OK, Ken. Hope you find something that works out and thanks for the comment on my Hellcat.

I have now finished my Hellcat. It is build old school with only hand painting and "normal" paint. No fancy MiG and similar after market products. It is a great little kit and goes together great.

The next build for this campaign is still a bit up in the air. I change my mind almost daily. Lancaster, Havoc, He 70....

Comments welcome

Great job on the Hellcat Jesper, your old-school skills are still there mate !
I'm looking forward to seeing what you have up your sleeve for the next build now.

Well we're just over a month in and 3 completed builds already, excellent work everybody.

Cheers, D

Thanks, Damian. Appreciate it.

Lots of interesting builds in this tread. Great to follow to progress of so many Matchbox kits.

Hello everyone !!!
Because I'm almost over with my "Fortress" (you will see it. Propably tommorow), I will have start my Weleslley in a week
It's so easy anyway


Cheers Nick

well, I have good news and slightly annoying news!

the good news is that I've got my hands on on of these kits-


which will be my second entry into this campaign (note the decal doubler has been at this kit too!)

the slightly annoying news is that when i sprayed the underside of my 188 one of those pesky wing-joins was less than stellar where I'd filled it


so i had no choice but to re fill, rub down and re paint!




I've also been having a go with tamiya smoke for the exhaust staining, this is the first time I seriously tried this despite having a bottle of smoke in my supplies cupboard for about 5 ish years!

Hi Phil. Great job picking up a Provost, you don't see them built up often at all ! The exhaust stains look very effective as well, isn't it great to pick up a new technique ??

Cheers, D

You mean like this?

And right on time appears the Mistress of the Uncommon builds ! Great finish on that kit Jessica, when did you build that one?

Cheers, D

You can see by the dust on it that it's been around a while. I think I finished it in 2003 or 2004.

8 years or more, mine get that dusty in about 2 days !

Before and after shots of the powerplant for my 109 . . .

Semi-gloss black


plus yellow and flat aluminium and a tad of dry-brushing


I really have to get hold of a camera with a decent macro. The engine will be exposed on the finished build, so hopefully I can get more some betterer pics then.

Cheers, D

Great progress, guys.

I have to dig in my spares box for multiple spare decals. Luckily, there were some left over from an airfix g-91r and italeri tornado, the rest were mix and match from what i could find. Hope it don't looks too "what-if"..

It looks great Ken, excellent job with the markings.

Cheers, D

Phil, nice save on the wings. Looking forward to see more.

Jessica, nice little build even though it is an older build.

Excellent save on the decals, Ken. I think they actually look better than the kit decals. It will look great when finished.

Well done Jesper!! That is real nostalgia.
As the Soccer hooligans in England would sing "Her we go here we go here we go, here we go here we go now"..
Now the Musashi is underway and the Heyford trauma has receded in my memory it is time to start my build for this campaign, but which one?

Boeing Vertol Chinook HC.Mk.I
Grumman Prowler
Handley Page Heyford
SBC-4 Helldiver
Hawker Fury
Heinkel He-70
Armstrong-Whitworth Siskin
Armstrong-Whitworth Wellesley
Heinkel He-70G-1 Blitz
Walrus Mk.1

Which one should I build people?

I think there is no other Helldiver, yet!
I'd like to see that changed.
Cheers,
Guido

Thanks Damian, Jesper. I was actually going for the sharkmouth scheme.. too bad I could find any sharkmouth that fit. Anyway I hope to get it done these 2 days, as I'll be away for the weekend..

Well Warren, I vote for the Chinook. I've got one in the stash that I'm afraid to tackle, especially for a timed build. So, I'd be glad to learn vicariously at your side.

Good luck!

Hi Mark and Guido...
I think I may be able to get both finished as I am leaving my AMS hat off at the moment and am reverting to the 1970s for my techniques etc. Although I will get rid of mould lines this time..
So first up will be the .. good question..

Hi Warren, welcome aboard ! Guido and Mark are on the money, Helldiver and Chinook would be my 2 choices. Why not get cracking on them both ?

Cheers, D

Haven't got much done to the Lightning lately as a much bigger project in the model room has taken precedence.

Not long after we moved in to our house we decided that the cupboard in the model room would come out and shelves would go in it's place for the stash. I didn't realise until I was removing it that the cupboard was built into the brick walls. long story short I've learnt a few things while DIY'ing and finally that stage of that project finished.



And the stash in it place at last rather than the numerous boxes all around the house.



In between that work I have started the decalling of the Lightning though the decals seem to go on OK but theres a horrible brown slime coming of them and the backing paper when they go in the water so I'm having to change the water frequently



Hopefully I'll get the rest of the stencils on soon

you really don't! until Jessie posted this one, I had seen the same number of the real aircraft as I had this model, and thats one each!

anyhoo, back to my 188....
I fully painted the top with a coat of humbrol 91 over black pre shading, then the blue/grey stripes were painted using humbrol 87, and by using the 91 as a sort of pre shade I was able to keep the dirtied look of the panel lines-



I don't think I mentioned this before but I will be mounting this kit on the stand-


so its just a tidy up of some overspray here and there, then i can think about a gloss coat and decals

Nice lightning you have there, Allen.

Great paint work on your Ju188, Phil.

I just completed mine. Here's he pics..









I enjoyed the build apart from the decals..

Well, got some assemblage done. Got the wings and elevons on. Canopy is in place and masked.



Got a coat of primer on it, needs some touch up still. Looks like the mad trencher was on duty for this mold too.

Sorry about the amount of space the photos are taking up. I cropped them in Photobucket, but they showed up un-cropped when I posted them.....

Great progress everybody, I'm glad you are all enjoying our escapades here !

@ Tomcat, great job on renovating the recess to stash the stash mate ! The Lightning is coming up well too, great choice of markings.
@ Phil, excellent paintwork on the 188, and I'm impressed with the use of the stand as a turntable for painting.
@ Ken, awesome job, congrats on getting it completed and thanks for joining in. I'm glad you overcame the decal issue and enjoyed the build.
@ Mark, your Sabre is looking good all primed and ready for the topcoat. Very clean work mate.

As for yours truly, I've been distracted by my Mirage build for the Delta Dawn Campaign, but I have been doing some detail painting on the 109, and I'm hoping to get on to the major paintwork this weekend.

BTW I have gone back over the last few pages and updated the Roll Call/Build Status post on page 1, so please go back and take a look at th snapshot of where we are all at.

Cheers, D