johng

I guess they're just too big for most collectors. I've got 4 Me-262's and can't find a permanent place for them here. For some silly reason, my wife won't let them up out of the basement.

Kagnew is probably right about 21st not doing it. The way things seem to be going there, new 1/18th scale aircraft releases are very unlikely. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Admiral to do one either. Their two models of the Me-262 are OOP and remaining stocks at internet stores aren't flying off the shelves, the first CL-13 (Luftwaffe F-86) they released has been a slow seller, and the second one announced has been delayed again and again, probably because the first is doing so poorly. Admiral's detail leaves much to be desired anyway. What would be great is if BBI could be talked into making a Phantom in the big scale, although this isn't very likely either since they already make it in 1/32nd.

Those wing markings are in Italian colors, red-white-green, and the plane is in desert camo, so maybe it is Italian.

BBI also just released a 1/18th scale Bf-109G-2 Trop. for $65 US MSRP. It differs from the 21st offerings in that it has a full engine compartment with hinged panels. So, at least BBI hasn't abandoned the big planes, but their releases are few and far between.

I can understand the King Tiger costing more than the T-34 since it would have to be a much more complex kit. The T-34 was a rather simple design, perhaps the first "no frills" armored vehicle, the idea being to mass produce them as quickly as possible. The KT, on the other hand, was loaded with just about everything German tank designers could think of in terms of equipment built in and carried onboard. Their rate of production (few) reflected this. This being said, that King Tiger kit better be just bloody incredible to justify costing 3 times what the T-34 does. Maybe it's motorized and/or has a lot of cast metal parts.

That's good news, Stephen. I would imagine though that, along with cutting staff, they've probably also cut back on new product releases and reissues, particularly in 1/18th scale aircraft, the economy being what it is. Luftwaffe planes in that scale are just about impossible to find these days in that scale except for the 2 Me-262's. All of the Bf-109's are sold out everywhere I've looked on the 'net and the Ju-87's are pretty scarce too. It doesn't look like 21st plans to make any more of these.

This would indeed be a shame if true. I know a lot of serious modelers cared nothing for their prebuilts, the lion's share of their offerings, but I think that line did a lot to get a wider range of people interested in model planes and probably led at least some of them into kit building. It had to be a serious blow to them when WalMart cut back on stocking the stuff in some stores and others dropped it completely. Getting back into TRU wouldn't have been enough to make up the lost sales from WM since they have far fewer stores. It could be that WM all but cut out 21st because 21st went back to TRU. WM doesn't like competition and became the #1 toy seller in the US by actively undercutting TRU and KB, who recently went out of business.

Great job, Russ! Still can't believe you did this so fast.

Sorry, Rick. I musta had a brain fart when I wrote what I did. The bit about the staple wire still holds though. It's what I used when making belts for a 1/18th scale 'pit and I thought it came out looking pretty good.

Yes, Brian, I need a fix. A day without seeing a 262 is like a day without sunshine.

Wire staples are a good material to make buckles from. Drive a straight pin into a wood block and shape the staple around it, using needle nose and chain nose pliers, to get tight corners. For a pattern, take a look at the belts sold by Radu on his website. After seeing those fantastic belts, you just might want to buy his instead of making your own.

Brent, your trains look great. I'd love to get into model railroading but lack time, money and space. There's an HO layout packed away around here somewhere that there's just no space for. My real problem is that I have more interests than the budget allows for. Matt, The Train is a terrific film, one of Lancaster's best. He did all of his own stunts in it too. If there was a surplus of old steam locomotives in France before the movie was made, there sure wasn't by the time they were done.

I think Tim nailed it perfectly. In future, if you must use a gloss enamel base under a flat paint, wet sand the fully cured gloss first with 400 or 600 grit sandpaper. This will give the base some tooth that the flat coat can get a grip on.

Looking very good so far, Olve. You must have a lot more patience than I do.

Ahhh! With this light, I can actually discern the colors and they look good. With your diffused lighting, everything looks beige and brown to me. This is gonna be terrific when it's finished. Makes me so ashamed of my poor skills that I'll probably bury my G kit deeper in the stash.

You're doing great things with this, Russ! It's not really possible to see the colors in your pic. Too much yellowish cast from the lighting you're using. I'll say this about MM colors though, they look to light to me, and Testors may have mixed them that way intentionally to give a scale effect. That could be why they don't look true to your eyes.

Great job Rick! I've always found camo'd Mustangs to be more interesting visually.

The inboard exhausts point downward on all the variants I have photos of.

Thanks, J. You put into 3 paragraphs what took more than 1 page to explain in the Monogram guide. As for myself, I do understand the explanation and agree with it, but I don't necessarily like the look of using the effect on larger models. It's just a personal feeling. When I got back into modeling late last year, I'd found that many of my paints had to be replaced from the old stash so I drove out to the nearest LHS. The choice of brands was limited to ModelMaster and Tamiya. I'd used a lot of Tamiya acrylics in the past and wasn't that impressed with them so I bought all of the German camo colors from the MM line of acrylics. When I got home with them and started stirring them up I discovered that the paints did not match the chips that were on the rack in the store. The chips were true colors but many of the actual paints seemed to be lighter to give scale effect. I confirmed this by comparing the paint to chips in the Monogram guide. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy about this situation and will be looking for another source of camo paints from a different line.

Authors Merrick and Hitchcock offer a good explanation of scale effect in regards to paint in their Official Monogram Painting Guide To German Aircraft. Too long to quote here, but it's on pages 6 & 7 for those who have the book.

I forgot to mention, and you may not be aware, that the Hobbydecal sheet is dry transfer, not waterslide decals, so they would look better not having the decal film in between the white blocks. If it makes you feel any better, Hobbydecal is in S. Korea.

Don't know if this will help but Hobbydecal has a 1/32nd scale sheet for a FW-190 that includes 4 strips of white segmented walkway lines. It's sheet #st32003v1. If these won't work, there's an article on masking and painting these lines at www.rlm.at under Themes. It looks like a very tedious way to do the job but when there is no alternative you do what you have to do.

A resin Horsa? If this kit were scaled up tp 1:1, it would probably take three C-47 tugs to get it into the air!

Great job, John! And here I thought all Panthers were Navy blue.

Maybe the one good surviving tire could be used as a master to make a mold and cast resin copies from it. I'd offer the set I've got from my Airfix kit but I do figure on building it someday.