T-34 Mentor

Well done, John.  Looks like a hard working trainer.  Guess I'll start looking for some kryptonite to balance mine.  Must be pretty heavy to hold Superman down.

OH man that is a great looking build. I love the color and the weathering is just right showing use but not abuse.

Get yourself a nice routed wood base at HL for a couple of bucks and make a tarmac and pin the wheels to the base eliminating the sitting issue.  

Thanks for the kind words - I like the idea of pinning to a base.  My goto is clear sprue 'stands' but that's cool - just need to consider shelf space

Very nice! I love trainers.  Only military aircraft I ever got to fly :-) 

I do wish kit mfgs would tell us how much weight to add, or add cast weight pieces.  At the prices they ask for, I can't believe they couldn't afford it.

The irony is, I just finished a Roden kit, and they did include how much weight to add to the nose.  But the plane, a Boeing Stratoliner, is a tail dragger!

Excellent work there. This one looks convincingly real. Well done.

BK

Nicely done! I completed a Minicraft T-34B a few months ago, and also encountered nose weight problems. I solved the problem by nearly filling the nosewheel well with Liquid Gravity and then covering it with a small, thin sheet of styrene which I painted flat black to hide the liquid gravity. 

Your weathering is great. Weathering is still a bit of a mystery to me. I just watched three YouTube videos about using salt for weathering/chipping, and still don't really understand the process. The models I've completed look "weathered" because of damage from the building process — errant bits of glue, too much/too little sanding, fingerprint in the paint on one, poor spraying/painting technique, incompatible types of paint, canopy scuffs and scratches. But, you know, I'm pretty proud of those models. They sure look better than the mongrel dogs I was building in the 1950s!

I've had a more "intimate" experience with the T-34B than most modellers. See my web page, Surviving a plane crash in the Black Range. 

Bob 

Thanks Don, i like the trainers too.   

Thanks BK.

Bob, I'm familiar with your story.  Amazing you and the pilot survived.  I cant say enough about Flory washes.    You slop them on with a big brush, let it try then start taking it off with a damp cloth.  Super easy,  and no damage to paint as its clay and water.  

Believe me, I have done your weathering techniques pleanty of times ;p

keavdog, great looking build. I really like the Flory wash. Makes the detail really pop. I have to get some of that stuff.

Thanks guys.  I've done 3 kits with flory so far and pleased every time.  

Thanks Chem.  Great little kit

@keavdog: The Flory washes sound interesting. What colours would you recommend for aircraft? So far, I'm looking at yellow, camouflaged, olive drab, and metallic aircraft (mostly WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, and propliners).

Bob

Here's the set I bought - 

From my recollection I used this brown for the Mentor

Gray for the Phantom

And Light for the Hellcat (questionable choice but gave a lot of panel detail)

And Grime for the undercarriage on a couple of the kits

For natural metal finish I've been post shading with Tamiya clear smoke - be interesting to think about a Flory wash here - just haven't done one since I bought the set.

Haven't tried these on a camo kit yet but I have tried MIG light sand filter via airbrush and it blends the SEA/British WWII colors nicely.  Still experimenting here.

Before...

To be fair this was after the MIG filter and a dull coat

 For the camo I think I will try the black or dark dirt.  I have a Hurricane coming up so we'll see

@keavdog: Thank you, John, for your helpful (and convincing) comments and images about Flory washes. The washes aren't commonly available. In fact, in an on-line search I was only able to find single bottles of most but not all of the colours in the set of eight bottles, but I went ahead and ordered the five that I found.

As I've said, I know little about weathering, but I want to try. In your experience, what painted surfaces — flat, semi-glossy, or glossy — are best to try weathering on? I tried oil paint and thinner on my glossy T-34 but had a very hard time getting it to show at all. Any tips will be greatly appreciated.

Bob  

Always good to put a gloss coat/acrylic after decaling.  But Flory is inert so not necessary.  

I use turpenoid and oil for panel washes.

Lots of youtube work from way better modelers than I.  Flory has youtube videos as well 

Nice job on the Mentor!