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Guys, Languishing in the stash has been the HKM Meteor F.4. My original intention was to build an RAAF F.8 from the Korean War and I was lucky enough to obtain a Fisher Models conversion set. With the announcement and now availability of the Revell F.8, I have one on the way from Hannants which I’ll build as the Aussie bird. But what to do with the HKM kit? One of my modeling goals for 2025 was to gain some level of proficiency with 3D design and printing. I have been able to stumble my way into a bunch of small parts like Curtis propeller parts for the P-47 and weapons pylons for an AD-4. I progressed to some more complex items like the XF5U landing gear and an ignition harness for the R-2800 engine. With a now near reckless confidence level, I decided to have a go at en even more complex 3D project: creating the conversion parts necessary to backdate the HKM F.4 to an F.3. Starting with several sets of drawings, none of which matched the others, I settled on one that I would use for the basis of the parts, tweaking it as necessary as I went along. I’ve planned a relatively simple conversion concept where the kit wings would be cut along a panel line just inside the inner side of the nacelle. The design consists of 4 parts per wing: forward nacelle, rear nacelle, outer wing and engine exhaust.v Ignore the ragged trailing edges of the nacelles, I was a bit over zealous ripping away the supports. The forward nacelle is designed with a spar to slide into the HKM inner wing and it will accept the kit’s engine accessories part, the rear nacelle also has a spar and will accommodate a separate exhaust tube for either the Welland or Derwent engines, a hollow outer wing fits onto a flange along the fairing at the outer edge of the nacelle parts. Shown here is progress to date, which is essentially blank concept parts to check alignment, fit and look; fit is close and the concept seems to be sound. I’m not a Meteor expert, but I’m thinking it’s close. I would love to hear opinions whether criticisms or suggestions! Everything is tacked together for now. Once I establish the final shape, I’ll work on panel lines and rivets, something I still have to teach myself to do in Fusion360. I’ve already created masks for the 4 plane detachment of aircraft deployed to Holland in early 1945. This is a total side hustle, work progresses mostly on a whim but I hope to see an F.3 on my display shelf in 2026. As mentioned earlier I welcome any and all feedback you all might have Thanks for dropping by John

Guys This post may be better served in another forum, but I'll start here since we see so much 3D work in progress. When designing 3D parts I have been using Fusion360 exclusively and I've developed a working level proficiency. I feel I'm pretty adept at picking up new software. Based on your experiences, I'd love to hear your opinions on Fusion360 verse Rhino or any other CAD type software. I'm trying to decide if I stick with Fusion360 or make a move now before I go too far down the road. I have full intention of integrating designs with Blender if and when it makes sense. For reference I use Lycée for slicing. I look forward to your perspectives! Thanks for dropping by John

Hey folks, here is the ILK Sherman build, first up some self made 3D corrections to some of the kit parts. Track: The kit supplied track not a common track for the Sherman, besides I like the look of the red meat T66 rubber chevrons. These went through a few redesigns as I tried using the kit end connectors and just designing the pads. I also tried using resin pins, both thoughts did not work in the end. The final design was all new pads, connectors and brass pins that I cut by hand! The resin pins gave the track too much stretch and as you know the Sherman has "live" track with no slack like the Russian T-34 style "dead" track. So pulling them tight with resin pins would leave too much gap between the links.

Hi all, while I'm not very active on the forums at this moment I still keep an eye out on anything LSP related. As some of you might remember a few years ago I finished the AIMS Ju388 L1 conversion. When building it I wasn't to happy with the instrument panel (a few mm to big) so I decided to create one in 3D and print it through Shapeways. Recently one of our forum members asked me about it and one thing let to another; the IP is now available for purchase on Shapeways (see direct link below). If you decide to purchase it, keep in mind that everything will be handed by Shapeways (not me). Prices are also set by Shapeways, I don't make any money from it. Just here to help my fellow modelers. If you have a 3D printer yourself, please PM me and we can probably work something out. https://www.shapeways.com/product/SKL2XSTAG/ju388-instrument-panel-1-32-scale Cheers, Wouter

Didn´t want to let this year end without showing you one of the models I finished 2016. But first I want to thank LSP mate Nick Karatzides for this kit and his tremendous work designing it! This is my first completely 3D printed kit, so it did not went without some hassle. Nick´s research and the design are shown here on LSP: http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=51976&hl=flettner Most of my trouble was based on the 3D printing. My kit was printed by Shapeways in the Netherlands, for I am from Europe. Nick suggested to clean the parts in white spirit only. But this did not work for me. The parts got stained after giving them a bath in white spirit, well seen here: So, I filed a complaint at Shapeways, strongly supported by Nick. Shapeways agreed to completely re-print the kit. Great customer care for a kit that costs some bucks! Getting the second print I thought about how to clean them. I placed some not this visible parts in my ultra-sonic cleaner, filled with destilled (!) water and some dishwashing detergent. Well, this went wrong, too... Also, my ultra-sonic cleaner broke down after some runs, it started to smell charred. So I ordered a new one, which ment even more expense. But well... In the end I cleaned all parts in destilled water only. Only water, no other stuff. Despite the kit parts having been cleaned from the supporting wax at Shapeways the parts still had lots of the wax on them,clearly shown by the water getting cloudy after some seconds. Don´t ask me how many litres of destilled water it took to clean all the parts! Nick designed all parts to a very tight fit. So I took outmost care to mask all locating pins and holes before giving the parts a coat of gloss black acrylic primer. Any paint on these points will make the parts impossible to fit! I guess it was from MiG, but I didn´t make notes on this. The main fuselage got a airbrushed in Alclad Duraluminium, to be followed by accents of Alclad Airframe Aluminium. Masking the rear part for airbrushing in a wooden base coat was intricate, for the part has this many details and is easily broken. Nick provides a template for the instruments, to be glued behind the part with the bezels on. But this template showed US instruments! So I checked my literature for pictures of the IP of the real Flettner. I then searched the Net for colour pictures of the needed instruments, resized and worked them in Photoshop. Also in Photoshop I placed and sized them onto a scan of the template and printed them on glossy photo paper on my colour printer. Much better! All in all this was a very enjoyable build and it looks great in my cabinet. Hope you like it as well! Here the pics: