Landlubber Mike

Good to know, thank you!

I've never used Mr. Mark Strong - I've used Micro Set and Micro Sol. Is Mr. Mark Strong "stronger" than Micro Sol?

I love it Hubert! Really well done!! I like the camel - I'll have to add one to mine if I can get mine done in the next three weeks.

That's looking really sharp Rob! Amazing how long the decal work took but they look perfect. Nice job!

Thanks Chris! Yeah, the kit actually has small pins that fit in the hinge joints to allow you to swing it up and down. The pins are really tiny though - I'm wondering if I will be able to fit the pins after priming and painting. I could always glue the opened cannon rack in place and glue the head of the pin at the ends if need be I suppose.

Not sure how I missed this one either, great job!! What did you think of the Mr. Color Super Metallic? I used it on my JRS-1 and really liked it.

Thanks! The gun mount bay actually has a lip as it's meant to sit in the slot from the inside before you close the fuselage halves together. Would have been easier in some respects but I'm glad it worked out.

Hey Rob, a year or so ago I tried out Zero paints on a couple of Gunze Triumph bodies - inexpensive kits that I figured I'd cut my teeth on before tackling nicer car kits. I had the same exact thing happen. I sprayed a coat of Mr. Surfacer, had a good clean surface, then sprayed the Zero paints and got the same orange peel effect - which for me, I think was more a case of the Zero paints burning through the primer and actually crazing the plastic: Like you, I stripped the paint and here you can see how the actual plastic was affected: Took me a while to sand the bodies as smooth as I could get them, and then went ahead and reapplied Mr. Surfacer and sprayed much lighter coats of the Zero paints the second go around. If I remember correctly, you really need to lay down a couple of almost mist coats, and then you can spray a little heavier. That seemed to have worked. I need to polish the clear and otherwise finish the builds, but things came out better the second time around. I'm just glad I tried out Zero on an inexpensive kit and didn't dive right into something more expensive. One other thing - I also used their two-part clear and their cleaner after. That stuff probably runs even hotter! I forget exactly what/why I did this, but essentially I left a small nozzle brush to soak in the cleaner with my airbrush nozzle, and the threads in the brush essentially melted and the goop settled in my nozzle. Probably a bit of user error on my part, but I think I'm just going to stick with the Mr. Hobby/Tamiya etc. line of clears in the future.

Thanks Rob! I'm pretty excited with how it's coming out. Though, with all the work and AM, I might have just been better off with the ZM kit which allows you to show off those details without AM. Then again, it's a bigger kit and this is one is helping me advance my modeling skills.

Thanks Kevin! Yeah, it's really nicely made - the hinges actually work too. I didn't realize Jeroen did sometime similar. I'm wondering if he built the ZM kit. I have been following along their kits' instructions for painting and details, and saw that you could model their kit in a similarly open fashion.

While trying to figure out the landing gear bays, I also decided to take a look at the ventral cannon pod. The Hs 129 had a number of weapons configurations as you can see below: The plane I'm modeling had a Mk 101 30mm cannon - if you're looking at the picture above, it's the second from the top of the four weapons on the left side. Here's a cutaway diagram of it installed: The rack holding the cannon was on hinges, where the rack/gun swung down for service (and I think to reload). Here is a picture: Here is a picture of mechanic working on a Mk 103 cannon (different cannon from mine, but same principle): When I saw these pictures, I thought to myself - how cool would it be to model that? Seemed a little complicated to scratch build so I focused on finding an aftermarket Mk 101 cannon to improve on the kit part. Essentially, was just looking for a brass barrel given the gun itself was mostly hidden in the pod. Well nobody seems to make a brass Mk 101 barrel. I did randomly stumble upon a printed cannon by Omask specially designed for this kit. Figured it looked pretty cool and would be more detailed than the old kit cannon. When I opened the Omask set, I was really surprised to see that Omask gave your parts to actually build build an opened up Mk 101 cannon like in the pictures above! As an aside, the print quality on this set is fantastic. I am very impressed with what you get. As you can see in the instruction sheet above in the top right corner, you can show the cannon pod closed, or in one of two open configurations (one with the pod shell off and one with it on). I'll probably model mine with the pod shell off to show the full gun detail. I was initially super excited after cutting the parts out, but then realized to make it all work, I needed to cut out an opening for the gun bay tub. This, not only after I had already closed up the fuselage, but had already inserted the CMK interior tub and the Aires MG 151 fuselage gun set. I was really worried with how deep the tub was, as it would definitely bump into both the CMK tub and the Aires gun set. Warning - graphic photos follow: After sleeping on it, I decided to go for it. I used a cut off wheel and a hobby knife to cut through the bottom fuselage plastic. The gun bay tub sat directly under the fuel tank that is part of the interior tub from the CMK set. With a grinding bit in my micromotor, I had to grind out the bottom half of the fuel tank, as well as a small portion of the corner of the Aires gun set. Everything just barely fit, with probably not even 1mm to spare - whew! Just need a little filler around the edges and it's good to go. To make sure the tub sat properly, I put in some blobs of Tamiya two-part epoxy putty, and pushed the tub into it. That seemed the easiest and most effective way to secure it in place in the right position. That's enough excitement for today. If I smoked, I'd probably need a cigarette right now. Just glad it all worked out!

Quick update on where I am with the two Hs 129 builds. I've been slowly working through the various details pieces like the engines, guns, landing gear, props, etc. Everything on this Hasegawa/Hobby 2000 kit is going together really nicely. If I wasn't adding in all the various aftermarket, I'd probably be long done now. For my first diorama of the Hs 129 being serviced, I wanted to show at least one engine exposed. The Verlinden set has only one engine in it, which made me think it would look a bit odd to have the two engines look different from one another. I ended up finding two engines from Vector which are really nice. Here they are next to the kit engine - I just need to add the rods, but you can see how much detail Vector includes which should make for a nice exposed engine. Next post will be on the bottom cannon.

Another beauty PW - great job!

I was a little worried with how the metallic finish would look as it shows everything, but you did a masterful job with the putty and other remedies. Great work!

Looking great Denders! That's a nice looking red finish. I have those machinist blocks from MicroMark as well. They come in handy for sure, especially given the weight.

Wow Rob, just catching up on this build. How creative and fantastic! Well done my friend! I love it! Tells a cool story.

Another beauty Kevin! You work so fast and so cleanly, it amazes me. I should send you some kits from my stash which never seems to go down

Beautiful work Hubert!! Even better, congrats on now being fully retired! I'm jealous!

Wow, awesome project!

Nice job Kevin!! Moving along quickly on this one!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'll be curious to see what you think of the kit. Anigrand has a number of esoteric subjects that look cool, but hard to tell from the quality as there aren't too many completed Anigrand builds online.

Wow, good save!!

I had picked up the Trumpeter Me 262 kit a couple of years ago with I think the same MDC RB conversion kit. Recently I happened to come across someone that was complaining that the MDC kit had shrinkage issues. I didn't test it out on my kit, but my guess is it's probably similar to what you are experiencing with yours. Funny thing is I picked up a second MDC RB kit that was just listed on eBay this morning. Was really inexpensive with shipping included so I figured what the hell. My first set was missing some hinges, so hopefully between the two kits I can put together a decent U2.

She missed six days of school with a fever and was really tired. Probably took a good three weeks to get to feeling better. She also lost weight (when she was thin/athletic build to begin with) and was a bit slower and more tired which didn't help as she plays travel softball. I remember having walking pneumonia maybe 15 years ago. I'd have a touch of a fever and feel a bit tired, so would go home, take a day off from work and sleep 12+ hours. Then I'd feel better for a good 5+ days and then go through it again. The z-pack antibiotics certainly helped, but I really needed to sleep many days straight for a good 10+ hours to finally get over it. And I usually function just fine on 5-6 hours of sleep. I think it's one of those things where you really need to rest for a long period of time to kick it.