Thunnus

Thanks guys! I wish Eduard would do 1/32 as well. I love their range and quality of 1/48 scale WW2 fighters but frankly, the scale is just too small for my preferences. I enjoy working on LSPs the best. I've cobbled together two versions of the instrument panel. One is pre-painted Eduard photoetch panels glued onto the kit plastic parts (right). The other is the kit plastic parts with the molded detail and the kit decals placed over it (left). It took a bit of effort to get the decal to conform to the molded detail using multiple applications of Microsol, Solvaset, a sharp knife and physical pressure. The remaining silvering around the instruments was carefully painted out. The Eduard version is clearly superior in terms of detail but the purplish grey color, which isn't apparent in the picture below, bugs me. Haven't decided yet but I'm leaning towards using the decal version because I like the color better. I'm slowly working on the cockpit components. It's not as straightforward as it could be since some of the Eduard PE is pre-painted, which means I have to pre-paint some of the plastic parts before the PE is glued on. But it's getting there. In the meantime, I've taken the time to open up the fuselage openings aft of the engine. I'm not going to do too much extra detailing in the cockpit but I didn't like the throttle quadrant so I've cut off the levers and will make new ones.

Wrapping up with the kit contents, the majority of the clear parts are held on Eduard's signature circular sprue. Even though this circular sprue was held in its own bag, both the windscreen and the bubble canopy were detached and floating in the bag. Thankfully, there does not appear to be any damage to the canopy parts. The supplied photoetch includes pre-painted parts for the cockpit and some unpainted detail parts as well. Markings for six aircraft are supplied on this huge decal sheet. Biggest I've encountered and wouldn't fit on my desktop scanner. These are the newer style decals from Eduard that feature a removable clear carrier, similar to the wet transfer decals from HGW and 1ManArmy. I am planning to do a natural metal bird from Royal Indian Air Force circa 1947. Construction will start in the cockpit and my attention is drawn to the three ways Eduard provides for the instrument panel. The first version has molded detail on the instrument faces that are meant to be painted. The second version provides partially flat faces for the panels that are meant to be used with the kit-supplied decals for the instrument faces. The third version uses the pre-painted phototetch parts. Since the molded detail version lacks the raised instrument dials, I thought I would morph the three version into two alternatives. 1: Using the decals on the molded detail parts and 2: removing all of the raised details on the 2nd version and applying the photo-etch parts onto that. Same purplish grey that Eduard seems to use on ALL of its instrument panels. I'll have to double check to see if the decals actually line up with the molded details as I notice some differences between all three instrument panel version. But I've prepped Version 2 by removing all of the raised details.

Coming off a long break from modeling, I momentarily jumped back onto my Spitfire XIVe conversion but now as I await some additional 3D-printed parts from Laminar Flow Design, I am going to start something new and a little different. Straying from my normal WW2 fighter subjects, I am going to do a post-war bird... I chose this kit for a few different reasons. First of all, Eduard makes some REALLY good kits and I was interested in sampling one of their more recent releases. At 1/48 scale, this is smaller than my normal 1/32 subjects and it SHOULD be a quicker build. And finally, I've always liked the Tempest and this radial engine version has a connection to another favorite aircraft of mine: the Fw 190. Eduard's Profipack editions come with a few extras including photoetch, canopy masks and sometimes resin. No resin in this particular release but I picked up some to add some detail. As usual, before I start a build, I like to take a photographic tour of the kit contents. In addition to being a possible interest to readers, it gives me a chance to get familiar with the kit parts. Eduard packs multiple sprues into bags, which allows parts to rub together and cause some damage. My copy had some superficial scratching on the larger parts and a few detached parts. Below are the wing parts for the Tempest II, which was bagged with the fuselage sprue. Unlike some manufacturers, Eduard is not stingy when it comes to molding different variants. So thankfully, there are no problematic inserts for the leading edge intakes and we get a brand new wing for the Tempest II. Eduard molding is superb. I really wish that they would do some 1/32 scale kits. The fuselage parts are also Tempest II-specific and reduces the amount of joints that would need to be corrected if they used a modular approach like Special Hobby did on their 1/32 Tempest releases. The next four sprues were packaged into a single plastic bag and resulted in a number of detached parts. Given that this sprue has many Tempest II-specific parts such as the radial engine and cowling ring, I assume that the prop here is the one that I'll be using. That radial engine is not much to talk about being a very sparse representation of the cylinders. But given the very tight clearances between the spinner and the NACA cowling, this is probably more than adequate. Similarities to the Fw190A are not coincidental and a captured Focke Wulf was closely examined in conjunction with the Tempest II design. The exhaust tips are solid, unfortunately. And since they are square in shape, not circular, they would be a royal pain to try and hollow out. That is why I opted to buy the Eduard Brassin replacements. Two more props on this sprue but I'm guessing these are for the Mark V or VI. Three loose wheels on this sprue. I am going to use Barracuda block tread resin replacement tires on this build. The tail fins on the rockets are quite thick. I'm not sure if the underwing rockets are appropriate for the aircraft that I'm modeling but I picked up Eduard Brassin replacements for the rockets just in case. The final grey sprue holds all of the tiny parts. Even without the addition of aftermarket stuff, you get a very detailed model! To Be Continued...

Thanks Kevin! It's great to be back! Thanks John! I totally agree about the LFD components... great upgrade! Thank you Troy! Appreciate the welcome! Thanks Jay! Gotta catch up on yours and all of the other great builds here! Thank you Matt! Winter was very good to me but its good to be back on the modeling bench again! Thank you! My trip to Central Asia is always a high point of the year so yes, it was well spent. In addition to the mental decompression and jetlag, I have to sort through 4,000 photos and process them, culminating in a slideshow that I prepare and post on Youtube. Thank you Ernest! I'm gonna put this one on temporary hold as I wait for some replacement parts from Mathieu at Laminar Flow Design. In the meantime, I am going to take my talents to 1/48 scale and start a new project on the Non-LSP board.

Hello LSP community! It's been a while since I've spent meaningful time at my modeling bench but I'm getting that urge again. Not sure what project I want to continue on at the moment but as I'm contemplating, I thought I'd crack open the Spitfire build again and try to re-orient myself. I left off exploring the 3D-printed cockpit upgrades from Laminar Flow Designs. I'm trying to mix the Tamiya XVIe cockpit parts with the LFD XIVe-specific upgrades and adding Barracuda resin on top of that, where applicable. As usual, I am not going to claim great accuracy with what I'm doing but will use the resources that I have available to make a reasonable facsimile of an XIVe cockpit. One of these resources has been previous Spitfire builds, most notably NGBZ's VIII build from 2020. From what I know, the XIVe cockpit is based on the VIII and Gary's build does a great job of capturing some of those differences with some help of Vincent K's past scratchbuilding work. Of course, there are differences between the XIVe and VIII so I have to pay attention to that too. I started modifying the Tamiya kit parts to accommodate the LFD upgrades. The biggest change is the big electrical box that needs to be added to the port sidewall. Some surgery is needed on the kit part to make room for the electrical box. After making most of the necessary modifications like moving the voltage regulator, making a jackplate for the gun camera film footage indicator out of sheet styrene and filling in ejector pin marks, I've tacked the rest of the port sidewall components into place just to get a feel for the wiring that I'll be adding later. There is a big fuel tank directly behind the seat, which will block the view off from the seat bulkhead to the rear. This will limit visibility into the rear bottom area of the cockpit so I'm not going to bother with trying to replicate the flying control linkage wires that run under the pilot, which I was previously considering. I've done similar modifications to the starboard side, which features a resin sidewall replacement from Barracuda. My plan is to separate the cockpit into subassemblies... the port and starboard sides as presented above, the instrument panel/cockpit floor and the seat/rear bulkhead. Once these subassemblies are assembled and painted separately, I'll put them together as the fuselage halves come together.

And try to pick up the JaPo Dora books as well! Different but equally good, IMO!

I believe there are differences between the D-13 and the Ta152H as it pertains to the gun mounted within the engine. The Ta152H had a 30mm Mk108 and the D-13 had a 20mm MG151. The Z-M Ta152H kit depicts the 30mm ammo cannister as wrapping around the rear breech of the Mk108 cannon, directly behind the engine. The ammo cannister on the D-13 was located in the empty compartment normally occupied by the twin MG131 above the engine on the D-9. This is a photo of Volume 2 of Jerry Crandall's excellent Dora book set showing the restored D-13. I hope that helps!

Thanks guys! I appreciate the comments on this build! Definitely love the Dora and may have to just build another one. But maybe by then, Z-M will have released a new tool Dora???

Thank you Martin! Thank you Marc! One of the small details that I appreciated on the Revell 262 kit versus the Trumpeter version is ability to snake the brake lines from the landing gear into the wheel wells. This type of continuity helps the illusion of realism greatly. And yeah, it's difficult to imagine the stress/adrenaline strapping into the world's fastest fighter and hurtling towards heavily armed bomber aircraft in the pitch black of night. Thank you very much! Thank you Nikola! Appreciate you checking in on this archived build!

Thank you much for your comment! I appreciate it greatly! I just got back from my annual trip to Central Asia (Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan) so I've been really busy going through my 3,000+ pics and processing them via Lightroom. I still need to cobble together a slideshow to present to my church, which I hope to complete by this weekend. Sometime after that, I hope to get back on the modeling bench. Continue my unfinished projects? Or start a new one? Not sure but one way or another, I hope to be back soon!

The black Slipstream edition is the kit that I built... Black and silver are my least favorite plastic colors to deal with but like I said, the effort is worthwhile...

It wasn't an easy build for me but the kit can yield a very nice result. There is no other WW2 fighter quite like the Tank and a 1/32 representation really highlights that amazing wing span. I've got an H-0 kit on the shelf and am planning to convert it to an H-1 since I did the opposite last time.

Thank you Richard! Appreciate the comments! Thank you sir! T-bird is such an iconic warbird... had to make at least one of these! Thank you and sorry for the late reply! I'm being pulled away from modeling for the time being and have not been regularly active here at LSP. Hopefully, after I get some things done and out of the way, I'll be able to settle back into the modeling room and resume my projects.

That's a beautiful Zero, Tom!

Wow! That's great! Thank you! Thanks again, Ernest! The Ki-61 is such an elegant airframe and I was really taken by these markings when I saw it depicted on a 1/48 Hasegawa Ki-61 box cover. Wasn't sure the masked tail markings would work out but I'm happy with how it turned out.

Thank you Jay! I was very surprised at the quality of the kit, especially the fit... very Tamiya-like, dare I say. Thank you so much! Appreciate the check-in and comments! Thank you Ernest! Appreciate your comments, as always!

Thank you so much Nikola! I appreciate the generous comments! I can't remember the particular gauge of wire that I used for each application but I use spools of lead wire originally intended for fly fishing. They can be bought individually or in small sets. For 1/32 aircraft, I am usually utilizing the 0.010, 0.015 and 0.020 sizes (in inches).

It's been a while but I think I can get back onto this build. After starting this build, I've learned that the XIVe cockpit differs in some ways from the XVIe and I wanted to attempt to address some of those differences. The most significant is a big control panel that resides on the port sidewall. A rectangular box can be a relatively simple thing to scratchbuild but I personally have trouble getting square corners on boxes. When I saw that Mathieu at Laminar Flow Design was developing a set of XIV-specific cockpit details including the control panel, I decided to wait for it to save me some work. It took a while but I finally got it... Like his other 3D-printed products, Mathieu incorporates a protective crate around the printed parts. He graciously include an entire spare set and I found that the spare set was definitely needed. Here are the parts still attached to the base but with the protective walls removed. Many of these parts are super tiny and lots of patience and care needs to be taken when removing the parts for use. I tried to be careful but I still managed to lose and/or break a few parts. Mathieu includes two copies of the especially small or fragile parts in each set so sometimes I had four copies to work with. I needed all four removal attempts to get a complete throttle lever detached without breaking! After the parts were freed completely from their printed supports, I glued together the sub-assemblies. These included the pilot door and crowbar, throttle quadrant, landing gear control quadrant, cylinder priming pump. The control panel, waffle-style foot guards, canopy crank and a small trim wheel are stand alone items. The parts were given a light coat of primer (Mr Primer Surfacer 1000). I've got a lot of Spitfire cockpit stuff from Barracuda as well so I'll to sort out which bits I'll be using. One of these is a resin seat with the backrest cushion, which looks to be a nice upgrade from the kit parts.

Thank you Gaz! The build ended on a bit of a whimper instead of a bang but I was just trying to get past the finish line so I could move on to other projects. It is 1/35 but my fingers are so used to typing 1/32 that I made the mistake while posting. It's corrected now! Thank you so much! And yes, it on to the next airframe, which is the Spitfire XIVe that I'll be jumping back onto shortly! Thank you Quang! The Border kit is surprisingly good and I really enjoyed working on it as the fit on almost all of the parts was excellent. Typically, I would have glued the gun/engine panels into place but Border's engineering allowed me to keep them removable. Thanks John! Not sure what is after the XIVe but there might be something quite different on the horizon for me. It flies but it is not a plane! More on that later... Thank you! A good kit makes things easy and Border definitely produced a good one. Thank you! ABL... Always Be Learning! That's my motto! Thank you Rod! Thanks, I really like this scheme for some reason! Thanks Mike! Thank you, John! Thank you Nikola! Thanks very much! Yes, Thomas! It's a great scheme! Thanks Martin! Thanks and get cracking on the Border 190.... it's a great kit!

Whoa... you're so far along, Tom! Paint looks wonderful. I finally got what I needed to start up my XIVe build again.

Looks awesome, Andy! I love these late war Luftwaffe camos!

Wow, Jay... that nose assembly looks so convincing! The weathering is spot on. I'm glad I was able to provide an assist via the masks and decals. I can print and send the larger masks when you need them!

Thank you Tom! It's a very good kit and I enjoyed the build very much! Thanks Troy! Appreciate the feedback! Thanks Matt! Yes, an Anton was on my bucket list since I've done so many Doras so its good to have that checked off! Thank you very much! Thanks, John! Thank you! After this long break, hopefully I can get back on track and start building again!

Ok... wheels are on and the masks are off! I'm calling this one done! Photos of the completed model have been posted on the RFI board:

Here is my finished Border 1/35 Fw 190A-6 painted in the markings of Walter Nowotny's Double Chevron. It was built mostly out-of-the-box since I couldn't find much in the way aftermarket for this kit at the time. Major markings were painted using custom cut masks. The kit was slightly modified to depict the inner landing gear door configuration. I left the upper gun cowling and two engine cowlings unglued so that the gun compartment and some of the engine can be viewed but the trade-off is that the joints aren't as tight as they could be if they were glued. The complete build log can be found at the following link: