Jump to content

jonbryon

Members
  • Content Count

    959
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by jonbryon

  1. My French boxing also had the soft mould, but the Israeli CJ is fine (and I bought that in the summer of 2004, a long time before I picked up my French copy). This is what makes me leery of buying another one since the quality of the moulding does not seem to correlate very well with the age of the kit (the Israeli boxing was released before the French ones). Jon
  2. FWIW I am building two at the moment and fuselage halves of both of them (an original CJ boxing and a later profipack C) are so warped that I am gluing them together in stages. The moulds are also badly aligned - about 1mm on the tail of one of my kits - but the wings seem okay on one copy and slightly warped (upper wing) in the other. Since I also got one of the 'soft-moulded' fuselages (which not only has most of the detail missing, but also some panel lines moulded as 'wiggles' and bad scratches on the surface) I will not be buying any more of these kits without inspecting the box content
  3. Great shots. Can you add me to your email list? Please use jonbryon{at}yahoo.co.uk Thanks for some great info. Cheers Jon
  4. Oh, that sounds better! It was kinda hard to tell in the picture whether the spitter plate around the cone was very dirty metal or blue. I like variation! I do have another question you may be able to help on. Eduard have clear circular lenses (to paint blue) that go on the upper wing near the wing tips (these are different to the wingtip nav lights). Did French IIICs have these - Eduard only show them on the Israeli options (and even then, Isradecal don't show them at all!). Any help appreciated! Thanks Jon
  5. Mickey Fickey - they are brilliant pics! Thanks. The paint looks so dirty it's hard to see the demarcation in some of the shots. I think I'll go with a blue interior simply because it's not that easy to see down the intakes in 1/48 anyway. Really interesting to see the red warning stripe continued on the inner lip of the intake as well. I'd have missed that... Cheers Jon
  6. Ahh...that would explain why my second Mirage has perfectly formed fuselage halves! Sorry, my original post was not clear. I'm doing a French IIIC in the overall blue/grey (single colour that is blue/grey) over aluminium undersides. I just don't know what the intake cones or the inside of the intake should look like. Cheers Jon
  7. Well, going by most of the reviews of the kit at the time it was accepted that they were wrong (I'm talking about the very first boxing here - I don't know if Hasegawa fixed it for later issues of the kit). According to a post by Dave Roof ages ago, either here or on HS, the correct colours are: 36118 36231 36320 I used Mr Color for mine, but I think the underside looked surprisingly blue - no idea if it's correct or not. Cheers Jon
  8. Hi all, I am building a couple of Eduard Mirage IIIs, and need help with the colours for the French blue/grey scheme. Does anyone know what colour the intake cones (and intakes, for that matter) should be? Eduard indicate in the instructions silver, but the colour chart shows blue, with no info on the demarcation. I've tried a google image search (but access from China to this is very limited) and can't find any walkarounds in the usual places. Any info much appreciated - what did those intakes look like? Of course, I did want to do a NMF plane, but one of my fuselage halves was devoid o
  9. I used Mr Color paints for the suggested FS numbers and there's plenty of contrast. Searching through previous posts/articles on the Desert Storm Harrier revealed that people in the know thought the colours in the guide were correct (unlike the AV-8B+ boxing). I took their word for it. Cheers Jon
  10. Indeed it is good to have a forum to share experiences! I did make a comment in my original post that the instructions in the Hasegawa kit are a serious problem. I guess I should have clarified that the *plastic* in the box is well-engineered, but the overall package is let down (IMO) by the instructions. And, to be fair, if I had not read about other people's problems, I would have not progressed so cautiously with construction. Now, off to continue building a couple of Eduard Mirages - considerably more troublesome than the Harriers! Cheers Jon
  11. Interesting feedback. FWIW I do agree with Dave Roof entirely - I cannot deny any other modeller's experience with this kit; what happened, happened - but as my original title said, I just wanted to redress the balance. You can build this kit and have a great experience - it will not 'fight' you if you think carefully about the construction sequence and ignore the instructions. Having said all that, if you have to take 3-4mm of the section behind the canopy you need to rethink your construction sequence because it's entirely unnecessary - if you attach the wing/LERX to the rear fuselage, wi
  12. I notice that there was a rather nice build of Hasegawa's 1/48 AV-8B on ARC yesterday, but the review was less than complimentary about the fit. I've just built two of these kits, an AV-8B+ and a Desert Storm AV-8B, with two more RAF versions in the stash. My experience of building these kits was rather different. Now, I'm not here to knock the nice build, nor am I denying the experience of the builder, but I've read a lot of reviews of this kit since it was released and some have been most uncomplimentary about its fit and engineering. I think a lot of these criticisms are unfair and want
  13. Thanks for the extra information. I will try spending longer on surface prep and use some new paints I bought more recently. I do really like the paints, but would just love to have better adhesion - this is my latest effort with Mr Color: You can't really see, but the paint rubbed off a little at the leading edges of the wing and LERX during gentle handling after coating with Johnson's Klear. Cheers Jon
  14. Thanks for the suggestions guys. I suspected that dirty plastic might be the cause and gently washed it using soap, but still had a little flaking in places and found the paint rubbed off quite easily on sharp edges. I use gloves to handle the model once it gets to this stage, but it's hard to keep the plastic completely clean over the several weeks it takes to paint. I guess I'm still comparing it to enamel paint which, in my experience, needed neither primer nor much cleaning to get amazing adhesion. I also really dislike washing models just before painting because I make my aircraft wit
  15. Since moving to Asia, Mr Color has [been forced] to become my paint of choice. And very nice it is too - sprays very nice, has excellent colour density (much better than the Humbrol stuff I was using before, and similar to Xtracolour), dries fast, needs a lot of thinning (so a bottle lasts longer), comes in loads of colours and is very cheap. But, I cannot get it to adhere well to plastic. Is this a common problem? Others have written on this forum that Mr Color is extremely durable, but when sprayed directly on the plastic (standard Hasegawa plastic) I have found it scratches/rubs off ext
  16. For completeness, I will mention that Revell reboxed OEZ's Su-7 as a BKL/BMK (I recall). Ken Duffey reviewed it Scale Models International over 10 years ago, and gave lots of useful notes on how it was mislabelled (I think a BM was most easily built from the kit). Apologies that this is vague - it was a long time ago! His notes appeared in the September 1995 issue of SMI. Cheers Jon
  17. Yep, thanks for the info, but I am aware of that. My main point is that, owning only the Eduard markings and Isradecals sheet, I need a 9C to do a plane with a three-view of the camo scheme (which seems to vary significantly from airframe to airframe) and interesting (to me) markings (i.e. 4-tone camo, ident triangles, kill markings, etc.). There is only one option in the Isradecals sheet with (non-handpainted) identification triangles and a 9B, but there are no diagrams for the camo scheme on the starboard side or upper surfaces. Cheers, Jon
  18. Thank you Smithery - I will drop Martin_C an email. It seems like a real 'gap' in the aftermarket to not have an easily available 9C. It would make finding attractive markings for a CJ much easier, and differentiate my CJ from the French plane I'm making with the 9B. Cheers Jon
  19. I'm about to start a couple of Eduard Mirages in 1/48 and see that I really need an Atar 9C to get interesting markings for an Israeli CJ - i.e. 4 tone camo, identification triangles and kill markings. I have the Isradecals set which does have one photo of such a plane, but only shows me one side of the camo scheme. Life would be a lot easier if I could get hold of an Atar 9C since that increases my options considerably and enables me to use a scheme with a 3-view markings plan (and brighter rudder markings). A brief trawl of the web has turned up nothing substantive, but does anyone know o
  20. Thanks everyone for the kind words. It's nice to be able to share the models with someone before I try and box them up and carry them back to the UK! Some have commented on a 'clean' build/finish. I take that as a compliment - it's what I aim for. I'm afraid I'm just not that interested in replicating 'operational' finishes - I go for what I call an 'idealised caricature' finish - highlighted panel lines and cleanish paint. Yeah, I'm in a season of model building where I prefer to not put ordnance on my builds. No real reason, other than making and painting them slows me down! It's ra
  21. Just finished these babies. I think these kits are great - will build my GR5 and GR7 one day. Finished in Mr Color, built in tandem, there are three glaring errors between them. Only additions are etched seatbelts from the Aires seats I bought that don't fit in the kit (thank you, Aires, for making me waste all that money on having them sent from the US). Kit decals were used. To find out what they are, and how I built these kits, visit www.thebryons.com/model_index.html for more. Cheers Jon AV-8B+ AV-8B
  22. Thanks Mark - I was completely unaware of that website! Cheers Jon
  23. Hi, I dunno if anyone can help me, but I'm trying to pin down the details of two 1/48 Hase AV-8Bs I've just built. I simply need location and date. The first is an AV-8B+ from the original (first) boxing. I've done the kit in the VMA-223 kit supplied markings (option 2) and have no clue as to the date of the markings. I know the Bulldogs got their Plus models in 1994, and the kit was made in 2003, so presumably the markings date from sometime in that period. Any help much appreciated (and I assume the plane was based in the USA). The second is a standard AV-8B from the 'Desert Harrier'
  24. Not sure of the name of the model shop I know - mainly RC and armour there, only about 10 aircraft kits (plus a lot of old Matchbox Dornier floatplane models!). I'll follow up the website you've recommended - thanks! Jon
  25. newca96, Where do you order from in China/HK other than Luckymodel? I want to get Trumpeter's new Panther, but find it faintly ridiculous that I can't get one in China and have to order it from Hong Kong (which is quite expensive on postage). There is a small model shop in Zhengzhou, but they carry no Trumpeter aircraft - only armour (although I may try and see if they can order me one). Which companies offer better shipping prices to the mainland? I did email Luckymodel to find out why it costs more to mail a package across the border than across the Pacific, but, although they replied,
×
×
  • Create New...