Landlubber Mike

Not sure how I missed this one, but really great job! I love desert camo - yours came out very nicely!

Really nicely done Fran!!!

It's taken a ton of time, but I've made some little progress cleaning up and otherwise throwing more aftermarket at my Buffalo. I ended up adding brass gun barrels and a pitot from Master - a bit of a splurge, especially when you can barely see the guns, but the profiles look much more to scale and with better definition than the kit parts. I added rivets using my 0.75mm Rosie the Riveter wheel (thanks again @Martinnfb for posting the plans!), and re-scribed some of the panel lines. I've also had to do a few other fixes as well. Apparently all Buffalos except the 339E only had one landing light on the port wing, so I went ahead and filled the starboard side (used my RP Toolz punch set and the 4.5mm punch filled the hole perfectly). It's not in the pictures here, but I also scratch built the radar antenna that goes on the starboard side of the cowl. The kit piece just glues to the side of the cowl, and wasn't a very robust piece of plastic, so I figured it was only a matter of time before I knocked it off. So, I drilled a hole into the cowl, and epoxied in a longer antenna where the base is inserted a few millimeters into the cowl. Seems a lot more robust and will be harder to break off. I'm now in the middle of priming everything with Mr. Surfacer 1500. I had some fit issues which Special Hobby is known for, so it's been prime, fill and sand, prime, and repeat. But getting closer to throwing some colors on it. Building into a nice kit I think. Thanks for looking in!

Wow looks great Peter - that cockpit looks sweet!

Holy cow Gaz, that is spectacular! Very nice job! Thanks for sharing your foiling tips. I have a P-47D on the shelf, and I've considered foiling it. Is it hard to paint on top of foil and apply decals?

Ernie, not sure if I envy your stash more or your cars! Those cars are sweet!

Nicely done! I'm slowly learning what works in terms of size on my naval waterline dioramas too. You could always add something of interest to the front left or back right corner to make it seem a little smaller, but otherwise, I think it looks great as is. Super cool to model something like this where you have great historical pictures to base the diorama off of.

Really well done! Love the shading and weathering - great job!

How, that is a really nice looking model. Great job!

I heard the same thing about the two seat conversion. Too bad, looks like an interesting option otherwise.

That's really sharp! Nice job Scott!

This is insanely good - very nice job!

Looks really sharp Mark, wow! Camo looks sweet!

Congratulations on the sale! Good to know there is a market for others completed models. I was wondering just the other day what to do with mine, especially after seeing how big the stash has grown. For me modeling has always been more about the journey than the destination (I usually get an odd, almost depressed feeling when I finally complete one), but throwing them into the trash just doesn't seem right. My wooden ship models are really fragile with all the masting and rigging. I only have one done now, but I've been considering donating it to a library, school, daycare center, etc. They take up quite a bit of room. Congrats again!

I placed an order a couple of summers ago with HLJ and was really impressed with their service. Took a while to get in, but no problems at all with the order or shipping. I had ordered a bunch of their remaining Wingnut kits and some Z-M stuff - shipping wasn't inexpensive, but the cost of the products was very good. At the time, they had a "warehousing" option which I thought was really cool. They would reserve your items for you for a period of time in case they needed to acquire products out of stock or you wanted to add to your order. Then they would ship everything out so you only had to pay shipping once. Not sure if they still do that, but it was nice (and cheaper) having a single box come rather than multiple shipments as they filled my orders.

Hey Ernie, sorry, didn't mean to put pressure on you to keep going on your Brewster. Thanks for the kind words on mine - I had a little experience cutting up my Tamiya Wildcat, but this Buffalo is a whole another level. Fun to open things up a little on what is a somewhat plain looking aircraft - especially for the 339-23, which the kit allows you to do as one of two RAAF planes or two USAAF planes. The two RAAF and one of the USAAF is in green/olive drab camo, while the last USAAF plane is in all silver (aluminum?) as the personal aircraft of the base commander. You sound like me, have a lot of projects on the bench!

I got hooked when I bought my house and was looking at Japanese Maples for the yard. JMs are used extensively in bonsai, and I ended up coming across pictures. Eventually I joined a club and started buying trees, pots, etc. Then kids came, and I'm just happy to be able to try to make sure they don't die, let alone work on styling them, etc. There is a fun, relaxing aspect to the hobby sitting outside and working on them, even just looking at them. Also being one that likes nature, I've always loved trees. Funny thing is bonsai is what turned me back to modeling. I had done models as a kid with my dad, but they were the farthest thing from my mind after college and grad school. I was a member of a bonsai forum, and a guy there said in the winter when bonsai activities end, he did ship modeling. I chatted with him a bit, which brought me to MSW, and the rest is history (well, a few years ago I met Ernie there, and he invited me to join you guys here).

I haven't posted any. It really takes a number of years to get a tree looking great, at least to what I'd like to achieve, especially with deciduous trees. You can buy ones that have already been worked on for years, if not decades, but those can run into the thousands easy. Plus, you need good skills which can mean hiring professionals, taking courses, being an apprentice, etc. I have young kids and frankly, even if I didn't, I am not that into the hobby to do all that. People new to bonsai think you just clip here and there and you have bonsai. To a certain extent that's true, but you have to work with the tree's natural growth to essentially "grow" a tree into a bonsai. Seems counterintuitive, but that's how you develop taper, ramification of branches, etc. You reduce the rate of growth using pots, different soil particle size, different fertilization, etc. Then you have to worry about pests and diseases, as you have a living thing you are working on. It can be excruciatingly frustrating when a tree you've worked on for years dies. At the same time, it's fascinating really, but I just don't have the time these days with my kids playing travel sports. I'm trying to figure out whether I want to stay in the hobby for the next ten years so I have something to do when the kids are in college, or do I want to just drop out of the hobby and restart later. Instead of posting my trees, here are some pictures from Japan's Kokufu-Ten show (the top show in the world), and last year's US national show: https://bonsaitonight.com/2020/02/21/prize-winning-trees-from-the-94th-kokufu-bonsai-exhibition/ https://bonsaitonight.com/2021/09/24/u-s-national-exhibition-critique/

Martin, I don't blame you for not slaving away on a model when you have that outside your door. I'm jealous! Canadian Rockies are on my wish list!

Thanks Peter! All the aftermarket is a bit daunting, especially as there are times in the CMK and Brengun instructions (frankly, as well as the Special Hobby instructions) where it's not quite clear what you need to do. Also, the CMK and Brengun sets have you thin the wing plastic to almost paper thin thickness. I used a micromotor to hollow things out, but at a certain point you need to be careful because the remaining plastic warps - my guess from the friction heat. So, I had to replace some of it with very thin plastic card. Good experience to go through. I'm not sure if Brengun got the flaps correct, but I'm just going to build it as is. They did a really nice job on the elevators, rudder and ailerons though. It's always a bit nerve wracking removing that much material, but so far, things look ok. The CMK engine set has you remove the section of the kit just behind the cowl so you can expose the engine. I'm a little unclear how the cowl is attached, as it seems to only connect to the top air shaft, but has no connection at the bottom. I'll have to figure that out when I get to it. Thanks again for looking in!

Hey Ernie and Peter, have you been working on your Buffalos? I'm slowly coming along with my 1/48 339-23 from Special Hobby. It's turning into a bit of a Frankenstein with all the CMK and Brengun aftermarket. Fit on kit has been ok I suppose, needed some shims and filler, but it's mostly together now. I'm in the process of re-scribing panel lines, and will try to add rivets as well before painting.

I get being disappointed, but I think you should really be proud of those models. Excellent work, and many of us wish we could model that well. I'm not sure that I'd ever submit an entry to a show. Seems like there is always so much drama around them. Looked like for your show, flashy models with shark mouths and loud color schemes were favored by the judges. For what it's worth, I would think that any model presented with a base that includes the ground, carrier top, etc. and/or with figures should qualify as a "diorama" but what do i know? Actually, I do know that I really enjoyed your 110, and felt like I was there in the discussion with the airmen. This atmosphere in model shows is not unique. Another hobby of mine is bonsai, and I've seen pictures of trees that were winners that were real headscratchers, and in some cases even, winners were those affiliated with the judges. It is what is though. There naturally is a level of personal taste and subjectivity that comes into play with shows, but it's the non-subjective biases that really are disheartening.

Fantastic choice of a not so often modeled subject! Love the engine pods - they seem almost out of scale for the aircraft. Will be following this one closely! I'm working on my first Special Hobby kit - the 1/48 Buffalo - and you're right, there's a lot of test fitting and extra work to get things to fit with these kits. I had a few gaps, but nothing too difficult to fill with strips, putty, etc. The instructions can be a bit of a head scratcher at times, but they seem to build into nice kits. By the way, love how you added your current work to your signature. Cool touch!

Very nice job! That must be a really impressive model, both in looks and in size.

I agree with Scott - very easy to cut your own round stencil and paint it. I used stencils to do the US insignia on my F3F builds, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Very nice Zero by the way!