Your Widow looks great, Simon, though I'm not a big fan of either high polished aircrafts and aircraft models. The (black) Widows in the Pacific were glossy when they arrived at their units, but I guess they lost that quite rapidly due to the missions flown and the salty air in the islands. I will use satin varnish by Agama for my spooky Widow and probably flat varnish by Gunze for the other one. If you want to break this glossy apperance maybe you could try Future .... ?
Btw, my Widows are now clearly coming to an end. "Lady Gen" has all her decals sealed and "The Spook" gets hers this week. Both should be ready by early next week ..... Photos will follow soon.

Ciao
Torsten

Hi guys, sorry for my absence at the moment. After moving house 2 weeks ago my internet provider has stuffed me around relocating my service so I have no internet at home. I am able to check in briefly from time to time at work though, and the progress on all of the builds here is very impressive.

Allen, I feel your pain. But fear not, I have a solution to make you feel much better, as follows:
Sam, I hereby award a penalty to Allen, against you, for making jest of his decalling troubles. The penalty is that you hereby owe Allen a new 1/48th scale model kit, of his choice, from YOUR stash. I WAS going to compliment you on the very nice work so far on the P-38, but until this penalty is resolved to the satisfaction of everybody in the Campaign, I will reserve my comments

Simon, as Torsten said the Widows had a gloss coat when they first arrived in the Pacific, but the harshness of the sand and crushed coral landing strips very quickly dulled the finish and wore off the paint from the leading edges in particular.

Nick, very clean work on the Bronco, I'm glad we've got one in this campaign. Did you need to weight the nose to keep it down, or is it just well balanced??

Torsten, I can't wait to see the progress on your Widows, I'm starting on my old Revell 1/48 version this weekend for the Pin-Ups Campaign.

Hopefully I will be fully back on line in the next day or so.

Cheers, D

Thanks Damien. Mate, I used a 3/4oz ball sinker with plenty of blu-tac and super glue. Wasn't too much room in there in the nose to put it, but got it to sit pretty well in the end.

FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think the toughest thing I'm running into is the brittleness of the plastic, which was apparently stored in an attic for many years before being given to me.
I'm going to have to scratch build a couple minor things things that snapped off - like landing gear door hinges.

Nice work SAM excellent finish on the P-38




Build On,
Justin

This weekends task was to mask off some walkway lines paint them red, finish decalling and oil wash.

Heres the pics







The wash was applied after this photos were taken

As always comments and suggestions welcomed

Hi all
Some great looking boomers here.
My Venom is very slow, work just keeps getting in the way.
I have a question for our Swiss friends as I am doing the Pinocchio nose Swiss version.
I need paints for the following.

Blue / Green FS36273
Grey / Green FS34098

I would prefer not to mix paint as I am lousy at it.

TIA
Brian

@Sam
Now that's some fine work you did there! Good painting and the D-Day-Stripes are really a look on. The P-38 is another of my favourite aircrafts.

@Scott
Sorry, but I didn't understand everything you wrote. Do you mean these things broke off? That is really a pitty because the wheel well doors fit very easy with these "clips". Good luck with your work.

@Allen
Wow, that sure was a hell of work taping the whole thing, wasn't it? But the result looks probably better than the decals. What is with the top turret? Can you put it in afterwards? I had to fit it into the fuselage halfes just before glueing them together without glueing the turret to the halfes ....

Btw., "Lady Gen" has left the assembly hangar yesterday and is completly finished and "The Spook" got her last decals today. I just have to fit this grey/silver something tape to the nose. I make it out of some Kip Tape (same as Tamiya Tape, just cheaper and more on the role) as it is not on the decal sheet which I sprayed in that color. That will come on tomorrow and on Tuesday comes the final coating. Then some minor painting like position lights and weapons and it's also finished. Hope to present photos next weekend.

Happy modelling!
Torsten

I am dazzled by everyone's work. I hope my offering comes out nearly as good!


Torsten - yeah the clips broke off. They were already broken when I got them. And the nose gear mud guard broke too. Not a big deal as my decals are for the A versions which didn't have the mud guard.

OV-10A Bronco


Hi all!

Wow, so many beatiful models under construction here!

I can´t comment on all, but I must say "Keep up the Good work" to everybody!

Finally, I have started building on the Bronco!

Well, before I could start the build, I had some cutting and carving to do!

I painted the cockpit in the usual grey (WEM Dark Gull Grey), It looks far brighter then it really is!





Then I had some cutting to do!
Testors moulded the nose wheel as a one-part “assembly”, this meant I had to cut and carve the wheel away, so I can mount the very nice Paragon wheel later.

Why didn’t Paragon bother to do a new nose wheel strut, they have done half the kit anyway!

Well, this is how it looks now, not very good, but I guess the wheel and some paint will make it up OK.








The rudders are all wrong for the prototype and Paragon supplies new ones, so I had to cut them away with my X-acto hobby knife.
The plastic is very soft, so it was an easy task and went rather quick.
A swipe with a sanding stick made the cuts smooth again.



I assembled the booms, complete with landing gears, very few parts so it went quickly.
The fit is acceptable, but not more then that!



Well, not very much done, really, but now the build is on a roll!

Cheers!

Stefan E

Hi all, and thanks to everyone for posting and commenting. This is turning out to be a great Campaign, so thanks again for your support !!

Sam, super job on the P-38!! I am yet to have a go at painting invasion stripes, but you seem to have them well under control. With the silver nose, yellow spinners and excellent artwork, it's a really striking kit. Congratulations.

Tomcat, your Widow is taking shape really well. The walkway lines came out excellent. You've gotta love those big black birds. My Revell 1/48 P-61 (for the Pin-Ups Campaign) has the same nose-art, only she is wearing Blue (barely ). I can't wait to see some pics of your build all finished.

Scott, the engines look great on your Widow (as does the rest of the build BTW), what did you use for the ignition wires ? I have looked through a few references and I can't find a parked widow with the flaps down, how are you going to position yours?

Torsten, more pics please, you are giving me the drive to push on with my Widow.

Stefan, the mods on your Bronco are coming along really well. The extra effort will be well worth it in the finished product. Thanks for posting your notes as well, they teach me a lot and make the pics much more informative as well.

Cheers all, and keep those progress reports coming in. I have to retire now with writers cramp

Leader out !!

Damian - that is from Eduard's Exterior detail kit.
As to the flaps, this same kit comes with flaps and braces to cover that!

It's a nice detail kit. I'd recommend you look at it if you do another Widow.

Thanks Scott. I have 2 more in the stash, and I've just ordered 3 sets of resin wheels, so I will certainly track down the Eduard PE exterior set now also.

Cheers, D

Off topic, but on topic.... for the Widow fans...

I just ran across this while looking for color references for P-61

http://www.maam.org/p61.html

It's a current restoration project.

Reading PA is only a few hours from me too. I may have to drag the family out there, drop the wife and daughter at an outlet mall to shop, and take my son to the museum.

Hi guys,

I'll be starting my He-111Z soon. What a project I've picked!

Mark

A little more progress this afternoon since I was off.
Took the time work on some of the PE detials on the landing gear and cannon access door.
The access door should have three hinges... but one got tweezer launched.

Let me guess Scott, it did a triple somersault in the pike position and laughed at you all the way into the carpet monsters throat ??




Mark, I can't wait to see you get stuck into this one, it will be the grandfather of all of our Twin Boomers. Best of luck with the build !!

Cheers, D

@ Scott
Thanks for the link! I have heard that there should be a P-61 build up to flying conditions but I couldn't remember where. Good luck to these guys to get this beauty one day in the air again. Hopefully they find a more colourful nose art than "Times a wastin'". "Lady in the dark" would be a nice one. No need to mention what nose art I would paint on her, right? I guess I would spend several 100 USD in the museum shop and feel like a child in a toy paradise ..... First I would get one of these caps, a mug, a DVD, a book .....
Surprisingly and sadly there a only 4 P-61 survivors. What happened to all the other 700? Scrapped by the hundreds like the B-26 Marauders? When I visited the NASM back in 2002 I also came around to the Garber Restauration Facilities in Suitland and there I saw something big black in a dark corner ..... but not yet restaured.

@Damian
I just opened a bottle of a 2003 South African Carbanet Sauvignon to celebrate the finish of my Black Widow builds. Yes! Yesterday evening "The Spook" got her last bits and pieces and now she stands on my little Pacific Dio waiting for her roll out. "Lady Gen" sits beside 2 other twin engine fighters, a Mossie and a Ki-45 Toryu and waits also for the roll out. I hope to take some pics this weekend and show them here maybe on Sunday .....

Cheers (hicks)
Torsten

Congratulations Torsten !! I can't wait to see how they turned out.

@Scott, thanks for the link. I've been keeping an eye on that site for a while now. It will be wonderful to see the big black bird flying again some day. I believe there might be a Widow in China somewhere that is still in good order, but not flying.

Cheers, D

Thanks Damian,

I'm going to start a tread on the WW2 section to post a fully detailed build and bring progress shots to this thread so I don't tie this thread up too much. I would like everyone in the campaign to check in on me and give plenty of advise as you have the time. This will be my largest modelling undertaking so far.

Mark

Okay folks, here they are: Black Widow's Black Widows !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was a bright sunny winters day here today, so perfect weather for some shots in my kitchen .....


..... the "Ralley Stripes" give this bird something special .....


..... start your engines! .....


.... the bird from a bird's view ....




..... nearly forgot the R/O .....


.... okay, I'm ready to party .......

You just gotta love the Black Widow! Great work.


Mark

Great model Torsten!!!

all the best

Steffen

Now let's see, what's up in the Pacific .....

When it was "The Spook" turn for the photographer, the sun was suddenly hiding behind the clouds. I can't imagine why .....




.... this is the most striking Black Widow nose arts of them all and probably one of the most well known of all WW2 aircrafts, that's why I have this beautiful bird in my avatar ....








..... but then, the sun couldn't resist to risk a short look and I pressed the button. I love this pic .....