DocRob

Like Hubert said, your 109 is looking very good. Other than Hubert, I like the contrast between recesses articulated lightly with washes and the prominent rivets. Cheers Rob

Colors and application looking great. Makes me want to start a ME-262 soon. Cheers Rob

Not much to say, but praise the engineering of the wheel struts, a sturdy construction, despite the multiple parts used. There is a steel rod inserted into the main strut and Tamiya even depicted the brake lines, phenomenal. I use Brassin wheels, as I don't like rubber tires. The resin parts fit perfectly to the plastic, with only the small hole for the break line needs to be drilled out with a 0,5 mm bit. The best, the wheel struts are removable for painting. I don't know, why I used the SAC replacement on my first Corsair build, there is absolutely no ned for. Cheers Rob

Thank you Martin, you delivered the phrase for my desired look. The look of the Corsair I mean . Cheers Rob

Thank you Kevin, I would have liked to airbrush the landing gear and lg-doors in one go, but ran out of holding clips. My whole desk was full of parts to spray . Poco a poco, step by step like they say here. Cheers Rob

Looking good Martin, at least on a JL. I was about to do something similar to my JK as the original lights were a candle in the dark. Luckily I changed my mind and only the bulbs. These high tech thingies are so much brighter and they don't change the more classical front of the JK too much. Cheers Rob

I know what you are talking about Carl, having fought my Covid just now. The dizziness and headaches are terrible. I hope you'll be better soon. Thanks for your thoughts, I want to get over the construction phase, as perfection starts to bore me a bit . Cheers Rob

With the Covid and it's side effects more or less gone, it's time to get back on track and do some sports. Boy was I missing that. I'm still a bit weak, but today I thrashed my powerless bones into the Atlantic and had a good swim. A bit uncomforting were the Barracudas in huge quantity and different sizes. I don't mind the small ones, but don't like the cold stare of the larger ones. Back to the Corsair. There will not be too many updates until something interesting happens. I have to admit, building and painting of the inner and outer sections of the wings bore me a bit. I have to take care to not make mistakes, where there are so many options considering flaps up or down, wings folded or not,... On ModelShipWorld a member pointed out, that the wings of a Corsair only fold simultaneously, so gone was the one wing up option. The wings will not be folded, as my plane is land based. I finished all the assemblies for the wheel wells and inner wing parts, after painting tons of parts. ...and glued the wing roots and fuselage bottom to the rest of the fuselage. I think only Tamiya can produce so many strangely shaped parts to fit and lock into place with a tiny little snap. On my last Tamiya build, I used Microscale's Micro Mask for the exhausts and it took hours to peel that off, horrible stuff. This time, I inserted a small piece of Kabuki tape to the inside of the fuselage to cover the exhaust opening. This can be pulled off with tweezers after painting. The wheel wells itself are very beautiful rendered oob. Cheers Rob

Thank you Sasha, it's a feelgood kit and I can't wait to get to the painting stage. Cheers Rob

Your Mustang is coming together very nice, the paintjob is ultra-smooth on the detail shots. I use Pledge for clear parts often and it enhances the clarity by far. I try to minimize the masking period as short as possible and had bad results with liquid masks, which I don't use on canopy parts anymore. Wasn't there a seam on the canopy anyway? If, there is, there is no way around removing it and polish the whole thing. Cheers Rob

What a sleek looking plane Kevin and you painted it perfectly with the mottled green and masked borders. The decals bring everything to live. Cheers Rob

Looking very good Sasha, smooth as silk. Can't wait to see your monochrome scheme painted on. Cheers Rob

Hope you feel better soon Carl. Bad thing with the gap. Where is the contact point between the cowling and the engine?, struts?, fuselage? Maybe you can do something on the inside of the cowl, to close the gap. Cheers Rob

Nice progress and I wish you steady hands and magnified eyesight for the seat belts. Cheers Rob

I never knew about a discussion about CA causing problems with lead alloys causing problems, Hubert. I will dig a little deeper here as I'm interested in the why's, albeit not being a Chemist. I used the combination of Ca and lead wire on different occasions, wiring radial engines and it never failed. In the case of the Corsair, I even skipped the step of pre drilling, to get a larger bonding area. All the wires are glued directly onto the plastic/resin. In the assembly process, I bent several of the glued wires, accidentally or by shaping them and non came loose. I will check later, if the wiring on my P-47, I wired some years ago is still intact. As I'm only building models for building and painting sakes, in the end, I don't really care about long term durability. I lose interest into a finished project and don't display my finished builds, with maybe the exception of the Duchess of Kingston, when ready. Cheers Rob

Thanks Gary, I was opting for copper not yellow. There are some historical pictures from the production line of the P&W showing copper braided wiring. Thank you Irishman, I like the look of the Anyz thread on your engine, but like Gary said, I've never seen evidence of yellow wiring used at the time. Cheers Rob

I prefer the Benedictine, very useful for classic cocktails. I always have a bottle in my bar, right between Chartreuse and different Absinth's. You'll like the HGW belts. They are fiddly to assemble, but with good tweezers and a magnifier all can be done. Do yourself a favor and leave the PE on the fret for fiddling the belts through, makes life much easier. Cheers Rob

The engine got assembled, got some touch ups and was installed into the fuselage mounts. The assembly with all the cowling rings and myriads of exhaust tubes need careful alignment to get it right. Following the manual is advised here. This is what remains visible (looks better in real life, but the picture needed to be badly exposed) Luckily the only loosely fitted side cowlings sat in their places with only minimal gaps Cheers Rob

Thank you Harv, good to have you on the trip. I hope, I will be able to stay continuously with the build. Cheers Rob

Looking extremely good Gary. I will not rivet a plane, but will borrow your sanding technique on the corsair. This will help to blend in the colors and the sprayed stencils and markings, I hope. Cheers Rob

Having already built a Nautilus, I was considering a 48 scale rescue dio with a Walrus, but changed my mind. There are not so many builds to be found with the Fore Model 1/72 Schnellboot S-38. If that small scale vessel is accepted, I'm in and I add some fine resin figures for the crew. Cheers Rob

I have some pics, which show braided ignition wires in a coppery color, but more so with black or grey lines. The Anyz spark plugs, I used, have an angled connector for the wire. You can carefully push the braided thread onto these, good looking, but not scale wise. Like you said, working with lead wire is much easier, it cuts with only the slightest push of a knife, glues well with CA and keeps it's desired form, if not touched during the process. The 0,3 mm variant fits best to my eye for this 32 scale ignition. Cheers Rob

Thank you for showing the instructions error. I'm more or less sure, I will build the P-51 without bombs, but if my chosen plane had the racks, I have to find out. I will keep your advice in mind. I never tried to brush paint with Ak's Extreme Metals. I assumed, their coverage would not be sufficient. I like Tamiya's LP colors for the task, flows and covers well and 'silver' has a nice steely look. Cheers Rob

Your oil rendering really pops on the NMF, I like it a lot. I tend to weather my planes from very light to heavy use and incorporated various techniques to do so. I never used oils on NMF, but having recently bought a Tamiya Mustang, there is the mule. Thanks for your how to descriptions, which are very helpful. Like you, I switched from Alclad, because of their fragility, but my go to metals are AK's Extreme Metals, which are great to spray, look truly metallic and are robust. Cheers Rob

Very nice progress, the 262 is coming together nicely. Not sure about the 'onions'. On my momentarily halted Arado 234 build I will paint them off black, faded with different hues. Cheers Rob