BradG

This is the very nice Tamiya kit with Ventura decals and turned brass 20mm barrels. The Rumanian E's were delivered with 20mm oerlikon cannons rather than the standard MGFF weapons. They also had a spade grip to the control column but I found out this information after I'd closed the fuselage. Decals were ok, they could have had better colour density, but oh well. I'm glad I finished this as the project has sat for a good 20 years in the stash!

The latest bunch of stuff.

John Richard Rossi was among the first group of pilots to join the AVG, first seeing combat in January 1942 and finishing in July 1942 with 6.25 victories. He would then join the China National Aviation Corporation and flew over 700 resupply missions over the hump. He would later found Flying Tiger Line, an air transport company and flew as Captain for the next 25 years. He passed away in 2008. This is the Airfix model with Microscale decals. The model is fairly good, with the exception of the cowling upper and lower sections that required some sanding and force to make fit well. Also the wing the fuselage join isn't the best and requires some work. I've had these microscale decals for about 20 years that I picked up second hand, however they were still perfectly good to use. Colours are Gunze 309, 310 and 311. Weathering done with pastels and pigment with the base just tile grout and some bits and bobs from the spares box.

This is the original boxing of their Wildcat that dates back to 1994. That said, it's still a great model with nice panel lines and superb fit. The decals however were the usual yellowed white and shattered when put in water. It was actually cheaper to buy myself the new Airfix Wildcat rather than an aftermarket decal sheet, so the markings here are from Airfix. This aircraft was from USS Ranger's VF 41 during Operation Torch. Looking through pictures these aircraft were worked pretty hard, with large cordite stains extending the length of the wings upper and lower. Colours used were Gunze 51 light gull grey and 337 USN grayish blue.

Kim a little panicky I think.

This is the rather old Hobbycraft offering of the early model 109. It does say C on the box but I've built it as a 109D. It is a bit inaccurate in the molds, but it's close enough for me. Decals were beyond salvage and probably incorrect, so I hand cut some masks for the shark mouth and used some Aeromaster decals for the rest. Weathering was kept to a minimum over the Gunze RLM 70/71/65 colour scheme. The fit of the kit is not the best, but nothing a moderately experienced modeller cannot over come. The worst is a slightly undersized canopy, but I can live with that. It also doesn't include exhaust stubbs that would show slightly protruding through the cowling slots.

Stuff I've picked up recently. All second hand, the Spitfire and stuff was found at the local good will shop for $3.

Another pretty simple little model that I've built after my little adventure to the ICU last year. It's well detailed, has less than 20 parts and fits perfectly. The downside is the stand is a little flimsy for the weight of the model, so I mounted it sideways to stop it leaning to one side. I've read a lot of opinions on the colour of Star Wars fighters and it seems that in the first movie, they were painted a light grey or even off white, where as in the latter two original movies, the Tie Fighters were a more blue-grey. Wanting an OG Tie, I went with Gunze 51, a very light grey. A black wash was used to pop out the detail over this. This is a great little kit for about 20 bucks.

This is a nice simple little kit that even includes 2 complete models in the box. The only downside is they don't give you any railway track to mount the dolly on, but I had some spare so made a small base with some Noch ballast and a base from the local cheap shop. It's meant to depict a Kaiten used for training.

I bought these as an early birthday present to myself.

This is the newer Airfix kit that mum actually bought for me when at Aldi. It's a pretty good model, but I find their blue plastic to be very soft, causing smaller parts to break when clipping from the sprue. I also had some issue with smaller parts being very poorly molded, the pitot and actuators for the control surfaces. I thus did not use them. Decals are excellent. I also refrained from weathering as these aircraft were probably very well looked after. From the limited information about Saburo Shindo available, he fought the entire war, was reportedly the man to say "Tora Tora Tora" indicating surprise had been achieved on the morning of December 7th and would engage in several large battles through the Pacific War and surviving, hence why I was surprised there was so little around about the man. He worked for Mazda post war and passed away in 2000. I decided to try the AK Interactive Gen 3 paints as I didn't have anything in the paint stash that looked close to the hemp colour of the aircraft. The paints spray a little spotty, they probably need a touch of flow enhancer, but I have to say they dry beautifully flat and the colour looks great. You can even brush paint them for touch ups which you will need to do because they are rather delicate and easy to rub off or scratch.

Considering I'm about the only active member here who builds in 1/72, I don't think it will happen.....unless you wanna give me my own forum?

Yes 1/48.

Thank you. Not bad for a 30 dollar Temu special with 5 dollar .2mm tip and needle. I did some lubing and tweaking with brasso to get a better fit between parts which worked nicely. No idea how long it will hold out, but if the tip fails it's only another 5 dollars for a replacement.