Thanks guys, cockpits are my most favorite part of the build--so much detail! :)

Bish

Lovely work on that pit OWL. Are you going to get am AM prop or contact Academy.

Ive never had to contact a kit-maker before. How do I go about doing that?

I think usually you can go through their websites. But the one i have for Academy doesn't seem to be working. Hopefully someone can help.

Owl: The Hasegawa and Tamiya come with about three props for the different versions. If you know which version you need I'll look around and see if I have one of that type in the parts bin. No charge if you want it.

Gamera

Owl: The Hasegawa and Tamiya come with about three props for the different versions. If you know which version you need I'll look around and see if I have one of that type in the parts bin. No charge if you want it.

three props?! Dang....

Im building an N version, but Im not to worried about accuracy so whatever you have extra would be really appreciated!

Several different props were tested out:

12-foot Curtis Electric

13-foot Curtis symmetric paddle blade

13-foot Hamilton Standard paddle blade

I have a reference book at home I can check to see which would be closest for the N, if I don't have the exact one I'll send you the one that looks the closest to being right.  

Toss me the address you want it send to with a message and I'll try to get it mailed sometime around the first of the week.

Gamera

Several different props were tested out:

12-foot Curtis Electric

13-foot Curtis symmetric paddle blade

13-foot Hamilton Standard paddle blade

I have a reference book at home I can check to see which would be closest for the N, if I don't have the exact one I'll send you the one that looks the closest to being right.  

Toss me the address you want it send to with a message and I'll try to get it mailed sometime around the first of the week.

thanks, Gamera. Message sent!

Here are a couple of pics of my Mirage fresh off the drying rack.  I used the kit-included masks for all the Red.  The white panels will be covered with decals down the road.  Really pleased with how well the masks worked. Only had one spot pull up the underlying paint and that was more operator error than as a result of the mask.

Nice work Disco, looking good.

Yeah sharp clean work there Stu! 

Really fine-looking metallic finish, Stu.  Very nice.

Excellent work Stu.

The paints have finally arrived and just in time for the weekend too. Looking forward to getting some colour onto my model, an extremely eye catching combination of light grey, grey, and darker grey.

Didn't get the paint on the weekend I originally planned but finally managed to get the paint on. I've still got to add some finishing touches before applying decals but the end is in sight. 

whoo! Ive been out of town for a bit and am glad to see progress!

DiscoStu: Thats some real nice NMF there, keep it up!

Blitzwing:

Miss OWL, guys,

Funny how life can get annoyingly in the way of modelling. My bench ground to a virtual halt these last few weeks....

But i did finish my little P47!

The british scheme was just too tempting. It really gives the thunderbolt a whole other look compared to the NMF ones. Hope you guys like her

Richard

P.s. The hurricane is next up. I already did some paintwork on the office...

Nice build Richard

ah, Honeysuckle Rose. She was my first ever aircraft model, back in 1976. It was the old Frog kit, and I won't tell you how bad the finished thing was, but it's one I'd love to reprise.

Yours is good, and just might tip me over the edge.

Cheers

Tony

very nice Kermit! Ill get the front page updated

Nice looking Thunderbolt, Richard.  Excellent work.

I finally finished up construction step four for USS Wisconsin--building her three observation-recon planes, OS2U Kingfishers.  The Fujimi kit came with what looks like Seaking aircraft, and it appears that BB-63, USS Missouri, might have carried these, but Wisky was equipped with Kingfishers, so I bought a box of Trumpeter's 1/700 models, and built five of them for the "Floatplane" group build currently going on.

The first photo below shows the two that will not be on Wisky, posed with a penny for size.

The second photo shows all five aircraft, with the Wisky's complement in the foreground.  I found one photo of a VO-9 aircraft from BB-64, returning with a rescued pilot from USS Shangri-la (CV-38).  It showed a number "1" on the engine cowl, so I added a "2" and a "3" for the other planes--although I can't prove they really existed.

The last photo is a closer view of aircraft "1" from VO-9, the source for USS Wisconsin's observation planes.  I did a google check on the web, but found nothing at all about this unit.

I kept on working at BB-64 while finishing the floatplanes, so I finished the build last night, and will post photos of the remaining construction steps and the finished product a little at a time.

Thanks for looking.

ohmygosh!!! Those are super tiny!!!!!!

great work checkmate

Now thats some painting check. My hat off to you for those buddy.

Gee, Ms OWL and Bish, you are both too, too kind.  It took about two full weeks to get these done, what with waiting a day or two for paint to dry between coats, and then all the brush touch up.  The three-color scheme was a challenge.  The rest of the ship was easy in comparison.

Which now brings me to construction step five.  This was an emplacement for two 20mm anti-aircraft guns, located at the very prow of the ship--where Jack and Rose would have been, if they'd sailed on Wisconsin instead of Titanic.

First, the individual parts, then the parts assembled.  I waited till I had the emplacement glued down before I added the jackstaff.  Some photos of Wisconsin from WWII show no jackstaff in place, but if I'd left it off, there'd have been a gaping hole.

Thanks for looking.

Did the aircraft need any assembaly or are they one complete piece.

Each aircraft consists of four pieces.  The wings and fuselage are one piece, the main float under the fuselage is separate, and each one of the two wing floats is separate.  To paint the three floats, even by hand with a brush, I had to stick them on a piece of masking tape.  There wasn't anything else there to hang on to with 1:1 fingers.

I used white glue (Aleene's and Elmer's brands) to glue the parts together after painting, since I was certain that I would smear any CA all over the place, trying to get the parts into position.

Here's what they looked like on the sprue.

Wow guys!

BW: Really nice work there, do you normally attach the missiles before decaling though? I'd knock them all off before I finished.

Richard: Sharp job, yes the British colours and markings do really set her off from other P-47s!

CMK02: Wow, I still don't see how you guys can do something so small, guess I could use an optic-visor for my eyes but my fingers don't really go that small.

Being a devote 72nd builder, you have my complete admiration for what you have done with these.

Thanks, Gamera, and I do have to use an opti-visor.  I've had it since I used to paint 54mm miniatures (which I don't do anymore since Imrie-Risley dropped their paintline).  Couldn't work in 1:700 without it.

Thanks, Bish.  I'll be returning to 1:72 aircraft.  I have two Hurricanes, a Spitfire and a Fairey Battle under construction at the moment too.  They are a lot easier to see and I do like RAF camouflage from the BoB era.  I think it's really sharp.

Here are construction steps six, seven and eight. These consist of some platforms for the 40mm anti-aircraft guns.

In this case, I painted the darker deck blue first, then the lighter haze gray, because I thought masking would be easier this way.  Photos show how I masked the parts; then the platforms painted; finally with the guns installed.

I dry-brushed with a lighter version of haze gray, then applied a pin wash.

Thanks again for looking.

No I haven't actually glued them on yet Gamera, they were just stuck on with a little blu tak to see how it would look with weapons on. I reckon I'd take the gold medal for knocking parts off models so there is no way I'd glue missles on before decalling.

A little bit of progress on the Mirage.

Need to sand the wing to fuse joints now.

Theuns