Green Tracker,

Nice looking cat you have there!

Trey,

Coming along nicely buddy!

nice kitty !!!

Trey.. looking cool.. !

Ken  pics are better,the Cat came out great and nice touch with the jeep. Would love to see more pics from different angles!

Still waiting on some a/m interior parts so I started the engine nacelles. Again a sharp fresh blade is a must.

I left the halves connected for a better chance of getting a uniform level surface while block sanding,180 grit cut it nicely.

Then they were seperated and glue tabs added

Next the front of the nacelle was cut free and very carefully sanded level,also trimmed and cleaned up the intake openings

Glue tabs were added to the front along with some toothpick ends to help alignment

There is going to be a lot of tedious fine sanding and filling to get them right but here they are so far

Hi,

I took new pics of the Black Cat PBY and added a Navy Jeep. hope you all like it.

I replaced the pics, read up ^

Ken

Greg, looking very nice !!

love to see the PBY not blurry..

Green tracker from what I can see in the blurry pics it looks nice ,try backing away from the subject a tad.

The office is painted and except for the seats ready to go,still waiting for some a/m seatbelts to arrive so I'm going to skip ahead and tackle the much dreaded engine nacelles

blurry pix!

Hi everyone,

I finished the PBY Black Cat

Hope you all like it. I bought Hasagawa's Jeep to go with it. Maybe I'll continue and build a diorama for them.

At first i thought the jeep looked too tiny along side the PBY, (they are the same scale 1-48) but then I stopped to think about the size of the PBY. It's wingspan is 104 feet x a length of  63 ft 10 7/16 in.

I think these look better.

Greg looking forward to seeing the badge and the Meteor. I got a neat little window rattler at a garage sale for my man cave and although it does'nt get really 'cold' it knocks the nasty down enough to paint. Go 220 if you can the 110 units will run your bill up.

I started the Do 217 with as usual the office. The replacement nose is of course vac formed so some care and a fresh blade were a must

Test fitting and retest fitting sanding here and there to get a good fit

The Koster kit requires cutting a part of the fuse away,seems to me it could've been left the other way around but  that would have left off the spent shell ejector ports in the vacum formed part so I do get why they did it that way.

The Koster conversion would have you glue the nose halves on to the fuselage at this point ,however I prefer joining the nose halves then adding the assembly later to assure better alignment of the panel line details. I also added tabs for a better glue joint

The Port side office detail is completely replaced by the Koster kit ,the only trouble here was getting the vac formed part to fit the contour of the interior. I used lots of clamps and ca and was able to coax it into place

both interior halves ready for paint,nose cones are just taped in place

John, Trey, and Stage Left, thanks for the compliments.  Especially coming from such great modelers as yourselves!

John, that is another cool sheet.  That is one that Wolfpak is out of.  That is great that you sourced some from Fantasy.  I saw on Wolfpak's site, that they released of couple of new sheets.  Nothing up my alley, but really cool nonetheless.  I like the bat insignia.  The VMFA 242's F/A-18D on the Cripes/Marines sheet has a cool bat logo too.  I have the decals to do an A-6A from the "Bats", and a Fuj Intruder to put them on, well, some day anyways.

As for the Meteor, I washed it and left it to dry when I went to work a couple of days ago.  I am working a double shift, so I haven't been home to start it.  Unfortunately, it is supposed to go back into the 100's here again.  I need to air condition my garage, so I can paint whatever the weather.....

Keep up the great stuff guys!

Cheers,

Greg

ps- I am working on a couple of ideas for the NF "Ace" badge.  Hopefully, a couple of proposals for your review in a couple of days.

Excellent work on the P-70 Greg

I look forward to seeing the NF-13 Meteor come together , especially seeing how I have 6 of them in the stash .

I was looking around Fanatasy Printshop decals again and came across some markings for a C-123K Provider ...

I don't know how I missed seeing earlier in the week when I was first looking on their site , anyway there are some nice markings for a black/dark gray AH-6 , MH-47E Chinook and MH-60L Blackhawk helicopters as well .

Also a MC-130H with a "Bat" insignia .....very cool

I'm quite happy about finding official C-123K 'Lamp Lighters' markings and I have kits in the stash to build using the other markings provided on the Wolf Pack Sheet 72-022

Again , nice work on the P-70 .

                                       John .

Greg congrats the P-70 is finally complete, and it was worth the wait it looks awesome!

Greg, congratulations on finishing the P-70. You've got a good-looking build out of what sounded like a bit of a tough kit. I really like the way the weathering came out also.

Thanks Hercmech, I appreciate it.

Trey, I better get cracking.  That looks like an interesting project.  I have thought about using vacu-form conversions before, but have chickened out.  I am interested to see how that goes.  Any pointers you can send our way will be greatly appreciated. 

While I wait for the parts from Hannant's (actually, permission from the wife to place an order), I am going to start on what should be a simpler project, a Meteor NF 13 in 1/72.  The old Matchbox one, with the Airwaves pe set.

Cheers,

Greg

Nice job on the weathering Greg. I am working on a Tiger Meet A7 that is black and it is a pain in the butt to weather so my hats off to you.

Hello all, I am pretty much finished with my P-70.  One of the pitfalls of dragging out a build as long as I do, is that I end up losing stuff.  I lost one of the radar aerials, and mv lenses for the landing lights.  The lenses are easily replaced at my LHS, but I will have to order the aerials from either Owl or Hannants.  I apologize for the dark photos.  I get them either too bright or too dark.  Well anyways, here it is.

Cheers,

Greg

Trey,

You are putting us mere mortals to shame.

Looks like it will build into a nice looking kit.

Hey Greg get that Ace badge ready ! I'm pulling way out of my comfort zone with the next one a Do217N2 Koster conversion of the Revell D0217E-4.

the kit lay out

and the Koster bits

with any luck this will be the end result

heres the real one

Wow, great job STFD637! Love those crazy Luftwaffe camo schemes! And I think it's amazing what you guys do with those complex radar ariels on the nose, I'd have broken them off multiple times till they ended up eaten by the carpet monster.

Thanks guys. Yeah I fish a lot so there is always fishing line of different diameters and strength.

Stage Left:  The landing light was a big bummer. I have several Italeri kits in the stash and it seems to me it is just a matter of which mold they copy (i.e. Tamiya. Zvezda, Testors) on how the kit looks. Some have nice recessed lines and others have raised. Another thing I found was the decal sheet is missing a decal for the "rescue" hatches on the fusilage sides behind the cockpit. Instead they gave me an extra set of tank markings in the area where the other marking should have been.

Greg: No we are a Metro area with some wildland/urban interface issues (especially lately). I spent 4 hours of my last shift driving up and down I-75 with 5 other engines running between a brush fire in North Port and a Possible tornado in Naples. We are in between Naples and Tampa.....just past that imaginary line where it goes from hot (Tampa/Sarasota area) to Damn HOT!!!! (here). Greatest job in the world. I moved from California to here about 7 years ago.

Thanks again. Very nice GB!!

Travis, good looking 110!  You are on page one.

South Trail, is that a woodland district?  I am a firefighter for San Antonio myself.  I wish I was a Florida firefighter though!  I grew up in Clearwater, and I sure miss it.

Cheers,

Greg

Travis,

Nice looking Bf-110! I picked up this kit a couple months ago, and out of the box it looks decent enough. You really made the detail pop. Thanks for the heads up about the seams and lack of landing light.

Travis great looking build and great freehand work with the a/b! I use small guitar string for my antenae seems to work okay

Greg: Yes the squiggles were done by freehand. I ended up painting and wiping about 4 times due to some airbrush/paint thinning/human issues. I would have loved to have had a .2mm tip available on a high end airbrush, but not yet. I used my Aztec.

STFD637 stands for South Trail Fire District (where I work full time) and the 637 is my employee number. Just a simple handle to come up with. We are located in SW Florida.

I finished up the 110 tonight!!!!! I haven't built a WWII aircraft in a while. I ended up doing some weathering experimentation on this one. It is hard to tell in the pics and hopefully I can get  some better pics later. I am working with a cheap dig cam and my iphone.......the iphone camera won in this battle. What I found interesting was the "Blue Hue" in some of the pics. The colors were Tamiya Sky Grey and RLM 74.

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The antenna wire was 6lb fishing line. It looks about right. I tried to stretch some sprue but it kept breaking before I got it to the correct size or it wouldn't be long enough. This was a trying, but fun kit!

Looks good Travis!  You did the squiggles freehand?  And on 1/72?  There are some good painters in this GB!

On another note, what does STFD637 mean, if you don't mind me asking?  I am curious because of the FD part.  As in Fire Department?

Cheers,

Greg

Great looking build Travis!

Finally reaching the completion of this kit!! This was probably one of the most problem laden builds I have had in a while. Just when I got ready to shoot I started haveing Airbrush issues. I still have some weathering to do but the big stuff is all done. Here are some shots. Hopefully I can get some work done on it today.

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Working on some new and hopefull better quality pics.

Thank's for the link Greg ;

The pic's of the RAAF Canberra are great too .

Did you notice the nose glazing on the Mk20 in that the bomb sight is off center towards the left .

An important thing to remember when glueing the clear nose piece onto your model , I made a written note on my instructions sheet so I wouldn't forget when I build mine

                                   John .

Hi John, good info to know about the Mach 2 C-123.  From my understanding, you can build the gunship version too.  I am very tempted to pick one up, and at least I know what I'm in for if I do.  As for the Canberra pieces, when I get it in, I will take pictures and send them to you.

http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/portland/971/Reviews/50s/canberra-m.htm

I am not sure if you have seen this review/build of the Airfix Mk 20.  If not, this is pretty interesting.

Cheers,

Greg

Hi John, good info to know about the Mach 2 C-123.  From my understanding, you can build the gunship version too.  I am very tempted to pick one up, and at least I know what I'm in for if I do.  As for the Canberra pieces, when I get it in, I will take pictures and send them to you.

http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/portland/971/Reviews/50s/canberra-m.htm

I am not sure if you have seen this review/build of the Airfix Mk 20.  If not, this is pretty interesting.

Cheers,

Greg