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Well, it's been a while. I'd not realised that my last post was a ready for inspection of my 1:24 Airfix Hurricane Mk1 back in January of 2018: I already had this build of the Airfix 1:24 Spitfire Mk1a on the go back then and with the sad passing of Squadron Leader Geoffrey Wellum DFC in July of 2018 I decided to build it as K9998, the plane he flew with 92 squadron in the summer and autumn of 1940. Sadly, due to hard drive problems and being too idle to upload the images to the cloud, I lost the build pictures I'd taken, hence it's miraculous appearance in "Ready for Inspection" fully built and ready to go. As far as the build goes, a brief resume: I lined the wheel wells, added an Airscale Instrument panel and their excellent cockpit placards to liven things up and a Grey Matter control stick. A metal coat hanger and some scratch built brackets gave me the dihedral and removed the wing droop. Dry stencils from Hobbydecal are brilliant for the instructional markings around the plane, even if their supplied diagram is a bit out in places. The drop down door had the crowbar that didn't appear on the Mark 1 sanded away and a locking mechanism added with some wire and made up spring arrangement. The hinge assembly at the other end is wire again with silver foil wound around to represent the hinges. So that pretty much took us to the paint stage. Black primer undercoat followed by Vallejo aluminium paint and a layer of Vallejo chipping medium meant I could spray the camouflage and chip away to my hearts content. Afterwards a gloss layer fixed all in place and allowed me to go to town on the markings. I sprayed these on using making tape and Tamiya paints for two reasons. One, it allows for more realistic weathering and two, I couldn't buy the non standard markings off the shelf. The fuselage roundels for this Supermarine built "K" plane had the 7" centre red spot instead of the standard 5" so it was do it yourself or nothing! Underside panel centre lightening and upper side panel line darkening gave me the effect I wanted and oil fading effects and a nice panel wash completed the job. I always like to try to envisage a moment when I'm planning how I want the weathering to look a la Jon Bius so here was my thought for the day: So I imagined: "A wet, miserable autumn morning in October 1940. K9998 has just returned from a morning patrol and is thickly caked with the clay of the wet soil. Ground crew have already swarmed over the wings to talk to the pilot and are about to get the aircraft ready for its next patrol with a refuel and re arm." Anyway, here it is. I hope you like it:

OK, my first new LSP model here for quite a while now, the Trumpeter 1:24 Bf 109G-6 (late version), graciously donated to me by our own Mark (dodgem37), thanks again, Mark, you're truly a good man. The ability to start from the beginning, and knowing that I already have some AM for the kit, has prompted me to throw caution to the wind and begin this, as one of my projected entries for the 2019 national convention, along with a few other choice selections.

I have been meaning to build this kit for a while and this group build is a great opportunity. Of WWII aircraft, the hurricane is my favourite. I have a few other projects I need to clean up before I can move onto to this, but I figured I would state my intent. Thanks for reading. Gord

Hey everyone! I thought you'd like to see what I'm working on at the moment, a 1:24 Harrier T.4. This is a conversion that I've wanted to complete for over 30 years and so now I've decided to have a go. In essence it's an almost complete reworking of the 40 year old Airfix Harrier GR.1 into the two seat T.4 and so I have to build a new nose, scratchbuild the cockpits and then build an entirely new tail section - as well as a complete redetail of the remaining airframe and features. I've given myself around 5 months to complete this model, so here's hoping I can! Though I'd love to detail it all on here, there's just too much information and too many pictures, so if you'd like to keep up with what's likely to be a very involved conversion, please follow the link and you'll find plenty more information! I'll also keep dropping some teasers onto here as well.. https://thekitbox.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/harrier-t-4-conversion-part-2/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfQeFAMdUVY