DocRob

Nice and delicate work, Gaz. The Spandaus's will look good with a matte black coat and the fuselage with it's innards looks great. I also think, it's a good decision not to use all PE possible. I went the same way with my WNW Pfalz. If I would have used all the PE, handling the plane would have been challenging. I always opt for a bit more durability, which pays off while painting, masking, decaling and rigging these fragile birds. Cheers Rob

I started one some years ago and liked what I saw. It's indeed an Eduard production. I'm not knowledgeable enough to have seen shape issues and don't care too much, if it looks about 109nish. I have a Brassin engine, cockpit and gun set along some figures for mine, which I think is non essential, if you want to build her buttoned up. I plan a rare (for me) maintenance dio with the cowlings off. Thanks for reminding me to continue with mine Phil . It's this boxing with the same plastic. Cheers Rob

t This is the saw, a normal razor saw, made by JLC. The box includes a spacer set for scribing parallel lines with a second blade. This type of saw, is perfect for resin cutting and straight cuts in plastic and will be useful for my future wooden ship projects too. An inexpensive tool, where I can't say today, how I could have lived without. I added a small mitre box by the same company for precise profile cutting. Cheers Rob

Very nice and clean build of an interesting vehicle. I believe it would have had more of a psychological effect, than physical. Cheers Rob

Like the others said, your pit is looking great and the detailing is spot on. It's good to see, that the tub is fitting the fuselage seemingly good. Cheers Rob

Nice and clean build Carl, you are breezing through this build. Seeing your radial, there is no real need for a resin replacement. Cheers Rob

Great work Gus, the pit looks nice and busy. I haven't noticed until yet, that LSM is transforming to a maso-club, seeing the third Italeri Mirage been build at the same time. Is it cult thing or a kind of initiation rite ? Earnestly, I can understand your will to suffer, it's a nice plane, with so many interesting derivates and schemes, that even attracts to me, being more of a non jet guy, luckily. Keep the fire burning. Cheers Rob

Today, I thought, I would prime the Hellcat engine and interior, but the PE framings for the cowlings were delicate and time consuming to add, as they were glued flat onto the plastic, without attachment points. Cheers Rob

Not exactly large scale, but fits my hunger for obscure flying objects. Luckily my hobby shop from the Spanish mainland had one Loire 130 left. The mold looks not too bad, there is some resin for the interior and the engine area included and even a vac canopy for the aft station is supplied, which has to be used for three of the four schemes, sided with beautiful Cartograph decals.7 I found my trumpeter riveting tool not good enough, especially by blocking the sight onto the area to rivet and the big diameter of the wheel made it hard to rivet near corners, therefore I helped myself to two Dousek riveters with different tooth spacing. The liquid mask Sol-R will be tested now, after I had slight blinding effects with Sol-Neo after having it applied for a longer time onto a Future coated Canopy. I read, that Sol-R is water based and less aggresive. Cheers Rob

I started a little side project, as a mojo refueler. It's an Eduard 1/48 F6F3 Hellcat almost oob, beside the juicy Brassin engine and some HGW wet transfers. As always, surgery first, I cut the cowling panels according to the resin substitutes and cleaned all the resin engine parts. For panel cutting, I used my new razor saw and I really don't know, how I could have lived without one. There is nearly no sanding necessary after cutting and the cuts are so precise and fine, I could use the removed parts as a substitute again. Cheers Rob

This behemoth looks almost like it sprung from a steampunk fantasy and that's why I nearly bought it. You made it look great with your paintjob and decaling. Cheers Rob

Your work on this iconic plane looks stellar Peter. She will be a beauty. Cheers Rob

Wow, great detailing, what is the scale? The fingers must be oversized Cheers Rob

On the British Amazon site I found a lot of these with the search term 'automatic belt punch'. I bought mine from German Amazon for six Euros and it includes six punches from 1,5-4 mm diameter and a rod to clean the circles out of the punch tool. The punched holes are perfectly round and you can produce discs as well. Until now, it's the perfect cheapo substitute to one of these expensive sets, as I use it seldom. I used it to cut away carrier film from bezel decals, with styrene card, to produce ammunition counters for the Fokker 08/15's and with tin foil and the tool never failed. Cheers Rob

I have something like this and for the few occasions, it worked good with decals and 0,5 mm styrene. The punches are sharpened and the brass part is a spindle to turn the punch, when pressing the handle. It was very cheap, but is useful. Cheers Rob

You got it all wrong. The Italeri approach is about humility not about finished kits. It's the same like sitting in a hole in the earth for eighteen years, with a vow of silence,..., ... do I hear Brian or just the cry of the Hermit? Cheers Rob

Good luck with your plan. Actually I think nearly nothing will be remain visible inside the cockpit. The difference in height can be not more than half a millimeter and the area is in the shadow of the turtle deck and partly blocked by the wing on top. Cheers Rob

The engine support came out beautiful in your brass version, much better than with the supplied wires , sometimes you have to scratch your head about what kit companies are thinking... Cheers Rob

Very nice, the modulation in the white camo came out great. Cheers Rob

Good luck with the move. Over the last weeks, I almost didn't have time for modelling, because, I cleaned up two sheds on our property, which were completely filled with stuff, we mainly brought to our tiny island, when we arrived here, six years ago. Now, only half of one shed is filled and organized, the other is completely empty and will be converted into a multi purpose room with a sea view, which includes to transform the place in front of the shed into a se view terrace, maybe with a yacuzzi included. What I want to stress with this lengthy description is, when you haven't touched an object for years, there is only a slight opportunity, that you will do so after the move. We were hindering ourselves to improve our living space, by clawing to unused clutter, lessons learned hopefully for me . Enjoy the move Cheers Rob

Good to see the exhausts align with the cowling, must have been a reassuring moment. You seem also to put the biggest obstacles behind you with a new project at first. Great work on an interesting project so far. Cheers Rob

Nice progress on the Albatros. the fiddly PE is enhancing te detail level a lot. I never used Part PE sets, so Im curious how they perform. Cheers Rob

Rest in peace, you had the heart of a lion, Dale. Rob

The pics are a bit on the dark side (overly? ), but show the modulation of the white very good. You could try and play around with the exposure. There is no magic about it, but white is a color hard to capture, because all cameras metering against a gray base. Whit, specially snow or glare on the sea are problematic, because of that. Even with most smartphones you can steer a little, by pointing on the screen, for different meterings in differently bright parts of the subject. If the contrast is to harsh, like your white tank in front of a black background, you will only reach a compromise, but with yours bein yellow, there should be room for a perfect exposure. When you use the Olympos, you could try spot metering, when the camera is equipped with that. Combined with an exposure lock, you could spot meter the parts of the tank, you put emphasis on, lock the metering and chose your framing, easy, you can do it even in automatic mode normally. Cheers Rob

Sorry for the irritation, I've written overly and meant mostly or predominant, due to my bad English. I had a wrong meaning of overly in my German blockhead . To put it right with other words, I like the white appearance and it absolutely interesting to look at, with your pre painting and weathering, breaking up the monochrome. Cheers Rob