Off to a great start, i'll be keeping an eye on this as i'll be starting mine in a few weeks.

Funny you should mention the A-10 as Rudel had a hand in designing it.

Your ability to bring any build to life is just outstanding, truly outstanding work.

I will be following you on this journey.

Fantastic start, I'll be following along as usual!

Toshi

As always love your cockpits! 

Following this one ,as always ,and learning with your excellent  work.

lawdog, just a word of caution. Hasegawa has you fit the mojnts for the dive brakes, parts F15 & 16. These should only be added if building a G-1, not a G-2. Also, Rudels aircraft does not seem to have had the additional armour plates fitted on the sides of the cocpit, J34 & 35.

Bish

Funny you should mention the A-10 as Rudel had a hand in designing it.

 

Strange the US l/l the P-39 to The Soviets. It also has a single 37 mm cannon, with a slow rate of fire. But only HE rounds were provided, and the Russians used it for air-to-air combat at lower altitudes.

The cockpit is nicely detailed!

mawright20

Lawdog, my 11-y.o. son and I just started a 1/48 cannon-bird. Since you have this line going, mind if we add pics of his while were working for comparison?

 

Thanks guys.  I do now remember reading that Rudel was somehow involved in A-10 development  

mawright, you are more than welcome to post your son's pictures.  I'd love to see them. It may turn out better than mine!......lol.   

Great looking pit as always. I too will be watching since I have the Trumpy 1/32 one.

Very cool Joe. I think I've given up on trying to hand make most kinds of barrels. The PE stuff just does it with better precision. =]

I think 1:32 may just be your sweet spot.

LawDog,  Thanks for letting us piggyback on your posting. Attahcing a couple pics of my son's 1/48 cannon-bird Stuka. Slower progress than originally planned...Mike

Thanks for the kind words.  I thought I'd post some of my progress as of late. I closed up the fuselage without issue and added the lower and inner center wings.  The fit was good.  Hasegawa includes a wingspar so you can't mess up the dihedral when it's time to add the outer wings.

Next you assemble the outer wings (I added the tips too) then attached them.  The wings required some careful sanding at the joint where they meet, but again no issues.  I assembled the nose then added it.  It fit great without issue.  I began to marvel at how big the Stuka was in real life compared to other planes.  I see why they were considered "easy meat on the table".

As with most Hasegawa kits, the underside wing to fuselage joint was lousy.  This got filled, sanded and rescribed.  Sometimes (perhaps more often than not) this company forgets to put the joint on a natural panel line.

Now for my other Hasegawa beef.  Panels that don't fit well. These doors, or whatever they are, were too small and left trenches.  I tried putty but it didn't help.  I ultimately decided to fill the lines in and scribe in new lines.  I use Dymo tape and a Squadron scribing tool for this practice. 

The rest went together without incident.  I added the flaps at this point with Tenax so I get a clean plastic-to-plastic weld, much easier then adding them later.  Some primer to check the seams and I'm here,

I got Maketar paint masks for this turkey. I want to see how they compare to Montex.  I hope to start painting soon.    

Looking good there. Those panels on top of the wing are for the wing guns on the D-3 and D-5. The guns of course are not fitted to a G-2 but looking at the pics of the Hendon G-2, the panel is still there.

Looks like i will have a bit of extra work to do, am making notes on this stuff, thanks.

Excellent work!! The interiors are gorgeous ... very nive effects!! 

I can see you're mainteining the same level in the building ... I love this kind of "correcting" works with the panels, ribeters, etc.. It makes your model unique! 

As always without a miss, your correcting the mishaps that the model company screws up to no avail.  That's why there's assemblers like me and artists like you.  

Great jon thus far, itching to see the rest of the finished product.  Thank you for sharing!

toshi

lawdog114

Thanks Bish and Jamie... I remember my B had the wing guns too. Bish, I did follow your advice on armor plates and left them off. ..

 

Glad it helped.

The gap around the panel, i was wondering if it would be feasable to line the inside edge of the hold with styrene strip. Do you think that would work or would it close it up to much.

Excellent progress and great recovery on the panel line issue.  

Hasegawa Tomcacts also have a lousy front to rear fuselage fit so looks like they carry it on to other models as you said. 

I also like using Tenax to get solid joins.

Oh My Goodness !

 That is a BIG Boom Boom ! ! ! Nice work in the cockpit . Reminds me of the big 1/24 Bird Airfix used to do .

Lawdog excellent progress mate, you really do bring a blank canvas to life.

Keep the images and great work coming.

Bish

 

 

lawdog114

Thanks Bish and Jamie... I remember my B had the wing guns too. Bish, I did follow your advice on armor plates and left them off. ..

 

 

 

 

i was wondering if it would be feasable to line the inside edge of the hold with styrene strip. Do you think that would work or would it close it up to much.

 

Thanks all...

Bish, I don't think so....the panel lines are just wide enough to be annoyingly bigger than the rest.  Perhaps I was just being a-retentive in rescribing them...lol. 

Anyways, I have been plugging away at this but have had little time to update the thread.  Where was I?.......oh yeah.

I sprayed yellow (XF-3 Flat Yellow with a drop or two of XF-7 Flat Red) where needed then taped these areas off.  I painted as needed (black then white) then added the Maktar masks to the lower crosses (intentionally crooked per instruction sheet??.....looks weird to me) then began the MRP RLM 65 paint.  I should mention that the more I use MRP, the less I like it.  I find it too translucent and it takes too long to build up the color.  I just don't have the patience or do I want ridges when I remove tape because it added too thick.  Maybe this stuff won't do that.  It's also too shiny for my liking.  I prefer my paint flat or at least matte so I can see what I'm doing, particularly in weathering. In this area Tamiya shines....  

I then flipped it over and began the RLM 71.  At this point I became fed up with MRP's translucency so I dug out what was left of my Gunze (which wasn't much) finished it up with it.  I added some Tamiya XF-57 Buff and weathered the panels a bit.  

I taped off the splinter scheme and decided to give MRP one more shot with their RLM 70.  This color was way too green for my liking, like pine green.  I scrounged up a few drops of Gunze Aqueous RLM 70 and then weathered it in the same manner.  Moral of the story? If it isn't broke don't fix it..............back to Gunze for my RLM needs. 

Now it was time to paint in the markings that are white. I added a touch of XF-19 Sky Grey to the XF-2 Flat White to tone it down.  These are easier to do in stencil form thusly...

This would include the tail code, swastikas, crosses and the outlines on the fuselage "arrow" markings...I'm pleased with how Maktar performs. The spinner spiral was done with a Maktar mask too... 

Now it was time for weathering. I started with the exhausts.  I wanted it to be noticeable but not a disrtaction.  I used diluted XF-57 Buff and XF-19 Sky Grey then layered it in slowly.  I outlined it with diluted XF-69 NATO Black.  I think this is close to some pictures I used as reference...

I then weathered the airframe with extremely diluted XF-64 Red Brown and XF-69 NATO Black, particularly the underside and engine area.  I must say I'm really enjoying my new Iwata for this type of detail painting. My Omni 4000 has earned a well deserved retirement.

I then turned my attention to the 37mm cannons.  The metal barrels are beautiful and highly recommended in this scale. I was fortunate as they came with the kit. 

Here we are painted and weathered...

I got it clear coated and decaled.  Since all of the big markings are painted on, this took minutes....lol.

That's where I'm at so far.  I should be done soon.  

Your work on the cannons, let alone the rest of the build is better than the real thing, but in 1/32 scale!

Did you make your own paint mask, or are these commercial manufactuered. Which ever they are, the end result was excellent.

Seriously stunning work mate, truly deserving of high praise.

I hear you with regards to the MRP, but as I have invested a small fortune in them I will stick with them for the time being. I found the coverage of my corsair required 4 coats over a grey primer to get the depth I desired, in hind sight, black primer may have been a better option.

I look forward to the next chapter.