BradG

Master Gatling gun glued.

Finished painting the airframe and coated in future with hopefully decals tomorrow.
Decaled the mavericks, ready for another coat of future and a wash
 

Finished assembling and painting the gbu-12, ready for future then decals
 
Cheers,
 
David

Hi Brian,
 
Thank you for your kind words. I did not decide to paint and weather the entire airframe before finishing assembly, only the underside of the wings because I thought with a plane this big it would trickier to do the underside after assembly. I glued tonight the wings and wheels (using 5 minutes epoxy and she stands proud. I have minimal clean up to do on the wing joint and then I can finish painting the fuselage and wing roots, then clear and decals. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel:



 
Cheers,
 
David

Thanks Brad!
 
And thanks for helping run these group builds.
 
Carl

So, after half an evening of sanding, first with my proxxon, then finer and finer grit sandpaper and finally polishing with tamiya polishing compound, this is the result. Way above expectations - actually so clear that I wish I'd made a better rendition of the light on the back side :-)
 

Thanks Lee... I think it'll be a while until I do another...
 
Forgot: I've been mounting the vac canopy's on the fuselage (no pics, they are covered right now), and and I've been adding frames to the opening part of the canopy. Rest will get same treatment
 

Ok, time for an update. Last time I was fighting the control surfaces, and especially the ailerons gave me grief. I have now completed the third pair and I am happy with that. I will not mount them until I've scribed the plane. Ailerons in the back
 
 

 
But overall the plane seems to have fewer and fewer rough spots
 

 
And I've started sketching out the lines to scribe. I really dread scribing, but it has to be done.... (still a bit to clean up on the wingtip)
 

 
It seems that every time I complete a task I am thinking "just a little clean up and I can get to the painting..." but oh no - something new pops up every time
 
This time it was remebering that this version had a landing light in the nose. After a little thought and a little experimentation, I settled on this approach. Some clear plastic was cut from a toothbrush
 

 
A suitable gap was milled out of the nose
 

 
And the clear plastic with a lens painted on the back side was mounted. Now I have to file it down, sand it gently to shape and polish it back to a good shine. I plan to do the same with wingtip navigation lights
 

Nice work again mate.

Here's a quick progress pic. I'm about ready to clean up the pilot now and paint him in Thunderbirds uniform. I'm not excited about the detail painting here yet. Posted a few more in the tips and techniques section so if you've got some thoughts on how I can improve let me know

 

Well, they're both done now. I added the final small details to both- pitot tubes, antenna mast, and canopies.
 
Unfortunately due to our home renos, I don't have a place to take better pics at the moment so these will have to do for now.
 

 

 
 

 

 
With the cowls off and the red Merlin in view:
 

 

 
The HF VII:
 

 
 

 

 
Thanks again to everyone for dropping in.
 
Now to clutter up the bench again

 
 
Carl

A bit of an update;
 
Firstly a thank you to our sponsors; Rob at Scale Magic for his support of 'Best Display', to be awarded based on the popular vote of all visitors and to Modelart Australia, who are again supporting junior modelers with a 1 year subscription to Modelart for the 1st place winner in the Juniors category.
 
The museum has also been donated at least 2 substantial collections of aviation books from deceased estates. There's well over 500 books that need to go to make room for other archived material. We might just have that elusive title you've been looking for.
 
More updates to follow.

Jari, some great photos as always.
 
I'm planning to do a hard wing E in the SEA scheme eventually. I'll probably use Zotz's decal sheet for it.

A quick update on the F-4. I fitted and glued in the intakes. I'm using AMS splitter plates with the DMold intakes so a bit of tweaking was required.
 

 
There's a coat of Mr Surfacer 500 to fill in the small step at the join line.
 
Carl

I then masked and sprayed the codes on the VII. Decals were then applied for the stencils.
 
 

 
I need to add a few bits to the engine bay and then a matt clear coat.
 
Carl

I went hunting for the missing pair of exhausts on the port side. No luck so I dug thru my spares literally to find some.
 

 
Tamiya really gives you a bunch of extra parts with their Spitfire kits.
 
I ended up finding some exhausts so those were attached and then I finished the decals on TD248.
 

 

 

Time is money.

Working to finish the office today.ive got the pilot situated and now I need to lock his arms in place and put some putty in the voids before doing some primer. I'll add a few pics to this as I go today 😃

Test
 

 
 
THOR   

Time for an update. I have now glued the engine to the fuselage. The fit was not good and I am still trying to get a smooth transition between the nacelle and the fuselage, lots of putty and sanding. On the picture I have added one final coat of Mr. Surfacer and then one last sanding and hopefully I can then glue the wings and get going:


Since the model is both bulky and very heavy (there is a lot of weight in the nose because the resin engine nacelles make it even more prone to be a tail sitter), I have decided to paint, decal and weather the underside of the wings before glueing them on. Here is one wing completed: the metal landing gear has been glued with epoxy for strength.

The other wing in progress with a grey flory wash waiting to be wiped off:
 
 
 
 

I have also been working on the loadout as what would be an A-10 without some heavy metal. That is what I plan to hang under the pylons, trying to get as closed as possible to OEF typical load-out:
 
4 x GBU-12 from Brassin,  2 Mavericks from North Star, a litening pod (3-d printed bought on e-bay), one 7-rockets pod from the ZM USAF Skyraider armament set and 2 x GBU-38 from Videoaviation. Still a work in progress. Normally I have to kick myself to build the ordnance but here in comparison to the Trumpeter kit it is a real pleasure, the Brassin GBUs are particularly nice and so are the mavericks, they both come with a full complement of stencils which will certainly look awesome when done.

Hopefully I will make more progress this week and get this one done before August is over.
 
Thank you for following this build.
 
 
David

The port side of the cockpit is getting closer to completion. I've attached the console and various other bits, the throttle and some stencilling and warning placards are next, and I've built new canopy rails. That will be followed by a coat of clear semi-matte finish. Then it's on to the instrument panel and starboard side of the cockpit. It's slow but it's getting there.
 

I finally finished assembling the RB Productions harness. The instructions are pretty straightforward, but should be studied beforehand. The parts are tiny, and for older eyes hard to assemble. I did one strap per night over a few days and found it actually was more pleasant that way, instead of trying to do them all at once. 
 
They look remarkably convincing when done! I just sprayed the metal parts with a bit of clear flat to reduce the shine a bit. I'll have to draw in some stitching in appropriate spots, and then attach them to the seat with the pegs I made from stretched sprue (the tiny bolt-like things in the photo). Once they're on I'll drape them and weather them a tiny bit so they don't look so new. 
 

And here is the tailwheel enclosure being built. I can't find decent drawings even in the engineering manuals, so working from the Tamiya kit and the photos I have. It's not quite done, more rivets and stringers needed, along with some control wires and painting.
 

Holidays coming in a couple of weeks, so I'll be able to work on this solidly for a few hours at a time. In the meantime, steady slow progress. I've built replacement tailwheel doors. The ones in the kit are two 2x4 planks, with notches for two giant hooks/hinges so that they operate.
 
I built these out of a couple of layers of cardstock, with details carved and scribed in. The tailwheel doors on the real aircraft had piano hinges, so I attached one length of cardstock at an angle, so that they could be glued in after the model was assembled and painted, and both doors would already be at the correct angle. The rivets are again from Archer, as well as the resin piano hinges, which I think work very well. They just have to be primed, painted and weathered. 
 
 

With the masks removed:
 

 

 

I had started both of these Spitfire builds at the same time. The VII was part of a double build with a Tamiya VIII. The XVI was an entry in the Keep it Civil GB. I out them aside while waiting for some custom masks for the roundels. I received the paint masks this past Friday so I thought I'd get them done and off the bench.
 

 
One other hold up was that I had misplaced both tail wheels after painting them. I found those in the spares box thankfully.
 
Here are the masks with alignment marks drawn on them.
 

 
For the XVI, I used the same red as on the the stripes. The VII used the more typical roundel red and blue.
 

 

Trying Smugmug. Here's a pic of the sink holes in the intakes...hopefully I can get back on this over the weekend. Summer has been the time for the beach and a lot of yard work this year. I got a few airbrush lessons at the Nats so I plan to redo some of the cockpit, especially the oxygen bottle which I'm embarrassed to post until I redo it now.