eharrold44

Hey all- I have an Accurate Miniatures TBM-1C in my stack o' kits, and I was wondering if there are any differences between the Flight 19 TBM-1C Avengers and the wartime ones, beyond the decals and paint scheme. Any help would be appreciated. It's a beautiful kit, by the way. I know that's not a secret at this point, but I thought I'd mention it.

I'm building a Tamiya A-1H right now. Easily one of the best kits I've ever handled. It practically falls together, and the detail is excellent. The office could use some extra work, but you can say that about 99% of the mass market kits out there.

It's not the exact same thing, but just look at museum Skyraiders vs. pictures of operational ones. Real Skyraiders seemed to have a lot of smoke and dirt on them, with a flatter overall appearance, while most of the museum planes I've seen look shiny and factory mint. I'm sure that's true for just about any aircraft, regardless of period or origin. Some of the 109 pictures I've seen do seem to show reflective surfaces, though I wouldn't necessarily call them shiny. It's looks more like what I would call a satin finish.

I don't think it would be a good idea to send a soldier into a war zone without a trusty sidearm and a knife, no matter how nice their rifle is. No matter how good your weapons are, there's always the possibility you could end up fighting hand-to-hand. Same principle applies to modern fighters, IMO; most combat will be BVR, but you can't send pilots out in woefully inadequate dogfighters just because you don't think they'll need it very often. Plan for every scenario. There's always the possibility that new countermeasures will lessen the effectiveness of guided weapons, especially with Ch

The tips you guys mentioned are all great. I don't know why I never thought of using a toothpick for the smaller details. I'm in awe of some of the pictures in this thread; they look amazing, and they become even more impressive when I pick up a cockpit on my workbench and realize just how small those details are. Really great stuff. If you lack patience (like me), cockpits probably suffer the worst. It really requires a certain, highly-focused mental state.

It's as anecdotal as any of the other bits of evidence mentioned, but I do see kids picking up models from time to time whenever I go browsing at Hobby Lobby. They're still drawn to cool looking box art if they're in a place where models are on display. As long as there are parents to encourage and help them along the way, there will still be new modelers picking up glue and brushes.

There are companies that make prefab individual "safe rooms" for homes. They're basically closets made of composite materials. I know we did a story about one such company in the past. It seems like that's the way to go, if safety is the main concern; I'd be very wary of trusting any home labeled as "tornado proof." "Tornado resistant," maybe I could buy that. But "tornado proof" is a very, very big promise. Smaller structures made in larger numbers are probably more likely to have been thoroughly tested, I would imagine. I think there would be some resistance to making safe rooms manda

Great job on the weathering. It seems like it's fairly easy to overdo weathering and shading, but yours has just the right amount. It's subtle and scale-appropriate.

I totally agree with what Shinai said, and I can speak to it. I'm 27, and I'm just getting back into modeling. Part of the reason why I'm doing it is that I have a lot of fond memories of building kits as a kid, and that's partly where the problem lies. There aren't as many widely available, cheap gateway options for kids nowadays, so fewer younger people are getting an early introduction to the hobby. I know I probably wouldn't be interested in it the way I am now if I hadn't spent a lot of my allowance money on Revellogram cheapies at Wal-Mart back in the day. You used to be able to buy