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BillL

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About BillL

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    Tenax Sniffer (Open a window!)
  • Birthday 08/13/1955

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    http://www.pix.prettyneatinc.com/
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  1. I started Hasegawa's beautiful new B-25J for a customer. I'm also using Eduard's PE detail sets (interior and exterior). A bit of surgery was required, and getting to this point has taken me quite a while. This will be the solid nose version, with eight 50 cal. guns. Strafing power ! Eduard has included floors for the rear compartment, along with inserts for the entry hatches (a nice touch !). The pilot & co-pilot seats are PE, along with the sidewalls and boxes. The kit's sidewalls are bare. The radio and frame are PE, and are mounted where the instructions tell you to mount the rear sea
  2. Thanks Jamie, Marcin, Mike, and Mark ! Jamie - I'm by no means an accomplished rigger. I'm going to try drilling holes and using fishing line. If that doesn't work, I'll keep trying until I find something I like. My fingers are crossed. Mike - I like the lines of the between-the-wars aircraft because they represent an art form in transition. You can see the influence of WW I and the precursors of WW II aircraft. One foot in each world, you might say. Mark - if you can get one or two limited-run kits on sale, get them. The experience of needing to work over the parts will increase your confi
  3. Thanks Robert, Jamie, and Chris ! It may not look it, but there's been a lot of work done on the little Hawk since my last post. Since the engine is so visible, I decided to add a solder ignition ring and speaker wire cables. I drilled holes in the ring, and added stubs from smaller diameter solder. These were cut to length, and filed flat. Holes were drilled in these to accept the speaker wire. This was the first time I ever tried this, so it took me a couple days. The resin exhaust stubs didn't align with the cylinders, so I cut them off and sanded the collector smooth. I cut sections of
  4. Thank you very much Patrick, Mark, and Rick ! Rick - here's what I have on the bench: Classic Airframes BF2C-1 Hawk Classic Airframes SBC-3 Helldiver Classic Airframes Boeing P-12E Classic Airframes Boeing F4B-4 Classic Airframes SBC-4 Helldiver ProModeler Bf 110G-4 Eduard Fw 190A-8 (engine maintenance dio) Soon to come: 1/72 Hasegawa B-25J solid nose 1/72 F4U-1 Corsair (unsure of designation or markings yet) They're all commission works, with the exception of the Fw 190. Got to build something for myself every once in a while. Hope none of them doesn't interfere with your ideas.
  5. Thanks Raptor Supporter and Marcin ! I got all the decals applied during a pleasant afternoon of work. There aren't many, but care was needed to keep the black stripes srtaight. And I thought it was colorful before !
  6. Thanks Robert ! I'll have more pics once the decals are applied.
  7. Thank you Jamie and Marcin ! Jamie - you might not notice the difference unless you see color pics of them side-by-side. Most modelers seem to use the regualr "Chrome Yellow" on USN aircraft. I finally have the painting almost finished. I had to fill, sand, and repaint in a few places, and I still have more to do (most noticibly the wheel wells). The Alcad and gloss colors show everything. There wasn't a decal for the Lemon Yellow wing chevron, so I scanned the decal for the one for the other marking (it's red). I printed it, and used it as a template to mask and paint this one. Luckily, I
  8. Thank you Jamie ! Here's a little "teaser" pic of the Helldiver. I'll be painting it with Alcad (once my delivery gets here), and I use Future as a primer. It makes sense to paint the unit markings first, then Future the entire aircraft. I can then mask off the colors and spray the Alcad. I will then be all ready for the decals (always thinking !). By the way, the Army used Chrome Yellow on it's aircraft. The Navy used a shade that was slightly more orange. I used WEM (White Ensign Models) Japanese ID Yellow on the top of the wing. Thanks again !
  9. The building for my "yellow wings" customer continues ! This is Classic Airframes 1/48 Curtiss BF2C-1. This kit builds much more smoothly than the Helldiver. The cockpit is nice. It has a resin floor, seat, instrument panel, rudder pedals, control wheel, stick, and control levers. The belts are cast with the seat. The tubular framework pieces are injection molded plastic, and needed to be reworked in order for them to fit. The rudder pedal supports were broken off in the bag (all four of them !), and were carefully pieced together (some more successfully than others). The fin, tailplanes,
  10. Thanks Marcin, afterburner, Pete, and Mike ! This is the scheme/markings that I'm going to use: Building a challenging kit is always a learning experience, and it helps keep the skills sharp. After all, who can't build a "fall together" kit? Thanks again !
  11. Thank you very much Steve, David, Jamie, and Barney ! Steve - I wish I had gotten that kit when Williams Brothers was still in business. It's such a pretty plane. There will be more "Yellow Wings" coming from me in the near future. My customer has sent these to be built: Plenty of work, abuse, and fun in those boxes. Thanks again !
  12. I'm building Classic Airframe's 1/48 Curtiss SBC-3 Helldiver for a customer. This is, by far, the most challenging kit I've ever tackled. After many days work, I have the airframe assembled and almost ready for painting. The cockpit floor is too narrow for the fuselage, so I cut styrene strips, glued them to the edges, and sanded them until I achieved a snug fit. This is one of CA's early kits, and the plastic really reminds me of an MPM kit. Lots of flash and thick sprue attachment pionts. MPM and CA, along with Eduard and (I believe) Aires, sprang from the same well. There are no locating
  13. Thanks Su-34 and martin ! Su-34 - I use a Canon PowerShot G-5 camera. I use all manual settings (I dislike auto), and shoot in the RAW image mode. The white balance can be set to the particular lighting (it "reads" the light and makes adjustments), and I use an ISO equivalency (film speed - the camera's sensitivity to light) of 50. All these settings give me the highest quality original image, and I resize and compress the pics with Photoshop. Thanks again !
  14. Thank you very much aex, Mike, Jamie, Andrew, Paul, afterburner, Menden, and Steve ! aex - my customer wanted it clean, so that's how I built it. I prefer clean anyway, since you can't hide anything. Mike - adding the PE brought it out of the "simple" category, and into the "moderately challenging" one. Eduard did a fantastic job on the detail. Jamie - I found that adding PE in 1/72 was good exercise for skills that I take for granted when building 1/48. When I work on the 1/48 kits I've got "in progress," they seem huge. Paul - if it's 1/48, then Model Master is bottling it's paints by th
  15. Here's a pic of the cockpit before it was installed. I tried to get a good pic of it in the finished bird, but it's just too small. Thanks for allowing me to share this build with you. :wacko:
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