thierry laurent

Some excellent work, Thierry!! I marvel at your F-4 and A-4 parts every time I see them. 
 
Tim

By far the most complex set was the corrected variramp and accurately sized air intakes! That was a nightmare that took me two months of evenings to get correct and symetrical parts! Never again!!!

By far the most complex set was the corrected variramp and accurately sized air intakes! That was a nightmare that took me two months of evenings to get correct and symetrical parts! Never again!!!

Thanks! Harold did the nose. I made the rest!

The wiper was part of the conversion. I did it to help Harold.

Happy birthday John!

Airscale? I guess you meant Aerocraft?

I love such projects! I don't know if you know it but there is one error in the instructions and parts of the stabs of all AIMS sets for late Ju88 & 188. John posted a correction on his Facebook page.

Your options are Tamiya (F-4E), Tamiya (F-4C/D) or Tamiya (F-4J)!
The OOP Revell F-4E may depict one of the rare slat wings planes used very late in the war and the RF-4C one Recce bird. However you will have to find AM decals and both kits ask for far more work than the Japanese options. The Academy re-release of the Revell F-4E has SEA schemes AND the hard wings with TISEO. However, it has the same issues than the original kit.

That's a bit harsh - it's got a gun and tracks, what more can we expect?

Airscale? I guess you meant Aerocraft?

Happy birthday John!

Happy birthday from the land of beers! ;-)

Our old friend '19squadron' obviously wasn't on the voting committee for that award... 

even without the AM set the thunderjet is a very nice kit i enjoyed building
 

The problem is simple. You cannot obtain a product break even status without selling a minimum of some thousands of boxes if you are releasing an injected plastic model. Finding 500 customers is easy and even 1000 stays rather easy. This is the LSP market hard core. You can possibly reach 2000 but this will ask for some additional months and is already conditioned by some attractiveness factors. Further, you are entering into the danger zone! According to the topic kits may sell like hot cakes... or not! This is the critical issue as this market segment is very unstable but required to reach the initial profitability. A company like WnW understood it and developed a clever marketing policy that was offer rather than demand driven. This was efficient up to some level. However, even that approach could not result in miracles! For instance, think of the early Gotha seaplane prototype. So, marketing gods have quite often strange ideas when you look at them from the hard core perspective! This explains why a company like Jetmads using a far cheaper production model only does short run releases and for two to three times the price of an equivalent injected model. We may finally get an injected F-84F because companies cannot only produce Spitfires, Mustangs, Me109s and Fw-190s forever but when is a big question! The lowest is the perceived probability of profitability of some releases, the lowest will be the frequency of such releases between best sellers. This is a pity but is an economical fact...

The problem is simple. You cannot obtain a product break even status without selling a minimum of some thousands of boxes if you are releasing an injected plastic model. Finding 500 customers is easy and even 1000 stays rather easy. This is the LSP market hard core. You can possibly reach 2000 but this will ask for some additional months and is already conditioned by some attractiveness factors. Further, you are entering into the danger zone! According to the topic kits may sell like hot cakes... or not! This is the critical issue as this market segment is very unstable but required to reach the initial profitability. A company like WnW understood it and developed a clever marketing policy that was offer rather than demand driven. This was efficient up to some level. However, even that approach could not result in miracles! For instance, think of the early Gotha seaplane prototype. So, marketing gods have quite often strange ideas when you look at them from the hard core perspective! This explains why a company like Jetmads using a far cheaper production model only does short run releases and for two to three times the price of an equivalent injected model. We may finally get an injected F-84F because companies cannot only produce Spitfires, Mustangs, Me109s and Fw-190s forever but when is a big question! The lowest is the perceived probability of profitability of some releases, the lowest will be the frequency of such releases between best sellers. This is a pity but is an economical fact...

32052 F-15C Canopy frame (for Tamiya kit) is ready, finally.... Details on www.kopeckyscalemodels.com  

Just a quick heads up that Tomorrow(24th April) Roy Cross the legendary artist who produced some of the most striking and memorable  box art turns 100 
 
Happy Birthday 
 
Here's to Mr Cross , one of reasons Airfix prospered in the 60s 
 
 
 

I find this photo fascinating for a variety of reasons. The fourth bomb back ( a 500 pounder I presume), show evidence of the shipping ring locations as a darker green color than the others. The four rearward bombs (1,000 pounders)), show distinct differences; reddish brown band vs darker green ones, different tail and nose yellow markings, and the third large one seems to be not only a really faded OD, but also has what I assume is yellow stenciling vs the black on all the others. Also, the 500 pounders all have a very thin yellow band around the middle, whereas the other larger bombs do not.
 

I would love one but I'm afraid of the price. I would not be surprised seeing that one above 800€...

The problem is simple. You cannot obtain a product break even status without selling a minimum of some thousands of boxes if you are releasing an injected plastic model. Finding 500 customers is easy and even 1000 stays rather easy. This is the LSP market hard core. You can possibly reach 2000 but this will ask for some additional months and is already conditioned by some attractiveness factors. Further, you are entering into the danger zone! According to the topic kits may sell like hot cakes... or not! This is the critical issue as this market segment is very unstable but required to reach the initial profitability. A company like WnW understood it and developed a clever marketing policy that was offer rather than demand driven. This was efficient up to some level. However, even that approach could not result in miracles! For instance, think of the early Gotha seaplane prototype. So, marketing gods have quite often strange ideas when you look at them from the hard core perspective! This explains why a company like Jetmads using a far cheaper production model only does short run releases and for two to three times the price of an equivalent injected model. We may finally get an injected F-84F because companies cannot only produce Spitfires, Mustangs, Me109s and Fw-190s forever but when is a big question! The lowest is the perceived probability of profitability of some releases, the lowest will be the frequency of such releases between best sellers. This is a pity but is an economical fact...

The problem is simple. You cannot obtain a product break even status without selling a minimum of some thousands of boxes if you are releasing an injected plastic model. Finding 500 customers is easy and even 1000 stays rather easy. This is the LSP market hard core. You can possibly reach 2000 but this will ask for some additional months and is already conditioned by some attractiveness factors. Further, you are entering into the danger zone! According to the topic kits may sell like hot cakes... or not! This is the critical issue as this market segment is very unstable but required to reach the initial profitability. A company like WnW understood it and developed a clever marketing policy that was offer rather than demand driven. This was efficient up to some level. However, even that approach could not result in miracles! For instance, think of the early Gotha seaplane prototype. So, marketing gods have quite often strange ideas when you look at them from the hard core perspective! This explains why a company like Jetmads using a far cheaper production model only does short run releases and for two to three times the price of an equivalent injected model. We may finally get an injected F-84F because companies cannot only produce Spitfires, Mustangs, Me109s and Fw-190s forever but when is a big question! The lowest is the perceived probability of profitability of some releases, the lowest will be the frequency of such releases between best sellers. This is a pity but is an economical fact...

And resupply U-boats, providing fuel, munitions and food supply to the other attack boats. The story is quite interesting.
 
I stalled a bit on the forward torpedo room because of the empty foreground. 
Trumpeter wants you to simply place two air tanks there but that leaves a lot of empty spaces and play against the cramped area I want to try to depict with this build.
 
These tanks are not correctly located and are partly under the bunks. But if I build bunks on top of them they will be too high so I decided to cut the floor,
create a 3D piece to mirror the opposite side and display the lower bunks.
 

 

 

 
The tanks are relocated and attached from above. If I add a floor for them I'll hide too much of the torpedo storage room under the floor of the room.
That's not perfect but the best compromise I could come up with.
 
I intend to show a lot of supplies throughout the boat and try to render the mess it must have been in there with 40-50 stinking males confined in there.
I went to cult-3D and downloaded as much stuff as possible and scaled them to 48th scale. Plates, coffeepots, cooking pots, rice bags, potatoes bags, tin cans, fruit cases, salads, carrots, 88mm shells & cardboard casings, etc . All these will compliment nicely what I could gather from black dog supplies.
 

 
I just haven't found ham and sausages yet but I want them to hang from the floor and I am thinking about hanging hammocks full of supplies from the roof of the torpedo room.
 
Here's very early impression of what I am leaning to:

 
I am also debating to put 2 more torpedoes on the floor as it was often done, must made the crew life really difficult
 
 

Sometimes they come back!
in the last few days I have been busy examining the shelf of doom trying to save from oblivion the works that were briefly incomplete.
in this case, after countless attempts to make a frozen puddle I gave up and was pleased (well, more or less) with the last attempt.

to begin with, some photos of the plane complete with the last missing details: doors, controls for folding the wings, air intakes. I added a little mud from below, without exaggerating.

 

 




the engine has the possibility of being partially - or completely - exposed, thanks to the magnets embedded in the thickness of the cowling.



 

 


and to conclude the whole story, some photos of the completed diorama, puddle or no puddle.




the officer won a scarf out of order


and all the other insignia, ranks and various insignia by Alliance Model Works decals, splendid.

 

 

 

and I fixed one... some other updates coming soon! Cheers everyone and thanks for participating, Paolo