DocRob

Thank you Peter, but I changed my planned modus operandi for simplified rigging for several reasons. - Since weeks, I´m waiting for my Infini elastic rigging thread to arrive from Japan, but it´s still a no show. - I don´t want to put on the upper wing lozenge decals as the last step of the build. Better now, with sealing everything, and having a coherent weathering. - Old school fishing line rigging with brass tubes enhances the rigidity of the wings and struts, not too bad with 60cm of wingspan. No pictures as of yet, but I´m finalizing the lozenge decal at the moment and started to weather the fuselage and struts. Cheers Rob

Looking good, the tedious masking was worth it. You can enhance the worn effect, by carefully sanding over the yellow, which erases the harsh corners a bit and gives a worn look. Cheers Rob

The lighting makes something special out of the raider, Carl. The only thing missing is a tiny moving red light inside the cockpit . Cheers Rob

Lucky guy, Scott, where I live, it´s impossible to get Tamiya´s rattle cans sent to. Actually, even Tamiya extra thin is a problem, but my wife will bring me some from her Berlin trip. Cheers Rob

... and after that, 1/12? . Nice bike, with a air cooled engine, you don´t see that very much nowadays. I had a Suzuki GSX-750 once, a naked bike, which really liked, until I changed it for a KTM SM 950, but that was a different breed. Cheers Rob

After half a square meter of lozenge decals, I have most of the wings finished. The process of decaling is very time consuming, but the decals behave very well, given these are the largest, I ever worked with. Fit is still outstanding. A good sequence helps, starting with the undersides from inside to outside. Then softener and hairdryer in iterative circles, until the decal settled around the corners and then on with the upper side. Good work for days, where you don´t have the time for continuous hours at the bench, but work an hour here another there, over the complete days. The most difficult parts were the smaller ailerons, where it is hard to lay the decals around the corners with relatively mild softeners. Now it´s decision time, I haven´t decaled the upper side of the upper wing, because of my pre thought rigging method. I will use proper eyelets and small brass tube sections for the lower wing side of the rigging, but initially had the idea, to drill the rigging holes in the upper wing through, using flexible rigging thread, inserted through these holes and use only a piece of brass tube as a fake turnbuckle. Then I could glue the taught rigging threads in place cut the rest off and decal over on top to hide the holes. The proper way would be rigging lower and upper side with eyelets and brass tubes and fishing line as rigging thread, which even strengthen the wing assembly. Cheers Rob

Thank you seiran, it´s a rewarding build, but has it´s repetitive parts, like decaling lozenge, which is pretty time consuming. Cheers Rob

Starts to look seriously Viggen, Gus, except the Canard wings, of course. You seem to have a good pace with the Swedish bird now. I would have left the pylons off until after painting the splinter, I guess. Cheers Rob

I like the pencils a lot, Peter. I have the same set and use them on regular base. You can use them dry for highlighting, where some colors adhere better than others to the plastic. Where they really shine is dampened. You can produce a kind of multi color wash or panel line effect. Here are some pictures of my 1/20 MAK AmmoKnight, where I used the pencils dampened for interior weathering. Cheers Rob

Interesting to hear Rog, thank you for starting this and comparing it to the Beemax kit. Cheers Rob

Butcher, another slice of Tomcat, please . Cheers Rob

I generally don´t want to be too organized Peter, it´s more like a brain training to me, to keep everything in virtual order. Don´t get me wrong, I don´t like totally messed benches, but prefer training my memory, instead of labeling a lot. Well, the system has some loose ends, sometimes... . Cheers Rob

Indeed Gus, this was record breaking, usually it takes 10 days to two weeks, even from the Spanish mainland. The shipping cost were on the upper edge of reasonable, but compared to the prices, European shops call for, It was a very good deal. Me too Carl, but it will take a while until I start. First, I have to learn a bit about polishing whit metal parts and finish them perfectly. Cheers Rob

I normally prepare parts in sections and put them in an organizer tray, but do not label them. With these struts, I do, because I want to be sure, everything is in the right place and they are very similar to each other. I hear you about the Tamiya gloss coats and will use them more on future builds. GX-100 is a strange breed, especially with these fogging issues. Cheers Rob

I´m absolutely stoked today. On Saturday, I ordered my first Model Factory Hiro kit, exactly on the first day of it´s availability direct from the Japanese homepage. I saw some preview pictures of the big tank Crocker and was immediately in love. Like a Harley, were somebody said, make it nice (I know this will make me enemies, but especially the middle section of Harley´s over the decades looked plump to me). After only five days, the Crocker made it to my island for a great price and without the Spanish charging customs for whatever reason. Could be an entry to the twins GB, but no, I will take my time with that beauty. Cheers Rob

Progress is a bit slow at the moment, but I managed to prepare the wings for decaling and painted struts and other wing connected parts. It´s a Wingnut kit and I spoke about tolerances before and that´s why used liquid mask and numbered tape strips for identification of the struts, to seal the connection points and wooden or plastic rods for the strut´s holes in the wing, glued in with heavily water thinned white glue. I then applied some white pastel onto the seams of the wings, with a flat piece. This was the fastest and easiest way to pre shade the spars. I didn´t want to put much effort into this step, because I guess, it may remained unseen with the opacity of the lozenge decals on top. Then the wings were coated with Mr Color GX-100 gloss varnish. I always have mixed results with that stuff. If everything works fine, it produces an absolutely fantastic gloss layer mixed with leveling thinner, but when not.... I learned the hard way, not to pre mix GX-100 in a plastic jar, as it produces very ugly ´frosted´ spray, maybe because color and/or thinner reacts with the plastic jar. In this case, I mixed everything in a glass jar, but still, I had the frosting effect three times while spraying. After cleaning the airbrush, I used the same mix without issues, very strange. Cheers Rob

Fantastic interior work, scratching details like the seats and a very convincing paint job. Cheers Rob

Wow, your 1/32 toolbox looks better then my 1/1 box. You are really in a league of your own, fantastic scratch build abilities, building and painting as well. I like how your paintjobs look super realistic, but somehow have a trademark look of yours. Cheers Rob

Very nice Mossie John, I especially like the perfectly blended and matted camo, with the decals fitting in like sprayed on. Cheers Rob

Wow Peter, if there is no book around, you can have a nice read on your missiles. Sometimes, I wonder about the service crews training, if they need these heap of stencils. The painful task was worth it, the missiles look fantastic. My last stenciling exodus was the ZM 1/48 Kai Phantom, which had about a telephone book of information spread around, my not so great urge to build modern jets, vanished a bit by then. Cheers Rob

Nice, to see your P-51 nearing the finish line, Phil. After all the issues she looks very nice. I´d never thought, I would like such a relatively dull aluminum color on a P-51, but somehow it fits with the camo. The fit of panels and cowlings would be an interesting question. I had tons of problems with my ZM TA-152 some years ago with these and even mor with the engine bearers. Blue or green, she looks fantastic, good to have her saved. Cheers Rob

Well, it doesn´t look too bad with the CA on, Paul. You might spray some primer on top, to see, how it looks afterwards. There are myriads of possibilities to hide the section later with a tarpaulin, figures, equipment, snow, camo netting, ... Cheers Rob

Nice Carl, I like Sci Fi subjects with lighting. Like Peter said, the Cylon Batwing is indeed bigger than thought. Cheers Rob

Maybe it´s a shale , I´m overly happy, that I didn´t ruin the AEG. Cheers Rob

This may not mean a lot to most of you, but I got the decaled fuselage sealed in. I feared bad reactions with `hot´ varnishes, but because of my planned weathering schedule, I wanted a durable sealing coat, a contradiction. First, I wiped down the whole airframe with a cotton towel and purified water, to get rid of decal solution residues. I took out god old Tamiya X-22 clear and mixed it with Tamiya acrylic thinner and sprayed it on some test parts, so far so good. When I sprayed on my decaled test elevator, the finish looked like marbled and scratched, bummer. With shaking hands, I mixed the ´hot´ Tamiya lacquer LP-32 flat clear with equally ´hot´ levelling thinner at a ratio of about 55% thinner, less than normal and cautiously sprayed the tail underside and immediately blew the varnish dry with the airbrush, to minimize reaction time. Hooray, it worked, no smelt decals and a nice and even near flat coat. Even the resprayed elevator was rescued, with over spraying and looks good now. Cheers Rob