Dpgsbody55

I don't believe the idea will fly..... Cheers, Michael

After the last update, I started on the undercarriage commencing with the tail wheel. The picture below represents the full fitting and comprises four parts plus the rubber tyre - base with doors, opening actuator, tail wheel leg, tail wheel and the rubber wheel itself. I've dirtied it up a bit with some dirt staining, which also takes away the impossibly clean state of this type of tyre in a model. Fitted in place. Next is the main wheels, which are quite involved. Here they are minus the doors. There's scratch building here; just kit parts. Here's a now complete assembly for one side. There are sixteen plastic parts here, plus the rubber tyre and two decals, together with one etch part for the inner main door. Involved, but very well detailed and not that difficult to fit together if you don't do it all at once. In place, now. A closer look. Each wheel assembly is mated to the wing by four pins. I found it necessary to file out those holes on both sides just a little to get a firm but positive fit. Without doing this, the assembly slightly fowled the leading edge fairing. Next, the guns and propeller went on. The kit contains six 3D printed gun barrels to take the place of the stock plastic barrels which were chopped off the kit guns to take the 3D printed jobs. After painting the barrels (no point in painting the guns themselves as they're not visible), the guns slide into the leading edge of the wing through the cover parts which I'd only temporarily glued on with Micro Krystal Clear to make painting easier. Those parts were removed one at a time, the gun inserted and glued, then the leading edge cover properly glued back into place. I took the nose off to do all of this which makes gun fitment here a lot easier. This method is a little more complex than following the instructions, but it meant I didn't have to try masking the gun barrels then having to touch them up again, which never gets as good a result as my method. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the prop assembly, other than what you've seen in my last update. The spinner in this kit is in two halves, so the back portion went on first and I then added a few oil streaks followed by adding the front half of the spinner. The last bits to add on are the lights on the fin, under the fuselage and the port/starbord nav lights. The nav lights, four of each, were painted clear red and clear green but the others are clear glass. They were glued on with a small amount of Tamiya extra thin dabbed on the appropriate place, then positioned carefully using a wax pencil. So here's a couple of pictures of the not quite complete model. Readers may remember I made a hings for the radio door which wasn't quite as successful as I'd hoped, but open and close nicely it does, as shown in both of these pictures. What remains now it to add some weathering, then complete the engine. That is for what will be the last update, next time. Cheers, Michael

Regardless of the scale, this is a nice looking model. Nice work so far. Cheers, Michael

I had the same problem with the same fuselage frame. They're very delicate and the sprue attachment is too heavy. It has a tiny locating pin cast into it, so it will need to be fixed to properly position the frame within the fuselage. A couple of other tips, if I may. Firstly, with the exhausts, I taped the cowlings in place from the inside, and placed the engine in later. I put a bit of tape over the exhaust holes then painted the model as normal. After painting, the tape was removed and the exhausts mounted. One thing I did find with the Eduard exhausts is that they interfere with the engine fitment so will need thinning around the front of each exhaust and possibly some filing of the engine in the corresponding area. There's a link in my signature to my build with pictures of just this on the last page detailing just this. Secondly, when you get to wing attachment, put the lower fuselage in first before adding the wing assembly as this spreads the fuselage properly to align with the wing root at the rear. Hope this helps. Cheers, Michael

Well that stage progressed better than I was expecting. My daughter and her husband are off in Europe for ten weeks so dear old dad is babysitting the dog. This usually tends to slow my modelling activities as he needs a fair bit of exercise. But I don't mind at all as he's a lovely dog and I enjoy having him stay. Once I got both upper and lower surfaces gloss coated, the first decal to go on was the sharks mouth and eye. I figured that this would be the most difficult to place and if I screwed it up, the kit provides five other sets of shark mouth decals so you'd think I'd get one of them right. As it turned out, the first time worked like a charm, probably because the nose is removable which makes that job a whole lot easier. There are remarkably few decals for this kit, and this includes the stencils for maintenance too. So here's the bottom, all done. I did have a small issue with the sharks mouth decal as I couldn't get the decal halves to meet under the radiator intake, despite paying very careful attention to placing each half carefully and evenly side to side. This was easily fixed with a little masking and flat black paint. At this point, all decals have been applied, a coat of flat varnish also applied, and masking removed from the lower details such as lights, undercarriage mountings. The gun casing discharge holes have also been picked out in flat black. Here, the upper sides have also been flat varnished and all masking removed. I've also picked out the fuselage machine guns which were overpainted as well as a couple of other details. The prop was also painted and decals applied at the same time as the rest of the model. There are three decals to each prop blade. It has now been mounted to the spinner backing plate. I think I will permanently attach it to the nose rather than leave it interchangeable with the engine. I did have some trouble with the number 49 decal on the left side of the fuselage as I found that very late in the decal process that it had tilted a little. Hastily brushing it with lots of water helped almost straighten the 9 digit, but the 4 digit became badly broken, so this was scrapped off carefully and the optional 48 decal sacrificed itself for the repair. The next stage of the project will be the undercarriage, lights and wing guns, then the prop will go on. Then I'll probably get back to the engine. Decalling is not quite finished, as there are a few more to apply to the engine and undercarriage. At least some of this is for next time. Cheers, Michael

If that's the case, then in the case of the C-202, I think Italeri measures time with an hour glass. I just wish they'd turn it over once in a while. Cheers, Michael

A very interesting story. I've enjoyed the journey with this one and the model turned out extremely well too. Cheers, Michael

Just a wonderful P-47. I prefer Razorback P-47's to the bubble top jobs, and this one is superb. Makes me want to throw mine out and start again . Cheers, Michael

Nice. I've never seen a 109 done in Japanese markings, though I know they had a couple. Hope to see a few more pictures. Cheers, Michael

Yeah. I prefer oil based paints as they stick better, cover better and I find they work better with air brushing. The problem I have these days is that my local hobby shops seem to be going over to water based paints, so I find myself using both on a model as the old oil based paints run out. Mostly it works well enough, but sometimes I get situations, but in the overall scheme of things (life, the universe, everything...... ), I'll live with it. Progressing well with the varnish/decal/varnish stage. Just got some varnishing to do, so hopefully pictures soon. Cheers, Michael

Looks very good. Cheers, Michael

Great build, as always, and one of my favourite planes. This is one to bookmark with all the helpful tips in finishing too. Cheers, Michael

A must have for me. Hope it's released this year. Cheers, Michael

Edging loser to the finish line, the Hawk is now painted. Well, almost. Just a couple of touch ups to go before the varnish/decal/varnish stage. Here's the undersides painted and beginning to be masked up before starting on the top sides. You'll notice that the undercarriage bays are not in place. The area where they fit is masked off but the parts have been painted. I figured this was easier than building the under carriage as per the instructions and then trying to mask off that assembly. At the moment, it's all in bits and being painted, then I'll assemble each side and put them onto the model as a whole. Digits crossed my method works out OK. The camera has made the colour look more grey than it actually is, as I mixed up a brew of RAF sky tinged with grey which seems to match the colour chart for this plane. Curtiss had a knack for painting their planes in colours that only approximated the official colours. Here's the first top side colour on, and being masked up for the second colour to go on. Looks like garbage at this point. Camo masking took a lot of time as the contours around the nose are hard to mask over the contours of the gun fairings and intake fairing, as well as the need to get the colour demarkation aft of the the cockpit to line up against what I'd previously painted behind the aft windows. Here is the camouflage now finished, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. It only needed a couple of touch ups, and none around the gun/intake fairings. The rudder was painted separately as the pattern does not match the fin. One other thing of note is the demarkation between the belly colour and the upper colour at the back of the nose. This was one of the easier things to mask up as the nose is detachable, so that demarkation peculiar to P-40's at this time is easy to make. Next is the red band around the rear of the fuselage. Of course, it would have been much better if the fool who painted this model had done this first, before any other painting. It wasn't me, honest . Eagle eyed reader will notice that paint has been removed around the edges of the band, which happened when removing the masking. I used Tamiya 2.0mm flexible tape for this, and it seems to have removed only the green, which is a water based paint, whereas the other colours are oil based paints. I've never had that happen before, but it should be an easy enough touch up. That's it for now. Next step is varnish/decal/varnish, which will probably take me another couple of weeks, but hopefully less. No further progress on the engine yet, either. I think I'll get back to that during the final assembly stage of this build. Cheer, Michael

A very impressive build. All that sanding and filing was worth the effort. Cheers, Michael

Good recovery after the fall. It's looking great. Cheers, Michael

It's a D model built in Dallas. Some had a different prop, I think. Cheers, Michael

Saw this in stock at Metro Hobbies in Melbourne yesterday at $299AUD. I was expecting it to be more, somehow. Cheers, Michael

I'm staying out of this one. I just thought I'd say that to keep the topic going. Cheers, Michael

We have to have something to indulge in wild speculation/what if/in my wildest modelling dreams/rumour has it type of stuff. However, I'd like to discuss your assertion that a P-51K is some sort of holy grail large scale model. I think that's a bit like choosing the -5 Hellcat over the -3 variant, which has the mode desirable possibility of a much wider scope for choice of markings. This helps sales and a P-51B/C variant, with a Malcolm hood option I believe would be a big seller. However, I would go for a P-51K in a heartbeat over one of these. I suspect that Hornby/Airfix's financial position might not support the risk of anything "left field". So my money is still on a P-51B, P-40 (E onwards), 109F or G, 190D, Corsair -1 or -1a, maybe a Spitfire MkXIV or Tempest MkV, Zero/Hien etc or one of the early post war jets as I said earlier in this topic. A P-47 done to the present Airfix standard is one I would definitely buy, but perhaps the existence of the Kinetic (rather sparse) kits might deter that possibility. I would love to see a Beaufighter or C-202/205, perhaps even a P-39, but I suspect even these are a little too esoteric for Airfix at this time, especially in a scale such as 1/24. I also don't believe they will re-do any of their existing earlier planes for the reason stated a few pages back. Cheers, Michael

Just The 3D print stage was impressive, but the etch stuff is mind blowing. Great to see a P-39 being given this treatment. Cheers, Michael

Good to know. I've got an F4U-1a in my stash, so I won't be tempted to embellish mine with this "upgrade". I've been enjoying your build so far. Your cockpit looks great. Cheers, Michael

I finished one of these a couple of months ago. It's another good kit from ICM and an enjoyable build. Looking forward to following your build. Cheers, Michael

I'm not a massive Mustang fan either. I don't have one on the shelf, but a Tamiya D in the stash and a Trumpy B on the S O D. But from a modelling perspective, I much prefer the B or C models and would grab an Airfix or Z-M P-51-B/C in a heartbeat. Cheers, Michael

Consider me hung. I hope to start painting this weekend. True enough, Dennis. If I sort out that engine to my satisfaction, I will feel like I've achieved something, however modest in the overall scheme of things. Cheers, Michael