Fanes

Just a short list: - ideally a complete Hawker Hunter cockpit - at least the MB Mk. 2 ejection seat

Been a little absent from the bench and the forumns (mostly lurking and the occasional "thumbs up"), but I had a newsletter in my inbox on Black Friday. I just couldn't resist getting the ZM Fw 190 for 70€ and the kit arrived the next day - however that worked out...

Wow, loving the Mustang in RAF colours!

Little tiny bit more off topic: We seem to be neck to neck - I'm little bit above 5500 km this year. Spent the last week in Croatia with beuatiful weather (quite windy, but warm) and managed to make three rides. The upcoming week looks quite promising - at least in southern Bavaria 😉 Until then and afterwards: more time for us at the modelling bench!

Do I recognize a Pilatus PC-7 in the background?

Wonderful start Ernest - I'll be watching and taking notes, since the Revell A-8 is in my stash as well. Regarding the Kabuki tape for the cable straps: I tried that as well (on my Wildcat build, I guess) and it came loose after some time. Had to fix all strips with a dot of CA... On my recent Bf 108 build the straps were fabricated from adhesive aluminium tape (the floor insulation kind) and it's holding up well! Cheers Joachim

Before this thread inevitably turns into another wishlist: My Fouga Magister kit arrived today, after getting a shipping notification from Danny just yesterday evening. You can imagine my big smile, when the mail man had a white box with a Daco sticker on it 😁

Looking mighty fine! If you're already detialing the engine, you may add another hose to the oil breather (the dome thingy) on top of the crankcase.

Nice and clean work, Ernest. I especially like the scratches/chipped paint on the left cockpit wall!

I've seen it on pre-order with a release date in October. Shouldn't be too far off?

Haven't tried it myself, but Denis (Furie) has an interesting technique for his paper masks. For a rather soft demarcation: and for a rather hard edge:

Wow - fantastic work on that instrument panel, especially with all the small details painted and decaled. I guess, I need one of Mathieu's IPs as well

Maybe you haven't seen it before, but there's an injection moulded kit of the Miles Magister from MikroMir

I can only speak about the Nakajima colour which should be - according to Nick Millman - close to FS 34097 or a tad darker than Tamiya XF-71. My set was signidficantly lighter than the XF-71 and didn't match the AK real color either. Mr. Color C127 was quite close, but not a perfect match either. Had a similar issue with Quinta's interpretation of RLM02 as well...

Mighty fine work on the cockpit - the Barracuda bits seem to be a much better fit, than the stuff from eduard I used. Your clean work with re rivetting the wings has created an itch to finally dig out my Spitfire again Looking forward to more progress on your recon Spit!

What a nice start, Paolo! Since I've been fighting with the Revell kit and the AIMS conversion (although only into a FR XI) and you're already working on the wings, there's two things you might consider: The bulges inwards of the cann cover that you've already removed shouldn't be there since Revell seems to have copied a post war mod. The oil radiators are way too shallow comapred to the original (and the Tamiya kit) - I fixed them with resin parts from Barracuda. Cheers, Joachim

+1 for the Pacific Profiles book - I got the inspiration for my Rabaul Zero-Sen from there and there's plenty more to chose from. Regarding aftermarket: Replacing the vinyl tires was/is a must for me. I went with the nice ones form Miryoku, although shipping them to the US might be a dealbreaker. But then Tim (Juggernut) might be able to print a set for you? If you want to enhance the cockpit: Sean's wonderful build has all the necessary scratch buildung for a Nakajima A6M2. I mostly went with the Quinta bits, but be warned: they don't really match any of the interior colours out there, so custom mixing to match the shade of green is required. Last but not least, the Tamiya stencils aren't a 100% accurate - I plan on using decals from eduard (if I ever get to that stage).

Really nice work going on there, Tolga. I admire your craftsmanship and perseverance!

Been lurking for a while, but I have to commend you on that distressed paint job, Quang. Love the mix of hard edged and translucent green camo. Did you use stencils/masks for that?

Really looking forward to the Dora WIngs Dewoitine!

Nice work so far, Leon! Don't know if you know, but there is a nice ebook from klp, which covers most of the little hickups of the Revell kit. Have you looked at the clear parts in your kit? Mine were badly deformed and I opted for a resin replacement from Aerocraft.

Whooooopsiedaisy - something must have happened between "send Rick a PM" and actually sending it

Great to see this one sailing to the finish line, Tom! One little confusion on my side regarding the colour of the landing gear: As far as I understood the Tweak List, only the small trapezoid thigy connecting the gear to the cover should be Amber. The lower part of the strut should be black? I think, there were pictures with the lower strut in black, as well. Cheers, Joachim

Remember that nasty gap at the lower fuselage? Well, it's no more! With some brute force and a huge amount of CA, I was able to reduce the canyon wide gap to a small step, that should be easily blendable with some filler and a little sanding. I will do so, after I have blended the wing root/wheel well transition. This will need more than a drop of CA - thinking about some Milliput followed by some reshaping. What did the trick, apart from the ridiculous amount of CA, was putting in a piece of sprue to spread the fuselage at the front and thereby preventing it from pinching inwards. The test fit with the engine reveals some minor gaps at the lower firewall. I did some sanding after taking the photo and now the seam can be closed with light pressure. Should be okayish, especially because I plan on adding the engine at the very last step, after painting the whole plane. That's it for now, progress in the next days will be slow, since I'm back at work as of today..

Keep up the good work on your Storch - it's a pleasure to watch! But for sure, I won't be getting that kit for a quick build Nice to have you chiming in Sean! Your build thread, together with the tweak list, is my main motivation to tackle all the small details of a Nakajima build A6M2. Still hoping, that my Zero-Sen turns out as elegant as yours. Btw. your current Hunter build is entertaining and educating as well! I will try a different brand of raised rivets in the future (already have two eduard sheets in the stash). Looking back, I think your choice to imrove the wheel wells by scratch and PE parts was a much wiser one than the resin parts - scroll down to see why... Back to the rivet job. I did some testing of colour modulation for the engine cowl and therefore applied a blue mottle over the gloss black, followd by a 50/50 mix of Gunze rubber black and Tamiya gloss black. The result - not so much visible after all, oh well. The other thing I learnt was that the raised rivets are so low, that they don't really hold a pin wash. Enough complaining - with the cockpit in place, it does look rather good! In my opinion, the work and especially the painting together with the Quinta bits, really make the cockpit pop out from the black framing. Me likey. Unfortunately, there is aghost seam on the rear deck (visible in the picture below, just aft of the opening for the loop antenna). Cleaning that up will be fun Talking about seams: The front and the wheel wells are a new challenge to master. There's a fairly large gap between the lower wing and the fuselage parts. Of course on both sides, since the resin wheel wells push that part downwards. Even though I removed a lot of material. The wing is only dry fitted at that stage and I can make minor adjustments. My plan is to bend the lower wing a tad upwards, then glue the wing along the wing root to the fuselage. When that's settled, the parts with the gap will be pressed together, as hard as I can, then tacked in place with CA at the front - followed by a big splurt of plastic glue from the inside along the seam. We'll see... The wing root on the port side is just fine, while there's a very small step on starboard. Since the mating of the fuselage to the lower wing is pretty tight, a slight sand of the locators might do the trick. I couldn't resist to make a first overall shot. It slowly starts to look like a Zero now. Consider this a morale boost.