Els

Jay, Your Viper is excellent, it is one of the nicest buildups of this kit that I have seen. That scheme really suits the Viper. Putting your name and call sign on the side was a nice touch. Great use of your imagination. Thanks for sharing. Els

Thanks for all the positive comments. Even though it doesn't look like a lot was done, I have been spending a lot of time with two things that I am starting to really dislike. Puttying and Sanding. Here I have used some plastic to fill in the holes where I was missing parts. I ran out of gray primer and had to use some reddish brown primer. While it works fine it doesn't photograph very well. Looks like I gave it a mud bath. I am sanding down all the raised panel lines since a lot of them would be leading to nowhere. I coiled sheet plastic around the engines to increase the diame

This is the AMT/ERTL 1:72 scale kit. My first assignment in the Air Force I was a Life Support tech on tankers at Kaden AB, Okinawa, then, 26 years later my last assignment was the E-8. Since the first and last aircraft that I worked on were based on the 707 airframe and I love anything Tiger Meet, I had to build one. I was told as a kid that if you do not have something good to say, don't say anything. So I will not say anything about this kit other than unfortunately I have 2 more of these in the stash that I need to build. I used Mike Grant decals for a KC-135E of the 108th ARW, New Je

So there I was waiting for the Model Master paint to dry on my KC-135. I had already built a Mig-23 while waiting but some of the later touch ups were still tacky. I didn't think it would take much longer so I just wanted to work on something quick. I had a Revell 1:48 P-61 that had been damaged in my last move. I figured I could fix the damages and touch up the paint. Should be easy....... After a wet sanding and rinse in the garage sink, I carried it outside with me while I was talking to my kids. As I was walking, I was slowly swinging it back and forth to clear off the exess water.

This is the Hasegawa 1:72 Mig-23 with the Czech AF "Hell Fighter" decals. I built this kit OOB while I was waiting for the Model Master paint to dry on the KC-135 kit I am building. That paint takes forever! That is why I normally use acrylics. This was a nice little kit to build, it went together very easily. The decals on the other hand were a bit of a pain. There was a lot of touching up with a brush and paint to get it to work. Since I was mostly thinking about the KC, I didn't give this kit a lot of attention so it's a 3-footer but I like it. Thanks for looking, let me know wh

Thanks everybody. I think that you are right about the replacement guns. I check the site once in a while but have not seen them available for a long time. Big Kev yours turned out great. I don't know how you got the kit decals to work. This cracked me up because you so eloquently put into words how I felt about the kit. This is actually the second one that I built. The first one was about 10 years ago and it ended up in the trash.Els

I don't remember seeing many Starfuries posted on the ARC, since I have been taking pictures of some of my older builds I thought I would post these. This is the 1:72 Revell/Monogram Starfury Mk1 kit from the television show Babylon 5. I built this kit 2 or 3 years ago. I upgraded the guns with resin replacements and decals from Starship Modeler. I also put a LED in the cockpit to light that. There was quite a bit of seam filling and the instructions were not very clear about the engine installation. I have one more of these in the stash and will build that when I get another set of the

Thanks everybody. Topgun, After stripping the chrome off the frame I painted it with Tamiya black. The engine was cast in the basic colors. There are some small parts that need to be painted (I painted the carbs) but I pretty much left it alone since you cant see much of it after the fairings are installed. I painted the forks silver and then painted a couple of coats tamiya clear yellow over that. There has been a little bit of a setback after I showed the completed kit. About two weeks after finishing the kit I took it to my local model club meeting. I noticed that the places on the

SU27rules Nice job on this. I have seen a lot of people who try to throw parts together to make a what if kit and they end up just looking like a bunch of parts thrown together and painted. Not this, your "Aluminum" looks like a real, plausible vehicle. Great imagination getting all those different parts to work together so well. I like it! Els

Thanks everybody. This was a fun kit to work on. It is definitely one of the more colorful kits in my display case. Els

Holmes and Taylorde, Thanks for the compliments. These boxes come in a few different sizes so they work for a lot of different things. Here is a link to the motorcycle build. http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index....howtopic=219464 Els

Thanks for the comments. I am not quite there on the metal finishes but this was a good learning experience. Especialy the lesson about masking tape on Model Master metallics. Just don't do it...doesn't matter if you used their metallic sealer. Els

FYI I was at the local Michaels (Arts and crafts store) today and picked up a couple of these. They are on sale and cost about $2.50. They work great for the Tamiya 1:12 scale motorcycle kits. There are different sizes and they are all 55% off right now. Its a cheap alternatie to some of the kit manufactures display boxes. Els

These are both Reell kits built OOB except for the decals. Usually if I hae multiples of a kit I will build them at the same time. For the first one I used Hi Decals to model F-86D 8th FIS. 5th FW Philippine AF at Basa AB in 1965. I followed the decal instructions and painted the radome tan but I could not find any pictures of Philippine F-86Ds with tan radomes on line. I mixed my own tan for this and I think it is a little dark but I can lie with it. This was the first time I hae used HI Decal decals and they went on great. For the second one I used Superscale decals to model F-86D

Here are two that I made in the 80's. None of the aircraft made it. I think they all took their last flights loaded with firecrackers. Here is a truck that I built in the glory days of the show BJ and the Bear. I remember being pretty proud of myself because this was the first time that I had used a can of spray paint on a kit. Then there is this kit. I got this kit on one of my birthdays. I remember that it I didn't care for it much at the time. It looked a little to Pimped out to me. I built it because it was the biggest car kit I had seen. I didn't put a lot of effort into it th

Pollie and Holmes, Thanks for your comments about my diorama and the info about the real life furball at Hamamatsu. Its good to hear that the "Pilots" weren't hurt badly other than their prides. I am glad that there is a Silly week once a year to post these stress relief kits. I would warn anyone that is thinking about building these kits that if you do not like applying decals, stay away. There are about a million. I got so tired of decaling that I did not put any on the bottoms of the scooters unless it showed. Els

All Thanks for the compliments. It was a good year for building. Els

All, Thanks for the compliments. I appreciate you taking time to post comments. I was able to take a nice chunk out of the stash pile this year. Hopefully Santa will bring me something to fill it back up. Ryan, here are 2 more pictures of the truck. I had fun building this because I hadn't built a truck model for about 20+ years. Here are 2 more pictures. You got any pictures of your build? Next time I get a 50% off coupon at Michaels I will probably pick up another one of these. I would like to do one in another scheme. Els

More... I think that is all of them. This is a Happy Meal toy that I tore apart, modified and built a base for to make Darth Deform. Not really a model but I had fun working on it. I also completed 3 kits for Silly week but I will wait to post them. I am at the painting stage on 2 F-86Ds but I don't think I will be able to finish them by the end of the year. I had to order some Alclad and I am not to sure how long it will take to get it. Thanks for looking, let me know what you think. Els

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Some More.. This is one from an on line contest that I entered. I modified 2 Reell Creature from the Black Lagoon kits for this Diorama. It was a lot of work but I got first place in the Diorama category.

I was able to build more kits this year than in the past 3 years. I think most of them turned out pretty good, there are definitely some 3 footers in the mix. I like to build figure kits too but I don't post them anywhere, so I will post them here for the end of the year parade.

jbrundt Your kit looks excellent. I really like the way that you did the different panel lines. After you put your decals on, what did you seal it with? Does future work on Alclad as a sealant? Els

All Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question. I think that I will do a little experimenting on a piece of plastic sheet. I will try mixing gray in with the metal or a lighter metalic color or maybe hitting the middle metalic color with dull coat and see what I come up with. Els