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Good luck Martin. I had eye surgery about 5 years ago to correct my severe astigmatism. Now I just have to worry about glaucoma which runs in the family. Carl

Nice interior there Phil. Half tracks always looked kind of cool to me. Carl

Me too. Oh wait, I need to get the box first.

Well, I just ordered mine directly from Kotare. $22 for shipping from NZ to Canada is the same as if I ordered from Sprue Brothers. I suspect there won't be any discounting on this kit. Hannants isn't offering their usual 10% off on preorders. Carl

It's really just apiece of brass I bent to follow the contours of the spine. Like so. And the end result. Having another F-104 in the stash this will be handy when I get to that build.

Wahhhh! Even worse, a clear part to snap off and lose. 😄

So one less thing to snap off? That's what I'd be thinking anyways.

Back to work on the Starfighter. I kept putting off the need to redo some of the panels along the spine after sanding the seam down. I ended up making a brass jig to keep the scriber straight and that worked. I then started adding the remaining hatches to the fuselage behind the cockpit. Next up was painting the shock cones on the intakes. I may glue these in after I get the fuselage painted to keep the demarcation nice and sharp.

Thanks Jeff. Shows you how much I know about these birds. I did build the old 1/72(?) Monogram SnapTite kit and that's the closest I've gotten to one.

Harv, break it out and start gluing! Leave all serious thoughts at the door and just enjoy sticking bits together.

And the 109 is done. The decal solution hasn't even dried yet...

There was a modeler who did a scratch built Cute version of the Kursk sub cracked open and a yolk pouring out of the hull. I thought that was a bit too far.

If anyone wants an idea of what's out there, here's an idea. I think I have more but can't find them.

Scott, since you're an F-16 fan you should try to find the Two Bob's decal sheet they did for the Hasegawa egg planes.

I did the Meng B-17 as Little Miss Mischief

Jeff, how is the Academy/MRC OH-58 kit? I don't know enough about them but would it be an easier starting point to convert to a civilian version?

Peter, that would be fun. There's a number of companies making these kits these days and not just planes. Ships, tanks, mecha and even Kaiju are now available.

Actually, there's a company called Retrokits that does resin cockpits for these kits. https://retrokitonline.net/product-category/aviation/retrowings-egg-planes Kasl also has some resin correction/update sets too. Just need to figure out the PE stuff 😄

I meant to do it but forgot and we'll, I'm a bit too far along now. It just sort of fell together.

Looking at all the news around the ZM 109, I took out what has to be the definitive 109 kit. Parts fit, accuracy are as perfect as a hard boiled egg. 😋

I've built both the Meng and Takom Jagdpanthers and found them both to be nice builds. The Meng one is in camo. The biggest difference was the Takom had the zimmerit moulded onto it and I had to make it for the Meng kit. I suspect that the Meng F4G will have less internal detail and therefore be a more straightforward build.

So far the kit is unconfirmed. The box art Martin posted was on Facebook but that's it. To me, the artwork is more reminiscent of a Hasegawa kit but maybe their artist is doing work for other companies now. Carl

Question is, which will be cheaper. This or the ZM one?

All this talk of Phantoms got me to add to the stash. This solves the problem of what to do with my second F-4EJ Kai kit from ZM. Thankfully the kit has the standard nose and wingtips in it so I can build a EJ from it. One other thing, the Quinta sets have three sets of belts in each so if I'm careful, I have enough for all three ZM Phantoms in the stash.

Rob, what about trying a Gundam paint marker and applying the black outlines after the camo is done?