cbk57

None of photos above show stripes on the painted side or the prop face. When I did my Zero I only applied decals to the metal side.

I have seen that there is a Japanese propeller brown. The face of the proper may have been more of a brown tone than black. That is the color I would be inclined to use.

The main thing to do to the pit is the Barracuda placard decal set and seat belts. Otherwise you can busy it up some with some lines, hoses and wires down in the bottom. You don't really need much A.M. in there. Those couplet placards really bring it to life and Rory's set is comprehensive.

Be careful with the Eduard Cockpit. I don't think it is really accurate for a -1. The rear has been altered to fit a Tamiya dash-1 but most of the cockpit looks more like a -1A or -1D.

Very wise, I joined a facebook group that was supposed to be about color WWII images and it was full of clickbait designed to provoke fist fights. I left pretty quickly.

mustang, Mosquito have full gun bays, the Zero has limited gun bay detail for the wings. Spitfire stock kit has nothing. Would have to go aftermarket to do open gun bays on the Tamiya Spitfire.

I disagree, Neal was THE GREATEST DRUMMER of all time. Neal for those who don't know was one of the greatest Musicians of our time not just a great drummer. I am not a huge RUSH fan however, the music those guys did was the most complex and sophisticated rock music ever performed. Just try to listen to Levillia Stringiata(I am sure I have it spelled wrong). Neal invented the big drum kit and was an extraordinary person and technician in the Music field.

I love the Mustang but I question whether a major Japanese manufacturer like Hasegawa would consider early P-51’s worth while. I think the market is a lot more limited than the Merlin, package/Merlin planes.

I had to find some instructions, I built mine years ago. I suspect that I painted the front gear assembly then wrapped it in tape. However, I think you could test fit the assembly and try because it might be possible to sneak the nose gear in after assembly.

Better than nice, I built one of these years ago, knock down amazing typical tamiya. Has a nose weight that integrates into the gun bay so it sits perfectly. Clicks together and the detail is out of this world.

The hands down best way to buy after market is to watch for someone selling roughly what you want in a package deal. Say you want to build a F-15E in 1/32, in time someone is going to list one here or on ebay either kit and aftermarket bundle or just the aftermarket stuff. Usually you can buy as a bundle deal from the secondary market at a far better price than paying retail. Even if it does not have everything you want in the bundle deal, you can shop for any other items. If it comes with items you don’t need you can sell them off and recover some of your cost toward what you do need. Recently on ebay an Tamiya 1/32 F-14A bundle sold which had almost everything needed to build either an F-14A or an F-14D conversion and so you could have sold off all the excess bits and paid for a bunch of the purchase. Sale price on that one was $255.00 and it probably had $400.00 + in retail value or resale value to part the whole package out.

I can see the Tamiya F-51, I don’t want one personally but I understand it as I am guessing they don’t have to add anything other than a decal sheet and appropriate marking instructions to the decal sheet along with minor mods to wings for rockets. I cannot begin to guess whether this will be a big seller or not but hopefully it helps their bottom line and gets them in the mood for a LSP down the road. The F-51 for me is one of the less interesting Korean War birds I would go for. I can always grab another Tamiya P-51 but it will be to do a WWII Bird, I owe it to myself still to do a Ed Landers Plane. There are so many kits out there that I am not worried about an all new Tamiya LSP but would be happy to see one when and if they do. I got a deal on a Tamiya Mossie this year ready to go on my shelf, I kind of think that is my next plane build sometime latter this year. Need to finish something else first.

Another memory of old models, we now have a new HobbyBoss LSP coming out of the A-26 Invader. The revell or Monogram kit(not an LSP) of that plane always gave me trouble. I think I tried building it at least twice only to have fit problems that made me quit. Something about the rear of the plane and the clear part that went over the rear gunners station. I can still remember that from sitting at my grandparents kitchen table in 1980 and that I could not get it to go together right. I never did finish an invader kit because of that problem or another.

I was hit and miss with airplane modeling. As.a child I did not paint models, so ended up with problems. Among them that landing gear had to be up or down, Canopies looked weird because the framing was not painted and worst of all were the seam lines. I did not know what filler was. I do have fond memories of the Monogram 1/32 Dauntless but I tended to get frustrated with airplane kits. Even when I started painting them seems and canopies remained a problem. Until I learned a bit and I found Tamiya tape I kind of went away from airplanes and focused on armor, cars, ships, and some Star Wars kits. At one point I built a lot of ship models. I would make a basic guess at the rigging on sailing ships build them and play with them. My first hugely desired LSP was the Revell Corsair. Of course inspired by Blacksheep squadron. I remember the trip to Kmart to get one because that seemed to be the only place I knew of where i could get one. I brush painted in testers sea blue and was fairly happy with it. Can’t remember what I did with the canopy. I did really not like airplane models until I started building some Tamiya 1/48 planes though. My first airplane build I was really happy with was the Tamiya Mustang and BF-109E. Also a special memory for the old Tamiya Zero in 1/48 as that was the first 1/48 kit I was happy with. It was an early airbrushing effort when I was about 15. I painted it up and cut a hole in the bottom for a peg to display it in flight. Today, I don’t have any desire to build those old kits with all the nice new ones coming out. I much prefer what we get new and don’t have time really to look back at building models from 30 to 40 years ago.

When it comes to WWI, I really don't think it is so much what WNW won't do as what they have not got around to. I think they had a notion early on that they wanted to avoid certain things that were already represented but I think they are past that now. All things take time, WNW is their thing and I think we could see most of the major planes of the time in due course.