BlrwestSiR

Looking good there Scott.

That looks great Dave. Nicely done. Carl

We were in a large park watching it so some folks had dogs with them and a few started to bark right before the totality. I think the birds stopped chirping at around the same time. It was definitely quieter during the eclipse. Well, except for Edward being loud with excitement.

Now I'm really jealous. I've got the Gunze 1/24 kit but it doesn't compare to that.

Gundam can be quite the rabbit hole to fall into. And potentially addictive too. If you're thinking of building a larger one, Master Grade is the next size up. They're 1/100 scale, Real Grade (the one you built) being 1/144. Master Grade have more detail, and generally more pivots. The top of the line is Perfect Grade. Those are 1/60 but quite a bit more in price. Then there's SD which is the eggplant style series of kits. They're generally simpler in build than the Real Grade ones. Recently Bandai has come out with MG-SD which combines the details of the Master Grade kits with the SD style. Like I said, quite the rabbit hole. Anyways, looks like you had fun and hopefully the grandsons will like trying them out.

Or possibly the size of the mess on one's workbench.

I'm liking the bronze look myself. I have a set of Koenig Heliums on my Beat in the bronze. They're great with the burnt orange that the car is. Had to do a +2 fit to find tires that would fit due to the stagger. I'm hoping to find something similar for our next car which might be dark blue.

Ernie, it does doesn't it?

Ours was just over 3 minutes long. Just finished. The clouds broke just enough to see it.

Nice scheme there John. I've heard the kit is like a smaller version of the Tamiya kit.

It's just started up here. We drove to Hamilton so hopefully will see a total eclipse as Toronto will only get a partial one. Right now it's overcast but it looks like we're getting some breaks in the cloud cover.

It does indeed.

Time to start filling in the gaps around the nozzles. Topside: Bottom side:

Scott, my bad. The F-4F has an unslotted tailplane which I got mixed up with the slatted wing.

Ralph, that's great progress that you've made. Nice to hear that the fit is still good all these years later.

Jeff, thanks for sharing. It's great to hear the back story on some of these subjects and with your hands on experience with the real things, it brings a greater sense of appreciation of your work.

The hard wing also comes in any of the Revell Germany F-4F kits too. There's lots of those kicking around if that helps. I have a couple extra Tamiya hard wing outer panels if you want those and try a kit bash.

At least you got the cover back on in time.

Thanks for sharing the pics. A great variety of cars. Nice to see the JDM cars out. The red Civic is the same one I had as my first car.

You could try spraying a very light coat of the base colour paint over them. Thin the paint down a bit more than usual and then mist a coat over the stencil. Best to try it out on a mule first but that might work.

First step was the cockpit, just kidding. It was the exhaust flame holders. Someone's tail is in the way. Let's try again. Then the upper fuselage half was added. Thankfully with the way GWH has moulded the wings, there's no worry about misalignment.

Well, I found this under the bench and I figured since I'm building one JASDF F-15J, I might as well do another. Although this one won't be a fictional version.

The upper fuselage is now on. With a quick dry fit of the rear stabs.

Chris, I would recommend these stencils for your build. https://www.reidairpublishing.com/speed-hunter-graphics-132-decals/big-scale-early-phantom-stencils But how much would they fade I don't know. Some F-4s have a lot more than others which points at them being re-painted or getting painted over. Another option which you could weather is Eduard make a PE stencil set for the F-4. It's doesn't cover everything but if you paint them on, you can definitely weather them. .

Wait, didn't you just get this kit? Amazing progress there Martin.