Heavens Eagle

That is SO COOL Misha!! Excellent job! The lighted model does look VERY impressive.

Sprue Brothers has the Kinetic P-47 in stock as of today (8-18-2014) It is listed as a 1/32 scale kit but if you look at the box art there is a big 1/24 down in the corner. It is also $119 as well. Here is the link: http://store.spruebrothers.com/product_p/kin32007.htm

Looks good (VERY good!!!) The little brass PE fittings are some AirScale parts I am guessing?

Nice work there Peter! Always like to see how others solve their build problems. Gives me ideas. (which is really NOT a good thing ) Question for the Airscale guy, you you folks have any plans on doing 1/32 WW2 German sheets for twin engine planes?

I have recently been using the Games Workshop brushes. Mainly the sizes 0 and 1. Have found that they hold and keep the real nice sharp points, flow paint well, and the tips don't curl. Have one size 0 that I have been using for a while now and it has been holding up quite well.

Looking good Mal!

Looks good! Enjoy your trip!

Just a thought (on seatbelts) I have tried the older PE belts and they are usually too stiff to get a good effect. You might look into some of the newer cloth/paper (?) seatbelts that are now available. I think HGW is one of the mfg's and believe Eduard is starting to use /market the HGW belts under their lable. Have some for my Ju88 and will not go back to the PE ones unless I have to. Otherwise your PE building is looking great! Are you having any problems with the brass staying glued to the plastic and each other? I have found the nickle plated PE sometimes has a thin coating that makes it break loose with a little stress. That was solved by washing with 409 before starting or washing it with Xylene and blotting individual parts.

I like this particular kit and am planning on picking it up myself. It is always nice seeing other folks builds and how those are done. As to the Humbrol clear coat vs the future, I think it just has to do with the properties of the "paint". The clear coat is intended for over other paints and to give a gloss finish over the other paint coatings. The Future on the other hand is meant to go on wet, flow out smooth, be self leveling and to be transparent. Also being a clear acrylic coating it is compatible with the clear plastic parts where the clear gloss paint is not neccessarily so.

After reading the last couple of pages about the motor and power issues, here are some things to consider: -You really do not want to do a large pulley on the motor with a small pully on the wing unit, this will multiply the RPM of the motor so the wing unit spins faster than the motor. For start up you really need more torque than speed, thus small motor pully vs large wing unit pully will give the torque needed. -The actual RPM of the wing unit should not be too fast! There will bequite a bit of mass moving once the wings are attached and it will need to be balanced or there will be vibration problems. - The small motor you were using was rated for 6V but I would bet it wouldn't last as it is probably a low current draw. The lantern batteries were putting too much current through. Possibly a resistor in the circuit would have been all that it really needed to do the job. WIsh you well on this, it is quite an interesting build of a subject not seen very often

I built this very kit way back in the early 70's. As it is out of the box it is a terrible tail sitter. All that extra plastic Nichimo added for the unseeninternal ribbing in the tail and empenage added so much weight it coulddo nothing else. As a suggestion, I would reccomend removing all that unseen ribbing in the tail areas. If you are up to it I wold also add that thinning the plastic to about .025 inches thin or maybe down to .020 would also help. At that point it should still be strong enough to handle easily, but would make it much easier to let it sit properly on the tricycle gear.

Really like how you did the lenses on the cameras. They look quite reaistic. Also congrats on the tail reattachment milestone. I am sure that makes you feel as if you have really accomplished something.

Ah yes Beeer! Have a lot of different kinds of beer here in Memphis. Have 6 or 7 different kinds in my 2nd fridge now. Always nice to have a brewski as I set down to do some building.

Hey Mal, it's 84 F (29 C) here in Memphis today and that is just considered warm. Of course we have air conditiioning which makes it nice indoors, but for me that temp isn't bad as long as I am out of the sun. Really like the adjustments you make to your models to accurize them. Guess you could say they are Mal-adjusted. Pun delivered, runs for cover. . . . . Just couldn't resist anymore. In truth your building is very well done and the methods are nice to know. Really appreciate the posts and methods!

Only problem with the wire is that it most likely will become permanently caught by the tubing once it is bent. As to sand "never" being used in tubing to prevent it collapsing, The 1965 film "The Flight of the Phoenix" has a scene where Dorfman is filling fuel line tubing with sand. When asked what he is doing, he explanes that the sand will keep the line from collapsing when bent. So a little movie trivia with the thread as well, by the way are there any 1/32 C92 boxcar kits out there? Vac or resin?

One other thing to remember is that most of the brass tubing is rather hard and stiff. To anneal it, the brass needs to be heated untill it is cherry red to dull orange color then allow it to cool. Then the sand trick would work even better. When working with photo etch, there are sometimes parts that have to be formed to a curve. When that part has a number of holes or even one hole, it will bend at the weakest point(s) first. Annealing the part will soften it so that it is then easy to make conform. It can even be possible to form the sheet to cupped shape, or in brass tubing to flare the end out. Trying to do that with it hard would only cause the tubing to split. A little more info than asked for, but food for thought which then gives options.

Hey Mal! The Dio is looking quite nice! Looking in on your next build now.

It is enlightening seeing the steps you take to scratchbuild an item. Makes it look easy Loic.

I also have a Dora in my stash as well as the ZM Ta 152H. What I really want to do is build the Dora with the large Ta rudder. There were 3 or 4 Dora aircraft that ended up with the larger TA tail. Actually, the ZM Ta152 tail piece is an almost perfect fit on the Hasegawa kit. Will see if ZM will sell me a "replacement" sprue with the needed parts. If not then I will attempt to make one from resin. been practicing on small stuff on my Ju88 and think I should be able to do it. The photos in my post were mostly from a lot of internet searching with some info from books. Can never have too many books for reference.

Hey Mal, Here is one of my posts from my Fw 190 Night Fighter build. In the large photo in the lower left corner you can see the front of the drop tank with the oil drippings. Your build has me thinking about building a 1/32 scale kit of this plane. Easy enough as I already have a lot of info. .

Why not use the MM thinner? When airbrushing I find that using the MFG thinner tends to keep from making FUBARs. I only wsh the old Floquil DioSol were still available. That stuff worked better than about anything else.

Hey Mal Really well done job on the 190! Only criticism I have is that the yellow cowling is a little too clean. The 801 radials tended to leak oil, a LOT of black oil which tended to paint everything. I have a photo of a night fighter that there is black oil stain all over the underside and a big black spot on the drop tank as well. I will see if I can find it and post it if you would like to see it. The truck and base (in the other thread) are looking quite nice as well.

I came to a decision about aftermarket gear since my last post on here. My general rule of thumb on products and companies that make aftermarket parts is that once I am sold junk, I basically avoid their products after that. The CK cockpit for the Ju88 is one example, while the radios and ammo cartridges were decent and very useable, the rest of the parts for the 'pit were incorrect, inaccurate, and very poorly detailed. I assumed that that kit would be "better" it was so much worse that most of the parts went "file 13". Thus CK products are pretty much now on my "do not buy" list. As to the G Factor gear, I chose them over the white metal alternate just because of the finish I saw in various photos on the web and how people seemed to think they were so good. The first set I bought was a Fail on every count, Fail on fit, Fail on correct sizing, Fail on finish. Once I went to work on the kit parts, I found that it was fairly easy to strengthen them and that none of the landing gear units available were correct to the photos I have. Quite a bit of detail differences were found around the torque links, their mounts on the leg, and details in that area. This would have been missed if I had not needed to rebuild the kit parts. Truth be known, I won't ever buy aftermarket landing gear again. At least not from G Factor or the SAC brand. I might be tempted by the ZM parts for their kits or maybe Eduard, but even then I have passed on some Eduard bronze legs recently just due to the bad feel I ended up with from the set I got from G Factor. Fool me once, shame on you, for me there usually isn't a second try.

LOL! I have been seeing Kev making hints on this on some of his other threads. Interesting section on the resin molding of parts. Have been doing a bit of that myself in recent months. As you have some good gear doors now it isn't an issue. What I would have done would have been to mount a number of small gates around 3/4 of the part, then pour a full mold around that with flat sides. Legos on the sides works quite well. Once the mold is fully set I would carve along the gates with a very sharp new blade such that it makes a sawtooth pattern. Only do this where the gates are so that you can split the sides back but they stay attached along one area. The point is that rather than pouring the resin in with a thin sided part, you split the mold open, coat the sides with a thick layer of resin, chase little bubles from crevases quick, then slowly close the mold up chasing bubbles and excess resin as you go. The excess will tend to flow through the gates you added and with the mold fully coated no major air bubbles should stay. Once closed, with flat supports on the flat sides add a little pressure and wiggle to seat everything and drive extra resin from the cut areas of the mold. Then release pressure a little and let it set up. Too much pressure will collapse the sides of the mold in the middle of the part. You only want enough pressure to make the sides engage fully.

That is a nice looking office!