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My LHS had that one in. I thought it was a case of Shermans and not a single kit. Huge is an understatement.

Phil, do you know that Dragon has a line of 1/6 armour kits? They even did my favourite Sherman, a 1C Firefly in that scale. Thankfully I missed it or I'd have been in big trouble.

There's a replica in the EAA museum. I thought I had more pics of it but this is the only one I could find.

Yup, it's Mr Helig. He's very good in his research and whatnot but is not always the best people person.

Nice to see a build of this kit.

Chris, glad to hear you're on the mend. It doesn't sound like fun at all. As for family advice, my wife is a research librarian for public health, I have a father in law who's a retired pathologist so he always saw the worst case scenario of what ails you and a sister in law who's an ER doc. All of them have been great in getting information and advice from. Oddly enough, although my sister in law will tell you to get something checked out, she won't do it herself and a few Christmases ago nearly died from kidney failure since she ignored all the signs. She ended up having to get a kidney transplant shortly thereafter.

They're very well researched, have good instructions that you can often download from their website. The decals themselves are printed by Cartograf. I've used them on a few builds now and haven't had any issues.

So I had to go to my folks' place this morning. Sue brings Jimmy along for a walk. About 3 blocks away from my parents' house Sue turns and heads home with Jimmy and I continue onward. I'm almost there when Sue calls me saying Jimmy broke free of her grip on the leash and is tearing my way. I turn around and there he is. Except he runs right past me to my parents' porch and sits down in front of the door. My dad opens the door, my sister's dog comes out and they go off to play. Sue thought he was coming to get me but really he just wanted to play with my sister's dog.

Thanks John! I appreciate it. It gives me something to compare my kit to.

Fantastic build John. Can't believe I've got the same kit. Any chance you could do a head on pic? I'm curious what your wing dihedral looks like. And yes, your decals really do look like they're painted on. Carl

I wanted to do the Revell 1/48 B-1B in a similar display except with cruise missiles coming out of the bomb bay. Never got around to it.

Martin, I guess Kotare have taken "shake and bake" kit building to a whole new level. Leave the cement and paint close to the box and this is what happens automatically.

Wait, whaaa? But you just started the kit. It hasn't caused you to burn out yet and set it aside? Did you get a different ZM kit than I did?

Great review Ernie. My kit arrived earlier this week and I have to agree with everything you said. Carl

Here's the cockpit. https://www.buchonscalemodels.com/products/1-24-spitfire-resin-cockpit-internal And the nose conversion https://www.buchonscalemodels.com/categories/124-scale Might be cheaper to just get the new kit if you're doing a IX.

No cat this time so I got a bit more done. I decided it was maybe time to make sure things fit so I taped up the front fuselage and checked the fit of the cockpit. The resin tubs needed some sanding off the bottom and then they were ok. I then started adding details to the rear tub courtesy of an Eduard PE set I found in the box. It's mostly placards but does contain the breakers.

Amazing work on all that PE. At least most of the pieces on the Vosper are a bit bigger so easier to handle.

Bouchon Scale Models does some for the older Airfix kit. https://www.buchonscalemodels.com/ The E wing conversion might work with the new kit but I haven't seen anyone try yet.

How about a V'ger diorama?

Nice start on your Tomcat Scott. The only time I've tried grafting the landing gear from one kit into another was interestingly, the Tamiya Spitfire gear into the Revell Spitfire 22 kit. Quite the improvement like you've achieved here.

You're really getting through this build John. Looks great and it seems like you avoided some of the issues I had.

Tried to work on the seats but had an interloper request time for petting. I did manage to make progress on one of them.

More progress on the Tomcat albeit only a little. I painted the buttons and whatnot on the RIO cockpit and started on the pilot's I did a base coat on the seats but noticed one is broken and missing a bit. I'll see if I can find something suitable to fix it.

Thanks Gary! I think it's up there with seam filling for me. Phil, living near the largest park in the city, there's lots of squirrels around. Our dog Jimmy lives to chase them too. If you get the chance to watch the film, the in-flight sequences are great. The Tomcats are the star of the show but you get to see the other planes that made up a carrier air wing from the late '70s, early '80s. There's also great footage of an A-7 hitting the barriers.

With Andrei's penchant for conversions, hopefully he'll consider an F2G Super Corsair. It would fit in nicely with the Cavalier Mustang and the Enforcer.