Drew T.

Thanks guys! Rich, I made the stripes on the top handles of the seats by first painting them all gloss yellow. I then cut a thin strip of masking tape and wrapped it around the handle and sprayed a coat of black paint. That got me close, but the back stripes were narrower than the yellow ones. So I touched up the black stripes using a 10/0 brush with black acrylic ink. If I messed up, I could easily wipe away the ink with a sharpened toothpick over the gloss yellow base. For the handles on the right side of the seat and between the legs, I just handpainted the black stripes with acrylic

Thanks Mr. Happy! I’m back for an update now that the cockpit is finished. I used a combination of Anyz and Airscale decals to liven up the side consoles and instrument panels. This is by far the most amount of decaling I have ever done to a cockpit, but I think the effort was worth it. I just hope most of it will still be visible when installed in the fuselage. I also added some weathering with an Ammo enamel wash and some artist oils to add some grime to the cockpit floor. I used UV curing glue on the instrument panel dials to give the appearance of the being covered in gl

Thanks Janissary and John!!!

Thanks so much guys! Ron, I knew in the back of my mind that the RIO term seemed wrong for an Air Force backseater. Thanks for setting me straight!

Hi guys, I’m back with my next project, Zoukei Mura’s 1/48 F-4E. I bought it late last year with the intention of using Hypersonic’s late F-4E conversion set. Then a couple of months ago, ZM announced a late F-4E kit shortly after I purchased the Hypersonic conversion! Regardless, I’m moving ahead with the early version ZM kit since the Hypersonic conversion looks like a pretty nice kit. I’m also using the below detail and decal sets: A few years ago, I picked up Speed Hunter Graphic’s USAF Gunfighter’s F-4E decal set and decided on the markings for a New Jersey AN

Thanks so much for the kind words guys!

Wow, thanks Chuck!

Thanks so much everyone!

Thanks guys for the kind words! This one is in the can. Here's the final result:

Hi everyone! My Trumpeter C-47 is finally complete. See below link for the in progress thread: All in all, it feels like I didn’t use about 1/3 of the parts in the kit due to them being inaccurate. Even though it’s much newer than the Monogram/Revell offering, it’s probably less accurate, so it’s really a toss up as to which is better. Although I’m happy with the result, I’m glad to have this project over with. Just don’t ask me to build another 😝 After my last in-progress post, I added all the antennas and drain ports on the underside. The antenna

The exhaust staining on the underside of the wings was achieved with the starship filth oil paint. The exhaust stacks still looked too clean compared to the rest of the plane, so I lightly airbrushed some Tamiya black panel line wash over them after I took these photos. To represent dirt and mud being kicked up by the wheels, I loaded a paintbrush with a brown enamel wash and used a toothpick to flick the wash around the back of the wheel wells. The landing gear was heavily weathered with a brown enamel wash. A clear flat coat was firs

Hi everyone, one more update before I call this one finished. Weathering is now complete. I started by creating some chipping using Tamiya enamel silver X-11 applied with a sponge as well as a small brush. I then followed up with an AMMO panel line wash, then sealed it with a coat of Mr Color GX113 clear flat. With the previous steps sealed, I applied oil paints for general weathering. Since I’m depicting a war-weary plane, I wasn’t afraid to go heavy with the weathering, following reference photos for guidance. Many photos of planes with the larger carborator intakes show fluid leads ar

Thanks Greg!

Thanks Steve! Thanks Geoff! Thanks John! Thanks especially for the description of the tubing around the windows. I still need to add a bit more of the tubing around the center of the cockpit windows, but it's more exposed, so I'm waiting until final assembly to add it so it won't be damaged.

Also, I painted the wheel wells. I applied an initial wash of Ammo black night panel line wash. I’ll make them dirtier later on when I weather the rest of the model. On another note, I decided to throw out the kit propellers even though I had already painted them and tried to reshape them to match the shape of the Hamilton Standard props that most C-47’s had. Since the B-17 propellers seem to be the same type as used on the C-47, I bought a set of Quickboost B-17 propellers to use instead. Below is how the compare to the kit props after I tried to modi

Thanks Mike! Hi everyone! I’m finished with the painting, so it’s time for an update. Before I could start with the painting, I created masks for the windows with my Silhouette Cutter and Oracal 810. One other thing I wanted to do after masking the windows, but before painting is to add the wiring around the cockpit windows. I see this on all photos of C-47’s, but I’m not sure what it’s used for. I used 0.2mm diameter lead wire to replicate it using tiny amounts of CA to secure it in place. Having the masks in place protected the windows while I secured the lead wire.

Thanks John! The joint between the wing midsection and fuselage took several bouts of sanding and priming until it was invisible. I'm not sure what the two pods are under the fuselage just ahead of the leading edge of the wings. Trumpeter does provide those in their kit, but I opened up the ends to match what they look like in reference photos. Most C-47's have them based on my research, so I'm assuming the plane I'm building also had them. Thanks Steve! I can't believe how many inaccuracies this kit has. It's a shame that the only options for a 1/48 C-47/DC-3 is th

Thanks John! Merry Christmas everyone! I've got some pictures to share of the progress I've been able to make while I burn some vacation time. I've mostly been working on the landing gear. After comparing photos of the real C-47 landing gear to Trumpeter's interpretation, I've noticed some significant issues. The primary one is that the main landing gear is about 5 mm too short overall! I've heard of this mentioned in kit reviews, but never noticed it until comparing the kit to photos of the real thing. The bottom section of the landing gear length is ok, but I had t add the

Thanks Greg and John! Here's my latest progress over the past few weeks. I had the Quickboost exhausts, but they really aren’t any improvement over the kit exhausts. Also, the kit exhausts don’t seem to be based on the exhaust design seen I see on C-47’s during WWII. The WWII era exhausts have a larger diameter, but a shorter exit flare. To get the kit exhausts to look more like the wartime design, I increased their diameter by shaving their diameter down so I could slide some 0.20” OD styrene tubing over the part to increase the overall diameter. Then, I wrapped the part with

Thanks Rod! Maybe if we wait long enough, someone like Tamiya will come out with a well fitting, accurate, and detailed C-47, but I'm not holding my breath! Thanks Steve! The problem is that all these details take an eternity for me to add (sometimes after multiple attempts), but the result does help motivate me to stay enthusiastic and want to see this thing to completion. Thanks Rich!

Thanks so much for the kind words guys! Here’s the latest progress I’ve made over the past few weeks. With the wings and horizontal stabilizers assembled, I used sheet styrene to represent the raised strips surrounding the de-icing boots. After the strips were glued in place, I went back and sanded them down to shape. Although I’m using the Quickboost engine cowls that correct the shape of the kit cowls, I wasn’t happy with the look of the flaps. I decided to cut them off and make my own from an aluminum soda can. Each flap was individual

Thanks guys! I finally have the wheel wells completed. Trumpeter provides a decent base for the wheel wells, but they definitely looked too bare compared to reference photos. The first thing I did was widen the tank at the front of the wells by cutting them in half and inserting a chunk of sheet styrene in the middle before gluing the two halves back together. I also used thin sheet styrene to represent the straps on the tanks and added the PE from the Eduard set. Next, I added the structural ribbing inside the wells using stretched sprue and strips of

Thanks Steve! At long last, I have the fuselage complete. Most of what I've been working on is adding the surface detail around the joint line between the fuselage halves. Below is the detail I added to the bottom of the nose. Eduard provides the access panel under the nose, but I made my own from sheet styrene since I didn't want to deal with forming a flat photoetched panel around a complex curved surface. I drilled holes for the antennas and drains so I wouldn't have to add them once the wings and fuselage are joined. I added small plates along the m

Thanks Steve! I finally have the fuselage together and most of the seam work finished. In the meantime, I figured I would post a couple of pictures of some of the work. Trumpeter made the trailing edge of the horizontal stabilizer fillet on the fuselage halves too thick. I carved and sanded away material until the correct thickness was achieved. The below photo shows the left side complete and the right side untouched so you can see the difference. This also means that I will need to thin down the inside edges of the kit elevators to match this shape.

For the cockpit windows, I noticed that Trumpeter made the window frames too wide and made the corners too sharp. The corners should have a fillet. I sanded down the edges of the kit frames, leaving material at the corners to create a fillet. I then glued in my homemade windows. The outer front square windows can slide open, so they are more recessed in the window frame in comparison to the inner front rectangular windows. I also wanted to show the side windows to be partially retracted for visual interest, so I just made them narrower than the opening to give the illusion that they were