Thanks! Funny, I found the bag of East Asian heads to use for the South Korean guy but not the African heads, and they should have been in the same box of figure parts!

I like the airbrush loaner idea. A couple of Grex's guys did a series of demos at the IPMS Nationals in Atlanta years ago which prompted me after trying to do some complex camo with the Paashe that just wasn't designed for such detail work to look up their website.

The diorama idea sounds great... of course the mssing bag of heads is a bummer... the carpet monster can not be that hungry, can it?

And yes I agree, that airbrushes are like pistols, in that they have to fit the user and their hand, preferences, technique, and style. One size does not fit all and what works for one does not work for the next person.

Our Grex is a interesting case. Grex is associated with a LHS for sales, and thru that shop a man from Grex came to our AMPS Chapter meeting and gave a presentation of their various airbrushes. Afterwards, one airbrush was loaned to us to rotate around each of the members for a month or two to take home a try. A very good sales/marketing technique if you ask me. After using the loaner, we ar supposed to pass it on to the next recipient and say a few words about our experience and impressions with the airbrush. But I still do want to try some enamel paints with it before I put it away for good so that I can give a more well rounded evaluation.

Interesting, different strokes for different folks I guess! Had a Badger 350 for years and thought it was ok then upgraded to a 150 and hated it, pain to clean and the needles constantly were getting bent. Went over to a Paashe and loved it but it won't give me a fine spray pattern so I picked up a Grex XG for detail work and now use it for most everything. Never used an Aztek or Thayer & Chandler though.

Still plugging away on the M40, did get the gun mounted though. Sprayed the tires/tyres on the Jeep and put down a primer coat. So far moving along well. I'm going to try to get a small dio built with the Jeep and the M40. Thinking of doing the Jeep up with three MPs and a ROK translator riding in her. Was going to start on the figures but I'd ordered a set of extra African heads from Hornet to do some of the soldiers as black guys and now can't find the little bag of heads! Guess I'll have to start on the white guys first.

Yes, I just used to Grex for applying an overall coat of Tamiya Aluminum on a F-100 that I am working on. I am not favorably impressed by this airbrush so far. It is ok, but I had better results out the gate with my old Badger 350 and my Promodeler/Thayer & Chandler Vega 600. I will try a bit more work and then return it to AMPS chapter in a few weeks to pass on and make my remarks on it.

I thin my Gunze acrylics 50/50 with isopropyl alcohol and also Tamiya acrylics 50/50 with Tamiya's arcylic thinner . I only have the Badger 155 Anthem airbrush with a Sparmax compressor . the compressor is set at about 10 psi and the first two coats of paint are alway's 'very' lightly applied  . seems to work out okay for me . I have a couple of those Aztek airbrushes but they play-up a lot and won't allow any paint through . Pitty , the Aztek airbrush was great for little touch ups and the like but these day's I'm just using the badger .

John .

Yes, sometimes those little diversions work out just fine... Regarding the Grex, the closest thing I have to a quick fix aside from opening up the paint volume more is to keep a small amount of thinner handy along with a  micro brush to dip and daub it on the needle when it stops up. My next Polly Scale usage will be with my own older Promodeler/Thayer & Chandler airbrush, rather than the Grex loaner.

Nice work SP, I get some drying on the tip with Polly Scale and MM Acrylic with my GREX but not to the point of being a big issue, wish I had some trick to tell you that would clear up your problems.

Thanks, I hadn't intended on the Jeep but I had to work over the weekend and brought the kit with me, after three days I had the whole thing assembled! Nice change from the slow going on other stuff.

A minor update with my H-13. I got another coat of OD onto the stretcher shelves and some of teh fiddly bits that have yet to be attached. There certainly seems to be issues with Polly Scale and the Grex airbrush. Even with it really thinned (4 parts paint to 1 part thinner)  and spraying very thin transluscent layers, the paint was still drying in the tip, clogging, and not co operating. However this is not the case with Tamiya paint and the Grex. Too bad that Tamiya has a weak color selection (and an upcoming price increase ).

Ok, I will add the Jeep. Tamiya kits are perfect for that motivational boost to get you back on track. But hey, I think that Patton will rally be sweet when it's done. Looks real good to me now!

SP: Could you put me down with a Tamiya 1/35th Jeep as well? I need something simple to get me motivated again so I grabbed the Jeep out of the stash. It's the newer kit and I can't recommend it enough! While dealing with fussy fit and injection pin holes galore in the AFV Club M40 the Tamiya Jeep just falls together. After a few days of work the kit is pretty much assembled. I'm going to try to get the primer coat shot on her soon and some photos posted. 

BTW: Yes the M46 is the DML/Dragon kit. Some may remember I started on her months ago and when I ripped a bunch of PE off handling her I had to either shove the kit back in the box or toss her across the room  I think the PE can be salvaged. Funny I don't mind doing stuff no matter how complex or hard but I hate to redo stuff for the second or third time. When it's fixed I want it to stay fixed. Guess it's a character flaw 

SP: She looks good, and yeah that tail boom looks like a nightmare to get everything aligned halfway straight. I know what you mean about using old paint, sometimes it seems to be both too thick and too thin at the same time.

Though I'll warn you about the GREX, keep using it and you'll end up buying one of your own! I've used five different airbrushes and the GREX is far and away my favorite.

John: Sorry, I don't have a clue but the black looks 'right' to me!  

I found a pic on google images of the F2H-2P cockpit

And I failed to read the Airwaves PE instruction sheet correctly as it states in section 2 that the cockpit is 'predominantly black'

So , black it is for both ...

John .

I agree with Tony's thoughts and great work so far Stik .

I was wondering what would be the correct colour for the cockpit interior on both the F2H-2P Banshee and the F9F-2P Panther . Airfix suggest black for the Banshee cockpit and Hasegawa offer light gray as the interior colour ? I'm not sure what to do ... Perhaps Black on the tub and seat and interior green for the fuselage inside walls . What do you guy's think .

John .

With all that tail boom frame work, that thing looks like hard work. Good job.

cheers

Tony

Thanks Draken, that looks like an earlier variant of the H-13 with the single fuel tank like on the MRC kit instead of the twin saddle tanks as on the Revell kit. But if I need a look, I will refer back to your pics. Thanks again

Gamera, I think it was a combination of a bit of learning curve with the Grex, and some issues with the paint itself. The paint I am using is one of my older bottles of Polly Scale, and I in the past I have had issues with older bottles of different colors. We shall see during the next session.

Well after doing the OD today and having a look at the stretcher "shelves", I realized that I could install them without interfereing with any future work and make it easier to paint them... so I did. The cockpit bubble it just placed on for the pics and not glued on yet in case you are wondering about the gaps there.

anyways here are a few shots of the stretcher shelves in place...

and a close up of one

Thats all for my H-13 for today/tonite here...

Heya Stick!

In case you weren't aware, I've got some detail shots of a flying H-13 on my photo bucket page:

http://s1193.photobucket.com/albums/aa345/the_tunnan/Aircraft%20and%20equipment%20-%20Photos/?action=view&current=PICT0356.jpg

Hope that this helps! 

Thanks SP, I'm sorry about putting aside the M46 but I was so ticked off at the PE I had to shove the thing back in the box and walk away. I'm not using any PE on the M40 except the engine screens that came with the kit.

Nice work on the H-13. I've been using a GREX airbrush for years now and am very happy with mine. Is it just a learning curve there with a loaner brush or is it acting up on you?

Gamera, I put you down for the the M46 and the M40 on the roster Just call me hopeful

This morning airbrushed on a new shade of OD on my H-13. Polly Scale US Olive Drab, which to my eye looks much better than their ANA-319 shade which was too light and too green. This one is richer and browner But I gotta say that the Polly Scale paints and the loaner Grex airbrush were not the best combo... It took me twice as long timewise during this session as anticipated to get this much sprayed on....

John: Nice find there on the decals, and the piping you've added to your scratch-built engines looks good! They're really starting to look like turbojets now.

SP: I promised myself that I wouldn't start on anything else this year esp with Tigerman's Big Kitty GB coming up so soon. Still I cannot help myself, I've gotten about half way though completing the AFV Club M40 SPG. If you would put me down with that, I'm building her in a Korean War scheme. And I pulled the M46 out the other day and looked her over. I think I can salvage the mucked up PE and hopefully get her done too before much longer.  

Thank's for updating the front page Stik .

I haven't had much bench time these past couple of day's but the Steve Ginter "Early Banshees" book arrived late yesterday and it's chock full of awesome diagrames and photo's of the engine and camera bay section for the 2P version which I'm building

Last night I started adding little bits of plastic and wiring to one of the engines

I haven't done anything like this before , so It's been a little difficult going , especially trying to find suitable bits and pieces to use to make the engine look something like the real thing . I also made some little attachment arms for the Banshee wing fold .

With the F9F-2P Panther , I've only cut and fitted some sheet plastic to the rear tail section and two pieces just aft of the cockpit

A seller on ebay had these great decals for the F2H Banshee and I bought them .

My timing could not have been better as a number of Airfix and MPC F2H Banshee kits have come up for auction these past few days on ebay and I bought and won 5 more kits . Looks like I'll be building a fleet of Korean War F2H-2B/2P Banshee's

Hopfully I can make some more progress this weekend .

John .

John I added your three most recent builds to the front page.Very nice work (as usual!)

Draken, your Thunderjt is looking very swee. I cant wait to see the finished build.

As for me, I pulled the H-13 out and have been fine tuning some parts and will have another go at the OD base color soon

Good luck with the SPAD John, it looks liek a handful to me.

Cheers

Tony

John: wow that's a limited run kit alright!

And oh no worries about the M40 mold marks, they're easy to fix it's just you're putting parts together and then BLAM you have to stop, put some putty on the part, and then wait all night for it to dry to sand it. Makes for slow progress. I've tried using superglue as instant gap and hole filler but I've never warmed to the stuff. My only complaint is why put the marks on the visible side rather than the back of the part?

Cliff

Cliff and Andy , thank's for the tip on where to sorce some ground crew figures . Those Priesler figures look pretty good and I'll check some of my Airfix kits and see what's inside those box's .

I mentioned a couple of pages back that I ordered the Magna Models AD-4 Skyraider resin kit

It just arrived along with some Airwaves PE .

Overall it doesn't look too bad a kit

The Falcon Vacuform belly radome I already had put together and I'll use this to build the AD-4W Version

The PE should help spruce things up a lot

Cliff , sorry to hear about all those mold marks on the outside of many of the M40 parts . Stuff like that can really turn you off building the kit .

John .

The Airfix WWII USAAF groundcrew set works out great!  There's a maintenance stand in the Revell P-70/A-20 kit with a figure, and the ground crew and tug in the Revell F-16A kit is appropriate as well.  Just cut the sound suppressors off of the ears of one of the figures.  The Hasegawa USAF groundcrew is actually okay for some figures, and some Airfix kits come with ground grew figures both WWII land or sea based!  I think it's one of the Dauntless kits that comes with the deck handlers.

John: Great work there! Love the engine you concocted for the Banshee, good idea and really nice work.

Preisler of Germany has a line of 1/72nd figures you might be able to use, they used to have a great set of USAAF ground crew, WW2 but they ought to work for Korea. Set PR72502 about half way down. Some of the others might be usable too. Never ordered from this company but I'm sure someone can get them in Australia.

I'll see about getting some photos of the M40 up when I get more done. Really nice kit so far but AFV Club kits are well.... fussy. And injection pin marks galore. Not that I'm trashing AFV Club but Tamiya puts the marks on the side of the parts that won't show, AFV Club in some cases puts the marks on the outside of parts with the smooth side hidden!  Really don't understand that. 

I guess I'll be riding on Andy's coat tails a little , as I'll do a dio with my F2H-2P and F9F-2P Recon aircraft as well .

I did some preliminary cutting with the Panther today

It appears I've made the cuts in the right places as the resin bits are fitting quite nicely ;

Camera nose ...

I borrowed the crane from the AJ-1 Savage dio and after fitting all the little bits of resin on I set the engine up with some metal chain (thanks to Pepper Kay) and hooked her up to the crane

There's a nice resin exhuast piece for the tail section

Hopfully my dio will look something like this next pic , which Pepper Kay kindly sent me a while back

I'll need to make a support trolley for the tail section of the F9F-2P panther to sit on but so far everything has quite well .

Amazon books had the Steve Ginter 'Early Banshee' book and I ordered a copy . I'm hoping for some great pic's on the Camera housing and nose section and some detail engine shots . The book should arrive this Thursday as I paid for the express delivery option .

I'm happy with my progress on both builds so far , looking at Andy's dio I'll have to search around for some more ground crew figures and 44 gallon drums for my scene as well .

John .

Andy the F-84 dio is coming along really well , i can't wait to see the finished pic's .

Cliff , I would like to see the M40 build progress , you should post some pic's buddy .

As for me I decided to make a start on a couple of Photo Recon birds using the Airfix F2H-2P banshee and the Hasegawa F9F-2P Panther kits

Airwaves make a nice PE set for a wing fold for the Hasegawa F9F-2 Panther along with a resin  photo recon nose , CMK have a nice resin engine for the Panther as well .

I wanted to fold the wings on the F-2H-2P Banshee as well , so I decided to start with Aifix kit first seeing there was going to be a fair bit of scratch building involved .

Here's the Banshee wings cut in half along with the rear wing flaps

I found some nice reference pic's on the net of the F2H-2P Banshee which are helping a lot

The lower wing flaps fit around part of the rear engine section

I cut my wing flaps as the in the pic above

Next I decided to make a couple of engines for the Banshee and I cobbled together these bits and pieces

It seems to look the part and will probably look better when painted with some metalic gray and a little wiring added

Finding reference pic's on the net of the engine hasn't been easy and there's not much info in Squadrons Banshee in action book on the F2H-2P , particualary nice engine pic's , so a lot of my scratch building is guess work

I'm also thinking of opening up the camera bay section on the nose of the Banshee but again good quality pic's of the camera's and their mount is difficult to find

Well that it's so far , I'm thinking of leaving one of the engines out sitting on a stand , depicting an engine overhaul . I guess I'll have to cut some more of the lower wing section panels where the engine would fit . Am I right in thinking that the engine would fit in place from underneath the wing ???

John .

Nice work Draken Andy, almost there not much left to go!

The decals on the the F-84 look good to me.

SP: BTW Said I wouldn't start anything new but I got bored and started work on the M40. She's at maybe 30% right now. Don't know if I should toss her in here or not. 

I'm danged near finished with the Thunderjet diorama.  If you don't recall, I'm using the Tamiya 1/72 "Thunderbirds" kit, Verlinden WWII aircraft Maintenance Area, Hasegawa Fuel Truck, and Airfix WWII USAAF Groundcrew.  I had taken pictures on Friday and forgot to post them, so you're getting a whole lot at once!

I'm not officially done, I forgot to paint one dood's head, need to touch up one of the bomb carts, and need a fuel hose for the truck to the dood on the wing.

\

I used Aeromaster Thunderjets over Korea Pt II for the decals, supplemented by the Academy kit decals for stencils.  I'm hoping that the Academy decals will at least stay in place until I leave Korea in a month and a half.  I hand built the maintenance stand from Evergreen plastic and added some .50 cal boxes and 50 Gal. drums from Milicast.  One thing that I'm kinda pleased with myself about is the weathering on the fuel truck; I included the spillage down the sides of the tanks.

Now I just have to find some black wire that's the sufficient od to use as fuel hose...