DocRob

Very fine progress Phil, the Bofors looks really good with all the detail. A good plan is needed for ship builds, to not paint yourself into a corner. Cheers Rob

I might try some light grey panel liner for contrast. Another technique, I sometimes use on dark objects, Is using a tiny bit of Uschi van der Rosten Iron pigments on a finger and rub slightly over the surface. If done very light, it's a bit of highlighting and let the finish look more painted metal like. It's easy to overdo this, but it can help with a dark monochrome plane. Have I mentioned salt spray? You could simulate that and if there are bad spots on the canopy, possibly hide them. Cheers Rob

Very nice John, the paintjob is ultrasmooth, like we've seen so often from you. Cheers Rob

Wow, the big Cat is shaping up nicely, Chris. Removing the masks is always a moment of truth, as you look at the plane for the first time in a near ready state. I really like the buy look of the cat, with the pilots and the open blisters. The markings, hmm, it's always good to have a storyline in mind for your model and work it out through building and painting. I'd go with faded for the stars and bars, but would lighten them even more on the top of the wings to create a believable frame. 'Errors' half corrected are the worst to my eye. Cheers Rob

Very appetizing bits you show here, Gary. The cockpit looks fantastic and your painting and shading supplements the detail. The seat belts are not kit supplied, I guess. Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter, the weathering has a strange habit of showing very different under varying angles of light. On the pictures, it looks heavier than to my eye. I consider another layer of sparse white residues, simulating salt, but have to try it first. It's 1/350 and I don't want to overdo it. The new Eduard decals on first try have about the same hit and miss ratio, like HGW wet transfers. Looking good, when done, but not reliable enough to have a decent decal job on a newish looking object. The chipping though, looks realistic for worn objects though . Cheers Rob

Just yesterday, I stumbled over this. Unfortunately no 1/32 but movie connected decals for planes from a sub company of DEF-Model. DEF Model Cheers Rob

On my USS Arizona build of the same scale, I only drilled out the portholes. As the hull is closed and dark inside this was sufficient for me, You'll need your mentioned 20x magnifier and strong lighting to see more than a black hole. Cheers Rob

Sure, get some Ion Model crew figures and then some brass for the barrels. Then it's up to you, to find the perfect part for a starter among the 470. I'd go for the stand and hull, drilling out the portholes. Cheers Rob

Nice Carl, I had a lot of lead cast BattleTech power suits painted up, when I was young. Somehow they all got lost. Cheers Rob

Tell me something about humidity Gary, yesterday we had 99% and above 80% is absolutely normal here. It doesn't affect my airbrushing though, at leas, I haven't noticed it as of yet. The boats look great, especially with the wood texture, but also terribly narrow. I wouldn't want to sit in these in the rough Atlantic Ocean. My SUP seems to be wider. Cheers Rob

Wow Gary, this IP is looking sharp and will shine after all the treatments. Good to see, that no AM is needed for once, as the provided tedious way looks perfectly good. Cheers Rob

Beautiful result Peter, the decals and stencils bring her alive. Sorry to hear about the gloss and decal issues, it seems that Cartograph isn't always top shelf, maybe there are different processes / materials available to choose for the customers. I always dread decaling and the prep work, because so many things can go wrong so late in the build. Luckily your Spit and your spirit survived the misfortunes. Cheers Rob

Thank you Mike. I removed the carrier film, using a sharp blade to lift a tiny edge and pulled off the rest with pliers, parallel to the decal to reduce the strain on the ink. I can imagine, it might work on a polished surface, but as I said, before I would try it out on lets say a plane, I would intensely test the process on a mule. Cheers Rob

I considered the Lublin R XIII G, the version with floats for a while, but haven't bought the Lukgraph kit until now. One kit, I have in stash with some Eduard PE and figures is the 1/48 kit of the PZL.23B Karas. I like the quirky plane a lot and look forward to the build. I already finished the PZL P.11c from ICM, which was a great kit to build. For me it was a testbed for a pure oil paintjob applied only with brushes. Along my Fokker D.VIII build in 1/32, I also built the Polish version of the Fokker in 1/72, which was quite fiddly, but enjoyable. The kit was from Arma Hobby. Cheers Rob

I've been busy over the last days with the USS Arizona. I decided to weather a bit, because no ship ever looks clean and because I wanted to learn weathering on ships. But first to the decals. Luckily there are not many and that's definitely a pro for ship modeling. These here are the new incarnation of Eduard decals which have to be cut out, because the carrier film is not. After application, they looked like this with silvering and reflecting carrier film. Eduard claims, the carrier film of these newer decals can be removed, leaving an almost painted on result. Hmm, sounds good, but after peeling off the carrier film very carefully all the decals had stencil lifts .. My underlayer maybe was not perfect, but it was not too shabby either with a coat of gloss GX100 from Mr. Color. Before I try these again on a larger scale, I would test on some mules. With the carrier film on, they look worse than other decals, quo vadis Eduard? Next I prepared some of the tiny printed parts for painting, like AA-guns and searchlights, which will be added to the superstructures after the weathering stage. Like I said above, I gloss coated the model, to have a good base for weathering for which I used Tamiya panel liners, but mainly brown oil colors for the first step. My technique is to apply oils liberally and not to scarce with a larger synthetic brush. Different areas were treated with different mixing ratios of oil color and matte finish whit spirit. After a short period of drying, I spread the colors again with help of a bit of thinner and try to work in the direction of the flow, hull downwards and reduce the amount of oil color accordingly. This time, I used the oil color from one of AK's oil pens, and these oil are of a lesser quality, than my normally used from Abt 502. This is where I am now, albeit after taking the photos, I knocked back the effect a bit more, a true benefit of oil rendered weathering. Cheers Rob

Thanks Kevin, there are many things to do until this may be a highlight, but lots have been done and it feels good to lock back and see what I achieved. Cheers Rob

Phinally this Phantastic Phlying assembly from wood and cloth arrived on my doorstep. It was the last from my 'I really want it' list from WNW. The kit has the same fantastic quality of the other kits of the brand and is even equipped with some cookie cut wood decals for the fuselage. On first inspection, they look a bit coarse, but I will varnish the wood on mine, so it might work and I added some HGW seat belts to the mix. Along the plane came four sheets of linen decal for the wings, one transparent linen structured for a silver doped plane (Nieuport) and one sheet as a backup for my Halberstadt's fuselage with stippled Lozenge. Last but not least, there were 1ManArmy's stencil masks for my ZM HS-219 included in the package, which nearly took forever to get here. Cheers Rob

I will add another sound to your CRACK Chris. It's BANG, which I had yesterday handling the long hull of my Arizona and hit my desk lamp. Luckily the damage was not too excessive, some bent PE parts and a bit of unwanted chipping. For the insignia masking or larger masking in general, which require multiple masking, there was a god tip in the 1ManArmy manual, to get the masks align perfectly. Before removing them from the backing paper, apply some transparent frisket film on top. That makes placement easier and hinders deformation of the masks. Cheers Rob

No need for, it seems with his strikeout ratio. I was a good contact hitter, but that man got my blind . Cheers Rob

This GB actually never was officially finished, so please feel free to add the 1/35 original to the 1/1 'replica' . Cheers Rob

These PE additions look great and enhance the appearance of your bird a lot, Kriss. I built a 1/32 of a later version and found the plane and the kit very attractive. There are some great Polish plane kits out there, unfortunately not so many in large scale. Cheers Rob

Looks great Mike and leaving all hatches and canopies open, like you consider is the best way, I think. Cheers Rob

Fantastic result with that Phantom. Had there be no carrier in the pics, I had take them all for model shots. Thanks for showing and also compliments on the photo work. Cheers Rob

Nothing better to have some family on the diamond and enjoying a good game. I played Baseball in German leagues for 25 years and I absolutely love the game. I never had an opposing pitcher only near the 100 mph mark, but would really like to be the batter, not to hit, but to get the feeling. The strangest thing, that happened to me was a lefthanded pitcher calling for time in the middle of the count and got another glove and continued throwing with the other hand ace style. He struck me out and left me gaping . Cheers Rob