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The Ewoks happened because Lucas suddenly had kids who were old enough to go see his movies and he wanted something cute in them.

Peter, it's so glad to hear you're not only back at the bench but more importantly here too! I'm liking your mostly OOB approach to the kit as well. Don't get bogged down with all the fiddly bits. Once I try to get some of these big twins off my bench, I'm gonna do something simple and different too. Like maybe changing the timing belt on my car. Carl

Great video. Thanks for sharing it.

Thanks Harv and Ryan! Starting on the decals now.

Plot device? They were torpedoes though so maybe they were designed to do that...

That's the plan. I've got two of the Tie fighter sets so i can have Vader and his two wingmen chasing Red 5 down the trench.

It's blue and sorta bat shaped:

Not all of them are new to the stash but I finally collected them all together. Didn't realize I ha so many.

Fantastic work Martin. You make it look so easy, especially the new nose cone. Carl

No, Hill Grey F-4E from Clark AFB with a couple extra guns. Never did an RFI pic for it. Maybe I should.

Me, I hate applying all those stencils. Especially when they're all tiny little decals. Eduard a few years ago came out with a couple PE stencils to use for airbrushing on certain stencils. They were a bit of a pain to use but worked great.

Sounds like you're on the mend Martin. Did you show it to your daughter since it seems all girls love rainbows these days? My sister got clotheslined by our two dogs once. They collectively outweighed her and when their leashes ended up tangled around her ankles she was dragged along for a bit. Thankfully it was on grass or she would have been hurt a bit more than a couple scrapes. Carl

Ok, the craziness of all the cockpit PE was giving me conniptions so I decided to take a break from it and work on something else. So I pulled out a Fly Hurricane Mk 1 and... ...sorry, something else on the kit. Which in this case was the rotor head. There's a bunch of small bits and tons of seams as a result. Next up were the underwing weapons and the stub wings. The pylons aren't the greatest fit to the wings so I'm currently plugging away at those. Carl

Just catching up on your build Harv. The IPs both look good to me. It really is too bad the conversion wasn't plastic. It would have been so much easier. Carl

I'd say it was like a limited run IM kit. Fit wasn't bad, it needed some tweaking here and there along the main seam. The trailing edges needs to be feathered too. The big hurdle is the somewhat unconventional approach needed to avoid some nasty work on the intakes. I glued the front section and the leading edge together first using epoxy. Then after the intakes were on and the seams cleaned up and painted (inside and out), I inserted the fan discs through the trailing edge which was unglued. The fuselage has enough give to open wide enough to get the fan discs in which is why I used epoxy so the front wouldn't split. To guide the fan discs in, I drilled a hole in the back of the fan deep enough to slip a rod into them. Then with glue on the edges you slip them in and into place. Once the glue dries, pull the rod off the back. I think it'll make more sense when you have the parts in front of you. I also used brass rods to pin the prop blades on. If you have a prop jig, do the front pair first and then you can raise the base to do the second pair of props. Hope that helps. Carl

I did the Planet Models XF5U Flying Pancake. It's too heavy for the MLG though and has collapsed twice now so I have it placed on a stand after the last repair. Carl

Same here. Although I have 6 and have built one. Ernie, the Twogar is a great kit. Just be careful with the intake splitter plates that are part of the wing assembly. It's easy to break them off. Ask me how I know. Carl

Yesterday I thought Spring decided to quit and take Summer with it. It was -10°C and there was light blowing snow on the highway. If I want that kind of weather in April, I'd move out to where Martin is!!! Thankfully tomorrow we're 12° and sunny. Perfect for a BBQ. As for four legged family members, here's our two:

Jeff, I remember when I visited Vancouver a few years ago and saw what the price of gas was I couldn't believe it. I thought it was bad here in Toronto but that's nuts. We're currently around $1.26 a litre here and $1.12 if you can go to Costco. Earlier this year it was 0.89¢! Carl

Tom Probert is building a vac 1/32 one on TOS. It's a sizable beasty, that's for sure. Carl

Martin, for a moment, I thought your triple dog dare would be an An-225. Phew! Mind you I keep looking at the GPM 1/33 B-52... Carl

Looking good there Harv. I think the cockpit side panels were lined with leather or fabric so you could do the same thing as you did on the floor to straighten out any warpage.

Ok, this one is done! Everything was given a light wash and dry brushing. I may add the crew figures later on. Overall, a fun quick build without any hiccups I'll try to get some nicer pics up shortly. Carl

Yours looks great Smitty. If you're on Facebook, Kyle at Wheels & Wings (my LHS) is doing the same scheme on a build for their store. It's worth checking out for some inspiration. Carl

Ernie, it looks great. I ran into the same dilemma on the B-25s which is why I scaled it back on the second one. Carl