BillL

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

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

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

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.

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 !

Thanks Robert ! I'll have more pics once the decals are applied.

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

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 !

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,

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 !

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 !

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

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 !

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

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:

I got the finishing touches on the Corsair done today. This is the 1/72 Tamiya (yuck!) kit with Eduard PE. I must say that it's a decent kit for Tamiya, but the panel lines are trenches and it's waaaaaaay overpriced. This was built for a customer - I'd never spend over twenty dollars for a 1/72 fighter with so few parts. The Eduard set does wonders for the kit. I also used Sky Models decals for the Fleet Air Arm markings. I used Model Master enamel Sky and Dark Slate Gray, along with Gunze Extra Dark Sea Gray, for the freehand camo. This is the first 1/72 kit I've built in over ten years. It

After waiting a while for my customer to decide whether he wants the belly window or not, I found that there's a solid cover on the sprue. I could paint both, and leave them off for him to choose. I sawed off the wingtips, just outboard of the lights. A little filing and sanding rounded the edges. I used Model Master enamel for the Sky and Dark Slate Gray (the "greenish" color), and Gunze Acrylic for the Extra Dark Sea Gray. I masked off the lower surfaces with drafting tape, and applied the camo colors freehand. I thought it might be tricky in this scale, but painting a fine line with an ai

Thanks David and afterburner ! I'm in the process of removing the excess wash from the 110, and I'll post pics after the Dullcote. I remove the excess wash (RLM 76 enamel mixed with black oil paint & thinned with MM airbrush thinner) with a #000 brush, cleaning around all the "rivets" and both sides of all the panel lines. As you might guess, it's pretty time-consuming. But it gives me control over the removal that I can't get by wiping it with a cloth. I can remove as much or as little as I want, wherever I want. All it takes is time. Thanks again !

Thank you Mitch, Paul, volzj, and Chris ! Paul - if you choose this scheme, you'll have a blast (I know I did). The "trick" is to keep the pattern random and the density uniform. It's very easy to overdo it. Chris - inspiring others is the greatest compliment any modeler can receive. I appreciate it, and thank you very much. Thanks again !

I've been doing some work on Eduard's 1/48 Fw 190A-8. Eduard's additional PE set has lots of goodies, and the placard set is nice to have. There are items for the gunbays (I won't add the PE to the wingroot bays until after painting - masking could damage some of the parts). Wheel wells: Instrument panel And engine There are still a lot of items to be added to the engine. It may take a few more days to add them all. I won't be able to add the exhausts until the engine is mounted. This will ensure proper alignment. I also have Eduard's Fw 190 tool set and Luftwaffe ground perso

I'm finally over a cold, which pretty much stopped production for the month of January. I can't take decongestants (they contain a stimulant), which is not recommended for someone who's had a heart attack. The paint a glue fumes were just too much to handle. Here are a couple pics of the 1/48 Classic Airframes SBC-3 Helldiver that I'm building for a customer. The interiors of these aircraft were unpainted, and I've used a few different shades of Alcad. Having the Squadron "In Action" book helps a lot, since it has some cockpit shots. Dryfitting shows that the cockpit floor doesn't span t

Thanks Andrew, Scooter, chukw, Mitch, CorsairMan, Jamie, and imwhoim01 ! Andrew - the Eduard set makes all the difference, IMHO. Tamiya is a little heavy-handed on the smaller parts and scribing. Scooter - I got this from Squadron for $20.70, and I feel it's waaaaaay overpriced. Twelve bucks sounds about right to me. chukw - I love Eduard's PE and kits. I would gladly be their representative for a lifetime supply of PE ! I'm also building their 1/48 Fw 190A-8 with the additional PE, placards, tool set, and Luftwaffe ground crew. It's a major project, and won't be finished for a while. Mitc

Those of you that know me will probably be surprised. I make no secret of my intense dislike for Tamiya kits (overpriced, oversimplified, over rated), and this one is no exception. $21 for a 1/72 scale fighter ! Are they out of their minds? With the cost of this kit and the Eduard detail set, you could get Eduard's 1/48 Fw 190 kit. This is being built for a customer, as I wouldn't pay that much for this for myself. The majority of the fine detail comes from the Eduard PE set that I'm using. The kit's panel lines look huge for the scale, and a lot of the detail is heavy handed. But it's "so ea

Thank you moeggo and Daniel ! It's refreshing to paint a Luftwaffe scheme without having to constantly check the positions of the patterns against the panel lines. Just fire up the airbrush and spray. Thanks again !

I finished painting the camo on ProModeler's 1/48 Bf 110G-4 the other day. I'm building this for a customer, using the same markings (AeroMaster) and detail set (Verlinden) I used on mine. The wave mirror camo is RLM 74 and 75 over RLM 76. The fuselage band is RLM 04. The guns are the Verlinden resin items (beautifully cast), painted with Alcad Steel and drybrushed with a mix of MM Chrome Silver and Black oil paint. The props, drop tanks, and landing gear have not been given washes yet. Here are a couple shots of the cockpit, finished a while ago. Glosscoat (Future) is next.