Peterpools

Kev Thanks for posting - pretty awesome work. I believe the P-40 were shipped by boat from the west coast to China.

Gaz Surely looks so cool.

Bill, Awesome work .. your Kingfisher is looking so good as she approaches the finish line.

Ernie The final color all depends on the degree of weathering and fading you want. Other than either a factory fresh or newly tied down on the flightline, P-40, which is how I tend to go, the brown would need to be lightened up. For the most part, the only way to see the actual color is to compare it to a color chip that has not been exposed to the sun or room light (to prevent fading) and absolutely never on computer monitor. Color photographs from that era never had the capability to reproduced colors that were accurate - Kodak just didn't have the technology yet. Just go with what feels good🎯

John Nice to see you're going with the restored F4U.

Thanks Phil, greatly appreciated. I started a secondary, small thread in the Modeling Forum: OH NO, as a few stress cracks appeared and stopped me cold in my tracks. It's been a week and I've tried two repairs, with the first being a total failure and the second one, seems to work. Finally, 48 hours after the second repair, the stress cracks were contained with four small stop holes being drilled and some fancy footwork at the rear bottom of the wing/fuselage area. Today, I sanded, polished, masked, primed and painted the area and if by tomorrow all is good, I'll be getting ready for decaling.

Ernie Nice work on getting the nose on - looking mighty good. A few gaps to play with and maybe smooth out a panel or two and that's it. A tough area to build and you pretty much nailed it. On my P-40 once I had the nose about the same as yours, I still wanted to close up all the seams and that took a lot of time and scribing. GWH didn't think out the small MG cowl in front of the windshield and it never seemed to fit right - they just over engineered that area. I always thought they should have made each half of the fuselage one piece right up to the engine cowl panels. If the builder wanted to show off the details under the MG cowl, it should have been a cut out panel from the inside and would have made life so much easier. Did you find the 3D printed MG barrels in the small box with the clear parts? It's not shown in the instructions, nor the reason they went with the four PE covers. I completely missed it but you could leave the MG's off and add the 3D printed ones at the end of the build. Such a good idea and it isn't show anywhere in the instructions - just on the box they are in and I never looked.

Your bench is always in action - nice choice of subject for your fill in build. I we could vote, mine would be for a -4 in good, flyable condition. This poor old gal surely has seen better days.

👍

Chris These day, I do the same and if there isn't a mask set, I skip the purchase. If it's a hot, new kit, I might buy it but wouldn't think of opening the box until a mask set can be purchased.

Gus Most important is that you both rest and recover thoroughly -the Tomcat will still be ready when you are .

Carl BRILLIANT! Awesome work on the PE hinges - looks fantastic and they even work - some mighty fine work.

Ernie Some alignment issues but seeing how you blew through them on the Helldiver, should be no problems out at all. Cockpit detail looks so good through the openings.

Sasha Some mighty fine work - every part of the model fits perfectly.

Terrific progress on the Tamiya 109 - looking mighty good. Just love those Tamiya kits .. perfection in engineering.

Chris Canopy masking looks so good and the touch up work will go flawlessly. I'm only hoping my Kingfisher canopy look half as good when I peel the masks off. l

Oliver You just never stop amazing me with your scratch-built skills and the level of detail being added. I've long run out of superlatives and now just sit and stare at each photograph. Brilliant and beyond inspirational.

Thanks Bill, sure hope so.

Carl No can do as I used both floats from the second kit now on the first kit so, my only option would be to build the wheel version which I'm not crazy about. I also looked at the casting as best I could on my monitor and some of the castings look a bit soft, especially the engine.

Jeff Very much appreciated. Yes I saw this upgrade kit before starting and tossed back and forth about buying it. Seeing how old the kit is and the issues I'm now trying to fix, I decided to just go OOB. Looking at all the resin parts, I just wasn't convinced there wouldn't be a lot of fit issues and still no mask set, which seems to me to be the most important and needed piece of AM.

Phil Passing on the catalog as well.🙃

Rob Glad neither you nor your wife have any lingering side effects. Just can't be too careful.

Ernie agreed. So far, I've built up so many Merlins and will be doing four more for the Lancaster and Tamiya's P&W, I just didn't want to display another engine in the display case. Yes, that was another mistake on my part as GWH did do an exception job on the Allison.

Ernie Excellent point. Just think GWH got it wrong plus the sizes of the roundels are incorrect and not consistent with the kit's instructions and placement color marking/painting guides, if I remember correctly. What I should have done is go the route you are and have used Eagle Editions decals - big mistake on my part.

Ernie I had to re-scribe mine as I lost them with my fit issue. I'm sure the bulk of the nose fit issues were my doing, as the fit of the firewall is critical. In the end, I'm happy with my AVG Flying Tiger. Still feel the biggest drawback to the kit for me, was all the time and effort I put into building, painting and weathering all the internal details, of which almost none can be seen through the small hatch, which I think is a radio access hatch. Same for the fuel lines, if you don't make the lower fuselage 'wing hump' part removable. I'm just not big on: I know it's all there and have photographs if I ever want to look - I never do.