denders

Well, the wings are ready to go together. And the wings joined to the fuselage. And the oil coolers, flaps, and ailerons. I chose not to have the oil cooler flaps open. And yup, the horizontal stabilizer isn't horizontal when the wings are level. I realized it way too late to do anything about it. I'm wondering if it started when I put the tail wheel mount in early so I could paint it inside the fuselage. Wondering if the way to have done it would have been to put it into the fuselage loose when I closed up the fuselage and then add some glue to it. It is noted in the directions that when placing the rudder push rod the rudder will be offset just a bit to starboard on purpose. Ah well. Off to the paint booth for fun with paint and masking.

RFI photos are here:

It has been a while since I finished this one too. The main colors are Hataka lacquer paint All the markings are from kit decals except for the light blue stripes. The build thread is here:

The RFI posting is here:

Okay, it's been a while since I finished this. Today made a perfect day to take RFI photos and post them. I've painted this to represent the aircraft on the boxart except before the winter white camo was applied. All the marking are painted except for 7 small decals, two of which are the IP. The seatbelts are scratch made with lead foil and wire. The Build thread is here:

Cockpit all closed up. I'm not sure anyone has shown what is in the front end. The fuselage closed up really easily. Glue next.

A couple of photos before closing up the cockpit area. And with the cockpit area closed up. Then mounting the IP, drilling several small holes, and then closing up the fuselage.

I think it actually has Meng on it. I picked it up a while back when SB had a weekend discount on Meng stuff. The two button like things are loose and can be removed to clean. You can put a drop(s)of CA on them and use whatever tool you prefer for applying the CA. It’s hard to see, but there is a “forked” tool that comes with it and an Ammo brass toothpick laying there. The front part makes it easy to lay down the tool if it still has CA on it without gluing it the desk top. It’s handy. I used to use bottle caps. This has some weight to it so it doesn’t move around so easily.

Working on cockpit modifations/updates.

I haven't made much additional progress, but I did add this AM to the pile.

Progress. I've put all the stuff in the rear fuselage because I'm going to have the access hatch open.

Progress. I received my bottle of MRP-402 which, in the bottle, looks pretty good for use as RLM 77.

Perhaps I should be glad there aren't any really good LHS in the Nashville area. No, I really do wish there was a great LHS.

And a few more. There were a couple F1 cars there, but it appears that I was distracted and I didn't take photos of them. One of them can be seen in the background of one of these photos. I've seen this modeler's other entries at past shows and they are beautiful.

Some other models that I liked.

Here are some photos from the Chattanooga Show. They had a record number of modelers enter and a record number of models entered. Chattanooga is a Gold-Silver-Bronze format. There were 10 large scale planes entered. And I had my Hs123A-1 model there.

I picked these up at the Chattanooga show this past weekend.

It is this weekend, January 9 & 10. Anyone going?

I’ve used their lacquer on a car model. Straight from the bottle, no additional thinner. It sprayed very good. Clean up with hardware store lacquer thinner. edit: well, I guess I didn’t read very well, enamel. I think they sell thinner too. I would use their thinner just because I assume they have tested with their thinner and it probably works well.

Since I'm waiting for something to dry at the 109 build, I thought I'd get started in the cockpit of this one. The HGW belts are assembled for this and the 109. They went together pretty well.

Yeah, I had a look through MRP's grays and picked MRP402. I'll see how it looks when I get it.

Well, the recommendation to put the belt through the PE part before cutting it from the fret is a good idea. Until you realize you put it through the wrong way after you cut the PE from the fret. The first belt piece assembled. It even survived gluing it to the bench top matt. On to the next one. Then some weathering.

Thanks, Rob. Actually, it is a late war aircraft, and both the seat and cockpit floor would have been made of wood to save on the aluminum. I made a slip-up; I've glued the seat in position already. So it may become a bit of a chore adding the seat belts once I've assembled them.

Okay, all the cockpit decals except one are in place. After I took this photo, I airbrushed a coat of clear flat. Next will be clear gloss in the instrument dials. The seat was painted MRP Light Wood, oil paint added, Tamiya clear orange, chipping fluid, MRP Aqueous RLM 66, and chipped. First time.

Okay, all the decals are on the Instrument Panel (~25). There is one exception, the decal that should be on the red handle. That decal just didn't want to be there after the brush with Micro Sol claimed it. Next are all the little decals in the rest of the cockpit (~18). It's a really zoomed in phone photo.