Great looking chopper Bish, this is going to be awesome!

Progress on the Raiden has been happening behind the scenes, here's all the prepped parts so far:

Painting is Tamiya Acrylics other than the silver, which is Humbrol enamel. The prop and spinner are a mixed shade (online recommendation) overcoated with Microscale Satin; lack oil wash detailing and some drybrushing on the cockpit parts; the instruments are drybrished and Futured.

At the next update the main construction should be done. All that remains here is to add some tape seatbelts and assemble the cockpit, then bring the fuselage together.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Bish,

Love the camo on that Chinook!! I am eyeballing the big 1:48 one from RoG for awhile now.... planning on a dutch paint scheme though.

Mike,

Looks like you are off for a very good start. I love the prop especially. Very nice!

As for me....

I promised a pre paintbooth pic but i kinda forgot.. So this is my little thunderbolt with the undersides grey on. I sprayed the entire model so the grey acts as a primer at the same time. Today i am planning on spraying the dark grey/ green camouflage on the top.

And while i am posting a WIP anyways i thought it wise to introduce the hurricane as well:

It offers the boxart brown over brown camo but also another India/Birma theatre one in green over brown camo:

The sprues... The shape of the fuselage is well molded and nicely detailed. The office parts however are rather spartan. I dont worry about that too much as i am interested in the outside appearance first and foremost:

So looks like this froggie is in for some fun the coming weeks

Richard

Thanks, Kermit, I'm doing the seatbelts right now, nothing fancy but there'll be something visible in there to disguise the shocking great ejector pin mark at the bottom of the seat, which is impossible to file away... I've test fit everything and the fuselage fit looks very good. Glad you like the prop, here it is stacked up with the engine:

Unfortunately the engine will be completely hidden by the cowl, so it's painted pretty much for the sake of it.

I just adjusted the fit of the cockpit parts, it looks like they'll drop in quity easily. More pics tonight or tomorrow...

I like the looks of that Thunderbolt -- Tamiya? I'm a bit reluctant to try natural metal at the moment, I seemed to lose the ability to spray it cleanly a while back, every experiment was disastrous... But a camo bird, that I can handle! The Hurri looks very good, I've not built one since I was a kid. Is this an RoG original, or a rebox of Hasegawa?

Looking good!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Kermit -- Just ordered up that RoG Hurri! M/TB379

Can I loin with a 1/72 Academy P-47 Thunderbolt?

It will mostly bee a testbed for using Alclad for the first time.

Theuns

Thunderbolt379,

The P47 is actually Academy. Sofar i really like the fit and detail and it has a very modest pricetag. But like i already said before, the RoG offering in the same scale has a better engine, better decals and a slightly more detailed and accurate pit. Cheaper too on top of it.

Glad you like the hurricane. It is as far as i know an original Revell of Germany mold dating back to 1998 according to the stamp. So if you take that into account (dont expect amazing fit, especially on the wing/ fuselage join) and the fact that you probably won't be building it because of the internal detailing it should prove a fun and very cheap model to build. You can't lose

Richard

Can I join with an Esci 1/72 Tornado?

Theuns

Can I loin with a 1/72 Academy P-47 Thunderbolt?

It will mostly bee a testbed for using Alclad for the first time.

Theuns

Blitzwing

Can I join with an Esci 1/72 Tornado?

y'all most certainly can! The front page has been updated with your builds.

Hi Richard -- would the RoG P-47 be kit #04155? I have a handle on it for a great price.

Yep, I'm looking mainly at the exterior details on the Hurri and it looks like a coat of desert camo will go down very nicely over them. I can usually wrangle an argumentative fit, so that should't be too much of an issue. I look forward to it and have the North Africa scheme paints already in hand here for a larger Spit, so a Hurri is a fun side-build on that project.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Thunderbolt,

Yes, i am referring to kit #4155. One of the very much spoken of newer RoG molds that are said to be very good for low cost. Standard price here is EUR. 6,95 (roughly 8 USD). That kit screams bang for buck. Some of the boxes do have flash on the molds and some don't though... A nuisance i gladly overlook given the price. The office straight out of the box as well as the engine are very reasonably detailed.

With that in the back of your head i am really hard pressed to find proper reasons to lay down more for the asian brands.

Richard

Thanks Richard, i am hopeing this one will be as good if not better, as it is for someone else. Now a Dutch Chinook, that i wnat to see.

Nice work on the P-47. Not sure if you have alredat mentioned it, but what unit markings are you useing.

Gamera, thanks, i am really hopeing so.

Mike, thats a sweet looking engine, shame its going to be hidden away

hey bish

i agree abut the engine. wonder if the cowling could be left off?

. i have considered getting one of the 1/6 engine kits. i do have a 426 hemi in my stash. i am finishing up my first helo, MD-500. looking forwaed to seeing CHINOOK. off to finish stuff so i can clear the benches for new stuff.

Thank, Bish -- can't be helped, I guess, it's one of those tight cowlings for max streamlining, but (Wayne) to leave it off for a workshop diorama would call for all kinds of scratchbuilding to go with it, and in the end the engine itself isn't detailed enougn to warrant going to that extreme. The Hasegawa 1:32 kit of the same subnect might be, though!

Richard -- I ordered the RoG Thunderbolt, you're right, it's a sweet kit!

Raiden fuselage closing up today, or I'll know the reason why...

Mike/TB379

hi thunderbolt

i got thinking about that after i posted. all sorts of wiring and engine mounts. i had a nice engine in my ME-163 that no one would see. in my case i was able to leave it out

Mike, Richard: Great work there guys- you're setting the bar pretty high!

The cockpit is mostly done on the Viggen, I'd post photos but the Airfix kit is pretty basic - just decals for the instruments so I'll post photos when she's sealed up and in one piece.  

Thunderbolt379--The Raiden is shaping up nicely.  I like the reddish prop and spinner.  It'll make for an interesting paint scheme.

Kermit/Richard--I look forward to seeing what you do with the Revell Hurricane.  I have their Mk I variant from the Battle of Britain set, and it is very, very elementary:  no cockpit detail at all; the pilot (wearing a jet helmet!) is molded to the seat.  Still, the basic outline looks like a Hurricane.  I'm just not sure what I'll do with the interior.

Academy's P-47 is a nice little kit.  I built it a few years ago with Francis Gabreski's markings, and it was a challenge.

 I enlarged the painting instructions from a Hasegawa kit, cut the squiggles out with little scissors and stuck them on with poster tack.  The photos aren't so great, since I had a cheaper camera back then.

Progress on BB-64 is coming along, and I will post photos of that soon.  Due to the constraints of painting and construction, I am going to have to install the 16 inch gun turrets early on--but that means painting the molded superstructure and deck first, then installing the waterline plate and painting the hull with the main guns in place.  After that I can go ahead with the smaller fiddly parts.

It's nice to see all the progress everyone is making. 

Question on the Revell Hurricane.

Is the Hurricane Mk I an ancient kit, with little detail, whilst the Mk II is a 90s release, and is a lot better.

I know I did a Hurricane I back in the seventies or early eighties, as a kid. Sometimes when they're reboxed, it's hard to tell the lineage. I do have the Mk II for another build (1942), and it looks a hell of a lot better than what I remember the Mk I was.

Cheers

Tony

I can't say about the Hurricane Mk II, since I've only seen it in Kermit's photo, but, yes, the Mk I appears to be the "ancient" offering, and dates at least to the middle/late 1960's.

This is the kit I will be putting together.

I have some parts from other kits I will be using as the weapons in this kit don't give me what I need to build this as an ECR version with Luftwaffe markings. I've dry fitted some parts and oddly enough the fit isn't as good as I remembered when I first built this kit in high school.

Able to get a midweek update this week. After the sanding, i was able to get the Grey on last night.

I should be able to get the green on tomorrow night, so more at the weekend. 

ooooh, shiny!

Yep, i always use xtracolour enamels, they are all gloss so no need for future before decalling.

Looking great Bish, I wasn't expecting colour so soon.

Cheers

Tony

Bish,

Nice and even coat! I always have trouble laying down even gloss coats myself.

Well,... My tiny thunderbolt has its clothes on now.... Slight paint bleed from overthinning the white paint but nothing i can't correct:

Richard

Thanks guys. Tony, i only have a couple of weeks to get this finished, so i have been putting some extra effort in, so it is coming along rather quickly.

looking good, kermit!

Sorry Richard, missed the bolt. Looking good, is this an RAF jug.