mc65

hi Quang, excellent job on prepping the bottom paint job, and lovely cockades! may I ask you to kindly give me the size of the air cylinder in the landing gear bay? I'm working on custom decals waiting for my kit, which is still not showing! TIA, Paolo.

well, if the comparison of the outside of the engines is unforgiving enough... the inside is definitely out of the race! oh well, it is known that the resins, in particular Aires, are clearly better than the corresponding parts of the kits... and I would like to see, with what they cost! now the busillis lies in grafting the resin terminals onto the styrene bases, so as to have a solid bond of equal length between the two engines. by the way, the kit requires that the tailplanes be glued now, which is not at all convenient, I still haven't found a solution to solve the problem. after a series of attempts to simplify the operation, I gave up and sectioned the styrene engines so as to have rings to glue to the resin exhausts in order to obtain an alignment, if not perfect, at least as was thought in the kit. but what really commands the positioning of the engines is the size of the shells of the reverse. having decided to make these closed, I had to go crazy to make them fit in the best way with the resin exausts and the styrene base. please note: now I start with a long boring text for the benefit of those who, wanting to assemble the same kit, will read these notes. I suggest that anyone who is not strongly motivated jumps to the following paragraph! however, the instructions say to install engines and reverse and then couple the fuselage and tail. It doesn't seem like a great idea to me, I think it's better, especially if you replace the exhausts with resins, to assemble the entire terminal part on its own, taking care to have the internal part of the engines of the right length, so that you can then rejoin the two (four) parties comfortably. a problem that arises in doing this (but there would still be, and worse, following the kit's instructions) is that of correctly positioning the 8 main parts that make up the exhausts cones and shells. in this photo (apart from Cigolino, the disgruntled supervisor) you can see quite well how the parts are NOT correctly positioned: lopsided shells, misaligned actuator gears, odd positioned photo-etched parts. sigh. instead with a few simple tricks it can come out almost easily, I obviously got there by banging my head like a moth on glass: - thin the two side fairings as thin as possible from the inside with a grinder, in order to make room for the resin gears, which are bulkier than the styrene ones. - eliminate the resin actuator arms. - DO NOT glue the PE stiffening ribs inside the shells, if anything, do it after gluing the completed module. ditto for the side strikers for the actuators. - glue the two side fairings to the base (the 8-shaped piece in the photo of the disassembled parts above). - glue the shells to the base and to the fairings one pair at a time, using the respective resin terminal to better align them. - once the bonding of the styrene parts is solid, position the PE sides so that they are straight, aligned and specular. if desired, also the stiffening ribs (which in any case will be invisible in the end). - are the PEs well fixed, puttied, sanded? well, glue the two resin exhaust cones with epoxy glue. it may seem complex, in reality it is without a guideline ... which I did not have. having to do it again today it would take much less time and less secret - and not secret - invocations to the saints. the whole system tends to be a bit lopsided, but - precisely - by following this path, a reasonably straight and solid styrene base is obtained, even if the petals will tend to open and not align correctly with the cones. I solved this little problem thanks to the epoxy long gluing time, to its resistance, and to some ancestor in the holy inquisition: to force the shells in their position I blocked the base on a surface with double-sided tape, so that it wouldn't twist, and I made micro-holes in the shells themselves through which I stretched some fishing line, so as to keep them in shape until gluing was completed. after 24 hours i removed the stitches and verified that the end piece, now a solid sub-component, mated well with the rest of the engines and the fuselage. after that I recovered the actuator arms from the kit and positioned them in their place. I don't have a decent photo of this step, except this one, where the 4 central arms are positioned, and the 4 outer ones not yet. the comparison with the terminal of the kit says it all, I think. and finally I can (I have to!) paint this part: it would be almost impossible to do it once the assembly is complete. especially as regards the innermost parts of the engines. various stunts with the Alclads, and here we are. but I'm still very very far from where I would like to go: but I got rid of a fairly full-bodied mange, I'd say. now I have to solve the cockpit and then in theory it's all downhill to the colors... cheers, Paolo

Pete, admit I have a soft spot for the beaufighter, and I'm speechless for the pictorial technique, very well done, congratulations. however rust on an aircraft... mmmmh... as mistreated as it is I can't imagine it happening on an operational aircraft. be that as it may, I follow you, the premises let me foresee high quality work!

I follow this work with a mixture of admiration and apprehension (I have plans for a Mk.XI on Revell kit). I think that the choice whether to add or remove material behind the base of the propeller is dictated by the plate of the same: the two diameters must necessarily match, I guess. keep on gluing, I like it a lot!

Jim, you're absolutely right: this kit is monstrous, literally. in some points it recalls a vintage model that I didn't expect... luckily I'm also vintage, so I know how to get by. for example the compartments of the speedbrakes: no comment. luckily Eduard produces a set to implement them. a bit tedious and awkward to make all the holes in that position, but never mind. surely the glance gains. planing those "details" off the bottom of the compartments by replacing them with tin wire also helps. layer of white... I think I have to replenish the color supplies and budget a large order for the final livery, there is a need for a lot of material, on this big box! oil wash and test in place with lined jacks. better I would say. in short, I proceed slowly. I spend most of my time at the work table looking for solutions to improve a series of things that, as they are, don't convince me. coming soon: engines and no. cheers, Paolo

wow! 3mm it's a lot of distance, for those little magnets! the attractive force is in fact inversely proportional to the distance squared, you may see from the grapich how dramatically distance nullifies the force of attraction! about the extra-thin details, it was not my intention to press you, but only to suggest implementations to a work that promises to be a milestone in the construction of P47 (Trumpeter, more over!) PS great coup, the purchase of the reference material batch, I'm a little envying you...

mmmmh, I don't know the P47 well, and certainly in this discussion there are modellers very knowledgeable on the subject who will be able to prove me wrong, but usually -unless the controls were locked- the rudder follows the orientation of the tail wheel. ergo, if you plan to position the wheel slightly off axis, the rudder will easily be too. also, and forgive me for being so picky, but you've raised the bar so much in this build... forward of the ventilation pipes are three drain cocks, which have an orthogonal pivot at their end, as per the actual photo posted by Thomaz (thanks, very useful image).

and here I am again, by God, it's already been a year since my last update! where were we... the landing gear, yes. the main ones bring a nice attempt to emulate real piping and wiring, together with the already seen and cursed soft detail and multiple extractor marks (add your comments, mine are colorful and definitely excommunicating). I tried to work around the latter, added some nuts and bolts and reasoned a bit about whether I could like the former. while I was thinking, I filled the wells of the main landing gear with the dedicated Eduard photo-etched parts. and I implemented the floor of the same with a little gizmology. the real life photos reveal compartments saturated with pipes, fittings and various boxes, I kept the obsessed myself at pace, also due to how little of these will be seen in the finished model with the doors in the middle. think and rethinking about these, the pipes have disappeared. I will replace them after giving the base color to the legs. and obviously to the relative wells and trying to optimize, even at the various jacks, unfortunately without the possibility of replacing the stems. as usual, in the dead phases of the work on landing gear legs and wells, I did something else: I milled the inside of the front half-fuselages until the Aires cockpit sat at ease. and I decided to modify the published assembly sequence: the kit foresees gluing in the same session the three parts that make up the front fuselage (4 with the front base housing the radar) with the cockpit and the undercarriage compartment inside. it seems to me a bit risky, wanting to achieve a decent alignment. so I presented the main parts making sure they matched well, and then I glued only the two lateral half-fuselages, together with the radar base. to maintain the right distance between the two and to strengthen the structure, in which I will later insert the cockpit module like as a drawer, I inserted a plastruct tube. a further element that I added is a plasticard disk about 1cm aft of the radar. this also acts as a bulkhead to contain the 60g of lead shot required to keep the finished aircraft from sitting down. to keep everything together, lead and bulkhead, I used PVA glue. now I have a solid and balanced working base. what prevents me now to give a little color? nothing, and in fact... after a coat of primer, one of white and one of gloss, I placed the kit's placards plus some Airscale ones following the photos found of the real thing. then I lightly veiled with oil to avoid the dazzling white effect. not being able to replace the chromed part, I covered it with adhesive polished aluminum (here only on the left). unfortunately the styrene base is far from perfectly smooth, despite my efforts to make it as clean as possible. ditto on the various jacks. after the base color I added some plumbing lines to the floor too, I'll see with everything mounted if I can add more, but I don't think so. Of course I managed to forget a puller mark near the base of the force leg and glue down the jack before casing it with aluminum. then I moved on to installing pipes and wiring. it will be fun to glue the legs in place with all this stuff in the way... did you get a headache? you know about me! to be continued... cheers, Paolo

Hi Boch, just a couple of days ago Tomas explained his way to render leather and upholstery, you'll find it at page 3 of his WIP: https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/95079-b-25j-mitchell-ave-maria-132/page/4/#comments https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/95079-b-25j-mitchell-ave-maria-132/page/4/ excellent work and historical intro in your PLZ 11, thank you for share that! cheers, Paolo

yes, Matt, that seems to be the case. which I am very sorry about, Italeri (formerly Italaerei) has made very beautiful and accurate kits in the past, with a linear progression today one might expect excellent kits, but no. well, I started arguing with the landing gear while I was thinking about how to deal with the forward fuselage issue. after puttying and sanding as much as possible (and also trying to make the leg rings a little more marked) I took the measurement of the chromed parts of the stems. and went searching through my scrap metal for compatible chrome pipe sections. well, stroke of luck. I would say that we consider less than a tenth of a mm within tolerance. and here it is, with even a little more offal glued together. others are missing, eh, including the forest of pipes and cables that characterize these modern LGs. this simple modification allows me to adjust the compression of the nose gear, playing, once the model is finished, with the attitude of the aircraft on the ground. compressed, and extended. the wheels are the aftermarket resin ones, the kit includes two options: in vinyl, not too bad, but I don't like that material; and in plastic with a weight effect. nice rims, but tires mh mh. oh hem, even if you want the resins could be improved... then let's see if that's the case. with this modification I could also make the nose gear slightly steered at will. but if in tailwheels it is veryn common to observe the tailwheel to be steered, in tricycles it is less so, and in modern ones it is rather rare, considering that one arrives at the parking stand by following painted lines on the apron which always end with a straight section, precisely so as not to leave the landing gear loaded asymmetrically. unfortunately here ends the luck of the chrome pipes: all the others present (and there are several) have sections that are incompatible with my escort, no way. while the various parts of the nose gear were drying, I did something else as usual. its compartment is detailed, but in short... it is true that once in the office whoever sees it, however, it could have been done better. oh well, I have the Eduard set... let's go. soon we will also talk about the main landing gear, small steps. cheers, Paolo

ooooOooh! I'm still waiting for mine, envy! on the Hannants website I read that it's the best selling kit of the moment, nice shot, Revell! the cockpit pics are inspiring, hope the rest of the kit is up to par!

hi all! I was waiting for the release from Italeri of the IDS version, and as the opportunity presented itself, I took it, I think I'm the zero buyer! this version will allow me, I hope, to more easily build one of the aircraft used between 1990-91 in the desert shield/desert storm operation, as regards more specifically the Italian Air Force (AM) operation locust. a bit of history: as part of the locust operation, the AM prepared 23 aircraft specially repainted in sand color and equipped with some modifications. of these 23, only 16 actually rotated in the gulf, maintaining an effective force on the field of 8 operational aamm + 2 as backup. with a little effort and some help (thanks Tommaso and Andrea!) I managed to identify the serial numbers of the planes present in the respective time windows. obviously at the moment there are no dedicated decals, but I don't see it as a big problem, the planes used carried, in addition to the small cockades veiled with sand to reduce their visibility, only the last two digits of the serial numbers on the tail and on the doors of the front landing gear bay. the model... well. in the box are crammed about 2.5 kg of styrene in several sprues protected by envelopes and apparently of good workmanship and detail. I'll spare you the photos of all the material, they are easily found on the net. to make no mistake, I got some aftermarket... not all that is available, but a healthy (sic) middle ground. and then I went on to study instructions and parts, to outline an action plan capable of putting everything together in the best possible way, in an order consistent with the logic of the model and the changes that will have to be made anyway. I have to say that on closer inspection of the parts, I was disappointed, and not even a little. the detail is in general soft and poorly defined, signs of extractors on mangy parts to be filled, points of contact with the sprues in points difficult to resume after the cuts. an example to explain what I mean: honestly I expected something better, in some points it looks like a post-Soviet kit from the 90s, even the external surfaces show the problems that the 104 kit had: a marked difference in engraving between the details of the wings and the fuselage, for example. not to mention the breakdown of the various subassemblies... obviously I'm not a masterist nor a kit designer, nor an entrepreneur too, but only an "end user" in its most recent sense: someone who calls the bluff anyway, whatever the cost. oh well, let's start from the beginning: the cockpit. the detail is not bad, but that of the Aires set is definitely superior, of course. it's a pity that the layout is more oriented towards a RAF specimen than an AM one. in this sense the parts of the kit are definitely more responsive, I'll do a cut and sew to (try to) get the best of both. speaking of the breakdown of the subassemblies, the kit foresees to assemble the front part of the fuselage separately (understandable) first of all (oh, well) but also to immediately install the stem of the nose gear, a complex and obviously fragile affair, going to protrude from its bay. here I either modify the stem positioning system, or prepare to protect it in some way. accessory problem, nose landing gear bay and Aires cockpit are likely to conflict. here after a good planing of the resin with my trust De Walt angle grinder (the little one ). There doesn't seem to be much leeway... to have no doubts, I chose to plane the resin from below until the floor of the front cockpit was removed: replacing it with a very thin sheet of plasticard won't cost me any effort, and so I can better manage the process of gluing the two parts inside the forward fuselage, a three-part affair however difficult to align correctly. for today I would say that I have bored you enough, soon separation and cleaning from the sprues of the first necessary pieces. cheers, Paolo

I wonder if it's possible to add a button other than the "like" to those available... something like "I like it very very very much, exaggeratedly". holy cowl, it's a wonderful paint planning and shooting.

a merry christmas to all of you, but above all a new year full of beautiful models to share! and....yes, I have a couple of suspicious boxes on the way too!

wonderful. I'll follow really interested into!

how could I miss the beginning of this GB?? despite having other open projects in progress, I cannot fail to participate, indeed it is an opportunity to thin out the stash a bit with your help! I think I will take the Ki-84 kit down from the attic, I'm very attracted by the livery with the white tiger on the tail, flown by Shuho Yamana in 1944 to deliver it to Saigon. see you soon, I hope! cheers, Paolo

I love this plane, i used the kit as a mule to experiment with different techniques, and finally i decided to buy another box to build with more respect. if I'm not intrusive, here's a sample of mine covered in aluminum kitchen foil. one thing that I recommend is to insert a longitudinal bulkhead inside the forward fuselage: without it, in the end you will see the light from side to side and it is quite annoying. ask me how do i know? the other is to take some time to watch this film, I found it interesting and inspirational for paint peeling. cheers, Paolo

mmmh... I think I'll follow you close, check your six! cheers, Paolo

love this kite! and have one in the stash... is the Kagero book useful? cheers, Paolo

oh boy! this GB it's a mine of jewels to be enjoyed!

what a beautiful aircraft... I'm follow you on this project! 'bout riveting, apart the obvious help of dymo or straight rules, I found the mental state decisive: no rush, but a sort of Zen inner peace that is not always easy to achieve. I found it more rewarding to practice this than rolling miles of rivets with rosie!

just WooooOooooW... I'm more and more intrigued by the Zm kits, I'm following this creation carefully, wonderful work, so far! cheers, Paolo

spectacular. Is there really no way to make at least one engine visible, perhaps by installing the cowling with micromagnets? speaking of the execution of the camo on the planes bound for north africa, i found this frame part of a film on youtube, i think it could be interesting.

I was missing the final photos, great conclusion to a beautiful building, kudos!

well, i think the instrument panel is at its best, but the gunsight is just superb, really well done! every update is a feast for the eyes, keep it up!