BlrwestSiR

...and they're done.

When I saw USS Pharris, I thought of the Tom Clancy book Red Storm Rising which I read in high school. Still have a copy of this around here somewhere. Meantime, all the tiny PE would make me claw my eyes out. I have a hard enough time with the 1/32 stuff.

You did a great job on the masks. Some folks don't like vinyl masks but I find they can be very forgiving with a bit of extra care/attention. Cutting up the waste material and using that to patch in the gaps is something I've done as well.

Just think, in our misspent youth we had heat guns and scrapers in hand trying to get rid of all the sound deadening and save some weight on our rides. Now we're putting it in to quieten down the cars. Full circle.

What a beast!

Phil, if you want to do something other than a line jet, I have these decals that I most likely will never use: The Tiger Meet one I managed to get blown up to 1/32 and had custom masks made for. The rest, I guess I bought because they looked nice. If any of them strike your fancy, let me know and I can drop them in the mail for you. The one nice thing is they're all the standard camo scheme underneath.

Tell me about it.

Thanks to Martin's pics, I don't have to change anything with the canards. Except maybe glue them on better as one has fallen off already. Wayward canards notwithstanding, I decided to start on the decals. First up was a shark mouth. These were carried by many of the JASDF's F-4 squadrons so I thought it fitting. The shark and tail emblem belong to the 303rd Squadron of the JASDF and came with the Tamiya F-4EJ kit. Then while looking at the hinomarus on the same sheet, I noted that they seemed big for the F-15. Searching through my stash of kits, I didn't find anything a suitable size. I even briefly considered some from an Eggplane F-4E kit but they were too small. Next step was looking online for something but it meant: 1) buying a complete decal set for just the hinomarus, leaving the rest of the sheet useless 2) getting rush delivery so I'd have it in time for the GB deadline Finally I remembered the Dspiae circle cutter in the tool box! So I'm off to cut a couple quick templates and paint the hinomarus.

Those pylons look great. So many stencils on planes of that era.

My LHS just loves making sure everyone gets their fix!!!

Hubert, I agree the angle looks off but that's what they look like in the film. I may take artistic license with them and mount them flatter.

Looking at the pic of the Cutlass in primer, it almost looks like it's done in TPS camo. Which would be kinda cool/interesting.

Of course probably the most familiar Falcon to those outside Australia would be Max Rockatansky's ride.

Here's a better view.

Canards are now on.

With the gear in, she's definitely tail heavy. Gluing the nose in place with the pennies I added brings her back to a proper stance.

Wow, that looks really good. I'll need to rethink my P-40 plans now.

Jeff, my vote is very much in the keep going with them. Your builds generally go far beyond "it's only a model" and get into the background of the vehicles and their many nuances. As for not being a plane or AFV, that's fine by me. My stash is a healthy mix of a variety of subjects and I like that they're all welcome here.

Next up was masking the gear bays and the burner cans. The gear bays was straightforward. I just followed the opening. It was pretty much the same with the burner cans. Except I noticed I'd missed scribing some panels and had to do those first. Then a coat of gunmetal, nothing fancy. I shaded it with some light gunmetal but that was it.

Thanks Peter! I'm getting there. Might even make the deadline. Landing gear is assembled. I had to adapt the resin AM wheels to fit the kit legs. They were designed for the Tamiya kit and mounted in a different way. I ended up gluing the kit hub to the resin rim. Well I must have used a bit too much CA as you might able to see from the pic. Needless to say, it was securely bonded to my bench. After some liberal applications of CA debonder and some prodding with a hobby knife, I got it free. You can see the but of damage compared to the other wheel.

Better an avocado than a used diaper!

That's a lot of Tigers!!!

The DS is a gorgeous car that was so ahead of its time. Very much a timeless design like you said Rob . There's one in my neighbourhood that's sadly slowly rotting away under a tarp. Heller did a large scale one in plastic and I believe Ebbro does one in 1/24.

Same here, at least nowadays.

The tank in the last couple of pictures looks amazing. If you decide to leave it that way. A clear coat would be good so it doesn't tarnish. It's unfortunate the white decal didn't work out. The tank looked good in the black and white. Just not opaque enough.