seiran01

Ok, salamander is now on display in the back case, looking rather at home sitting next to hank gruben's (hankenstein) me263 You planning on coming in any time soon? -Mike

Thanks everyone for the kind words Kevin, Think I should bring this one into the store for a few months? -Mike

Build a jet? The only jet I have here is an airfix 24th scale harrier gr3 with a very involved FA2 sea harrier conversion! Are you *trying* to get me to fail out of my last semester of university?!?! haha

So i finally finished this one, after about 9 hours of work... spread over 3 months! Its not contest-worthy but hell, I love how i came up :D -Mike

do it! Chrome it!! Have to admit, Mario, she does look kinda sharp in gloss black

alley cat is coming along nicely, it looks to be a good plane to have someone make as their first full scratchbuild project! ...*ponders scratchbuilding an entire plane* -Mike

where in wellington are you? Kilburnie (sp?)? My aunt used to live up there but i love going up around the wellington hills that overlook the airport, nice view you have!! I'm interested to see any more pics you're able to get, too. thanks for posting that. -Mike

We drove from Wellington up to Rotorua today, on the journey to leave the motherland and return to the US. I never posted pix of this one during the last New Zealand trip and I dont recall seeing it posted online elsewheres. The link below is to a small photo album of a DC-3 that went from usaaf to rnzaf to airline service and then became a cafe. In 2000, it became the cafe with shameless(ly colorful) advertising for a brand of cookie. I forget the name of the town unfortunatley but it's on State highway 1m about 10 km south of Waiouru and the army museum. http://carletoncanada.facebook

I'm in Kiwiland now and only have a second online but this was too cool for me so I thought I'd share. I pulled the camera out really fast at dulles when I was leaving to catch something very rarely seen. Just for laughs, 2 pics of less uncommon Dulles sights, too. http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e40/seiran01/P1011166.jpg http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e40/seiran01/P1011167.jpg http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e40/seiran01/P1011168.jpg -Mike

I started this on thursday and so far I've clocked less than 7 hours on it. Great little kit, I figured a way to modify the engine mount so the open/closed nacelle option is not compromised, too :lol: :-) -Mike

I'll try to remember to post pix here as well as j-aircraft. May not be any for a little while, I'm leaving in a few days for 2 weeks back home in new zealand. -Mike

I'm currently converting a hasegawa 1/48 Ki-61 Tony to the 61-II kai(koh?) with the longer nose and bubble canopy using a ki-100 kit and a lot of scrap plastic. No kit exists in 48th scale and this is, in my opinion, a very sexy plane! Instead of retyping everything I posted to j-aircraft.com, this is the link to the posts Ive made. http://www.j-aircraft.org/smf/index.php?topic=1239.0 This is the fine molds 1/72 box art (link to arawasi.jp), it's how the plane will look when done. Mike Swinburne, a4_kahu@hotmail.com

sweet, another wildcat being built at the same time as mine Looking good! -Mike

tamiya F4f-4 kit, CAM Decals for the 1941 wargames w/ VMF 111. Ok so it technically should be an f4f-3A but outside of the modeling boards, no one that sees this is going to know the difference. The urge to finish another kit trumps historical accuracy! haha Wings not glued to fuse, Ive got an aires pit to stick in there yet. -Mike

Yup, the kit decals. The fuselage band cracked across when i tried to move it on the sheet, fixed nicely so it only needs a tiny bit of paint. the rest of the decs were no problem, and went on nicely with some *very* careful microsol applications. Use one of the extra decals from the plane you're not building and check to see if you can still use the decs. if not, I'll send you the decal sheet for the 205 in luftwaffe markings if youd like (its the tan with green smoke rings paint) cheers, mike

Thanks mario, get back to your b17! Decals are done

Hasegawa 48th macchi 205 in egyptian markings in progress so far. A lot of the decals are cracking when i dunk em in water so Im taking my time with this one, more than I usually would. Not putting a huge amount of effort into the plane but considering that fact, im darn happy with how she's turning out so far! -Mike

Went to town on fading the decals. Yum! Thanks for the help/suggestions guys, i LOVE this finish! Flat coat, wheels, prop, done!

Thanks again guys. Just did a quick paint test and tamiya XF7 flat red is an exact match for the red in the cats mouth. This is decal set from the aeromaster (48-070 corsairs/hellcats II). Guess Ive got some more airbrushing to so!

Since you guys seemed to love the last pix I posted of the hasegawa 48th hellcat after painting. Here's how she's looking now. Just finished decals and realized half way through that this aircraft didnt have the red outline on the insignia but I'm not that fussed about accuracy unless I'm building on commission, so I'm damn happy with how it looks! Just got to fade the decals, flat coat it, add stains, streaks, chips, and of course add the gear and canopy, then its goin in the display case. -Mike

Spent 4 hours yesterday locked away with the airbrush and this is the end result on the hasegawa hellcat. I'm quite pleased with it given that I did it completely freehand with no masks of any kind but now I have to figure out how to get the decals looking as faded as the paint does. Should have masked and painted them... Oh well! haha

Here's my tamiya + cmk 262B in progress with a camo job from my twisted noggin of 75/76 over flat black (I forget what green I used on the wings, it was a few months ago! haha). I just bought an Iwata Hp-Sb airbrush and decided to take it for a test drive on this one. I love it, gave me the *exact* finish I wanted (yes, looking like it was hurridly sprayed by hand in 1:1 scale to my eyes). Man, I LOVE freehand airbrushing!

Anyone out there think there's a chance someone (trumpeter seems most likely right now) will ever do 48th kits of the lincoln, shackelton, and any number of various wwii heavy and medium bombers? What I'd give for the shackelton and some japanese bombers not already in injection plastic. What large aircraft would you like to see done in 48th injection molded? I'm talkin ones that have never been done before

ok, before I snap and throw my 1/72 brugeut atlantic at the wall, has anyone ever figured out how the hell to get revell germany decals to settle down?? Solvaset aint workin, microsol aint workin... please someone help me save my last strand of sanity from this model -mike

there are a few more pix of it on f-16.net if you go to galleries/f-16 by variant/FSX/F-2 (on page 2) there are a total of 7 pages of pics, 4 or 5 pix of the jet with the white special paint. -mike