My BIG project...
Actually, it was a big project in a sense...
I've never been known to follow the pack...and dioramas are no exception...I wanted to do an airfield diorama, but lacked the space, so I scaled everything down to the smallest feasible scale...
I used an old trophy base from one of my many 3rd place awards... the aircraft are 1/350 scale Trumpeter B-25s (as PBJs), F4U Corsairs, a scratchbuilt PBY Catalina, and a Betty from the Tamiya 1/350 Prince of Wales kit.
The PBY was originally supposed to be a Martin Mariner from Iron Shipwrights, but the kit was so badly warped I couldn't do a thing to straighten it. So, I did the PBY. It's a hand carved fuselage with sheet plastic wings. The engine is a white metal part from Tom's Modelworks, and the engine mount is made from photoetched brass leftovers. The canopy is an extra from the Trumpeter B-25 sprue, as are the props. The ball turret is a small clear plastic bead from the inside of one of my daughter's dolls that the dog got a hold of...Landing gear is also scratchbuilt from plastic disks and extra ship brass. So is the scaffolding...the crane is also scratched.
The Quonset hut is made from sheet plastic, I cut a circle in scribed plastic and then cut it in half, that makes each end of the building...then simply wrap sheet plastic over the top and sand it on a flat surface.
The Corsairs were fun...I opened the cockpit up on one of them, then realized I was in serious need of a shrink, so the other is closed up. The tanker is another scratchbuild, the tank itself is made from a piece of brass tube flattened with a pair of pliers to get that oblong shape. The hose is thin solder. The figures are all White Ensign photoetched. The palm trees are floral wire, and that funny green paper you get in the Tamiya dinosaur kits, folded and cut with an x-acto knife to get the individual leaves...the groundwork is Woodland Scenics, and the clutter is N Gauge model railroad junk.
The bottles in the background give you a good idea of the overall size...my camera can't handle getting close to something this small, so I have to bump the resolution up and then crop the images...6 of one, half dozen of the other I guess...hope y'all like it.
Jeff