DocRob

Poco a poco Phil, the Mossie is a demanding project. Your cockpit looks great and you finished the fiddly bets, which add a lot of reality. Is there a reason, why the cockpit floor is still on the sprue? Cheers Rob

Welcome to the forum Collin, nice Job on your Mitchell. I really like the faded OD paint job and the beautiful in flight display. Cheers Rob

Interesting technique Mike, I will keep that stored. This way the spars are much more convincing 'pre shaded' than with the unmasked spray over. Cheers Rob

Your Messerschmitt looks absolutely fantastic Kevin, the paintjob is great with the subtle mottling. On my H&S Infinity airbrush, I don't use the forked protective cap anymore. There is less sputter and it's easy to clean the needle with a cotton bud, soaked in thinner. It's easy to bend the needle though, only yesterday, I hit the side panel of my spray booth with it and bent it terribly. I bent it back (soft steel it seems) and gave it a new finish, using my Japanese grinding stone, honing the tip with 6000 grid. Cheers Rob

Thank you Kevin and Gary, I hope I can finish the Nachtigall this time. It's one of those kits, throwing a lot of trouble your way, but is somehow rewarding on the other hand. Closing the canopy is most critical, as there are many paarts to glue into the clear parts while closing, making it really hard to align everything. Cheers Rob

It has been a while, since I was working on the Nachtigall, but the kit, resting on the shelf was never forgotten. I need all my cojones to continue with it and after finishing some builds lately, I initially wanted to start the 1/32 HKM Do-335 B2, but then remembered the Arado. I love planes that may look quirky, but are so much ahead of their time engineering- and design wise, that they immediately attract me, the unusual the better. The Arado even beats the Pfeil in that subjective category and now, I hope I can pull the build through, having most of the difficult work already done. After evaluating, what I had done, re-reading my thread to catch up, I wanted to close the canopy now and started to add detail to the cockpit and bezeled and wired the instrument panel with the Yahu PE parts, which are cleverly done. The manual calls for 1mm pre drilling, where the dials should go and the backside of the dials has a protrusion, to place them. The bezels have a little nub for aiding the placement, which has it's counterpart on the dial. This way, you can be sure, the instruments are orientated correct. Cheers Rob

You should come together, would raise the amount of modelers to four on my island . Cheers Rob

Nothing against digital sources Gary, the only thing I detest is crappy sound. Bad sampled mp3's from tiny boomboxes via bluetooth, shudder You have to bring the vinyl's then, only have one KC and no E, L, P, but thousands others. Cheers Rob

You are not the problem Martin, but I remember the pictures of what your dogs up to . Cheers Rob

I browsed through my photos from a visit in Chino, California some years ago and found fewer pics than I thought, sorry Peter. These are from a -J: ...and these are from a -L Cheers Rob

Nice loot Carl, I'd be interested, how the new cutting tool works, I tried different tools for cutting curves, but none have worked satisfactory. I own one with a rotating blade, which is angled, to drag it, but it only works fluidly with larger radii. Cheers Rob

Easily done. Martin. The Speakers are Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Grand. I own them since my Berlin days and they are a statement to musicality. The three bass cone layout guarantees a tight and fast bass of the kind I like it. Not seen on the pic is another important hearing equipment, two Eames Lounge Chairs, which keep long hearing sessions comfortable, in fact, they are like an exo-skeleton. My setup is pure stereo, no room-dang-Dolby-server stuff. We make concessions to good sounding equipment, but the room has to be liveable at least. No egg cartons on the wall . Cheers Rob

No need to be jealous, other than you have lots of spare time for seeking after the right fitting components, spending a lot of time adjusting the equipment, experimenting with about everything. It adds a new world of challenges to modelling . Buying is only one little part of the journey. Cheers Rob

Since yesterday, I'm a bit distracted from modeling. After a four month odyssey, my new tonearm and cartridge for my good old Transrotor Fat Bob turntable arrived. The old setup sported a Transrotor modified Rega tonearm and an Audio Technica VM-760 moving magnet cartridge. A good combo, but I always had the feeling, it's a bit of a letdown for the Transrotor, especially the arm. Old setup with dust on the needle : The new setup, which I mounted and adjusted yesterday, has a Sorane SA 1.2 tonarm and a Pasemation PP-200 moving coil cartridge, booth oozing Japanese building and engineering perfection. The combination is a dreamtime on paper, which means by compliance and low frequency resistance and the first hearing sessions showed, it's also in reality. I'm blown away by the clarity and separation of instruments. It's not like jumping into hyperspace from the good old setup, but every aspect of music reproduction is a bit better, which makes the whole hearing experience completely leveled up. Some month ago, I also made an update with my phono pre-amp, substituting my good old Lehmann Black Cube with the Aurorasound Vida Prima. A quirky retro reminiscent device, which no wonder is also build by a Japanese producer. This also was a great step forward, leaving the slightly Teutonic sounding Lehmann behind in terms of musicality. Except the German build Transrotor, my entire phono setup is now Japanese equipped, and I'm no longer a searcher, but found my dream team for playing my precious vinyls. Cheers Rob

So far, there are two WIP's out there, Ernie. Best way to evaluate a kit I guess. I never build a Spitfire and have only 1/48 Eduards in stash and may help myself to one of these. That counts as a maybe with a strong 'yes' bias. Cheers Rob

Who else could have managed to fabricate a well engineered, good fitting and well detailed P-38 than Tamiya. I was a bit surprised, to see you start this WIP, but now I understand. Stress relief is important, when the mojo is flowing less viscous with some demanding builds. At last we are building for fun, aren't we? I just finished the same kind of stress reliever with the fantastic SBS resin kit of the Caudron racer, but not knowing the company before, I was not prepared to see such a well designed product and having these amount s of fun with it. Your pilots workplace looks great and the P-38 is one of my favorites, so I'm eager to see your progress Peter. I have two of these in stash, a -J and your -f and look forward to build them. Now I will have a nice template for doing so. I have some more pics, if you like, I will have to look for them, but this as a teaser. Cheers Rob

Wow, looks absolutely fantastic Martin. Take care that there are no oil stains on your Jeep, the grade of realism your Spit shows, she must be leaking like a real one . Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter, as reward, I ordered this beauty today among some other well needed supplies. Cheers Rob

Thank you Hubert, it tied the room together, like the Dude said in 'The Big Lebowski' . Cheers Rob

Post Scriptum to a finished build. Hubert addressed, what was gnawing with me all the time. The prominent fasteners of the engine cowling in their high shine appearance. After trying different methods, I found one working satisfactory but it was delicate. I adhered strips of Bare Metal Foil over the area, pushed and turned a sharpened toothpick into the holes and then carefully removed the foil with the toothpick still pushed into the hole, tell me about finger gymnastics . Now I can put this build onto the shelf and find my sleep without having to care about this brainbug. Cheers Rob

Toothpick was the keyword Hubert, but I already found the solution before your last post, but pondering about your initial fastener post. I adhered a tiny strip of Bare Metal Foil onto the fastener row and inserted a sharpened toothpick into each fastener hole and ripped off the surrounding foil with tweezers and a scalpel, while holding the toothpick in place. This way, I worked fastener for fastener along the rows and it worked. Pics tomorrow, when I finish side two. Sometimes a little kick ass helps to ignite the lame brain, thanks for that . Cheers Rob

Don't think, I haven't thought about that Hubert, but I like, when someone put the finger into the wound . I considered brush dotting, tried to punch small dots of foil, dummy tried a marker, but all lead to nothing or destruction. I've not given up on the fasteners and when I find a solution, i will show it. Cheers Rob

Good point Peter, when I painted my Ford GT Mk. II, I had rubbed trough the paint easily, using the Tamiya polishing compounds. I had to respray the body, a thing I really hate to do. Cheers Rob

A member on MSW dug these photos up. Especially the color pic showing a big difference in shininess between the blue paint and canopy, indicating a not very glossy paintjob. Cheers Rob

Thank you Gary, I thought about your Focke racer, while doing mine. I will keep your ideas about buffing compounds in mind for when time comes. For the Caudron, I looked at pictures and found the paintjob shouldn't be too shiny. I don't think, it was polished to the max, but these photos might have been retouched, who knows. Cheers Rob