Thanks guys for the positive comments! There's quite a lot of excellent entries in this GB! Great work.

Doug.. Tommy McGuire (38 kills) was a legend and I had no idea that your Oscar was involved in the fight. He did that dangerous maneuver at 300 ft with both exterior tanks attached which was a no no. They say the tanks contributed to the snap roll. He probably would have surpassed Richard Bong's record since he was pulled stateside in January of 1945. He too was killed while testing the early P-80 in August of 1945. Your Oscar's paint, attention to detail and base are super!

I was up till 3am last night plumbing up my Do 335 (Arrow GB) and  assembling the OOB George which is almost done. Will take some pictures later and will post. I want to enter both in a show next weekend so  better pour on the coal!

OK my friends... I stayed up late and finished up.

This is an aircraft of the 54th Sentai, 3rd Chutai a Ki-43-II and the personal mount of WO Akira Sugimoto. I had no idea if he or his aircraft had survived the war until I recently ran across this article. 

On Jan. 7th 1945 he (Sugimoto) was flying solo from Fabrica, Negros Island in the Philippines when he spotted a flight of P-38s from the 475th fighter group patroling near the Japanese base of Manpata. The P-38s were piloted by Maj. Thomas McGuire the 2nd highest scoring P-38 ace (38 kills) and his wingman Capt.Edwin Weaver, and a third, Lt. Douglas Thorpp. (It should be told that this was an unauthorised flight meant to raise his tally) Sugimoto immediately attacked Capt. Weaver, damaging his plane, causing him to withdraw from the fight. While trying to manoeuvre behind Sugimoto at tree top level, and still carrying the nearly full long range external fuel tanks, Maj. McGuire's plane suddenly snap rolled onto its back and crashed into the jungle. Lt. Douglas Thorpp then caught Sugimoto in his sights and fired a burst into his "Oscar" damaging it sufficiently for the Japanese pilot to make a forced landing in the jungle just a few miles from where Maj. McGuire had crashed. WO Sugimoto survived the crash, but was set upon by the Filipino people they had brutilized since their occupation, and was hacked and shot to death while still strapped into his aircraft.

Thought this was an interesting story, and I had no idea it existed until I just happened across it while reading from a web page I found while researching the aircraft.

I hope I've done a good job to honor this pilot, and his mount, even though at the time the enemy of our country, it took alot of courgage to climb into the cockpit time after time, never knowing if it would be your last time, or if you would ever see your home and family again.

Thanks all...

Doug

Looking very nice!

Wow! You guys are turnin' and burnin'. I never seem to work so quickly.

Started painting the little tank. The brown is Tamiya acrylic #72 Brown (JGSDF) and the green is #73 Dark Green (JGSDF). Both thinned with GSI Mr Leveling Thinner.

These Tamiya acrylics are pretty good matches for weathered JGSDF shades. Newly applied they are a bit more semi-gloss in appearance. GSI makes very good matches for new paint.

Thanks guys!

Cliff: I have the 1/32 belts as well and they look just as nice. They should be a bit less fiddly though. I have to admit that I "cheated" a bit. I just assembled the small straps and the buckles and glued them to the large straps instead of trying to get everything through the holes of the buckes. It looks the same once the belts are in place and it makes things a whole lot easier...

Wow, I go away for a few days...

Doug, PJ, Craig, all of those look fantastic guys!!!

Clemons: Those are just plain cool, if and when I ever get around to the 1/32nd P-47 I must pick up a set of those.

PJ... Your painting detail really captures the essence of the Japanese aircraft of the era! I have several books dealing with the aircraft of that time, and the best I can gleen from the writings are that the metals that they used were not properly treated before top coats were applied, and several other issues including the humidity and such enter into the final results. They used prescious little lead and zinc in the paints which resulted in (at times) sheets of paint peeling and flaking off!

Kudos on the paint work! The "Stubby one" is coming along beautifully!

Clemens... I can see why you like those belts! Very nice... I will have to look into some some day.

Thank you all for the compliments.... She will be done by this weekend I think.

Take care...

Doug

My wife is going into town today, so I think I'll have her stop by the LHS.  Last time I checked, they had Eduard 1/48 IJA seatbelts.  If not, I'll make some with masking tape.  Thanks for the tip.

David: You're off to a good start!

Doug: Your work is simply amazing, brother! The camo just looks spot-on!

PJ: Looking great! I have to give that salt-chipping a try at some point!

Craig: I think the wash looks really nice. The ainted prop tips look very good as well.

Regarding your seatbelt problem: You can either scratchbuild some belts out of masking tape or buy some AM seatbelts. I really like HGW's fabric seatbelts. They look awesome and are quite easy to assemble (although some parts are really small)

I'm not sure if they have japanese belts though...

First off, I'd like to apologize for the poor pics.  I'm not a photographer. Secondly, you guys can build some really nice models.  I'd like to be half as good some day.

Here are a couple progress pics.  I wasn't very happy the way the wash turned out.  It really darkened the interior.  I dry brushed the frame and some of the other components.  Also pictured is the canopy after its Future bath, and I painted the tips of the props instead of using the decals.  It was pretty fun doing that.  Now I gotta figure out what I'm going to do about the seat harness.  I don't want to use the decal.  When I get that done I can button up the fuselage and the rest is all down hill from there.  This kit has been fun.  I would recommend for anyone starting out on aircraft.

Craig

i908.photobucket.com/.../DSCN6623_zps1762eacf.jpg

i908.photobucket.com/.../DSCN6625_zps28baf044.jpg

Snake...Great start on that office.

Doug... fantastic paint job my brother

My George is almost done. I've been rushing to finish it and the Do335 from the Arrow GB for a show coming up  by the end of the month!! I was also working on two commissions. I had documented the steps as I normally do but with the confusion managed to accidentally delete some pictures. I painted the George Tamiya aluminum all over then took fine table salt and dampened the areas where I wanted the salt to remain. After it dried, I removed some salt grains to fine tune the chipping effect. Then the Tamiya green was sprayed. Once it dried, I removed the salt with a toothpick, then added the decals and shot everything clear flat.

Some nice looking work so far here. Whoa, Doug. That's really cool. Great job!

Day one for me!

Doug, thanks. And I know I've said it a lot that Oscar is awesome! Hoping my Zero will come out half as good as your build.

David

Well , heres a little more from me...

OK, Shes not long from finish now, Maybe this weekend?

Doug

David... you will enjoy that kit! Very nicely done.

Doug

Doug, I'm amazed at the camo on that Oscar!

flyerduke, looking good so far.

I finally started on my build last night. Thought I'd share the box art with everyone. For whatever reason it has to be my favorite box art.

Glued a few pieces of the cockpit together and painted it. Sorry for the bad pictures

That's all I've got for right now. Letting the cockpit dry for now and maybe I'll do some painting tomorrow evening.

David

Doug: Wow, that's friggin'  perfect! Heck, you're almost done already.

Craig: Looking good! That's a kit you might as well build out of the box since it's so good I'm not sure there's much you can add to it.

Clemons: Thanks for helping him with the photos - I'm not that good at explaining things.  

Looking great Doug! It gets better as we move along. I have some pictures to download and post on my build so I will do that soon.

duke...looks like god progress on your build.

Thanks.  Got it to work.

Click on "use rich formatting" and then select "insert image" from the toolbar. If you click on it a wndow should open. That's where you enter the "Direct"-link from Photobucket.

Crap! It didn't work.  How do I get the pics to appear in the forum?

OK.  Here goes a try at posting photos.  I set up a photobucket account so I can do this.  Hope it works.

I snapped a couple photos last night to show my progress.  Got most of the heavy airbrushing done.  Time for details and assembly.  I'm gonna build this kit straight out of the box.  It seems pretty straight forward and pretty easy.  This is gonna be the first kit I hope to finish in over 20 years.

Holy Moly, that looks awesome, my friend! Simply perfect!

Welcome Craig!

A few more wip posts...

Motor cowling done... According to the picture I'm using as referance, the pattern is heavier in the back and gradually gets less as you move forward, I think I got it right.

And yes , some exhaust stains.

Thats all for now my friends... May not get to do any more till the weekend.

Take care...

Doug 

Hey Craig, just put you down- welcome to the funny farm!!!

I'm not very good at this but I'll try to help with your photos, maybe the other guys can pitch in here too (hint, hint).

For PhotoBucket (I don't know about ImageShack or any of the others) you'll want to copy the link under 'direct', click on the 'Insert Image' box and then paste the link inside. That should work. 

Cool. Sign me up.  Now I have to figure out how to post pictures.

Welcome to the forum and this GB, Craig!

Yamato: You're off to a good start!

flyerduke

I was wondering if I could get in on this GB.  I'm relatively new to the FSM forum and have never participated in a group build.  I have a 1/48 Tamiya Ki-46 Dinah I started last week.  I'm kind of slow, but I'm pretty sure I can finish it.  Thanks.

Craig

Hello Craig! 

You're more than welcome to join us! The rules are on page 1 - pretty simple, the model must be Japanese and less than half build to qualify. The Dinah fits right in. And the build ends on Dec 31, 2014 so you've got eleven and a half months to finish her. If you don't no big deal either way.

Let me know if you want me to put you down.

Cliff 

I was wondering if I could get in on this GB.  I'm relatively new to the FSM forum and have never participated in a group build.  I have a 1/48 Tamiya Ki-46 Dinah I started last week.  I'm kind of slow, but I'm pretty sure I can finish it.  Thanks.

Craig

Johnsan... Yup... I,ve seen pictures that are very close to the same pattern and you are right, not alot of consistancy. I think , like I read that many aircraft were very rapidly and crudely covered with a camo pattern upon arrival. Although, I do like the Japanese style of camo...

BSY, Good to hear from you ... I've tried to keep in on the builds in the Jap.2 build, but got wrapped up with my most favorite fighter the Fw190 at that GB. I am happy to be back here building now.

Doug