GusMac

Lovely start Kai. Going to look subtly worn when it's done.

Thanks Peter and Rob. Got some of the masking done and have come to a conclusion - I had intended to do all of each colour together as it all wraps around but I'm now going to do it as upper and lower surfaces separate as I would a 'conventional' camo scheme. The masking is just too difficult to get right if I wrap it around. Upper surface green is now on, so mask that off then onto the black.

Good to see it comes with it's own airbags.

Looks great Tom. Always so impressed by how neat your scribing is.

Thanks Kai. Yes, these are the AK Real Colors and so far I'm really impressed. They thin very easily with the Mr Levelling and spray nicely with no dry tip or anything similar. The colour density and coverage is also very nice even with the paints well thinned. The smell is also quite reasonable and not a problem. My wife is quite sensitive to odours but she hasn't even noticed these, thankfully. Hope you're making progress on yours.

Looks great Rich. Not sure I'd be volunteering to sit there during a launch!

Quick update.... first colours on These are the easy ones! Now comes all the masking over those nice compound curves. Plan is to do the green and black next to get all the main colour blocks done then do the flashes of white and yellow last. Thinking of doing all the flashes white first then go over with the yellow where required to get decent saturation of the yellow.

Quick update but no pics yet. Have spent a lot of last couple of weeks doing DIY tasks for my parents so limited time to play with these Real Color paints but the more I try them the more I like them. They can really be thinned down but still cover nicely and go on nice and smooth. I've started on the first colours so I'll post some pics later in the week as things progress.

Didn't think I'd see an Aussie pick 1981 as an example Ashes, Steve! Pretty small sample size to choose from where England came out on top, especially from 1989 to 2003/4. First Ashes I remember is 1974/5 as we got some on the telly over here. I was only a primary school kid but I just remember being mesmerised by Thommo's action. Met him many years later by chance in Sydney and he was a lovely bloke. Happy to have a chat and an absolute hoot. His acceptance speech into the Hall of Fame is one of the funniest, but also most poignant, things I've seen.

Nice catch Rob as it looks very cool. Good thinking on the stencils as well. Must admit the number of stencils on Phantoms has always made me a bit wary of building one. However, if HKM ever produce their 1/32 Spey one......

If they were going for the win, they'd have had to bat Sibley at 11. He makes Tavare look like Viv Richards!

That looks just stunning Mark. Superb gloss work to get it so uniform and shiny.

Thanks for highlighting those Jim. Have already thought of a number of potential uses for the flat stuff.

Looking good Peter, although that seem work will be challenging. Still can't quite get my head around an airframe with the engine in the middle!?

I'm with you there Phil. Just wish England could find a few batsmen.

Glad to see you were able to save it Tom. Looks a bit like a baseball bat at the moment with no wings

Thanks chaps. It was a fun build despite a few problems closing up some of the panels

Jeez Steve, what a palaver! Over here it's just pitch up, roll up your sleeve and go after a few minutes wait. It's about the only part of the whole thing we've got working smoothly over here mind.

Yeah so that mentioned on Doogs' site. Seems very sudden but who knows what's going on behind the scenes.

Hi Kai I'm still experimenting with the Real Colour paints and trying a couple if ideas about how I'm going to mask this. I'll post some pics as soon as I have some progress

Hi Kai, no you do seem to have got an extra dodgy version of the kit. The canopy on mine is fine. I use Incredible White Mask from a company called Grafix in Cleveland USA for liquid masking and it's great. Never had any problems with clouding, etc. From memory I got it off Amazon. Hope the paint booth work goes smoother than all your problems so far.

Good save Rob. Glad a cool head prevailed.

That's a tough one. It's the uncertainty of the whole thing that I think makes it hardest, just not being able to really plan anything. My brother and his partner have just rebooked the same holiday for the fourth time as it keeps being postponed. I couldn't be ar**d with the hassle. Hope you get some clarity nearer the time.

I take your point Steve that that gives the perception of being rushed through but on-going trials of new drugs is nothing unusual. Generally, they are about discovering other slightly different applications or dosages or different patient groups. The AZ did have a different demographic in the initial trials than Pfizer hence the delay in the EU licencing it for the over 60s. Ironic, that's now the group it's basically reserved for because of the clots. At work we're involved in the imaging side of a lot of drug trials and the response of the regulators here reassures me that they don't consider the risk too high as I've seen trials of new chemo drugs pulled after a few dozen patients if they are deemed to be too harmful. Glad to hear people are still happy with the closed borders. Some in the press here have been pushing stories about a kick back against it but it's mainly those who were anti any controls here and are still pushing that line. I wish we'd shut the borders here as efficiently as you and the Kiwis but our muppet politicians couldn't organise the proverbial in a brewery! Geography doesn't help us either being so close to Europe. Stay safe.

Gaz, don't want to be narky but that is wrong. These vaccines went through EXACTLY the same regulatory and safety processes as any other vaccines that are licenced for human use. Full phase 2 and 3 trials as required by all the regulatory bodies such as FDA, etc. What speeded them up was removing all the time wasting getting funding and then delays getting people to look at applications for trials, etc as these were numero uno priority and fast tracked through. But they still went through everything that every other trial does. I agree the relative risks seem high for you in Oz given your case rate is so low but how are you ever going to be able to open up your borders if you don't get the population vaccinated? Do you have the option to choose which vaccine you get? As healthcare workers we all got the Pfizer one here as it was the first one available, so I'd had both doses by the beginning of March with no side effects. Hope you get it sorted out anyway.