ESzczesniak

Shortly after DCS AH-64D came out, I needed to have an Apache in my collection. I have a Hasegawa kit with all the extras, but wanted a low maintenance build. So I picked the Academy 1/72 AH-64D late model kit. The build was rather pleasant and straight forward. I generally like to model deployed aircraft and weather them appropriately, so tried to make the bird look like it played around in the sandbox. Weathering is primarily with oils, but with some pigments added. The kit was entirely OOB. As always, any comments and/or c

Shortly after DCS AH-64D came out, I needed to have an Apache in my collection. I have a Hasegawa kit with all the extras, but wanted a low maintenance build. So I picked the Academy 1/72 AH-64D late model kit. The build was rather pleasant and straight forward. I generally like to model deployed aircraft and weather them appropriately, so tried to make the bird look like it played around in the sandbox. Weathering is primarily with oils, but with some pigments added. The kit was entirely OOB. As always, any comments and/or c

I’ve seen a handful of in-box reviews of the new Academy 1/48 A-10C Warthog, but nothing about the build yet. I thought I would share my experience of the build so far…and try to keep this updated. This is going to be a simpler in-progress thread with almost all iphone pictures. It's fairly labor intensive to get out the formal photography stuff for me, and my intent is to share more about the kit than the build techniques. My first impressions purely out of the box are excellent. The surface detail is very nice. True-to-life are a number of rivets around the fuselage and thes

I’m obviously not Dave, but I have an Anycubic M3 Plus and a Mars 3 Pro. As pertaining to model parts, I see very little difference. The Anycubic is a bit less flashy, not having an air filter and the optional camera and WiFi have never worked. But never had much issue printing. The Elegoo is a bit more polished package, but OOB prints failed until I tightened the FEP…not an issue to a seasoned resin printer person, but could have been hard to figure out what is going on to a newbie. The prints appear ever so slightly better on the Mars 3, but of no relevant diffe

One of the values of 8k vs 4k is keeping identical resolution in a larger build volume. For guys like Dave Roof doing this for a business, that can mean roughly 4x the amount of product produced in the same period of time. For a pure hobbyist, it can mean priming larger items…although size comes with its own unique challenges.

It looks good and crisp, but I don't know enough about helmets to tell about the Scopion helmet.

I just got my 2 kits from SprueBrothers this morning. I have agree with what Fangschleister wrote. This appears to be very nice! They made excellent use of slide molding to mold the fuselage with raised rivets. Not only are they truly raised 360 degrees around the part, they also won't be obliterated sanding seems smooth from fuselage joints. The molding is crisp and delicate. The details appears good. I have just started the first couple of steps (nose gear bay and cockpit). So far the build experience is on par to Tamiya's F-14, F-4, and F-35. Tamiya is a little cleaner wit

I wanted to give a brief chance to confirm I am not seeing things incorrectly. It looks like the flaps on F-35A's when powered down are in the down position? Thank you for any input!

Those instructions don’t include the main dark gray (FS36170). I’m not at home (and won’t be for a bit), but it’s a mix of LP15 and LP59. I believe it’s 5:1, but not completely sure of the ratio.

While it may be getting a bit long, I would note USPS often misses multiple scans. I’ve seen them not uncommonly go from “arrived at regional origin faculty” to “at local post office” several days later with no other updates.

The Super Hornets wing pylons are in fact angled out. I believe it’s 4 degrees from the center line. I’ve read the reason, but unfortunately can’t recall exactly why. It is related to aerodynamics though…but might have been for the airframe, or something about separation of stores when released.

Thank you all for the replies and further pictures! A medium to dark metallic gray seems pretty safe and defensible.

Combined with the above replies, it seems less than clear. Dark gray, a metallic gray of anodized aluminum, or possible a chromate primer over aluminum. Perhaps the dark gray in the pictures I found is a weathered and darkened version of anodized aluminum. Or perhaps different t services don’t have the same coloring.

After continued searching, I may have found some help in this build log from Flory models… https://www.florymodels.org/kitty-hawk-135-sh60b Under the finished photos and YouTube video are a series of in progress photos. Mixed in, about 1/3 of the way through, are a few photos that look to be 1:1 reference photos. An example… Here it appears to be a very dark gray, effectively black. In a couple photos it might have a slight metallic sheen. But…this may be a coast guard aircraft. This image looks more white than gray surrounding the open panel

Does anyone have reference photos, or able to provider information, for the color of the engine compartment on SH-60's? I am having a hard time finding photos from a high enough angle to see the walls of the compartment and not just the engine. Best I can judge is a zinc-chromate primer, but I'm only pulling this off the edges of the doors in pictures and not feeling very confident. Thank you for any help!

An object that is well designed and printed well on a SLA printer should not look like those parts. Even entry level hobbyist SLA printers can print parts that compete with, or exceed, top of the line resin casting. However, this does requires some expertise and experience. Printers need to be calibrated properly to the resin, be in a good environment (warm and fairly stable), manage cross sectional area (and often hollow models), and printed with a good orientation. When printed with all these things tuned, you will not see layer lines. The biggest challenge are the printer supports, whi

Technically, yes no matter what. It will be a lot easier with SLA printed parts than FDM printed parts. The SLA resin behaves a lot like the standard resin we've all used for aftermarket stuff for decades. The biggest challenge would just be not sanding away any detail. The filament used by FDM printers (most commonly PLA) is a bit rubbery, and doesn't sand the best. A lot of people who do non-model making stuff use a 2 part epoxy brushed on to "fill in" the print lines as opposed to sanding them. But then you soften detail.

Thank you! The wing chord probably could give me what I need.

I've found a 3D model of a KC-135 boom to begin work on an AAR diorama I've had plans of (Tamiya 1/48 F-16). The model is proprietary, but I think sharing the brief screenshot below doesn't violate any terms (in brief, the terms just say personal use only, no profit for its use). Is anyone able to tell me the dimension of anything reliable in the model below. I need something I can measure on the model and compare to real life to set a scale. I am a bit focused on the diameter of the tip of the probe, but width of wings, etc could be get the job done as well. Thank you for any help!

After battling their F-16I Sufa, and not being totally happy with the build still, I’d love to see this variant down the road. The Hasegawa shows it’s age in lack of surface detail, intake, etc. and Tamiya has no great road to converting.

Thank you both! Despite having used scalemates.com to look at instructions before, I hadn't thought of that in this case. And I most likely missed the CD, but didn't notice one in the box. I'll have to get it out of storage and look.

I bought a 1/18 Packard Merlin engine from HpH models. The transaction was very smooth, but the kit did not come with instructions. They have a link on their website, but it is locked in Google documents. I have not received any feedback after "requesting access". I also emailed them about a week ago and have not heard any reply. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

I too ordered a couple Reskit items. They took 5-6 weeks, but arrived safely. Unfortunately, I'm not sure life is very normal at all in the Ukraine. I was torn ordering them. On the not to order side, it seems silly to bother people stuck in war with something as frivolous as model parts. For ordering, I was happy to give some money to them personally, and their economy. Wish I knew what was the best answer.

I don't use these sponges often, but they do work rather well sometimes for removing washes. I'm pretty sure these are some type of make up sponge. However, when I look through amazon, I'm seeing some "condensed makeup removing sponges", "blending sponges", etc. Anyone have any idea the best thing to search for to find an easy replacement?

I present Meng’s 1/700 USS Enterprise, CV-6. This kit is a “snap kit”, molded in colors and requiring little glue. I built it as a pallet cleanser. Ignoring the air wing, the model was done in 11 days. With the air wing, it was 13 days. I painted the kit and filled the handful of seams necessary. Still, it’s a simple build and I have to say, despite it’s simple origins, it can be built in to a nice ship. There are some shortcomings. All markings are stickers. I painted the flight deck markings. It’s been a little while, but to my recollection I found the Big-E did not sport the