Piero

Hello my friends, thank you for your kindly comments on my Gina! Now, most of the decals are on. They came from a limited-run decal sheetfor the italian Ginas. Still missing to put on some black stencils. CIAO! Piero

after a hot & long summer break I'm back to my model desk. It's time to start the painting phase... my favourite phase. First of all, the canopy and cockpit were masked with tape and paper, then a good layer of a solid grey has been airbrushed as primer: although there are a number of specific products around for this job, I still prefer to use a cheap and reliable acrylic plain color mixed with some clear gloss. Nice landing gears eh?... After 12 hours I checked if there was any fault of filler... luckily everything seems ok... so I sprayed an almost black colour along the panel lines. Grigio Mare Scuro (Dark Sea Grey) and Verde Scuro (Dark Green) camouflage paints were airbrushed using blue-tak rolls. Black was sprayed for the tail fin band and circular antenna on the top of fuselage. The anti glare area in front of the windshield was spayed black too but then I discovered that actually on the AMI G.91R it was Dark Green, so I resprayed in this color. Some post-shading is already done too. Alluminio (Flat Aluminum) was airbrushed on the under surfaces. Black antenna panels were sprayed too. At this time I had to respray in Zinch Chormate Green the undercarriage bays too. Now a good clear gloss layer is a must in preparation for the washing and decal phases. A dark wash was applied. CIAO! Piero

... Time to check the filling & scribing job. The IP cover with the collimator is fitted. I added a map's bag on the left side. Despite the kit includes PE vortex generators, these parts has been replaced by me using thin plasticard strips and added to both side of fuselage's rear section. PE wing fences has been added to the mid-chord of the wings. Small details as reinforcement plates, heat discharge, drain pipes and anti-collision bacon has been added around the fuselage. A light dark wash was applied to highlight panel lines and any eventual imperfection of the work. ....

Cockpit tube and instrument panel are finished. The collimator, as other small details as switchs and throttle, will be added later after the main parts will be fitted inside the fuselage. Some specific parts for the Italian G.91 R/1 are the panels that cover the guns and the one at the back of the camera's nose cone. These resin parts are easy to work with but a little attention needs to be carried on to fit the panels with the fuselage without losing all the the small details around. Some details has been added inside the exhaust tube. Now the internal parts are ready to be fitted inside the fuselage. A lot of dry fitting is a must here... especially for the cockpit and jet intake areas. Here is the fuselage glued with a lot of CA acting also as putty.  A resin part that really disapponted me was the nose... the part doesn't match with the front section of the fuselage. Again, a good session of sanding and the nose profile is flushed with the fuselage. A big step forward was made joining the wings to the fuselage. And as you can see there was a needs of a good amount of putty here and there... especially to fill the micro-bubbles-holes... argh! ...

Hello Guys, here is my new project started last spring time, a FIAT G.91 R/1 in charge with the A.M.I. (Aeronautica Militare Italiana) from the '60s to the '90s. The model is a limited edition resin kit by DAYGLO MODELS. As usual I need a good references source to look at. The books are my main source for the Gina. Starting with the main internal parts as cockpit tube and undercarriage bays. Here some tools used to remove the parts from the resin blocks cast.  The task doesn't required too much effort because the resin is very well casted and easy to work with. The interior parts are primed with flat black...  Then Interior Green has been sprayed on the undercarriage bay and speed brake vanes. Medium Grey has been sprayed on the cockpit tube and instrument panel. Next, I worked on the wing pylons and external fuel tanks. Very nice parts... At this stage I've finished the main undercarriage bays, painted with Tamiya XF58 for the Interior Green. Some tubes and pipes were added too and painted with Vallejo. ...

Hello, as requested by some of you, here is the WIP of my big Harrier GR.3 in 1/24th scale. The Airfix Harrier kit is old… almost like me… with basic details compared to the big scale but good in size and shapes overall. To detail the plastic parts I’ve used the Flightpath detail set (PE + resin +metal parts) and added some others parts from scratch. A good documentation is always mandatory… the web is a great source… but I still like the old paper books too. Here is a selection of books. Ok, let’s go to the building stage… starting from the exterior surface. The plastic parts are full of deep and big holes to represent rows of rivets. I don’t like it. So, I’ve used liquid plastic putty to fill the holes and a wet fine sand paper to smooth the surfaces. Pass to the cockpit. The IP plastic part is not too bad… some details were added here and there to better represent the dials and switches. Decals were used too. The cockpit tube and sidewalls are assembled and detailed with plasticard, tape and wires. Same job was done to the front undercarriage bay. The Martin Baker Mk.9 ejection seat is based on the bare plastic part… add details here is a must. Other areas that required details are the small reaction valves and vents like these… fine metal mesh from spares is a good solution. I didn’t want to detail the Pegasus engine because it would end up inside the fuselage and you would not see anything. So it’s time to close the fuselage with everything inside. You can see many details were added all aorund the fulselage using plasticard. Also the row of PE vortex generators were added to on top of each wing. The cover of the instrument panel is based on the plastic part of the kit with some details added on. The windscreen was detailed with PE parts from the Flightpath detail set. Moving on the external stores, first I’ve scratchbuilded a CBLS to be attached under the belly pylon, based on the HE 1000lb kit's bomb and some plasticard and then painted in RAF Dark Green. Next are the fuel tanks and the Matra SNEB rocket pods. First of all a layer of primer with black pre-shading, then a spray of RAF Dark Green. To finish the parts a shading and fading was added too. Same for the pylons. Tailplane and vertical fin with details from plasticard and Flightpath's PE. Ok, everything is ready for the camouflage. Gunze's acrylic paints H331/H75 for RAF Dark Sea Grey and H330/H73 for Dark Green RAF. But first, a layer of Tamiya’s Zinc Chromate is applied all over. When the paint is dried a black pre-shading was added along all the panel lines. RAF Dark Sea Grey is almost done… Fin flash and yellow combat number were painted too. Then RAF Dark Green camouflage pattern was airbrushed. I’ve painted the RAF roundels on my Harrier. A good washing was applied along the panel lines using diluited Humbrel’s enamels. A soft paper tissue was used to removed the excees of wash… here the result. Apply decals required a big effort… as to obtain a good finish effect mixing clear paints, due the size of the model. All five wheels touch the ground... but what a pain!!! Working on the 4 vectoring nozzles... Here the canopy with details added and ready for painting. The big metal pitot tube was done by a friend of mine. It took me a year to do this Harrier. I’m very happy with the final risult and I enjoyed it to build. CIAO! Piero

Hi Alain, this is the Nesher in-progress with the resin nose fitted... not so much putty... CIAO! Piero

Hi, thank you very much for the compliments!!! Yes, I like... just a little bit... the Harriers The Nesher model was done fitting the Isracast resin nose to the Italeri Mirage IIIE kit. I'll post soon a new topic in the WIP section of my work on the Gina and another one of the GR.3 in 1/24th. CIAO! Piero

Hi, after almost 20 years spent on 1/48tth models, I moved to the bigger 1/32nd scale. Here some pics of the models I have completed in the last 5 years. Trumpeter A-4M Skyhawk in 1/32nd Trumpeter AV-8B Harrier II in 1/32nd Trumpeter Harrier GR.5 in 1/32nd Trumpeter Harrier GR.7 in 1/32nd Trumpeter Harrier GR.9A in 1/32nd Trumpeter AV-8B+ Harrier II Plus in 1/32nd Tamiya F-16CJ in 1/32nd Revell Hawk T.1 in 1/32nd Italeri Mirage 5BA in 1/32nd Italeri Nesher in 1/32nd … and now something even bigger… Trumpeter Hurricane IIC in 1/24th Airfix Harrier GR.3 in 1/24th At the moment I’m working on a DayGlo FIAT G.91R-1B in 1/32nd. CIAO! Piero