CANicoll

Broccoli and Leeks?

Gary, 86 crew??? You ship guys are CRAZY! PW- looking good and an interesting subject. I thought a "zestorer" was an aircraft!! (The BF 110, but ships too I guess). Chris

Gary, AWESOME work! Love the figures and the detail and the rigging is spot on. The figures add so much to the build but the details on the boat just keep adding up. SO much to look at - great job! This is like four builds in one. Chris

Sounds cool! What is this Ernie? Neighborhood kids pick the winner of the GB? Neat!

I Love these aircraft. Super nice job with a nice kit. I keep forgetting about Hasegawa and how good most of their kits are. A full set of stores, too!. You did a super job with this beauty!

Thanks Gary and Kevin - Still working on a fix! But made a bit more progress today. Followed Gary's example and instead of using a thick Styrene loop for an antenna, went into my stores for some appropriate wire. Here we go! CA is joining the loop. Will add a bit more to smooth out the join, then will see if it needs some silver paint. This is for the top of the wing, between the engines. Hit the fuselage with some Satin coats, so time to peel off the masks, and hope everything came out ok. Fingers crossed! The tools for the unmasking and the result. The toothpick doesn't scratch the plastic as it lifts a corner of the mask, while the pincers pull off the mask, but often times the clear needs a bit of future touch-up from the toothpick rubbing. The Blister was first, and the clarity is really nice. Can actually see through the entire fuselage which is kind of cool. Lots of windows in these blisters, but the masks worked really well. Still very surprised at how clear this old plastic is. The canopy came clean as well. Check out the windshield wipers!! Love that you can actually see the pilots. What you can't see are the painted engine controls hanging from the top of the center of the canopy. Because I forgot to attach the part before gluing the canopy! The turret is masked completely wrong. Oops! But look at those Hell's Angels! The wing insignias are painted now so tomorrow's job is to work on the antennas and get the wing together. Getting there!

Sweet! Saw a picture on IG today of a cammo Connie. THAT would be pretty cool so intersted to see how your shiny (or not) bird turns out.

Love the bloke casually drinking his tea!

Masking underway! After my faux pas of glossing the wrong side of the wing, got that settled and working on my second attempt with the masks. A lesson learned here - maybe start on the UNDERSIDE of the wing where lessons learned are a bit less noticable. NOT the right side of the fuselage nose! Too late I remembered a tip from Maketar about marking lines on the mask before removing to the aircraft to line things up later. Too late I remembered to make the lines long enough that I don't paint over them, making the lines useless. Like I said, lessons learned! Lines on the masking sheet. These are for the wing markings and show the position of the star and the bars. What I SHOULD have done was extended the lines across the mask once on the aircraft. I've already covered up most of the lines here. Lines, what lines?? Sprayed this the same gray as the fuselage, but as they say in the Movies - Back to the Fuselage! (Or something like that). Applied the masks for the stars and bars and yes, the right side bar is a little off. The problem is the star. IT is a little off (you can see from the rivet line that it is just a bit higher than the other side) but tried as I may, pulling it up without damaging it was not in the works. So I just left it. I did better on the left side: There was some wrinkling of the masks on the sheet, but to be fair, these masks could easily be 10-12 years old. However, on the aircraft, they seemed to perform just fine. The tricky part was picking out a deep blue for the surround. However, in the immortal words of Hollywood, "He chose poorly". The blue is much brighter than it appeared when I tested it out. Crap. This side looks pretty dark and that is what I was going for. And under a different light, the other side. Same color paint. I thought maybe it would still be dark enough but the 'True Colors' (another movie reference - no clue where this is coming from this morning. I'm looking for a pill that will make it stop) came out after I pulled the masks. Maybe the out-of-place Hell's Angels on the nose will distract viewers from the incorrect colors. My story is this aircraft is paying homage to the AVG and that is my story and I'm sticking to it. After sealing with a clear coat, I may try and dirty the insignia up a bit to tone down that blue. Definitely will darken the blue for the wing markings. This blue annoys me. The stars and bars are super easy to mask. Once the decals dry and I finish the wing markings, then a gloss coat followed by a satin/matte coat will follow. Not a lot of weathering, but may try to vary the finish a bit with the flat over satin in places. Props are waiting for their yellow tips and decals, the exhausts need to be painted. The machine gun shields are painted and ready to place, along with the waist machine guns themselves. Then the waist crew looking out the blisters and finally all of those fragile antennas on the wings. The finish line is near, and it's not even towards the end of the GB!

Carl, VERY cool!! Always fun to look back and see what we used to build and how they look. Thanks for sharing. Chris

Ernie, A fabulous and amazing review - thanks! The photos and detailed descriptions really show off the kit well. Thanks for posting! Chris

Rob, Good time, thanks! Now if I only had frisket paper... 🙂

Peter, looking terrific and you may have made me an AK convert as you are right - it is kind of a constant battle with MRP to get the colors needed for a build. Sigh. Your masking and paint work is always great to see. The Spit is coming along nicely and you do have to admire those lines. I have an Eduard 1/48 MVI in the stash which I just got the camo masks for, as well as the Quinta cockpit set so that might be the next build. After I order some of the AK paints, I think! How did the doc appts go? When are the procedures scheduled? Chris

Today was going to be painting the masked insignias. WAS... Somehow or another, I can't remember left from right. I sprayed the gloss coat getting ready to use the masks for the markings. Got the nose and the wing done. The nose was easy, but I did the wrong side of the wing. So had to redo the wing tip. Arrgh. Went ahead and applied the masks. Also masked around the mask. (Is that a thing? LOL) Sprayed the base gray for the nose insignia, used Medium Sea Gray as the color, mixed with some gloss clear to give a nice smooth surface for the next mask. Will see what I'll be using for the Insignia Blue. This will be interesting. Will let this dry for a day and then will apply the blue and hopefully will have reasonable looking insignia!

Thanks Peter! Getting there. The fix is really seamless and painted over you can't tell anything was amiss. yay!

Scott, We get some fog here, but not a lot. I do a fair amount of night and country driving so I prefer driving lights with a bit more range. The big bonus was the expansion of light to both sides. Definitely a huge bonus to really see the side of the road up ahead. So far nobody had flashed me and looking at where the beams hit cars in front of me, they don't seem to come up high enough to get into glass. How long have you had yours? They do seem to be pretty well built.

Beautiful!! Nicely done! What scheme are you using for the Tamiya F-4 later? Chris

I have a few of Kev's books too. The folks doing the building follow a pretty good format and I've found the books helpful as well.

Slight upgrade which only took about 90 minutes to complete. Had to take the nose off however. Overall, it took longer to take the nose off and put it back on than to replace the fog lights and do the horn install. Replaced the stock fog lights with Diode Dynamics Elite fog lights. Also added Hella Supertone Horns, but you can't hear those! The Diode Dynamics Elite lights are in place. Used the two screws from the original fog lights and they sit perfectly. Yes, a Jeff Gordon blanket... Horns are basically invisible once the nose is back on. However, hit the horn button and everyone knows they are there. Not too bad for a six year old car! Pretty clean! Who knew the windshield washer reservoir would be under the headlight? Plus, its HUGE. Buttoned back up, and everything worked. Yes, they are bright!! Low beams Fog lights The hard line at the top of the fog lights is a blue line. These lights have a wider beam than the stock fog lights and are as bright as the headlights. I can actually see both ahead and aside very clearly. Super easy to install using the stock wiring harness. Chris

Mike, Can't wait to see you start on this beauty, especially the figures and the cutaway. I'm thinking of doing something similar with the ZM P-51D so VERY interested to see how you set it up. Those Japanese crew figures look amazing. Chris

Carl, Thanks!!! Good to know.

Placed my largest Hannants order ever over a month ago and it finally arrived! It was a little bit like Christmas, especially since I look at a few of the things I ordered, and I can't remember why I ordered them. First up are masks for the Tamiya Spitfire Mk VIII and an old P-51C that I started maybe four years ago, and the canopy is all that is left. I THINK I can still find the canopy... Also are the Quinta sets for a few builds: a 1/48 Spitfire, 1/48 Hobby Bossy Me 262 and a 1/48 Eduard Bf-109F. Oh yeah, trying out the ASK masks on an Eduard P-51 (I have three possible candidates!). Some Quickboost bits for the 1/32 Tamiya Spitfire Mk. VIII and resin barrels for the Tamiya P-38H. I figure the nose is so noticeable I'd give these a try. I could have gone brass... More masks to help with camo and painting markings - the Mustangs are pretty simple, but I think the masks also help with the nose checkers. Mustang camo is pretty much monochrome, not like the English and German aircraft. I am bound and determined to build some SEA-Camo Vietnam F-4 Phantoms and this set is for a 1/32 Tamiya F-4 I bought at the first Nationals I attended. Not sure if the Tamiya will be the first build, or the ZM 1/48 F-4 I have: And last, but not least, the Spitfire camo. It is for an IXc, but hoping it will work on the VIII as well. I guess I will also be testing out a lot of different brands of masks!

So you've seen me sanding wings before!

Working on the Black Cat Catalina and realized I do not have a decent reference for the gray US Insignia markings they used. I'm hoping @Martinnfb or someone has an idea. Thanks gents! Chris

Peter, I had visions of your earlier problems and what it took to stop the crack. I think mine was just me pressing too hard. Oh well! At least it didn't fracture completely. Can you imagine putting the Styrene tail BACK on in that case?!? Chris