1to1scale

I looked over all the sprues, since I have been studying books and photos on the F/L, and just did the gray matter conversion, and had a B in the stash, I did some comparisons. I can say that all the sprues are new, there does not appear to be an carryover. I noticed a couple of things, all the cockpit parts look to be new, but to my eye, they look a little short, almost look halfway between the Hasegawa and the old Trumpy. The second small issue, the exhaust openings look a little big, but a positive is that they give you both exhaust style. The fuselage looks good, but we will see, I can’t wait to get my hands on one.

So I did contact the daughter and made a bid, more than you could buy a small new car for, but unfortunately, she had higher bids already. Her idea was over $100k, my bid was about a 1/5 of that. So I wished her luck, I also explained to her the values of certain kits, and how to value the collection. There were many old 1/72 vac kits, and many, many, frog and heller kits. These were realistically $1 swap meet kits. The biggest value was in modern 1/48 and some modern 1/32. I also explained why she may never see the kind of bid that she was looking for, because of the money and effort needed to move, store, and sell the kits. I figured between taxes, customs brokerage, two dedicated truckloads, i would have been looking at over $5k, and long term storage at about $500 per month. There are also many things to consider, such as sales venue, packaging, shipping, capacity, and dilution of the market. An example is she had 10 Tamiya F-14’s, if you look on eBay and see only two selling for $150, and I flood the market with ten more, then all the values go down, now they are all selling for $75 since there are more on the market than buyers. So I would then need to limit sales of this item to one per month, to keep the market for saturating. This meant that i need to keep paying storage rent fees for a year, now i have invested another $12k, eating into profit. I learned this years ago in another business venture, where myself and my partner offered a unique service, however, others started copying our service, eventually bringing the value down to 1/10th of our original price. So for me, the investment does not make sense anymore at higher prices, as tempting as it was... I am out of this endeavor. If anyone is remotely interested, let me know and I will give you more details.

Please share how you did that finish, I would like to do that with my P-40

Yes, I will buy! Let me know when they are ready!

My airplane record for a 1/32 was my Revell P-51, coincidentally, it was my most hated build. Nothing fit with paint on it, and it had sink marks and needed filler everywhere! 50 days = Hasegawa KI-84, masks, no decals, heavy weathering 37 days = Trumpeter P-40B, masks, no decals 30 days = Revell BF-109G6, Masks, stencil decals 26 days = Hobbycraft P-51A, Masks, no decals, scratch cockpit, heavy filler and sanding. 21 days = Revell P-51D, OOB build, Eagle decals.

I didn't used to be a helo guy, but a few weeks ago, I heard a "pop" in my head, I took two steps to the left, blinked three times, and all of the sudden I wanted helicopters. Funny how how that happens...and as my wife says..."there is something wrong with you!"

I’m just saying...you nailed it!

You guys need a bigger workbench, here is mine, 40” deep, 9 feet wide! It’s U shaped, center section is 40” deep by 5 feet, and each end section is 48” deep and 2 feet wide, for 9 feet of workbench. However, when you have 7 P-40 boxes on there, they take up a lot of room. Still, plenty of room for a B-24.

Incredible detail, I don’t think I have seen the level of detail outside of resin.

Wow, that’s going to devalue all the Tate’s on ebay!

If I had entered 7 at the show here a couple weeks ago, I would have doubled the entries. in all honesty, none of these will be show winners, just some offerings for the styrene gods.

State of my workbench report! I have 3 fully sanded, four more to go.

Anther nice wingnut!

So I am laying here in bed at 12:15 am, and I was looking at Ernie’s quick build F-5F, and the thought popped into my head, how quick is quick? I remember when I was a wee teen, building Monogram kits in the basement, and I would usually crank out a kit in a few hours. Once I was building with paint, I was still cranking out kits in a day, later when I started using spray paints and painting more advanced camo, like an SEA Phantom or Thud, I was finishing models in a matter of 2-3 days. Now I spent 3 hours filling seams and sanding alone. So,I started thinking, what does everyone consider a speedbuild? Here are my thoughts: I think a speed build would be two full weekends, since I rarely have time during the week, the best I could do was a couple hours on Friday nights, maybe 3-4 hours on Sat and Sunday each, so that would give me approximately 20 hours for two full weekends. What could I build? The more I think about it, if you build a good fitting kit with minimal seam filling and sanding, or perhaps a kit that was engineered to there are very few seams at all. You would have to build it out of the box, no resin, no PE, no masks, maybe a set of time savers, like a Yahu panel, One piece wheels, pre painted PE belts would help. A single or two color paint helps. So far, the only kit I built that would qualify would be the Hasegawa KI-84. Not to say others would not work, but I definately would exclude the Hasegawa P-40 due to all the seam work. Most Tamiyas just have too many pieces, but I thought about the F-15, if you built it stock cockpit and and all the panels closed, you really only have 3 major colors, and some detail painting in the cockpit. the E model is all one color outside, so it might be possible for a two weekend build. My thoghts for quick box stock builds: Tamiya F-15E (no seams, simple kit for its size, easy assembly, single color paint) Hasegawa Ki-84 (great fit, no filler,just a little seam sanding) Hasegawa Ki-44 (great fit, no filler,just a little seam sanding) Revell Bell H-13H (no seams, all tubes, this could be a one weekend kit!) Hasegawa BF-109F-4 trop (one color, good fit) So what do you guys think, what kits go together with minimal seams and sanding, minimal pieces, and fit together with drama?

I’m in love with your paint job, holy cow!

I have been resuming work this week, I spent a few hours applying seam putty on all the kits, there is a LOT of seams that need filler. As a rough measurement, I counted about 20 inches of seams that need filler on each plane. 75% of the seams have fine detail and rivets that are extremely close, so I have be really careful sanding. I have fully prepped the F/L conversion for priming, and a single "K" is ready, I am half finished sanding an "E", and then still have to sand a "K" and "E", and then both "N's." It has been taking me about 2 hours per plane to carefully sand each plane, so I probably still have a few weeks work to have all of them ready for primer. Of course, they may require more filling and sanding after. I would be happy to have all of them done by the end of the year, but there is no rush. I plan on taking breaks from the monotony of sanding, so I may bring back a couple kits from the SOL (shelf of limbo). I recently came across a Hasegawa P-47D that I started work on, I pretty much started the cockpit and pre-painted lots of parts on the sprues, including the resin wheels. This is an easy build because I had done a lot of prep work, I really need to assemble the cockpit and close up the fuselage. I also had a Yahu panel, and Fine Molds seat belts. Until last week, I forgot about this plane. I believe I stuffed it on the shelf when I ran into paint problems with my Corsair build. I also want to do a few quick builds on some very old (pre-80's) helicopters, so I will throw some updates on here occasionally, but nobody wants to see sanding videos. Once I get to the primer stage, I'll post a few pictures. Ill also throw some pics up on my other projects.

That is some really nice paintwork! How does 5he set fit 5he fuselage so far?

I have a feeling that If I bought 11K kits, I would suddenly have a lot more friends!

My biggest concern is not the cost, but how do I get a truckload of 11,000 kits over the border? I have connections in the trucking industry, but what would I do about customs?

If i knew who to contact, I would be a serious bidder. I used to sell about $10K a month on ebay about 15 years ago, so I know how. Plus I would make it a point to hit every swap meet and IPMS show within 500 miles of me. And I have a few friends that buy lots and sell stuff. If anyone knows the details, let me know, please PM me!

So they have a stealth aircraft with a huge belly tank and normal burners. I wonder if he will ever even know why his plane blew up without and blips on his radar screen?

I’m donating a Hasegawa FW-190F8 as Jeff’s entry.

Oh yeah, those are not built from stolen plans and technology...Nyet!

It is, but this gives me the excuse to order the two seater.

I must resist...oh, who the hell am I kidding. I’ll be placing an order with Hannants the second they let me. After seeing the internal detail, I am going to build mine as an opened up one side cutaway, but with all the spars and stringers in place and drilled. One wing folded, one wing removed and on a stand with panels removed. Marine guns out for servicing.