Plastic Modelers in the IL-2 Community

[carts]

Thanks Guys,appreciate it.

[Buglord]

I tried to resist but my mouse button went click......

 

 

[STN]

That is going to be one epic journey.

[Buglord]

14 hours ago, STN said:

That is going to be one epic journey.

Your not wrong m8 , especially if you add whats going on the trailer, This kit has 600+ pieces to it .  Still deciding between a Grant or a Valentine or i could just put my Crusader on it...

Also iv`e a display base to make as it will all be going in a display case. This is going to cost a bit in time and money....

[Feathered_IV]

Beautiful work Carts.  Creepifyingly well done. The flashlight is an inspired addition.

Good luck too with the Scammel Buglord.  600 parts...  That's more than my combined stash! 

 

I've taken a slight holiday from the Zero, as the online 1/144 group I belong to is doing a Cold War group build.  This is Eduard's little MiG-15 that I'm cracking on with.  A bit of a quick one for a change. 

[STN]

Zebra spotted!

[Blitzen]

Wingnut Wings are slightly ahead of the Flying Circus curve:

 

[Feathered_IV]

Wow! ?

[sallee]

That's lovely, Blitzen. I have one of those in the stash and I'm just finishing off the snipe.

[THERION]

10 hours ago, Blitzen said:

Wingnut Wings are slightly ahead of the Flying Circus curve:

 

 

Oh, I see - another 1/32 scale junky... 

 

... like me...

[Feathered_IV]

Damn, that's some big stuff. 

 

Finished off the little MiG today.  It was more or less out of the box, but I did spend a fair bit of time priming and sanding to reduce the panel lines.  The default ones always look like chasms in 1/144.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 10, 2019 by Feathered_IV

[sallee]

What a cutie!

[STN]

Near finishing the Delta, but a setback occurred ? After de-masking the passenger windows, I noticed all of them are sort of cracked from the inner side. It absolutely ruins the look.
Not sure what to do. Pulling them out and creating new ones I do not dare to do. The only thing I can think of is paint them gloss black? 

Also from the looks of it, I might need to do something about the lower end  of the cabin where it touches the hull.

[Feathered_IV]

Ugh damn, I wonder what caused that.  Possibly cement fumes building up in the interior? 

I wouldn't normally, but in this case I think you would easily get away with painting the windows gloss black.  The high contrast would make it difficult to distinguish from transparencies.

The windscreen would probably be tweaked by trimming with a fresh scalpel and running a brush over it.

 

Have to say though - you really make exquisite choices in subjects 

[STN]

Hmm, the fumes are not the culprit. I did not even use cement. I am afraid they got literally crushed. The fit was very tight. They were alright before painting however.

 

I developed a taste for unusual/less frequent subjects. I continue to pay a high price for my taste though. Most of them are short run kits which brings problems on its own

[sallee]

Here's the Snipe. Not sure I did the old girl justice. Lovely model though...except for the decals.

[STN]

As good as it ever will be with my skills. Not happy with the result. Anyway, here it is.

 

RT-1 (Northrop Delta c/n 74), V150
US Coast Guard
1936

1:72 Special Hobby

 

[sallee]

I think it looks great in spite of the mishap. Not an aircraft I'm familiar with, but a nice looking bird.

[STN]

 

I made several other grave mistakes. For example- I noticed I have to conceal/ remove the window next to the passenger door only after the paintbrush and clearcoat was done. I tried to do this three times but still the result is not good. The paintjob also did not come out as planned. I was aiming for the polished aluminium finish, but the clear coat made everything darker.

Oh and the riveting on the wings I basically sucked out of my thumb since I could not find suitable pictures or schemes

The subject was the plane in this picture:

[Buglord]

On 3/12/2019 at 9:39 PM, sallee said:

Here's the Snipe. Not sure I did the old girl justice. Lovely model though...except for the decals.

That looks excellent m8.......well done... rigging is tough to get right that`s why iv`e only done the swordfish... 

 

That`s a cool looking plane STN... ? Looks like a mini Dakota.. Looks great now you sorted them windows out.. i would of done the same thing. Thats why i build in 1/48 i tried 1/72 kits when i started modelling again and they just seem crappy compared to 1/48.

 

And thats a cool looking Nano Mig Feathered...?

Edited March 14, 2019 by Buglord
info

[STN]

Off to another shortrun adventure ?

[sallee]

Looks like a Macchi?

[STN]

It is a Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine.

[sallee]

38 minutes ago, STN said:

It is a Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine.

Now that must be short run....

Can't wait to see it in all its glory!

[Feathered_IV]

Back on the FE.2b again.

 

Assembled the nacelle and glued it together for good, prior to detailing the outside.  Also made a start on the Trafford-Jones undercarriage.  These bits are made from 0.40mm nickel silver tube with a brass sleeve around each piece that has been flattened and filed to an aerofoil shape.  Stubs of 0.20mm rod fit into the ends of these to act as locating lugs later on.

 

I'll probably do A857 of 22 Squadron, a machine brought down (and strafed) behind German lines, by Werner Voss in June of 1917.  One of its peculiarities was that it had the upper portions of the streamlined fairings removed from the undercarriage and the shock absorber springs were visible.  To do this I annealed some 0.10mm wire and wrapped it around some .4mm tube.  After that I gently teased it out to look like a spring and cut the pieces to length.

 

 

Then soldered them up.

 

 

There's still six more u/c struts to make.  Once they are done and a confirmed fit I can start doing the rest of the airframe.  I definitely don’t want to be overhandling the thing trying to get the undercarriage to fit later on.

 

Edited March 17, 2019 by Feathered_IV

[STN]

Bravissimo, maestro! 

[HappyHaddock]

Feathered... gotta say I'm loving your work.

 

It's been a fair while since I last went to town on a 1/144th aircraft, but every time I see photo's of what you are doing I look at the boxes of sweet and dragon kits in my stash and think maybe I should have another go.

 

This A-10 was done years ago, and the FM-2 was a silly scratch building challenge in 1/1000th.

 

Cheers

 

HH

[Feathered_IV]

You're a man after my own heart! 

[HappyHaddock]

Another one done years ago as a result of a bet. I  was arguing that despite my love of fine detailing how you paint and present a model has far more of an impact than that fine detail.

 

I ended up accepting a challenge that between sunrise and sunset I had to repaint a cheap child's toy (it cost less than £1 new) and photograph it to look as good/dramatic/realistic as I could, all without applying any additional physical detailing (only trompe-l'oeil painting effects for things like panel lines and weathering) and without photo-shopping the picture afterwards.

 

I got lucky that evening with a gorgeous sunset illuminating the bottom of the clouds, and by photographing the model upside down suspended above a mirror to bounce the orange light back onto the top surface of the model, I faked the appearance of the model being above the clouds simply by turning the photo upside down once printed.

[sallee]

That is pretty convincing!

[Feathered_IV]

Great stuff HH.  I envy your eye for colour.  My own colour vision is rubbish at a genetic level. 

 

I managed to get the main undercarriage sorted.  Thanks to a very helpful fellow on the Britmodeller forum, who kindly measured the components of the Wingnut Wings 1/32 scale kit so that I could scale them down accurately.

 

 

 

 

Next up is smoothing off the outside of the nacelle prior to detailing.  You can see below how rough it looks at the moment.  Some 4000 grit should hopefully sort it out though.

 

[voncrapenhauser]

Looking good Feathered.

[Feathered_IV]

On ‎3‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 8:27 AM, STN said:

 

 

I just noticed...  Is that Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa?  I flippin loved that book! 

[STN]

Yes it is. Although the thickness of the book might look scary, I have read it in a couple of days, just like Musashi. Very good books.

[Feathered_IV]

Nice. I really enjoyed Musashi too and have read it a number of times.  Although, rather slower 

[Tyberan]

On 3/17/2019 at 4:48 PM, Feathered_IV said:

Back on the FE.2b again.

 

Assembled the nacelle and glued it together for good, prior to detailing the outside.  Also made a start on the Trafford-Jones undercarriage.  These bits are made from 0.40mm nickel silver tube with a brass sleeve around each piece that has been flattened and filed to an aerofoil shape.  Stubs of 0.20mm rod fit into the ends of these to act as locating lugs later on.

 

I'll probably do A857 of 22 Squadron, a machine brought down (and strafed) behind German lines, by Werner Voss in June of 1917.  One of its peculiarities was that it had the upper portions of the streamlined fairings removed from the undercarriage and the shock absorber springs were visible.  To do this I annealed some 0.10mm wire and wrapped it around some .4mm tube.  After that I gently teased it out to look like a spring and cut the pieces to length.

 

 

Then soldered them up.

 

 

There's still six more u/c struts to make.  Once they are done and a confirmed fit I can start doing the rest of the airframe.  I definitely don’t want to be overhandling the thing trying to get the undercarriage to fit later on.

 

 

 

Wait did you solder those struts to the axle? I like to describe your style of modelling as masochistic in that scale. 

 

Excellent work though

 

 

 

[Feathered_IV]

It's not that bad.  Like everything there's advantages and disadvantages.  As long as you have good magnification and an accurate way of measuring things its fine.

I did a set of four Lichtenstein radar arrays in 1/144 a couple of years ago.  That was like giving an ant a vasectomy in comparison to this. 

 

Got the engine bearers on this evening after much tinkering about.  Dropped the pieces half a hundred times before I managed to get them into place.  Was delighted though to find my earlier measurements were good and the Beardmore sat at just the right height.  Need to make a tiny half-round cutout in the back of the nacelle to accept the prop shaft and allow the engine to slide back about .8mm, but it's looking pretty good for fit.

 

 

[Tyberan]

Who makes decent 1/144 scale kits?

It's the one scale I haven't tried (I'm not going anywhere near 1/16), but I'd like to have a crack at 1/144 aircraft.

[Feathered_IV]

The kits produced by Sweet are the best. Most particularly the A5M, A6M, Hurricane, Wildcat and P-51B.  Platz are another Japanese company who do an exceptional job on their P-51D, Fw-190D, P-47s and Hellcats.  They have the advantage of coming two to a box as well, so they represent rather good value. 

 

Have a look on eBay too for short-run “gashapon” kits by the Japanese company F-toys.  Their range is vast and they can be stripped down and rebuilt into excellent models 

 

I dont recommend the kits by Minicraft or Revell. Many of the moulds were originally made by Crown and Mitsuwa almost 50 years ago. I would steer clear of Mark I as well, as they are very lumpy short-run affairs which are very overpriced for what they are.  

Edited March 30, 2019 by Feathered_IV

[Tyberan]

Cool thanks, I had a look for the Sweet stuff on hobbylink japan and did find some but i was looking for more modern stuff. Whats the trumpeter stuff like in 1/144 anygood? i was eyeing off a Tu-95.

 

I made many a revell/monogram kit back when i was a kid and thought their detail was pretty basic, i see they still produce stuff that looks worse then toy quality. Weird given that its  German company, you'd think those guys would be anal retentive on details. Generally I make 1/35th armour with the new Takom Bergepanther being one on the go at the moment, but bought a few Tamiya 1/32 scale kits lately and they are fantastic. recently I've been getting the 1/72 Bandai Star Wars kits, given that they are snap togehter they are insane engineering and go together seemless with better detail then Finemolds.