Lovely little Fury Jessica, nicely done ! Now how about you get cracking on the Gladiator

Hi Nick, I'm looking forward to some progress shots of the Wellesley once you get started.

Cheers, D

The Gladiator became an open cockpit aircraft and I don't have anything I can replace it with. Nor can I complete it without violating the OOTB rule, so it doesn't get to play in this pool.

I may do a Norseman or Twotter though...

Here are some box & inbox photos of the kit


























Cheers Nick

Yikes! Someone should have warned me how ugly a Wellesley is before I saw it here!
Just kidding. Have fun there. I'll continue lurking around but no kits in my stash for this campaign-- I built the Matchbox 1/72 F4U-4 with my youngest daughter maybe 2 years ago. A decent enough kit, and of course we didn't paint it, so it's in that nifty two-tone blue finish.
-Sean H.

Hey Nick, don't pay any attention to Sean, he's just jealous because he can't play with us !

Just a couple of progress shots from me, sub-assemblies and the first stage of my "replace the missing part" adventure. I've roughly shaped a piece of 0.040" Evergreen sheet and laminated it to the other half of the stabilizer, and once it's dry I will carve and sand it into shape and engrave the matching panel lines. That's the plan anyway, only time will tell




Carry on everybody, you all have work to do !

Cheers, D

Progress is being made.


What exactly was the point of the Wellesly? was it supposed to scare other planes out of the sky???

The Welelsley was designed in those heady days of the early 1930s when designers didn't know what was impossible. They also didn't know what was inadvisable. Its structure was Barnes Walis' opportunity to prove that his geodetic design was applicable to an entire aircraft. Its high aspect ratio wing was a way to get the same wing area as a biplane onto a monoplane design. The bomb panniers were used because nobody knew what sort of structural penalty was involved with putting a bomb bay in a geodetic fuselage, and they didn't want to find out by the airplane folding up on itself in flight. The single engine was the result of the RAF's conservative thinking when they wrote the original specification "Bombers have always had one engine so that's what this one is going to have!"

At the time it was introduced, it was incredibly advanced. It's just that the pace of aircraft development was so fast that it, like so many of its contemporaries, was rendered obsolete in such a short time.

I ran into that attitude just over 30 years ago at an information presentation for potential Naval Aviators. Some Marine captain was adamant that a naval aircraft could not function and deliver weapons without 2 engines and 2 operators. Seemed to be ignorant of the previous 60 years of Naval Aviation. The RAF at least had the benefit of much less experience....

Well in comparison to Guido, Im not even close to the endline. I made onlz small progress this weekend. I run into some fit problems with the engine, which will be sorted out with putty and file.

is it time to start this campaign already?

right, just had a frantic stash dash and I've decided to go with this-


had a pleasant surprise when I opened the the box, in that there were two sets of transfers the stand is also present and correct and although the box has a date of 1983 the kit itself looks like it was moulded yesterday.


right I'm off to blast the interior of this in RLM 02 and hopefully later I'll have something actually stuck together!

I have made some progress on my little G-91Y...

So, I've painted the Norseman's interior as far as it go's. Gave it somewhat of a wash to make it look used and painted on some seat cushion. Glued in all the little side windows and 'Futured' both sides of them. The Future left them clear enough.

Was planning to glue the fuse halves together,but, found they won't close. So I'll have to sand the floors edge a bit first.



I'm amazed that some are already done, and done so well.. This is a very fun campaign.

Ken and Guy, great progress fellas, looking good !




That was the idea from day 1, a simple distraction from the detailed and complex builds that we all stress over, and a chance to maybe have another go at the kits we fumbled around with in our early days.

Cheers, D

Hello everyone

@ Mr. Sean: Thank you very much ! I really like this aircraft

@ Mr. Damian: Thank you very much


Cheers Nick

Well I'm a little further along got all of the main components together now it's just a matter of painting everything!


















Picture paints a thousand words ...... or so they tell me!

Chris, great work mate, I just saw the other progress shots in your build log thread. It's a large piece of work ! How about a side-by-side shot with the big 190 for comparison ?

Phil, welcome aboard sir, and excellent choice of kits as well.

I've done some more sub-assemblage (?) and hopefully a couple of hours this weekend will see some paint thrown at it.

Cheers, D

I have decided to do the Do 19 which is depicted below. Will be painting it in D.L.H. colours for the South American mail flight.Just filled in the trenches on the tower.

The Norseman is my all time favorite Matchbox kit! I will watch with interest.

Progress. Got the fuselage and wings together just a little bit of filling and sanding. Not as much as I expected.

You folks are all going along very nicely indeed. Not much progress at my end though, all I have had time to do is put some attire on the pilot ! My first attempt at figure painting, so please be gentle with me !

Stage 1, XF-18 Medium Blue, X-18 Semi-Gloss Black, and XF-64 Red Brown, all acrylics and all brush painted. I find that if I thin the paint by about 20% it brushes quite nicely.


Stage 2, XF-59 Desert Yellow for the preserver, and Gunze H44 Flesh for the face and hands.


The colour selection might not be quite correct, but it works ok for me. Next stage is a pale blue shirt and black tie and goggles, perhaps some more Red Brown for the belts and straps, then touch-ups (plenty of them) and a wash of thin flat black enamel. If he still looks like cr4p then he can go to the boys for nerf-gun target practise

Cheers, D

Well, I think I'll leave my driver 'under glass', it's not great but it's not totally horrible either.

I am surprised at the quality of the pilot figures in these old Matchbox kits in general. It's not the featureless praying pilot (sitting with his hands clasped in front of his face) that I was expecting. Jessie and D have really brought them to life.

A lot of interesting builds in this tread. Very good progress.

Naseby, I had terrible problems with that Walrus engine as well. You are doing a much better job than me.

Trevor, nice progress on the Dornier. Those trenches needs a little filling up. Otherwise a 1/72 crewman might break his foot in one of them

A little progress on my Hellcat. Pictures to follow soon.

Finally got a few minutes at the bench, so I broke out the He115 and opened it up


Matchbox He115 1/72 by mawz_models, on Flickr

I've glued up the wings, stabs & floats since this picture.
Hoping to get a little paint done tomorrow, which will get me to fuselage assembly.

Ordered myself a 1983 release of a 1/72 Brewster Buffalo for this campaign which arrived today.

Shouldn't be too hard, though not sure whether to do it in RNZAF (488 SQN) or NEIAF markings. Grrr....