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Time to start a new project ... The Cub has to wait a little bit longer. I promised this one to a friend, and I don't have much time, so I'll be trying cut corners whenever possible. The idea is to take a paper kit, improve it if desired and feasible, and replace more time consuming details with plastic parts. I'm thinking specifically about using Wingnut Wings Mercedes D. IIIau engine, Gaspatch Spandau 08/15 machine gun and Gaspatch turnbuckles. This ought to save me some time (or that's what I hope will happen ). Problem is I don't have any experience with plastic models - this will be definitely a challenge. I hope I'll get some guidance from you guys. I got myself Matt77 repaint of Marek's design available at Ecardmodels store. The kit is quite detailed, but I would like to raise a bar a little bit higher for myself. If I'm going to use "ready" plastic parts, I might as well spend some time improving other areas of the model, right?. The first order of things will be to simulate better bare plywood section of the fuselage. I started with the nail lines visible on the plywood. The tests revealed I need some adjustments - it's bit challenging to add anything that spans between the parts as they are unfolded in 2D form. The next step was the plywood itself. The first attempt was actually done by mistake. I wanted to print wood grain on the reverse side of the parts to make the fuselage skin double sided. I grabbed some plywood textures out of the Internet, stitched it to cover larger area and put a sheet with the printed parts into the printer. As it often happens to me, I put the wrong side up, and ended up overprinting the wood grain texture on printed previously fuselage skin parts. The effect was quite interesting: This could be a very easy solution in some of the cases. Here though the color came out too dark, especially if one compares with this photo (source Jagstaffel 5 by G.K. Merrill, vol .1): Back to the drafting board. I'm thinking about redrawing the parts and the panels of the plywood in the kit and filling them with my plywood textures. Let's see if I can figure it out in Corel... I started work on the engine bay bulkheads. The kit proposes very simple solution: I used the kit's bulkheads as a pattern for my own version: These also may need some adjustments as I'll be trying to fit them inside the fuselage. I feel this will be a one step forward, two steps backwards project...

This project supposed to serve as an occasional distraction to my DH.6 and probably because of its massiveness few other airplanes in the future. After finishing the engine for de Havilland aircraft I felt I'm running out of steam. To recharge my batteries, I thought, a change of subject would be the best. Armor is my other passion and for a while I've been longing for building some tank. The kit published by WAK is in standard for card armor scale 1:25. It has 12 pages of parts (in comparison the P-39 I build before had only 4). I'll be getting for this project laser cut and engraved treads, which not only should speed up the work, but also look better than my manual work. Printed detail is very nice and includes even weathering. Most interestingly the designer tried to simulate in this kit mud covering lower parts of the tank. Up-close it doesn't look too convincing, but in normal distance view I hope it will look much better. Will see, I'm curious myself. Actually, I started this kit over a year ago. My progress at that time stopped on treating the sheets with parts with MM flat lacquer, laminating formers to 1mm cardboard and cutting them out. Since then the kit has been waiting patiently in a box. Cover of the kit: I started with building a hull. Pretty straightforward process, no problems here. Next step was skinning it. It turned out I made some mistakes, (maybe the carboard I used was too thick? I really can't figure it out) because I had some problems with fit of the top skins. I know from other build reports the fit in this kit is good, so I can blame only myself. I had to quite radically sand formers to get reasonable results. It's not perfect, but hey, it's a tank, things can be rough here http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/tongue.gif . With some extra weathering, which I'm planning should be OK. Now it's time to cover all these white spots http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/wacko.gif

As big matt would say, idle hands are the devil's workshop! Time to start a new build. For my next project I want to do something bit different than I've done so far. I want to expand a little my skills set by training making bases and humble dioramas. This project should be perfect for this. I'm still bouncing in my head different ideas, what exactly I would like to do, but I already know I want to create a scene with the Cub (L-4H ) and the Jeep standing somewhere in a field in Europe in 1944. I'm considering using some figures to bring some life to the scene. I haven't done much research yet, but I figure I have plenty of time before I'll need to make any decisions. I'm going to use two kits: Piper L-4H published by Kartonowa Kolekcja in 1/33 and a rescaled properly Willys Jeep (the original is in 1/25) from Modelik. The Jeep most likely will be painted (another new experience for me!) and I'll try to show the details of that in the Non-LSP section at some point. The Cub in the kit depicts a machine with the number 43-29601 which served with the 30th Infrantry Division. I'm thinking about scratchbuilding few things in this build. I'm going to redo the cockpit, which will be entrirely painted and I'm considering doing the same with the engine. The engine details are quite visible through the gaps in the cowl - I think it will be worthy to put some extra effort there as well. The Cub kit has only four pages of parts, but I'm expecting some difficult moments with the greenhouse and the wing assembly. Photos of some assembly drawings and sheets with parts below: Before I started cutting anything I sealed the sheets with SIG nitrate dope. Previously I used for that purpose Model Master Flat Lacquer (it worked well), but recently I have experimented with this product and I really like it. Even one single coat on the print side makes the cardstock stiffer and easier to work with. Summer is coming and I need all the protection from my sweaty hands which can make a model fuzzy pretty quickly. The formers were laminated on 1mm cardboard with the contact cement. I use usually for that purpose 3M 77 spray adhesive, but here it seemed just overkill , there is only small area to be laminated. And the beginning of the fuselage. The tail section is not glued yet to the cockpit part. I need to think about my game plan first http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/wink.png Thanks for lookin in!

This little bugger kept me occupied for almost a year. It supposed to be a test before weathering my M24 Chaffee, which some of you may still remember (I intend to finish it!). As in M24, I did not want to paint entire model, only heavily weather it. You can still see some original gray color of the kit . I tried to modify and enhance a few elements but with various levels of success... Oh, the paper model kit was published by Orlik, scale 1/25. Comments, questions, critique always welcomed!

This is a paper model of de Havilland's trainer for the Royal FIying Corps. It was quite unusual aircraft. It was the first airplane developed specifically for training purposes and that can be seen through out the construction. It was also aircraft very different from other de Havilland's designs of this period. His trademarks (like for example de Havilland's tail) were sacrificed to create an easily maintained, cheap and safe machine. The kit was published by Orlik (1/33 scale) and was enhanced by me with few scratchbuilt details. Those interested can find the build thread here. I'm really happy that I managed to complete my second LSP build thread. Yay!!! Thank you all for your comments, kind words and encouragement. I really appreciate it, although frankly I think you guys are spoiling me … It is really pretty modest model. This DH.6A build wouldn't be the same without this forum. I used during the construction a lot of new techniques I've learned from you. Seeing some of the works here expanded my horizons and I look at models differently now. Thank you for that! I experimented with the photo background a bit. Please let me know what do you think about it. The deep shadows which it creates may not go well with the presentation of the model. On the other hand I showed all the details in the build thread already. As always I struggled with getting the colors right ... sorry... More in a minute ...

Edit: This thread was moved from Multiwing GB which I failed to execute in given time http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/sad.gif It will be the first group build in my life http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/biggrin.gif . Should be fun. I'm going to build Airco DH.6 published by Orlik (paper kit of course http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/laugh.gif ). The kit has four A4 pages of parts printed on card, 1 page on regular paper plus the instruction and assembly drawings. On the first glance it seems like a moderate difficulty kit. Will see how it turns out in reality... Cover: Few details: The kick off of this build starts early, but the actual work will be delayed few weeks, while I'll try to wrap up my P-39 build.

Ufff... finally! It took me a little bit more than I've anticipated, but the Airacobra is done. My first completed WIP on the forums! http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/yahoo.gif A quick kit/model recap. The kit was published by KW Model and it depicts an airplane with numbers K 41-38359. It's in 1:33 scale and includes quite a deal of details - definitely more than I felt comfortable with. I used some after market offered by the publisher in the build: laser-cut formers, canopy and high resolution instrument panel printed on photo paper. From myself I added the seatbelts, navigational lights and the front wheel fork. The difficulty level of the kit was a challenge as I predicted in the beginning and unfortunately I failed in few places. I tried for the first time to do subtle weathering based on some techniques I've learned here on the forums! You can see the WIP thread here. Few more pics in the next post...

Hi gang! I�m slowly starting my next build, so I thought why not show it here, especially because some of you showed some interest in paper models. Considering the next model I wanted to further challenge myself and try a bit more difficult kit. I�m not sure I�m ready, but hey, I�ll never know unless I�ll try. Please have in mind that I�m out of my comfort zone and it may not turn as successful as I would like to. One more thing I would like to mention. Please excuse if in my narrative I�ll mention obvious for you guys things. I�ve been thinking how to balance all the details of the build simply because probably many of you may not have too much experience dealing with paper models. Let me know when I get boring. Any comments and questions are welcome! For the subject I picked P-39 D1 Airacobra (1:33) published by KW Cartoon Model (don�t ask me why the name is so silly). The model shows an a/c with number K 41-38359, which belonged to 8th FPG USAAC, and was flown by LT. George Welch. The painting scheme supposed to depict airplane as in 1942 in New Guinea. As you see I'm continuing the theme of controvertial aircrafts, which were loved by some and hated by others http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/wink.gif . I like this kit particularly because it beautifully shows what can be done with paper when it�s about fooling the eye of a viewer. Modeling is an art of illusion and this kit shows it well by trying to realistically depict 3D features in 2D way (see the second collage). The kit has about 520 parts (the Buffalo I showed in the RFI section had slightly over 300), but not that makes is difficult rather some tricky construction aspects of the build. Additionally to the kit itself I got some, I guess I can call it �aftermarket�. I got laser cut formers, a canopy and a better quality instrument panel, as the one from the kit is rather poor. This is going to be my first experience with lasercuts, so far I have relied on laminating formers to proper thickness cardboard (usually 1mm) and cutting out them myself. You can imagine it�s not the most pleasant thing to do, but accuracy at this stage is pretty crucial for the final outcome. Since I don�t trust myself enough yet to do it right I bought laser cut frames. I started with applying to all sheets with parts a coat of flat Model Master lacquer. This supposed to provide some protection to the print (against moisture or mechanical damage) and most of all prepare the cardstock for the finishing coats of acrylic sprays. I had in the past situations when after the final matte acrylic spray I got white blemishes ruining the model. MM lacquer seals the cardstock and prevents such nasty surprises at the final stages of a build. So far I managed to assemble the wing spars and two formers for the midsection. Nothing complicated here - the lasercuts can be assembled so easy as Lego bricks. As you can see the wings are constructed as a one section and that is a good thing. With wings attached separately to the fuselage I always had some problems with keeping proper dihedral. In this case a mistake like that is almost impossible. I�m still mixing paint for retouching all the white edges. I always struggle to come up with a good match, and this kit doesn�t make it any easier. There is color variation on parts which supposed to imitate natural changes due to weather. Hopefully soon I�ll show skinning of the wings. Thanks for looking!

Greetings everyone! This is my first model presented here, so please be understanding http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/smile.gif. This paper kit was published by Kartonowa Kolekcja, one of the relatively small, but popular Polish publisher of paper models. The model, desined by Pawel Mistewicz, shows the machine which belonged to RAF 67 Squadron and was operated by P.M. Bingham-Wallis (December 1941, Burma). The kit itself is rather simple without too many details and is intended for beginners to modelers having already some experience. As rather basic kit you can see quite few simplification, which are quite natural for paper models. This is especially visible on the cowling of the model. Knowing these limitations of the kit I tried to push the envelope a little by trying to form some parts to more resemble the original subject (spinner, cowl). Paper (or more precisely cardstock) is quite suitable for this kind of operations, with some limitations of course. So this is it. I hope those of you who expressed some interest in the other thread won't be disappointed. http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/blush.gif I'm still not sure what is the preferable format for showing pictures here, so please excuse if this causing any inconvenience on your side. All the thumbnails are clickable if you would like to see photo in a bigger format. I apologize for the background, I didn't realize how awkward it will come out (lesson for later...) So here it goes: http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad75/cotletuss/Brewster%20Mk1_new/th_IMG_0133.jpg http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad75/cotletuss/Brewster%20Mk1_new/th_IMG_0196.jpg