All Subjects - Aussie Group Build 2005

Dave I am aware that the individual has no choice in the matter, but the Government does.
When I say conflict, I mean the really messy jobs, WWI and II, Viet nam, Iraq, etc.

I was also unaware that you were in Timor.
I'll bet it's nothing like they try and show us on the tele.

I was refused entry into the services, for some reason they dont want people with a violent past.
My father tried to join and head over to Viet nam, but he is a French citizen, and they refused him for some rubbish reason.
But my grandfathers rumbled like there was no tommorow in I & II, the Boar war, the Resistance.

Carl That interior looks fantastic mate
Seems a damn shame to lock it up in the bowels of the aircraft.

Well, attached the tail section, and assembled the cokpit on the Bell tonight.
Now I have to make the BLOODY huge canopy fit, and do some more detailing on the engine.
Pics soon............ish.

QUOTE: Originally posted by darson Carl, that looks great . Which AM B-25 kit is that? Also, I have a couple of B-25 references but no internal shots, if you need anything external give me a yell.

Darren - Please send reference pics, I haven't got to the outside yet but I'm sure I'll want more reference when I get there. It's the B-25 C/D kit. A couple of options but "Dirty Dora" is the featured finish. Funny story, Dirty Dora was named after a foul-mouthed tart the crew met while in Sydney. A later crew met her & showed her the plane but she was apparently unimpressed (the nose is painted as a giant bat).

I'm doing a boring old foliage green scheme, probably this one:

I am interested in trying out the Gregg Cooper weathering technique, which I think looks exceptional (when he does it, at least). It's easiest on a single colour finish:
http://www.features02.kitparade.com/gekkogc_3.htm

Darren - well after seeing the magic Slatydog does with that brush and hearing and seeing others responses (like yours) on it I decided it was what I wanted for detail... the 175 I have does have a Fine needle/nozzle I could put on it, but it's only .3mm and I think the .35 of the Iwata would give me a bit more room to play with... I'll update you once it gets into my hands! Oh yeah I think the rising sun crest I have comes from before you were in... a majority of my stuff is WWI and WWII, I used to collect a lot of it when I was a kid... as far as my own stuff, somewhere stuffed in a drawer around here is my sailors hat (the popeye hat haha), I still keep one pair of cammies from my time with the Marines and my ribbons... thats about it...

Carl - I am anxious to see the finished kit... and the next 50% off sale at the LHS

Tweets: TV never seems to show the reality of conflict IMHO. Only the extremes. All the good, or all the bad depending on which way they want to slant peoples views. I saw things flying medevac (helicopter medical evac) in the desert that defy a sane explanation... My distrust of the media grew exponentially after Desert Storm...

Carl - I have the same kit from A/M and also intend to do the Foilage green version of it using the Aussie Decals set of markings for that acft. All I have to do is finish of the B-24 and a few others first. Hopefully when you get to it you will post any modifications etc that you have to do to it for the rest of us.

I managed to at least get a coat of the PRU blue on the model on ANZAC Day. I started off using the Xtra Colour PRU Blue but gave up in disgust when it wouldn't give me any colour at all. I thinned it, too thin, I used it straight from the tin with the same result so it got replaced by my old favourite Humbrol. This morning after I had let it dry over night I discovered all the little faults in my workmanship (of course). There are a few little seams that need fixing amonsgt other things.



I was in East Timor from December 2001 to April 2002 with the AusAVN Det at Suai. It was a Detachment from 161 Recce SQN that had rotated in to the area after replacing 162 Recce SQN. We were based at the Suai airstrip just down the road from the New Zealand camp. In the area was also the Fijian Infantry company, the Irish Company, a Slovak Hospital, Pakistani's and towards the end of my time there a detachment of Japanese Engineers came to the area.

Carl & Dave great progress fellas, your builds are coming along very nicely

Progress report:::::::: i have managed to get he interior green painted on the Spit and now i just have to detail the pit before i join it up, the going is a little slow cause of other builds but i'll get there in the end

Jules - understood about the builds... I thnk I have learned my lesson about joining all the GB's at once... problem is they are all ones I have been wanting to do...


oh yeah another update, the significant other (Mrs. Tho9900) forced me to buy a model for my birthday... I got the RAAF MkVIII Spit by Hasegawa I mentioned before... should start shortly. It is a toss up between this and the Zero A6M2 for the Midway build.

Jeez Harvs, you're putting the pressure on me now. I was hoping to be historically slack on this as I've yet to find a picture of that particular plane & there's little consistency in what was delivered to the RAAF. Even on that decal sheet some have upper turrets & some don't. I picked this one because it has an unpainted nose, the upper turret (though not the lower) & the gun pods.

Airbrush needles: I've got the medium tip on my Badger 100LG, has anyone tried the fine tip w. modern acrylics? over in the frequently suspect airbrush-forum-land it's been suggested this tip is too fine for model paints but I wonder if it's okay to do really fine work now & then? BTW: I got one bottle of Model Master 'Acryl' & have to say it's my favourite paint, just beatiful to use w. their thinner (& the best colour Zinc Chromate colours around) - pity I can't buy it anywhere in this country.

Carl, no pressure at all. LOL I've seen a photo of that acft somewhere, I can't think of where though. I will have to look through my stuff to see if I can find it when I get back to Wodonga on Friday. I'll also ask David Edwards about it when I see him tonight. If he doesn't have any reference on it then it may well not exist.

Tom, go for the Hasegawa Spitfire!!!!! The kit comes together quite nicely and looks very nice when painted up. I used the Loon Models fueslage replacement on mine but it's still a good kit. Have you decided what colour scheme your going to paint it up in?

Dave - not sure yet.. I haven't even opened the box to be honest, I am finishing up a Stuka for the N.Africa GB and then will at least start the planning for it.

Carl - ditto on the Model Master colors... I use them, but am slowly switching to Vallejo acrylic colors which I tend to like better. I have never had one problem with MM acryls... MM Flat Black is the only one I have had problems with peel up, I recommend a primer under that one...

Carl, send me an email with your address and I'll throw what I have onto a CD for you.
Oh and with the AB needles, just how small is the fine tip on the badger? I use a .5mm needle for regular work and a .35mm needle for detail work and have never had a problem. I think that you may have an issue if you are trying to use a .2mm needle as those things are made for ink and not designed for the pigments in our paint.

Tom that Hase Spitfire is a real gem and what is even better is that you can buy a whole swag of Ultracast bits to go in it

Jules I know what you mean slowly but surely I am working through the four kits I have on the go at the moment

Dave good looking progress on the Mossie, from you photo your model looks great. BTW what is the thing you've got for painting on the pope, I'm beginning to see a theme developing

Cheers
Darren

Darren - I definitely want the Ultracast seats and probably tires.. thats the two things lacking in most of the kits I see... the Badger Fine needle is .3mm I believe

Dave - forgot to answer you yesterday - yeah I already bought it (the RAAF Spit)... Probably going with the ocean gray and dark green camo...

Darren, with all the resin and chopping in that Mosquito i'm trying for as much help as I can! If the Pope can't help (note the pose) then who can?

Darren & Tom Yeah boys too many Gb's not enough build time, i've already had to pass on the P/40 and RAAF what if GB'S.....I currently have 6 on the bench all but 1 is for GB's......
Tom www.aeroimageworks.com do a fantastic decal sheet for RAAF Spit VIII's called Shark Attack

EDIT::::::: forgot forward slash again////////////////////////////////////

Jules - thanks again, I'll send Kremps by your place about 10 tonight if thats ok...

QUOTE: Originally posted by darson Oh and with the AB needles, just how small is the fine tip on the badger? I use a .5mm needle for regular work and a .35mm needle for detail work and have never had a problem. I think that you may have an issue if you are trying to use a .2mm needle as those things are made for ink and not designed for the pigments in our paint.

Darren - 1. address details sent, thanks for that.
2. Talk about hard to find - Badger seem loathe to mention a number on these needles, they're classified only as fine, medium, large on both the Badge & Bear Air sites. I think I'll just have to take a punt on it, if it works it'll be worthwhile.

Harvs: On the Mitchell - For starters the cowls are off, I got the Eagle Editions replacements (plastic, not resin). I just stumbled across a useful cheat by downloading the Eduard instructions for their PE for this kit. Even if you don't use it it tells you about some detail & shows what's missing in a number of places & you can easily scratch build the important bits.
This is for the B-25B, they also have PE for the J but not the C/D.
http://www.eduard.cz/products/pdflist.php?www_dir_name=./pdf/n48/&www_PDFcatalogue_nb=48323

Carl - I found the same thing when I was looking, but I seem to remember .3mm being tossed around in the AB topic awhile back. ::shrug:: sounds like a nice number to me

BUMP!!!

Canopy night tonight!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully it will dry correctly, then some filling and sanding to bring it down to the right level.

Getting there slowly..................
Still have to track down some Aussie decals or stencils of the roo roundel, and the word ARMY, but actually more like A
R
M
Y

Canopy masking for me to. The Boomer has had the cannon installed now and apart from some remedial filling, I might airbrush this weekend!

cheers

Mike

::rubbing hands together in glee:: oooooo... I love canopy masking!!! take some pics!!!

hmmmmmm.... wonder how much tape Sean's going to use on that bell canopy? maybe someone ought to send him an extra roll just in case!!

Canopy time for me as well. I have to patch together two Vacform bits to create the correct canopy for the PR16 as the kit canopy cracked.

Ironically it's canopy time for me too, but not for the Spit VIII for the BF 109's.......

I've just had a great idea, seein as how Tom loves to mask canopies and i absolutley hate it i'm gonna start sending my canopies to Tom so he can mask em for me.......
Tom next time "Kremps" visits you she'll be carrying half a dozen canopies to be masked OK

ummm.... Jules.... Kremps already made it by.... ummm..... her sister Agnes came with her....

Agnes sat on them... I didn't know any other way to tell you this but blurt it out.....

Well, the canopy idea was a bit of a wash out

I decided to use Krystal Clear instead of my usual CA effort, just for something different.

Krystal clear doesn't really form a decent bond
So while I was attaching a couple of scratch items, I bumped the canopy and she fell onto my knife

The scratch isn't to bad, so I'm gonna polish it out, and leave the canopy till last to attach.

But as for the engine detail, got a few wires to run, and have managed to scrape up some PE bits that look similar to the linkages on the Bell that I can use, so it isn't a total loss so far.

Tweets - looking forward to it! from the pics awhile back you posted of your progress she's gonna be a knockout!!!

A knockout if things go well.

A paper weight if things go horribly wrong.

an expensive and well crafted paperweight.. well if it blows to hell you can always start making a dio of a Bell 47 crash...

Like Kremps said... when life hands you beets... trade them to the old lady down the street for a bottle of vodka and once you're drunk you can laugh about it!

QUOTE: Originally posted by tho9900 an expensive and well crafted paperweight.. well if it blows to hell you can always start making a dio of a Bell 47 crash...

Always got a back up plan eh Tom

QUOTE: Like Kremps said... when life hands you beets... trade them to the old lady down the street for a bottle of vodka and once you're drunk you can laugh about it!

For us it takes a bottle, for her it takes a brewery

QUOTE: For us it takes a bottle, for her it takes a brewery

Sad but true my friend... and you can't say anything to her or she smacks you real hard... poor old bat... of course with a liver the size of hers, it has room to shrink... at least she's a sentimental drunk... cries in her beer about the "good old days" with the Czech resistance in WWII... all she can talk about when she is soused, is when she tore that Nazi limb from limb in a "gorilla" action against the Nazis... (that's right, I meant gorilla, not guerilla) Seems the local sewing club in her home town decided it was time to do something about these whippersnappers roaming in the streets...

Hmmm the things we like to talk abut eh........Whats worse is i'm mental enough to understand what your yakking about,,, imagine if a new member were to read our conversations,,,they would be thinking what the hell are these guys on

BTW Tweets how about some pics.................