DocRob

Once I was travelling with a rented Jeep with Texas license plates from New Orleans to North Carolina and while entering a State Park in Kitty Hawk was asked by the ranger, "Hell, you got Texas plates but y' have teeth in your mouth and y' know your English, y' ain't no Texans" Cheers Rob

Hi Gus, great start to your WIP. I always liked the A7, another iconic design and It's great seeing you tackle it. As a teaser and heavy weathering guide I have some photos of a not too well maintained example in Chino California. Cheers Rob

Great looking Tiffy Tom, and you are right, avoid decals wherever you can, they just don't blend in. Cheers Rob

That's what a heavy dose of Martins build has done to me too. I immediately got me a SBD-3 and some extras and the fingers are itching…. Cheers Rob

Hi Gaz, nice deep dive into nostalgia. I like the idea of 1to1scale to finish the 109 the way you should have done by the time to close that chapter. But hey, it's your history and there is a lot of AM around. Man, an engine out of two parts, if only Zoukei Moura knew . Cheers Rob

Hola lovers of the flying heavy metal, certain members in this place made my mouth watering with their inspiring builds of P-47's recently. I always liked the brutish shape of a Jug combined with a certain kind of elegance, which to my eye is the result of a well engineered design, not to mention the shiny appearance of the natural metal finish. After my stalled build of the captured Me-163 Comet, I had to choose a subject where the fuselage was not a matter of thousand parts to align, it had to be a KIS a keep it simple design a halved fuselage. That's how the Eduard P-47D limited edition ended it's shelf live. I will not bore you with an in deep WIP, but will just show bigger steps and wanted or necessary modifications to the kit and will emphasis the natural metal finish, which is a first to me, at least in 1/32. First steps were to cut and sand all the parts needed for the cockpit, engine, wheels, flaps and test fit and plan the build. Construction started with the cockpit which is nicely rendered in plastic, added with a hefty dose of PE. It's a simple construction and is done in a whiff. For enhancement, I drilled out the visible back side of the instruments with a 0,4 mm drill and added lead wire with a diameter of 0,3 mm into the holes and fixed everything with a tiny drop of CA. I never wired a kit before and because it is easily done I will do more of this in other builds and possibly with the engine too, where PE ignition wires are provided, which I may substitute with lead wires. I also added some small styrene strips to the front firewall of the cockpit to represent the corrugated metal, which was used there. After test-fitting the fuselage and cowlings, I didn't like the representation of the lower shape between these parts. There was a visible step which does not correspondent with the real thing. After sanding the lower part of the fuselage and rescribing two panel lines I was satisfied with the result. It's a ten minute fix and worth it. Now everything looks a little bit more like a real Jug. While watching this photo, I think I might sharpen the edges of the movable cooling flaps a little, if it doesn't give to much insight into the nothing of the backside of the engine. Cheers Rob

Thanx Gentlemen, to achieve this was made easy by the great kit and fitting PE. @Martin, the little I missed out has to be assumed the 'scale effect' . Cheers Rob

That is sweet, Jeroen, another epic build with a perfectly blended look. Are some of the cockpit panes still masked or is that supposed like it is and why? Cheers Rob

Thanks Phil, that Tamiya Nato black is dead flat in finish. I use either this or one of the blacks of the Camouflage Set LifeColor CS27 BLACK Rubber Shades & Co., which are also great but used mostly to paint tires. I never use black blacks Thanks Grunhertz

Welcome to LSM and keep on building. My stash is full of relatively modern kits, but I love to see how you tackle that dinosaur. Cheers Rob

The front office is done, some minor touch-ups here and there and it will be stowed in the fuselage. Everything worked to plan with the cockpit. There are lots of PE-parts to apply, but nothing too complicated. The red headed levers are PE too, but I touched them up with a dot of CA-glue at the top for the round knobs. Weathering is minimal and done with a pencil, some metal pigments and a fiber brush for little abrasions. As interior color I used Mig's zinc chromate green (A-MIG 220) which has a little more olive tint and looks right to my eye. For black detailing I used Tamiya Nato black, because I never use real black on flat subjects. After painting I love to apply minimal steel pigments to the near black surface (from Uschi) like you can see on the IP holder. After assembling the various PE parts for the dashboard, I dipped some Future into the dials with a toothpick, twice. You may not see it on the pictures, but it looks like reflecting glass and gives the flat PE board a little depth. Cheers Rob

A true beauty, I like the slightly mottled paintjob. It's good to see a razorback among all these bubbletops. Cheers Rob

Welcome Gabriel to this place of large scale addicts. I'm not one of the experts for the F-18 as I rarely build jets, but I'm very much interested to see your ambitous project develop. Cheers Rob

Wow, busy pit and a real looker. Seeing these zillions of switches and dials tell the story, why there was a second guy present in the bird. Cheers Rob

Very fine work, hiding the age of the kit behind a fine paintjob and nice weathering. Cheers Rob

With bells and whistles, John, looking great, one of my inspirations starting the razorback-less D some days ago. Cheers Rob

Thank you gentlemen, by the way, looking for the right color for the inside of the cowlings, I watched some pictures and found a great variety of colors. Some are natural metal /aluminum, some light grey and others interior yellow. Which could be probably right for the Dottie Mae? Studying the pictures, I tend to NMF. @ Bill, I read about that method too and considered it, but the upper shape of the cowling fuselage joint seems correct to my eye and by lowering the engine mount / cowlings by a millimeter the gap between the cooling flaps of the cowling and the fuselage doesn't look right, the space between these flaps and the fuselage will get uneven. This upper joint is very visible and to me had priority to maintain. And my method of reshaping the bottom of the fuselage by grinding a little and rescribe these two panel lines took ten minutes and what was more important to me corrected the right part, the fuselage, as I think the engine / cowlings are more or less right. It's hard to tell but I think on your second photo, the lower fuselage looks a little flat to me, there should be a little 'belly', like on the photo of the original Jug. Cheers Rob

Thanks Gus, and you are probably right about the amount of shape issues when there are different complex 3D curved objects involved. It must be a not so easy job to get everything right, but at least the Hasegawa plastic looks like a Jug with only some minor issues to my uneducated eye. Thanks John, after the struggles which kept me from finishing the Me-163, this is a real pleasure build. Everything is relaxed and easy, fit is good and the engineering is as well. Sometimes it just feels great to enjoy building a kit, instead of a permanent fight while doing so. The last word about the Komet is not spoken yet, because I hate to quit. It just doesn't feel good to be beaten by a chunk of plastic . Cheers Rob

Looking good, it seems like the ejector pin nightmare ended and you can concentrate on the kit now. Like the plumbing in the cockpit. Cheers Rob

Buenos Dias, friends of the tool heavy workbench, I have a very special relationship towards photoetched parts in modelling. I love to work with metal, enjoy the enhancement of detail and after applying PE sometimes I whish, it would not be necessary to paint these parts because of the luster shine. On the other hand PE can be a real PITA and has the tendency to unify itself with the carpet monster even more than plastic parts. Over the years I used lots of tools for working with PE, there were bending tools, rolling tools, pliers and tweezers and all of them were helpful, but there was something missing between the pliers and a fine tweezer and then I bought this little gem. It is the Tamiya Bending Tweezers (for Photo-Etched Parts) with the Item No: 74117. I got it six weeks ago and I absolutely love that tool. It has become a nearly universal tool for small PE parts. Because of it's short tweezer tips which are finely grinded with sharp angles you can apply enough force to hold PE-parts in place and bend them around the edges. The smallness of the tips make it easy to bend complicated three-dimensonal forms. Another advantage is, that with mentioned small PE parts, there is a much reduced need for tool changes, because of the versatile design. I highly recommend this little helper. It improved my enthusiasm with small PE parts a lot, because of the easiness of use and it's versatility. Tools should make live easier and this one is a very fine example. Cheers Rob

Looking superb and your way of applying the paint a little patchy supports the stressed surface effect in a beautiful way. Cheers Rob

Whoa, that's 1:1 scale and an amazing level of detail. Weathering could be improved with some oils . Cheers Rob

But then you should go the extra mile and use ALT-whatever for the "ü" in Grünherz and get rid of the 't' . Yeah I know xxxxing Germans . Cheers Rob

Amazing attention to detail, with a little afterthought I might tell you the size of the pilots boots by the scratch marks . Cheers Rob

Yes, I live in the Islas Canarias, why? Cheers Rob