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Nice work on the transmission Ron. That's going to be a huge diorama!

Looks great. How small is it?

There's also the ZM FW190 A something something coming out. Also Italeri has announced a 1/12 Lancia Stratos which is a must have for me. Round2 has a 1/32 TiE Fighter coming this summer and a 1/24 N-1 starfighter too.

@Clunkmeister, have no fear. That was a true aberration. The current state of my bench: If that's too neat, there's my other bench to the right of that one: I think I could give Davis-Mothan a run for their money with that one.

Gus, you're right. The time frame around when the movie was filmed , the paint schemes were in a state of transition. I masked off the wings and painted the light gull grey. I assembled the new wings and filled the seam along the bottom. I then masked off the fuselage and get that ready for the gull grey as well Everything unmasked.

That's very glossy.

Thanks Scott! That confirms what I saw in the film.

More stuff painted white. It was at this point that I noticed that the paint guide for the decals I was using was slightly off. The layout was for the typical US Navy plane where the control surfaces are all painted in white. While watching the film again, I noted that during the film, the upper surfaces of the control surfaces are light full grey, same as the rest of the upper section. Rather than paint over all that white, I decided to grap a set of wings from another kit and do those in the correct camo scheme. The current wings will go into the other kit which I'm planning to do as VF-1.

Picked up the new family car this afternoon. It arrived a few weeks earlier than it was expected. Even last week the sales rep passed on to us that it was then end of the month. So now we get to try the new car out over the weekend. Whee!!!

We got rain here overnight and this morning so that's helped clear the air a fair bit.

I'm off to get butchers paper to wrap the brisket for the last 3 hours it's on the grill. That'll help keep it moist. Pork definitely cooks different on the Egg. There's a bit more fat that helps keep it from drying out. I have another brisket to do Tuesday and then next weekend we'll be doing pork, so probably a shoulder.

@ScottsGT, I was just watching the film and noticed that the CAG's Tomcat has Gull Grey control services when it traps at the beginning of the film. Is that the one you're doing or one of the Tomcats from the dogfight? Carl

I might be contributing to the smoke a bit today. Just put this on the Egg....

The instructions that Martin posted are probably the best reference for the layout of the tiered launchers. To make the rocket setup, you need several different bits of AM. The stubs are made by MDC I believe. Special Hobby does the rails, and Infinity does the saddles for the tiered rockets. The guard rails are the remaining hurdle. Rockets themselves are made my several companies- Profimodeler, Aires and Special Hobby. I wish Master would scale down their 1/24 set to 1/32. Hope that helps. Carl

Nice paint job. I see that we're approaching the paint job from opposite ends. I'm starting with the white and you're starting with the grey.

A very brief update. I filled, sanded, filled again and sanded again the intake seams. Then re-scribed the panel lines I'd sanded off/filled in. Many coats of white later, the lower fuselage is painted.

Same here. Had the dog out for his morning walk and really felt it.

Peter, I agree. I know @ScottsGT has a 1/350 USS Enterprise which might sound like a small scale but is close to 1m (40") long. A large, scale model vs. a large-scale, model.

There's several big fires in Quebec and eastern Ontario as well. The smoke from those fires reached Toronto yesterday. It basically smells like a campfire outside. The air quality here is now the third worst in the world. My kids' school board has cancelled all outdoor activity for the time being. Stay safe folks, especially anyone with breathing issues. Carl

Nope, definitely not a Tiger. The Tiger is near the top of the pile but this and the Tomcat are first.

Peter, that could be a good topic. Certainly this kit would fit into most of those categories. If you look at the first pic I posted of the box, you can see the fuselage to my HK Lanc to the left.

Here's what inside the boxes. Compared to the Tamiya F-14 that I'm currently working on. Fuselage The FAST pack secondary cannon A bottle of Tamiya acrylic inside one of the engine nozzles. The pilot. This is the AM I'll be using on the build. I decided to add lighting to the model so I contacted Evans Design and they were great help in figuring out what I needed and how best to light the model. I also bought the optional decal set as the kit comes with stickers. Lots and lots of paint too but we all know what they look like.

Okay, so for those of us who didn't grow up in the early '80s, Macross was a Japanese anime series that had humans flying in transforming fighter planes fight off an alien invasion. Throw in a love triangle, a catchy song and some fantastic animation and you have a classic. It was popular enough that they made a feature film out of it called Macross- Do you Remember Love? Many of the Japanese model companies made various kits of the robots or mecha featured in the series but most were in smaller scales, like 1/72 or 1/100. There were a couple kits in 1/48 but not many. Then Hasegawa came out with a series of kits starting with 1/72 and branching out into 1/48. These are some of the best kits from a detail and fit standpoint. I thought that they would be the biggest I'd see of my favourite mecha subject. Here's my 1/48 build. Then a couple years ago, a company called Max Factory announced they were going to do one in 1/20(!) scale. This became a grail kit/must have instantly. I managed to preorder it from Japan and accepted that shipping was going to what it was. Needless to say, it's a big box. It even have warnings on the corners. Inside, the outer box is the kit box itself. The contents are spilt into two boxes labelled creatively upper and lower.

Thanks for pointing out the step in the rudder. I would've cut straight across. The wing tips are a straight cut at least.

Some amazing scratch building there Ron.