GusMac

Nice well dried and seasoned firewood there Rob.

Rog, I'm sure I someone posting recently about a Chinese company making similar tracks to Friul which appeared to be cheaper and a better quality of metal, so cleaner castings. Unfortunately I can't remember where - only places it could be are here or SPA Modeler forum as the OTS would excommunicate anyone who posted armour! I'll have a trawl and see if I can find it again. Postage from China to Aus may not be extortionate unless the Chinese postal service are boycotting Aus at the moment?!

Wow, that's even more impressive to get such a neat finish, but it explains why it looks so much like wood! Not sure I'd have the patience (or skill) to get such a smooth result.

Is the wood effect on the boattail done with decals or have you used oils? It has a lovely depth to the colour.

Cool builds, especially the boat tail! Remember butchering that kit years ago as a kid - it certainly looked nothing like either of those!

Looks great Alan. A few wee yellow flowers in there and you've got a great representation of the whins around here at the moment.

You stay in the right part of the world for a whisky drinker Alan. By my reckoning there must a dozen plus distilleries within a 15-20 minute drive of you then?

I think the ZZ Top Eliminator rod was a 33 Ford, so presumably this is the follow up model?

X 2 Some of the Japanese whiskies are lovely, so interested to see how this is. Never seen that one over here in the UK.

Sorry, forgot to add - stunning work fixing it up so far

Yep, if you can take an eye out or demolish furniture with it as you move it around then it's a LSM in my book! This easily qualifies.

Made a start on this as I'm looking forward to trying this and the quality of the conversion looks excellent. There are 2 builds of this on TOS which I'm relying on for a lot of the info about this one. One is by John Wiedeman (Renegade) himself, who produces the conversion, and the other is by Malcolm Reid (Mistral). They have both done a stunning job with it and if I can half as good a job, I'll be well pleased. First work is adding some wiring to the rear cockpit bulkhead from the conversion. Placement is based on photos but it's really just to busy things up a bit. The resin is very nice to work with and comes in a nice funky blue colour.

Good to hear your government is taking the bigger picture and helping out PNG. As you say, the EU situation is a mess with some major ass covering going on amongst some of the leaders. They've also done a good job of blowing confidence in their own vaccination programme with some of their non-scientific statements. Hope your rollout goes to plan. As a healthcare worker I've had both doses of the Pfizer vaccine and had no noticeable side-effects.

Thanks Martin. Unfortunately as it's too big for the cabinet and has to sit on top, it is now a piece of furniture. Or as my wife says 'another dust collector!'

Hi Kai, this is the planned livery The conversion is actually a Cheetah E and the airframe painted in this livery was actually a C but I'm going to do it anyway as I'm the only one who'll ever see it and have even half an idea what it is!

Looking great Cees.

Thanks Kev

Lovely work Kai. Unfortunately you're just highlighting to me what I've got to look forward to as I do the Cheetah conversion. The moulding flaws don't look so pronounced in the Revell boxing but are still going to be a pita to correct without sanding away all the detail.

Thanks guys.

Don't think you should have too long to wait Carl. John seems to be making good progress on the two seater. The quality of the resin and castings is excellent so I'd heartily recommend.

Okay, this is the next project. Was planning to finish the CHET but I just couldn't resist starting this one. May try to do both together. So, it's the Revell boxing of the Mirage with John Wiedeman from Scaleworx's excellent Cheetah E conversion. Never done a big resin conversion like this so just hope I can do it justice. Having had my finger's burned with the Typhoon starting point was to roughly tape together the main airframe to check it's going to fit in the display cabinet after it's finished. Yes!

Thanks Harv and Ron. All your scratch work on the road train makes stuff like this appear kind of lame.

Thanks Kai. l'll post my next project tomorrow. It may look familiar to you but with a twist!

Thanks chaps. It was good fun but beware if you do one, it takes up more real estate than you think.

Just finished this one. First Airfix kit I've built in 30+ years, so a few thoughts. I like the general engineering but I'm not keen on the soft plastic and the amount of clean-up required due to misalignment of the moulds, especially on fine details like the cockpit framing. As with some other manufacturers, the option to leave everything open means that nothing fits particularly well if you want to build things closed up. That's especially true with the engine covers. However, despite these little gripes, it was a fun build and makes a surprisingly substantial model. In fact it doesn't fit in my cabinet, so will have to sit on top. That surprised me as a 1/32 F15C fits and it's fairly sizeable. AM used included Brassin wheels, HGW belts, Maketar masks for all markings bar the stencils, RB radiator and Master rockets which are very nice. All main painting was with Tamiya acrylics. I've used Ammo paints on all my recent builds but went back to Tamiya for this as they're just a bit more robust for lots of handling. I'd also forgotten just how nicely they spray.