Uilleann

I was finally able to draw one of the "CHEEK" gun fairings, it came out ok, I decided to vacuum form it in petg, I was going to cover the clear forming with aluminum but I decided to use the part and cut-out the areas where the windows go, I realized after looking at many photos(war time) factory pics in particular and I beleive that the fairings were not bare metal but instead painted, on bare metal aircraft they appear to be painted silver, also the chin turrets seem to be painted silver as well...
Any way, I trimmed the forming primed it and cut out the openings, I then proceeded to cut out the opening in the fuselage, not something I really wanted to do,not in resin....
got away with it though and I referenced photos of the real thing to see how they were cut out of the airframe.
I super glued the petg forming onto the fuselage, I have to tell you if you ever going to super glue petg onto a printed resin part, THE GLUE SETS INSTANTLY, I mean zero bond time, I never seen other material bond so quickly...
 
Pat
 

Happy me - a Raptor and a Super plus some extras arrived right for my birthday, yeah.  I thought I can wait for a 32nd scale Raptor, but... I can't.  
 

 
On to the update - the NLG is ready and the two halves of the fuselage are glued. Yes! I did some mods as well, but first - here are the parts of the NLG, and how it looks assembled (open/close):
 

 

 

 

 
The motion is quite... rudimental... I simplified it even more than the MLG, so I didn't take a video. However, though, I need a joker for something.  While I was double/triple/etc.-checking the instructions upon gluing the fuselage halves, I found out these parts that I can't understand...
 

 
Is the yellow ''thing'' some kind of a cowling? ...like a forward extension of a reconnaissance pod that I assume is for the Italian S version - I didin't see it on any of my referrence pics (I think I'll choose airframe 63-13265 from 58 TFTW), so I didin'd add it, I'm asking just out of curiosity.
 
The red circle - I have no idea what it is. It does not appear on any of the pics whatsoever, and the instructions say ''for versions A/H''?!... I had no idea there was an H version... interesting... 
 
The pink circle - these two holes/provisions are like deep rectangular indentations in the plastic. They are quite deep but are covered with plastic (they are not holes) - What are they? - should there be some kind of a screen/mesh on the top, or are they some kind of intakes/vents, although not looking streamlined? They look too too small for chaff/flare dispensers. I can't find a good closeup pic of the real plane to see.
 
The blue circle - another mystery to me... Here is a pic of the C-version, where I believe I see the same part, but if it is an antenna indeed - it looks way way smaller than the the kit part - is it an ''extendable'' antenna perhaps?
 

 
Then this pic... I think it is of the G-version, where it looks like the same antenna and with the right lenght as the kit part, but... what is this huge white antenna right along the centerline?! I just wonder what is going on....  
 

 
And a pic of the interior of the fuselage right before assembly of the halves - I swaped the engine with the leftover parts from the Nighthawk's engine, cause this OOB J-79 is so much more beautiful and detailed.... and I might really be tempted at one point to make it as a separate display especially with all those cradles in the kit. I also added a few structural struts from stock sprue rods, for addition structural rigidity, as I expect there will be lots of pressing and forcing during the burnishing of the aluminum foil.
 


Next up - ''canopy parts''. Cheers and thx in advance if you can give me some clues on the questionable parts.

Hi all,
Here's the Hansa-Brandenburg W.12, Serial No.1184 (C3MG) as flown by Fl.Mt. Urban and Lt. Ehrhardt of C-Staffel, Zeebrugge, during December 1917.
The detailed forum build log is here:
 
https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/97402-132nd-scale-hansa-brandenburg-w12/#comment-1418905
 
As usual, a fully detailed build log, which includes all materials, modifications, rigging etc for this build can be downloaded from the 'Logs' page on my site.
 
https://mikesww1aircraftmodels.com/
 
Thanks for your comments and support throughout this build,
 
Mike
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A project designed around a WHIF based on images from an April fools joke
Nothing corrected or, added to the model (except an AOA vane and decals) Painted with Alclad metalizers and Tamiya and Vallejo acrylics and a couple pounds of putty.
"Ready for inspection" may be a bit of a stretch...more like calling it done. Please be gentle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I didn't get a great fit for the canopy and my clear coat made a kind of a swoop/ discolor on the port side behind the cockpit
As always, striving for mediocrity
Thanks for looking

LOL, maybe I could add something like that as a sort of "where's wally?"
There's always the "guess the part" game you can play too

Could you split the difference, and hide say, a TIE wing, or X wing gun down in the greeblies somewhere?

Leading edge of the fin is on.
Third attempt as usual 

argh!!!!

Hey OBG-
Godzilla is my boy. I made all of my sons watch every Godzilla movie with me..the campy-er the better. They love him too. We have just about every Godzilla toy made. 
The one you noticed is my favorite. This one logged Many hours on the floor knocking over buildings made with foam blocks. Now he protects my bench from Rodan, marauding cats, and my general buffoonery. Occasionally he holds a model part or assembly, but I try not to distract him-
P

Several photos up in the thread I spied a sub-scale Godzilla among the many things on your bench, Pete, and was wondering if he was photo bombing or if he has a job.  My smaller version of the same critter has guarded things I consider important for almost 60 years.  I found him discarded on the ground decades ago and, after a good scrubbing, have had him ever since.  He lived in my field box among my horde of Eberhard Faber Ebony pencils, kneaded erasers and cheap water colors while I was in college before moving up to my big hangar tool box years later to protect seven different airplanes and an equal number of BMWs.  He looks much the same now as he did then - that Gatorade-looking yellow green that looks like it might glow in the dark - and still does a manly job of keeping order on my bench to the point that I can’t imagine life without him.  My son understood the importance of the thing but not the special bond that has developed over the years and tried to purloin him for the same mission before heading off to his first assignment.  I sensed that something was afoot and rescued the little bugger at the last minute.  Always on the job, never misses a thing and is good company.  Highly recommended.  Everyone should have one.

Everything seems to get made three times-

 
just how it goes-
 
P

We are rapidly approaching the “Damn, are you sure you want to paint it?”, point.  I’ve seen naked T-38s; yours already looks a lot better than they did.

Popped this circular panel out in brass just because I thought it looked cool-

this is currently a 14 year project! I’ve got a lot of time invested in this model. It must be pretty special to hold my attention for that long.
my Dad always said “perfect is the enemy of finished”…but yes there is a lot at stake; but when it’s done it’s done.
My Dad was a great modeler and craftsman. The only modeling advice he ever gave me was “if it’s not right, tear it apart and do it over”…I have a hard time balancing those two quotes of his, but I am beginning to understand how they relate to each other. They are The Zen of  modeling for me.
P

1st big skin up-

Top panel was done with JB Weld-
Mask the panel off with tape equal to the thickness of the metal sheet that will butt-up against this panel-

 
sand back to the tape-


here you can see how the metal will butt the top panel

 
add fasteners-


here’s a look at the fuel overflow vent-

 
 

No, no fighters in the trench sadly. If I add anymore ships or such, it becomes a diorama and that's not what I'm aiming for. Currently,  its a ship with a fancy base and for comp, that's what i need

they were both snoring on the floor of my shop the whole time.
what is funny about them is they have an incredibly accurate internal clock. I literally felt two wet noses at 1800.
dinner time-
P

Well this took all day…
but now I know how to make the same panel for the other side-

Other side-

Felt like bending some metal today-



 
cheers
Pigfyter

I continued with some initial surface preps - pls don't mind the dust and particles alike on some of the pics. The fuselage was ''assembled'' with paper tapes for several years, and there is residue after removing the paper tape... I'll wipe it off during the sanding. So, these are the formation lights on the intake sides. The holes were a bit offside, so I centralized them, and glued the provided transparent pieces, then additional filling with CA glue, and this is after sanding:
 

 

 
And from the tail side:
 

 
So far, I have no idea how I'm gonna proceed with these, regarding the aluminum foil... I guess I'll cover the entire circles, then cut the foil along the diameters... Yet, I'm feeling how I'm gonna cover these circles with clear gloss coat until they get flush with surface, if the thickness of the aluminum foild is more than the raised edges of the lights...
 
Then the gun bay doors are glued, and the little door at the junction of the rear fuselage/tail, on the bottom centerline. 
 

 

 
As far as I know, there will be need for rescribing/adding of new panels, etc., so I just glued these doors for now. Next up - on to the resin afterburner parts:
 

 
I have a small torch with just about the same diameter, so I couldn't resist to check the ''thickness'' of the nozzle feathers in the nighttime...
 

 

 

 
I did all the trials and testfits, and just left this nozzle for dessert.  But the afterburner is ready. The part with the flame holders needed a lot of extra care, while the small PE ring with the six rods was useless... while looking at the instructions, it looked like a support part for the resin flame holder rings, but they have four big pins that make the connection with the can. I kept the PE part for the fuel spray plugs of course. The only thing that can be barely visible between the turbine disk and the flame holders, in the real engine, are the thermocouple plugs, but that's mission impossible in this scale. Actually the thermocouples (PE part) and the rear engine (ball bearing) struts are barely visible, left alone the turbine blades. Another issue was the fit of the torch ignitor (resin part). It was just too long, and should be peeking between the outer and center rings. I did what I could. Not to mention that it's shape is not exactly right, but that wouldn't bother me, as I know almost none of this wil be noticeable after all. The afterburner can/liner is flawless though.
 

 

 

well, seeing as I have some making up to do in regards to this thread, here's a couple of the most recent (as of tonight) of where I am up to.
I'm over half way done on the left hand side but now that I've added some extra plating on this side, I'll have to do the same on the other side and also the top plate. I have to go careful that I don't extend the shelf too far out or all the detail work will be lost which is why I will be installing SMD's on both levels.
 
Up until 2 nights ago it was looking like this:
 
 
 
And now it looks like this:
 
 
 
And a couple of close ups. Bear in mind, the detailing is not yet finished as I need to blend the parts in more which I will do over the course of the next couple of weeks
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hopefully you can see where I'm going with it. Once it's primed etc, it'll look totally different and much more cohesive
Thanks for sticking around!
Si

Hello, everyone.  If you've been following along the build thread, you're well aware that I was nearing the finish line on Hong Kong Models' new A-20G Havoc kit after starting it the day it arrived in June.  If you haven't been following the build thread, but want a painfully verbose treatise on the inner workings of this brand new kit, feel free to dive into it and its ~350 photos.  If you'd just like to see the photos, here's the gallery.
 
Anyhoo, as I've stated in a number of other threads, I'm fascinated by the SW Pacific campaigns in the early-mid war years.  I'm also a fan of big twins in attack configurations.  Thus, when I heard that HKM was coming out with an all new A-20G Havoc in gunship configuration, I was excited to say the least.  Unfortunately for me, their boxing was strictly marked and built for the European theater.  Not to be deterred, I decided to embark on a bit of a journey.  For this build, I'd be doing several firsts.  To make a Pacific bird, I'd have to scratch build wing bomb racks and teach myself the art of printing my own decals.  I'd also push the idea of masking farther than I had ever done before, so that was fun too.
 
In the end, I'm very happy with the results and they feel pretty close to the original.  The photos turned out a little weird, unfortunately; I suspect that's due to my camera trying to compensate for the failing evening light.  So, things like the speckling on the nacelles and the dust pigments on the wings are much more pronounced than they are in real life.  I found a few close up pictures of A-20s with extensive oil spatter all along their fuselage and nacelles aft of the engine, so that was the inspiration there.
 
Anyway, here's "STINKY" of the 3rd BG, 12th BS in New Guinea.  According to Michael Claringbould in Pacific Profiles vol. 3, this aircraft survived hostilities and was scrapped in situ after the war.  The photo below is one of two taken of her supposedly while she was in Sydney, Australia.
 

































 
The squadron insignia and serial number were the first decals I ever printed for myself.  The nose art was done with a mask.  I painted the dark drop shadow, then moved the mask to the 10 o'clock position and painted the yellow.  Turned out pretty sharp.    





















 
For grins, I got my SW Pacific fleet out for a photo op, largely because I wanted to see exactly how the B-25 and A-20 compare in size.  




 
 

hey Neo
Sorry mate, nothing really has changed since the last update. I've been busy doing other things as a result of supply issues. which pertained to running out of fiber optic cable. I did buy more but the stuff that came in after a nearly 4 month wait was not the size I needed. I just haven't had it in me to source more.
 
However, as a small consolation for you, I have included some relatively recent pics that hadn't made it to an update yet
 
 
 
The second layer has also been started and nearly finished:
 
 
Test fitting the second layer :
 
 
Those little brass pipes like the one shown just below the written D on the base plate, are for feeding the SMD spotlights through the sidewalls into the internal cavity.
 
 
I am regretting drilling out so many holes that need to be filled. I haven't even started on the side walls or anything else yet 
 
 
Sorry mate, but that's all I have. I do intend to return to this (yeah I know, that sounds sooo familiar. We've all been there - don't judge ). Maybe once I have finished my current project, I'll attempt to bring my mojo levels up enough to go back an try get that base finished. If anyone lives in Melbourne and feels like threading some fiber for me, drop me a line ... I expect to hear from no one  
Regardless, thanks Neo, for the continued interest all the same. I'll try get this done ASAP but I don't want to rush it either. LOL, not that I can be accused of that any time soon