AX 365

I had to post photos in a separate reply after this update. I'm getting a '500 Internal Server Error' when trying to post photos in this reply. Good morning everyone. It's been donkeys ages (eeee-ons and eeee-ons...sorry, I'll show myself out now) since I posted an update on this build. Quite frankly, I have done very little since my last update in March. The weather got nice early and many competing interests got in the way. I sat down at the bench a couple of days over the summer and the only thing I did was lay down an airbrushed coat of Model Master Gloss Black to prepare

Having problems posting. Fack!

I don't visit he site for a couple of weeks and look what I missed! You're really going to town, aren't you. Looking forward to this build ALF. Builds always take on more of a special meaning when there's a personal relationship. Game on!

Cool scheme. She turned out very nicely pal. Well done.

Nope. Taking a pass this year. Enjoy the show. Hope it's a good one.

Many apologies for the long hiatus. Got into a bit of a funk but I junked that funk and we're back at it. The drop tanks were primed with flat black and then sprayed with Alclad II Aluminum. The caps were painted with Model Master Guards Red. The main canopy had a faint mould line down the middle. I scraped most of it off with a new #11 blade. I then masked each side of the line and then sanded with finer grits of sanding sticks, wet sanding with 4000 grit paper and sanding pads. I then manually polished with toothpaste on a Q-Tip and finally dipped in a b

Nice work, ALF. Some interesting engineering and assembly in that kit.

I'd play.

Nice tribute to the old boy. Am looking forward to your progress ALF.

Thanks ALF. As I opined during our phone chat, the big test will be the fit of the cowls. Hopefully there won't be any gaps. If push really comes to shove, I think there is enough surface area for Tamiya tape to grasp to around the exposed Merlinand then filling in the gaps with more tape, paper (possibly) and liquid mask should do the trick. 🤞

That turned out quite nicely, sire. Well done.

Clamshell doors assembled. Brake lines attached to gear struts. Scissor links also attached. There's a small piece of PE that must be folded over the link and attached with CA glue. Hubs were primed black and sprayed Aluminum. They press fit into the rubber tires. The tail wheel tire is plastic. Go figure. Drop tanks assembled. This version calls for the teardrop shaped tanks. There are also a set of the paper / resin tanks supplied for the filletless tail version.

As I noted in a previous post, this kit can be built in such a way that it can be displayed gear down or in flight on a stand. As I'm building it strictly gear down here's the insert for the tailwheel assembly. The gear up pose has the same body but closed doors instead of open. Both are 'plug & play'. Next, the undercarriage parts and ammo bay doors were blackbased and painted. Continued in next post.

The wings have been glued to the fuselage. The join is painless and quite smooth. In the photo above, you'll not a square with a hole in it on the landing gear leg. That's how the removable landing gear are attached. A small threaded bolt slides through that hole. It is screwed into the nut inside this part (referred to in an earlier post) in the wing. You can just make out the silver nut in the wing part. I haven't attached them yet as I'm still constructing the landing gear. I've also built up the radiator intake

The wings have been assembled. The flaps can be posed either up or down. If you wanted to have them in the up position permanently, you'll notice a small curved piece at the end of the inboard side of the flap. These are glued into place for the flaps in the down position. For permanently up, leave them off and you can glue the flaps in the up position. The small hinges for the aileron slide into the slots quite easily and don't require any glue to hold them in place. They are adjustable should you decide a dynamic pose. Next up is to glue th

Painted and installed ammo trays and feed chutes. As noted above, they're not perfect but I'm okay with the results. In retrospect, the feed chutes should have been left off until I painted the wings the aluminum colour. They were easy to install and leaving them off would have facilitated placing the gun and ammo tray covers over the opening to paint the wings. Oh well. The kit supplies two sets of covers because of the way the kit is moulded. The three piece covers on the real aircraft are moulded as one piece in the kit. Hence, there are four, one-piece moulded covers. One set could

The main gear bay and spar have been glued onto the lower wing assembly. Again, the fit is very good. The gun trays have been assembled. The part with three holes where the barrels protrude is PE and slides into slots at the front of the one piece tray. And black based and painted. Guns have been assembled from two halves and painted Model Master Enamel 'Gunmetal'. There are specific guns for specific slots in the tray. Ejection chutes and chargers have been painted Testors Flat Alumin

Merci, mon ami. Not over complex but they will test your patience. Did I need to do the hinges? No. It appears that you can glue them into place as in traditional models. I'm trying it just for the fark of it. I'll see how I fare and if I don't like the appearance, traditional glue in place it will be. Quick update today. The main gear bay has been completed but not yet installed. For the first time in a long time, the carpet monster made an appearance. You'd think that finding a zinc chromate yellow painted piece would be easy to find on a light grey carpet but NO.....

Thanks guys. Fuselage halves have been glued together and engine bay pretty well done. Only a few small paint touch ups required. Here you can see one of the small magnets that will keep the lower cowling attached. This build has the shrouded exhaust manifold. Individual stacks will be glued into place after painting is complete. The PE hinges are less than 1 cm long. The steel rods slip into holes in the hinges. The rods are then set into grooves in the elevators, ailerons and rudder. The halves are then c

Thanks. I tried to do an update earlier with photos from my Flickr account but I got this message. I have no idea when I'll be able to post another photo update. Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator at webmaster@arcforums.com to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error. More information about this error may be available in the server error log. Additionally, a

Thanks Scoob!

It's reared its ugly head again. Got this today when trying to edit my WIP thread with photos from Flickr: Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator at webmaster@arcforums.com to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error. More information about this error may be available in the server error log. Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an Error

Looking good pal. Glad the recommendation worked out. Looks like it might need just a touch of filler at the front of the wing / fuselage join but it could be the lighting too. The exhaust stacks on the Mustang are the same. Individual stacks per cylinder with shrouded or unshrouded manifolds. The one I'm building has the shrouded manifold and at least I can install the stacks after painting and assembly. In our cases, they're making us work harder, not smarter. Are you going to paint the clear panels or leave them transparent? Look forward to the next update.

Next, the radiator housing was built up. The instructions call for the rads and screens to be painted metallic grey. They're not going to be overly visible so they got a shot of titanium. The rest of the housing parts were sprayed with Alclad Aluminum. The assembly was then installed into the starboard fuselage half. The fit was perfect. The cockpit / firewall / engine assembly was then glued into the port fuselage half. Again, a flawless fit. Thanks for looking and as usual, constructive criticism and comments a