CANicoll

Peter, that seat looks amazing, excellent work there! I also followed Kevin's lead on purchased the nail art-brushes. I've used the 7mm one quite a bit and it seems to work very well. And is very inexpensive. Here is the link on Amazon, and you can't go wrong at $6.99! If you like pink you can get the set for $5.99.

Looking good John!

Live life while you can. Fusions are not nice, but hopefully the cruises will bring some good memories. Listen to her, btw.

Progress, but nothing really interesting to show other than the radiators. Primed a lot of the pieces with MRP white primer, and then some RLM 02 on various bits and undersurfaces. Tomorrow the radiators and wheel wells will come together and then the wing can come together. Thinking carefully about weathering - and looking at the pictures Martin sent over as well. Here are the Profipack PE radiator grills on the kit's styrene parts, before and after the Model Master Burnt Iron Metalizer paint. BTW, Notice how parts 33 and 34 are not rectangular. On both pieces the side with the sprue attachment has an extra couple of horizontal grills which fits the shape of the Bf 109 wing, of course. But it seems like the challenges German industry had with manufacturing that they wouldn't just go for an easier-to-manufacture rectangular radiator? On the 109-F-4 there are SIX different sized radiators (parts 35 and 36 actually have an angle on the right sides in the photo below) - again I wonder about manufacturing efficiency... The instruction call-out is for Burnt Iron, but I don't think of that color when I think of radiators. Will probably do a very light dry brush with Aluminum or Steel or maybe even GunMetal.

Mike - Thanks!! This is the benefit of a 1/48 kit. If this was a 1/32 Bf 109 I think I'd still be on the cockpit. On my bench right now I have all of the radiators ready to get a coat of the Burnt Iron Metalizer, have the elevators ready for paint - since their camo doesn't extend to the fuselage it makes it easier to paint them separately, and finish the tail with its camo, then assemble - and have laid out all of the flaps, ailerons, wheel well parts, etc for their painting. Moving so much faster than the Phantom!! I hear you on the different paints. I think I'd like to try the AK Interactive paints but mostly I watch what Peter is using to see how he likes it. 👍. I'm kind of stuck on Vallejo acrylics (but am less and less happy with them in general), The Vallejo Metal Color paints (which I think are terrific) and then the lacquers which is mostly MRP and Alclad. I do have maybe 50 bottles of Model Master Acryl still, too. The Model Master Metalizers are a lacquer and spray wonderfully, but I think are OOP. Shoot me a PM and I'll send back the list of what I have (about a dozen different bottles I think?) and if you need something I can run a bottle over to you. I have some of their buffing metalizers, meaning after you spray, you can polish them with a cloth. Kinda cool. They are a lot like MRP - they spray incredibly thin so a little goes a long way and I spray them at about 10psi. They clean up easily with lacquer thinner.

Great series!!! Band of Brothers marathon was on this weekend, too...

I only have two 1/32 SH kits, one is the P-39 which I built and didn't have any real issues with it - the other is the Tempest which I will get around to. But I'm scarred for life by KittyHawk and their P-39Q kit. The most expensive kit I've ever had to bin. I bought it a couple of years after it came out, and had to completely trash the entire nose armament after spending a huge amount of time detailing it - the fuselage simply would NOT close unless I butchered it to the point where it made no sense to have it in there. Second major problem is that NONE of the panels (wing, fuselage, etc) would fit into their openings. Nearly all of them were at least 1-2mm too small in each direction. Peter, I think when we were on the other site you talked me down off the ledge a few times... I even spoke to the Kittyhawk folks when they exhibited at my local club's annual show, and they blew me off saying it was one of their earlier kits 'so you had to expect some issues'. They are still selling that kit for nearly $90 retail. Ugh. So for me, SH is not so bad and I understand KH actually has some nice kits now. But I just can't bring myself to pick one up. I know you, however, will work your magic on this build. Can't wait!

Peter - One question I have regarding the camo - when you use masks, how do you avoid having a raised line of paint that shows under a decal?

The seat is a project onto itself, nice work!!! Macro photos of the 3D IPs are not pretty, but at least to the eye they look nice!

Ditto....

The South didn't!

Amazing what you can learn from even the older, simpler kits... As posted elsewhere, I only NOW figured out that the Eduard masking sheet can be cut up and used for additional masking. It's pretty useful and already in various stripes. Yes, I feel dumb... I've been using Tamiya tape for years.... Tornado is up on its landing gear and the canopy is masked and in place. Started on a few of the decals. After painting the canopy, the nose art and fuselage decals can be applied.

Nice catch!

Finishing the Tornado while getting the 109 going... Only NOW just figured out that I can cut up the rest of the Eduard Mask sheet to fill in the canopy masking instead of using liquid mask or other tape. Doh...

Getting very close to closing up the fuselage on the 109. Still looking at the IP conundrum: Eduard offers two different IPs for the F-4: One with a drop panel in the middle (via the PE option) and one without (kit IP). Then Quinta comes in with their version which can go both ways. The panel is VERY visible, and the cockpit canopy will be displayed open. Hmmm Otherwise, the fit is tight and nice. Tailwheel strut has to go in now before closing the fuselage, but it is very thin and fragile.

I see I am in very good company!

Had the first casualty of the build. The bottom panel of the IP went missing. For some reason, Eduard didn't include the flap on the IP without the raised detail. I had the Quinta panel CA'd to the bottom of the panel, and noticed today it is AWOL. Probably out looking for a camel... Fortunately, I have two options: I can raid the Eduard Color PE kit for that panel, or I can go the kit IP/decal angle, which is probably what I'm going to do since I don't want to mess up the Eduard Color PE stuff. This panel is at the bottom of the IP anyway. However, here is what I was working on - attaching three knobs to the IP: one red, one white and one yellow. Quinta, to their credit, give you two of each as they are TINY. A dab of CA gel is currently holding them in place. A test fit of the cockpit shows how tight the fit really is. I close up the fuselage (no pic) and wow, German pilots were SKINNY. Oh, and I had seen this in a YouTube review of the Bf 109 kit: no alignment pins on the fuselage. In effect, the cockpit becomes how the fuselage halves get properly aligned. I have built another Eduard Bf 109G-10 but forgot about this. And have completed the cockpit itself now. Still doing a bit of detailing and weathering, but this is probably about as fussy as I'm going to be with it. It really is something how small the opening is in the fuselage. And if I had thought ahead a bit, I would have pre-painted the fuselage openings around the exhausts to make masking so much easier later, but completely punted on that. Oh well. It's only tape, right? Exhausts are Model Master Burnt Iron Metalizer which sprays beautifully. Left side exhaust will have a PE cover added later in the build. Interestingly, the nose gun openings drop in from the outside. And are definitely handed. They fit really well, but only on the side intended. (Ask me how I know...). Too nice a day to have been inside this long. Time to get out and celebrate Labor Day!

OHHHH.. Excellent idea!.....

I had no idea... I wonder if that would work for aircraft seats as well??

Thanks guys! I think one rainy-day project is going to be getting the boxes (yeah, more than one) out and doing what many of you already do: Organize it by subject. I have an entire organizer box just of figures from lots of kits - mostly 1/48, some 1/72 and a bit of 1/32 - so I bet I could make much better use if I actually had an idea of what was there. Appreciate the response and ideas!

After finishing a couple of large builds - 1/48 Catalina, 1/32 F-4, 1/48 B-58 Hustler - I have more than a few left-over parts - as usual. AM replacements, options not used, etc. Do you remember the old Monogram 1/48 B-17 kits and those large boxes? I have one of those boxes FULL of old parts from 20+ years of builds: lots of B-17 radial engines, interior/cockpit parts, Mustang side panels, missiles and rockets, wings, wheels, tyres, guns, canopies..... Some of that stuff I've not even thought about in 10-15 years. It is taking up a lot of space - but I just hate the idea of tossing it out. What do you all do with your extra bits??

Bathing Sand????

I'm feeling completely left out! First no dromedary and now 3D printing... Wow, This is going to be some build. Especially when you said you were re-scaling to 1/24. Wow.....

I'm also eligible for SS but the longer you wait, the more you get so biding my time for another 3 years I think. If I do pull another 25 years, that extra $$ will be significant...

Peter - you nailed it. I will probably clean off some of that pigment, but as you pointed out - it is not going to be seen anyway. But WE know it's there, right! The Quinta belts are nice - but also a bit brittle. I have to watch that.... I'll do some adjusting on them along the way... Looking forward to your Sa'ar.