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Hi Guys, A big parcel arrived today. My mate Alan has sent me a Tamiya Mossie kit to build for him. I've known him since the last century when we both sub-contacted to Honeywell on London's Canary Wharf project and he knows I'm a modelling nutcase. Now I've got my own Mossie but haven't really had a good look at it so when this one turned up I though I'd have a quick peek inside. What did I find? Short answer, super duper fantastic plastic. So I'm going to do a dual build for him and me. There's another parcel waiting for me to pick up tomorrow which has contents unknown, Alan won't tell me exactly what I've let myself in for, so it could be seatbelts, etch, resin. Knowing Alan, it's probably all that and the kitchen sink as well. In a week's time I should have the Trumpeter Mustang tamed then straight into the Mosquito build. I know he would prefer to have his model in RAF markings, the kit has RNZAF, RAAF and Polish (RAF) so a bit of research and maybe cut some masks on the Cameo 3. Regards, Bruce Crosby

Here is my latest build, a MkXVI Spitfire, by Tamiya, which I built as my contribution to the Colour My World Blue group build. It represent Spitfire SL721 which became the personal plane of Air Chief Marshall Sir James Robb, from 1946 to 1951. As you can read below, this plane has had a very long career, and she still flies. You can find the full build detailed here: https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=72233 Spitfire SL721 never flew in WW2, as it was delivered new to No.6 Maintenance Unit of 27th August 1945. From there, it went to the Fighter Command Communications Squadron in October 1946, then later that month it went on to the Meteoroligical Flight for use by Sir James Robb, who at that time was Commander in Chief of RAF Fighter Command. Soon afterwards, it was sent back to Vickers Supermarine for refitting. All armament was removed, and the gun bays converted to luggage lockers. The gun sight was also removed, as was the rear fuselage fuel tank, and much of the remainder of it's military equipment. It was also painted in RAF Scheme D Light PRU Blue as seen here. In this form, the plane was a dream to fly as it's performance was very much enhanced by the removal of so much weight. The plane was used by Air Marshall Robb to tour the various bases in Great Britain. It also appeared in a few races, including the Kings Cup. In June 1948, it was involved in a landing accident. The pilot on this occasion was AVM Sir John Boothman, who was also the pilot who took the Schnieder Trophy in 1931. SL721 was sent back to it's manufacturer's for repair, this time being repainted in RAF Scheme D PRU dark blue. The plane went back to the 31 Squadron RAF (nominally) for Sir James Robb's continued use, who by now was Commander In Chief, Airforces Europe, until her retired in August 1951. Sir James handed over his plane to the commanding officer of the Central Flying School at Little Rissington until in late 1954, despite many objections from the CFS staff, the plane was ordered to be scrapped. While awaiting it's fate at RAF Lyneham, it was spotted by an automotive garage owner who purchased it for 120 pounds for display on his forecourt at Swandean It was well looked after here, and the engine was stared regularly to keep it in reasonable fettle. Three years later, the plane was moved to Lord Montagu's estate for display, where it appears to have stayed, in the open, until 1966. It seems to have been traded multiple times in a very short time span, without actually being moved, firstly for 2000 pounds, then 3000GBP, then 4000GBP. Finally in 1967, it made it's way to the United States, by now being owned by William "Bill" Ross, a Chicago businessman and aircraft collector. Ross had the plane refurbished in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was now painted in a glossy green/brown camouflage with azure blue undersides, but still wearing JM-R as squadron codes. SL721 spent some years now on the display circuit in the US, often flown by legendary warbird pilot Jerry Billing. Some time in 1972, the plane was sold to Englishman Doug Arnold, and shipped back to the UK. He repainted the squadron codes with his initials D-A. Again, the plane appeared at air displays until it was sold again in 1978 to Woodson K Woods of Chino, California. Here, Woods repainted SL721 in a more accurate green/grey camouflage and again refurbished the plane. It now wore the squadron codes WK-W and again flew on the display circuit. It also appeared at Reno in 1981, in mock combat with a Hispano ME109 "Buchon", where SL721 achieved her first "kill", shooting down the Buchon in mock combat. Woodson loaned SL721 to the San Diego Aerospace Museum for 7 years, starting in 1982. On return, the plane was trucked to Colorado for a complete rebuild. Woodson's son Chris would care for the plane for another 8 years until in late in 1998, he had the plane repainted again, this time in azure blue and in the markings of Sir James Robb. The plane was sold again in 2000 or 2001, soon after appearing again at Reno. This time, it went to Canada and became part of the Vintage Wings of Canada collection. Here, it was repainted in the markings of TB886, AU-J, a Spitfire XVI flown by 421 Squadron RCAF and has flown many displays in honour of fallen Canadian airmen of WW2. It was put up for sale again in August 2017. Earlier this year, SL 721 was purchased by a Belgian consortium, and is now flying again in that country, registered as OO-XVI. https://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?145017-The-Belgians-are-with-flying-Spitfire-once-again-OO-XVI Who knows?? Maybe SL721 will fly again in the skies over Britain. Cheers, Michael

A quick build but a fun build

This is the very nice Tamiya kit used along side the Cutting Edge Crossdressing Stormbirds decal sheet. Yellow 17 was flown by Lt Hans Dorn of 1/JG7 and was captured at Fassberg by No 616 Squadron RAF in May 1945. I could find very little information on Dorn, I suspect he was a replacement pilot and fairly new to JG 7, seeing little or no action in his time there. As for yellow 17, she was designated AM-52 and ferried back to England for evaluation before being declared surplus and shipped off to Canada. From there, she was sold along with 300 other surplus aircraft and scrapped. As I said the Tamiya kit is a real pleasure to build. Painted with Gunze RLM 82/83/76 with weathering kept pretty light as this machine looked almost brand new when captured, in all likelihood it was.

I've really been bitten by the "Oh shiny!!!" bug lately. It sort of explains the lack of progress on a couple of my build threads. Between the F-4E, B-25 and Spitfire XIX ive got stated on here, I've pulled out of the stash and worked on a Zoids kit, a Fly Hurricane and now this. This is the original release of the Tamiya Caterham kit from 1994. At the time, it was supposedly the most expensive kit ever produced by Tamiya. I picked up my copy shortly after it came out and made a right mess of it. I tried to polish the aluminum body panels and only made it worse. I tried to cover the seats in leather and made them worse. So it went back into the box and has traveled with me for over 20 years. Earlier this year, Tamiya reissued the kit. I've naturally picked up a new copy to have another go at it. But I first decided to see if I could resurrect this one. To do so, I managed to secure new seats. The one panel that's really tarnished I'll just leave as there's not much else I can do. Here's what the inside of the box looked like after all this time. I had to brush off a nice layer of dust from a bunch of parts and them started in. The first thing I did was clean up the fenders and nose cone and spray them in a custom metallic purple I used a mix of Gunze purple and metallic black. The original paint had etched the plastic badly so it took a bit of sanding to get things smooth.

Welcome Everyone, thanks for flying by this build! Tamiya's 1/32 F-16C, this one's been done for over a month now but I didn't have the presentation and the stand the way I wanted it. I think it's ready for display now though(although as soon as I looked at closeups around the cockpit I see I have some touch-up to do LOL). I wanted to represent a picture I found on AirWingSpotter with the plane going vertical and vapor contrails billowing off the wing roots so for that I used medical rayon rope(basically just cotton balls in a rope form). I cut the arm from the Tamiya kit in half and turned it around to go vertical. I chose to do Lt. Col. Mike Chandler's bird from the 2004 show season. I was lucky enough to find a walk-around of his #1 and so i tried to represent it as best I could. This is an out of the box build except for 2 extras that I thought were crucial; the American Flag and the stopwatch in the cockpit. I preshaded with grey and dark grey panel line accent so that the lines would be crisp, without an surrounding shadow, to represent a show bird. I used MCW paints for all the gloss work and Vallejo for the cockpit and the exhaust nozzle. All of the striping is done via airbrush and the rest is with the kit decals. One of the unique things I did for this was to paint the engine internals to represent full afterburner. The way I have the plane oriented I guess I'll need some mirrors to see that now haha! I've included a picture below taken on a horizontal stand so you can see how it turned out. Let me know what you think as I may try this again and would like some feedback on it. You can check out my WIP for more details http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=72439&hl=thunderbird

Hi, New to the forum and not sure if this has been talked about before, but I thought I would share what I learnt yesterday with the metal shafts in a lot of the Tamiya 1/32 kits....if you're like me and trying to figure out which size shaft you are looking for, lay the shaft over the instruction sheet. The shaft size matches what is on the instructions Cheers

So I'm planning to add some emphasis to the panel lines on this build rather than leaving everything stark white. There are some shadows at the panel lines on the real thing but I don't think they are as bold as when a full preshading is done and I think black basing would be way too heavy; just my opinion and I'm not experienced with doing this so I'd like to get yours I used Tamiya's panle line accents to do this - dark grey and black. Take a peak and if you wouldn't mind submit an answer to the poll (hopefully this works as it's also my 1st poll). Accented parts 1st Coat of Insignia White 2nd Coat of Insignia White

Here it is, my first WIP thread on this site. I've been back in the hobby for a little over a year after a couple of decades layoff, and have been working in 1/48 exclusively and posting on FSM mostly. This will be my first 1/32 build, and I will be taking it slow since it's such a huge kit. I will be eventually painting and marking her up as one of the Amiens raiders from 464 Squadron. First picture is just the kit in box in my newly reorganized workspace. Also pictured is my brand new homemade spray booth. I think I'm going to start tonight and will post some pics once I begin. I have no hope to produce something of the same quality as some of the amazing threads I read on here, but I hope to have fun and learn a lot. I welcome any and all comments and criticisms - it's the only way to get better! Thanks for having such an inspiring and welcoming forum.

The saga continues this Christmas as we head into 2018 with my 3rd rendition of the USAF demonstration team. I decided on the F-16 because I bought too much paint for the F-35A so this one allows me to use the most of that up. This time I'm doing the Team Leader, Mike Chandler's plane from the 2003-2004 season. I found a full walk around of his plane which will definitely help with details. My plan is to do this OOB except for a few scratch details...originally it was 100% oob but once i saw the flag and stop watch in the cockpit weren't there that thought went by the wayside. I got the Encyclopedia of Aircraft Modeling series by Ammo Mig Jimenez for my birthday. I've moved on to the advanced cockpit section here so let me know how you think it's going - all comments are appreciated. Here's a few teaser picks of what I have done after 2 days of holiday 👨ðŸ¼â€ðŸŽ¨ I think I have to redo the attempt at lettering on the oxy bottle? Looks more like 💠lol I don't have a big enough stash of old decals so I'm trying to make it look oike lettering from a distance.

A month ago I started to get the urge to pick up a model airplane and tinker around a bit and see if It was something I wanted to do with my spare time. I ended up picking up and mostly completing a very nice US Navy fighter kit, until I accidently sat on it this morning..Yes, I really sat on it.. dont ask.. I had actually planned to post the warm up build in the RFI before starting this, but this accident with my warm up build just before paint this afternoon kind of put a squash on that.. get it? Oi. It's repairable and parts are ordered so at least I'm able to finish it when the replacements arrive. As I said, it has been a while since aircraft modeling has really sparked an interest, and revisiting the bench after some absence required cleaning my work area, so I took the opportunity to organize my work space a bit better in preparation for this project. There is a fantastic web page with a lot of information on the aircraft and personnel of VMF- 512 and their service in the closing stages of WWII in the Pacific. http://www.adamsplanes.com/vmf-512.htm I will use this fantastic kit and some aftermarket to try to do justice to the prototype. This will be my first Tamiya Corsair! The funny thing is, I've had two pass though my hands since the first release (birdcage), but I've traded them off. This one, I shall build! I've got a ton of great builds from around the net earmarked, and all the reference books and CD's etc. are ready to go. I will also be taking the time to show a comparison between aftermarket parts and the kit parts. Ive already decided a couple of the items are being returned. They just aren't worth the extra money from my point of view. Here is where things start, the Kit and A/M I will be getting started here shortly, one last item I need is still being sourced. More soon, Paul

My next build will be the Tamiya Spitfire MkXVIe, which I plane to paint in the markings of SL721 which was the personal hack of Air Marshall Sir James Robb. I have also purchased some Eduard photo etch to help me improve this, but as I've thought about it, I have 2 other Tamiya Spitfires in my stash and if I built them all from kit supplied markings, they would all look the same on the shelf. I had made a tiny start on this plane before I started my Typhoon, but at the time, it really didn't float my boat, so back in the stash it went. I previously decided that this would be my first attempt at one of these Tamiya kits, based purely on the thought that if I mucked it up, at least it would be a learning curve for the other 2, as I much prefer my Spitfires not to have bubble canopies. However, the announcement of this group build gave me some better impetus to get started, and also to think outside the box (yes, I did say that ) and do some research into MkXVI's. Digging through my books on the Spitfire I came across this plane, which still exists. The picture I've shown is as it was in 1999 following restoration by Chris Woods in Canada, being repainted in it's original paint scheme. And this is how I shall be doing it and since I'm presenting it here, I hope I don't make a mess of it. The MkIX and MkVIII will be built later, but I've ordered some new markings for the MkIX and may well do so again for the MKVIII so that they all look different once built. I've also ordered the correct marking for this kit in my desired paint scheme, together with a couple more small bits to further enhance it. I've been at it with the rattle can silver today, them masking up for the interior green. I've also drilled out the lightening holes in the fuselage frames. More later. Cheers, Michael

Ok, so I just finished my entry in the last GB and I'm back with this build. The first thing to do was to tidy up the workbench. Shaka, if you're reading this avert your eyes! Yup, a clean bench. So much space to clutter up, er, work in. Now onto my starting point: I'll be using the Montex masks for the larger markings and the Xtradecals for the smaller ones. I'm planning to build 307 in the 3 tone front, GSB rear combo. Carl

Hello all, I'm new here and wanted to share a recent project, one that is nine tenths finshed - but may benefit from being shown from the beginning. I've loved Phantoms since I was a child - their taut, 'business-like' appearance and reputation for power and speed always appealed. Later, as a young(er) adult I was also fortunate enough to see, courtesy of Her Majesty, an RAF version engage ground targets with its vulcan gun. Not something to forget in a hurry. Anyhow, my build is a US Navy version, namely the VF-92 aircraft flown by Curt Dose and Jim McDevitt in their successful raid on Kep airfield in 1972. It is a fascinating story - engagingly told by the pilot himself here . I also like the white noses of that squadron and the 'I-don't-give-a-damn-whether-you-can-see-me-or-not' attitude of the overall schemes of that period. My version is a bit different from most models of this or similar subjects, however. I set out to build-in the following features: working flight controls, retractable undercart, wheel suspension, working lights, illuminated cockpit and gunsight, openable canopy, deployable flaps and arrester hook and spinning compressor blades. It is, as you can imagine, quite a lot to pack into a model, even of this size. And how well it works, well, you'll be able to judge for yourselves. Why? Well I had some success doing some of this with a 1:24 Trumpeter Hurricane a couple of years back and fancied the challenge of mimicking the very different operation of a jet's controls - more on that later. But generally, I like the idea of a model being able to show some of the life of the real thing, so the model can sort of explain itself in other words. Some other boat and vehicle projects I've done in the same vein can be seen here if anyone is interested. Where to begin? I started with the wheels, imagining - wrongly - that these would be straightforward, especially after the nightmare complexity of the Hurricane. But, in reality F4s have, like a lot of naval aircraft, quite complex wheel geometry - not apparent when you look at them - to say nothing of the linkages between the landing leg itself and the secondary doors. So I had to make each of the main struts in brass, and adjustable in all axes, so I could firm up on the motion when I had worked out what it should be. You can just about make out the screw that will tighten the landing gear when the correct angle was worked out. Next discovery was that the gear struts themselves are almost certainly not quite in the right place on the model. No matter how I tried to work it, the wheels and doors could not function properly, this close to the fuselage. And indeed if you compare the wheel doors to available drawings, the secondary door (the little outboard gear door on each main wheel) is larger in real life than on the model. I concluded the wheels must be about 2 or 3mm too far inboard. I also wanted the wheels to turn freely so fitted bearings. You can more or less see that the strut itself looks like real chrome... and that is because it is. I found this remarkable - as in easy to use - kit from the US that allows you to chrome up (well polished) brass tube and I made a lot of use of it on this project. The oleo struts are supported by small springs in the cylinder. The slot in the oleo is to keep the wheel pointing in one direction as it slides up and down past a locating pin. The nose gear works the same way. You can see I had to replace the plastic 'scissors' as the orignals would break quickly when the gear moves up and down. Here you can see one of the main gear struts in the retracted position. The scissors are from the Eduard set and are useful for this kind of project, as long as the pieces are soldered rather than glued. You can just about make out what turned out to be the solution to the geometry issue. The main hinge is angled downward in the forward direction and slightly outward from the fuselage in the horizontal axis. This general arrangement was found by experiment - and confirmed by photographs. It is also worth mentioning that either the model wing section is too shallow or the gear too deep but, as supplied, they cannot possibly retract and I had to narrow the tires and wheels by about 1.5mm. Also, there is a sort of connecting piece across the well that is severely in error and prevents retraction, whatever the shape or thickness of the gear. That had to go. But because no one will see in the wheel well I have not replaced it with a corrected part. Hope this is of interest. Next up, engines and fans...

Well, after seven months of work, Tamy's 32nd scale Birdcage Corsair is finally done! There's been a lot of praise over this kit and I can only echo everyone's words! What a lovely kit overall! For the general painting, I used a mix of acrylic colours from Mig Ammo, AK Interactive, Vallejo and Hataka as well as Aclad for the engine. The camo was done with colours from Hataka's Late US Navy paint set and weathering was achieved with oils from the Mig Ammo oilbrusher set and pigments. The model will be placed in a small vignette but that will be done a bit later in the future! Again, I thoroughly enjoyed this model from start to finish not just because of it's excellent engineering but also because it was a project I feel tested and pushed my skills to a higher level! A big thank you to all of you for your continuous encouragement but most important for sharing your feedback and suggestions with me at every stage of the build! I dedicate this model to my lovely fiancee who bought this kit for me as a birthday present and who has been so supportive of my hobby!

It`s like a completely different model... Enjoy! PS: the "in-flight" reveal pics and the WIP story. Let`s get started with something like just a clean parked profile: Then with the canopy and airbrake open: And then...

Have been commissioned to build a 'Grace' type two-seat Spitfire model in 1:32 - based upon the superb Tamiya Mk IX kit and my client has kindly given permission for me to post progress here. Photo by Darren Harbar, via Eastern Daily Press This is a complex project and will have to create a lot of things from scratch, but will have assistance in terms of drawings and details from one of the UK's leading Spitfire engineers. As an example of the changes the front 'pit is moved foward by 13.5 inches on the full-size airframe, and the rear canopy is not the standard Spitfire 'bubble' (it's longer) - so it's not as straightforward as first meets the eye. Aiming to complete the project early in the New Year - but in order to make a start with some of the more straightforward work, I've commenced with that glorious Merlin: Rocker covers have been replaced with the excellent Barracuda items which feature the Rolls-Royce name. Small gaps in assembly now filled and should start getting paint on later today... This project will take priorty over my other builds. Blue Skies! Iain

Hi All! This is my Tamiya A6M2b Zero. The kit is wonderful! I enjoyed buildig alot. I used some aftermarket: Eduard BIG ED Master barrels HGW Wet transfers (stencils) HGW belts Montex Masks Prototype is Perl-Harbor SORYU Fighter Group BI-151.

I've always loved the looks of the F-16, even more so when it wears Israel's colors and markings. When the opportunity arose to trade for a 1/32 Tamiya F-16CJ with Isradecals, additional resin, and Isracast conversion parts, I took it (A big THANK YOU to Petrov27 here on LSP). When the very large box arrived last week, I began to explore my options. (That's actually his picture) My first inclination was to build it as a Barak (Hebrew for Lightning) of 101 Squadron (First Fighter Squadron) with its distinctive large winged skull emblem. But after looking over the decals and my book on the Barak, the tail art of 117 Squadron, The First Jet Squadron, really took my fancy. But the problem was 117 Squadron flew block 30 F-16's, and they were small mouth (NSI intake) block 30's. To build this I'd have to cross pollenate the intake from a 1/32 Tamiya F-16 Thunderbirds kit to build a plane from this squadron. Then I exchanged emails with Ra'anan Weiss of Isradecals. He said plane 360, is one of the few IAF block 30 F-16's with the large mouth, or MCID, intake. Problem solved. He's even sending me one of the squadron's 60th anniversary decals for the tail base. The first thing I've done, is problem solve how to fit some of the aftermarket bits for this plane. The Aires exhaust pipe fits spot on. And the detail is awesome. I must be careful aligning the inner and outer parts. They're slightly off in that picture, but they will look killer painted. Speaking of paints, I picked these up to lend a hand with the camouflage on this bird: I'll have some pictures of work being done soon. The first thing I'm going to tackle is the Aires gear bays. They fit well enough, but it's going to take a little work to make it just right.

ok, its time!!! This is part of a project i had to build a few Mustangs of the same unit, the unit i choose was RAF East Wrentham, as some of you may remember i built 'stinky' a few months ago. Now while researching the subject and asking on several forums about 1/32 Mustangs i was gifted this 1/32 Tamiya Mustang!!! (thanks to the gifter you know who you are) anyway this is probably the most expensive kit ive built, and i really want to do it justice so dont expect lots of updates, i know many of you have built this kit, so ill no doubt be asking for help as i go along, i just hope my skill level is enough for this kit wish me luck

Ok, I really shouldn't be starting this, what with everything else on my bench at the moment but I couldn't resist. Ignore the EJ bit on the box. It's the same inside as the regular USAF boxing but I've been able to get these for much cheaper for whatever reason. I've got a bunch of AM and I'm planning to use Speedhunter decals and various paint masks for the markings. For underwing stores, while not 100% accurate, I'm planning to hang these underneath: Yup, three SUU-23A gun pods. Carl

Hello everyone, i decided to come back to the forum and try to picture a new WIP for this ugly but good looking airplane. This is what i am after, i will finish it as in the picture, bare metal. This was the one and only prototype built before they came out with a kind of SEA scheme, that i dont like by the way, and i dont want to do a WHAT IF airplane. I am using Tamiya's P-51D and the only resin kit available in the market for a 1/32 scale from RESIN 2 DETAIL. I am going to talk about the conversion set, there is no need to talk about the model itself, because we already know the quality of tamiyas models. this is what you get inside the box, plenty of pieces in white resin the detail in the pieces is good, some pieces came twisted, but nothing that some hot water can take care of. The nose section is a huge chunck or resin, very heavy, i will need to drill the center of it to remove some resin to lightened the nose section, te detail in the nose is basic as just panel lines, i will need to improve some of the details by adding some fasteners and some PE clamps for the engine cowling doors. One important thing is that the resin kit comes without any instructions at all, so you have to figure it out where to cut the model pieces , this guys promised a PDF file with instructions, but so far nothing, so i will have to use common sence on this build. Here you see in black what needs to be removed from the original pieces in order to make room for the new ones So lets start, as always , we start with the cockpit, the rear fuselage fuel tank needs to go away and make room for the new radio compartment here it is

Hello guys! Having finished the F-104 I've now moved on to Tamiya's 1/32 kit of the F4U-1 Corsair Birdcage. This is my first WW2 bird after a veeeery long time. The kit is also very special for me as it is my fiancee's first ever model kit present to me (more came later)! I'll be building it almost straight out of the box with just the addition of Eduard's fabric seatbelts, Barracuda's resin wheels and Eagle Cal decals. I started with the cockpit and was impressed at the number of subassemblies that were required to complete it and how everything went together perfectly! The fabric seatbelts were a pain to put together but I'm pleased with the end result and may use again in future builds! The cockpit was airbrushed with interior green and all raised details were highlighted with the same colour lightened with white. Smaller details were brushpainted their own specific colours. For the tail wheel area I made my own mixture from brown, red, white and yellow. Chipping was done with a small piece of sponge dipped in aluminium. The green I used may be a bit controversial although I've seen examples of built models and all had the same colour. Anyway, I'm content with this one! More to come later!

finaly after years i have finnishd a model The tamiya birdcage what i have used the two sets from brassin seatbelts from HGW decals for the pit from barracuda it whas a great build and whas going fast only two months for this on enjoy the pics Thanks to you all how folowd the build and gave me advice Mark

Hi all! I just started building a Tamiya kit A6M2b. Started from engine. And now I have a lot of questions. I can not find no good photo or scheme of Nakajima NK1C Sakae 12 engine. Especially the rear side. Maybe someone have seen something about this? Best regards, Ilya