Fleet Air Arm Group Build

Daywalker wrote:

Mike- Congrats on 1000 posts! That calls for a lil' celebration!

Hey, thanks buddy! It's really been a fun ride so far!

Congrats on the 1,000 posts Mike.  Keep em coming .

Regards,  Rick

OK, here are a couple of pics of my work area.  It is going to be packed up in a week or two, so my new one (which will be bigger!) will prolly look different.  As you can see, I have already started packing my reference materials.  I took a close up of the bench and spray booth for ya Roy, hope it helps!

Frank & Mike, on the subject of spray booths, did you guys make yours or buy it?  As of now I have nothing.  When I get around to setting up my hobby room I will ask for and take any suggestions you guys can offer.

Roy

Roy-

Mine is a Paasche spray booth, that I bought new last year from a guy on Ebay for about $200 bucks.  It comes with filters, and a steel reducer to channel the exhaust down to a standard 4" dryer vert hose.  It is made of galvanized steel, and seems to work well.  Can't remember what the cfm output was, maybe around 700cfm?  Don't quote me on that, though.  The outside dimensions are about 22 1/4" wide, 18 1/4" high, and with the fan and hose about 27" deep.  Hope that helps!

Leon, the Sunderland, like most airfix kits suffers from many sink holes, flash and requires tubes and tubes of filler material.  The two fuselage halves didn't quite match up requiring some creative sanding on the bottom.  The worst part was the sink holes on all the port hole windows.

a couple of pics.

Filler

a before and after of the windows, I had to file them down to get the sink hole out. A real pain when there are 30+ of them.

Bob, Thanks for the info on the mustangs. I have some Accurate Miniature kits, but have yet to get around to building them. I should force myself to do one next as I really would like to have an Avenger of Dauntless, but I keep choosing other ones...

Frank,  Great looking room. I'll be showing those pictures to my wife..."See you can have a good hobby room in the house and it wont turn into a big painted mess..."

Dave, Geez that looks like a huge pain in the you know what, but man the end result is really nice. Hopefully in the end all the hard work made it give an even larger feeling of accomplishment. Having to do all of that work would have made it a kit that I either didn't finish or would take years to finish. Again, really nice job on it.

Leon 

Many thanks to everyone who commented on my previous builds, coming from this group they certainly mean a lot.  Leon I'll let you in on a little secret, the shark mouth spitfire is one of my favorites as well

Frank the Zero looks excellent, nice job .  It may have been a pain but your results are worth the effort IMHO.  Oh and good luck with your move.

Thanks Darren!  I just bought a set of decals for the "Grey Nurse" last week myself, one of my favorites too.

Looks like this reply is post #1000 here, WOOHOO!!!

Hi there fellas Just to get this thread back on tracks again I have fullfilled my selfimposed mission here,and finished my Tarpon. And boy what a jolly good kit and at £12 from Ontracks, exelent value for the money. With no less than 6 decaloptions,extra torpedo that I didn`t use and radarpod++++ it`s awsome. And ofcourse AM`s superb mouldings in an Italeribox, it was a licensed steal

Now the pics, apoligize the quality, they were taken with my phone

I used Xtracrylics all over this model whenever I used my airbrush,exept preshading,exhaust and soot from the guns and general smudging on the airframe with Tamiya paints, Humbrol for the washes inside and out as well as oilstains here and there and of course detailpainting also in Humbrol. All in all I`m pretty satiasfied with the result both of this and the other 2 models I entered in this here GB. Now, how `bout some  nice badge for me ???prittyplease 

Nice work on the Tarpon triumf .

Regards,  Rick

looking good.

Roy

Great build triumf.  Although the AM Avenger is a great kit, detail wise, it is also a complex kit.  You've done a great job on the kit and the paint job as well.

darson wrote:

Did you use the Italeri Avenger?

OK I'm a complete plonker , I just re-read triumph's post and realised that he already answered the question.

Nice lookin' Tarpon ya got there, triumf!

OK guys, y'all behave yourselves because I'm going to be out of town for a few days. The wife & I are headed to Vancouver on thursday night (work for her, fun for me as I'm just tagging along! ). Friday I'll get to step foot into a real hobby shop for the first time in over a year! ....and I've made my list! ....maybe a kit or two, but definitely some paints (most likely pollyscale, because the enamels won't get through security) Just looked at their line and they have some interesting colors, even some WWI stuff. I also need colors to finish my Mk.V Russian Spit and to eventually start my MK.I, plus whatever turns up while I'm browsing!

Hey Mike,

If you are going to Vancouver to "Browse" you have to check out Finescale Models in North Vancouver (163 1st Street East - (604) 984-4366)  Great shop and STACKED with lots of kits (and paint).  Enjoy, I'm very jealous!  It's been far too long since I've made the trip down.

As I await my trip to Vancouver & Finescale Models to purchase the paints needed to finish up my Russian Spit, I've been keeping myself busy with this, Eduard's 1/48 Hanriot HD.1. Neat little kit. Here's some progress.....

This is what the actual tail assembly looks like.... 

....so I did a bit of surgery to try and replicate it here, as the kit depicted the entire assembly covered....

The real cockpit....

....so a few details I added to mine, but there's still a ways to go.... (note: Eduard's WWI aircraft cockpits are quite comprehensive...very well detailed, but there's always room to add more)

Finally, the kit Vickers guns left much to be desired, so a little sprue, styrene, and PE really dressed 'em up nicely. This aircraft only uses one machine gun.....

Don't worry though....I'll be getting back to my Spit immediately upon our return.

Does this hobby shop have a web address?  I would like to check them out.

Roy

Nice work, Triumf!

Mike, I think we're going to have a hard time distinguising the model and the real thing in your photos!  That Vickers gun is exquisite!

Triumf- Nice job on that Tarpon!

Mike- Enjoy your lil' hobby excursion, I for one probably take it for granted that I have 6 hobby shops within a half hour of my house.  Hopefully, you'll come back with some cool stuff!

Thanks much, Andy! That's quite a compliment! Some of those pieces were so small, and believe it or not, the muzzle at the very tip of the cooling jacket was also a brass piece (about 1.5mm x 3mm) that had to be rolled into a tube-shape, and then have an even smaller donut-shaped ring glued to the opening! I was very happy that this particular Hanriot variant used only one gun, because after building only one, I was spent!

Frank, I can only imagine what awaits me once I walk through those doors. It's been ages, and so much great stuff has been released in the interim. Good thing (I think) that the wife has me on a budget.

Thanks much for the kind words, buddy! I've seen your work....it's absolutely amazing, so this means a great deal to me!

Sooooooo, you want to build a Camel, Frank? I think that's awesome, buddy! Go with Eduard, preferably the Profipack, like kit #8056. There's a bunch of Sopwiths released by Eduard in 1/48, and they're all great kits, but that particular one has 2 extensive PE frets, resin goodies, and decal options for 8 different birds. Plus, the instructions show which extra parts are for which option. It's an awesome kit! ...and I can direct you to a site that has some great reference pics of WWI birds too.

....like this one....

Thanks Mike!  I am looking at Squadron's webpage, and found that Camel.  Also found a Fokker E.V, Nieuport 11, etc. etc...

Oh-oh, could be dangerous!

Nice work on the Hanriot Mike.  Looks great.

Regards,  Rick