Well, for once I'm running ahead of schedule for a change! Sanded out the rough areas and repainted. Then I pulled off the tape and no overspray except a little bit where the booms join the wing! Only big problem is one big chip in her underbelly. Went ahead and put some thin white putty on the chip and hopefully will be able to sand it down and get some paint on it soon. Maybe by Christmas I can have the gloss coat down and start slapping some decals on her!

I like the dark grey and white scheme, I think she'll look sharp once the decals are down.

Gamera, great looking little beastie there! Way to go!

Here is the second model for this Group Build I completed today.

This is my Revell 1/72 scale F-9F Panther done up in Marine Corps colors:






I painted it up with a spraycan of Navy Blue from Tamiya that I got from a raffle. Decals were a bit tough to deal with silvering on me when they shouldn't have. I coated them extra thick with Future to hopefully eliminate the silvering and keep them on.

Thanks all for looking, comments are welcome.

Gamera -- great going, she's going to be a real looker!

Duke -- you tamed an old kit and made it look sweet! Congrats on an extra finish. Page 1 is updated at this time.

I'll have to pop off the Malcolm Hood of the Meteor, I fitted it without my magnifying specs last night and today noticed it was off-true. GRRR... And no Eduard masks yet, hopefully tomorrow.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Hey all  some great work going on in here

Duke, very nice work on the Panther, love the paintjoband what a great subject to model, reminds me of that Bridges at Toko Ri movie

Pepper, I have a real softspot for NMF and yours is outstanding, well done sir

Gamera, As usual buddy your build is looking great, you certainly have preshading wired...looking forward to seeing more mate

Mike, Very interesting this Meteor of yours...I've had my eye on the Tamiya kit for a while now, Tamiya+NMF+RAAF how can i resist that combinationNot much to report on the 262, the weather here is not letting me paint much lately but i hope to get some pics up soon

Julez -- I can thoroughly recommend the Tamiya Meteor, but there are a few bits that can bite you if you're unwary. I'm writing up these aspects as I encounter them. My fingers are crossed for masks tomorrow and paint the day after, then enough air in my cylinder to put the paint on over the holidays. The national insignia decals will arrive sometime in January, so I might hold off applying any of them until then, in case I find them thick or unwieldy. Just the serials and stencils from the kit, really...

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Mike, I'm paying close attention to your build to get a good idea on how it builds up. i like the exposed engines very much and would probably leave one open if i build it...I've just checked out Redroo's site and found a couple of nice decal sheets so i may give myself a Meteor for Xmas... What scheme are you going with for your build?

Thanks guys! I'm on the jazz now so hopefully I can get the chip repaired and keep up the momentum.

Duke: The Panther looks great! Love the old blue Navy planes, I guess the modern grey ones are ok but I've always thought the blue looked so cool. And with the white and the red accents you added she looks even better!

Julez and Mike: I built the Meteor kit some years ago. Mine was the one that came packaged with the buzz bomb. Built her straight out of the box and it was one of the best fitting kits I've ever built. Only real problem is unlike Mike I relied on the suppied weight and didn't add any more. It's enough to get to sit on her nose wheel but only barely. I used the kit decals and they worked fine. The Tamiya decals are thick but I've never had a problem with them using the MicroScale system.

Hi Julez -- I'm building YD-H, EE235, the camo option from the kit decals (I'll do the all-white bird if I build another). I heard somewhere that no decals for the F.3 had been released yet -- if Redroo have some options that would be great, I'll have to scan their lists. The kit certainly builds up nicely, and if you can nail those iffy bits then you'll get great parts fit. I have a couple of small seams outboard of the intakes to do something about, and a line on the underside parallel to the centre seam to rescribe because it vanished in dressing that joint, but that's about it.

Cheers, hope you do this bird justice, M/TB379

Gamera -- phew, that's what I wanted to hear! I wondered if I was overdoing it with the extra weight but when reviewers said it was barely enough I decided to add more. The model feels so heavy in your hand as you build, I was worried the weight would cause seams to pop, but nothing has given way so far... I'm glad the decals are fine, the instrument decals took four coats of MicroSol to lay down into the detail, then the clear over the dials just about made the instrument detail disappear... Then in the pit it's pretty much invivisble anyway, so you end up wondering why you bother! Because it's there...! If the fuselage roundels had been in reg I'd not have needed to order AMs at all, but if I do build another, given that the all-white plane had its stencils painted over, I can use insignia from the Eagle Strike sheet, codes from the sheet in this kit and leave the sheet from a second kit untouched -- always good for reselling on eBay!

Cheers, M/TB379

Ahhh Mike your right all the Aussie decals are for a later mk, it has a completely different tail secton, bummer

Hi Julez -- too bad! If you have a particular aircraft in mind you can probably assemble markings frrom sheets of serials and codes, but that's a fair investment too.

On the bummer sidee of things, my big package arribed and it seems I wasn't able to get Meteor masks, they were out of stock... GRRR

Christmas eve down here, last shopping day, must ring the LHS about paint...

Mike/TB379

Hi guys. Sorry for the dumb question, but till when will this GB last? I have just started the cockpit of a 1/32 Trumpeter MiG 17 in Mozambique markings.

Theuns

Hi Theuns -- it was due to end in a week but anybody still building is welcome to keep going til their project is done. If you can get her done in a reasonable time you're very welcome to join the crew!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Hi Mike,thanx for the invite mate! I doubt if it can be done in the next 6-8 weeks so me joining seems unlikely

I will however post a pic of the Mig's "office" when I am done with it next week just for fun if it is OK.

Theuns

Wow!  Very nice work here.  I am somewhat jealous of your time to work.  Seeing all of this wonderful work really makes me miss my Sea Venom but I'll just live through you guys for now.  I would really like to see the P-59 finished in orange, the he-280 is intriguing as well. 

I LOVE the Sea Fury.  I am normally not a fan of pre-shading or dark panel accents but it works well on these early gray Navy jets, they did tend to get a bit dirty and it made the panels stand out much more.

Great work from you all.  I hope to get hooked up with a hobby club when I get to the sandbox and get something done.

Theuns -- by all means post here, we'd love to see that MiG come together.

Some progress, I had hoped to be onto paint today as the weather was great for laying down some enamel outdoors, but masking has taken most of this quiet day after Christmas in the Great Southern Land. I wasn't able to get the precut masks for this one any sooner than the end of January, and that's way beyond my own end date, so I did a from-scratch job, not my first choice but what the hey.

First I outlined the canopy areas in thin strips:

Then filled them in with broader strips:

Next I outlined the nose gear well with tape to preserve the prepainted edge:

After this, the nose well and intakes were filled with damp tissue, and the location points for the main gear doors were protected with thin strips of tape:

And in this final shot you can see all my masking options on the underside, including some tiny balls of blutack pressed into the receivers for the underside running lights. There's another under the port wing treated the same way:

Now -- I must decide what, if anything, to do about the slight mismatch on some seams around the engine intakes caused by the fractional misalignment of the top and bottom wing halves, and whether I'm going to rescribe that lost line under the tail parallel to the joint. If I can see to these points then I'll be clear to wash the beast and get the underside grey onto her probably tomorrow.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Hi all, here's today's action:

I looked at scribing that missing line under the rear fuselage but made a bit of a mess and knew when to cut my losses. I puttied and polished said mess and called it quits, including those gaps near the engines, they're pretty small, my fault for misaligning the wing halves, and with the panel lines accented hopefully hey won't look too far from baseline.

I washed and air-dried the model, then sprayed the cockpit grey over the masked canopy, in acrylic:

Then I mixed a yellow equivalent to RAF Trainer Yellow by mixing 90% XF-3 Yellow to 10% XF-64 Redbrown and sprayed the wing leading edge stripes -- they are supplied as decals but I think paint will look a lot better.

If I had Tamiya Sky I would be spraying the fuselage band too, but I don't and tomorrow is a bank holiday too... GRR.

More as the action happens!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Hi All:

I finally finished the F-84G Thunderjet ...

The kit is a 1997 re-issue Revell in 1/48 scale ... good kit - good fit - good decals and instructions ...

Here are a couplea photos of the finished product ...

So, I'll call it done in the nick of time ...

Thanks,

pepper

  I think hte B/W shows the detail much better ...

Mike: Looking good! Time to start slappin' paint!

Pepper: Congrads, great looking model and just under the finish line- POW!

BTW: Used Future on the Vampy and it ran giving me a couple of big drips I had to sand off. I messed up the paint by sanding down to the plastic  but was able to just spot spray the areas and have coated her with Model Master gloss acylic. So now she's a sparkly Vampire! (sorry couldn't help myself there).

Started decaling last night, unlikely to make the deadline but shouldn't be too far over.

Gamera

Pepper: Congrads, great looking model and just under the finish line- POW! 

Thanks for the compliment ... wasn't sure how large a picture to post, so after taking them from my camera, I re-sized them ...

Suggestions on Img size, anyone ?? ...

I  put all my clear parts in a shallow dish, then pour the Future to cover them completely  and let them soak for ten minutes or so ...

Than I take each piece out with a needle point tweezer and hold it over a paper towl to let excess run off the part ...

Using the tweezers, I hold the part at about a 45 degree angle so the excess comes to the bottom of the part, where I then wick it off with another paper towel ... when done, I have a plastic, covered box - bought at the grocery store - that I put all the parts in, placing them on the piece of waxed paper in the bottom of the box ... pop the lid on and put the box on the shelf to let the Future cure ...

One  last thing here - I have a small hole drilled in one corner of the lid - just to let any fumes out as the Future dries, degasses and sets up ... this way, I have no problem with too much Future and keeping them covered protects them from getting those nasty little dust pieces stuck on the clear parts ...

More often than not, I won't even open the box up until it's time to paint the cnopy and install all the clear parts ... that's what works for me and I don't have the 'run' problems mentioned in your post ...

OK guys - hope to see all the 'finishers' and 'near-finishers' posted on one page after the close of this GB ... a good way to 'share and compare' without having to scroll back and forth through a gazillion pages :-) ... 

My thanks to one and all for all your contributions ... I've learned bunches and will start using all the tips and hints with my next build ...

Thanks again,

pepper

Pepper Kay -- excellent finish, I agree the B&W shot is very evocative. Lovely work, thanks for letting us see it, and thanks for a great Future tute! Page 1 is updated, that's eight completions.

Gamera -- hoping to see her soon, buddy, yours and mine will be ten completions from twenty entries, and a fifty percent completion rate is pretty good!

Cheers all, Mike/TB379

Thunderbolt379

Pepper Kay -- excellent finish, I agree the B&W shot is very evocative. Lovely work, thanks for letting us see it, and thanks for a great Future tute! Page 1 is updated, that's eight completions.

Mike, I'll post up a couplea more of the B / W sots ... they really do look neat, I think ...

You're welcome re Future ... I find that's what works the best for me, having made most of the mistakes one can make :-) ... I've never airbrushed it though, feeling that you must work too quickly shooting amoniated water through your airbrush immediately after using it ... so far, I've used Future only for clear parts ...

Anytime I paint, I always add some gloss or satin to the mix ... that takes care of glossing the paint for decal application without the hassle of shooting Future ... works for me, anyway ...

Many thanks for hosting this GB ... it's been a pleasure to be a part of it ...

pepper

Pepper: The photo size is great, large enough to see the detail but not too big.

Thanks for the advice on using Future on canopies. I've been dipping them in it but I really like your idea of using the box to keep them clean.

My problem was I've been using Future instead of gloss clear coat paint. Normally it works fine airbrushed on the model but sometimes it wants to run when I apply too much too fast. I think I'm going to going to be using more acrylic paint for the gloss from now on, somehow it doesn't run like the Future will.

Gamera

Pepper: The photo size is great, large enough to see the detail but not too big.

Thanks for the advice on using Future on canopies. I've been dipping them in it but I really like your idea of using the box to keep them clean.

My problem was I've been using Future instead of gloss clear coat paint. Normally it works fine airbrushed on the model but sometimes it wants to run when I apply too much too fast. I think I'm going to going to be using more acrylic paint for the gloss from now on, somehow it doesn't run like the Future will.

Future works great on all clear parts ... it hads sparkle to any of them and another benefit it that it adds a clear coat of hard, vinyl wax ... helps to protect clear parts when your mask 'em off, paint and then fiddle around getting the masking tape or liquid off ...

I've read of exactly the difficulty you talk about - 'wants to run' in several articles ... it's not tricky to use, just a wee bit different ... but, I guess I'm too lazy to use it to gloss coat ... as i said, I put the gloss right in the cover coats, so the airplane, tank, ship or ?? is ready to decal with no further steps needing to be taken ...

pepper

I'm seeing some great planes with some great progress gang! I love this subject!

With Christmas behind us I hope to actually get more time at the bench now so I am back on the Heinkel HE 280. As a reminder this is the HUMA 1/72nd scale kit.

Here are the spartan kit pieces for the cockpit OOB.

I cut off that "pad" (bump?) on the rear bulkhead and then added a front bulkhead as a view block although I'm not sure if it would have mattered? Also threw in a couple of "button batteries" over the nose gear for weight.

That allowed me to put the fuselage halves together which was a story in itself. Besides the warping I had to pick and choose which panel lines from one side to the other I wanted to mate up since it wouldn't be possible for all of them to! LOL Some gap filling CA and moving clamps along as I went got that done.

You can still see mismatches in the area of the cockpit opening at both front and back but I'll clean those up. A light sanding was also needed ALL OVER because the surface almost looked like the molds had a dusting of dirt or debris which became part of the injection casting? But all of these things add up to the "charm" I expect from such kits and that includes old Matchbox and Airfix offerings as well. I still love them for the subject matter and even the challenge they present. Add to that the fact you can usually pick them up cheap and I just sum it up as FUN.

This plane had the first documented use of an ejection seat in flight when a test pilot punched out after a prototype's engines (it had been in tow) fired up but the control surfaces were iced. I'm gonna see what I can do to the plastic rendering in order to pay more tribute to this fact.

Hi gents.

I am not in this GB as there is no way I could finnish in time, but would like to share my latest build just for fun.

It is a 1/32 Trump MiG-17 I used as a basis to do the plane used by Lt. Adreano Bomba of the Mozambique AF to defect to South Africa with in the early 80's

The kit has some issues like the two sulpied windshields that are bothe totally incorrect for this plane, not inlet air duckting and a very basic cockpit.

I had ony one pic og the cockpit that didn't show all the detail, so I had to thumbsuck some of it.I added some hoses, cables and lines.The PE harnass came from the spares bin.The cockpit actually looks less bare in real scale, the pix show off all the mistakes

I had to cut up the 2 windshields to try and make one that is more acurate, allot of cleaning up will be recuired to make it look nice again.

Some stunning work on this GB

Theuns

MrSquid: She's gonna be extra work but worth it. Always great to see something different!

Theuns: Wow, nice looking cockpit! Sorry don't see your 'mistakes' it looks sharp to me.

Gamera,

 That's kind of how I look at it. Besides enjoying the challenge of sprucing up a spartan kit I'll invest a lil work in order to obtain a subject that you don't get to see too often.

And speaking of that- I added side consoles along with the rails which the ejection seat rides. All from scraps of styrene sheet.

Nice work, Mr Squid! You're taming this beast admirably!

Some progress occuring, I finally got out to the LHS for some Sky and applied it earlier, photo tonight, possibly with some more masking done. I really am up against the camo colours now!

Cheers, M/TB379

Time to start cluttering up the office:

Fashioned a joystick with weapons trigger and boot, some "panels" , throttles and such just to busy up the consoles and a hand crank wheel for the canopy. Prototype photos were hard for me to find to see the actual details so I just went with stuff to give the feeling of what might have been.