CANicoll

I think that was only used on Russian planes, not the US ones, but I agree, so I'm just going to fill the holes and leave it. Its on the bottom anyway. :-) Good luck! Kev - looking really good. I think you can go with either Interior Green or Bronze Green on the strut. I'll be interested to see how much weight you stuff up there in the front. :-) Can't wait to get back to mine, but it will be a couple of weeks.

Kev, Looks amazing all the way around. I hear you on the radio gear - I did some searching and there is just not a lot of reference material available so I can't imagine anyone coming up with any criticisms. The nose work looks terrific too. I do like the shells and your painting does stand up to the macro lens - I should be so lucky on mine! BTW, have you dry fit the nose panels on? I still need to work that 'fix' on mine. Hope yours fits much better! Looking forward to getting back home and getting back to work on my bird. I should have a lot of time in July to make some good headway.

Bad luck! Hope you feel better soon Kev. Sounds like you need some R&R at home for a while. Quick recovery!

Just amazing all of the piping and wiring that went into these engines. Great reference photos, thanks for sharing.

Sorry if I missed the comment - but what are the additions in the 'Hi Tech' version of the kit? Thanks! Chris

That looks VERY VERY Nice. Keep up the great work!

Thanks Kevin - I do and I use it religiously. It has much better pictures than I'm finding on the internet. A very big help. Dennis, much appreciated! It definitely is challenging me. Kev, Mine had the same thing - three were longer than the others. I trimmed them back so they would fit into the tray. And that is a good point - just close it up and call it a day. :-) I'm going to try and trim the tray supports down and if that works, great. If not, then I will just have to close it up. There is too much stress on the parts if I just press the top panel down. Have a good weekend all!

Just a bit of a catch-up. Got the wings closed and the wheel wells seem to fit pretty well. Dry fitting the wings to the fuselage, however, reveals a 1mm gap at the top if the bottom is aligned properly - on both left and right sides. The wheel well extends out into an indent in the fuselage so this may be the issue - I'll chase later. Here is the engine and wiring on the side that will be open. The wiring harness is not as nice as Kev's but I'm going OOB so it will have to do (that is my excuse anyway!). Will likely dabble some gray powder on some of the exhausts later. A bigger problem is up front. A picture for Kev to show how the shells look with the top piece 'on', but obviously, my cartridge rack is sitting way too high. I think I just need to cut the supports a bit and reglue, but again, will take a look at that later. The purple you see is actually on the glue bottle I used to angle the fuselage for the picture. No purple in the nose! That's it for now! Chris

Well, enjoy the holiday weekend. I'm sure there will be lots of good stuff to see (post some pics!!). In the mean time that gives me a bit of time to get going as well on mine. Closing up the wings and getting the tail planes together.

Good Ahh good to know. I have the Flory washes as well so I'll give them a look - for the life of me I don't know why I never thought of using a wash on them so thanks for the idea. I think I have some left over seatbelt pieces from a 1/48 build so I can practice on those first. Good luck on the shells - hope they turn out as you want!

Kev - you are planning on having only one side open, right? What I've seen on mine is that with the one side open, you can't see the shells on the other side. Any chance you can just slide the shells to fill the side that has the open panel and declare success? FWIW the shells on top of mine kind of flattened out instead of being in a nice curve, but it is not noticeable when all closed up. Good luck! I'm working on closing up my wings, and puttying in the machine gun ports.

Kev, I like the belts too, I may need to go over mine and see if I can tone them down a bit. What wash did you use? Chris

I can't wait to see some in-progress posts!

Joe - these things took a beating so its amazing how well you toned down those perfect decals in the earlier pictures. Looks really good! Nicely done and keep it going! Chris

You know, when it comes to things like pre/post shading and all that, it is something that is fully within the control of the builder. I probably would not do the shading that we all see on the model in question, but that is my choice and yours too. Personally I think it looks interesting, but not accurate. I did a heavily weathered P-51D Lou IV like was never seen in real life - heavily faded paint, etc. It took an award at our regional model show some years back and always gets a lot of positive comments when I bring it to our club meetings for whatever reason. We all know this plane never was as weathered as I am showing, but what is appreciated is the kind of 'what would it look like if it was heavily weathered' thing. I'm just happy to see a Tempest kit in this scale with apparently good dimensions, nice cockpit detail and all. I can decide what to do on the painting and weathering when I get it. Maybe we need a group-build on the Tempest?

Love it! Great to see the plane in action and in a great pose. Nice looking model and esp the pilot - I think the pilots add a nice something special to the display. Well done!

You've really spiced up the engines with your detailing - the look great. I really like the copper piping - I think it is a bit unusual to see and really adds a visually interesting element to the engines. Even better if it is historically accurate. How much will be visible when you get them into the nacelles? Fuel tanks look amazing too.

Super PE work. I'm always more than a little intimidated at the really small detail work (like the actuators you showed here), but the flap detail I bet will look amazing once painted and on the plane. The bomb rack is impressive too. Can't wait to see the next update!

Kev - When I did the HGW seatbelts I cut them from the sheet but left on the little tabs on where they attached to the larger sheet. The little tabs made it easier to thread through the PE buckles. After I got everything lined up I then trimmed the tabs off with a pair of small scissors. Hope this helped.

So have dry fit the wings together, and don't see major issues with fit there I think. The wheel wells fit in pretty well and seem to be the correct height. BUT I did notice that the wing assembly for the right side has three tabs (as does the left side), but the fuselage on the right side only has two slots. Its almost comical. A rough fitting seems to show that the bottom of the wing will align pretty well with the bottom of the fuselage however the topside looks like about a 1mm gap on both sides. Once I get the wings together we'll see how the gaps line up. Might be a week for my next update. Thanks!

Kev: Your update to the wiring definitely looks much better than the kit part. I also had a lot of clean up to do on that part and agree - there really were no positive mounting points, it was just kind of attached to the engine block. Did you tackle the exhaust stubs yet? The attachment points to not provide any sort of positive position support so definitely keep an eye on that. CN

Thanks for the great pictures! Love the detail work and the descriptions. Really looks good so thank for sharing, I'll be following along.

WOW, definitely looking good. I also used the Eduard Linkage on my Mustang, but the other plumbing you are doing makes it look like the real thing. Love the gloss black too, I need to pick up that trick. I'm sure it is sturdier than the acrylic paints I usually use. Can't wait to see the next update. Keep em coming!

VERY interesting. Thanks for sharing. I would have had it backwards, shooting the white first THEN the black. Hmm learn something new every day!!

Joining the thread late, but this looks amazing. Love the cutaway on the side - that is fantastic work. Love the decals and how they really settled down nicely. What set did you use? Looks like a set I put on a P-51D 1/32 fantasy build. Can't wait to keep following along. Chris