GusMac

Thanks for the info on the rivets Rich. The results look impressive. Very interesting to see your thoughts on the card thickness as well. Just away to start a build with some scratch building in Evergreen sheet which will be new to me, so the lamination of thin card is another option to ponder.

Looking great Jeroen. Very steady hands to drill part through the canopy!

This is great stuff. What's your method for cutting the heads off the pins without stuff flying everywhere?

Lovely. Unusual subject very nicely done.

Lovely result. The discoloration on the rear upper fuse over the engines is superb. Looking forward to seeing the new 29A kit soon.

Great photos Danny. Really not sure what that little blue teddy is dreaming about though!?

Actually only used the black. It worked well under the ghost grey for my F-15 but less well under the camouflage colours for the Mig-23. Think the secret is that you really have to thin the paints to about 60:40 thinner to paint.

Nice to see this on the go again. Looking forward to seeing how the interior turns out.

Used it a couple of times and have found a ratio of 70:30 mr surfacer to levellling thinner works well.

Thanks. Currently it and the Mig are sitting on the dressing table in our spare bedroom but I suspect that won't be permanent! I'd like a display case but most options seem to be too small for big jets.

Weathering on the hull looks spot-on in the pictures.

Hi Rog, Yes I saw over on LSP what Mark had achieved!? Mine was just luck, I could have ended up with anything - as far as my wife is concerned they are all just dust collectors. If I can convince her that that's a good reason to buy a display case big enough for 32nd scale jets then I'll have managed a similar 'con'!

Nice progress Micha. I really like the Vallejo Metal Colors and you have a lovely result with them there.

Thanks Rob. I went with the kit stencils which I don't think are complete. Certainly no panel numbers, although I've never seen any photos showing them on Israeli Eagles anyway. Well that's my excuse! Stencils are certainly the bug-bear of modern jets. The Tamiya decals are a bit thick but they settled nicely after some Microsol and the matt coat.

Thanks. A few things could have been done a bit better but I'm happy I'm moving up the learning curve.

Looking good. What a size! Must be hard to manoeuvre without demolishing half the room!

Lovely result there Tom. Very smooth paint job.

Dennis, Tom, Danny, thanks very much to all. Answer to what's next is posted in the 'What did you just get' section, although that is mainly to keep my wife happy!

Thanks Mikester.

So, this is going to be the next project, although not the one I'd thought. The kit was a surprise Christmas present from my wife and she's keen to see it built. Having just finished one big grey jet I thought I'd go for something with a bit of colour and having the Maketar Israeli masks it seemed a Block 40 Barak 2 will be the plan. Want to try something new with every build. The Isracast Barak conversion set now seems to be rarer than rocking horse poop so the plan is to scratch build the antennae, tail extension, etc from a copy of the Isracast instructions I have. Looking forward to trying the Ammo paints as well. Have an Asuka M4A4 Sherman which might get built alongside this just for a change of pace.

Okay, here is my first big Tamiya kit, the F-15C built as IDFAF aircraft 840 'Commando' as at the start of Operation Mole Cricket in June 1982. The airframe is often shown with 6.5 kill markings but that's wrong as it only ever claimed 3.5. This depiction is it would have been before it's first victory over a Syrian Mig-23 which I built last time. AM consisted of GT Resin seamless intakes, exhaust set and wheel set, all of which were very easy to use and install. Python 3s and their pylons were from Isracast and the decals were the Cutting Edge set which were nice and thin and settled down lovely. The main grey paints were Mr Hobby acrylics and everything else was Tamiya acrylics. Again used the Ammo panel line washes which are very easy to use and give a nice end result to my eyes. Big thanks to Dennis.E who provided a spare AIM-7 Sparrow after one fell victim to a 'friendly' chew from one of our dogs!! And here she is alongside the Trumpeter Mig-23MF built as her first kill over the Bekaa Valley when flown by Benny Zinker. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the outcome but a bit of a disaster with an attempt at salt fading took some of the joy out of it - it was a long chore to fix the damage but lessons learned for the future. I feel as though my skills are improving with each build but I think I have to speed up a bit - this has taken almost 11 months. The build review can be found here http://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/4635-idf-f15c-commando/ As always all comments welcome. Gus

Evening All Well, I'm calling this one done. Fairly happy with the outcome although some aspects could be improved. Certainly wouldn't repeat the fiasco with the salt-fading for instance! Will post a full set of pictures in the Finished section. As usual, all comments, critiques, etc welcome. Gus

Nice result of an unusual machine. Looks like the love child of an M109 and an earth moving machine.

Red looks cool Micha.

Mine was a bit similar to Paul's and it happened on my current build. Four Sparrow missiles in the process of being painted and suddenly there were three?! Like Jeroen my first suspect was the missus, but the missing item turned up later in the bed of our younger dog, Salty - well chewed! Must have got knocked on the floor and he regards anything he can reach as fair game. DennisE kindly sent me a replacement all the way from NZ.