Clunkmeister

I had the Hasegawa Japanese Phantom and in a moment of weakness, sold it.

How? Which filler needs to be eliminated? I understand it’s methanol injection, but where is that tank located?

And guys, just as an aside, Fran and I really appreciate your help in helping moderate this place, even if it’s just reporting something. We talked Martin and Scott in to helping as they can, and between us, there would always be someone around to shout at if something needs fixing. We may look at adding a person to cover the Far East time zones as our forum continues to grow some. Right now, we’re mostly Europe and North America, but we have a few folks here who still live down there and insist on spending all their waking hours clinging to the earth to keep from falling off…. 🤣

Odd that, isn’t it, Scott? We get a brand new release of a 109, along with a Helldiver, a Vampire, and a long awaited shark nose Curtiss Hawk, and there’s literally nothing new released for them. The Helldiver is seriously slim pickin’s, which is a real surprise to me.

I have the first edition AR.196 (twin float), and also a resin version of that airplane as well. HPH maybe? I do have the catapult as well, so if I ever get Gung Ho. HPH makes a really nice replacement canopy for the Revell kit, although that Revell kit is VERY hard to find these days.

I built the Academy F-4B as an F-4N, and am piddling away with the Tamiya F-4B, right now. Like many here, I’ve turned to 1/48 for modern jets, simply due to space requirements. They’re big enough to give you all the detail, but take the same footprint as a 1/32 WW2 fighter.. I want to try a ZM Phantom, and it’ll most likely be that superb JASDF edition!

You got AMS BAD, Rog! 🤣 Welcome to the Club! 😎😀😬😂

I think kit makers are finally figuring out that us AMS infected folks install HGW…. So why waste the time on belts. ICM figured that out years ago…

But first, I wait for a P-51B

And the driveline on the Cobra and the exhaust on the Lightning….

My record of completion is almost as good as yours. but at least it gets us building something different. I’m looking at an FF.33L right now, thinking it might be a fun build…..

Anything goes as long as it’s not microscopic. I misplaced my microscope. I try to make it easy, not hard for y’all.

I think we can swing that, Peter. I need to finish my Mig and my Helldiver. JohnB I’m not! I can’t build one of these in three sleeps

As far as ships go, I’m cool with it. 1/350 is a good scale for dreadnoughts, and 1/64 is decent for sailing ships.

Agreed on some of the engineering, but these are designed for the home market and they really like the level of internal detail. Us, not so much, but I talking to the Old Man and his family, this approach is looked upon favorable in Japan. Based on that, he really needs to do a P-38, P-39, and P-47. Three famous aircraft with VERY interesting engineering

Yes, my friend, my picture taking ability leaves much to be desired, but I do try to get the point across. I’m extremely happy with how this kit is coming together so far, with the only real hiccup for me being the utter lack of close up historical reference out there. Most close up pics seem to be of the CAF bird, which has been crashed and rebuilt from rubble so many times that it rivals a T-6 in its mish mash of parts mixture…

That’s because it’s broken. And a trashed engine. Pretty much destined for the scrap heap.

Looks like a single rifle bullet brought him down. Well placed shot, (ok, a really lucky shot) right in the ignition system.

Gefreiter Michel doesn’t look all that happy about the shortness of his budding combat career. But I’m sure he’ll later feel quite relieved that it allowed him to get out of a losing war with nothing more than a bump on the head. A broken magneto is a pretty sure fire way to end your patrol early.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the open bomb bay kit adds more to this model than even the open gunner position. At least when it comes to detail. The parts provided in this kit are lifted straight out of the HPH resin Helldiver kit, and are truly gorgeous parts.

What a difference one little piece makes. The front root rib ahead of the spar. It’s nice to be able to look into the bomb bay and see actual wing structure rather than just open space. Next I’ll fix my ham handedness and repair the main spar carry through

Thinking on that now. Let’s allow the dust to settle on the Ukraine GB, say a month or so? Then jump in. So I’m going to say we’ll go with the “Wet” theme, that’ll give ship and armor guys a good theme as well. So start planning your builds, take some before pictures, I’ll give a leeway of 25% complete, that’ll give a few SOD sitters a chance to get stalled projects dusted off. Now I know NOBODY’S gonna “cheat” and start early, right? 😂😂😂 Just make sure y’all take “before” pics. So let’s do a tentative start date of Nov 1 to run 6 months. Finishing April 30, 2023.

Sometimes, we tend to outsmart ourselves.. Like I just did. Both wings, top and bottom, fit perfectly, to each other and to the fuselage. On the second wing half, I tried for the “perfect fit” on the top half at the root, and did a very slight bit of sanding to achieve that but failed to take into account the alignment problems that’ll pop up when placing the lower half, which has a lip molded on, to slide into the fuselage. OOOOOOOOOPS! So, of course now the lower wing half is slightly too long, and I have to shorten it slightly, without losing the positive lock lip on the root edge. So, out comes the #11 and I start scraping the lip, trying to pull the bottom half it. 20 minutes, and piles of shavings later, I got it. I even managed to only gouge the surface once Moral: don’t get cocky building a short run kit. Instead, take what you have and fill any gaps with Plasticard and Milliput.

Here are our accessory wing root ribs that come with the open bomb bay kit. The interior of the wing is visible through the bomb bay and I thought I’d go the extra strip of cutting the lightening holes open. They’ll be quite visible through the bomb bay and will add much to the look.

Notice the extra helping of CA in critical locations. No locator pins, just good old butt joints 😇