BiggTim

I just bought this kit, and you have set the bar high, my friend!

Oh crap! I didn't even know these existed, and now I'm gonna be jonesing for one forever. That is a totally awesome kit AND build!!!

Actually the lead came from .45 caliber bullets I fired from my Colt Peacemaker replica. I usually shoot with a large block of firewood as a back drop, so I can split the wood and retrieve the lead to cast more bullets, or to use it for things like this. I found a few of the more intact bullets, pounded them flat and to the right thickness with a hammer, cut the piece out, and sand to shape. Some hardware stores used to sell lead in sheets, but I haven't seen it that way for some time. But lead shot, bullets, and fishing weights are usually pretty easy to find, so I use those a lot. Another way to make flat pieces is to lay them in an old old cast iron skillet and melt them with a torch and let them cool into a sheet. You might try laying an old piston ring or something like it in the skillet to trap the lead and make it thicker, but I haven't tried that yet. Good luck! Tim

Thanks! Yes, the P-26 was apparently a real scheme. I saw some color artwork of it on the cover of an old issue of "Aviation" magazine, and I think it may have had a B/W pic in the article, but I'm not sure. I may still have the mag around, if I find it, I'll post it. We are pretty careful about what we spend (plus I have other hobbies), so OOB fits what I can afford, and forces me to get a lot of practice scratchbuilding detail. I pretty much only resort to buying AM details when something is over my head or I want to save some time. Good luck to you! Tim

Wow, great picture, where did you find that? This plane is definitely from the 428th FS, the dark colored square on the tail and the F5 were their squadron ID marks. The W is the pilot's personal mark, and I think I may be able to track down his name. It would also have been painted on the inboard side of the vertical tails like the one I posted. I found a reference this afternoon that suggested the noses, spinners, and square on the tail may have been a very dark blue rather than than my initial suspicion of black. That would amke more sense, since if they were black you wouldn't be able to read the tail number. This picture makes it clear that the intakes below the spinners were the same color. I am waiting for confirmation of the dark blue color from the fighter group's official historian, so I'll post when I hear for sure. Thanks again for the great pic, I will add it to my reference collection! Tim

I must admit that I once sold the Aero Detail He-111 book with an old vacuform ID models He-111 for some rather serious cash, but that was before the Revell He-111 came out. Good timing on my part, but I kinda wish I had kept the book now, since I'd like to do that model someday. Oh well.

Would also appreciate your help in deciphering the colors of the 659 plane (the wrecked one). To the best of my friend's recollection, the nose and spinners were black, upper surfaces of nose and nacelles O.D., but the lower surfaces of the nacelles seems to be another color yet. Maybe red? The 666 plane also has another color painted on the air intake under the spinner, as is apparent in the close-up photo with just the pilot. I'm guessing that since that plane was in his squadron, maybe his was painted the same color? I believe the squares on the tail were also black. Thanks for your thoughts! Tim

I thought you folks might like to see some WW2 photos I scanned from a friend's collection. They are high res scans of the actual photos, as the negatives no longer exist. This is the paint scheme I plan to paint my Trumpeter P-38 in, even though it is not flashy or well known. My friend, Sgt. Archie "Lee" Stuck, was an assistant ground crew chief in the 428th FS ("Geyser Gang"), 474th FG, 9th AF during WW2, flying P-38s. These photos are of him and his crew mates and their Pilot, Lt. Robert O. Hanson, and I believe were taken in Schweinfurt, Germany in 1945. Oddly, Lee told me that the J-25 they are standing in front of is not even their plane (note the rather ominous nose number - 666, funny huh?). One of their planes, an L-1, tail number 424659, nosed over in the mud at A-78 in Florennes, Belgium. To my knowledge, these pics have never been published. Enjoy!

Well, if they are, I'm gonna be selling some books soon.

Dang, I want that kit, but that's just a lot of cash to part with for a guy on a low hobby budget. That's why I build so much OOB, and so many low quality kits - I can't afford most of the good stuff! It taught me how to scratch build pretty well, though.... Guess I'm going to have to forgo some kits for a while and save up...

No, I haven't posted the Sparrowhawk build. I started the kit before I joined the forum, and didn't take any early photos, so I can't show how bad it was to start with; suffice it to say that it was pretty much exactly like your P-35 pics! It is mostly assembled and is the filling, sanding, polishing stage, but has been stalled for a while due to other projects (and some because I was sick of it). Too late to scribe the lines at this pahse, at least for my skill level, so it will likely stay smooth. I will shoot some pics when I pick it up again. Tim

I'd like some opinions on what AM gun barrels to use for my Hasegawa F6F-3 Hellcat. I'm not opposed to making them if anyone has a good idea of how best to do that. Also need some decals if anyone has any they'd part with - was thinking of Alex Vraciu's plane, but I'd consider anything with that tri-color paint scheme. Thanks, Tim

Peter, I am very interested to see how this turns out, considering that I love doing old kits, and especially pre-war planes, OOB, as you can see by my recent posts. Never done this one, but I do have the Williams Sparrowhawk in progress, though I wasn't planning to do an panel lines on it. It is arguably one of the worst fitting kits I've ever built, but should be fun to see done! I'd like to do the old Hasegawa P-12 and the F3F someday, too. Tim

A few more old projects on display: The P-38 is by far my favorite plane EVER (if they ever make a 1/24 version of it I will pay whatever it costs). The first one I built in 1/32 was the re-issued Revell kit some years back. The detail in this kit is SO bad, and I was not really much for scratchbuilding and panel line scribing back then, I just closed all the hatches, left the guts out, and made a flight display out of it. And since I did a crappy job on the panel lines, I couldn't bring myself to paint it NM, so I painted it the gaudiest color I could think of, and painted the YIPPEE markings on it. Not too bad, and lots of fun! I also have an affinity for the Hasegawa pre-war fighters, like this P-26 Peashooter. Again, it is OOB, (seeing a theme there?) and I chose to paint it a flashy scheme I saw in an old Aviation magazine. Since there were no decals of that plane, I had to mask and paint most of them, including the indian head emblem. The rigging is a very fine monofilament beading string with a light coat of Metalizer Aluminum. I also left it in a satin finish, and cleaner than I would do for a warbird, since this plane never saw an combat. Well, that's it for now. I have a couple more recent completions from earlier this year yet to photograph, and will post when I get them taken. Thanks all!

As I'm rather a newbie to the forum, I thought I'd post some pics of a few projects I've done over the years, some recent, some not. Since there probably a size limit, I may do it over a few posts. Hasegawa P-51D, totally OOB, completed maybe 10 years back. Canopy is missing the pilot's name because I had to re-do it after an accident, and haven't put it back on yet. Next up is the old Nitto K5Y Willow kit from way back, bought it at an estate sale about 8 years ago, and built it OOB. In fact, it was such a nice little kit, I didn't even scratch build anything, or add any detail, just built it as it came. The decals were ruined, but they were simple enough that I masked and painted them using my own homemade "frisket". That's it for this post, I'll add more in another. Thanks,

Incredibly impressive my friend, you are an animal! I have restored a couple of old kits before, but nothing as detailed as this. Will continue to follow with anticipation! Tim

Very impressive Jerry, as always!

This is my first Trumpeter kit, so I decided to try and build it without any aftermarket stuff to see how good a kit it really was. So far, I haven't needed anything special to get it up to my personal standards, but it's still early yet. Like it overall, but am disappointed that there's no easy way to show off the nice engines without some serious hacking. I left the right engine out and built a mount inside for the prop so I could later build the engine on a stand for display. Paper seatbelts, drill some small holes to add wiring, and few scavenged placard decals from other kits, and the pit looks pretty decent, my crappy photography aside. to solve the problem of nose ballast, I filled the lower portion of the nose cone with lead carved to fit snugly, and covered it with a plate of plastic, and added a brick of lead in the lower gun bay carved to fit in the slot under the magazines. Since that still wasn't enough, I also chose to carve the magazines themselves out of sheet lead and polish them. With a little paint and some details added, I think they will turn out nicely! Have to go for now, will add more later! Tim

There is a lot of love here for Jerry, he's been great to me in the past, but I haven't seen his Razorback conversion.

Wow, Rick!! I checked out your jug build, very impressive, got me chomping at the bit to buy it!!

Thanks for the input! I have seen the 1/24 Kinetic kit for less than the Vintage kit, so it's good to know they are the same, but I was a little concerned about the details available. I like to scratch build a lot of my own details, but if it gets to be too much, I'll sometimes buy some of the aftermarket stuff to speed things up. I am also pleasantly surprised to find that the 1/32 Hasegawa T-bolt sounds a bit more desirable to me than the Trumpeter kit. That's also good news because it's usually a tad cheaper as well. I have noticed that hidden details seem to be a common thing in the Trump kits. The engines in my P-38 are beautiful, but no way to see them, so I left one of them out to build it on a stand. I guess I'd better get a couple kits done so I can buy a P-47..... Tim

Hey guys! Thinking of trying a good quality (i.e. NOT Airfix) 1/24 kit in the near future, preferably something I haven't done in 1/32. I see there are two P-47D kits by Vintage and Kinetic available on "evilbay" (as I saw someone put it), but the Vintage kit is quite expensive. Is there a noticeable difference in quality between these two kits? Thanks, Tim PS - should I decide to do the P-47 in 1/32 after all, how does the Hasegawa kit compare to the Trumpeter one?