Now that you've spoiled yourself with that nice little Tamiya gem it's time to go back to the Amodel purgatory

All but ready to put the cockpit together, followed by the fuselage.

Finished instrument panel and coaming. Still needs drops of gloss for the instruments, otherwise ready. I think I'll drop the gloss in the HUD lens later.



Following reference photos, I painted the back wall of the cockpit light grey. Looking at it now, I probably should have gone to the troubl of masking and airbrushed it, as the brush-painted grey looks crude compared to the airbrushed green. Oh well, I hope it won't stick out so much with the ejection seat in place.

No need for 100% precision painting the ejection seat rails, as the back will be covered by the bang seat.


Talking of the ejection seat, it seems I have to study some reference pictures to figure out how to install the seatbelts, as the Aires instructions could be a bit clearer. Like, for example, have a couple of stages of assembly instead of one exploded view pics with arrows just pointing in.

Thanks Jessica !!

That Su-15TM is gone, weapons were shipped, decals saved the rest is ... gone.
I'm thinking to get a Trumpeter Su-15.

I have other A-Model kits in stash, a Su-9U and a T-49, so my purgatory isn't over...

I can't stop looking at the pictures of that Gator hawk.

My god, is that thing beautiful !!!!

I interpret the picture as follows:
Part 1 glues to the seat back about halfway up, with its bottom ends attaching to the seat pan;
Parts 2 & 3 glue to the seat back just below the headrest, with the folded bits gluing to the side of the seat;
Parts 4 & 5 glue to the seat pan with their free ends pointing toward the front of the seat;
Part 6 gets bent in a U shape and glued between parts 2 & 3;
Parts 7 & 8 glue to the bottom of the seat pan sticking forward with their wide dimension alligned in plane with the seat sides.

Wow Some great entries everyone.

Sadly due to medical reasons Sam and I had to a break from Aeroscale and modelling so our entries stalled at a very early stage. I haven't been near the bench since January time and the model room became a storage area while I've been remodelling the bathroom.

Keep up the good work and don't forget to post your finished entries in the campaign gallery to qualify for that ribbon in just over a months time.

I too am not going to get near this one, despite my need to build my Me Bf 108A which never seems to fit into a campaign

Thanks Drabslab!

Thanks! That'll most probably help a lot when I get to assembling the seatbelts. It's not as much the spots where the PE parts should attach to, but rather the order in which the should be installed, and how it should look when finished. I've better get some good photos of the real thing to help with that.

Some progress with my build.
After taping the maing components of the plane together and checking for any balance issues, I added some more weight. As the nose cone is already weighted, I went for the space in the fuselage in front of the cockpit.



And the fuselage is together!

Hi again.

Changed my mind on the scheme since I couldn't quite get a good feathered edge between the green and blue.





Had issues with the some of the kit decals silvering even though they went over a gloss surface, but the Eaglecal ones worked great. Can anyone recommend a good all purpose decal solution?

I'm not in love with the job I've done but I am enjoying the build which scares me. My armour stash is big enough, I don't need to start stocking it with planes too.

Great work all round.

Jeff

We all face that, the only problem with building models is where to put them!

Thats a sharp looking Salamander, are you sure you dont need a 262 to keep it company?

Microscale Micro Sol is all I use now. Tamping the drying decals gently with a #2 flat paint brush is also something I like to do.

Call this one done!
I hope we run this campaign again next year.

Jeff------Salamander looks good. Nice scheme.

Richard----Nice looking Seamew. It's good to see one of those built up.


Best wishes, Ian

Progress shot of my Hurricane.

Hi there Jeff! I really like your Salamander. There is nothing, nothing more frustrating than putting the work into a good finish and then having the decals silver on you! It has happened to me before. Sometimes, it seems that no matter how good a gloss coat you apply, you still have problems.

I always keep a bottle of Solva Set around for such occasions. You can get it at well stocked Hobby Shops or from Walthers online.

Solva Set is particularly strong stuff, and often does the trick of causing recalcitrant decals to shape up and settle down. Try it. I hope this helps you out some.

Richard, your Seamew looks quite good too. I recently purchased my first Sword kit of a Aichi B7A "Grace" and will be attempting it sometime soon I hope.

Russell

P.S. Jeff, I have even gone over decals, years later with Solva Set and found that it did the trick settling the decals down. One troublesome Academy Bell P-39 Airacobra decals come to mind.

"Richard, your Seamew looks quite good too. I recently purchased my first Sword kit of a Aichi B7A "Grace" and will be attempting it sometime soon I hope".

Russell

Hi Russell
The Sword Seamew kit is not to bad,attachment location are a bit weak and the decals set down well.
Treat as a short run kit and you will do ok.

Now with the fuselage together, the instructions get to a point where Revell messed up and cropped the picture right behind the cockpit, leaving out the left side cannon port that needs to be plugged for this variant. And both of those cannon port plugs are also marked as unneeded in the Revell instructions...

One of these is needed. Of course, simple streched sprue would work just as well, if not better.

After building a couple of Revell re-boxings of other manufacturers' kits (and their own ones too), I've learned to check the instructions of the originals and keep a close eye on references to avoid any goofs that might have slipped in.

So, the kit-provided plug was glued in the left port and blended in with a healthy dose of CA followed by sanding.


Usually modular kits mean more time needed for taking care of seams and this one's no exception.

The rear fuselage assembly fit in place quite well after gluing a shim of styrene sheet to its lower half to fill a step that formed between the main fuselage halves.


I'm thinking it could some design flaw, as this step formed across the whole back seam (fortunately the elevators/flaps could simply be sanded flush) when the front was aligned perfectly.

With that out of the way, more effort is needed in the front. Most likely caused by the resin cockpit pushing the sides of the upper fuselage half, there was steps in the seam on both sides.

Add the nose cone for extra fun!


And here's how it looks after the first application of putty and sanding, followed by a quick coat of Mr. Surfacer.

There's still work to be done, but the seams are looking pretty good already.

Hi again.

After a little weathering I've decided to call this done.




My two decade plane drought is over!

Had a pretty good time building it despite my wife calling it "The Dog Turd" due to the colour and shape of the engine on the back.

Great work all around

Jeff

P.S Anyone else having issues uploading to the campaign folder?

Oops, thanks for the reminder, I'd forgotten to post my 1/144 Tornado pics. Worked okay for me.

More update progress, ready to apply decals.

Hurricane Mk.IIC ' Night Fighter' finished.

That hurricane looks the business. Well done! I'm going to do one in that scheme myself sooner rather than later.
I'd better get cracking on my build...

Revell 1/72nd P-51B

Got the decals on her. I wanted to try out Humbrol's 'new formula' decalfix. I did it exactly as per their official YouTube video, but it was a struggle. The decals seemed determined to stay attached to the backing paper, and incredibly disinterested in staying attached to the model. On the plus side: when I noticed the sharks mouth was a bit wonky some time after applying it, I was still able to massage it into a better position. On the negative side: the starboard shark eye completely vanished at some time during the session. I had to free-hand one in with a 000 brush. I'm pretty terrible at free-hand, so by my standards it came out ok.

That all black Hurricane is sharp! Years ago I built a Guillows (remember those?) balsawood Hurricane and painted it like that. It flew beautifully. I wonder what became of it....

anyway, onward.
Ive gotten a start on decorating the TB-25K.

tommorro, hopefully, Ill be able to print the unit markings and finish all the decaling. getting close to done.

Here is the prototype for reference.

Simon, do you have any Solva Set? It is quite strong and I recommend it for decals which don't want to adhere to the surface of the model. I use it from time to time with difficult decals and it does great. Normally I use Micro Sol Setting Solution though. It works fine most of the time. Decals...argh!! Russell