BiggTim

Me too!

Oh man, how jealous am I right now!
 
Kev

Two kits showed up today. One from the USPS:
:
 
The other came via FedEx:

 
Just had a quick look inside the boxes; they both look like great kits!

It arrived today. What a spectacularly detailed kit..
 

Myyy precious... 🙂
 

 
I was planning to gift this to myself for my 50th last year but now it is finally mine!! It is a daunting sight opening the box and it seems like an insurmountable task.. but it's good to get out of your comfort zone I have heard. It is not going to be my next build but with HpH seemingly closing up shop, I wanted to get my hands on it before it was too late.. or 3x the price on eBay..
 
Niels

Great job, Mal.
There’s a lot of uncertainty and missing documents, but you’re gonna make something awesome.
I can’t wait to see a beautifully corroded painting from the seawater!
Yum-yum!

Interesting stuff Mal and nice ly researched. 
 
Regards. Andy

Yes...more confirmation
 
 
Yes ill go for a compass.
 
found pics on eBay.
 
Two seated Reconnaissance aircraft.
 
And same shape included wiring at the bottom.
 
took few days, but hey, thats the part of modelling and yes adventure, im sure enlightened in this matter.
 

 

 

Thanks for the input.
 
Ill se what ill do later..
when coming closer to that area.
 
Somewhere Revell put it there, and Eduard manual says so, so they must have or had reference material for that, but drawings and as the picture above shows nothing of a compass.
 
Yes and No here...
 
 

First thought when I saw the drawing was that it looks like a compass. I looked through my books on the Ar196 but nothing definitive. I guess there comes a point where supposition prevails.
 What you have done so far is of great improvement. Looking forward to your next entry. John 

Hmm, @scvrobeson you maybe be totally really right, as the shape looks as a compass, take bearing on targeted objects...
 
Ordered some compass PE decals from eduard.
 
Must say, info and detailed pictures are indeed very very sparse on the Arado 196, due to importance and the interest if this aircraft in Ww2.  other aircrafts ex Fw190, 109s, loads of pics and werknumbers and all that...and yes not to mention Allied aircrafts...very documented.
 
 

Allright got few hours this evening to do what i want...building then.. good that part is solved then hey, time saver....
 
More PE origami then and detailing then.
 
Positive rivets on the console base, PE box in place, stands for the ammo cassettes on the floor.
 
Will later ad two smal boxes to the left of the seat, scratch them aswell.
 
but later. makin sure all fits first and properly.
 
  
 

 

 
 

Hi Alan,yes the higher resolution ones are resin printers and not extrudion type. The price you pay is lot messier workflow than with filament. 'The best' gets you 5 different answers from 10 users. I suggest to first set a goal of what you want to print (and how big), and go from there. I found in my research that there are pros and cons to any printer. Read real reviews but be careful there's a lot of superficial ones that do not go in-depth or try all the options, and echo-chambers. Elegoo and Anycubic seem to get good marks for 1/32 type of stuff printing, and both have several models available. So far I like my Saturn 4 Ultra 16k, except for one thing: the printing buildplate is a pain in the a** to clean, I mean really.

Thanks so much for taking the time for this Dave. Will do, and report the results here.

Very interesting to read this thread. I am thinking about taking a semester course to learn 3D CAD.
i’d love to learn how to create things.
A couple of questions - forgive my ignorance, but it seems to me that the high resolution printers all use liquid resin and not extruded filament, am I correct about this? 
What printer would be perfect for a beginner to get eventually?
Appreciate all the feedback, and insights. Thanks
Cheers
Alan

Anyone tgot pictures of the gunner position area? 
 
Googled, got two books, even flight sim, it is very very sparse with pictures.
 
Would really be great help for me.
 
Best regards Mal

Some progress
 







 

Today's update,
The cowling:
As I mentioned in the reference image on the first page, the engine cowling of this Hellcat is very similar to that of the F6F 5. No old style flaps under the cowling and bulges on the sides.
 

Fifty years ago I had trouble with sneezes unrelated to hay fever or allergies. A bent septum was diagnosed and corrected with minor surgery.
 
Have you had a hooter inspection, mate? 

Hmm, is it possible some of these kits fit better than others? there is a build going on on LSM that doesnt seem to have the problems you encountered....

***CAUTION***
SARCASM AND MODEL ABUSE AHEAD
SENSE OF HUMOR REQUIRED BEYOND THIS POINT
***CAUTION***
You have been warned.
 
 
Life is too short to build crappy kits, my friends, and let me tell you, this one defines crappy.  If I weren't so annoyed right now, I'd take the time to photoshop an image of it into a dictionary page for the word crappy. 
 
I knew what I was getting into... I expected nothing and I'm still let down.
 
Anyhoo, join me on this next and final chapter of this Infinity Val journey.  The interior finish went pretty well.  I started with an aluminum undercoat, hair spray, some preshading, then the interior green.


 
Detail painting and weathering went pretty well, all told.






 
The decals for the IP went pretty well too.  I cut them into 5 different sections to help them settle better and, in the end, I was pleased and naively optimistic.

 
Putting it all together yields pretty pleasant results.


 
But that's where the optimism ended.  
 
Absolutely nothing else fits well on this kit.  Nothing.  Everything has been a fight.  Even after careful sanding to smooth out the mating halves and clamping it heavily, the vertical stab's spine still has 1mm gap along most of its length.  The cockpit to fuse fit required more superglue than I care to mention and it still wasn't enough to give a clean fit.


 
The curves of the fuselage halves fit neither the contour of the cockpit tub or the firewall itself.  This mess is what is left after copious amounts of cement, superglue, and tape were used to try to get the front of the fuse around the firewall.  If left to its own devices, the fuselage halves wanted to spread out 3-4mm further than what you see here which would have left a huge step between the fuse halves and the bottom of the wing's center piece.

 
Despite filing all the interior bulkheads down to try to avoid this issue, the fuse halves had large gaps forward of the cockpit.

 
I bolstered the wing joins with extra tabs because they are just simple butt joints.



I ended up having to shave down the top of the main spar quite a bit because it was too thick to fit between the wing halves.  
 
I attached the lower wing assembly to the fuselage first, then worked to try to contour the wing root mating surface on the upper wing parts to get everything to line up.  Here is the result of about a half hour of careful sanding, testing, and repeating.  Looks good, right?

 
Erm...

 
Here's the left side before any sanding or fitment work.

 
That's probably a full 3mm offset there.  

 
This took about 45 mins of work to get it here.

 
Notice the lip of plastic on the lower outboard leading edge.  That's a running theme throughout every single piece of this dumb kit.

 
The whole mess glued together.

 
Why not include 5 elevator halves in a single kit?  Seems reasonable.  Also, be sure not to number any of them; gotta keep that builder guessing.

 
You want the h-stab to fit inside that little fairing?  Right.

 
Sand the bejeezus out of it and scrape it till it halfway fits.


 
On to the ailerons.  Guess what!  They don't fit!
 
"I'm shocked!"
     - No one
          - ca. Ever
 
Even after sanding the mating surfaces smooth (again), there's still a significant gap at the trailing edge and a lip at the leading edge.  For crying out loud.
 
At least I got to make a cute little horsey figurine with the clamps.

 
After much fiddling and fussing, I got them installed only to find that there's a significant gap between the elevator and the flap.  

 
The air intake below the cowl took some pretty significant shaping to fit the gap in the lower wing piece.

 
The wheel pants required some persuasion... however, what's not pictured here is the fact that the top surface that's supposed to mate to the flat section of the bottom of the wing has a significant step.  Meaning it will ever fit straight without careful cleaning and sanding and fitting, none of which I have any interest in doing at this point.

 
I didn't even take pictures of the unmitigated disasters that are (yes ARE) the engines.  I believe the instructions call out the wrong part numbers so that by the time you try to fit the two banks of cylinders together, you end up with two parts that with male to male connection surfaces.  Plus, none of the alignment keys actually align anything and not one part - case, push rod tubes, cylinder banks, intakes, or exhausts - want to align properly.  In the end, I just cut off the intakes and exhaust and just stuck the engine on the firewall, resigning myself to the fact that no one would see the back of the engine anyway.  Ridiculous.
 
The resin engine requires you to sand off a huge pouring block in a recessed area that is nigh impossible to reach, least of all without destroying detail on the part.  To add insult to that injury, the detail on the resin engine isn't that much better than the plastic offering, so it's not even worth the time.
 
I think the breaking point this morning was the damn wheel pants.  They are engineered (engineered!) to have angled surfaces where they need flat surfaces to mate up to the wings.  This is just dumb.  I get that this is a "short run" kit and such a moniker carries certain connotations with it.  However, the deeper I got into this, the more I felt like the "short run" excuse was probably used as a crutch during the design process to say "oh well, close enough.  It's a short run kit after all."  I would be absolutely embarrassed to put out such a lousy product.  I'm glad that others have had success with it, but I just don't have enough time in my life to deal with dumb designs and craptacular engineering like this.
 
In short: 
This kit sucks.  
 
And, as I have mentioned, life is too short to build crappy kits.  
 
So, here we are... as close as this pile of hot garbage will ever get to an RFI in my world.
 
Before: https://imgur.com/5NRDXab
 
After:

Val will likely be getting a Helldiver wingman in the bin here shortly.  No way I'm bothering with that PoS kit either.
 
Thanks for joining me on this short trip, folks!  Sorry to disappoint.  Hobbies should be fun and this piece of trash just wasn't.  
 

I enjoy looking through my change for whatever coins I can find. As yet I haven't found an error coin, but you never know. Here's what I've picked up in the last couple of weeks.
 

 
The top row below are a couple of my more valuable coins. Far left is a 1919 1 yuan silver coin from the Republic of China. They can be worth up to $35,000 dollars for the right coin, mine is not worth more than a few hundred. Also next to them are two 1 ruble coins, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth and the other 50 years of the CCCP. Dad bought these for me at the airshow from two Russian MiG pilots who were making a fortune flogging off Russian coins and patches they brought out with them.
 

I received my Defiant last week. I was expecting to be assassinated by taxes (+ 20% VAT + processing fees, etc..) Miracle, not a cent to pay!! I don't know why but I won't complain . Superb model, well done Peter.
Richard

Hi, 
I thought this was the best place to tell you. Unfortunately my dad, Brian Fawcett, passed away over the weekend.
 
He spent a lot of time on here, talking with you all and sharing ideas. Some of you may even have bought his resin kits previously.
 
Please know, modelling really was his world, along with radio controlled air craft and moaning about the state of politics in the world! 
 
I’ll try and make my way through his contacts list, but if you know of anyone who dealt with him regularly, please do pass this message on.
 
This post has also gone onto one of his existing threads, but thought it wise to post something new.
 
Thank you for being such a great community for him over the years, we will miss him dearly every day.
 
Cheers, C

Very nice work!  Chipping looks especially well done.
 
Ernest