Clunkmeister

This has been on and off for a bunch of years now, not saying I’ll even finish it this go round, but we’ll see. A squirrel for a few days, I think. Of course, it’s the dreaded Special Hobby Brewster, and it hasn’t been a horrible build so far. I spent a lot of time on the cockpit, adding wiring, braces, cables and such, along with a multitude of Barracuda placards, and… they’re all invisible after the fuselage gets closed up. The fit on this thing is actually pretty decent, and as far as short run resin and styrene hybrid kits go, is pretty darn good. The engine was built a few years back and I had just slapped it together OOB. Since, I have installed one set of plug leads and will add the rear plug leads over the tops of the cylinders. One thing that stands out to me and now drives me nuts (I never noticed before, just slapped it together, is the inside if the cowl is absolutely devoid of engine baffling and the carb intake and oil cooler ducts are not provided at all in the kit. Just open air behind the cowl ring and the openings. The oil cooler and airbox are provided in resin on the rear of the engine and are visible through the wheel wells. No wonder the US Navy and USMC said they ran hot. So I have three options: 1. Ignore it. 2. Try to insert some shaped card stock to approximate a couple ducts, or. 3. Break the engine out and do it right, if I can avoid the dreaded crunch and tear gremlins. I think option 2 makes most sense . I also cut apart the elevators and stabilizer to hopefully give this old girl some proof of life by loosening up her stiff ways I’m playing with doing such to the rudder as well, but maybe not. Sorry about the dust. This build is old

Amazing work, Danny! I did a double take when I saw a Spitfire in British markings with wild nose art. It’s a stunner!

Hey Peter! I didn’t read all the comments yet, so maybe someone said something, but as you probably know from other build threads, the kit seems to develop big fit problems in the nose, and IF you cram in all the gun junk, it gets worse. A while ago, I taped together the nose on one in my stash and it fit well enough, but it seems like it was designed to be opened up. A bit of creative fitting, bracing, shimming, filling, sanding and rescribing will fix it. And as a bonus, it becomes extremely difficult to find room to cram in the nose weight IF you cram in the guns. I have one on the SOD, about half done, just ran out of gas. The rear fuselage is all chopped up and I’m reassembling the pieces. There’s plenty of work there. Mine will be VVS, of course. This plane was a serious Ace Maker in the hands of Russian pilots against the Luftwaffe. It took on all comers and won. Along with bombers and transports, the latest edition 109s and 190s fell in great numbers to its guns As I’m sure you know as well, despite what we have been led to believe, the Cobra was never a tank buster for the VVS. The US never supplied AP rounds VOR the 37mm, just HE, which were pretty much firecrackers against armor It was a dedicated air to air interceptor and general fighter and a so,utely shined in that role. One interesting bit of info that flies against decades of “expert” info. As the wall came down and the East regained their freedom, VVS historical info became available to the west. Cobra kills were compared to German loss records, and after the dust settled and all the numbers got added up, the lowly, much maligned P-39 Airacobra that apparently was a real slug in US hands, turned out to be the single highest scoring aircraft type from any service, at any time, in the entire history of manned aerial combat. Higher than the Bf-109, Spitfire, F6F, F4U Corsair and variants, P-51, P-47, Fw-190 and all its multitude of variants, higher than all others, even the superlative Fokker D.Vll from the second dreaded Fokker Scourge. Kind of hard to believe, but it’s true. Larry Bell’s mid engined laughingstock that the AAF tried and successfully succeeded in neutering right from the get go had the last laugh I’m looking forward to seeing this come together. It’s a mojo sucker, but it’ll be worth it when done, and Kitty Hawk kits, when finished, seem to do VERY well at contests.

Tony, let me know when you get it. I’d like to slide over and get a feel for it all.

Haha. Yep. Alexey stays in contact, though. I recommend smaller orders. It won’t take as long.

To me, in the 50s, this has always been the epitome of high style. 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner. It makes that Bel Air look positively dumpy slide the hardtop back into the trunk and you have the ultimate cool car. I’d lose that goofy Continental spare wheel though, factory option or not, it looks stupid

Rog, your Ford Falcons down under were some serious performance cars. Here, a Falcon was basically a wimpy 6 cylinder granny mobile. There were a few Falcons that got 260 and some even got 289 V8s with factory 4 barrel carbs and a 4 speed stick shift, and THOSE cars ran like scalded arse cats. Oh, and if the Bel Air can ever get squared away and reliable, you’re welcome to take it for a spin when you show up around these parts, assuming you learn to drive on the correct side of the road, that is. I absolutely refuse to put a modern powertrain in the Bel Air. It’s got it’s original 283 Chevrolet V8 and a Powerglide automatic, which motors it down the road in high style.

You haven’t called, ya goober. Joy’s in bed, her Lupus is kicking her butt. Plus fighting a cold. We’ll come up there one of these weekends, maybe do a car show/cruise.

And a 64 GTO tri power 4 speed stick…. Unrestored original car. This was one seriously nice Goat. And this sweet little Deuce sedan has a 10 gallon fuel tank. At our fuel stop, it took 10.5 gallons. And of course, the damned Chevy was a NO START but a big drooler and leaker, so it stayed put. We refer to this one as the Exxon Valdez.

A couple weeks ago, we went on a 200+ mile tour with a bunch of other old car geeks, ran around to 6 small towns, paraded through towns, then ended the day with Texas BBQ. It wasn’t without incident, as I always seemed to be stuck behind the slowest car. We made sure he go the “Best of slow” award. Over that dam, I let that 312 breathe and run, and it quickly buried the needle. There were some odd noises coming from the passenger seat…. It certainly has way more engine than it does brakes or suspension.

Good to see the Fox is out of hibernation.

Trying to make something cool from this heap. We have cunning plan….

I paid with PayPal…. As Andrey to send you an invoice. His work is phenomenal, but just understand that his stuff is handmade and he’s a 1 man band, so delivery takes a long, long time. I’d say best to order in smaller amounts. The last big order I placed took 9 months. Communication was great, but Andrey told me up front it would be several months. Shipping from Ukraine wasn’t bad, a couple weeks. AMUR Reaver is like that too: awesome product, but it’s handmade and coming from Russia. About the same time as Ukraine for shipping What DOES take forever is shipping to Australia. GOOD GRIEF!

This is one of those moments when you say OK to 1/48. It’s one heckuva kit from what I’ve heard!

ZM is impressing me. Revell is astonishing me. Tamiya is making me scratch my head.

I do like that they’re offering a wing fold option for the Helldiver. That’s one thing that was missing from the resin kit.

I’ll certainly be comparing this to the resin version, a d have one on pre order as well. If this is any kind of a decent kit, it’ll be crazy popular in the USA.

I’m joining this watch party a bit late, so I’m way, way up in the nosebleed section where the air is rare. Got my oxygen mask on though, so I’m good. Stunning build so far, Gazz, especially the strengthening of the struts. My one Roden Albatros D.l resulted in me scratching struts from brass and aluminum tubes and wire. It worked well, especially after bracing with mono line. I’m going to try your method though. It looks much less tedious.

If I bring my wife, all will be calm.

I took specific care with the Revell by sanding the internal structure to the point of where I had to shim it up to fit the joined halves. Just like doing a resin kit. I was able to keep close clearances with the fit of the wing and scoop that way. I did use a Yahu panel on the Revell, simply because I had one and wanted to try it. So far so good for all.

My feelings on AM are mixed. Is it model assembling or model making? AM can add greatly to the level of realism achieved, if used correctly. Too much, “AM because it’s AM”, often creates hurts rather than helps. Proper Plane’s products are truly amazing. I have no doubt that I could make a passable propeller if I learned the skills, but with my lack of time and my absolute unwillingness to go through the learning curve right now, I’ll either use the kit prop or buy AM. Wingnut props are actually decent. Roden, Special Hobby, and Hobbycraft props? Not so much. The ones I’ve done turned out decent enough. But my ability to paint decent laminations is variable, depending on the brand of fine Scottish whiskey I have in the tumbler. But above all that, I’m one of those guys who loves what’s coming out of central and Eastern Europe these days, and I’ll support companies like this to my last dying breath. Same with the Germans and the Japanese. They’ll get my money. I just refuse to choose to feed the big red dragon if I don’t have to. Keep it coming, folks. These parts are truly amazing.

Tuesday here as well.

Paul, you can see deck equipment, derricks, racks, and davits for a multitude of boats. I assume some of those are rescue launches and others are extra lifeboats. I’m not surprised she’s in shallow water. They tried hard to beach her, but fell slightly short.

To add to this are my personal views. Seeing work like this gives me great hope for our hobby. No longer is China the big monster supplier as they are in other areas. Japan, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia are now giving us some of the best models and AM we’ve ever had. It’s a good time to be a builder of a Large Scale Model.

And what a package it was! In certain niche areas of our hobby, there are names that are spoken with almost mythical reverence. Aviattic’s Richard Andrews is one, and another one is a gentleman named Alexey Belov WW1 and golden age aircraft lovers like myself look at him as an almost mythical figure, the force behind what we know as Proper Plane. Alexey IS Proper Plane, a small aftermarket supplier of some of the most unique, niche, and singular products on the market today: laminated, hand carved and finished wooden propellers for early aircraft. These propellers are absolutely some of the most amazing works of art I’ve ever seen. Ever. There have been plenty of reviews here on LSM and other places on Proper Plane, and until now, with the possible exception of the IBG PZL P.11c, I have not only never been so ready for a product I’ve heard all about, the quality of the product actually took my breath away when I first saw it Pictures will follow over the weekend, but if you’ve never seen these props and manifolds, be prepared to have your mind blown. No pictures do these things justice. None. Whatever these guys are doing in Kyiv, if most definitely involves a time machine and a shrinking machine. This work is breathtaking to see. I give you a few pictures to look at, and I’ll show you some resin wheels a d woodgrain this weekend.