I've cleverly mislaid the supplied masks, that will have to wait until replacements arrive. So, what next? Well, it seems the expression "the devil makes work for idle hands" has some grain of truth in it... Looking at the left cowling, it seemed a shame that the scoop/intake/cover had blank ends, so out came the tiny drills and I opened them up - front: and back: I didn't want to risk deforming the shell, so the lips are still quite thick, but I'm going to keep tweaking the apertures with the tip of one side of the yellow tweezers you see, as they are half-round in profile, until I get cold feet. Given that Tamiya give you a separate part for the similar thing on the top cowling, I'm surpised this detail is just a blank bulge. It's large enough to warrant a separate part, I reckon. Whilst looking around for something quite unrelated, I stumbled across Wolf Buddee's mind-bendingly magnificent build of this kit that exists elsewhere on these forums. Still in need of something to occupy me and suitably inspired, off I went at the deep end... first the riveter came out, wielded with far more enthusiasm than skill, then I added braces made from 0.5mm tube. I crushed the ends with the flat cheek of a side cutter and added 0.5mm dia fixings punched out of 0.3mm styrene sheet: Once it's set up, I might try to improve the lie of the flat ends... or I might wimp out - as usual, it looks much better i.r.l. than in the macro, and a good job too! I've added semi-circular brackets for the actuators to attach to - but I currently have precisely no idea at all how I'm going to make them. One thing I think we can all be assured of - they're not going to be the 11-piece wonders that Wolf came up with! Of course, all this is pointless fun - the recipient of the finished article will never look in here... but it's all good practice, I suppose! That's all for now - I need to go have a long think about push rods and U brackets, lol. Sepp

Wow! I'm honoured and amazed ... yes, of course you may, Kevin! My real name is John Chance.

Hello! Herewith my first LSP - for that matter, first build of any sort - in more than 40 years. It represents a warbird rendition (hence the modern VHF aerial on the finished thing) of an aircraft from 12e Escadrille, Forces Armées Bretonnes, in Algeria in support of the French operation there in the 50s. My intention with this bird was to learn and a "what if" subject allowed me to experiment without having to worry about faithfully capturing a real aircraft. That said, I did set myself something to aim at: Did I succeed? Well, I'll let you decide - she's never going to win any prizes but for a first go, I'm happy with the result. When I'm a bit better at all this I might revisit her with a slightly more battered "in service" finish, in European theatre colours. Paint and satin finish are Vallejo, some Xtracrylix used in the cockpit, gloss layer is Alclad Aqua and helped along by brass gun barrels, resin main wheels and various scratch stuff. Markings all masked, the few stencils are HGW wet transfers. Build thread is here . and the only pic of the cockpit I have, currently (I know the armour plate should be black... apparently the owner doesn't ) Cheers! Sepp

Mike, Brian, thanks for the support! Mike, the stand is from JHModels; they have their own site - jhmodels.eu - but I think I sourced mine via modellingtools.co.uk It's a biplane stand (with only two of the four supplied arms fitted) and they do two sizes; this is the larger one for 1/32 and up, the other is for 1/48 or 1/72. It comes as a laser cut wooden kit that you have to assemble. Not overly robust but works nicely. --- Final post! I was going to post yesterday but in between firing ImageShack up and uploading the pics I took of working on the antenna, I was distracted by a long rambling phone call and then deleted them by mistake so I went to the pub for a sulk instead. You'd think my time in the IT industry as a nipper would have taught me to back everything up before doing anything irreversible - apparently not, lol. Oh well. One pic survived, ironically because I wasn't going to use it: To précis: using 1mm styrene card, mark rough mounting shape with Sharpie then carve with various knives, files and sanding sticks. Add 0.3mm hole to take the antenna, which is 0.3mm rod inside 0.5mm tube (see above), glued with a smear of CA on the "inside" end of the rod. Progressively trim the excess 0.3 to fit the depth of hole previously drilled and connect with a further tiny dab of CA. Touch of white paint and satin varnish, further tiny dab of CA to attach it to the model, and presto. Worked a treat (eventually ... what you see is attempt number four), if a bit oversize - it theoretically ought to be 17.78x11.25mm overall, mine came out at 18x13ish, and the mount looks more like a Comant than a RAMI (bit taller and thinner) ... but if I don't tell you, you won't notice the difference And so, herewith the final pic! This build has served its main pupose, in that I've learned a lot, and most importantly has been fun. I'll post in the RFI forum next week, once I have a decent backdrop to use - but for now, thanks for watching and for the kind words and support! Sepp, out.

Lovely work! that engine is beautiful Following this, as I'm bound to dip my toes in the biplane pond sooner or later!

Thanks Kevin (Much) more progress! As I said above, the gloss coat (Alclad aqua gloss, which is lovely stuff!) went on and I added a few HGW wet transfers. Here with horizontal stab just dry fitted, to see how it would look: The transfers sank very nicely into the nooks and crannies where required - HGW recommend Gunze Mr. Mark softer, but I used MicroSol with no apparent problems. With the top satin coat (2:1 mix of Vallejo satin and water) on, they look the part and have precisely no film to worry about. The natural aluminium parts of the flaps are BMF, with what should be holes- rather than Tamiya's indentations - picked out in black. With the satin coat on they look quite nice, to my eye. Or at least that was the case for the first sheet. I had one decal break up on the prop. I ordered two more sheets, as I was happy with the results so far. Sadly, the new sheets are nowhere near as satisfactory as the first - but I will post about that in the LSP discussion forum. In happier news, progress has suddenly been remarkably fast Funny how one moment you have a pile of disparate bits and the next a recognisable model! Horizontal stab, elevators and satin coat on: Drop tanks, pipes, gear and doors on, prop and spinner mated, ID and nav lights added (I'm loving Klear Kote for this): and all of a sudden she's on her own feet Well, ankles I suppose, here: This morning I added the wheels and prop, and touched up the gun barrels and we're almost there: If you look closely at the top right prop blade, you'll see the manufacturer's decal is not quite the same as the other three... that's the one from the new sheet. All that's left is to add the fittings to the canopy, add the pitot tube (possibly also with cover and tag) and make and install this, and I'm going to call it done: If pix of the finished article show her with the conventional VHF "prong", you'll know my plan didn't work Hopefully, one more update to come tomorrow and then I'll be able to add her to the RFI forum. Cheers! Sepp

Thank you both for the kind comments The size of the pics flatter the work somewhat - I wouldn't expose small children or people of a nervous disposition to the full-size images

I can confirm that the low-tack version is a whole lot better than the standard one.

Ahoy! It's been a while since I posted an update - but I have made progress... First, the red bits went on: Then I added the black portions of the markings, and serials: One or two things to touch up, but nothing insurmountable. I probably asked too much of the Oramask film, in wanting it to form over the aileron pushrod fairing - a job really better suited to a paper mask. Side note: after trying numerous different tapes and films as transfer film, I've concluded that the very best thing is Scotch removable tape. Worked a charm. I then had a play with various metallizer powders/pastes.The right-most three sections of the paper tank have Uschi powders on them, with a coat of Vallejo gloss over the top. This produced a rock-hard deep shine somewhat like the chrome plated parts of truck and car kits. Quite amazing, but waaaay too bright for what I have in mind. The left-most part of the paper tank has Uschi aluminium paste on it. This produced a beautiful finish but it REALLY didn't like having varnish sprayed over it - it went dull, grey and patchy. I also discovered that adding the paste over acrylic varnish is a no-no - it acted as a really good stripper. I intended the drop tanks to have Uschi chrome powder over a black base - far too dark, so that had to go. Eventually, I went for Vallejo steel with a drop of light gray added. After adding some HGW wet transfers (of which, more in a later post) and a coat of W&N Galeria satin , this is the result. Much closer to what I wanted. The airframe and flying surfaces have now had a coat of gloss and I've added a few HGW wet transfer stencils here and there - but I've yet to upload the photos, so that will have to wait. Cheers! Sepp

Apologies for the delay in replying Brian - 8000 worked AOK, thanks for the advice And now, a small update. With my second project (which has a 'due by' date attached to it, and so currently has priority) coming along nicely now and nearing being ready for paint, I've dipped back into this one to move it along a notch: Bagged up for the white portions of the markings to go on. Possibly OTT but as I'm new at this spraying game, better safe than sorry. and out from under the covers I'm pleased with how it came out - only one tiiiiny touch of bleeding/leakage on one of the roundels which will easily disappear when the black portions go on. I'll let the white harden for 24h then re-bag the thing for the red wingtips and diamonds on the fin. More later! Sepp

Thanks, Dennis! I know what you mean

Ahoy! Although moving at what can only be described as a tectonic pace, I have made more progress! Cockpit tub finished - added at least a representation of a throttle cable which, unfortunately, you can't quite see in this pic. Fuselage buttoned up. Started work on the wings, and couldn't resist a trial fit to the fuselage. Putty manufacturers aren't going to make a fortune out of this kit - the fit is, so far, excellent. Just a trace along the spine so far. Gun blisters are by Barracuda and only required a tiny bit of sanding to reduce the thickness of the leading edges to get a pretty much spot-on fit. I'm going to finish assembling the wings, then take a break from this to make more progress on project no. 1. That's all for now but I'm looking forward to getting back here; I'm really enjoying this build. Sepp