Harold, the detail in the brassin detail set looks amazing, sure it will be fantastic when done.

The PBY cockpit looks great - good detail for an old kit. The setbelts look like a detail set? Waist area looks very neat too.

Very nice work with the resin tail, that has come together very neatly.

Ferg, looking forward to seeing the Spitfire under paint.

How am I going? I have got some white circles painted on in place for the roundel decals on the Beaufighter.

And the Winjeel has some of the interior structure together

I am not getting much bench or PC time as we have been travelling most weekends recently, and heading off next weekend too.

Those look cool Harold! Looking forward to seeing you work your magic on them!

Dodgy

Very impressive work Piers and Harold. Today I am going to start painting the Spit. I will try to get some pics up in the next few days.

Cheers

Ferg

 

Over the last several days I completed the interior, glued the hull together and glued the resin tail section on the hull. The photographs below show the body work on the tail section, but I'm still working on the seams around the cockpit. You may notice what look like voids in the joint between the hull and resin tail section, but that is CA glue that was at the surface of the joint. See Photo #4 and #8.

I have also ordered DK Decals for PBY-5 in RAAF service. The aircraft I plan to represent is A24-17. It has an interesting war time history. On 27 June 1942 RAAF Serial No. A24-17 assigned to 20 Squadron was attacked by a US Navy aircraft. Piloted by Flying Officer Robert 'Mike' Seymour, A24-17 was returning to Havanah Harbor, Vanuatu after a combat mission the previous night. The attack was by a USN Grumman Wildcat after mistaking the red roundel in the insignia on the top of the wing for that of the Japanese. There were no personnel casualties. However, this event caused a change in the RAAF insignia to a white roundel used throughout the remaning years of the war.

Photo #1

Photo #2

Photo #3

Photo #4

Photo #5

Photo #6

Photo #7

Photo #8

Very impressive work Piers and Harold. Today I am going to start painting the Spit. I will try to get some pics up in the next few days.

Cheers

Ferg

lostagain

Good stuff Harold, on the roster and looking forward to it! 1/48 will be a big model.

Yes the Catalinas were very important for the long range defence and surveillance for Australia, and moving teams behind enemy lines.

 

Eduard 1/48 Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IIa:

I completed major surgery on the fuselage by cutting the engine compartment off at certain panel lines. I also completed some of the upgrade cockpit painting and assembly. All the Brassin (upgrade) parts are resin and photo-etched metal compared to the original kit parts which are injection molded styrene. The quality of Eduard manufacturing is the best I've ever worked on in 1/48 scale.

Eduard Brassin Rolls Royce Merlin Engine:

Eduard Brassin cockpit:

Eduard Brassin brass landing gear:

Monogram 1/48 Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina:

Both the Spitfire and the PBY have special importance to me since my family was involved in their operation and maintenance during the Second World War. My Uncle Harold was a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot who flew Spitfires in Britain and North Africa and Lancaster bombers for the RAF over Germany. My Father and my aunt worked on PBY aircraft in the U.S. Navy. My Aunt Rose was a First-class Aviation Machinist Mate at Norfolk Naval Air Station in Virginia. My father was called back into service after December 7, 1941, to work on Consolidated B-24 Liberators in Burma, India as a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Force.

The Consolidated PBY was nick named Catalina by the British and Australian crews who flew them, and the name stuck. From what I learned the Catalina was used by all the allied forces including Russia. It had particular importance in the RAAF because so much of their work was at sea and long range. The Catalina could stay in the air up to 30-hours, so as a patrol bomber working with naval ships it proved deadly against enemy submarines.

My friend Jack Geratic in Canada has spent many hours researching the PBY with me and I greatly appreciate his work.

At this point you may have noticed the tail section is missing. The original Monogram model last released around 1997 had a design issue, generally called 'tail bloat'. The tail section was much wider than the actual aircraft and had a negative impact on the appearance. Since there have not been any tooling changes and this model is out of production, I decided to use a resin replacement tail manufactured by Blicher Bits in Canada. It requires a lot of body work, but I hope it will better represent the original lines of the PBY Catalina when I finish.

Good stuff Harold, on the roster and looking forward to it! 1/48 will be a big model.

Yes the Catalinas were very important for the long range defence and surveillance for Australia, and moving teams behind enemy lines.

lostagain

Hi Harold,

I have no issue with people working on their models past March 31.

I expect I will be in the same boat myself, with the next three weekends taken up with other activities

Piers

 

The other model is a Monogram Consolidated PBY-5 which I recently learned was as important to the RAAF as the Spitfire was to the RAF during World War II. I understand that Australia even has an annual PBY celebration at Rathmines outside the City of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales.

I just completed the cockpit and waist gunners platforms, so I would estimate the model is 10% completed. I ordered RAAF decals for 1943 and Eduard 1/48 50 cal. M2 machine guns with aircraft barrels. With your permission I would like to also have this Australian PBY Flying Boat on the roster.

Harold

Hi Harold,

I have no issue with people working on their models past March 31.

I expect I will be in the same boat myself, with the next three weekends taken up with other activities

Piers

Piers, what is your rule regarding models that are on the roster, but not completed by March 31, 2022?

Harold

Lol. that looks awesome Piers! 

Striking paint job!

lostagain

Harold

Thanks Cliff,

I have painted the stripes. At first I did a coat of Vegemite to seal the edges of the stripes

The next day when that had dried I could go flat out.

I am using Vallejo gloss black primer

And then remove tennis ball of Tamiya tape to reveal the stripes in their glory - and a few spots of overspay to clean up.

Once that's done I think I need some white circles to back the roundels

Ouch Piers, that looks like a pain to get those right. Looks like you've got the riddle solved though. Best o' luck and looking forward to seeing her in the stripes!

Okay, you haven't heard from me for a while, life, music festival, bikes and work getting in the way.

And the struggles with trying to get straight stripes on a curved surface. Red Roo gives some guides to the stripes (6 foot yellow, 3 foot black) with notes that the spacing was variable to work around the parts of the plane. While they do give views from all sides, some of the stripes around the fuselage don't match left view to right, and a stripe straight across the fuselage viewed from above can't be straight as shown on the side view - so (as Red Roo say) there was a lot of buggerising around trying to get it right.

First try, I did a rough layout of the stripes and started putting it together. The black is too wide and in the wrong places from the few available photos

Second and third tries it got a lot better I think. The stripes are better proportioned and the best I can work out from the drawings and photos.

Then just another week of filling in the stripes and making sure every possible part is covered.

Bob, great to have you on board with the P40, and underrated plane for the RAAF in both Africa/Italy and the PTO. Not underated by the pilots that flew them though.

Your pick up on ebay was a good one, and a bit of a wierd jigsaw puzzle. And I like your jig

Cool Bob! Hasegawa's P-40 has the same issue but the fit is probably better- best 'o luck! 

Hey all-First off, great work being displayed here-you guys are setting the bar very high.

Getting ready to get started on my entry-AMT/AMTech P-40E 1/48

(box from an kit purchased earlier)

....or that's what it was at one time.  I purchased a lot (3 kits), no box, w/decals and one photocopied instruction sheet after AMT went out of business.  Not sure if someone grabbed the remaining inventory and made some money on eBay or what, but the price was worth it.

One issue issue is that the tooling was created to make the various versions by having different tails-however, on some of the kits the alignment is off.  Option one is to cut the tail off, realign and go from there-did it before, not too hard.  Other option is to go though the three kits, mix and match parts and get a better starting point-and thats what I'm going to do.

Hopefully I'll get the interior primed and maybe painted tomorrow...may add some photoetch if I feel brave.

Cheers

Dodgy, sounds like it is quite a trial!

Definitely we all have models that have not made the shelf, your persistence is to be admired!

The yellow Beau, trying to lay out the black stripes and finding it is a challenge to get straight lines over a curved fuselage...

Sorry to hear about the tough going. Yes, I know exactly what you mean, sometimes you just want the thing gone and move on to somthing else.

Chalk it up to a 'learning experience' and put it behind you.

She looks pretty good in the photos though, I assume she's like some of my metre/yard models- just don't look at them close up!

Gamera, when you said that you just wanted to get your Spit finished...... well I'm right there with you! I had some fit issues that required a lot of sanding, priming, sanding and when it was done the panel lines had disappeared in various places. This is the first aircraft I have buily in 30 years and it shows. I've mad a lot of mistakes trying to rescribe the panel lines and this resulted in more sanding and rescribing. Then I found that parts were comming unglued, the lower fuselage join, the fin join and the wingtips. I'm begining to wonder if I will ever get it finished! However, whilst it's been very frustrating, I've relearnt a lot of things, but I've reached the point where it's nearly time to go to paint and it will be what it will be. Time to move on.

Piers your Beau looks sensational in its yellow paint. A masterfull job!

Tony your P40 is looking great.Very smooth paint job.

GT, at the pace you're going on your Spit, it will be finished before mine!

That looks fantastic Tony, nice and smooth! 

Piers, the yellow on your Beau is looking great now. I'm really glad you're doing that kit of the Winjeel. I really must add one to my collection of RAAF stuff. I build mostly Australian subjects these days. Here is a progress update on my P-40. It has the underside Azure on and masked. I've sprayed the mid stone uppersurface and it awaits some more masking and then the dark earth camo pattern.

Cheers

Tony

Piers: Wow that yellow looks good! Such a pain but you did a great job on it! 

And the Winjeel is neat. Those pinholes on the wing are gonna be a pain. I've had stuff like that and you fill them all and then prime and find you missed a few. Do it again and find you still missed a few. After half a dozen times I had them all knocked out! 

You might check a library or something like that for a PC with a CD reader. I had to buy a USB one for my new PC, they don't even make the bays for the CD-rom drives anymore. I'm sure it shouldn't be too hard if you do find one to transfer the files to a USB flash drive. 

A bit of a break, I have resprayed the yellow and I am happy with it now - I am giving it a week to dry right out.

Over at the Winjeel, I open the box and inside there are plenty of resin pieces, including some clear ones, PE details, vacform canopies (one spare happily). There is also a CD full of photos and references - but I don't have a disc reader to see what is on it! The resin pieces are prepared by Special Hobby - the model was later rereleased by Planet models - and the castings are pretty clean with only minor flash and fine recessed panel lines.

The only place with a lot air bubbles are the big wing casting

Having read a few reviews, I knew that the fit in the cockpit was an issue to be solved. Sure enough the test fit shows the seats are wider than the cockpit.

The rubber band is holding the nose together as the fuselage pieses are a bit warped.

Continued dry fitting, adjustment, fettling, trimming and refitting to get it all to come together.

So now the seats are fitting in quite neatly

Thanks for the kind words on the yellow finish guys. But as with all my models the photos don't tell the whole story and there were too many bits of cruddy finish that were annoying me. So it now has some sanded patches and other spots where black flecks were dug out then given a white patch. So now it is back into the shed. At least I have got a couple of extra bottles of Gunze 329 so now I am confident of not running out.

And I am going to add my last model to the roster - a 1/48 Red Roo CAC CA-25 Winjeel. A resin kit designed by Red Roo and made by Special Hobby.

It's looking good GT, but I can't see the fit issues you have had to go through.

Cockpit has come up well.

Some slow progress but it's progress.  I've never built an ICM kit before but I guess these kits are engineered to really have the panels off.  I'm finding that the fit on this spitfire is not so good.  Makes me wonder how the Messerschmitt 109 I have is going to go?

Piers: WHOA!!! That looks amazing! Yellow is such a pain but what you've got is frelling perfect! 

Tony: That's interesting on the shape issues-always liked Academy kits. She's coming along great, so close to being ready for paint.