Dave J

I picked one up at Telford last year. Saved me a bucket load in shipping!

Cheers, I only used the Pigments on the exhaust. All the mud was made with Plaster and AK Mud Washes.

Yes you're correct. There are two shades depending if its a Mitsubishi or Nakajima built. Have you checked out J-Aircraft website? There is tons of info there - http://www.j-aircraft.com/

Had some more time at the bench today, decided to power on with the Tankette since there wasn't much to do to get to paint. I made up some belts from some small fuse wire and tape for the jack. I just attached it over the PE belts. I thinned down some Tamiya Putty with Tamiya Lacquer Thinners and used an old paint to dab it all over the exhaust to give it some texture. I decided to include another detail by damaging the rubber on the wheels. I started by taking a file and filing away the sharp edges to give it a more curved worn look, and then cut away some small chunks. I thought I might overdone it but looking at some images on the internet, I think it will be fine. After all this was done, I moved onto the turret and drilled out all the cooling holes on the machine jacket. Something that I thought was cool and smart from Takom was that they included rivet heads on the sprue runner to add to the turret where they couldn't add the detail due to limitations from injected molding. And with that, it's all done and ready for paint! So fit wise, everything fits like a glove and there wasn't need for any filler what so ever. I think you could easily build this within 4-6 hours as there is minimal cleanup, thanks to where sprue attachment points are located on the parts. You have a set of God Hand or Dspae like cutters you will breeze through clean up.

This is going to be another great one!

I will be following this! As I have an Mk.I that I want to build as BOB Hurricane.

Well, I already have broken one of mine! I taped replacement CMK Cockpit for the Trumpeter P-40B together and put then put back into the box... The shallowness of the CMK pit still sticks out to me, when I have the time and energy will pick it up again and look at extending it.

Good work on the cockpit. I taped mine together and put then put back into the box... The shallowness of the CMK still sticks out to me, when I have the time and energy will pick it up again and look at extending it.

I started gluing parts between a couple of other things I have on the go that were drying. I'm inpressed with what Takom have done, it falls together and where I am currently is maybe 2-3 hours worth. I recoken this could eaily be an weekend build project if you were looking for one! I took care of all the running wheels and idlers. Clean up wasn't to bad thanks to where Takom placed the sprue attachment points and a really sharp sprue cutter. Wheels were quickly rubbed down with a 3M scotch pad. I will come back and ruff them a little bit more later. The suspesion is workable and quite stiff. I took the wheels off for the moment till I get closer to adding the tracks. Everything built up pretty quickly from here onwards and I am currently here. Since there seems to be no AM for this, I am looking for little things I can to make it details stick out. First thing I did was rubbed my RB Razor over the wooden handles of the tools. I am hoping when it comes to painting, the sratches will proved an nice woodgrain. Next simple task I did, was thinning down the edge of the horn. Quick and easy task with a half round file. The plastic grab handle on the hatch was replaced with wire that was bent into shape with wire bending pilers from a jewellers store. Holes were drilled out and then wire super glued into postion. And to give you an idea of size, next to a bottle of hot pink Vallejo.

Sure have! The update is coming shortly... Just uploading the images

When I was in Telford last year, Jim gave me a couple of armour kits to build for LSM. One of them was Takom's 1/16 IJA Type 94 Tankette. This will be pretty much OOB as there seems to be no AM for this kit as of yet. I was thinking of building it as the Australian capture Tankette that I saw at Canberra's War Memorial storage facility last year, but it turns out that is a late variant with the larger idler wheel. Looks to be a cool kit, if you haven't seen it yet, check out Jim's review here -

I have the CMK cockpit also, unfortunately it is still to shallow. I thinking of adding some plastic card at the bottom

From my understanding, everything up to an M was Interior Green. Then it was Dark Gull Green. The engine compartment was Zinc Chromate.

Yeap that stuff you will need!

Sweet looking Kit! Now send my way so I can build it for you lol!

I just had my mates over last night for our first weekly modelling session of the year, and one of them was building the Dragon 109E from JG26, I happened to pull this out to show him my JG26 build. I started building this for the 1940 GB back in 2015.... and I stuffed up the 10 on the sides of the fuselage, and it got placed on the Shelf of Doom. After looking at it last night, there isn't much to correct my cockup! So I am thinking I am going to try to push two Shelf of Doom builds over the line. This one and P-40N

Hah! I am about to start my one also... I just received the Barracuda Wheels and Master barrel set for it yesterday. Thou I will be doing an AVG scheme on my Hawk. Have you read Rick's fantastic build of his P-40? If you haven't - What are your plans for the depth issue for the cockpit?

What P-40 Cockpit set did you get??

I am enjoying the Dark Side! Or to those who only build things with wings.... Targets!

Another year has ticked over, and I managed to build five kits in 2018. That has been my best for many years, well actually since 2013! I made seven back that year. There are a few kits on my pile that I would love to tackle this, I would like to try to get 6-7 done. Last time I decided to do this in 2014, and I built nothing! So with ongoing back issues hopefully under control now and having my Mojo returned. So these are the kits that I want to get done this year, in no particular order... 1. Meng Jagdpather 2. Rye Field Models Panther G 3. Trumpeter P-40B 4. Hasegawa P-40N (Currently on the Shelf of Doom) 5. ? 6. ? So have you guys done this before and planned what you want to build for the year?

We had a notice on our site... I am only getting to emails that were sent through from the 21st of Dec!

I can say I would skip the Eduard Cockpit set and grab the Aires resin set, 1. it actually fits with small clean up! 2. The detail is way more detailed! I will see I have pics of the one that I just built.

Thanks John! Looks to be a good effort on Trumpeters part... Maybe not the A-Teams efforts, but I think I will pick one up. I just checked my Hasegawa P-40s and I have the exhaust insert too. I was chatting to Mike Swinburne (Seiran01) about CAD'ing up the insert

John, don't want to come across being nasty, but maybe Loic was on still on Holiday? Lots of businesses on this side of the pond stay closed till the first week or second week of Jan. We only opened up on Monday... But I am still on holiday till February and I am only checking our Help email couple of days.

Well, Xmas was pretty quite this year, as the kids are starting new schools this year and they required laptops for school. So the only thing I got was Battlefield V for the Xbox. Thou I did have x2 1/32 F4U-1D turn up from Luckymodel's last sale with $2.00 shipping. I forgot that I ordered it and it arrived on Xmas eve so it was perfect timing! I did have a little bit of money left over from the Telford trip, so I treated myself to a Meng Jagdpather