Javlin1

Hull is finnished....masked of the orangea area, so to finnish of with flat/matte coat only on the hull red ( dont use flat that much at all) its needed, as it will be displayed in dry dock.
 
This will do just fine for me.
 

 

 
forgot to ad, will in the last ad water rinning marks on the hull, apply gloss on a finetip brush.

I had a bit of a snafu with the pit the consoles I installed on the opposite sides making the front part of the fuselage not able to close by a 1/16".The other problem was I had glued the the fuse all the way to rear gunners position! I let the rookie mistake sit for a couple of days was looking at ordering another kit and Quintas??The idea came wet the seam down  a curve blade and start the seperation it was complete in 5/10 minutes with zero damage.Once I had the front portion of the pit out could see the consoles extending out beyond the IP.The Quinta's was carefully removed and sanding commenced  till it fit and then reassembly.The wings are now glued on just a little filler up front and below no biggee.
 

 

Thanks Mal should be a neat little crate when done only have this little 1/72 built maybe 30years ago......I thought it looked better but probably back then with single action Badger and hand painted camo on the sides
 

I have started another little 1/48 seeing space is starting to run out the Meng Me-410 with the only add-ons being the Quintas Interior.The fit thus far has been quite Nice I have even placed the copit and gunner section within the fuselage halves fit looks excellent.The kit also supplies both engines and look like they might be pretty good for 1/48 sadly I will properly close those up once built.I also have the Revell 1/48 in the stash to which I order my mask for it when I ordered this one's mask.Pics of work done thus far....
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

I will be covering up the engine Mal to small of a scale for me unless AM.I am about to primer hopefully this evening.

Wow......
 
Brave you are, showing enginge in this scale (Youda saying)....oh boy i like it very much if you do so sir., as all looks great.
 
Btw goofers, Who Thew Hell Havent Done Em....Well i have, and Many, would have a own program in Bloopers TV Show own channel.
 
We all have done em, no matter how much we builded em kits, still happens, the difference is how we handdle em...and correct em
 

I had a bit of a snafu with the pit the consoles I installed on the opposite sides making the front part of the fuselage not able to close by a 1/16".The other problem was I had glued the the fuse all the way to rear gunners position! I let the rookie mistake sit for a couple of days was looking at ordering another kit and Quintas??The idea came wet the seam down  a curve blade and start the seperation it was complete in 5/10 minutes with zero damage.Once I had the front portion of the pit out could see the consoles extending out beyond the IP.The Quinta's was carefully removed and sanding commenced  till it fit and then reassembly.The wings are now glued on just a little filler up front and below no biggee.
 

 

That Gauntlet is wonderful Max 😍
 
I am proud of all my finished models, but there is one that I think was my finest hour
 
1/18 Spitfire XIVe
 

 

 

 

 

 
..it also has a special place in my heart as it won the first model competition I ever entered
 
great thread - more please
 
Peter

Great question Max but quite a difficult one to answer. 
There are elements of many builds that I am happy with but the one I consider my most successful thus far is "Trip Two", a Tamiya F-15E Strike Eagle. 
 

 
I saw this exact airframe at RIAT one year and her dirty, well used appearance inspired me.
 
There are many modifications to the kit plus a great deal of aftermarket including the jet nozzles by the late Dave Parkin of Flightpath fame, way before 3D printing was a thing.
 

 
Dave Roof inspired the use of iridescent material for the HUD giving that characteristic tonal change from bright green to blue...
 
 

 

 
Adding the crew was another first. 
 

 
Much time and effort on extra detailling and fettling gave me a model I still enjoy looking at even now. 
 
This was probably my zenith. 
Age is conspiring to prevent me from going this far on a build again in the future.
 
It's all down hill from here...

It's been ages and none were 1:32 scale, but my single best was probably either the Monogram 1:48 Su-25 Frogfoot, 1:72 Fujimi MiG-21 SMT or the Italeri 1:72 F-100D. All were done pre digital (Minolta 35mm SLR), a camera that I never did master, and all were award winners in their day.
 

 

 

 
 
 
 

No doubts, my SU-30 MKK.......so far.
A bit bitter sweet as it got me my modeling goal of winning the US IPMS Nationals in a category that I entered......but it happened in August of 2017, 6 months after my father (who got me into modeling and aviation in general) passed.
I wish I could have seen him that day I won.
 

 

 

 

 
 

Allright, good and bad news.
 
Bad news first.
Lifeboats, they been cleaned away by mistake, damn it, my mistake...oh well.
 
Good news, found one second hand the one that comes without PE, few hundred sek, around $20 lol. so can cannibalize parts from that kit.
 
So in a good way, got a second run on em lifeboats lol...
 
Meanwhile when that is on the way, decals on, started with panel line washes on the hull, next step wearhering the hull, the model gets more fragile on each step with pe parts, so crucial its done now, avoid much as possible unnecessary moving around....
 
Looking forward to weather this, rain streaks, rust, salt....
 
no smoking decal in place.

 

 
 
 
 

 
 
Hey..looks like i may get a cool model ship after all to have in the glass cabinet.
 

Thanks very much, gents!
 
Scratch work a plenty as the main cockpit components have been made and splashed with some paint this morning:
 

Next up is the radios and electrical boxes…
 
More when there’s more…
Tom

I had a bit of a snafu with the pit the consoles I installed on the opposite sides making the front part of the fuselage not able to close by a 1/16".The other problem was I had glued the the fuse all the way to rear gunners position! I let the rookie mistake sit for a couple of days was looking at ordering another kit and Quintas??The idea came wet the seam down  a curve blade and start the seperation it was complete in 5/10 minutes with zero damage.Once I had the front portion of the pit out could see the consoles extending out beyond the IP.The Quinta's was carefully removed and sanding commenced  till it fit and then reassembly.The wings are now glued on just a little filler up front and below no biggee.
 

 

I had a bit of a snafu with the pit the consoles I installed on the opposite sides making the front part of the fuselage not able to close by a 1/16".The other problem was I had glued the the fuse all the way to rear gunners position! I let the rookie mistake sit for a couple of days was looking at ordering another kit and Quintas??The idea came wet the seam down  a curve blade and start the seperation it was complete in 5/10 minutes with zero damage.Once I had the front portion of the pit out could see the consoles extending out beyond the IP.The Quinta's was carefully removed and sanding commenced  till it fit and then reassembly.The wings are now glued on just a little filler up front and below no biggee.
 

 

I have started another little 1/48 seeing space is starting to run out the Meng Me-410 with the only add-ons being the Quintas Interior.The fit thus far has been quite Nice I have even placed the copit and gunner section within the fuselage halves fit looks excellent.The kit also supplies both engines and look like they might be pretty good for 1/48 sadly I will properly close those up once built.I also have the Revell 1/48 in the stash to which I order my mask for it when I ordered this one's mask.Pics of work done thus far....
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Really Nice went to the posting to really appreciate all that went into the build!

Very interesting technique well outside the conventional mindset ...like it.

In keeping with my fascination of the Dora, I just received this AJ Press volume. Quite the cool series, just a shame they didn't do more of them.
 

Thanks Matt!
 
 
Thank you for the comments! I think they come a few months too late for me to practically consider them.  Some of them I was aware of.  The venturi will be belly-mounted as I've filled the hole in the starboard side of the fuselage.  After discovering that the Series VII probably had the earlier stabilizers without the horn balances, I made an economic/practical decision to keep on going since I had already expended funds on the AiP replacements and did not wish to modify the kit parts nor spend any more money on aftermarket parts. My resource says that this machine had the windscreen armor so I'm ok with kit-supplied part.  Small bumps?  Maybe I can do something about that.
 
The paint stage is fully underway now.  After the white areas have thoroughly dried, they are masked off.

 

It's time to paint the grey undersides using Mr Hobby Aqueous Light Grey (H-324).  The paint is thinned with Mr Leveling Thinner using a 1:1 ratio.  This gives me a very thin paint which sacrifices coverage but I gain a smoother finish and more control over the pre-shade effect.





 

MLT is a very "hot" thinner.  As the grey is sprayed, it sort of sinks into the black pre-shade layer, slowly bringing up some of the black to the surface as it dries.  Because of this, it is important to monitor the paint coverage and go back and touch up spots that looked ok when you sprayed but now look too dark.

 

After the grey dries, the demarcation between the upper and lower camo colors is masked off.

 

The model is ready to receive the smoke ring masks, which I've traced from the kit decals.  But before I do that, let's run through the process using the horizontal stabilizers as a test run.  One mistake is using Oramask as my masking material.  This stuff works great but is translucent grey and all but disappears when applied.  I should've used the yellow Tamiya masking sheets for better visibility.  Not wanting to waste all of that Oramask, I decided to soldier on.

 

After the masks are applied the brown color is sprayed on.  This color is called Nocciola Chiaro 4 and should be represented using Mr Hobby Aqueous H-310 US Brown (FS30219). But as you can see, I grabbed the wrong bottle of brown paint, which I did not realize until just BEFORE applying the brown to rest of the model.

 

Once the masks are removed, the smoke rings are clearly defined and these areas can now be filled in carefully with green.

 

The green color is called Verde Oliva Scuro and I am using Mr Hobby Aqueous RLM 71 Dark Green for this shade.  Using my Iwata HP-B Plus, it was relatively easy to fill in the empty spaces to create these smoke rings.

 

Test complete, it is now time to apply the smoke ring masks to the rest of the model.  I have two good photo references of the port side.  One is of the actual aircraft (MM9042)...

 

The other is this clear photo of MM9044, which I am assuming to have very similar characteristics to MM9042.

 

Placement of the smoke rings will be based on these photos for the port side only.  I've produced a set of mirrored smoke rings to give me a bigger palette to choose from.  The rest of the placement is based on the kit instructions but I've purposefully tried to change the orientation of the rings to deviate from the appearance of a build using the smoke ring decals.  As you can see the masks are very difficult to see

 

Using the correct brown this time (H-310), the Nocciola Chiaro 4 is sprayed onto the model.

 

We'll let this dry and the fun part begins in earnest when I remove the smoke ring masks!

 
 

My pet hate is making cockpits but I’ve made a start… all from plastic card and Evergreen:
 
 
 
Still lots to do, so more when there’s more…
 
Tom

Thank you for sharing. The world is a little more sadder today. But I'm honored that Harv considered me, one of his friends. Rest in Eternal Peace "buddy."
 
Reuben

I had a bit of a snafu with the pit the consoles I installed on the opposite sides making the front part of the fuselage not able to close by a 1/16".The other problem was I had glued the the fuse all the way to rear gunners position! I let the rookie mistake sit for a couple of days was looking at ordering another kit and Quintas??The idea came wet the seam down  a curve blade and start the seperation it was complete in 5/10 minutes with zero damage.Once I had the front portion of the pit out could see the consoles extending out beyond the IP.The Quinta's was carefully removed and sanding commenced  till it fit and then reassembly.The wings are now glued on just a little filler up front and below no biggee.
 

 

I had a bit of a snafu with the pit the consoles I installed on the opposite sides making the front part of the fuselage not able to close by a 1/16".The other problem was I had glued the the fuse all the way to rear gunners position! I let the rookie mistake sit for a couple of days was looking at ordering another kit and Quintas??The idea came wet the seam down  a curve blade and start the seperation it was complete in 5/10 minutes with zero damage.Once I had the front portion of the pit out could see the consoles extending out beyond the IP.The Quinta's was carefully removed and sanding commenced  till it fit and then reassembly.The wings are now glued on just a little filler up front and below no biggee.
 

 

I had a bit of a snafu with the pit the consoles I installed on the opposite sides making the front part of the fuselage not able to close by a 1/16".The other problem was I had glued the the fuse all the way to rear gunners position! I let the rookie mistake sit for a couple of days was looking at ordering another kit and Quintas??The idea came wet the seam down  a curve blade and start the seperation it was complete in 5/10 minutes with zero damage.Once I had the front portion of the pit out could see the consoles extending out beyond the IP.The Quinta's was carefully removed and sanding commenced  till it fit and then reassembly.The wings are now glued on just a little filler up front and below no biggee.