mywifehatesmodels

Super cool!

FAN-FREAKIN'-TASTIC! Great idea and finish. I can see that parked on the tarmac at Reno, right now! Thanks for posting! John

Just wow!

Great work, across the board. Love it! John

I'm with Martin on the earlier variants. Being able to beat ZM to the punch with an A-1 to A-4 variant would have grabbed my attention. Other than that, I'm about full on A-8s. But, if you really want to get me to pull out my wallet in a frenzy, do a good kit of the 190V-1 prototype!

Thanks, everyone! Now I just have to decide what to do next. John

Most excellent! Love the paint scheme! John

Just finished this one. This was on the shelf of doom for quite a while. I had purchased the kit for quite cheap and, due to the shape issues of the kit, it ended up being the last Bf 109 in my kit stash, so I figured I would go ahead and build it. However, I managed to destroy the canopy/windscreen parts before completion and also started to be really annoyed by looking at the shape issues, so I just shelved it. I finally decided to use a vac canopy from my spares and modify it to fit. I also sanded down the huge sharp corners that come off the trailing edge of the wing root fairing, into the rear fuselage. The fuselage cross section still leaves a lot to be desired, but this did improve the overall look of the fuselage, even if only slightly. But, don't even get me started on shape of the nose! In any case, I was able to complete it by adding the canopy mentioned above, MM enamels, oil and pastel weathering. The main decals were from the kit, but the unit/number markings were from a few different sources in my spares and represent an aircraft flown by 1./JG 2 around the Battle of Britain. I also added a few bits from scratch in the somewhat strange looking cockpit. In my rush to finish it, I introduced plenty of problems on my own, but the goal was to just finish it and then decide what I'm going to do next. I would really like to get into the Multi-Engine GB, but not sure what I'm going to do next. Anyway, I'm calling this one done (and I'm also likely done with Trumpeter, spare a couple of kits I already own that are from their "A team", which has apparently disappeared). Thanks for looking, John

Fantastic work, so far! Been thinking of making a foray into 1/16, as well, but fear it will become yet another addiction. For now, I'll live vicariously through this thread.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words and it's great to be back, Brian! The last picture certainly seems to have the best lighting. With the strange cloud cover, it was difficult to really get what I was after on every shot and many of them give kind of a "glowing" appearance to the finish, which certainly isn't the case in real life. You have described the track issue pretty much perfectly. I got to a point that it wasn't going to quite stretch the gap, but if I added the required two links (one with guide horn and one without), I had to account for the excess by sagging it somewhere and that "somewhere" is some pretty tight real estate! The funny thing is that I think the drive wheels may be too close to the road wheels, so it's likely that both idlers/drives are incorrectly spaced. The idlers have a lot of room to get them wrong and the drive wheels only have one point in which they can be positioned, unless you make some alterations. A point to be remembered, for sure! Thanks again! John

OK, I'm calling this one done. I was almost afraid to look at the date of the last post in this thread, but.....life happens. The tracks were very difficult for me. It's been far too long and I think I could have spaced the drive/idler wheels differently and it would have helped to get the track spacing right. Next time I'll pay closer attention to that and hopefully not work myself into a corner. Aside from that, everything else went fairly well. For the remaining equipment, I decided to leave the large tool/equipment boxes off the sides of the hull. Many of the photos I was able to find show these boxes to be missing and other items are often attached. I used the kit's tow cable ends, but replaced the middles with cables I made from wire. The log was the result of digging through my brush/burn pile for some candidate sticks. I also used extremely small twigs to make a bundling of kindling wood. The rolled tarp was from my spares and I made it years ago from facial tissue and painted it. I added the straps from the PE set. All along the build process, I was adding oils and pastels here and there and worked some silver pencil chips into a few spots, as well. Everything was sealed with a final coat of flat lacquer. Even with it's many warts (pretty much all my own fault), it's still probably the best looking tank model I"ve ever built, finish-wise and it was refreshing to get back to some armor after all these years! Thanks for all of your encouragement! John

While I am a big fan of the Hasegawa kits, the biggest problem at this point is that the earliest variant they offer is the A-5. If they beat ZM to the punch on the A-1 to A-4 variants, it will be tough competition. But for those who prefer complete engines and other internal features, it could still lean towards ZM. I'm more of the "basic series" hopeful, but still have to pick based on the merits of specific kits. Right now there isn't a really good kit of the early marks out there, so first to market would likely get my money. John

Thanks for the update, Kevin! I've been waiting since they announced this venture. I'm patient and have plenty of other 190s to do in the meantime (amongst other things!), but it's good to see that ZM hasn't given up. John

I was suspicious right away that this seller was hoping to capitalize on the "gotta have it first" crowd. Given ZM's pricing of previous releases, I just can't see it costing that much. John

Thanks, guys! I appreciate the feedback, but I'm really looking forward to getting back to LSPs and I still have a 1/35 T-34/76 (1940 model) to finish up, as well. John