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I'm about to start a fun project. A few years ago, Czech Models came out with a 1/32 T-33 model. It has lots of goodies included, which I'll describe soon. I'm building the model as a thank you to Al Pelletier, from Vancouver Island, for his hospitality. Al was an AESOP (Airborne Electronic Sensor Operator) in the Sea King, Argus, and Aurora. His first military jet rides were in the T-33, in Portage la Prairie, back in the 60s. He's busy searching for decal options, and we'll figure out what natural metal scheme he wants. I'll be doing this one just like my CF-104D, in kitchen foil. The kit has beautiful, colourful instructions. Instructions have the same art as the box top. As you can see from page 1, it has colour PE for the instrument panels and some other cockpit parts, as well as resin for the seats, wheels, and other parts. The PE is really nice. Here's a little peek inside, showing the resin parts pouch and other stuff.

To simulate the authentic visual expression of the natural metal finishing painted P-47D is the goal of this build. I've collected hundreds of late WWII pictures and the restored and still flying P-47D. Here are a few examples that I'm following: This build started with the Hasegawa kit, with limited recessed panel line and the rivets only visible along these panel lines. I've decided to proceed with manually riveting. The Line Drawing was downloaded from theblueprints.com https://www.the-blueprints.com/search/p-47d/ It's my first time of using this set purchased from eBay.com. Unexpected challenges and mistakes were inevitable. Right after the riveting, I'd like to try the metallic brush texture commonly seen on the NMF airplanes. I've applied 1) Alclad II Black Base / Microfiller 2) 400/600 Grit sanding - around the fuselage 3) 600 Grit sanding in the different directions on the wings which been divided into large blocks Apply one more coating, 30% Alclad II Gloss Black Base + 70% Lacquer Thinner Next steps is to apply the main color with the airbrush to each divided panels piece by piece. The main color of this build is 70% Alclad II Duralumin + 30% Mirrow Chrome I don't have the fine resolution of pictures to share at this point. These 2 pics briefly present the idea.

Kit – Hasegawa 1:32 (original issue) Paint – Tamiya acrylics & AK Xtreme Metals Decals – Kagero Extras – Barracuda resin wheels, Eduard pre-painted etch seatbelts Republic P-47D-30 Thunderbolt Assigned to Lt. Frank Middleton 65th FS, 57th FG Corsica, mid-1944 An impulse build after a 1:48 Airfix Spitfire from a month or so ago. Five weeks from cracking the box to what you see here – and yes I know I haven't painted the sway braces on the pylons and centreline yet. As usual with Hasegawa's BIG kits it simply fell together without any fuss whatsoever, I was expecting ‘issues' with the multi-piece cowl, but it behaved impeccably. The huge take-away from this build is the incredible quality of AK's enamel lacquer's. So much better behaved than Alclad and nowhere near as ‘smelly'. First time using Kagero's decals and they worked perfectly also. Not much else to say, my first 1:32 completion in a l-o-n-g time and enjoyed so much I dragged-out my H'gawa 109G-14 as a possible next project… Thanks for taking the time to look folks and please feel free to ask any questions or make any comments or criticism. Ian.

Hi, I finally finished my Kittyhawk F-86D, painted with Texas ANG markings. The build is OOB, with the only addition being the fabric seatbelts from Eduard/HGW. I started it in August during my hollydays, but i only cut, cleaned and glued small asemblies at this time as i was not home. I started painting and assembling it only in late august. It was not so long as i build another small model since then, so it took me about 2 months in all, but i did not worked on it every days. It was first primed in grey, sanded smooth and coated with Alclad gloss black. Then i polished it a lot with micromesh 12000 grit and applied a mix of AK chrome and polished aluminium. Compared with the Alclad hi shine finishes, the AK are a bit less reflective, but still quite good, though they are way stronger to adhesive tape and various manipulations. I used the stencils and emblems from the box, but most of the markings (ANG markings, stars-n-bars and also the walking area border) were painted with masks as i found the large decals from the box quite tricky to use and the national insigna blue was too light. Anyway, it's always better to paint on a NMF model as you avoid any carrier film, difficult to blend in when you cannot use any varnish coat (it would kill the sheen and the reflection). There has been a lot of masking for the dayglo orange surfaces, the suface traitement on some aluminium parts, exhaust area, and markings, but i'm quite happy with this original and colorful scheme. The weathering was quite light as on this kind of polished finish, there is not a lot to do. A just hi lighted the panels with a UMP wash (no enamel wash as the AK metal paints are enamels so i did not want to experiment something that could ruin everything !), as without it it looks a bit toyish (i mean when you can see the bottom of the panel lines painted on...). On the dayglo areas, i did not used "dark dirt" was as it would be too dark and would be unrealistic, so i used "rust" color instead. The build itself was not the easiest i did, but it was quite pleasent. Nothing was really difficult to solve, though it sometimes asked for a bit of thinking and a lot of trimming. Of course, some putty was involved, too. I have two other of the kind in the stash (F-86K, which i plan to build as a french and a german aircraft) and i think it will be easier next time now that i trained myself on this one. I hope you like it. As usual, i took indoor pictures (but with daylight) on a blue background (i prefer that that the usual white background wich is too agessive for the other colors, though my blue is too vivid. I should find a kind of neutral grey background...) and then full outdoor pictures. Here is the link to the WIP thread : http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=64229

Even though I'm pretty much a WW2 freak, I've always had a fascination with Migs. In particular, the cold war era jets. I've sworn to myself that I'm going to build at least one of all the main Mig jet designs at some point and probably multiples of several different types. I'm also really a large scale guy, but the buzz and feedback surrounding the Eduard 1/72 scale kit really got my attention. I had pretty much sworn off this tiny scale, years ago. However, in the last year or so, I've seen several builds of Eduard's series of kits and decided that I had to have one. The clincher was when John (Thunnus) posted his magnificent build of this kit, here on the Non-LSP forum. Coincidentally, I had been watching a Profipack kit of the 15bis on Ebay that also included the Brassin cockpit and speed brake sets, all for the price of the kit alone. I took it as a sign from above to go ahead and get it and it arrived this morning. Aside from just being a cool little kit, this build will also serve a couple of other purposes. I'm going to do it in a natural metal finish. I've been playing with a couple of test parts shot with Testors Metalizer buffable paint from the rattle can. I've used this paint before for NMFs and really do like it. However, it's a delicate affair and very easy to mess up. Being that I've also been learning to use oil paints for weathering over the last couple years, I wanted to see if I could pull this off without messing up the NMF too bad, especially on a more expensive kit. All of this testing is in preparation for an Eduard 1/48 scale Mirage IIICJ kit that I also plan on doing in NMF. I toyed around with the idea of doing that one in aluminum foil, but have come to the conclusion that a complete foil job may just have to wait for a while and will most likely be reserved for something in my preferred 1/32 scale (like another Mirage, or a Mig 21...or two...or five!). So, for now, it's baby steps with a "baby" of a kit. I forgot just how tiny 1/72 scale is (especially PE cockpit parts!) until I opened this box! The last purpose of this build will be sort of a kick-start to my mojo. I have a 1/32 scale F3F biplane build on the bench right now, but I'm just not feelin' it and I feel a bit rusty after not really completing much over the last year. So, the Mig has my attention and my passion flowing. I'm going to run with that while I'm in the mood. This is the scheme I will be doing. It's a North Korean bird that was put back into VVS service and markings, which were just painted over the previous users insignia/numbers. The NK decals are fully opaque and it's been recommended to mist silver paint over them or, as one other builder did in an article I found on the web, to carefully sand back some of the color on the decals before applying them, giving them a faded look. While I'm sure I could accomplish either (but would prefer the latter after seeing the other builder's excellent results), I'm really leaning towards the idea of just using the North Korean markings, as it would have appeared before being remarked with the Soviet stars/numbers. I want this to be more of an "anonymous" looking North Korean example, if you get what I mean. So, I'm hoping to dive into this over the weekend. I will probably even get started today. I wanted this to just be a quick, possibly even "weekend" build. However, the PE and resin parts are going to require a lot more attention and this kit really deserves it, in my opinion. It's really a gem. I've decided to pass on using the Brassin brakes, as it would require some surgery and I prefer the "cleaned up" look, anyway. I do have the Master barrel set on order and it should be here next week. Wish me luck. I'm goin' in! John

Hi gents I recently acquired the Hasegawa 1:32 Shidenkai kit, as I've always liked the look of this pugnacious fighter. However, I would like to build something other than what is provided in the box i.e. perhaps a captured variant or NMF? There seems to be a dirth of AM accessories for this kit. Thanks for any help. Sinuhe

Well, this came as a complete surprise to me. I had been completely content with the Airfix 1/24 P-51D kit, and really happy to have scored the reissue P-51D/K boxing with all the extra bits and pieces, and much better plastic. BUT.............. I just had the amazing fortune of aquiring the Hobby Craft 1/24 P-51D, and all I can say so far is......WOW!!!! This kit is just amazing, and is probably worth the c-note plus, that they are listing them for, and so what makes this even better is that I paid just over a third of that for this jewel. So with this aquisition I am moving the paint scheme and nose art from my Airfix build over to this kit......for 5 very good reasons....... S.W.M.B.O. My original build was for her (as the plane sports her name, although shes not a blonde), I thought it was great that I found real nose art from WWII that was so appropriate. And now I believe a better kit for her. So I intend on building this kit represent "Jan" QP-D, the initial mount of Lt. Robert Dickmeyer of the 334th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, 8th Air Force, stationed at Debden, UK. His tour with the 334th was from 6JUN44 through 26DEC44. During that period he had two Mustangs assigned to him, 44-13956 and later 44-14606, P-51D-5NA and P-51D-10NA respectively. He scored 2.5 kills (1 ME109 and 1.5 FW109) and I read that 413956 was downed by flack near France, and he dead sticked the Mustang into a 9th AF landing strip, but I have not been able to pin point the date. These Mustangs also were adorned with nose art by the 334th's famous artist Sgt. Donald Allen.I hope to do a decent natural metal look on her fuselage, and aluminum paint finish on the wings. I havent done any of that before, so its going to be trial and error, I am afraid, but I am looking forward to the challenge. Obviously at this scale, there isnt a bunch available, and certainly not for "Jan", so I will be printing up my own for this build. Here is a photo of "Jan" Here is the kit, and a quick photo of its contents, still in their packaging. As I unwrap the sprues and wipe the drool off my desk I will post up more pics of the plethora of parts included. I have been reading up on some of the kits shortcomings, and some I will live with and some I will do my best to rework. Anyway, thanks for looking in and putting up with my indicisiveness.....at least you dont live with me