Alex

Looking forward to visiting Wheels and Wings when I go up Toronto to to visit my daughter's family in a few weeks! Always a great place to go browse.

All bombed up. I glued the pylons on, but the Storm Shadows stay in place nicely just with their brass rods slipped into the pylons, so I'm leaving them that way in case I ever need to remove them. The only other ordnance is these characteristic dual-rail missile launchers on the outer wing pylons. At that point on the slender sweeping wing, the only ordnance that they can carry is the lightweight AA-8 Aphid heat seeker. Figured I'd give our guy a few of them in case any Russian Flankers show up to interfere (although an AAMRAM would be infinitely better in that situation, if only they had been integrated to date, but AFAIK no joy on that).

Standing on it's own feet for the first time! And thus confirming that there's enough nose weight, so I can go ahead and glue the radome on...

Prototypically complicated Soviet landing gear. Seems a shame to cover most of it up with gear bay doors, but that's how the real 'uns are. In that shot you can also see the really poorly rendered under-fuselage pylons that came with the kit and the bit of centerline seam that I failed to do well. Not fixing stuff on the bottom at this juncture. Forward LG already partly hidden...

Yes I discovered that in further searching (no videos still). Apparently there's a prefecture just south of Mt Fuji where like 90% of the plastic model kits made in Japan are manufactured. On my list if I ever get to Japan again....

Turns out Tamiya's factory is in the Phillipines (maybe that's not surprising). This isn't a video, but some still photos that show a predictably bigger, cleaner, more organized take on what Takom's doing. https://www.autoindustriya.com/features/making-plastic-fantastic-a-tour-of-tamiya-s-cebu-factory.html

I guess it's good that at least a few of the guys/gals were wearing masks whilst grinding away at it... If you'd said "niche light industrial in China" to me, that's pretty much exactly what I would have pictured ;-) Would be interesting to see an equivalent video from the Tamiya factory for comparison...

Thank you gentlemen! What’s up next is some little things like running lights, then final assembly! She’s close now…

This is inspiring. I have a Welsh Models vac kit of a Convair airliner in the stash somewhere. I should dig it out...

After 15+ hours, 326 stencil decals, and a dozen insignia decals, this phase of the project is DONE. I'm not the first person to gripe about this aspect of building modern fighter jet models, but once it's done you reflect that the stenciling adds so much realism to the final product that we should just be grateful that companies like Foxbot go to the trouble to produce these sheets (and at a very high level of quality for the Foxbot decals). These photos were taken after I has shot a coat of flat over the decals, obviously, which has flattened/blended them and the camo paint to a pleasing degree. The only slight gripe on the decals is that the white on the aircraft numbers ("41") is not totally opaque, so the camo peeks through just a touch. Forewarned (e.g. on my upcoming Frogfoot) I'd make a stencil and pre-spray a white background for them.

Amazing job on the paint and lighting. Really really cool.

Subscribed! Good luck with your museum work - if I ever get to Calgary I'lll be sure to stop in.

Beautiful work!

Just read Race of Aces by John Bruning. Great read, well written, lots of backstory behind Kenney's 5th Air Force in New Guinea and the competition amongst Bong, Johnson, McGuire, Kearny, etc to become the US Ace of Aces.

Hope it won't take that long, but it's going to be a task. Just spent three 90 minute podcasts worth of Saturday just doing the underside of the thing...

Yep, it really helps out, especially in getting that gloss coat really glossy ahead of decals.

Thanks Tom!

Thanks Kev! Feeling like the end’s in sight on this one now…

Got the ordnance and pylons painted, glossed up, and decaled. The Eduard stencil decals for the outer wing pylons and AA-8 Aphid missiles were very thin and fold-prone, so this took a good long while. Here's a Storm Shadow on its hybrid pylon, finished except for flat coating and some light pastel effects. In hindsight it would have looked a bit nicer to paint those yellow bands around the missiles instead of use the decals, but c'est la vie - not going back to change things now. Next I wet-sanded the whole airframe with 2500- and then 4000-grit sanding cloth to take down ridges and dry paint texture, prior to gloss-coating. That (sanding paint) is always nerve-wracking as I strive not to sand through anywhere while trying to get that smooth surface. Here it is ready for another umpteen hours of stencil decals...

Great stuff! Thanks for sharing this.

I’ve recently been listening to and enjoying “The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War” by Seth Paradin and Capt (USN Ret) Bill Toti. Covers all aspects of WW2 in the Pacific, but obviously both Navy and USAAF aviation are central to the story. Find it on your favorite podcast platform or in video form on YouTube.

Cool beans! My brother in law is a flight medic, and the company he flies for uses one of these. I've been wanting to build a model of their plane for a while, so I'll definitely be looking for this one when it becomes available.

Here's the whole stack of missile plus pylons, pinned together. I hope that adding two pins to the tabs already present on the base pylon will permit a strong enough joint to the wing boot. All of this is just dry fit now; I will paint and decal the pieces separately.

Thanks Rom!

Thanks John!