60th Anniversary Korean War Group Build- extended for the duration

Another quick update on the Short Sunderland Flying Boat and the C-47 Transport ...

I discovered that the cockpit flooring on the Sunderland didn't quite span all the way across to the other fuselage half , so I added some plastic strip to both fuselage insides so the floor would sit nicely .

I was also a bit concerned about the fuselage halves staying glued together without the use of clamps , the shape of the fuselage makes it difficult to place clamps anywhere .

So I decided to use superglue applied with toothpicks along the join , glueing about 2-3 inches at a time and holding the join closed for about 10 seconds each as I worked my way around the aircraft ...

There were no issue's with glueing the wings on the C-47 ...

So far there have been no fit issue's with the Italer C-47 Skytrain kit at all ;  

                            John .

I was alittle curious as to how the Williams Brothers C-46 Commando would go together ;

I started removing some of the parts from the sprue to airbrush interior green and decided to do a little cutting and filing as well.

You have to cut open the bottom of the center wing section to accommadate the landing gear struts , there are seperate landing gear doors supplied on the sprue ;

I did a dry fit of the fuselage halves and the wing sections to see if there is going to be any fit issue's ;

There will probably be a little bit of work to get the wings to fit nice and close to the fuselage !!

Looking through Squadron Signals C-46 Commando in Action book , it shows the bottom of the engine nacelle with the cowl flaps posed open , so I will cut mine for a slightly better look ;

All in all it doesn't look to difficult to get together , I'll airbrush the fuselage insides and cockpit pieces interior green next and see how things go from there .

                                   John .

Great work ALL!  I have been away for a little after finishing my 120mm figure, family things and work!

Was going to post pics of my Chosin dio, but friday had a setback with the M26A1 Pershing, something got 'accidently' spilled on it after I had primed it and now its a sticky mess...attempting clean-up to save what i can.

Meantime started on a KP 1/72 scale MIG-15. That I have pics to post tonight. Looks like a pretty simple build, and a nice break from the dio.

Holy cow, John...you've got a one-man group build going on here!!! There's some neat stuff on your bench! Keep the pics coming!

I picked up the 1/72 Special Hobby F-82G Twin Mustang Korean War ;

Included is a small PE set ;

Two underwing tanks along with the radar pod but no bombs or rockets included

Three squadron options on the decal sheet , FQ-383 , FQ-363 "Siamese Lady" , FQ-400 "Call Girl" ; 

I have the 1/72 Monogram F-82G Twin Mustang in the stash as well but it doesn't have korean War markings , so I'll use one of the squadron markings from the Special Hobby decal sheet . The Monogram F-82G has the option of rockets instead of the radar and under wing bombs , so I'll build one version of each .

                                John .

I picked this MIG-15 up for less than a cup of coffee, so decided to add it to the build.

Just started on it, not really that bad,,fit is actually pretty good.

Just have the interior primed right now.

And the builds keep rolling along! Helo, a C-46 and F-82..., Tonka a MiG-15... This GB is just too sweet in my eyes! Thanks for all the updates. I can't wait to see the new work here everyday! I guess I need to do the same on my part with my Centurion...

Well I have made some progress on the Banshee the last couple of days! I must say i can't remember having to go back and increase the paint coat so much. Could just be me of course! A lot of masking for the nose and leading edges of the wings as well! Overall I am pretty happy with the progress!. Any and all input is welcome!

1st coat of Tamiya Deep Sea Blue

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Let the masking begin!!

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.....and more masking!!

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Finished product of all that masking!!!!

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On of the issues with this kit: open canon and machine gun ports! I plan on adding some sprue to these areas.

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Well that's it for now. Thanks. More to come!

Travis

Travis, the F2H is coming along beautifully! I am looking forward to more progress pics.

Well today I resumed work on my Centurion. I created the electrical cable attachment points on the turret top for the smoke grenade launchers and attached the side stowage boxes. I also hollowed out the mounting brackets for the smoke grenade launchers changing them to the proper frame style rather than the solid style molded in the kit.

That banshees looking MINT, i like it. Decals arrived yesterday so hopefully my corsair will be in flyng condition soon. On a related note. does anyone know how to remove decals without damaging paint?

Clear tape applied directly to the decal and then pulled up will remove decals quite effectively... found that out the last time I used the stuff to remove liquid making agent....

thanks stik. ill try that tonight.

Nice work on the Banshee , Travis and Stik , your centurion turret is looking good

I've been doing some research on the F3D-2 Skyknight and picked up the Douglas F3D Skyknight book by Steve Ginter ;

There are lots of great pic's in the book , however sadly there are not that many close-up [walk a round] photos of the different aircraft systems , other than a few line drawings of the cockpit and this maintenance diagram ;

I would really like to do something similar with my build as in the pic above , I have plenty of ground crew and pilot figures to use ; Cutting open the speed [dive] brakes is straight forward , I even found some ammo box's to use in an open hatch just behind the cockpit , also cutting open some boarding steps on the starboard side of the fuselage and open the top of the canopy .

What I really would like to do is cut the nose cone off and have the AN/APQ-35 radar showing ...

I've had a bit of a search around Squadron.com and Hannants.co.uk for 1/72 resin radar sets . There are lots of resin radar's for other 1/72 aircraft but nothing for the F3D Skyknight  .

Does anyone know of similar resin radar set that might be suitable , I've become a little obsessed over this , spending the last few evenings searching the net into the wee hours

                                             John .

Well I had a great time considering I was working, but its nice to be back at the bench, a month without glue fumes is just too long.   Looks like you guys were quite busy while I was away.

I've got the basic decals on, and hope to get the lightning bolts added soon.

Aaron, that's pretty!

Cool, Aaron! My only complaint is you need more pictures!!

Looking good everybody!

I haven't made much progress on my Corsair other than putting the dull cote on it the other day.  I am itching to get to finish it off, but work and the wife have gotten in the way.  It is almost there.

Hopefully, I will have something to post in a few days.  Keep up the great work guys.

Cheers,

Greg

Everybodys looking awesome. I put the corsair aside again. im having trouble getting motivated on it. Working on a quick build for the NMF GB so hopefully be on to it next weekend. I must say im not overly keen on Eagle Strike decals. They seem to be a little thick and seem to have alot of clear film overlap around them. Wouldn't be an issue except 2 of the decals cover the entire vertical tail surfaces. Oh well. ill sort it soon.

Hi Mucker ,

The cockpit tub detail is absolutly awesome , well done Sir

Your hard work and effort has really paid off .

Very nice

                                      John .

I have started to cut out the parts for the F-86 tonight. It will be a slow build but hopefully not too long of one.

Here's an update on the 1/72 F4U-5N Night Fighter Corsair ;

The Revell F4U-5 Corsair kit arrived today , I bought the kit so I could use the cockpit tub , console and center drop tank on my High Planes F4U-5N Corsair ...

I've decided to use a lot more of the Revell kit , including the wheels , engine , radome ...

I then decided to just use the front fuselage section and wings and metal landing gear  from the High Planes kit and everything else will be the revell kit ...

It appears that this might work out okay , [I hope] , I'll glue the fuselage sections together next and give the cockpit tub and other interior parts a few coats of  paint .

                                     John .

I glued the High Planes resin front section to the Revell fuselage halves and taped them together for a dry test fit ;

I also cut a 3mm spacer from the High planes resin wing center section and glued it onto the Revell wings , as I thought about using the wings from the Revell kit as well ; I also taped them together for a dry test fit ...

Everything looks okay from the side ;

Underneath looks okay too ;

I guess I'll end up using almost 95% of the Revell F4U-5 kit than I originally planed , the scribing detail on the wings and fuselage piece's is a lot more prominent on the Revell kit .

It looks like everything will work out , so I'm happy

                              John .

Nice chop work on the Corsair, John! I'm not very good at "surgery", and I wish I had you skills as I try to fit the resin "E' wing onto my "F" variant Sabre fuselage.

Thank's Mucker .

I've also been messing around with the C-46 Commando , I decided to cut open both fuselage cargo doors and found a couple of support struts to use and I made two internal bulkhead pieces ;

The bulkhead parts were left over from Academy's B-17 kits , I added some plastic sheet to the bottom half to make them the correct size ;

I'll clean up the last of the putty and airbrush the interior pieces metalic gray

                                    John .

Mucker, sweet sabre pit.

John, you never cease to amaze me!

Tomorrow morning I will actually have the house to myself for a couple of hours.  Maybe, just maybe, I will be posting some completion pictures of the Corsair.  Since my major projects are too far along (and too fragile) to bring back and forth to work, I started something else.  I just started on the Monogram F-82G Twin Mustang.  I am hoping that somebody will release some additional decals for it, otherwise I will make it a generic one used in Korea.  It seems like a real nice little kit.  The detail and the fit (so far) are really good for a kit first released in 1973!  So far, I have just added some "gizmology" in the pilot's cockpit.  I am unsure if I will do the same in the radar/observer side.  When I seal it up and it makes a difference, I will.  I also drilled out the gun barrels.  Nowhere near what you guys are doing, though.

Any suggestions on the Twin Stang would be much appreciated!

Cheers,

Greg

Don't sell yourself short, Greg. What you've done in the cockpit is the core of modeling. You've gone from assembling a pre-formed plastic kit (which is me: an assembler) to taking your own materials and creating something, which is modeling (In my opinion, anyways).

I can't help you with the decals for the F-82...I don't think there's much out there. Have you tried flightdecs.ca? They usually have a ton of stuff.

The "office" of the Sabre looks stunning!

I have been making realy slow progress on the SAAF Sabre due to work load.When you work for yourself it can be a hassle sometimes LOL!

I have completed the assembly and sanding.I desided to not use the Academy supplied decals for the yellow wing and fuse bands.I am a little worried they will not conform to the fuse to well. So, I am painting them on and atleast I have managed to put the yellow on today.

I will then mask the yellow and put gloss black over the whole thing to give the silver a little more "feel"

Pix to follow

Theuns

I agree with mucker , the preliminary work on your twin stang is quite good Greg , I'll be watching your build progress as I have both the Monogram and Special Hobby twin Mustangs in the stash .

A bit more of an update on the F4U-5N Corsair Night Fighter ;

In the middle of masking and getting some of the interior parts ready to airbrush , I decide to cut the wing flaps and pose them in the drop position , I saw back on page 2 that simpilot was doing the same with his F4U-4B , so I copied his great work .

I also decided to remove part of the front resin engine cowl and cut the cowl flaps to pose them slightly open ;

The resin front section is a little thick especially around the cowl flaps , so I filed down the insides a little ;

I think it looks okay , I'm even thinking about a basic wing fold but I'm not sure if I can pull it off ???

                                  John .

Thanks Mucker, I appreciate it.  I am going to give flightdecs.ca a try.

Well, I was hoping to show y'all a completed Corsair, but I ran into trouble in the end.  I was using goo-gone to get some tape residue of the windscreen and it ate into it.  I think it was just the future it ruined.  I am soaking it in windex for now.  I ran out of flat coat and so did my LHS, so I couldn't finish the bomb and rocket.  I need to add aerials too.  I haven't mastered the skill of sprue stretching.....

With that and a little bit of touching up, and she'll be done!

Cheers,

Greg