Excellent work, 68GT; I echo the others. The NMF looks very smooth and clean and the decals went on great! Wish I could plant decals like that. 

That looks superb 68GT! 

A slow build but I just have the canopy and windshield to deal with.

Oh wow, that looks superb! The flash looks perfect to me. If you hadn't said so I'd have thoguht it was a kit decal. 

Looks great.  That bolt looks awesome - and red on silver is tough!

Turns out that my tail flash decal isn't 100% accurate but I'm okay with that.  I just freehand taped the zig-zag on the side but it looks pretty good.

Yeah that looks superb 68GT!

Nice and shiny, there! Keep up the good work!

Thanks, did varying shades of under coat and some MM non-buff aluminum.  Photos don't show a lot of variation but its there.

She looks great!!! 

We need you done soon to stop those dang Martians from kidnapping Santa Claus! 

Just rewatched 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martians' tonight and I love all the stock footage of the USAF scrambling all the '50s-early '60s aircraft to stop the aliens! 

The seams were okay, but not great.  I had to sand and fill as usual.

Ready for some base paint.

Looking good there! Yours seems to be fitting together pretty well.
I need to take  some photos of the F-5 I started, but it's a Monogram kit that I had to do a bunch of sanding on. Unfortunately, it took off some surface details. :(

6GT: Ohhh, nice to see you making such great progress! 

It's all good!

I did a little today but figure most of my time with this build will be on the paint.  There just arent many parts to the kit.

I'm sure he'll really appreciate it. It's a cool gesture! :)

It's a large scale figure of Deedlit from the Japanese anime 'Record of the Lodoss War'. He used to be nuts about the film, I'm hoping he still is.  

No worries, Gamera; definitely feel free to take your time. And remember, shoot for acceptable! Otherwise, the perfectionist bug gets all of us.  But, really, everyone here is free to just enjoy the build for the content and forget time limits...

What figure are you building for your friend? I've got an uncle I'd really like to build some Civil War figures for; just haven't got around to it yet.

John: It's good to see you again. I confess I should be done but I got kinda burned out on the wing stripes. I guess they're good enough but I'm enough of a perfectionist that I kept redoing them. 

I have some stuff I really need to get done by the end of the year- esp a figure I'm trying to build as a Christmas present for an old friend. So I'm hoping to get back to the P-51B early next year. 

Sincere apologies for missing this, 68GT! Welcome to the build! Is that gonna be 1/48? 

I've gotta buckle down on my builds for this year when winter break comes around. So, no worries about timeframes for anyone! Build when you can, as you can, and finish whenever. :)

That looks cool 68GT! Really want to see you build this! 

Sorry, just got back from vacation and back to my PC. 

Doubt I'll get mine done by the end of the year though. 

I'm a little late to the party, but I've been busy with things.  Pulled this Revell F-86 out of the closet this morning and plan to go with NJ ANG 177th FW F-86.  Been a while since I've built this kit but I'm suprised about the amount a flash on this compared to the old Monogram kits.

Sounds cool! Good luck! 

Trying to layer a second decal stripe on the first the setting solution caused the first decal to come up. I sprayed the decals with some gloss varnish today so hopefully they won't do this again. Hopefully photos soonish... 

I'll keep an eye out for your update! Hope the touch ups go smoothly for ya. 

I am hopeful that I will soon get a kit for this build. Placed a bid on EBay for an F-5E Tiger II with markings for both Nellis AFB in Las Vegas and Top Gun in Fallon. We'll see how it goes down.

The white trim came earlier this week and I've got the stripes down but it's kinda sketchy looking. Going to clean them up some before taking photos. 

Ah, setbacks...can't avoid 'em. Keep up the good work, though. :)

fotofrank: I added a pic of your build to the roster. You completed within the year, so would you like a custom Florida GB badge or do you prefer to stick with the standard one?

Thanks John! 

I went to add the white stripes over the weekend. And then found out I don't have any white trim... 

So I placed the order from MicroScale for a couple sheets. Hope they'll be here by the end of the week.

Gamera

Ok, the side stripes are done. After repainting them about five or six times.

 

Now for the wing and stab stripes. And I've seen two types, I'm guessing the fighter was repainted. 

A single white stripe seems to be right. At least this is what it shows on the instructions for the decals. 

The complete stripes - well either this was another paint scheme probably earlier or else an inaccurate restoration. I'm having some issues finding actual vintage photos...

 

Gamera, love your work! Good effort, too, with so many tries!

fotofrank

And it's completed. F6F-3 Hellcat, NAS Daytona, 1945. This Otaki Hellcat is a nice kit. A quick easy build. The overall blue is a 50/50 mix of Tamiya Flat Blue and NATO Black. The tail tip and propeller hgub are Tamiya Flat Red. These Hellcats typically had only one gun in each wing rather than a full compliment of six guns. The guns are represented with aluminum tube in the wing. The idea was that even though these Hellcats were trainers, if they were out over the Atlantic and spotted a U-boat, the pilots could shoot at the sub. The light blue bombs are practice bombs. D=NAS Daytona, F=Fighter/Trainer. Aircraft # 213.

 

 

That is a great job you did there! Do you have a photo preference for the front page? Sorry it took me so long to get to you. 

Ok, the side stripes are done. After repainting them about five or six times.

Now for the wing and stab stripes. And I've seen two types, I'm guessing the fighter was repainted. 

A single white stripe seems to be right. At least this is what it shows on the instructions for the decals. 

The complete stripes - well either this was another paint scheme probably earlier or else an inaccurate restoration. I'm having some issues finding actual vintage photos...