Aussie Modellers

Dave I picked up an ICM Spitfire Mk.IX from eBay on the weekend and was wondering if you could tell me are there any specific gotchas with the kit.  Also, are there any parts that I really need to replace with AM on the kit?

Cheers

Dave;

           Got to agree with madmike you are a busy boy. Also sound likes madmike busy too.

Darson, it can depend on when the kit was produced as some are better than others but I have replaced the propeller and blades and the pilots seat. I replaced these as the kit parts were short shot or just crap. I also replaced the wheels with ultracast ones as they are a little more detailed. The sontrol column needs help too as it is square at the top and some of the other details are a bit clunky but will hide in the cockpit when closed up.

Two things I have picked up so far:

 - fit the cannon bulges to the top part of the wing before putting on the lower half.
- I cut off the locating tabs on the wing tips and test fitted and trimmed the joint to make them fit properly.

This is all so far as I haven't gone past that point but I will post any further tips I have when I can. HTH

Hello

Why didn't someone tell me there was an aussie Forum when I joined , well i'm here now any way.

Will 

Hi there Will and to the Aussie Modelers forum.

Dave thanks for the advice and I have read some reviews of the kit that talked about parts being short shot or missing completely but for $16 AUS I couldn't resist. 

As for the cannon bulges I know that Ultracast do a complete replacement set for the ICM Spit Mk.IX, are they worthwhile or are the kit parts OK.

Cheers

Darren

I stumbled upon this useful French site. My French is up to figuring out just what is going on here, but they seem to have tried to comprehensive list of the serial number of every aircraft ever made  against the specific aircraft type:

http://pascal.brugier.free.fr/registre/txt/

eg Magister's are on g-mil_va.txt, Sopwith Camel's are on g-mil_ea.txt

I've download a bunch & will try to get an index of sorts together at some point (warbirds only).

Will, welcome along to the forum!

Darren, I totally agree about the cost factor, ppl spend $40+ on the hasegawa kit then heaps on the resin as well. The cannon bulges look ok to me (but i'm no expert), they are just slightly oversize but are easily trimmed down to fit. The kit ones don't have the fastener marks along the edges either, that may be an influencing factor for you.

Something you may consider on reflection, the kit lower engine cowl comes in two peices so if you don't want to fiddle with the joint line on the kit parts you may want to get the ultracast one peice set. I'm a glutton for punishment so I intend to fix the joint line.

Will, glad to have you with us.

This was meant to be my second entry for the Matchbox Madness GB on ARC that finished earlier this month, however I never got it competed in time.

I decided the do "The Huff", an F-86E using some Microscale decals. According to "Sabre in Action" the F-86E differed from the previous F-86A by having an all moving horizonal stabilizers. Now the Matchbox kit is not that accurate anyway, so I decided to experiment with a few things.

Kit went together well and was sprayed a combination of Tamiya metal finished straight from the spraycan. AS-12 was the base, followed by polished aluminium and light gunmetal. Humbrol metalcote added some more variations in tone.

The Microscale decals failed dismally (even after Microscale decal film treatment), so I used the sheet from the Hobbycraft (black box release) F-86E kit and all went well.

One undercarriage leg is actually moulded shorter than the other and the instructions to place them are incorrect, so although I caught the incorrect positioning, my Sabre has a slight lean to it. The panel line wash is Jo Sonja Paynes Grey.

Basic but a fun build and if I wanted a more detailed Sabre, I would build the Fujimi or Hobbycraft kit. Crikey, even the Airfix/Heller kit is better!

Here is a pic taken by our club magazine editor at the 50's competition night, which I jointly won with the editors car build.

I will get some more pics and do a review as well for my webpage

Hope you like it!

Hi everyone

I'm looking for my first airbrush and hoping to get a double action one for up to $160.00. Is there any suppliers in Australia that are worth using or am I better off ordering from dixie art or something.

Hi mate.

Try Stanbridges in Perth. They sell Delta double action A/B's for $99 that are apparently Iwata Eclipse clones. Very nice all metal airbrush and nice to use.

http://www.stanbridges.com.au

cheers

Mike

Thanks Mike

WIll

Madmike  the Sabre looks good, hard to see the slight lean- if you hadn't mentioned it Ive wouldn't have known. Really like the nose art.   If you don't mind can you describe how you did the panel line wash.

Wayne

Thanks for the kind words. I thinned Jo Sonja Paynes Grey acrylic with distilled water and a little dishwashing liquid.

The dishwashing liquid breaks surface tension and retards drying so after setting the model aside for 10-20 minutes, I can simply wipe the excess off. Works a treat over a glossy surface such as Future.

Hope that helps!

Thanks Mike,

                        Intend to try this on my group build subject.    Also see possiblities for this technique with armour and figures, the colour may be different but the Jo Sonja range of colours is large and I'm sure that I can find the required colours, can also get them at a discount on my Wife's Spotlight card.

Also updated my collection with:

 A German Leopold Gun crew (9 fiqures) kit by Trumpeter  - will use these fiqures to man my Dragon Leopold, didn't like the Dragon Crew.

A Tamiya 1/16  German Africa Corps Tank crew man. - may enter this one in this year comp in Adelaide. 

 

I was given a Hasegawa Mi-24 Hind E model today. DOes anyone have some photos of its interior and more complex parts?

Thanks   Will

Try the following site as it has a very comprehensive amount of walarounds for helicopters. I am pretty sure it has the Mi24 on it as well,

http://helicopterwalkarounds.czweb.org/

Thanks Dave

Will

A few more hints and tips for the 1/48 ICM Spitfires:

• When attaching the wing tips take your time and fit them properly and you will not require any filler.
• When constructing the cockpit it makes life easier if you trim the joint area of the instrument panel to the cockpit floor.
• Ensure you paint the interior of the wing section that is underneath the cockpit as it can be seen. Not readily but it is visible.
• When you insert the cockpit into the fueslage, ensure that you don't push it in too far/high as the rear section of canopy is a very close fit to the head rest/armour plate. I put one of mine a fraction to high and had to trim down the armoured head rest a fraction to make the rear canopy fit correctly.
• The wings fit the fueslage very well but can easily go out of alignment on the upper wing section and sit too high.
• The lower engine cowl - I glued it to the wings prior to fitting the wings to the fueslage. This worked well for the Mk VII's (no intake on the cowl) but not so well for the Mk IX. You need to ensure that the angle of the cowl is correct against the fueslage.
• You don't require to put any of the engine components in the forward fueslage depending on how you want to attach the propeller. The cowls all go together well enough to enable the front plate of the propeller to be glued to them. If using the kit prop you need to put only the reduction housing (?) in the engine bay to give you the attachment point. Otherwise you can just leave all components out of the engine bay and attach a piece of tube to the prop and use that to be the joint.
• The exhausts can be glued in place without anything inside the engine bay. You may want to build a backing plate inside to glue them too but it isn't required due to how they fit in the exhaust area.
• The canopies are very thick and uneven on the inside but come up a little better with some future/One go, they may need replacement if you want the canopy closed. They fit well on the kit tho.

The rest of the build is simply a case of carefully fitting prior to glueing parts together. I was amazed at how well it went together considering the flogging the kits have received on a lot of sites. There are a number of small seams that require filling eg the rear of the fueslage/wing joint, but these are present on the hasegawa and Tamiya kits as well.

You are given a number of options in the kit so ensure that you know what version you are bulding. You have 2 types of rudders (pointed and round), 2 different types of tail planes (different panel lines on them), 2 different types of wing tips (extended and rounded) and bombs/rockets.

Hopefully this will help anyone that makes the kits. I will be putting this all on the Aussiemodeller website when I do up the article for it.

Hi There,

Rob Stewart-Murray is the name. I'm getting back into modelling after giving it up for about 10 years. I live in country victoria, and my main areas of interest are 1/72 Australian military aircraft (but not limited to) and also ships of all scales. I'm also looking at getting into armour.

Hi Rob

I can't really welcome you officially because i'm pretty new here too, but most of the other guys are sort of old hats.

Will

Thanks for the welcome, Will. So where are people getting most of their kits from? eBay? Locally?

It depends I suppose, if people see something cheap on eBay then they might get it but alot of people get their kits from their local store. Some people, especially Americans, like getting stuff from online model stores, e.g Squadron, GreatModels.

Will

madmike wrote:

Hi mate. Try Stanbridges in Perth. They sell Delta double action A/B's for $99 that are apparently Iwata Eclipse clones. Very nice all metal airbrush and nice to use. http://www.stanbridges.com.au cheers Mike

 

When i was in Perth i went there, its a great shop and big but hard to find. its got a good selection of kits

the only problem i found was i was getting some WW2 productions tracks, but they charge $20 aus dollers more than WW2 sells them on there site, the reason was Stanbridges has to buy them from somewhere else

theres another model shop in the city itself, downstares it has die-cast cars and upstare it has some kits

Hey Everyone

I just got what I think is a good deal , I got a Compresser (supercheap auto) for AUS$40.00, and a Regulater for AUS$28.00. I know I will need a moisture trap but I'm only starting out ABing so i'm very happy with this. I also got my AB of Ebay and instead of turning out to be dodgy I got a good piece for 70.00. This is a good deal right?

Will

Whats up guy's, bad deal??

Earlier I posted a single pic of a "quicky" Matchbox build, I was experimenting a little with.

Here are some better pics I finally got around to taking a month after finishing!

Simple build in between more complicated and detailed projects.

I used the decals from the Hobbycraft F-86E Sabre (black boxing) The only significant difference between the A and the E was the E had all moving tailpanes.

Will7813 wrote:

Whats up guy's, bad deal??

Nope!

Good buy that. How is the rig going?

Hi all! I'm in Mt Beauty in Victoria and I'm getting back into building a few WWII 1/48 bombers after a 26 year break. Got a B-17, B-24, B-25, B-26 and B-29. Will start with a few smaller kits first and then build up to more detailed builds.

The closest hobby shop to me is in Albury which is about 100km away which makes it a royal pain in the *** for getting small things straight away.

I also found the Australian mail order sites very poor as they are not big on images and stock. Their descriptions are also usually missing and therefore on paint don't even know if it's enamel or arcrylic or even what size container.

Trying to get the paint I need has proved to be a nightmare. The other problem is US mail order sites can't ship enamel paint or other flamable liquids.

As far as prices go... found it cheaper to bulk buy from Tower Hobbies in the US when they have a spend $150 get $25 off type sale as the A$ is quite good at the moment and you pay no GST on what are already superior prices. Shipping by surface has worked well and is very cost competative with Australian postatge after the $25 is taken off.

OK --- Had a major blowout with the costs as after getting 5 kits I decided to get an air compressor, moisture trap, airbrush and a few other doodads that have dinted my credit card.

Was going to build everything inside...but have started renovating the shed outside which has potential and is quite large (3.5M * 3.5M) with an exhaust fan.

Mike - the rigs going GREAT, i'm getting better slowly and the warhawk i'm doing is looking better than I could do before.

And hi Hoeks Revenge

Will