Yeah, it's been awhile now- too long. It does make me worried. 

jeaton01

Now if we could just find Bish, I hope he is OK.

 

Sure hope so as well John. For  a guy who posts as often as bish, a dry spell this long is indeed concerning...

Now if we could just find Bish, I hope he is OK.

Thanks PJ. Sorry not much to show. I've been concentrating on the P-38 with what little modeling I've gotten done. It's so hot I haven't really been in the mood to do much though.

Looking forward to seeing what you post!

Thanks Crown.

Looking good Gamera.

Kind of quiet in this GB but works out for me since  I was busy with house things so back on the saddle with this GB. will post progress shots soon.

I did get her mostly together last weekend. I need to do a lot of work adjusting the wing dihedral before cementing everything in place for good. 

Thanks Nick!

Sadly between other stuff and pollen allegies I still haven't gotten much more done on the the JU-188. I have puttied and sanded the heck out of the fuselage. There's a 1mm or so step between the cockpit/nose portion and the rear and I really don't want to sand all the detail away trying to get them to mate properly.

P.J. That is one busy cockpit.

Taxtp. A very unique kit.

68GT. That looks interesting!

Bish. looks stunning have you built Ju-88's before? lol.

Gamera. Great job on the cockpit ! Those masks can be tricky on the eye's at least for my eye's but great idea.

as for me I'm switching to the Tamiya JU-87B-2 in 1/48 from the Airfix kit too many broken little bits for me to handle on the Airfix kit

Bish: A little off topic but I thought I'd share these with you. And apparently you can no longer send private messages so I'll just post them here.  

Saw these and thought of you! 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003529690402.html?spm=a2g0o.store_pc_groupList.8148356.61.522c5efc3SXXe7

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003194123739.html?spm=a2g0o.store_pc_groupList.8148356.21.53c05efcpzUEbq

They've got a few other SW themed figures too. 

No problem here. 

Where did everyone go though!?!

Thanks G.

Sorry guys, not been keeping up with things the last week or so.

Splendid work Bish! As usual I love your dioramas! 

Not much to show here. The Tamiya P-38 I'm building for Steve's Lockheed GB is going so well it's been dragging me off to concentrate on it... 

I got the Stuka wrapped up this week. After some light weathering with Flory wash and exhaust staining it got the mat coat. I am very pleased with how the worn look to the sand paint came out. The instructions said to paint the spinner sand but of course it should be blue. And i used some AM decals for the wheel spats as the kit ones were white, and of course they should also be blue. The bomb load are Kora resin bombs. I was inspired by a photo of a banking D-5 on the Russian from from one of my books. It had this bomb load, SC250's with fuze extender's and the bombs were a mix of green and blue. I had to paint the white on the antenna mast as there are no decals for this.

And then onto its base with 4 figures and a Kubel.

Nice to get this done. Next up with be the Tante Ju, but that won't be for a bit.

Sound slike a lot of work going into that Gamera.

Just got to finish off some figures and i'll get the pics up of the Stuka.

Sorry still not much to see since I'm still puttying and sanding, rinse and repeat but here's some idea of the modules I'm assembling the kit as:

Ye, took a couple of the finished aircraft last night. Just got to finish off the base and sort some figures. So should be able to wrap this up in a couple of days.

I have buil;t a few Dragon aircraft kits but only in 72nd and i really like them. It does sound like they put some thought in when they designed your one.

Bish: Any new photos? Looking forward to seeing how she looks with the decals on.

Still hacking away here. The fit ain't the greatest. But I really like that the kit is buildable in modules. Just like an armour kit where you can build the lower hull, turret, tracks etc in sections and then add them all together. Not sure if Dragon as a mostly armour company designed the kit that way or it's just part of being buildable as different versions of the 188. In any case I'm building the fuselage and each wing as a separate part. More photos when I have something worth photographing.

Its bound to be Dragons instructions, at least you were able to remove them.

Sounds good Bish! 

Going a bit slow here, the way the instructions show it I ended up putting the landing gear in the opposite wings. I had to yank them out and reverse them. Great to see Dragon instructions were confusing even back then... 

Or maybe I'm just stupid... 

Notice the landing gear has to be turned around backwards to be mounted in the wing: 

Cheers. I'm pleased with how it tunred out, adding the decals now.

That looks cool Bish! Looking forward to seeing what everything looks like when the oils are dry. 

I got the Stuka painted with the European scheme.

I started masking for the sand before i remembered to get some pics.

I then added the desert camo. Some profiles and the kit instructions have the sand right along the side. But photo's don't bear this out. My main referance, Classic Colours Luftwaffe Colours Stua Vol 2, has 3 decent pics of the left side along with a nice profile based on careful study of the photo's. This only shows RLM 79 in 2 patches under the canopy. These patches seem to match the areas where extra armour was fitted to the D-3. But many aircraft, includeing this one, don't have this armour. I am woundering if the ground crews may have removed it and patched it up with the 79. The kit instructions don't match what little can be seen of the top of the left wing. So i went with a combination of the photo's, instructions and guess work. There is no top down image of the tail, but there does seem to be any 79 there so i left that. The photo's do show the 79 is well worn on the wing. So i replicated that (first time doing weathering like this on an aircraft) by dry brushing the enamel paints and then useing 502 oil paint, there German Orchre is quite a close match. I'm quite pleased with how its looking. I also added the white tail band.

I'm going to leave the oils to dry for anotehr couple of days then polish some rough areas and seal before adding the decals.

I'm crossing my fingers guys! Thanks PJ, stencils is the term I was looking for! 

Gamera

Okay here's about as far as I go. This should be decent enough once the canopy is put in place. The belts aren't perfect but it's good enough for me. I ended up knocking off about a dozen control levers putting them in. Finally I just had to scream ENOUGH. I think only the throttle levers were red but I didn't feel like looking up what lever did what and it adds a little colour to the cockpit. 

And I found these cool masks on AliExpress. They're a little on the small side so it's going to be more work to make sure the edges look right but it's probably better than I can get free-handing things. 

This is what I'm aiming at: 

 

I can see those stencils making the task a whole lot easier! Great idea.

Thats looking good, be interested to see how those masks work out.

Okay here's about as far as I go. This should be decent enough once the canopy is put in place. The belts aren't perfect but it's good enough for me. I ended up knocking off about a dozen control levers putting them in. Finally I just had to scream ENOUGH. I think only the throttle levers were red but I didn't feel like looking up what lever did what and it adds a little colour to the cockpit. 

And I found these cool masks on AliExpress. They're a little on the small side so it's going to be more work to make sure the edges look right but it's probably better than I can get free-handing things. 

This is what I'm aiming at: 

Oh that's superb Bish- nice work!

I got to the point that I was knocking the stupid little PE levers and knobs off while installing the seat belts on the Ju-188, lost my temper and had to put the thing aside. Sorry keep promising photos but she's a bit of a mess right now. Will get some up when I've calmed down a little.

Got most of the major parts fitted to the Stuka including fitting a quickboost  compass and getting the wings on once the fuselage was together. No major fit issues as i expected.

Then got the canopy on and all the sub assemblies ready. As you can see i am leaving the undercarrage off. I've also learnt my lesson when it comes to adding actuators and airelon balances to soon, have had to scratch more of those than i care to remember, so i am painting them seperatly.

It got a primer coat yesterday followed by the undersides being painted, so will be able to mask off in a day or so.

Tony: Wow, now that's a new one for me. And she can't be very big- looks like a small plane and in 1/72nd.

68GT: Ohhhhhh very cool! Doing the 188E-1 here but bigger! That looks cool. 

Sorry, worked on PE for the cockpit this weekend till my eyes crossed. Hopefully I'll be done and have photos soon.  

Great work on the pit PJ.

Tony, Ed, look forward to seeing those.