BradG

Cheers. I'm getting in some practise on AFV's as I bought the Dragon Stug IV with all the bells and whistles that I want to do a great job on, sometime this year.

Another model I rescued off my shelf of doom, one of Dragon's older models, the Hetzer. It started life as a flame thrower but I bought it second hand from someone who had used that part for something else and included a resin conversion and metal barrel for a conventionally armed machine. I initially put this on the shelf of doom as it was before magic tracks, so I had to cut out and clean up about 200 track pieces. I guess I burned out on the model after doing that and it sat in the stash for years until I pulled it out again a week ago. Other than the tedious track link clean up, the kit is pretty good. The colours and markings represent no machine in particular. I kept the weathering fairly light, a grubby wash and some dirt here and there, enough to make it look used.

This is the very nice Dragon Smart kit in 1/35. Despite it being a nice kit it has sat on my shelf of doom for a couple of years, but I decided to finish it off before starting anything else. The kit goes together really well, the magic tracks in it are already cut off the sprue so that's a good thing, but assembling them took more than a few hours and what initially contributed to it's shelf of doom residence. Looking for something different I stumbled upon the Bulgarian Army. When the Bulgarians switched sides due to the Russian advance into the country, many units simply painted their vehicles Soviet green, slapped some red stars on them and turned around. The Russians also re-enforced them with captured equipment. Many surviving vehicles were still in front line service into the immediate post war world until the Russians resupplied them with soviet equipment.

Mach 2 aluminium death trap. lol

This is the Encore kit and it needs a good amount of TLC to get it into shape. There's a good amount of sink marks and flash that need attention, but after some elbow grease and some serious clamping, it turned out alright. It's in a nice clean condition as I built it for dad and he's not a fan of weathering. It now sits in his study.

I was tinkering away with this one in between other builds. It's a straight from the box 1/35 Tamiya kit and although a little long in the tooth now, stands up pretty well, except for the figures, they aren't the best when compared to Dragon.

Coming up soon at The Australian National Aviation Museum, Moorabbin Airport October 22/23. A swap and sell will be running over both days and Sunday we will have the Mustang Car Club in attendance. Categories and details below, hope to see some of you there.

This is the Trumpeter kit in 1/72, with Red Roo Decals. I cut out the radome from the lower fuselage and filled it with plastic card as the T2's didn't have this fitted. The instructions also have you put the flaps down, but I glued them in the up position. As usual, fit of the parts was hit and miss, with the major sections fitting nicely, but the smaller parts left a bit to be desired. Unfortunately I screwed up the paint job the first time around and it has sat in my cabinet half finished since January, but with Wings Model Show coming up I pulled it out, sanded down the rough as guts paint and repainted it. I was unable to cram enough weight in the nose to make it sit so I whipped up a base from an MDF board, sanded and painted with a little MiniNatur grass to add some interest and glued the model down.

Yes it's the Tamiya 1/16 kit. I'm not sure who it's meant to be, but they do give you a specific Adolf Galland head in the kit, but he doesn't have the cap which I think looks better.

This is my first attempt at a large scale figure and I admit to practicing on the head more than a few times, even so my face painting is nowhere near as good as some I see, but I figured after several years of the headless fighter pilot being in the cabinet, it was time to finish it off. Brush painted with Vallejo and the base was made from an old model show trophy, some dirt from the back yard and MiniNatur grass tufts.

5 euro to print instructions? Are they gold plated or something? Instruction sheets don't need to be this full colour booklet like WNW do, that's just a marketing gimmick. Simple, easy to follow black and white instructions like included in your stock standard Hasegawa or Tamiya kit are really all that's needed. Even if you were printing those commercially at an office supply store, they're usually only 10c per A4 and if you're only doing a short run kit, hell print them on your PC at home and it will cost even less. Add $1 to the price and be done with it. Probably cheaper than buying a bunch of CDs.

This one is straight out of the box. It's not a bad model at all, so long as you sand down some of the interior so the fuselage closes up without force and you take your time ensuring a close fit of the windscreen. Tamiya khaki drab is the base colour, with MiG pigment and Tamiya weathering powders used to give it a well worn look.

Beaufighter would sell it's pants off. The 262 is a bit of a safe bet, just like the million Bf-109's out there, if it's German, it'll sell.

Looks nice, I got this kit for christmas so it's good motivation.

A trip to the hobby shop yesterday. Call them early Christmas presents.

You actually get almost all the black and yellow as a decal, but I'll probably mask and paint most of it. I've done something similar with the black and yellow striped F-104 a few years ago.

I know it's not an LSM, but I'm into tiger meet and it caught my eye at the LHS.

If I finish everything I'm doing currently and there is time left, I'll build my Bf 109K.

I don't think I'll be in a rush to sell my RV Resin D-13 conversion despite this kit coming out.

Thanks and yes, at Moorabbin Air Museum, October 24/25.

Here is one of these models you buy at a swap meet on a whim for a gold coin, in this case $2. It's not a very model, with poor fit around the cockpit, wings and air intakes. This was the F-21 Lion boxing and the decals were no good, so I got some spares out of the decal folder. I also added a pilot, bombs, bomb rack, drop tanks and sidewinders from the spares box. I built it for Wings model show here in Melbourne next month, where we are running a category called 'Make a Mirage' and it'll fill a hole on that table nicely, just don't look too close! lol

Drink crap warm beer and get rained on?

If I was able to buy one, I would. Unfortunately draconian gun laws in Australia mean you can't even own replicas or deactivated firearms without a license. Australia - where only the criminals are armed and it's illegal to return fire.

Something different, it looks great.

Nice work. You might want to put some clear plastic supports under the fuselage to bear some weight. Both dad and I have built it and after a while, the tail wheel will collapse under the weight, unless you've beefed it up of course.