BradG

This aircraft was reportedly seen in a derelict condition at Phenian (Pyongyang) airfield by Soviet ground crew around 1950. The story is certainly not beyond possibility as there were many Japanese aircraft left in Korea at wars end, with photographic evidence some being pressed into service with the North and South. I based the colour scheme on the North Korean Tachikawa Ki-54 that was captured probably at Pyongyang. The kit itself is showing it's age, although it's not that bad. I only had trouble with the fit of the windscreen which too some mucking about. The mix of raised and engraved surface detail is accurate and quite nice. Humbrol Matt 27 steel and Tamiya Khaki drab are the main colours, sealed with some future with an oil filter of white and yellow applied. I added to that with different coloured pastels, MiG pigment and a black chalk wash for the under surface. I yellowed out the canopy with a make up brush and Tamiya weathering pigments. Decals came from some MiG 15 decal sheets. The base is the case of an old clock, glued together and painted with a cheapie rattle can of black. The dirt is grout left over from bathroom repairs, spread around over the base then flooded with water from an eyedropper and left to harden. I added some MiniNature grass tufts and couple things from the spare box to fill a hole.

I know, it's a little bit gay, but I entered it this weekend at Model Expo here in Melbourne as a joke, but I won a 3rd place in the category!!

Yes, I was wondering what I should do with this kit as I have 4 of the new Kinetic offerings and when I found pictures of this, it was perfect. I think it was painted up as a joke between squadrons, but they ended up taking it for a flight in this scheme.

I'm not sure, I just used Gunze gloss pink straight from the bottle. I probably should have put 20% white in it.

I've finally finished a model of my own for the year, although I could have picked a better kit to start with. I bought this for about 9 bucks years ago when it was about the only Mirage III you could buy in the scale. I had visions of converting it into a Mirage V Dagger, but with the coming of the new Kinetic kits, I don't need to do that anymore. There isn't much to say about the plastic, apart from; it's a poorly detailed, ill-fitting, obsolete relic. A Britmodeller member was kind enough to send me his leftover decals from the Eduard kit and these were really nice to use. If you have this in the stash, just buy the Eduard kit. I did get the pink a little dark, but it'll do.

Very nice, I have this kit in the stash too.

Cricket is my other hobby, but that's a rather sore subject after we lost the grand final on Sunday.......

Here's mine from the start of the year. I also did an article on extreme weathering last year and have a two part article on box art mistakes published this and in the next edition of ModelArt.

Looks really good.

I picked this up pretty cheap second had and I'm glad I didn't pay much for it. The kit is devoid of detail and some of the fit is bad, the undercarriage in-particular. I also added some RP-3 rockets from the Airfix Seafire XVII that I did not use. If I'm to build another Sea Fury it'll be either the Trumpeter kit (despite it's problems) or the Fisher model. The decals used were from Blackbird Models; Latin American Air Wars Vol 1 - Bay of Pigs. They are very nice decals, thin, glossy and settle down well with Mr Mark softener. However, the colour scheme given for '541' is probably incorrect for the period and I suspect they were looking at pictures of the Sea Fury in the Cuban Air Force Museum, that is painted a touch haphazardly. They also missed the small '541' decal for the undercarriage main gear doors (I put this on with spare decals). On the colour scheme, '541' was painted in a two tone, wrap around striped camouflage of a lighter and darker colour. What these two colours were is anyone's guess. The decal sheet suggest a light green and an olive drab and I substituted the olive drab for an olive green. It's probably flown against the invasion in the Bay of Pigs and according to sources, shot down a rebel flown B-26. Sources say all Cuban Sea Fury's were repainted overall olive drab before the invasion, but pictures to show this aircraft armed with rockets with a pilot stepping into it, so without a date on the picture, who knows for sure?

Looks menacing, good job. I have to get back into some armour builds.

That's a beast. Nice indeed.

That's pretty sharp, nice work.

Seems like it should be a cut and dry case. I mean you either sell something or you don't and I read in another article that the Collins Foundation accepted and still have the 2.5m. You have offer, acceptance and consideration changing hands; sounds like a contract to me.

Looks pretty nice.

A kit that had been hanging around in the stash for some time after I bought it at a swap and sell for a couple of bucks, I just pulled it out a couple of months ago and finished it in a couple of days. U 2540 was commissioned in February 1945 but never went on a war patrol, being scuttled on May 4th. In 1957, it was raised, overhauled and put back into service as the Wilhelm Bauer, until being decomissioned in 1982 and eventually, being turned into a museum 2 years later. She is on display in Bremerhaven and one of only 5 surviving U boats.

Wow cool.

You just have to use women logic against them. The 'I bought it on sale' one is a good one along with 'my friend gave it to me' and the classic, when she notices a new kit and asks 'when did you buy that?' the reply is always 'oh I've had this a long time'. She's not going to question you because she knows when she wears those 300 pair of new shoes and you ask 'are those new?' and she replies ' no I bought them ages ago, they were on sale' she doesn't want you questioning her any deeper.

This is my best I'd say. Trumpeters 1/35 BR 52 Locomotive.

The Panther could use a little restoration and it looks like that Tiger II has taken 3 direct hits to the frontal armour.

They look great.

I still have a tin of Humbrol gloss black that's older than me. It takes a day to dry but you can't damage it with a hammer.

This is the old kit from Revell. I think all they did was put some new pieces in their PFM kit to make an MF. Detail is lacking, the cockpit is a mess and inaccurate with the molds and fit are not up to what you'd expect today. Rather than chuck it out I thought I'd just build it as is, for the detail sets would cost more than simply buying the rather nice Trumpeter kit. Mark was nice enough to send me a pilot from the Trumpeter kit and Tony some VPAF markings (thanks guys) and I scrounged some sidewinders from an old Revell F-4E kit to stand in for R3-S missiles as they were pretty much Russian made sidewinder copies anyway. I was meaning to represent red 5040, the MiG 21 nightfighter that allegedly shot down a B-52 during the 1972 Christmas bombings, but I mucked up the masks for the numbers several times and rage quit them, so I'm calling it done. Unfortunantly its a grey old day in Melbourne for taking pictures, as you can see.

Interesting fact about the world cup; you're more likely to be bitten by a Suarez than a shark

Oooops. Doesn't look like there's too much damage so I'm sure it will be repaired.