MaxFax,

What can i say....? You are showing what a NMF should look like! Flawless and gorgeous builds. I take my hat off to you in awe and amazement!

Well, she's done!. It was a very welcome and fun build after the horrors of my Korean war F51...:

For fun and giggles i placed my later F4F3 alongside my new prewar one:

Thanks to all of you for your continuous support and kind comments. I am glad you guys like what i do

Soooo..... I guess that means there's no excuses left for me Vetteman.... I am pretty much scared sh*tless (pardon my dutch) but i am going to foil myself a mig!

Richard

I absolutely love that Wildcat, P-47 and P-51!  Like the Cat so much I'm thinking of doing one of my Cats from the stash in that scheme.

Having just returned from celebrating my MIL's birthday, I decided to see if the 18-year-old decals in my kit would still be usable, might as well know now.  So I cut out the IP decals, dipped 'em in water, and let 'em sit for a while.  They didn't disintegrate but they did seem reluctant to leave their paper backing at first.  Happily, they laid down fine on the IP pieces and are now curing with some decal setting solution.

I also installed the bomb racks and filled an ugle seam at the connection points of those racks that ran all the way along the surface just inside the bomb bay doors.  Would have been very noticable and I just couldn't allow that to pass.

As an aside, this is a kit that I've never built.  Actually I've never built a B-36.  I was just entering my teen years when this kit was first released and declined my dad's offer to get it for me that year for Christmas (he had given me all of those big Monogram bomber kits in previous Christmases) - I think at the time I just wasn't interested in building models any more, as baseball, football and girls were taking center stage (and not necessarily in that order).  Now I feel like I'm finishing something I began many years ago.

Rob,

Very well done P-47!

I knew I forgot something a bit earlier. Steven , the work in the bombbay looks great!!! There is enough there to busy it up a bit, perfect.

Wow guys!

Steven: I love the wiring in the bomb bay. I guess I should have done the same to my B-29 but as I said I'm just going to build her out of the box. If I can get the NM to work out smoothly I'll be more than happy.

Richard: the F4F looks great! As I said the colour scheme is very eye-catching. Much more than the blue and white even though I like them as well.

MaxFax: wow, both Polly and the P-51 look tremendous! Flawless natural metal finish and I love the sharp looking cowl on Polly and the gas stains on the drip tank.

thanks soulcrusher,  I was aware of the haphazard-ness of the stripes---which is why I didn't fuss too much about the wings stripes being just a tad off--but the belly ones were very noticeable!! 

Ive been learning alot by being in this Group Build,  Thanks guys!!

OWL

Owl don't worry to much about the strips being perfect. These strips were added in the field in the begining by anyone who could hold a brush. Later onmany planes had them painted on alot neater but even then they were not always perfectly straight.

Soulcrusher

Richard the Wildcat looks superb!!! lol really if you hadn't told me , I wouldn't have noticed about the decals on the prop. I know how you feel though, you get so frustrated with yourself you have to tell people lol. S'ok though I think most of us have been there a few times. Looking forward to seeing her finished!!!

Rob, your birds are looking great!!!! Very nice to see the Jug finished!!!! Looking forward to seeing the Mustang finished up soon as well!! Just a quick question about the stripes. Are the flaps down or is there actually a canted angle on the stripes on the flaps?? Just curious.

I'm still trucking along over here. Ive gotten most of the ID stripes applied now, but had to re-do the set on the undersides--the curve of the mustang made for some tricky masking and the stripes came out crooked!!    But the ones on the wing came out nice for my first attempt! 

Maxfax and Kermit, those planes look outstanding!!  I'm hoping that one day my finishes will turn out as great as yours! 

OWL

vetterman42,

The smell of fall and football also means the smell of glue has finally arrived for me!

After a long hiatus I will finally start my P-47 "Kansas Tornado" on Sunday. Took me a couple hours with breaks to catch up on all the updates. LOT's of great builds and tips.

Hello everyone,

I finally got my camera and I am posting the finished P-47 and a WIP of the P-51. I have to say that I am the most satisfied with the result of the P-47 than any of my other planes(well, there are only 4!) I hope to have the P-51 done hopefully next week.

Thanks,

Rob

Sorry folks, I've been on hiatus while waiting for my repaired airbrush and new Flex-i-File tools to arrive in the mail. The former arrived quickly, the later arrived almost two weeks late. I could have made minimal progress in the meantime but opted to go sailing instead. Now that both items are here, I'll be back at my AT-6 Texan shortly…

You all have made some great progress over the past few weeks. I've enjoyed reading all the WIP posts, seeing all photos, and hearing about the successes and setbacks. This is a fun group with lots of talented and supported members. Kudos to you all. Good to be back.

vetteman - I hope you didn't lap me with your Texan build… lol

Jmabx,

Those are nice goodies you ordered They will undoubtedly enhance the final model. Just a quick curious question though: I have never worked with resin aftermarket stuff; what do you glue it with? Ordinary modeling styrene glue or CA? Looking forward to this rare bird....

Aggieman,

Wow, that must have taken some time to do... I admire your patience and it looks great sofar. By all means keep going LOL.

As for my humble attempts at modeling i can announce the decalling done on my wildcat. Had to paint on the port side upper wing stripes as i mentioned before but it went quite ok. Also installed the landing gear assembly and antennae to my model. Next up will be the antenna wires and finalizing the build. Guess it will take me another hour or so...:

As for the spinner... Ahem...

Kinda been a bit daft because i applied some decals to the back of the spinner as opposed to the front.... What was i thinking....: Forgot to turn the spinner around in the clamp i had it in for the decalling....

Hope you guys still like it after the laughing at my mistake lmao

Richard

Getting started on my B-36.  I bought this kit off eBay several years ago and was a bit concerned when I started going through the parts and was not seeing everything.  Great, I'm thinking, this same thing happened to a B-35 I tried to build recently.  But upon closer inspection of the parts and comparison against the instructions, I verified that all parts were in fact present.  Good news for me.

So I've done a lot of test fitting and have detailed-up the bomb bay and painted the interior parts olive drab.  I don't have any reference photos in color from B-36s in actual use showing if the interior was olive drab or zinc chromate, but I have photos of a restored B-36 where the color appears to be olive drab.  So I went with that.

I loaded up the bomb bay with wiring per the reference photos I have.  My work is not an exact match to the photos but I really just wanted to achieve a suitably "busy" look.  Some photos of my bomb bay work appear below.

Richard, pity bout the stripy thingy. Those stripes shouldn't be too hard to mask up and paint!!! Looking forward to seeing your results!!

Jeremy, she looks like a nice lil build is going to be happening soon!!!

Looks like you have all the fixin's for a nice build there Jeremy. I don't recall seening any other P-59's being build anywhere. It should make for an itresting subject.

Soulcrusher

I finally received my little package from Squadron. True details resin cockpit and wheels for the P-59.

I wanted the resin wheels to replace those horrible, plastic melting rubber tires that come with the kit. As you all know, when searching for one little thing for a kit, you always end up with some more!   I don't know how much of the cockpit will be visible when the kit is finished but I'm glad that I bought the resin pit. Much more detailed!

I think I'll be building her as ol' Smokey Stover. Pretty cool!  

This kit has lots of ejector pin marks so cleanup will be a hassle, especially being a natural metal plane.

I just finished building a plane for my friend and I'm trying to get a little work done to my FW-190 now but hopefully I can show some progress soon!

Nice work Kermit! Your paint work looks nice and smoooth!   Shame about the decals but I'm sure a fine modeler such as yourself will have no troubles painting those stripes.

Gamera - Your little(?) B-29 looks like it's packed full of detail. Nice job of making it stand out! Should be a treat to see it all together!

kermit

...So we can also rephrase that as :"It's not easy having green"...

Richard

Very well put, I happen to resemble that remark...

Simpilot: Not to quibble but actually I am a reptile not an amphibian. Unless you mean not the amphibian the animal but as a term to mean something that operates on land and in water. In which case I would be an amphibian reptile. Or something like that, I'm confused now....

Richard: sorry to hear about the decal, dang but the long thin ones are a pain. Looking forward to seeing her all decaled up.

Hmmm... might be fun (although offtopic) to hear about your personal stash count... I just counted 28 plastic kits in my stash of all disciplines (armor, planes and ships).... Maybe a Mt. Suribachi?

Anyways...

I worked on the decalling tonight and taking a little break whilst about halfway through... These decals are great and release easily from the sheet but they are rather thin and don't really wanna move once theyre on.... To illustrate the problem i encountered just now i will repost a pic i showed earlier:

As you can see the upper and lower wings will receive diagonal lines from the gun roots all the way across the wing. Trying to apply one of the upper wing stripy things i curled it up, rendering it useless. I am now forced to paint them on instead... Being tired from work i will postpone that untill the morning. Pretty confident i can solve it with little effort...

Richard

kermit

...So we can also rephrase that as :"It's not easy having green"...

Richard

... would explain the large stash!!!

...So we can also rephrase that as :"It's not easy having green"...

Richard

Gamera

Simpilot: No worries friend, I certainly don't mind being confused with a modeler as good as Kermit. Guess since we're both green we're easy to confuse....

....and both amphibs!!!!

It's not easy being green

#$#% straight!!!

Thanks I've heard a lot of good stuff about the Hobbyboss F4Fs but it's not really the price as much as trying to get a handle on my stash. It's already about the size of Mount Fuji and quickly climbing to the size of Everest.

 And now the US company of Squadron has the Hawagawa 1/32 P-47D on sale for about 60% off starting next month. I don't need another P-47, I must not buy another P-47,  but still it's casting a voodoo spell on me forcing me to buy it.

Randy,

Are you crazy?? Ofcourse i'm not offended and did understand you were just having a giggle It just got me to think about it LOL. I can take a punch my friend.

Gamera,

Guess since we're both green we're easy to confuse....

It's not easy being green

The hobbyboss wildcats are just around 20 bucks overhere and give you tons of value for your money I assure you that you wont go wrong buying one. (not being affiliated to hobbyboss at all LOL)

Richard (who is starting his decalling fun right now)

Guys, the tube has a series of grooves where the silver bands are. I had a devil of a time trying to sand, putty, and get the grooves clean and even. Then I noticed that when assembled the tube seam is horizontal and from the limited view you get looking up though the bomb bay the seam shouldn't be visable at all. So I did all that work for nothing Ah well, it is a little rough though you can't really see with the blurry photos.

I'm a big fan of the Eduard ZOOM PE sets and thought about picking one up for this model but as said with her closed up very little is visable. So I didn't add anything to the kit, the crawl tunnel and everything else is what you get with the kit. I have to hand it to Academy it builds into a nice kit out of the box.

Kermit: you're giving me the temptation to do a yellow wings bird. I love the look and she's going to really be an eye catcher when done.

MaFax: It's the Academy/Minicraft kit in 1/72. The wingspan is about two feet/60cm! I'd love to do the Monogram 1/48th kit I settled for 1/72th because I don't know where I'd put the 1/48th kit! I'm hoping I can leave the wings unglued so I can remove them for transport.

Simpilot: No worries friend, I certainly don't mind being confused with a modeler as good as Kermit. Guess since we're both green we're easy to confuse....

Wow,

That looks great! Which kit is this? I bet that will take up some major shelf space!

Rob

kermit

The B29 is Gamera's build which is coming along great btw.

lol sorry buddy , yes it is Gamera!!

Kermit your Wildcat is really starting to look Kermified now buddy. I really like the contrast between the yellow wings the black tail and the NMF. Really an eye catcher I think.

Richard I hope I didnt offend with my earlier comment about your speedy building, I just wanted to rattle your cage a bit in fun. As most here know I am a very slow builder, painfully slow as a matter of fact. I spent the better part of 2 hours just putting seat belts on the pilot seat for my T-6. I actually envy both the quality and speed at which you can build. So if I did offend I do apologize and if I didnt then

Gamera very very nice work indeed As Richard said I cant see any flaws in the pictures you speak of, my only comment would be, that a lot of that nice detail work looks like it will be hidden once she is closed up. Makes me want to get a boresight so I can look inside once they are closed. Cant wait to see your next pictures

Simpilot,

The B29 is Gamera's build which is coming along great btw. Can't see the flaws in the crawling tube like you mentioned. Did that come OOB or did you scratch that? I like the addition to the model

Thunderbolt,

I found the revell glue to be a tad more "agressive" than for instance tamyia extra thin and you do have to be quick to wipe off excess glue or it will eat into your styrene after a few seconds but i would't wanna use the term "liquify".... Personally i came to love the "welding" effect it has, especially on wing and fuselage joints. Makes the sanding part less of a chore

Richard