Hey Damian, I agree with Gamera, those guns are really eye catching.  The PE looks great!

Thanks Mate!

The turned brass blast tubes and guns make for a better result than the plastic kit versions. I just wont to get her into paint and play with my first attempt with NMF.

I loof forward to seeing your next build update.

Damian

Ohhhhhhhh, looks fantastic! I love the brass guns!!! 

So its been a while, like many months since my last build post.

I was able to get some of the items on the list completed over the past months.

Fuselage, wings and horizontal stablisers married together.

I added some metal blast tubes etc.

And a bit of PE.

Canopy and windscreen have been polished and ready for masking. Then a bit of cleanup of PE and fuselages, then to the paint booth she will go.

See you guys in another 3,6,12 months...

Gamera

Colin: Sounds good! I know what you mean, I've gotten in the goove before to the point I forget to take any photos too. 

Bish: Hope the holiday went well, I really need to get over and visit Italy someday myself. Looking forward to more work on the F-4.

 

Very well thank you. Didn't get right to the top of Vesuvius as it was closed due to hight winds, but other than that had a great week. I am rather liking Italy, i think in a few years we will have to take a longer trip and tour round a bit. Spoke to quite a few Americans there, most of whom were touyring around spending at least a couple of weeks. But if your flying all that way you might as well make the most of it.

Nice subject Dwayne, glad to have you on board.

Hi,

I'm looking forward to seeing your Buffalo build too. 

PF

Ohhhhhhhh, cool Dwayne love that Buffalo!

Been popping in to see the work in here, and it has been exceptional.  So, I thought I should join in.  Received this not too long ago:

IMG_E0863 by Dwayne Munk, on Flickr

I am in the last stages of a kit for the Pride of the Luftwaffe GB, and this will be my next project.  Planning to do the box art New Zealand Air Force version.

Cheers Bish, with your kind permission, I would like to add this kit to the GB.

Colin: Sounds good! I know what you mean, I've gotten in the goove before to the point I forget to take any photos too. 

Bish: Hope the holiday went well, I really need to get over and visit Italy someday myself. Looking forward to more work on the F-4.

damouav

I havent done much on my build recntly, new job and life in general.

But should be able to do updates soon...

 

Life does have a habit of getting in the way, but lookinbg forward to those updates.

I have now finished the bare metal areas, and i did remember to take some pics. Just got to mask off tonight and can start on the scheme.

Colin, i know that feeling well. I often get to a certain stage of a build and realised i should have taken pics before getting there. Glad your enjoying it and looking forward to some pics when you can.

I've really been enjoying the Defiant.  So much so that I haven't taken any pictures!  I was going to get a shot before closing the fusealage up but go too excited and closed it up without taking the picture.  

Detail and fit are excellent.  There are some unique rectangles that fit inside the wings to give them shape that i appreciated.  There are some sink holes in some of the bulkier parts, like the wheel hubs and the ends of the landing gear struts.  Seatbelts would have been nice.

I havent done much on my build recntly, new job and life in general.

But should be able to do updates soon...

Cheers Damian, i plan on getting right back to it and hopfully will be ready for painting by the end of the weekend.

Thanks G. yep, had a nice break, just got back this evening so will be getting back to the Phantom soon.

Looks good! Last F-4 I built I went the same way, it's much easier to paint the NM areas and then mask them instead of the other way around.

Good luck and have a fun and safe holiday!

Just a quick update. Got the construction finished minus the wing tips which i am putting in the folded position so have left off while i get the final bit done and everything else will be painted before fiting.

I wanted to get the rear bare metal areas painted first. So after getting some tips from PJ, i primed the rear and then added a couple of thin coats of Alaclad Aluminium.

And that will be it for now. The better half and i and off to Italy on Mon, visiting the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum and climbing Vesuvius. So i'll be able to mask and finish off the bare metal next weekend and then geting to the scheme.

Gamera

Oh that looks like a fantastic kit Bish, love it when they actually provide the intake trunking etc so it's not just big gaping holes behind the intakes. And really nice work on the cockpit there. I don't envy you all those stencils though, another thing I prefer armour over aircraft for. 

Colin: Looks like a nice pair there. 

 

I am pretty impressed with the intakes. And there a lot of nice features such as several options, in flight, ready for take off, wings folded, nose folded. It does not however include crew figures so this would have to be found for the in flight and take off options.

Its dffinetly been well thought out. And yes, armour certainly does have an advantage when it comes to decals. And modern aircraft do seem to like having a lot of stencils.

Oh that looks like a fantastic kit Bish, love it when they actually provide the intake trunking etc so it's not just big gaping holes behind the intakes. And really nice work on the cockpit there. I don't envy you all those stencils though, another thing I prefer armour over aircraft for. 

Colin: Looks like a nice pair there. 

Cheers Steve. There are a few fit issues, but from what i can see on reviews, i think its soimthing i have done rather than the kit.

Ye, they will a bit.

Looking good Bish, I was wondering how well it would go together.

Wow, the decals! that's enough to keep you busy for a while.

Cdn Colin

These are my next 2 projects in line.  I should be done them both by the end of the build date.

 

Will get those added to the roster Colin.

Griffin25

Holy cow that looks like an excellent kit Bish. What a set of decals, man. Great work on the pit.

 

Cheers Griffin, its all starting to come together now.

Interested to see how the Airfix Spit builds up. I would like to update my Tamiya spit I built years ago.

These are my next 2 projects in line.  I should be done them both by the end of the build date.

Holy cow that looks like an excellent kit Bish. What a set of decals, man. Great work on the pit.

Ok, confession time. I did start the phantom just over a week ago and yesterday i posted the first update in my WiP thread. Only i completly forgot about posted in the GB i had it entered, you know, the GB i am hosting. OPPPS

So, best do that now then. To start off, here is the kit, released at the start of this year. Which is my first new tooled Airfix kit.

I will be putting it on a base from Coastal kits, which replicates a section of the deck of HMS Ark Royal. I'll also be useing a deck tractor from F4 models.

And before the build pics, a couple to show anyone who may be thinking about getting this kit of what they have to look forward to. You can see from the decals that the kit does include one or two stencils.

But no problem, there is a nice handy location guide.

Easy peasy.

Now for the build, pit first of course. Pit is not bad OOB, with decals for instrument panels. But of course i had to enhance it with some Eduard PE. Unfortunatly i neglected to take builds while putting it together. But one nice feature is that each seat is in 3 parts, one of which is the cushions so these can be painted seperatly before fitting them into the seat.

Also got the air intakes installed into the fuselage halves. One nice touch is the length of the intakes.

The intake pipes are each made up of 2 pieces with a 3rd being fitted to the outside after the pipes are in. You can see that this pieces joins at some very fine recessed rivet detail. To that end i added this parts earlier than the instructions indicate so i could apply the glue to the inside.

With the cockpit fitted i got the fuselage halves together and these joined up well. But you can see that the fuselage halves do not join up along the top, instead there is a seperate piece which fits in there, i am woundering if this indicates other variants to follow. But the fit of this part was not perfect, it did need to clamping.

And inside with the induction fans, which here has come away on one side and was fixed after, along the the internal part of the exhausts.

And then to fited the lower portion of the fuselage which includes part of the lower wings. Again, there were fit issues. I always worry when i have a problem with fit woundering if its somthing i have done or the kit, especially when i can't find anyone else with the same issue.But after checking a checking i could see what was stopping the lower portion going into place at the front and this needed clamping as well.

There is a slight step where the lower setion joins just behind the intakes, i thought i had a close up but seem to have deleated it. Again, not sure what the issue is. There is some engraved detail tehre and its not huge, and it is underneath, so i plan to do a bit of sanding without removing the detail and trying not to creat a curve.

Thats it for now. A bit of sanding and seam sorting to follow.

That look real god BD. I must admit i do quite like that scheme.