AdamR

My word! Astonishingly ambitious project. Thanks for letting us watch.

Nice work. How did you like the kit? I’m just finished with the cockpit on mine, and I’ve found the parts fit engineering vague and the mold quality only fair at best, with lots of flash and some mold lines that are "stepped." I know Revell can do better at this price point, because I’ve built their new-tool Spitfire Mk IIa and found it superior to this kit.

@Woody V That looks like a good idea. I will give that a try. Thanks.

I am especially interested in the thin type at the moment. I’ve tried the adhesives sold under Loctite and Gorilla Glue labels from the hardware stores with mixed results. I usually use Zap, but sometimes the stuff I get does not "fire" as easily as I would like, and I suspect it may have been sitting in stock too long. Would some of you folks be so kind as to recommend the brand/vendor of thin CA you like?

Hellcat, please! F6F-3, -5, either, or both. Whether by Tamiya or Hasegawa, this inexplicable omission by the two champions of 1/32 still tops my wish list to be filled.

Isn’t the lack of a new-design 1/32 WW2 kit from Hasegawa more troubling? As others have pointed out, the out-of-production kits will be available on eBay for a while, but where’s a new Hellcat? Hurricane? Etc.? If it is true that Hasegawa has abandoned LSPs, it is a tragedy.

Thanks. I don’t mind the delay that much, because my modeling time has been cut short anyway, and the Revell P-51 has languished on the bench. I do mind being charged for goods months before they were shipped. Thanks for pointing me to the build threads; they will be very helpful. It’s especially useful to know in advance that the PE is poor, for example. It supports my plan to "dumb down" the build. The most important thing to me is having the early P-40 outline on the shelf (underslung "jaw" radiator, cowl .50s, etc.). A highly detailed model is not my goal with this one. I will probably build the closed cowl version and leave the engine parts on the trees. There are a lot of kits in the stash I want to get built and I’m running out of years to get them done!

? Don’t tell me the rest of the world got theirs last year.

1 enormous box: …full of nice plastic stuff (beautiful clear parts), and… …more PE stuff than I will ever use, plus… …printed gun barrels (my first experience with parts made this way)… …all for building 1 of 5 different AVG subjects, and lastly… …a big-ass commemorative patch to sew on something. I can hardly wait to get started, but I’m going to be disciplined and finish the Revell P-51D first. No, really, I am. Seriously. Not kidding. Disciplined.

Thank you for these posts and pictures, Nikola. I’ve just begun one of these kits so I’ve binged your posts and found them most useful, particularly the trick to widen the windshield part with a toothpick. "Wizard!" as our Brit mates would say. Your work is very well done.

Excellent paint -- and no gun muzzle powder streaks! Yay!

The best-looking of all Spitfires, IMO. Beautiful job.

Whatever Hasegawa is planning is un-knowable to me, an old modeler in the wilds of Lower Alabama. I do know I’ve loved the eight different Hasegawa 1/32 kits I’ve built. I had planned another of their P-47Ds and another P-40E, so the severe scarcity of their kits worried me, and I resorted to EBay for examples of each. They now reside safely in my stash, I am happy to say. If the story about the re-release of the ‘190D is true, I shall certainly snap up one of those, as well. Long live Hasegawa! (In 1/32 scale, of course.)

Ugh. I hate to hear that, because my Eduard kit has severe fit problems involving the cowling, if one makes the mistake of trying to build it with a closed cowl as I have done. I thought Eduard was more dependable, based on the couple of their 1/48 kits I have built.

This isn’t the Emil re-boxed by Eduard, is it?