Amazing build, Graham!
I still can't believe you have already finished such a huge kit in such a short time. Bravo Zulu is what we say amongst ship builders, I don't know whats applicable amongst the fyling staff.

Thanks guys for the encouragement and I bid your patience with me using naval terminology.
I have continued to put parts to my Wyvern and she (are planes female? ...another ship thing, I guess) does start to look like a plane. I am suprised, how big she is. The model has reived a preshading on the surface detail.



and belly up...


I have decided to follow the paint artwork of the kit and will go without the recognition stripes.
I'll be rushing on to continue and hopefully finsih within the week.

Cheers,
Guido

Nice progress, Guido. Loooks good so far.

I have made a little more progress on my old Matchbox Beaufighter. It is a nice kit although the details and painting instructions are very basic. So far a very enjoyable build.

More to follow

thanks guys glad ya like it.
na Guido thats slow for me but was only that PE that slowed me down LOL, that Wyvern is lookin good.

Hey Jesper ya Beau looks good too, man i remember that matchbox kit i used to have em all years ago they were pritty good for there day too.

gonna take a decent pic of the TBF and its fighter escort tomorrow just for fun, i mostly only build 32nd scale or larger in aircraft an 35th or 1/16th in armour might take a break till early next year an try get big King Tiger started.
cheers,
Graham

@ Guido: those panel lines are nicely done. How did you accomplish them?

@ Jesper: that Beaufighter looks really good, how do you consistantly produce nice builds?

Bob

Bob-
Thanks a lot! I used Vallejo "Black grey" airbrushed straight onto the plastic and wiped it clean with Xtracrylics Quick-Dry solvent on a paper towel. I hope it will shine through the "Sky" coat to be applied next, so I can go on with a very light wash to finish off weathering.
Looking at the photos of the carrier planes of the time they seemed to be kept in excellent shape, even in combat (Suez), so I want to have subdued weathering effects. Being completely on the inexperienced side of such big scales (usually treating 1/144th as big scale) I am not quite sure how to go about it and how things will turn out.
But it’s good fun and a lot of learning involved!
Cheers,
Guido

Guido, I will give your method a try, I use Tamiya and Vallejo but wonder if Testors Universal Acrylic Thinner will give the same results?

Bob

Hi all,

Graham the TBF looks great, how did you find the kit?
The B7A2 Grace is a Hasegawa kit and it is very nice to say the least, good detail inside and the fit seems great so far.

Guido, I also like the way you have done the panel lines, how long did you leave the paint to dry in the panel lines before wiping over the surface?

Jesper, that Matchbox Beau is coming along nicely, will you be painting it clean or weathering it?

I'll get some more pics of mine up shortly, Since my last post with the dry fit of the main parts I have glued up the fuselage halves and also done the engine and cowl section...onto the wings next.

Mark

Gday Mark , yeh the kits not bad mate it goes together fairly well.
I didnt find too many fit problem just the usual lite trimming here and there, the instructions need a little carful look in places some parts i found were wrongly numbered or didnt look right but since i know a fair bit about aircraft like many of u do it wasnt too much of a hassle.

the instrument film needed a little more trimming than usual to go in right but not a huge problem.

the only thing i hate about trumpy kits is there lack of color numbering or what the colors acually are i had to use my color chart to find out what they were then convert thm to what paints i wanted to use, i use mostly gunze but have been trying vallejo and life color lately to see what there like and i like em both.

all in all its a nice kit but wouldnt recommend it to someone that has little experience simply for the volume of parts and PE which is real fiddly, specially in the cockpit.
cheers,
Graham

Thank you guys for your encouraging comments!

Bob- I have no idea how "hot" the Testors solvent is. In any case it will take some rubbing to take the paint off. I'd recommend to you to try out on a piece of scrap.

Mark- I go over the plane section by section: Top of the right wing - then wipe-off ; top of the left wing- then wipe-off; and so on. I case the paint doesn't come off easily with the moistened paper towel, I apply the solvent more liberally with a paintbrush and let it "bite" for a few seconds. As said above it does take some rubbing, so a stabile construction really helps. At one point I took off the right tail plane, which wasn't glued on thoroughly enough.

A nice side effect of the procedure is that the surface is now grease-free guaranteed!

Looking forward to hear about your experiences, guys!

Cheers,
Guido

Thanks for the comments, guys. Appreciate it.

Bob, thanks for the nice comments. Most my builds fall into the "nice" category, but none in the "outstanding" category. Not all my builds end up nice. Just look at my JU 86 for the Big Beautiful Bombers campaign. That one fought me all the way to the finish line.

Mark, I will weather the Beau. Mostly with some exhaust stains and an overall grimy and weatherbeaten look. The Costal Command Beaufighters worked mostly in the Atlantic and North Sea waters, so weathering will be more worn than faded compared to MTO Beaufighters.

More to follow

@ Jesper: You are too hard on yourself, your photos show some good builds to me so keep up the good work.

@ Guido: Thanks for the tutorial it will help me with the next build.

Bob

Hi all,

Graham,
Excellent workmanship on your Avenger build.

Guido,
Nice progress on your Wyvern.

Jesper,
Excellent progress on your Beaufighter, some of the thimble nosed marques had the gun camera mounted in the DF loop housing.

This is from 1 that I built some years ago that may help in some way as to the gun camera mounting.

Having received the 2 kits of the Mk II Swordfish plus an extra TBF-1c Avenger, if I have time to add the Avenger into this build as an Atlantic Scheme US Navy bird.
Both the Tamiya and Trumpeter Mk II kits are consignment builds, the Trumpeter 32 scale bird is awaiting the Eduard PE and and built as a folded wing subject with the AEAF bands and armed with the rockets, the Tamiya Swordfish is yet to be decided by it's owner.

thanks Rob glad ya like here, here she sits with her fighter escort.

that Swordfish looks interesting i be watchin that.
cheers,
Graham

Slowly, prgressing...



It seems the preshading has worked OK. Still I'll be adding a green wash to the "sky" pained parts and a dark-grey to the "Extra sea grey" portions. First I'll add a layer of Future and apply the decals follwoed by another layer of Future; then add the wash and maybe some aftershading to simulate the exhaust stream.

It's all new territory for me.

Guido

It certainly doesn't look like new territory Guido, you have a beautiful build going there !

I'm really looking forward to seeing how your weathering comes together now.

Cheers, D

Thanks, Damian!
What the pictures doesn't show is that I have used various methods of painting (like: spray all over, panel by panel, multi layer misting, etc.) This plane is but a big trial-and-error playground. As said: My first bird in about three decades.
I am not aiming at making a historically correct model; it's more trying things and learning-by-doing: You can read as much about plane modelling as you want, but you'll never make a decent model by just reading, right?
OK the Future is dry now I'll try myself on the dcals now. Usually I hate it, lets see what a coat of Future can do for me...
Cheers,
Guido

Guido, still nicely done and if I could get you to take some photos of you process for the wash and post shading maybe it will help my attempt for the a/c that I am building. Again nice job.

Bob

OK, Bob! I'll do that!
Cheers,
Guido

Hi folks!
I'm still here and follow your builds
@Graham
your Avenger looks great! A really nice shot with the Hellcat as escort. I have an Accurate-Night Avenger in my Air Fleet (1/48) plus 3 Italeri-Avengers in my stash .... Need to be build

@Jesper
your Beaufighter comes along nicely, man! There are "several" Tamiya-Beaus also waiting to be build on my assembly line .....

@Guido
your Wyvvern will become a fine model from what I see. Nice paint work so far. And yes, in english aircrafts are also female like in german .....

Compared to all of you I began pretty slow. Both my japanese jets left me quite exhausted for a while (and proud), so all I can show you at the moment is the finished cockpit of my Do 217:



I have glued the cockpit already in the fuselage halfes and will continue after christmas. Then I should work a bit quicker ....

Merry christmas everyone!
Torsten

Greetings from rainy Brisbane!

At least you have something to show Torsten as I haven't even started mine yet! Lots of great builds here, congratulations everyone!

Seeing the Avenger has already been done I think I will do the humble SBD, same company, same scale. Then I can do the Avenger for the Origami Campaign!

So with no further adoo, here it is in its pristine glory!!





And this is the colour scheme I would like to use. Everyone else seems to do the boring old blue over grey scheme so I will try this scheme instead..


Merry Christmas to all.

hi guys, thanks Torsten your cockpit looks nice too look forward to seeing it progress.

oh bugga sorry warren if i beat ya to it LOL , you'll like the SBD i did the army version a year or so back its a nice kit, that scheme will look great i thought a bout doin mine that color but went the army rought for something different.
merry xmas guys.
cheers,
Graham

Hi guys

We've gotten 12 inches of snow today and more on the way, so since I'm almost finished with my Winter Wonderland campaign entry I thought I'd break out my kit for this campaign now. I noticed no one else has built a jet for this one yet so here is my entry.

Picked this up on Ebay a few months back especially for this campaign for under $20.00.



Here are the marking options I have. I'm thinking of either AC #1 or #2.


Sorry about the pic quality. D, when complete she'll have 4 Mark48 torpedos in her belly with the bombay doors open per your requirment.


Hermon

That first one looks great hermon which will you be going with?

I like the second one, but I'm probably gonna do #1. I have a bunch of jet builds for campaigns coming up and that's gonna be an awful lot of gray in the display cabinet. Plus, that big red lightning bolt with the eagle on it looks pretty bada** to me.

I started the kit about an hour ago. So far it's a real beauty. Not much on detail but she's practically falling together. The best part is the dark tinted windscreen........no need for a $35.00 Black Box cockpit!

Hermon

Hey Hermon, excellent choice mate, perfect for our needs here !! I'm looking forward to some progress pics.

I'm really glad you've been able to get back to the bench, but MAN, your stash is gunna run dry really quick with the pace you're setting at the moment !!

Cheers, D