Landlubber Mike

Looks great Rob! Nice work on finding a way to lower the cylinders. Nobody is going to notice that fix with all the detail with the engine. I'd rather do that than mess up the hood trying to shave it down for clearance.

Looking really good! The harness looks fantastic!

Hope you have a shovel and boots Kevin! That's crazy!

With the holidays I missed that you had finished this one. Stellar work! Really nicely done, wow!

Me 410 is sold, but still have the Walrus for sale in case anyone is interested.

Looking fantastic Hubert!

Wow, looks fantastic! Even at almost 50 years old that kit holds up nicely.

Wow Rob, that is a tight fit. Is it possible to somehow lower the engine a tad, maybe shaving off a tiny bit from the underside of the tray where those cylinders sit (sorry, I don't know the technical terms)? Has anyone else posted similar issues? This similar to those nerve-wracking times I've found trying to add AM sets to kits where you try to find what is causing the issue and take risks to see if you can improve the fit. Good luck my friend! Looks like you've just about resolved it.

Those details look really good Rob! Nice job!

Ugh, sorry to hear man. Hope you feel better soon!

Moving along at a decent pace on the painting. I have the undersides of the two models painted in Hellblau Light Blue (RLM 65), along with their bands. For the first diorama, I'm doing this scheme which is German Sand Yellow (RLM 79) painted on top of the typical RLM 70/RLM 71 scheme: Since the RLM 70/RLM 71 scheme will barely peak through the Sand Yellow (and are quite similar in hue), I went ahead and free hand painting the underlying scheme. For the second plane, I'm doing this scheme: I took a different approach and just painted the topside with RLM 79 (Sand Yellow), and will add the splotches after: I used Mr. Color for the undersides and top coats on both planes. I think I might try using Vallejo for the Sand Yellow (first plane) and splotches (second plane), as I can scratch off the excess fairly easily without mucking up the Mr. Color underneath. I'm dreading the first scheme, but have some paint mules to practice on. The second diorama will have an Opel Blitz truck. Originally, I was planning to use this truck from SOL Models for which I somehow had two kits of in the stash: The truck isn't bad, but it's resin, and very fragile. I broke the roof section off BOTH cabs 🤬 at the windshield pillars when trying to clean up flash. For the windows, I'd have to cut them out myself out of included clear plastic sheet. And the undercarriages of both kits were warped, and had a slight bend no matter how much I soaked them in hot water. Given all that aggravation, I broke down to save my sanity and ended up buying the Tamiya kit below. After an evening, I'm almost done assembling it, and will post pictures later. It's a very, very nice kit that goes together easily and perfectly (thank you Tamiya!). I might actually use the figures and crates from the SOL kit as they are really well done, so I guess not all is lost with the SOL kits. I thought about toughing it out and finishing the SOL kits, but I just want to get these dioramas done and move on to other projects. These trucks were fairly prevalent in the various war theaters, so I'm going to put them aside and maybe use them as secondary pieces in later builds. The SOL instructions weren't the most clear, especially for the undercarriage, so while I'm working on the Tamiya kit I might just pre-assemble the SOL undercarriages while I know how the undercarriage should be configured. Thanks for looking in!

Nice subject Chris! I like the scheme you are thinking of. Looking forward to seeing this one come alive! Nothing like a snow day to get the modeling juices going!

I can only dream! Once the kids are out of college, I can retire and then move someplace like that. I just blew out the snow in the driveway - man, it's heavy! So glad for the snow blower. Though, we live on a hill and I went to blow out the neighbor two houses up the hill and felt like I was going to die dragging the snow blower up the street. I did my good deed for the month!

Thanks! Took a while to work all the AM in, but I think I'm on the home stretch now. Good luck with not having snow. If we get more than 2" here, the DC area shuts down completely. It's a bit ridiculous but we just don't have all the snow removal resources that areas north of us get. Having grown up in NYC, it still amazes me how people freak out down here.

Thanks Chris! Looks like we got a good 6"+ here in Arlington. Thankfully I managed to get my snowblower serviced over the weekend, so it should be good to go when I head out to shovel in a bit. I've got a house with a detached garage in the back of my lot (the long way on the rectangular lot), so I've got a 100' driveway to shovel. I've only had to use it three or four times in the last 15 years, but after I heard a client died shoveling out his driveway, I broke down and got one. Still no plows on our street here, so my guess is kids will be off tomorrow as well. Hope it's not too bad out there for you!

Hey Kevin, thanks! Funny you should mention the antenna - I was wondering the same about inserting them at this stage, and I actually broke both off a few days ago 🤬 There was a decent sized nub but still cracked off. So, I went ahead and drilled a 0.5mm hole a few millimeters up into the antenna, and inserted a steel rod to make a new post. It should be a lot more sturdy now, though I'm being ultra cautious in how I handle the models. The pitot is scratch built - steel rod that goes fairly deep into the wing with a brass tube over the external wider section. That definitely isn't going anywhere. I like installing as many details now so that I can paint and weather all at once so parts look consistent, and not have to worry about getting glue smears, etc. down the road. Plus, I feel like glues adhere better between unpainted parts than painted parts, but I could be mistaken about that. Of course, you then have to be very careful in handling the model.

Even though I missed the deadline, I'll keep adding to the build log here in case anyone ever decides to build this kit. I've made some good progress the past few days. I've got both planes mostly built up and a few rounds of primer and sanding to get them ready for actual painting: One of the trickier parts of the build was to modify the left nacelle be able to show an exposed engine. Verlinden provides a full engine, the exhaust ring for the engine, a mounting ring for the engine all in the same Hs 129 upgrade set so you have a one-stop shop for this. Things are a little more complicated for me because I decided to use the very nice Vector engine along with the CMK external set which replaces the parts for the undercarriage and nacelle. After some putty, everything is looking pretty good - you can see the Verlinden engine mount ring on the left nacelle and the CMK nacelle front on the right nacelle: I think Verlinden vastly oversimplified the engine mount ring. Looking at schematics and the Zoukei Mura kit, the ring is actually just a smaller diameter ring supported by a lattice type structure of frames inside the nacelle. Where this matters is that the rear part of the engine actually hangs down on the other side of the ring into that bottom vent piece you see in the Verlinden ring. That was going to be way too complicated to replicate, so I just stuck with the Verlinden mount ring. What's interesting is that Verlinden provides the back pieces for the engine that would feed down into the bottom vent piece, but you can't really use them because the Verlinden engine mount ring is not accurately configured. One other note - the CMK undercarriage set provides more details for the landing gear bay for sure, but if I had to do it over, I don't think it's a set worth adding. It's a lot of work to add the CMK parts for details that will not really be visible. In addition, the kit has a very secure way of installing the landing gear legs where they are locked into position into the wing. For the CMK set, you can only glue the flat end of the leg against the nacelle, so it's definitely a lot less stable and not as easy to lock into the proper orientation. I ended up using two-part epoxy glue to make sure that the legs are securely fastened to the undercarriage bay. Thanks for looking in!

My modeling interests have changed a bit, so I figure someone else might want to build this beautifu HpH kit in 1/32 scale. It's , full multimedia kits with resin, PE, HGW belts, masks, etc. so no aftermarket is needed. HpH Walrus https://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=1083 Prices is $350 for the Walrus plus shipping from Virginia (zip code 22205). Willing to entertain reasonable offers. Ideally would prefer to sell in the US if possible. Just as an FYI, this kit is cross-listed on other sites. Drop me a PM if interested. Thanks! Mike

Nice work Rob - seems like a lot of work on such an expensive kit, but maybe that's part of the charm?

Wow, nice job Hubert! Looks fantastic! That should add a lot more structural strength for sure.

Looks fantastic!!

Love this one Hubert!! The figure is a great touch!

Looking really sharp! Fantastic paint job!

Thanks Kevin! If others need more time for their builds, I certainly wouldn't pass that up. I don't want to be the only one as I benefited from the last GB extension 🫣 It's possible I can get the two planes done if I pull a couple of all nighters, but getting the dioramas and accompanying pieces done might be pushing it. I probably could get everything done on the two dioramas by the end of this weekend which would help me be a little more conservative when it comes to painting/drying times.

I forgot to reply to this part. After all I'm doing with the various aftermarket sets, you're right that I could have just bought the ZM Hs 129 kit in 1/32 scale and had an easier time. Funny thing is I'm using the ZM instructions quite a bit to guide me on things like locations, colors, accuracy, etc. Looks like you can open up the ZM kit a lot more than I did with my half dozen aftermarket sets! This is the first Verlinden set that I used, though I have some others in the stash. I've heard that other more recent AM companies are a little better, but so far this Verlinden set has been pretty good. I'm in the process today of adding some of the Verlinden open-engine parts (rear part of the engine, exhaust ring, etc.) to one of the Vector engines at the moment, so we'll see how that goes. Dry fitting things look pretty good thus far.