@ Tim " Nice save with the wheels. It shows even back then not every ESCI kit was perfect. I recall their Brumbar Sturmpanzer was poor.

I have put on the first coat of NMF on the F-100 Today and it nearly made me cry to see all the issue surfacing. I should have gone for a camo instead. Never mind. I will have to polish, repaint, repair, you know the drill. Dont get fooled by the pictures, the surface has a LOT of issues.

Thanks Oliver. Your Skyhawk is GORGEOUS, by the way!



Jacob, you are right – those ESCI kits were good but definitely not perfect. I actually rather liked the Brumbär – but then again it has been since the 1980s since I’ve built one of these kits! Speaking of not perfect, I don’t see the flaws you mentioned on your F-100 – it looks just right to me so far.

Now that I’ve figured out what to do about the road wheels & return rollers, I thought I’d decide how to make some improvements to the tracks too. The molded parts in the kit aren’t bad, but the inner sides have unrealistic gaps between links and are completely lacking in detail. My first thought was to simply replace them with better detailed tracks from a spare Hasegawa 1/72 M1 Abrams kit, which has very similar sections and guide horns...

...but unfortunately, the pads on the outer surfaces are of a different design.


I experimented with various fixes, such as sanding away the Abrams pads and then shaving off the individual M48-style chevron pads and attaching them one by one – but that approach have been unreasonably burdensome for a whole vehicle! I finally opted to sand the outer surfaces of the Hasegawa Abrams tracks down until the remaining inner faces were almost paper thin, and then attaching them to the flat ESCI parts.

All that fitting will be a bit of work, but the upgraded parts should look a whole lot more like proper Patton T97E2 tracks!

Decals are on my Skyraider. Needs a Flat coat then the rest of the parts like gears and weapons will get attached.

Oliver, great work on your Skyhawk. The paint work and finish is very neatly done as is the bombload. Fitting mk.82's to TER's in 1/72 is an incredibly fiddly job!


Made a start on spraying my F-5 today. Hopefully will have the painting finished over the next few nights.

@ Oliver, I am using the newish metallic acrylics from Vallejo (Metal Color) using they glossy black base and varnish. I was going to test them on the NMF campaign but I couldn't wait. I love them.

@ Tim, I am really enjoying your build. I love M48 and I am trying to get more skilled in scratch building details.

@ Jacob, clearly you and I have different standards. I think the NMF looks amazing!

@ Iain, great decals! I always panic with large decals.


I have been airbrushing. I had a lot of issues with my H&S, it is knackered after all these years and it has an sticky trigger and, even worse, splatters! I couldn't face a free-hand SEA camo in those conditions so I am waiting for spares and using blue-tack.




Last green tonight!

Carlos.

Hi mates,
made some more progress with my F-4C over the last Weekend



I want to fix the nose tonight. Then the Phantom gets a break, because I have to concentrate on my Super Constellation for "Pax and Pallets". Deadline is coming...

Thanks Carlos. Your F-4 is starting to look good!

A small update on my M48 Patton;

I took one of the road wheels from a junked M48A5, cut it in half and drilled out the hub & lugs to represent a spare road wheel for my M48A3.

Excellent work on that wheel, Tim!

Thanks Peter. I did up a spare drive sprocket too...

Tim, the extra detail on the spare wheels is fantastic. It will really make the finished model pop. I'll keep it in mind the next time I do a small scale armour build.

Finished painting the F-5 today. I used Vallejo acrylics and the putty mask method.





Couple of spots to touch up but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. The F-5 definitely has one of the most complex an intricate SEAC schemes I've painted.

Nice work all! Glad I'm not doing anything quite so intricate.

Some progress on the 1/48 Hasegawa A-4C:





Aside from a True Details seat and the Victory Productions decals, this one is strictly out of the box.

Now for the seam clean up. Not my favorite part.

Michael

@ Tim - Hats off to you, Tim! Very nice detailing!
@ Stephen - Camouflage scheme looks great! Makes me a little "frightened", because I want to do an F-5A myself sooner or later in that look

Those are some small parts you have there Tim, looking good.

Nice job on the F5 cammo Stephen.

My build is done.
Had to replace two of the extended fuze bombs with some Hasegawa aftermarket normal bombs due to losing some bomb halves, and almost forgot the rocket pods


But then rockets are on



Oil exhaust staining is done with a mix of lifecolor washes and oil paints

Hey Mates,

there are very impressive models finished and on the way to.

In my case the Crew is ready and the Phantom is now look like one and need some paint. Next is the undercarriage and the weapons.







Regards
Chris

Thanks Peter. It was a little tricky and frustrating in a few spots. The tailplane and the light green patch on the left nose especially. The putty needs to be rolled quite thinly to do that. It would certainly be easier in a bigger scale like 1/48 or 1/32. At that scale a good airbrush should be able to free hand spray the pattern. The F-5 is tiny in 1/72 and masks are the easiest.

Looking forward to seeing your F4 completed. I got the very same kit ready for the painting stage last year and got sidetracked with a couple of other projects and trying to resin cast a belly tank for it. Which didn't go according to plan! While I have the paints I might get on with it next week as I have some time off. Hopefully I can even get some more work done on the EB-66 I also started for the campaign.


Ian, I love your Skyraider! The exhaust and oil staining is really well done. The Skyraider is one of my favourites and I really should build get around to building all those I have stashed away. I've got at least one from Tamiya, Monogram, Italeri (I believe originally AMT?) and Matchbox's 1/48 examples. Really nice kits all of them.

Tim: Excellent detailng in the Braille Scale! This will look awesome!

Stephen: Flawless paint job on Your F-5! I did not know the scheme was so complex here!

Peter and Carlos: Nice progress!

Michael: The Hasegawa kit has nicely detailed wheel wells. Looks good! I am curious about the paint job.

Iain: Well done Skyraider! I always liked the grimy appearance of this plane!

Chris: Well detailed pilots, you have painted. Is this 1/48 scale?

Oliver

Peter, Stephen: Brilliant SEA camos, so neat. Mine has so many retouches that I had to give up. Next model will be perfect, I am sure.

Iain: Congrats, that is a great looking model for the shelf.

Chris: Really well painted pilots. Is that a 1/48 Academy model? Pilots didn't look that good on the sprue on my model.

My airbrush had a middle life crisis. I replaced needle, nozzle and seals and it works like new now. I can't blame the airbrush anymore!

Also, I used Vallejo model air recommendations for SEA colors and the FS34102 and FS34049 look nearly identical to me. I was checking photos of the airplane and the two greens are quite similar but not that much. Is that because the vallejo colors are not corrected for scale?

In any case, I decided to lighten up the lighter green. On reflection, I over did it but I couldn't face more repainting.

Thanks Carlos.
Your Phantom looks really good and the colours look spot on to me. Looking at photos it does seem that the SEAC scheme was very prone to weathering and fading. Tan especially can appear as a strong orange-brown all the way to a pale sandier shade. It will look great when completed.

Thanks Oliver and Carlos,

the kit is the 1/48 F-4 J from Academy. The figures I use are from Aerobonus nr.480070. They have great details and the fit is perfect.

And Carlos: Your F-4 looks awesome with this colours.

Regards
Chris

Nice Spad Iain!

Looking good there Carlos!

I'm moving along with the Hasegawa 1/48 A-4C. I got to here before I bent one of the slat guides, but I didn't lose it and was able to repair it. A new record for me!





Yeah, I still pre-shade sometimes. Don't judge me!

Michael

@Michael, don't tell me that pre-shading is out of fashion, it took me years to be mediocre at it! What is the new thing? Is that the marble effect? I hope is not post-shading, I couldn't take it, it is too unnerving.

Thanks for your comments! I have put a small fraction of the million and a half stencils.

@ Carlos - Your F-4 looks very good already, keep going!

Was worried about nose weight because of the tall front gear, but no worries:



Yesterday I thought that only tailhook and clear parts are missing, but luckily noticed before painting and glueing canopy that I need to build also ejection seat

@Pasi - A-4 looks already impressive!

Painting of my F-4 is now more or less done
I've put on a layer of Glänzer(a german substitute for Future) as a preparation for the decals.



Peter