80 Years of Airfix GB

Bish, that turned out great! You nailed the finish on that one. Where did you get the figures?

Joe

jgeratic

Bish, excellent work 

It's an interesting combination of Luftwaffe markings and the Italian tri-motor.

 

regards,

Jack

 

 

Thanks jack. I thougt so, and its unusual in that the Germans seem to have repainted the whole aircraft. Others i have seen seem to have kept the original top colour at least.

Thanks Joe. They are out of me ever drindling figure stash. The 2 at the front are Airfix the other 2 i think are Revell.

I get the front office done, sans seat belts, and went to seal up the fuselage, then the dreaded gap appears!  This is a common issue on some newer Airfix 1/72 aircraft due to the thick molded plastic.  So, after shaving off a couple pounds of beautiful Airfix styrene... success!

Now thats is a big gap. I have had similar problems on a number of my aircraft builds as late, but i think most of that is me. Nice job fixing that.

Got the scheme on, need to clean it up a little, gloss,decal and rig it

IMG_20190225_161708 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

IMG_20190225_161655 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Theuns

Nice job on the scheme.

Well I've been picking away at my P40B for the last couple of weeks and I've made some good progress. Overall the fit isn't too bad on this kit but there are a few problem areas that require some sanding and test fitting.

One is where the wing roots meet the bottom of the wings and fuselage. There are four parts that come together here and can create a problem. I ended up glueing the wing roots to the fuselage and sanding them and the bottom of the wing to get a good fit. Still required some filling but nothing too bad...

The landing gear knuckle is another place that needs a lot of careful sanding and test fitting or you will end up with some really nasty gaps to fill.

I got to test out a new tool! I used the compass cutter to cut out some masks for the fuselage lights. I will be using this along with maketar masks to paint the insginia. 

Drilled out the fuselage and wing guns with a micro drill...

Took me a bit but I finally got it to the primer and will be starting on the main paint as soon as my MRP Olive Drab show up!

 Forgot to add a couple pics of the pit...

Great job on that front office Andy!

Thanks Chad!

Excelent job Theuns

Well, here it is: My "what if" Boeing Clipper. You know, if TWA had been a customer as well as Pan Am. The build is straight out of the box. The only change I made was the decals from Vintage Flyer Decals for the 1/144 Boeing 307 Stratoliner. The decals went on very nicely. They are very thin and snuggled down with just a little Micro Sol per Vintage Flyer's suggested method of application. I have another set of Vintage Flyer Decals for a Minicraft 1/144 Braniff DC-4 I'll do later.

The paint is Alclad Aluminum 101 over Alclad black primer. The underside is Alclad black primer and the propellers are Testors silver. Overall, I think the build came out pretty good but I'm glad it's over. I still have another Clipper model that I'll build later. I'm trying to come up with another "what if" scheme for that one.

Frank, very nice and very cool looking clipper.

regards,

Jack

Thanks, Jack. It was a bit of an ordeal, but it turned out nice.

Well done, Frank!

Very well done, Frank! I wonder if TWA ever looked at the Hughes Hercules?

Great what-if model.

GMorrison

Very well done, Frank! I wonder if TWA ever looked at the Hughes Hercules?

 

Great what-if model.

 

Didn't you do the Matson "what if" Clipper a while back? That's where I got my idea.

Yeah, the Huges Hercules would have been a great freighter.

Looks great Bish. Always liked the 3 engine airplanes 

Love that Clipper Frank. Brings back memories as it was one of my first models. 

Frank, great job on the Clipper, she has come out really well. Nice looking aircraft.Thanks for shareing that with us, got the front page updated.

Andy, really nice work there, love the look of the pit.

I have a compass cutter but theres no way i do do that with it, it doesn't go that small. I just checked and there is a 5mm gap when its fully close. It looks like that has hardly any gap, might have to grab one of those.

Nice job on that Theuns. In have not done much bi-plane rigging but agree its best done in stages.

Thanks castel.

Frank, that Clipper seriously looks amazing.

Nice Clipper, Frank.  Looks good.

Rooster, your P-40 is coming along beautifully. All that added detail really enhances an already very nice OOB kit.

Theuns, for that rigging, WOW!!! Good idea to work in stages to keep the focus. It’s obviously paying off.

Frank, that is a great “what if” Clipper. I’m kinda hard pressed to come up with another airline for your idea of another. At least of US carriers. There were so few long distance airlines at that time. Pan Am was the big dog for the USA traveling overseas, and TWA was originally Trans West Airlines. Like most US airlines, they were more regional in nature. I don’t know what BOAC flew for long distance flight, and Lufthansa flew Condors.... 

BOAC did fly the Clipper during the 40's.

The kit Frank bult does come with BOAC markings in the camo scheme.

Thank you all for your kind words on the completion of my Clipper. The Clippers have always been some of my favorite airplanes, especially the 314. I just wish there was one in a museum somewhere so I could see the airplane in real life. When Franklin Roosevelt flew to the Casablanca Conference in 1943, one of the airplanes he flew in was the Pan Am Dixie Clipper, NC18605. https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/the-first-presidential-flight-2901615/ I just wonder how his aides were able to lift President Roosevelt into the airplane.

Stik, when I build the second Clipper kit I think it will be a "what-if" the airplane had been pressed into U.S. Navy service after Pearl Harbor.

Thanks again, y'all...

Amazing work on this group build!

I've been working on the ME262, just need to update the build progress. Working on puttying the seams and panel lines. The fit of the engine nacelles was pretty bad, surprising for a new tool Airfix kit.

Did some pre-shading, could probably use some practice on that. I'm using a Paasche H single action airbrush for now. I really like it but it's not the best for fine lines. Unfortunatly my badger double action has a damaged needle, so it's the H until I get a new needle.  

A nice feature of this kit is that the windshield has the fuselage panel molded in, don't have to worry about the seam on the windshield to fuselage.

All painted, ready for gloss coat. I'm not entirely satisfied with the camo, but I'm sure it was less than perfect on the real aircraft! The white smudges on the wings are my dusty fingerprints, I'll be sure to brush them off before gloss coating!