claidheamhmor | Entries tagged with models

Finished, the Italeri 1/72 Dornier Do-24 flying boat model kit. The kit comes with Luftwaffe markings, but I depicted it as the Swedish Tp 24, number "90". This particular aircraft was stolen by a German mechanic in 1944, and he and his Estonian girlfriend defected to Sweden. The aircraft was then formally purchased, and used in the F 2 Wing near Stockholm for air-sea rescue. It was repainted in a very dark green. It was in service with Sweden until being scrapped in 1952. The Do-24 was a superb flying boat, legendary for its ability to handle rough water (better even than the Catalina).

The mechanic, Wolfgang Gerhart (later Gerts) became a Swedish citizen and worked in the aviation industry. He and Agnes did not remain together, though she too stayed in Sweden.

The kit itself was really good. Nice detail, engraved panel lines, and it fitted well. The tricky bit was attaching the fuselage to the huge wing with all of the struts, which I did only after fully painting everything; thankfully, the fit was excellent. I used RLM70 black-green paint, and I scrounged Swedish markings and the yellow number decals from various places. Fortunately there were a number of contemporary photos of the plane for reference.

Full album here

Finished, the Airfix 1/72 OS2U Kingfisher observation floatplane. The Kingfisher was a widely used floatplane used off merchant ships, warships, and from land bases, by the US, Royal Navy, Soviet Navy, and RAAF. It most famous use was the rescue of Eddie Rickenbacker. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was the top US ace of WW1, a racing driver, airline owner, and aircraft builder, and in WW2 was conducting a tour and delivery of a secret message in the Pacific in a B-17. The B-17 went badly off course and ditched, and Rickenbacker, his writer friend Hans Christian Adamson (no relation), and several surviving crew members drifted in rafts for 24 days. Three were rescued by a Kingfisher, and unable to take off, the Kingfisher taxied on the water for 64km to the nearest base.

In another incident, a pilot rescued 9 downed airmen at Truk Lagoon, and taxied for several hours with the men clinging to wings until they could be transferred to the submarine USS Tang.

The kit itself was a very old kit, and fit was so-so, with poor detail. I depicted it as a Fleet Air Arm plane, with British markings with the red removed. Unfortunately, the kit decals disintegrated, so I scrounged the "Royal Navy" and numbers, and masked and airbrushed the rest of the markings.

Full album here

Finished, the Condor 1/48 Heinkel He-178. The He-178 was the first jet aircraft to fly, and was actually rather unimpressive, considering. The condor kit is quite awful. There are a few nice bits: there was a lovely three-later instrument panel, photoetch seatbelts and pedals (which were too big and didn't fit), and side consoles (which weren't even mentioned or shown in the instructions. All the plastic parts fitted terribly, and I had to do lots and lots of sanding and filling. The colours were partly bare metal and partly RLM02 green-grey, with lots of careful masking. It came out OK, considering. I cut the canopy open so the cockpit is visible.

Full album here

I painted and put together a bunch of 1/72 3D-printed bits: two Hanomag SS-100 tractors for use on Luftwaffe airfields, and a bunch of airdrop containers, fuel drums, jerrycans, and oil cans. These are all going to be used in a future Luftwaffe airbase diorama.

Full album here

Finished, a filament 3D-printed Porco Rosso seaplane. The 1992 Studio Ghibli animated movie "Porco Rosso" features a red seaplane somewhat based on the Macchi M.33 and Savoia S.21, and is set in the Adriatic. Porco Rosso is a fighter ace and bounty hunter cursed to have a pig's head. The model itself was 3D printed with filament by a friend, so it's very rough and layered. I sanded it for hours with 320 grit sandpaper to get it less rough. Still with the bright colours, it looks pretty nice. Pretend you're watching the movie in 320x200 resolution.

Full album here

I built a really ancient ('70s vintage?) Airfix 1/72 Curtiss Helldiver kit. Initially I was going to chuck the kit, because when I checked it, it seemed there'd been a moulding issue: the top half of the inner starboard wing was just a tiny piece of plastic. However, I turned it into a bit of an experiment: "Weather...or Not?". I built and painted it with the port half clean and neat, with folded wing, and the starboard half heavily weathered, with paint chipping down to metal or primer, different faded shades of paint, exhaust stains, oil leaks, dirt, the works, right down to half of the prop, half of the bomb, half of the cockpit. I used He-177 bomb bay doors and some plastic to fabricate a wing surface structure, then made a tarpaulin to cover it.

Cockpits front and rear were detailed a bit. Along with the Helldiver, I found and painted up a set of old soft plastic American ground crew. Quite a fun little experiment.

Helldiver picture album

Completed, the Swedish Heinkel He-115 seaplane. In WW2, Sweden's seaplane squadron operated 12 of these planes they'd bought from Germany. I did extensive research (I spent much more time on research than actually building the model), and based on what spare decals I had, chose number 8. The 12 varied in minor details, but 8 had yellow float undersurfaces, red on the float tips, white "8" on tail and nose, and the "2" for the squadron marking was black. The kit was a 1/72 Matchbox kit, which fitted pretty well, though the old plastic was a little brittle. It was so smooth I had to sand it down with 3000 grit sandpaper so that the primer would stick. I did a bit of cockpit detail too, though not much is visible through the huge paned canopy.

I also completely scratchbuilt beaching gear for the plane, using Ar-234 engines, He-177 wheels, and bits of plastic, based on pics of the real thing. I also had a ground tractor 3D-printed, and painted and decaled appropriately. It was actually a lot of fun taking this ancient Matchbox kit and doing something

Album of pics here

I decided to add a bit of litter to the cobblestone base of my model tank, so I created tiny, tiny coke cans and wine bottles.

And here's the result:

Finished, my first proper tank model in decades. This is the 1/35 Zvesda kit of the Russian T-80UD tank from 1991. The UD was for "Ukrainian Diesel", a fairly rare variant fitted with a diesel engine instead of a turbine, giving it better range and fuel consumption at the expense of speed. This one is only lightly weathered; I don’t think they were used in combat. I could be somewhat casual with airbrushing since the Russian factories were too. The Zvesda kit is not bad at all, except for terrible fit between the hull and top of the tank; I had to grind down the top of the tracks to get it to fit. The base is a cobblestone street 3D print from Fallout Models, with hand-painted cobbles, and a bit of water and dirt.

Album of display pics

Full build album

Finished, the Airfix 1/48 kit of the Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer S.2B. This one is Longmorn, one of the Buccaneers sent by the RAF to the Gulf War in 1991, painted with a sandy camouflage called "desert pink". They typically carried a slipper fuel tank, laser designator pod to designate targets for Tornados, an ECM pod, and a Sidewinder for self-defence. The paint wore off fast, so there was quite a bit of weathering on the aircraft, and the colour ranged from pinkish to yellowish. I used pink mottling under Mr Color’s "Flesh" paint, and I think it’s a pretty decent match; I used an entire bottle of paint. The kit itself had some poor fit issues (especially the air brake!), but detail is not too bad.

Album of display pics here (16 pics)

Full build album

A few days ago I needed to check which way the propellers rotated on my Hornet model kit, so I asked Chatgpt. It told me they rotated outward, and that the top of the blade tips rotated toward the cockpit (and it offered up an ASCII-drawn diagram that looked like a lozenge). That seemed contradictory, so I asked more questions. I was asked which kit I was building, and Chatgpt offered up some suggestions for improving the kit's accuracy - like lengthening the nose wheel. The Hornet did not have a nose wheel.

Then it talked about the clean lines, and how the tail wheel doors closed. The Hornet did not have tail wheel doors. It suggested lengthening the tail wheel so that the model would sit more nose-up. That is not how it works.

At this point I couldn't trust a single thing it was saying, so I went to other sources to check which way the propellers rotate. They rotate inward, not outward as Chatgpt said.

How much do you trust AI? I picked up those errors only because I'd been researching the aircraft.

Incidentally, I've tried Deepseek, which got the answer drastically wrong, saying the propellers are not handed, despite knowing the Hornet had different model engines on left and right.

Copilot says the props turn inward, quoting a pilot reference. Copilot is right. It got the different engines right too.

Gemini was correct too, and provided a video as reference.

With my winnings from the Model of the Year, and at the last club meeting of the year, I bought a few cheap but interesting model kits. Should be fun.

I finished a really old model kit while I was on holiday: the blue-and-gold armour of Kaiser Maximilian II. I had painted the face during the year, aibrushed the armour in a dark metallic blue enamel (with a gloss coat), and spent a long, long time doing all the gold in Bright Gold. Not a fantastic result, but the gold looks good.

For Model of the Year, I also dug out the Erzherzog Siegmund armour I did many years ago, painted in Humbrol polished metal paint.

Finished. The Heller 1/72 kit of the Bloch MB.152 fighter from early WW2. An ancient kit - I built one as a kid. Not too bad though, and I completely scratchbuilt a cockpit for it. It was quite a struggle researching the colours; it seems there was very little consistency at the time. The decals were old and yellowed, so I carefully trimmed them first. The Bloch engine was slightly pointed to the left to counter torque.

Full build album here

Another old kit finished: the Airfix 1/72 Westland Whirlwind. I built one of these in 1981 in boarding school. A nice neat kit of a pretty WW2 plane. It's relaxing to build these old kits; they lack detail, but they're quick, easy builds.

Full build album here

I'm busy with two model kits at the moment.

The first is an ancient Heller kit of a Bloch MB.152, a French WW2 fighter plane that did really badly in the early part of the war. I scratchbuilt an entire cockpit for it, and I'm busy doing the camouflage painting at the moment. One peculiarity is that the nose points left by a couple of degrees in order to counter torque. Finding accurate colours is a challenge; the French at the time were not good with documentation or consistency.

The other kit is an old Airfix Westland Whirlwind, a little twin-engined British WW2 fighter. Like the Bloch, I built one of these back in the early 80s. It's a simple kit, and I'm not doing anything fancy at all, just building it as is.

My current model is a Heller model of a Bloch MB.152, a Fresh fighter plane from early WW2. It's not a great kit, so I'm scratch-building a complete cockpit for it, including instrument panel. Finding the right colours to use is a challenge; French military aircraft were not consistent nor well documented, and there aren't any survivors.

Finished, the Lindberg 1/48 XFY-1 "Pogo" VTOL aircraft. The Pogo was a weird beast, and only one pilot ever managed to successfully repeatedly fly it. The model kit was barebones, so I scratchbuilt the entire cockpit. I'm especially pleased with the bare metal and aluminum finish; I used Mr Color "Gun Chrome" for the bare metal, and it gives an excellent finish. The contra-rotating prop is geared - they actually move opposite directions.

Full album of pictures

I finished the Revell 1/72 BAe Hawk T.1 model, depicting a plane flown by 208 Squadron for their 100th anniversary in 2016. Nice kit, very detailed for the size. The all-black colour scheme is eye-catching.

Full album of pictures

I'm busy with two model kits at the moment, hoping to have them done by the model club meeting on Saturday.

One is the Revell 1/72 BAe Hawk, a little trainer aircraft. The kit was actually a birthday gift to one of the guys at the club, and he asked me to build it for him. The tricky bit is that it's all-black, which leaves limited scope for weathering and highlighting. Still, neat kit.

The other is a Lindberg 1/48 XFY-1 "Pogo". It's an old kit, with very little detail, but a super interesting subject: a weird aircraft with giant contra-rotating propellers, designed to take off vertically from a tail-sitting position. Only one pilot ever managed to take off and land with any regular success. I scratch-built the entire cockpit, and so far it's coming along nicely - lots of bare metal paint.

Along the way I tried a new substance: Gauzy Glass Coat. For years I have used Future/Pledge floor polish to dip the aircraft canopies in; it forms a clear, glossy protective coating that looks good. Gauzy supposedly replaces that, since Future/Pledge is hard to get hold of. I tried it on the Hawk canopy, and it was a mess - it left bubbles and bumps, and looked horrible. I was able to strip it off, luckily, by soaking the canopy in rubbing alcohol for a few minutes, and the canopy wasn't damaged. Back to Pledge, which works just fine. You can see the Pledge-coated canopy here:

At the last club meeting, I bought a few really old model kits, of interesting aircraft. I seem to make a habit of building ancient, rubbish kits, and making them look nice. Maybe my next one up will be the old Heller model of a French WW2 fighter, the Bloch MB.152.

The Minicraft 1/48 model kit of the MH-60K Blackhawk Special Operations, the only Blackhawks actually painted black (which faded). It was a terrible kit - fit was poor, few locating pins, and even the colour directions and decals were wrong in multiple ways. For example, it showed it in olive drab colours - except the SO versions were black. I did it with a black primer, then a greenish highlight colour for the black-basing, then RLM66 dark grey, with a light overspray of black over it.

Full album

I finished my model of a historically accurate pink tank. This is the legendary "Pink Tank" as of 2011 in Prague. It was a Revell 1/72 IS-2 kit, nice and easy to do, with a 3d-printed finger. I've included a pic of the real thing.

Full album

I've been quite slow on modelling, but I recently finished an "egg plane" model, an aircraft shaped like an egg: a Hasegawa "RAF Taxi" Harrier, along with a ground scene including an old codger and his got waiting for the bus or taxi. It was a really old kit, and quite fun, but I had to find replacement decals because the old ones were welded to the paper.

All the build pictures

I finished the Airfix 1/48 Sea Harrier FA2 model kit. An interesting kit, a bit of a mix between old and new Airfix kits, with raised panel lines on wings and recessed on fuselage. A good build though, and I thought it came out well. Like the bumblebee, you wonder how it flew!

Another model finished: the PM Model Yak-15. Yakovlev took a Yak-3, and replaced the piston engine with a jet engine. Weird looking, for a jet. The kit was not great at all, and I rescribed all the panel lines, and added some cockpit detail. Looks good in red though!

Finished, the CMC Leopard model kit, a 1/72 scale Amodel kit. It's tiny! The CMC Leopard was a British 4-seater passenger jet with two engines, and was significantly smaller than a Me-109 or Cessna 172. It first flew in1988. A nice simple kit, though it didn't fit together well. I tried a new clearcoat, Mr Color GX110. Very nice indeed, better than even the normal clearcoat.

Full album here.

Finished, my Focke-Wulf Fw-189 Uhu, a 1/72 scale Italeri kit. This plane was in the WW2 Winter War, and was painted with a whitewash in the winter. The whitewash would wear off or be rubbed off where needed.

I also made a base for it, with snowdrifts and snow on bushes, using snow powder and wood glue.

I built the kit with normal green camouflage with lacquer Mr Color paints, and then applied an acrylic Army Painter over it, and then weathered and rubbed it away with water where needed. That stuff is awful to airbrush with. Lots of mud too, especially where crew would walk (inside as well!)

Anyway, I learnt a lot through the process, and picked up new techniques. Definitely need to work on my canopy masking though. I had some annoying residue on the panes of glass.

Complete album is here.

I finished my Arado Ar-234 C-2 model kit last week, in time for the model club meeting. It's an ancient Revell kit, with poor fit and detail, and raised panel lines. I scratchbuilt the entire cockpit, did some post-shading on the panel lines, and used a spare set of Luftwaffe decals to get the Tesla logo for the tail. The C-2 model was designed to launch the V-1 flying bomb, and only one was ever made.

Link to full album

I finished my model of the Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar, along with a couple of 3d-printed visitors looking for transport home. Likely the smallest 1/72 model jet I've ever made. This was a real aircraft (but it did not fly well); it was made in the 1950s, and the service ceiling was a lofty 3 feet, much lower than the design called for! This example is on display in the Smithsonian Museum.

Full album here: Avrocar

Here are the models I finished in 2024:

I entered about 18 models in the Gold Reef Scale Modellers' Model of the Year show on 7 December, almost all being models I'd built this year. I think there were a total of about 170 models entered by about 30 members. A local N-gauge model railway group joined us, and they set up some amazing displays on the stage of the school that was the venue.

The foyer had a huge D-Day diorama, really brilliant work. Judging was pretty straightforward, and everyone who entered had to judge. Judging didn't get into technical nitty-gritty; that can get quite acrimonious. There are a whole bunch of categories, so different scales and types of aircraft, armour, cars, ships, figurines, and other stuff.

Anyway, the models I really wanted to win, my Airfix Gannet and my Saab Viggen, sadly didn't. :( However, I did win in 5 different categories:

My De Havilland Sea Vixen won in the 1/72 Military Jets category; it's a big category, so that was cool.

My recently-completed Antonov An-2 won in the 1/48 & Smaller Biplanes category; I was pleased about that. Its the one in front of the centre placard.

The Soul Huntress won the Fantasy and SciFi 75-90mm Figures category. Admittedly the only entry in that category, so I was bound to win it. :)

My Edgely Optica won the 1/72 Scale Civilian Propeller Aircraft category. Only entrant in that category, oddly.

And, biggest surprise of all, my Ekranoplan A-90 Orjanok won the 1/144 Scale Military Propeller Aircraft category. I built this model like 25 years ago, brush painted and all, and it somehow won.

Prizes were assorted vouchers for hobby stores.

Along with all the models, I also built bases for most using picture frames, and sandpaper (painted, weathered, and with lines) as tarmac. It was quite a mission getting all the models there and back in my car. Even with my car's boot full, I had models in the front.

The overall show winner was Arthur's samurai horseman. Arthur is club chairman, and his absolutely amazing figurine work often wins the show. This samurai is just incredible. You have no idea how complex it is; there are knots in the bowstring, the horse is the correct breed and colouring, and all the tassels on the horse started out as flat white metal pieces, he had to put them in motion.

There was an "Open Category" for non-club-members to enter. Winner of that category was this, by one of the railway people:

Here's a link to a full album of pics I took randomly: MOY 2024

I finished painting this resin figurine a couple of months ago. It's the South Huntress, a dark elf night hunter.

Right after I took pics, the wind caught the card I was using as a backdrop, and blew the figure off the wall. I have managed to superglue it together.

I finished the Antonov An-2 model kit, Italeri 1/72. It was/is the largest single-engined biplane in the world, with an 18m wingspan! This one is in the markings of North Vietnam. Not a great kit, and I had to fabricate a missing bit of cockpit glass. I did learn the use of oil paints for oil leaks and weathering, and doing the wire rigging was interesting (lots of tiny holes to drill!)

Full album here

Finished, my Italeri 1/48 Saab AJ-37 Viggen. It was a rubbish kit, and the masking was a nightmare (and my paintwork could have been better), but it came out looking pretty decent. The "fields and meadows" camouflage is iconic. Bonus pic of my 35 or 40 year old Matchbox kit. I took the Viggen to the scale modellers' club on Saturday, and it got lots of attention and interest.

The Saab Viggen was a Cold War interceptor/fighter-bomber. The AJ-37 version I did is the fighter bomber, and it could carry a whole collection of rockets, fuel tanks, air to ground missiles, and air to air missiles, and more. The Viggen is the only aircraft ever to get a missile lock on the legendary SR-71 Blackbird
.

The first colour I did was the light green. I printed templates I'd downloaded, marked every colour on the template with a number, then using a scalpel, used the template to cut masking tape laid on a cutting mat, and masked the green piece by piece. Then I used a clear coat (theoretically to help seal the masking tape, though it didn't work with the first tape I used), black base, tan, and then the next colour, brown. I repeated for the black green, and finally did the olive green.

When I pulled all the tape off, I found a lot of bleeding under the light green tape, so I carefully masked around the affected areas, and gently resprayed and blended those bit (and had to add a brown I missed, and a brown I'd done wrong). I did a bit of post-shading (first time I've done it!) to bring back some of what was lost by the respraying. Then gloss coat, decals, a bit of panel lines (most lines were raised, sadly), and a matt coat.

In retrospect, I would have started with the smallest colours first (brown and black green), and left the big areas of light green for last. I would also have used the good masking tape first, LOL.

Full link to progress pics album here.

Alongside the 1/72 scale Matchbox Viggen I built probably in the late 80s. Back then I thought gloss varnish looked great, and of course it was rather amateurish. I had painted the camouflage by hand with a paintbrush, no masks.

I was hoping to have my Saab Viggen AJ37 model kit ready for the model club meet at the end of November, but I ran out of time. I should have it ready for October. The camouflage and masking is really complex.

I have done the underside in grey, and the black-basing and the first light green colour on the top. I need to mask and spray the next 4 colours.

I spent a while trying to get the right colours. The light green in the "fields and meadows" camouflage scheme is supposed to match Mr Color C27 Cockpit Green, except that Cockpit Green looks way to yellow to me. It also changes depending on the colour of the paint underneath - greener if black, yellower if grey. So I found another green that seems like a more reliable match.

This month's model is an Italeri 1/48 scale Saab Viggen jet. I'm going to be doing it in the classic and stunning splinter camouflage; it's going to be a challenge! The kit itself is not great; poor fit, raised panel lines, and other annoyances.

Here's the cockpit. the seatbelts and instruments are all decals:

Here's where I am with the plane itself. Lots more filling and sanding to be done, but most of the assembly is complete.

So last month George at the model club has a workshop on doing decals on models, and how to make them look good. There are various decal setting solutions - Mr Setter, Mr Solver, Microset, Microsol, etc.- that help, but I've found some can mark the paintwork, and they're not perfect. George's method is a hair dryer: it heats the decals so that the decal moulds itself to the plastic beneath it perfectly, no solutions needed.

I tried it with my Gannet models, and wow, it looked good.

Here's the hair dryer I bought for R128 ($7.15):

Here you can see the result. This is a zoomed-in pic of the bottom of the Gannet, with three decals there: the rectangle and "R", the dot and "BT", and the two squares ("Sling point"). All have decal film around them and in the centre of the rectangles, but you can see how the decal film around the oblong inside the R rectangle is invisible, and the decal at the sling point has moulded itself to the sunken rivets. Pretty amazing; no silvering at all.

To go with the amazing Airfix Gannet, I did the worst Gannet kit in the world at the same time, the decades-old Frog 1/72 Gannet in Kriegsmarine markings. No cockpits, just heads (I painted the pilot heads), and no wheel wells, I just painted them. All of 27 parts. It came out quite well though.

Here's a link to the full photo album for both Gannets.

I finished my Airfix 1/48 Fairey Gannet AS.4 model kit, probably the best Gannet kit available. What a superb kit, but so complex, with hundreds of steps and decals. I learnt some new things on this one, particularly with decals. A very enjoyable kit to build, and I think it came out pretty well. The Gannet really must be one of the most beautiful aircraft ever made. 😉

There were 168 steps in the instruction booklet, hundreds of decals (40 on the weapons, 13 on the canopies, and dozens of tiny ones all over the place), and hundreds of parts.

Here's a link to the full photo album for both Gannets.

I did a demo of the black-basing technique at the monthly model club meeting on Saturday. I'm sure there are others there who can do it better, but I volunteered and took all my equipment in.

The technique is pretty simple. The idea behind it is (especially with military aircraft and equipment) to make the surfaces look less perfect and even. You want to provide a slightly weathered or used look, with some irregularity in the paint surface. Many modellers use a method called "pre-shading" where they spray darker paint on the areas where there are panel borders, followed by the main colour, but to my eye it often looks too emphasised and unrealistic.

So what I do is paint the entire surface with a black paint (I use Mr Surfacer Black 1500, which is a bit of a primer). The in the areas between the panel lines, I use Tan paint in mottled patterns, so that it looks irregular. Then I use the final colour, laying it down in thin coats till most of the black and tan are gone. How thick it's laid down will determine how worn it looks. If it's a thin coat, it looks more worn, and thicker will look cleaner, smoother, and newer.

For camouflage, I do the whole area (like the wing), then mask off the areas I want to keep in the original colour (like brown), and re-do the black-basing process with the next colour (like green).

Here was the final result of the demo. I did the lower wing in a blue-grey; the right hand side had a thicker coat, while the left hand side looks rougher. Same with the camouflaged top wings.

The demo was pretty well received, I think, and it came out better than many of my actual models do.

This model is of the Focke-Wulf Fw-190C prototype V-16. The original Fw-190A was unbeatable when it appeared in the skies in 1941, but it suffered a bit at higher altitudes, and when the RAF introduced the Mk IX Spitfire with two-stage supercharger, it had a problem. The BMW 801 engine in the A was not really suitable for good supercharging, so Focke-Wulf experimented with this version, the C, with a supercharged Daimler-Benz DB603 engine and pressurised cockpit. The V-16 was the last prototype, and it didn't really go any further, with development rather going to the Jumo 213-engine D model.

This kit is a Planet Models 1/72 kit in resin with white metal undercarriage and vacuform canopy. Resin is not fun to work with, and needs superglue, which doesn't always glue things too well (except fingers). It's an unusual subject though, and came out decently enough.

Here's a link to the full album for all three models

The cockpit here is the one on the right:

The second of my three German aircraft is this one: A Messerschmitt Me-109G-6 in service with the Swiss air force. The Swiss bought or acquired a bunch from Nazi Germany.

The model is a Fujimi 1/48 kit. I bought it second-hand for R200, and it came two (mostly) two sets of decals. Unfortunately, one set was welded to the decal paper, and wouldn't come off. The other set were old and yellow, and also pretty fragile. I figured they wouldn't look good, so I masked and airbrushed the Swiss markings, and I found aircraft numbers (the 706) in my collection of spare decals, and I made the J - out of an O and an I. The mottling on the side, like the other two planes, was done by hand with my airbrush, and this Me-109 has four different colours of mottling.

Here's a link to the full album for all three models

The instrument panel is on the left, and the cockpit is the one on the left:

For July, I decided to tackle three model aircraft simultaneously, the idea being that they are in similar colours, so I can do them in a sort of production line. That worked pretty well.

This one is a Focke-Wulf Fw-190D-11. It was one of the last Fw-190 models, and was fast and heavily armed. This particular one was from the JV44 "Papagei" (parrot) squadron, used in 1945 to protect the Me-262 jet fighters at their most vulnerable, at take-off and landing. Because of this, the underside was painted in red and white so that anti-aircraft gunners could distinguish them easily.

The model is a Revell 1/48 kit, and was a pretty decent kit except for a massive gap between fuselage and wing which I had to fill.

Here's a link to the full album for all three models

Here are the instrument panel and cockpit (right-hand panel, centre cockpit):

Sea Vixen FAW.1

The Sea Vixen was a 1960s Royal Navy all-weather fighter. Pretty, but dangerous to the crews; a lot crashed. The radar operator sat in a "coal hole" with no forward view.

This is a 1/72 MPM kit. The kit had poor fit (butt-joined wings and books, ick), but there were some decent resin parts (including very undersized seats). The best bit was having pre-cut masks for the canopies. The decals on top were a challenge - lots of mostly-clear decals that could not show any silvering or they'd look awful. I got them right, luckily

Full album

I finished my Edgely Optica model kit. The Optica was a weird 1970s British plane made to replace helicopters (no helicopter licence required), but it was too fast compared to a chopper. Each of the aircraft made was unique, so this particular one was yellow, with white interior, blue floor, and pinstripe seats.

The kit is a 1/72 Sharkit resin kit, and pretty horrible. I had to pin lots of parts, sand and fill everything, and detail and fit was rather poor generally. The vacuform canopy had to be cut roughly to fit; I just clipped it on, and it looks OK like that. I also just stuck the front section into the fan enclosure, no gluing; it makes it easy to transport.

I also made the base, with road, pre-bought grass, hedges, and some airbrushing for colour variation.

Full album

Another one I finished was the Heller 1/125 Concorde. A reasonable kit for the time, it did need a lot of filling at the wing roots. I finished it in what-if Lufthansa colours, and it looks very smart like that. The Concorde was actually one of the most extraordinary aircraft ever made; I think one may hold a round-the-world record of 27 hours, and could not be intercepted even by jet fighters. It was also a big plane - it's something like 20 or 25% longer than a B-52, longer than a 747, and a bit shorter than the A380. One little quirk I discovered when I was doing decals is that the plane is not quite symmetrical: when I was putting the Lufthansa decals on the tail, I discovered there are runner strakes at different heights, so the Lufthansa logo is high on one side, and low on the other.

Full build album for the Concorde

I finished the 1/72 Airfix Fairy Rotodyne last week. The kit itself is from a 1970s moulding, so I sanded lots of rivets off, and lots of putty and sanding were needed. I had some Lufthansa decals from a 727, so I did the markings as if it had been in Lufthansa service in the 1970s.

The Rotodyne was really interesting. It was a 1950s gyrocopter. The rotor was powered at take-off and landing by exhaust gas from the two Napier Eland turboprops being piped through the rotor tips. Once in the air, the rotor would freewheel, and the turboprops would power it on stubby wings. They had something like 350 test flights, carrying a thousand passengers, without a single problem. The only hassle was that it was a bit noisy (a problem for inner-city use), but they had measures to reduce that. It never went into production.

I used Mr Color paints, primary white, aluminium (what an amazing paint to airbrush), and Gundam Blue, which was the closest I could find to the Lufthansa Blue. The decals were sadly very yellowed and thick, so not great. :( I detailed the entrance to the cabin area, including a galley, first aid kit, jump seats, and a shelf with a log book. The decals for the instrument panel turned to dust, so I created an instrument panel by drilling the instruments on plasticard. I used painted elastic for the curtain to the cabin, and for the side windows. I did do some detailing in the cargo area, but had a superglue accident with the clamshell door hinges, so I glued the doors shut.

Here's a full build album

Last week, before the monthly model club meeting, I finished my Fairey Fulmar model kit, an MPM 1/48 Fairey Fulmar Mk.1. The Fulmar was a two-seat long-range naval fighter used by the Fleet air Arm in world War 2, and it was the highest-scoring FAA fighter of the war. It was a so-so model kit - fit was reasonable, but it wasn't always clear where parts fitted. Detail wasn't bad at all. The cockpit detail was pretty awesome - there was an entire sprue for cockpit parts.

I screwed up right at the end, when I was gluing the last few pieces on. I managed to open the superglue bottle too sharply, and several superglue drops splattered across the top. Not much that could be done about it apart from matt-coating them so they don't stand out too much.

Here's a link to the album with start to finish pictures

I thought the weathering and black-basing effects came out really well on the bottom.

Kat found me some fine threat for the aerials, and I actually used a tiny drill bit to drill the holes that I glued the aerials into at several points.

This is a pic of all the interior parts before I put it together.

The pilot's instrument panel.

On Friday I finished my other model kit, the Classic Airframes 1/48 scale Westland Wyvern. The Westland Wyvern was a huge (bigger than many modern jets) turboprop-powered plane with a Rolls-Royce Python engine. I have nicknamed this one "Rudolf". This aircraft few off the Royal Navy carrier HMS Eagle during the Suez Crisis in 1956.

The Classic Airframes model was pretty horrible. Fit of parts was bad, there was a lot of flash on the parts, no locating pits for most parts, and some neat-looking resin parts that had to be cut down to fit. I knocked to many parts off repeatedly. The rockets were a nightmare, as were the propeller blades; all 8 of the counter-rotating blades had to be superglued in place because they didn't have proper sockets to fit into.

Here's a link to the album if you want to see a start to finish of this and my other model, the Sea Fury

Here are some pics of Rudolf.

In this pic and the one below you can see the effect of black-basing, the deliberate effect of the unevenness of the paint finish so that it looks more realistic.

Here's the cockpit, as seen from the front. The yellow strips on the ejection handle are painted by hand, of course.

Here are the Wyvern, Sea Fury, and Seafire next to each other.

On Friday I finished up my Airfix 1/48 scale Hawker Sea Fury FB.11 model kit. The Sea Fury was perhaps the pinnacle of piston-engined fighter aircraft, and was used as a fighter-bomber by the Royal Navy during the Korean War. This particular aircraft was flown off the Royal Navy carrier HMS Glory in 1950.

Here's a link to the album if you want to see a start to finish of this and my other model, the Wyvern.

The Airfix kit was amazing. Perfect fit, the instructions were a work of art, and generally good design.

For the paints, I used Mr Color lacquers for all the airbrushing (the main colours are Dark Sea Grey and Sky, with a black finishing primer and mottled Deck Tan to give the surfaces a slightly uneven look). Brush painting was done with Humbrol enamels; that's mostly things like the seatbelts, instruments and dials, wheels, and little touch-ups. The Mr Color lacquer paints go on beautifully, dry very quickly (I can do four coats in the same airbrushing session), and are extremely durable; they don't leave marks when masking tape is used. Once everything is mostly assembled and painted, I use a Mr Color gloss clearcoat and apply decals, using decal softening solution which gets the decals to shape around panel lines properly. Then more clear coat, and then I do weathering; that's stuff like the panel lines (which I do with a black enamel panel line paint), exhaust and gun marks (I use Tamiya weathering powder, which is like eye shadow) after studying pics of the real aircraft to see when the exhaust leaves soot. After than, I use a clear matt coat which finishes it all off.

Here are some pics of this Bristol Centaurus-powered beast.

Here you can see the rockets on the wings. Each of these 12 rockets has 6 decals on it, with a total of 72 decals on the rockets alone. One is a red strip which needs to be wrapped around neatly, and four are little white dots 1mm in size. I spent hours on the decals. If you're interested, on the underside of the wing you're looking at, including the rocket decals, there are 44 decals: two faint light circles, then the British roundel, then some text on the left, two tiny bits of text above the "W", the WJ2 marking, the red dot in the circle, and the 36 decals on the rockets.

While I was building these models, I also made some flight decks. I bought a couple of cheap picture frames, and glued two different grades of fine sandpaper to the hardwood backing in the frame. I airbrushed it with black and grey, used some brownish weathering powder, airbrushed a white runway marking, and used dilute black paint to make oil stains. Came out quite well, I think.