DocRob

Hi Rich, I don't know if it is only me and my very sloooowly island Internet, but I can't load the pictures in your (picture heavy) MAZ thread. Maybe I have to wait for the beginning of the next page or the installation of fibre optics on my tiny island (projected) Cheers Rob

Thanx for the comments and recommendations Tony, I checked some of the potential problematic fittings you mentioned first thing in the morning. The difficult thing is that you can only test fit preciesely after you glued together some of the subassemblies (like the wheel struts only after the wing is glued together). There is not enough adhesive tape in the world to have a proper test fit of the fuselage and wings . The wheel struts on my one seem to fit. The metal ones I bought are a little easier to insert than the plastic kit's ones, so only a little work with the proper alignment. The wingroot seems to fit with the fuselage and wings, albeit looking to be a very tight fit. I will only test fit the metal flaps before the marriage of wings and fuselage, because I don't want to break or bend the delicate PE-flaps. Feel free to post some pictures of your build. Cheers Rob

Thanks Rich Managed just some little steps, mainly because I got a little fed up with the kit. I believe you know the feeling, when there are more and more complications on a build and the mojo drains. In my case it is about the difficulty to build flaps (homemade and half done ), but mostely because of the strange engineering of the kit. Test fitting showed that there will be a huge problem with the fit of the engine cowlings, probably because the PE for the cockpit was half a millimeter too wide. Other problems can be seen in the pictures. The alignment of the metal barrels is not correct and in the second picture you can see the enormous gaps in the frontside of the wings. I hope I will find a way to align everything properly, with the help of some physical bruteness and lots of glue. Many of my problems have to do with that multi part constructions of the wings and fuselage. In my opinion the price for showing the inner organs of the bird is way too high compared to a soso detailed interior which will not be as convincing as it should (Look for the toyish guns and ammunition boxes for example). The next days will be do or die for the kit. All depends on fitting the metal flaps into the wings and addressing the cowling problem. You will loose every fight with theese guns That's what I call a gap Cheers Rob

Hi Jason, I like your approach. You put a lot of effort into that rare direct comparison between similar kits. Can't wait to see furter steps. I was a little biased towards Thunder Models, but let's wait and see. Cheers Rob

Hi Johann, it dosen't took you long to present this beauty. It just recently hit the shelves and here she is. Nice and subtle painting and weathering. Cheers Rob

Hola Senhor, I failed to even see these ejector marks on my one. Thankfully I left my Corsair in Berlin, when I left for Spain, so no bad feelings and on my photos I couldn't see anything. Hope you dryfitted the inner flaps thoroughly to the fuselage and wing, as on my build this was the worst fitting assembly of the whole process. Cheers Rob

Nice choice of subject, I really have a soft spot for these working horses. Can't wait to see the comparison, because I more than once thought about getting me one. Thunder has some more Scammells in the pipeline (recovery- and heavy artillery tractor). Have you seen the building report in the Modelling News? Very mouth watering. Cheers Rob

Look what the correos (post) was dropping today. I bought some hours of lifetime (modelling time) for some extre Euros and recieved the already assembled Tracks from AK. That will make the future build of my Dragon T-34/76 or my SU-85 from Miniart a lot more relaxed . Cheers Rob

Hi Danny, I always thought electronic systems in "modern" jets are a little bit more complicated, even scaled down . Can't wait to see this one finished. I have Capt'n Nemos Nautilus Submarine in the firm grip of a giant Octopus from Pegasus Hobbies in my stash, combined with an additional lighting system, so I will follow your Starfighter build closely. As a little teaser, I will give you a view of a nice F-104 backside . Cheers Rob

The extra work payed off, very nice result and a nice paint- (decal-) Job with beautiful contrast and a nice worn look. Cheers Rob

Hi Spliff, always a scary moment with that roughly applied wash, but if the surface is prepared well, there is nearly no risk and after rubbing off the excess it looks great. Surface detail on the Tamiya Birdcage is crying for such a treatment, as riveting and panelling is so finely replicated. Nice Job so far. Cheers Rob

Nice build and for me some childhood rememberings, passing GDR from West Berlin to the Federal Republic of Germany, seeing all these strange vehicles in the east. Cheers Rob

A great family you have, blessed with good tast (or the necessary hints ), as I have a soft spot for "domed" birds my "buying finger" is hovering now and then above the button to get one myself. To make it a little bit more uneasy I have an 1/48 Eduard one in my stash with all the Brassin goodies and some tin to bend, but I'm still tempted. Cheers Rob

With all that relaxing Christmas festivities going on I needed a little challenge to my nerves. I decieded to use the PE-Flaps for my TA-152, but first I cut the plastic parts, so there was no way back and sometimes it felt like sawing on the branch you sit on . Needless to say, these were my first PE flaps for me and I have many others in my stash, which are way easier to build, but hey, what did I say about challenges... The first part was the upper flap and it took me quite some planning, about bending where, in which direction and in which order. Without my 14 cm long bending tool it would have been impossible to accomplish. In the end I had bended the raw profile and then the real horror started. Getting all the tiny struts bended twice and glued in the right position, was a nightmare and sometimes i couldn't see where to bend because of the reflections of the metal, even using a magnifying pair of glasses. The lower flap proved to be more simple and was a walk in the park compared with the upper ones. I inserted a piece of plastic rod as an axle. Upper flap and there is a second one to build which give me the creeps. You can see the multiple bending profile, but you can't hear my swearing For the second flap I will leave the little struts on the upper side connected to the metal sheet, till all the bending is completed, because it is so easy to disconnect the struts while bending and this is when the puzzeling starts One set of flaps is finished due to the heavy use of red wine in the process to get the shivering fingers calm. Yeah, after the pain you get rewarded and you get some nice fingerprints you nearly can't see with the bare eye. Some more relaxing work went into the engine assembly. The final blending and weathering and detail painting is not already applied. That will follow later. I'm still not sure if I show the engine, mainly because of some ugly ejector marks on the inside of the cowlings, I'm to lazy to remove. For the Sherlock Holmes's between you, yes I know the engine struts are differently coloured, but this is the way they are on the last surviving sample of the TA-152. Cheers Rob

Hehe, maybe a Natter , fits in every tiny corner of the shelf. Cheers Rob

Hi ozzy, good to hear from you and thanks for the compliments, I'm still a little red on the cheeks . I'm anxiously waiting for the time to paint the bird, but others have mastered it so well, I hope I will get a decent result too. I have no real addiction to the Würgers and D's, to me it must be a choice of the moment or a technical or esthetical appeal. I have two Revell F8's in my stash, added with a lot of resin from Eduard and other AM, one will be build as crashlanded on the ice and one will be in the insignia of NKFD (Nationalkommittee Freies Deutschland), an association of German prisoner of war, fighting for the Russians. I hope the Revell Würger will be at least decent. The Eduard special edition of the P-47 seems ok to me and I believe there are some rocket tubes in the Brassin portfolio, so why wait for Tamiya. I really like the 1/32 Tamiya birds, but oob there are still some flaws like the rubber wheels and their nearly unbendable photoetch and thick decals. Oops, just saw Razorback and yeah that would be a nice Tamiya subject. Cheers Rob

Thanx Wumm, in reality it looks more used and maintained than greasy and filthy , my lighting and macro lens seems to enhance the drama. My TA-152 should finally look used but not overused, as I think that service time of these birds was not very long before they were obselete. @all Happy holydays and feliz navidad Cheers Rob

Something had to be done about the toyish look of the sprayed engine. The pigments of the silver color (Tamiya XF16) where far to grainy, to look like aluminum. So I took out some Uschi Iron and Steel powders, some True Metal pastes from AK and rubbed and polished a lot. The result to my eye is really nice and I start to like these pigmented stuff on a prepainted surface very much. I added some black panel wash wich went on without problems. I'm still not sure about showing the engine, but at least it is an option now. Cheers Rob and happy holidays

Happy holidays Rich, looking very nice for a non existent progress . Seems to be heavy partying around your holidays if you need to recover from that. Can't wait to see more of the details inside the cab. Cheers Rob

Little progress is made. The tanks were masked and airbrushed, representing rubberish material with straps to keep everything in shape. None of these will be seen after closing the fuselage, but hey, what is a plane without a tank. The tanks are attached to the cockpit frame and the engine is basically sprayed and is looking so toyish, there has to be done something about. Stay tuned for the refinement of the engine an furter steps to come. Cheers Rob

Never mind Spliff, after 24 hours of meditation I'm beyond that point now and empirical testing showed, that nothing will be seen after completing the cockpit in the fuselage. Cheers Rob

Thanks Darren, but better not to put, then to put them wrong and knowing about . After that philosophical heavyweight I try to ignore the pedal thing till I can see or not see them in their final stage of assembly. Cheer Rob

Thanks Cees, that's the thing with comfort zones, step in and feel cozy and... bored at the end. Isn't modelling always about challenge? I do not compare my results with others and I do not take part in competitions, but to challenge myself with new techniques and skills is what I love about modelling and sometimes I fail bigtime, like with that wrong orientated pedals . Cheers Rob

Thanks Spliff, there is always a hair in the soup, in this case even two. The mentioned one was already removed, but you are absolutely right about the orientation of the pedals. Now that I have closed the fuselage, that will be hard to fix. I like your idea about filtering with oils to reduce the blue tone of the PE. If that would hve been a Raiden or a Corsair I would have done so, but in the TA-152 nearly nothing of the cockpit details will be seen again after fitting in the fuselage and adding the hood above the IP, except you use some surgical optics. The blue is not that bad in reality, must be my otherwise well biased lightning or the chip of my camera, and everything is heavily macroed, sometimes to much for my liking . Cheers Rob

Hola Senhoras e Senhores, Some time ago I browsed through my stash and let my thoughts sway a little. After some time it arouse to me that I never had build a german plane with all that complicated camo and mottling stuff, so why not give it a try. My eye came to a halt on the nicely boxed TA-152 H-0 by Zoukei Moura, which I bought along with some AM stuff like barrels, Metal cast wheel struts and PE for the cockpit and some exterieur stuff. Having seen some very nice builds of the bird, some here in LSM (with or without wings ), I deceided to give it a go. The TA-152 is the last incarnation of the slim and elegant FW-190 D and stretches the elegance, along with the dimensions to a max. It looks like the plane is build around the engine and afterwards got stretched in the wind channel. The only exception from that sleek look is the air intake for the turbocharger, a huge snorkel which reminds me of the compressor hoods of american muscle cars. Enough of the prequel ,lets get to the plastic. Thankfully not multicolored like the sprues of the H1 most of the parts show decent detail. Some parts mostly in the cockpit area are not very well defined and there is a lot of cleanup to be made. The Instrument panel (a clear and a grey one), to my eye are not made for a decent paintjob without decals. there is no detail in the becels and overall detail is not very sharp, so I got lucky to have invested into the ZM-Eduard interieur PE. This is a nice and to me necessary upgrade, but not without little quirks. Having seen lots of colored PE from Eduard I have to say that these are to blueish and somwhat rsasterized. A matte varnish and drops of clear for the dials helped a little to blend in. I deceided against the PE seatbelts after painting the preformed ones by hand. A little sidenote to what I have expierienced so far with this ZM-Kit. I think they are really overpriced. They are in a price range together with Tamiya without the sharpness of mould and with at least questionable engineering in many parts. The internal structures are a nice idea on paper, but through lack of detail and beeing not overly correct I prefer a classic layout of a kit. Seeing the multipart fuselage gives me the creeps and I hope my other ZM Kits show an improved quality. One of my last builds was the very moderatly priced Raiden from Hasegawa and this Kit was on the money detailwise, sharp IP and very inelligent parts breakdown. ZM looks to my a little toyish. Another "untested" critique is for the decals. They seem to have wide borders of carrier film and look thick and have some mispellings like "nichit" instead of "nicht" for not in german. Enough of the first thoughts, some pics to follow. The very simple cockpit of the TA-152 with erased detail for the PE The IP with some levers and an added matte coat and the dials finished with a drop of Future After painting with AK RLM 66. The PE looks less blueish in natural light. Almost finished, only some chipping and moderate ageing to come. Cheers Rob