Clunkmeister

Phenomenal work, as usual, Sir. This is one of my favorite German subjects. You’ve done her proud!

Probably. Beautiful unpainted PE and open holes for gauges

Well, Sprue Brothers just got 200.00 of my hard earned $$$ for 6 WW2 USAAF cockpit sets, 6 Allied early jet sets, and a 1/48 placards. I still say that for what these things sell for, the B-36 should have come with the instrument decals in the kit.

For as evil as she was, she was pretty darned cute. When she smiled. Which wasn’t often.

You'll be in our thoughts and prayers, Carl. You’ll be on the mend and back to normal soon enough, so take it easy and do everything exactly as the medical team request. That way, you don’t have Nurse Ratched smack the side of your head too often.

Yep. It’s a chore, but if I’m going to do this, then I do it right. I don’t expect two or three will ever get finished, so I may as well go whole hog

The engineer's desk in miniature looks like the control room from a 1980's nuclear Power Plant, seriously. There's plenty to see under the greenhouse, and I think the two man engineer's station will be much more visible than the traditional instrument panel. The instrument panel has a big glare shield over it as well, so there's plenty of detail possibilities here. Then there's the soda counter with three milkshake makers, a fountain, and an attached laundromat and bandstand, all with La-Z-Boy recliners to sit down in.

So I find myself prepping and fitting some crew area parts into the fuselage, and here we find what is probably the most popular xpensive kit sold by a mainstream manufacturer to be lacking such simple items as instrument decals. Yes I’m still fuming over that. We’re given a beautiful PE panel and engineer area, but are left with big gaping holes for the instruments. For a thousand dollar kit, that’s unforgivable. The good news is that everything really, really fits nicely so far.

Agree with everything said here. Just relax, build, visit, have fun, and feel free to show off the talents you have. I know I’ve become a much better builder than I dreamed possible by just learning from everyone here.

So here I sit. Becalmed. Going nowhere. Drifting with the long, slow rollers, with no cloud in sight. In the days of sail they’d man the boats and start pulling, hoping to go somewhere they’re not. Trying not to lose the Weather Eye, but I fear I’ve lost the urge for anything these days. I’ve started several, am close-ish on the truck and Hurricane, but after putting a few bodies in the ground these last few weeks, I’ve just lost the edge. I just want to cruise around in my pickup with The Guess Who playing at eardrum rattling levels. I’m not used to losing it like this, but who knows.

Same as with an OV-10, I expect. There's plenty of engineering 'decisions' with this one. But that huge greenhouse gives the super detailer a ery visible place to go all AMS on this. On a side note, apparently there's a new build or rebuild on these using a pair of big PT-6A's so they're coming into the 21st Century a bit. It'll change the lines of it a bit, but it'll certainly look good. This is an aircraft that should have sold hundreds more copies, but it never did. A thoroughly capable and potent light attack bird. And seriously cool looking, too.

Did someone say Falklands campaign? We really need one of these in 1/32 it’d be so bloody cool it’d reek of coolness

1/48 is great for the B-36, nothing smaller

Tony, I TOLD YOU SO!! LOL It seriously sucks the life out of you.

I just Spit. All over my screen After reading Harv's and Rog's comments.

LOL. of course, but to do something like that and make it worth a man's while, you'd need something close to that to make it work financially. That's a year's work assuming you use every single minute of your free time. Assuming 200 hrs of work at 20/hr, that's 4K in labor alone.

If I would be asked to build, say, a model of the T-28 that a guy withZERO model skills soloed in when he was a kid, that’s cool. A tidy little sum could be made, assuming you’re building a kit that falls together. me it’s be T-28s, John would be Corsairs, etc, etc. That’s the kind of thing you could charge a flat rate and see if the guy bites. But a copy of my RCAF Lanc, at any kind of decent rate, would easily be 10K plus. Big $$££¥¥€€ no matter where you live.

Exactly. That’s why the KH builds are fun. Straight OOB except for having to close up the entire thing to guard against handling damage. But dealing with a list of custom demands, no thanks. And in the end, when you add up the time you have in it, it adds up to you making abut .12/hr. I’d be better off picking up and returning discarded beer bottles v

Mark, I tried it and thoroughly hated it. Part of the joy of building is building a subject I love for myself or for a close friend. But there’s always an exception, and mine is that I do the odd build for Kitty Hawk because I really like the subjects they choose to kit.

Awesome collection, Carl. My favorite? Simple, the traditional Mk.V, simply because it’s a ‘pure’ short nose Spitty, with more in common with the original concept than not. I also have a serious affection for the bubbletop versions, both Merlin and Griffin powered. After seeing Peter Castle’s award winning bubbletop racer, I have similar thoughts get, but in 1/32. My least favorite Spitfire? Most definitely that hideous abomination foisted upon an unsuspecting and gullible public by Triumph. I once owned one, and it was truly a horrible experience. So much so I considered trading up to a Yugo. The people who dreamed up that thing should be keelhauled then locked in the Tower of London forever.

Threw some paint on it today, and that XF51 OD green is dark! I’ll need to lighten it up now, but I think under a camera lens, it appears like a black-green

I’ll second that motion! that one’ll live in infamy.

Nahhhh, we're not really sorry. We have Mossie mania

John, you jumping back in might persuade me to as well. I was in he middle of a BOAC Mossie, and contracted the dreaded PE burnout, so to the SOD it went as well.

Hey folks, Time for an update. First off, your thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated, and, I believe, are helping. Dad took a turn for the better and is actually home, although I’m not so sure I agree with that yet. Last week, he had one leg in the casket, today he’s doing much better. They changed his CPAP to a BiPAP and added O2 go the stream, so he’s much better as of now. Mom, not so much. She’s a disaster. Her dementia is getting worse. My brother Rob tried to pick her up in their 4 door Dodge pickup for a day trip to the house, and when they wheeled her out to get her buckled into the back seat, she refused, curled up in a ball under the seat, and wouldn’t come out. So the orderlies extracted her and too her back to the room. To say it upset Dad would be an understatement. Buried Uncle Ronnie two weeks ago. Buried my 26 year old (God) niece today. She passed of a massive brain tumor that spread to her spine. A truly beautiful girl both inside and out. My niece gave birth by C-section yesterday. 28 days premature, and the only reason she did is because she hated hurting and cared more about herself than her child. As a result, young Evelyn Joy is in NICU because her lungs aren’t ready yet. If I could feel true hate, this mom would be high up on he list of candidates to qualify as a recipient. My wife Joy’s Lupus is worse and now she’s in the middle of a flare up. She’s a fighter but good grief! The good news: We’ll get out to our homemade black powder pistol and rifle range next weekend and take our anger out on hapless pumpkins, watermelons, and time expired fizzy drinks. Saturday I’ll step back from the bench and go to the other bench. Some .45 LC and .44-40 in black powder will be pressed together, then maybe put together 20 or 30 .45-110 for the old Sharps. I have 500 yards to play with, which is child’s play for a ‘74 Sharps. After 10 through that thing, my shoulder’s screaming ENOUGH! Then, in November, it’s that time of year: our gathering of antique military firearms here we got out to a local specialty rifle range and shoot all our stuff that can’t be shot on a regular rifle range. Bloop! Boom! Bloop! Boom! It’s time for a Rock & Roll Show. I’m presently madly linking together a few thousand rounds of 8mm Mauser surplus ammo into nice long beautiful belts for the 34 and 42s. That should be good for a couple minutes of grins. I’m all out of 30.06, so I have nothing for the 1919. We will act FALonious that day.