BlrwestSiR

Looks great John. Another lovely build from you.

That could be interesting. It has been so far. If it doesn't fit together, you've missed or done something wrong.

Scott, is the Squadron book correct? Seeing that it's a drawing, it could be off too. Unless there's a pic in the book of the plane showing it match the profile. As for the stripe facing the wrong way, just switch the decals around from one side to the other. Also, looks like the 49 is smaller on the desal sheet.

Some nice progress there Ralph. Too bad Mando isn't in the same scale. You could have him drive the Sdkfz!

Both fuselages are together now.

Continuing with the wings, for the slatted one the instructions only show how to build it with the slats deployed or down. On the ground, the only users to have the slats down when parked was the Luftwaffe. So I wanted to see if they could be mounted in the more typical stowed position. Here's the upper wing with the slat. Test fitting it in the stowed position shows a perfect fit which is great news. I'll check the underwing actuators once I get closer to that part of the assembly but they should be just a quick modification.

Chris, I'll try to do something up for the Hints and Tips section.

If it wasn't outrageous in price, I could see myself getting one too.

Did you scream "Khannnnnn!!!!" when you found it in the mailbox?

Thanks for sharing Maru. The Lysander is a different looking plane. Definitely function over form.

The one that always got me was the Canberra. The EE version always looked like it was wearing goggles whereas the Martin one actually looked normal.

Chris, if you try the Tamiya X-20A approach here's some things to watch out for. - Don't use acrylic paint or the thinner could cause the base paint to react. I will topcoat with clear lacquer if I painted with acrylic. - Have some Tamiya decal adhesive handy. It's not necessary but I've found it helpful. The thinner can wash away the decal adhesive. I usually apply the thinner, wait a bit then a dab of the decal adhesive. - It helps to use a stuff brush to push the decals over/into the surface details. I have a soft bristled one that I dip in water and then gently stipple over the decal to get it to confirm over more complex surfaces. It's not always necessary but can help. - Definitely try it on a spare decal first. It'll easily melt the more delicate ones.

Yup, intakes, wings and cockpits. More is forthcoming. I've started a build thread for the F-4s in the 1/48 section.

Duomaniac?

Thanks @PanzerWombleand @ScottsGT! It's the Hasegawa A-5 kit. I picked it up second hand from my LHS. @HubertB, we definitely all have different ideas of what tidy constitutes. Now if the kitchen looked like this I'd be going insane.

Oh and I spent a bit of time to do a quick tidy up.

ZM takes a somewhat different approach to the changes to the F-4 long nosed variants, especially around the wings. The early F-4E was built with a hard wing. This one didn't have the slats on the outer wings. During the production run, they found out that adding slats to the wings improved the plane's maneuverability significantly so they were added on. Many early planes were modified with slats as well. The Japanese ones never got the slatted wing and stuck with the hard wing. Most kit companies usually use the same inner wing section for both, simply adding the fairings for the slat actuators to the underside and a new outer wing with the slats. ZM has tooled up separate wings for both. You can see the differences below. The slatted wing is on the right, the hard wing on the left. The hard wing has a leading edge which can drop and ZM has done this in one so that it can be positioned up or down. One other difference is they have moulded the reinforcing belly strap into the slatted wing. The hard wing doesn't have it. The only issue with this is that not all the later planes had the belly strap. So that could be a bit of an issue.

I finally finished an FW190!

Me too!

First up is the cockpit. I painted the sidewalls and NLG bay sections before putting it together. Here it is with the RF cockpit tub which was done the same way. For the IPs, I used the kit decals applied over the kit parts. The decals are printed by Cartograf so the resolution on them is excellent. After they're dry, I used Tamiya X-20A thinner as a decal softener. This gets them to confirm to all the little bumps and panels. Then I did the main panels the same way. The G: The RF: Everything is given a coat of semi-gloss and a wash.

Having followed along with @denders F-4E late build, I wanted to start on one of the ZM kits I had in my stash. At this point I remembered that I had started one of the F-4EJ Kai kits but only as far as part of the cockpit. So I figured it would be easier to add that and just do both at the same time. Here's the F-4G box. One reason I wanted to get this started is that the kit box had been resting on the bare floor. This allowed it to wick moisture up and if dint want it to get worse. For the RF-4EJ, ZM doesn't make one but I found decals from DXM and the ZM Kai kit contains most of the parts for an early E/EJ so it's an easy backdate. I don't have the recon pod or the specific cockpit panels for it but close enough.

Gear legs are on the FW Getting closer to the finish line.

PW, I love having the company at my bench. Our last dog used to come down and stay with me when I was at my bench and our younger cat often joined in at the same time. Sunny loved being with Zoe more than the bench time. Fursnake started come down here as a respite from our current dog and has just decided to be a lap cat which she never was before.

Here she is in her happy spot: Note her box/perch to my immediate left.

Rob, what about a sanding stick? Use a finer grade one and gently sand the areas you want to wear away the paint. I used this approach on my F4U wing roots to simulate the wear I wanted.