Reich Defenders IV Group Build: Strike From Above

She looks amazing, Steve!

Absolutely, that's a tremendous finished product! You can be justly proud of this piece of work! Well, that's an ambitious ground attack plane, and very well executed!

I'll update the Honour Wall later today!

Cheers, and well done,

Mike

Hey guys, I have a question: I'm almost done with the landing gear. The only thing left are the doors and the gear covers. All of them have one or more ejector pin marks in them. Normally I'd just fill them with a bit of putty and sand them smooth, then apply a coat of microfiller to make sure there is nothing left of the mark. I can't do this on the Thunderbolt's landing gear though. The covers have a bunch of nice-looking rivets molded on and I don't want to sand them away. So how do I fill them without a lot of sanding?

That's a good question, and I confess I'm not sure of the answer. You could sacrifice the rivets to remove the EP marks, then replace the rivets with the "resin decals" made by Archer -- I've heard they're very good but haven't seen them in action as yet. They have a large range of these products, rivets, raised panel lines, hinges, you just apply them like a decal...

M/TB379

Thanks for the tip. I have a sheet of HGW rivet lines in 1/48, but they seem rather small compared to the kit details. I'll check those Archer rivets, but this model has to be finished in the next 2 weeks, so there's no time to wait for the rivets to arrive... I already ordered me Micro-Mark's punch and die set, but it's never going to arrive in time to simply punch out some discs to fill the marks

I guess using the HGW rivets is my only option ATM...

I just found a webstore in Germany that sells Archer rivets. And they have some Ultracast wheels in stock too, so I'll order those 2 items and hope they arrive in time.

Ok, I placed the order for a set of mixed Archer rivets (.2mm, .27mm, .35mm) and some Ultracast P-47 wheels now and It should arrive within a week. The shipping costs are outrageous (twice the money I pay for a similar Hannants order) and the Ultracast wheels cost more than Hannants wants for them as well, but that's the only way I can get all of it in time, so I'll jsut go with it. That means that the landing gera is put on hold untill next week, but I still have to finish all the weathering. I'll post some pics as soon as I'm done with that (give me a week to do so).

Well I think I'm fini.  I may do some more weathering and exhaust staining not sure yet.

Hope you all like it.  Other then some silvering on the decals I was very happy with this kit.

JOHN

Tonight after work I'm going to try and get some better pictures.

That's a great looking model, John!

Thanks Clemons. My skills are improving watching the work of others on this forum. Was going yo order Flory wash. Sprue Bros was out.

John - your 129 looks great!  I'm going to have to add one to the stash.

I just bought some Flory washes - SprueBros wwere out so I bought direct from the Flory site.  Took about a week to get to the US.

Steve

Thanks Steve have another 3 129's in the stash including the one with the 75mm cannon. Will look on the  flory site

Very nice work Commander John. I second the exhaust staining. It will really add to the model.

Added a little more staining and grunge. Tell me what you think.

These pics came out darker then I thought.

OK changed the brightness level on photobucket

And pasted the wrong pic. Oh its gonna be one of those days

Right one

Here is the final pics I promise.

Hey thats some nice streaking and staining. Bummer about the port side code silvering a bit. Are those Hase decals?

Yea the kit decals. I should have cut a little more of the backing away especially on the G. I'll put up with it. Have 3 more in the stash. Will know better next time. Thanks for the compliment

Looking great, TJ! I'll get her onto the Honour Wall later today. She's a rare type, gaunt and brutal, really, specialised to the hilt! Great work!

Mike/TB379

Thanks Mike.  Has anyone thought of a theme for RD V.  How about night fighters.  sie kommen in der Nacht.  They come out at night in German

Nightfighters would be a great theme, though there has been a GB along those lines in the recent past I believe. I can see me fielding a 262 with radar... Other themes? What about "experimentals?" Not paper planes, but anything which actually reached the cut-metal stage, so you'd be looking at things like the Ho 229, the Wasserfall missile, the Me 163 and 263, the Me 309, Ta 152, Me 262C, Bachem Natter and so forth... All suggestions welcome!

M/TB379

But this would be limited to night fighters of the Luftwaffe.  RD VI could be experimental s.  Besides night fighters would give me the push I need to do my ju88's. Just a thought

Good thought too! I'm more than interested in going the Nachtjager route, it embraces 109, 190, 262, 229 and a host of radar equipped specials, like the He 219, the AR 240 and no doubt many others.

What do you think, guys? Strong theme with heaps of material to work with, and it sounds like a whole year's worth!

M/TB379

John: Great work on the weathering! I love the streaking effects! Those silvering decals are a bummer indeed and I'm afraid my Tamiya stencilling decals are going to show some silvering as well. After the Light Sheen protective layer the decal film is still visible and there is a slight step on the edges (those decals are really thick). I just hope it won't be visible after the weathering and final dullcoat...

I really like the nightfighter idea. I'm thinking of buying Trumpeter's Me 262 in the nightfighter version for some time now and I just ordered Zoukei-Mura's big He 219 a week ago. The experimental one sounds good as well (I'm thinking of that very promising Ho 229 announced by ZM), but nightfighters sounds a bit better IMHO.

I like the night-fighter idea.  Have threel kits in the stash - Hasagawa AR-234, Eduard Bf-110G-4 and Tamiya He219.  Sounds like fun!

Steve

I ran into another decal-related problem today. I won't go into any detail, but I was so close to just sending her on a one-way flight trough the room. I'm trying to repair the decals on the left wing (lower surfaces) ATM and it's looking quite alright, but I have to spray another clear coat on top of that area (and the right fuselage side. All those clear coats are slowly obscuring the nice surface details of this kit.