AlexM

Little update: I started with the engine, which seems to be rather challenging. Each exhaust consists of several parts, and is connected to the cylinders by small tubes (parts E13 and E19). Those tubes have tiny pins at the ends, which should help to connect the exhausts with the cylinders. The problem is, that the correspondig attachments at the exhaust have no holes where the pins could be pluged in. Therefore, you have to make the holes yourself, which is quite challenging for my eyes. For such tasks, I use a "digital microsope" which is connected to my computer via USB. Something like this: This tool then shows a fullscreen close-up view on the screen, what makes it possible to drill more or less precise tiny holes, even if you have sausage fingers like me. This is what is shown on the screnn while using the digital microscope: So I got those two parts: Just two more, and then gluing everything precisely aligned together. Sounds like a breeze... Cheers Alex

Thanks Tim! When placing the upper right wing halve, there is a noticeable gap at the forward area (maybe 1 mm wide). To close the gap, I glued some styrene and sanded to get a good junction. On the left wing, it appeared that it might have been better to glue the upper part on the lower one before attaching the wing to the fuselage, because now the upper part was no longer aligned with the lower part, It stood about 1mm out (at the wing root as well as at the wing tip, so the parts would actually align if the fuselage were not in the way). Therefore the upper wing part had to be slightly shortened at the inner end, so that it would align to the lower wing. This was a bit tricky at the rear, with the tab below. But it also gave me the opportunity so sand the forward area into shape to get a good junction to the fuselage without using styrene as shim like on the right wing: That's it for now. Cheers Alex

Great! Assuming that the guys from Hasegawa have some knowledge about "their" plane, I placed the machine gun that way (I had to shorten the gun barrelI a litte bit to make it fit, but I won't tell anyone if you don't ) The fuselage halves are glued together. Due to the heavy framing of the canopy, the view into the interior is somewhat obstructed. Therefore, I guess it is not worth the hassle to go too deep into detailing, if one choses the closed canopy (btw., some mediocre modelling gets hidden that way ) I also attached the lower wing parts. Contrary to the instructions, I decided to attach the upper wings later. It was challenging enough with the front and rear glue joints, and I didn't want to worry about the upper wing to fuselage joint at the same time. The upper wing parts have a tab that will slip under the fuselage opening. The left upper wing on the picture is just taped at the moment. I managed to break of one hinge for the flaps, which was replaced by styrene stripe. I also glued together the engine cowling, and drilled the openings for the machine guns. That's it for now. Happy modelling! Alex

We hear a lot about AI lately. There are tools to generate pictures based on words, which is pretty impressive (and also a little scary when you can no longer tell for sure whether a photo is real or fake). Anyway, I gave it a try and wanted to create some pictures of our beloved aircrafts. I used this site: https://picsart.com/ai-image-generator And apparently, there is still some room for improvement This is what I got when I typed in Spitfire: Here, we can clearly see the Fw 190: And here we have the B-17: Cheers Alex

Yeah, I have really enjoyed the build so far. I went along with the rear sea. I drilled two holes on the floor to attach two syrene rods as support for the seat-frame. They go up to the hight of the lower cockpit part: So I could glue the seat on top on the rods. I don't know if this is somewhat accurate, but the supporting rods will be hardly visible later on: Question about the rear machine gun: Accoring to the instruction, it is only attached with the open canopy. Does anybode know how it was on the real aircraft? Was the machine gun stored somewhere else and only monted on the defense position when the situation got hot? Cheers Alex

Thanks! Information about the interior color is indeed sparse. The good thing is that you can't be proofen wrong

Hello there, not too long ago, I received the new 1/32 Aichi D3A1 Val from Infinity Models: Kits from Infinity Models have the reputation for being rather challenging. I cut out the major parts and taped them together, what revealed good fit at first glance: The lower wings were already glued together at this stage. This is done by an large spar, which ensures a rigid construction. A molded arrow on the upper side indicates the direction of the spar. The spar has to be aligned along recessed lines on the inner side of the wing parts. I guess a bit more user-friendly solution could have been possible, but in the end it was no rocket science, and all went well. Detail of the fuselage side-walls are molded on the fuselage halves, as well as on the bottom part. At the rear cockpit position, unfortunately, a very clear dividing line is visible, which will be hard to impossible to eliminate. I hope it won't be that visible with all equipment installed and the canopy closed. Typical for that kind of "sort run" kits, there are no pins/holes to connect the fuselage parts, which can make things a bit difficult. Once the fuselage parts get glued together, and everything has to go fast, a lot of things can go wrong (in all three dimensions ). Therefore I added some connections which (hopefully) will make things easier: I also glued some styrene stripes at the bottom which will give some support once the wing is attached to the fuselage: The kits contains decals for the instrument panels. I soon found out that they have a great tendency to overlap over themselve. Therefore I cut out every individual and placed them to the recessed circle on the panels (sometimes more, sometimes less precise, as the picture shows ): I have no clue, what the "correct" interior color was. I choose Nakajima interior green from AK (which is probably wrong ), so here we are at the moment: Now I have to find out how to attache the rear seat. It is mounted on a frame, which isn't attached to the bottom, but appartently to the fuselage side walls. The instructions are a bit vague: Cheers Alex

Yes, it's already glued in place. Interesting approach by Infinity, and it works pretty well to get a rigid wing construction.

In the past few days I have cut some plastic of my kit, and I'm positively impressed. It's propably no shake and bake kit. As with many kits, the wing root apparently needs some special attention. And there is a slight gape at the tail fin area. But besides that, fit seems to be pretty nice. And I like the surface detail, especially on the fuselage: Cheers Alex

Check this out: 1 mm gold decal stripes https://tinwizard.de/shop/en/decals/simple-patterns/stripes-1-0-mm-assorted-colors/stripes-1-0-mm-gold-90x140-mm Cheers Alex

Stunning work, especially when you look back on page 1 of this thread, where it all started with just a bunch of styrene profiles Cheers Alex

Quite possibly. At first glance the kit looks very nice and tempting. And I got the AK IJN Aircraft Colors set a few day ago, so there's nor excuse to not build it (exept for the countless other started and not finished models lying around)

I have received two parcels today. First: And directly from Infintiy/HPH: Alex

I just came home from work to see that my kit finally arrived today

I ordered on the day of release. Last week ago, I asked about the status of my order, and got the answer, that they will try to send my order within the next 10 days.

I bought the Helldiver. It's not finished yet, and it is a challenging kit. But so far I have to say that I like it. Also ordered the Val, directly from Infinity, and I can't wait to hold the kit in my hands I really hope thay go on with the Kate. This would be a guaranteed purchase. Alex

Very nice One word of warning about PLA, before you go on with this material: It is very easy to print, sticks well to the print plate, there is hardly any warping during the print, and it is indeed very strong. So it seems to be a good material for such a project. But: PLA has a very low melting point. This can already become problematic when exposed to direct sunlight. I once had a part with thin walls printed with PLA laying around outdoors to dry after painting. It was a hot day and the part was exposed to sunlight. After some houres the part was very warped/deformed, and became thereby unusable. Therefore you might consider to use another material like HIPS, even though it is more challenging to print. Cheers Alex

Hey Bruce, no, I don't have a B-29. The only vacuform kit I ever finished is the SM.79. And then there is that nearly completed Hampden that is still waiting to get finished ... maybe someday

Hey guys, the project is not cancelled, it just took a "little" pause. Too bad I get distracted easily... Back in 2018, there were some news about a B-26 from resin2detail. I don't if this one is still in the pipelines https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/72566-resin2detail-132-b26-marauder/

Here is a german drawing with dimensions:

Hi there, time for a little update. Already in 2019, I made some some surgery to the kit's fuselage, since I didn't like the fron cross-section. In my eyes, the fuselage should be wider on the upper side than on the lower side. At the Hobby Boss kit, its rather the opposide. Therefore I cut the nose-section apart, to replace it with a 3d-printed one together with vacuformed clear parts. Here are some pictures from 2019: Now, the fuselage is finally glued together: Now, It's time for for some panel line scribing. And I hate scribing Cheers Alex

Hi there, some time ago, I started with my Hobby Boss B-24D kit. Since the fuselage interiors are pretty much finished, I thought it's time to share some picutes. The fuselage section in front of the nose wheel-well was cut off and replaced with my own 3d-printed version, since I wasn't happy with the cross-section shape of the kit at this area. Like most/all aircrafts with nose gear, it would tilt backwards without weights on the front side, especially with its heavy tail. Therefore, I added lots of lead plates between the cockpit floor and the wheel well, as well as in front of the cockpit. Together with some additional lead below the floor at the bombardier station, this should be sufficient, although this makes the whole model quite heavy. To hide the lead plates, I added a styrene plated which contians some diagrams from the manual. The kit's bulkhead between the cockpit and radio station was replaced by a more open one made of styrene. I also added some 3d-printed radio-equipment. The side-walls got some more structure details. Since I wasn't happy with the shape of the kit's bombs, I replaced them with my own 3d-printed ones. That's it for now. Cheers Alex

When looking at 3d-models, one has to keep in mind that they basically consist of absolutely straight lines and absoultly flat planes. Something that appears like a circle on screen isn't a real circle, but a polygon which appears more and more round the more corners/segments are used. Many 3d-models look amazing on screen, thanks to mordern computer graphics, with apparently smooth rounded surfaces. Some 3d-models are totally fine for digital purpose, like in a video-game, but if you would 3d-print it, all the nice graphic tricks will disappear, and the straight lines and flat planes will come to light. It is a balancing act: the more detailed the 3d model is, the faster the computer hardware reaches its limits for a rendering that runs smoothly. For example, when looking at the non-textured wireframe model of the BK-117 3d model, it maybe appears a bit rough for 3d-printing:

Hi there, as Ali from Aerocraft Models said, there is the goal to create after market correction sets based on my 3d-model. Here is the current status: Here you can see how the positon of the wing is changed in comparison to the HB kit. The HB kit seems to be flawed in many area. For a really accurate A-26, one would have to create a completly new model, so somewhere a line has to be drawn and some compromise has to be made. This is especially true for the wing root area, since I didn't want to create new wings. Here you can see how I tried to get a somehow acceptable compromise to get the kit's wings fit while having the (hopefully) accurate drawing in mind: We'll see when and how this will turn out. Maybe I should also continue with my scratch build Marauder project so once finished, some manufacturer can announce a kit Cheers Alex

All right, this is insane. I like it. If there is too much shrinkage, you can try to enlage the sections by about 2-3 cm at the end where the print starts, with a small recessed line all around between the actual part and the added "waste section". The shrinkage will occure at the waste ares, which, after printing, can be cut away along the recessed line.