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Just catching up with this Harv. Lots of challenges there but it looks like you've made it through them.

Great to hear. Is that the Fisher kit? Carl

Wait, that's a model?!!! Amazing work there Gaz. Still can't believe I'm looking at a model. Carl

Indeed!

Great review Jeroen! I was fortunate enough to have picked up the Dambusters book when we were visiting Edinburgh last summer. It's a bit hard to find here in Canada. If you can find a copy of it, it's very much worth getting. Carl

For whatever reason, with the Alclad I was getting a very translucent finish and after several coats gave up. One thing I've noticed is don't seal it with a lacquer clear coat. It seems to affect the paint a bit. Tamiya X-22 with their regular thinner or Alclad's Aquagloss should work ok though. I used a base coat of Tamiya gloss.black for it.

I haven't seen any but I'll double check my decals and see if there might be one on one of them that could be subbed in. Carl

I started on my B-25 with Alclad and couldn't get a decent result so I switched to Mr Metal Color. I've only done the fuselage so far but I'm happy with the results.

Great pics Martin. Too late on the seats unfortunately. Guess I should have looked at some of the other pics you posted earlier a bit closer.

Thanks Rob! The gap was probably brought about because the one fuselage was cracked along the bottom. This pushed everything out of whack so I was mostly concerned with getting a decent fit along the upper side.

Thanks Harv! Sue just told me how she wants the benches. They're to be in an L shape around the edge of the loggia. Should be fun.

A porterhouse works for me. Thanks Rob! It's actually ceramic. The heat retention is awesome which is probably one of the reasons you can get away with a wood table for it. Thanks! A small stainless table was the backup plan.

Major milestone there Ernie! Carl

Yup, getting the fuselage closed is always a big step. Mr Surfacer definitely does shrink a bit but oddly enough it the only filler I have around. So hopefully it won't require too much filling and refilling.

Thanks Gaz! I was surprised at the difference on appearance they made. It made things a bit more work but definitely was worth it. Thanks Bill Thanks Ryan, and yeah if you buy one they're not cheap.

Thanks Martin! Sue wants some benches now for my the boys to use while they're in the yard. Oh boy.

Jeff, I'd have to ship it freight. It's probably close to 250 lbs all finished. Thanks! It was definitely a fun project.

Forgot to mention, this is a big Beasty. Here she is next to a Tamika Spitfire.

Okay, I got the cockpit in and closed up the fuselage. I started at the tail gluing things the halves together. Because of the warped/cracked fuselage half, the bottom seam was fairly nasty. I had a hard time getting the two halves to meet. After a bunch of clamping and tape, I managed to get them together. There's a step at the join though which will be a pain. Thankfully it's on the bottom. The top joint looks better. After a bit of scraping and sanding, I've thrown on a coat of Mr Surfacer. Hopefully it'll buff out and level things.

Thanks Gaz! I generally like my builds fairly clean so it was an easy decision.

So soon after Sue and I got married she suggested we get a Big Green Egg BBQ/smoker. Who was I to say no to such a request. Anyways after we got one, I thought it needed a better stand or table than what it came with. I found some plans online but didn't get much past collecting the wood needed for the table. Last year I finally got started on building it. I started with the table top by gluing three 2x10 pine boards together with some oak strips in between them. I also used the smart oak strips as an edging. I then cut all the lumber for the legs and frame to size. Which was as far as I got. This past weekend was the first long weekend for the summer here in Canada (happy May 24!) so I got everything out and decided to try and get more of it done. I assembled the legs and frame, using 1" dowel at the joints to strengthen them (I hope). I used 5' long 1x6 for the side boards. From here it went pretty quickly. I planed down the table top, then stained and sealed it. Finally I cut the hole for the Egg to fit into, then got some help from my neighbour to put it in as the Egg is around 159-200 lbs. So finally, after almost 9 years, I have the table I've wanted for our BBQ. Best part is I got it done before our anniversary which is this Thursday. So now then, who's coming over for the steaks? Carl

I added the nose gear and bay, which is in shadows and pretty much invisible in this pic. But it's there, honest! I then installed the cabin windows into other fuselage halves and got them ready for joining. Yes, my bench is THAT cluttered at the moment. With the cockpit installed into one side and clamps to keep it solidly in place.

Ok, time for a long overdue update on this build. The Part PE set for the cockpit was wearing me down. There was just way too many, well, parts to deal with. So after not wanting to work on the kit for a couple weeks, I decided some retail therapy was in order and bought the Eduard PE set to use instead. Once that arrived, I got back to work on the cockpit. I had to repaint the sidewalls to try and more closely match the prepainted Eduard stuff. I used the included seatbelts which were printed on both sides. Their mounting may not be 100% accurate but I decided to just keep it simple and thereby keep me sane. She may be a bit too clean but it is a show bird after all.

I think we all do.

For almost as long as I have known Ernie, he's been trying his bestest to get me over to the dark side and build stuff with more than one wing and lots of dental floss, er, rigging. So this is his latest recruitment ploy: Guess I'm going to have to go with the flow and build them. Ernie, thanks for the generous push and I'll be starting one of these shortly. Carl