Rob de Bie

I don't understand the question exactly, but when our modeling club bought a lot of Albion Microtubing together, especially the ship builders were very enthousiastic. So you might want to look into that: http://www.albionhobbies.com/albion-alloys-precision-metals/ Don't overlook the 'Slide Fit Tube Selection Packs', they are the best start. Rob

I bumped into a YouTube upload of three great East German Air Force films, with lots of close-ups and interesting diorama details. The second film even features some Soviet MiG-23s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaaenJKeSQQ Rob

I guess I've been on ARC for 20-25 years now, and I never knew that! Anything ending with .com is American for me.. Rob

Ha, it's a small world, with Dutch modelers that meet on a US forum 🙂 If you want, I can get you in touch with Benno, for a verbal build report. Or, if you're willing to come to a 'regio-avond' in Rijswijk, he can bring the model again. Rob

One of our club members showed his KH F-101 last year: https://www.ipms.nl/regios/regio-zuid-holland/146-regio-zuid-holland-artiklelen/2701-regioavond-zuid-holland-januari-2018 Interestingly he said that the kit fitted well, but you had the test-fit ten times, then glue. The model looked superb, and a metal finish reveals every flaw, so I guess he was right. Rob

Haha, I never looked at it this way 😀 Thanks for the complement! I do recommend larger compartment boxes, mine are too full. Otherwise it works well. Rob

I've got photos of my spares boxes. The central slot of the yellow box is chock-full of wheels, they are my greatest treasure. I got them from another modeler who built all his aircraft gear up! Rob

If you buy a lot of different sizes of Evergreen, Slaters and Plastruct strip and rod, finding the right size from all the packages becomes a problem. My collection drove me nuts: I could never find the size I was looking for. A year or two ago I solved that problem. I used plastic sleeves to put documents in a folder. I used a temperature-controled soldering iron set at 225C to make (say) ten vertical pockets in each sleeve. I made around ten sleeves, and put them together in a paper folder. And then I filled nearly all 100 pockets with all my plastic strip and rod, profiles, metal wire and Albion tubing. I even made small stickers with the dimensions of the content of each pocket. All in all it was a couple of hours work. But it works really well. Every time that I used it ever since made me very happy. Rob

Gabor, maybe you can develop your insights and knowledge into a list of modifications for the upcoming kit? For example how to modify that characteristic leading edge? I would appreciate it for one, since I want to build a Lim-6 one day 🙂 Rob

I first printed the bomb to scale (1/48), then glued pieces of 2x1 mm plastic strip exactly butting on the edges of the pressed steel shape. This is the mold, nothing more. The material is 0.1 and 0.2 mm aluminum foil, from food dishes. I pressed with my finger or thumb, the pressure depends on the material thickness and the depth you're looking for. It works very naturally. In the end the 0.1 mm parts were too vulnerable, I used 0.2 mm parts.I hope it's clearer now. Rob

More progress from the bomb front. I made 'pressed sheet metal' fins using a simple mold, cast copies and glued them to a conical tail. I still need to scribe some lines and make a few slots. Rob

Yep, this looks a lot like what I tried to describe in words. Note the concrete segments, quarter-circle, bolted together, creating the 'ribbed' interior. Judging from the wing tip clearance this could be an AU-13 (or similar) shelter. Tanks on the side like I saw at Templin. But no guide rails on the floor plus winch like I saw at Allstedt. Never saw those rails elsewhere, I remember now. This is the Polish producer of the 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 shelters that Don mentioned: https://sklep.gpm.pl/en/modele-kartonowe/samoloty/1/72/shelter-on-airplane1/72-cut-with-laser-model The site doesn't tell the inside dimensions, but elsewhere I found an interior width of 18.5 cm, or 13.3 meters full scale. This fits in well with the AU-13 mentioned above. Rob

That's a great question. I went MiG-hunting in East Germany and Poland after the wall came down, but we rarely had a clear view into a shelter. I remember one at Finow-Eberswalde , where you looked straight inside. Maybe I took a picture of that? But in my memory there was a Fulcrum-C parked in front of it. One other memory is from Templin, I noted fuel tanks stored inside one shelter, right side when looking inside. Most of the WarPac shelters were really small, much smaller than the equivalents in the West, so I wouldn't expect too much stored in them. They were quite primitive, bare-bones. Trucks were used to open the doors, no stand-alone system for that. I remember guide rails for the wheels at Allstedt (recce Su-17M) with a winch system. One source says this airbase had 40 AU-13(1) shelters, so it must have been one of those. On many bases with MiG-29s they would park the a/c in front of the shelter since they wouldn't fit inside. One example was Kothen, that had 40 examples of the AU-11 shelter, 10.8 meters wide, whereas the MiG-29 winspan was 11.4 meters. One thing I also noted was that most shelters were built from concrete half-arches, C-shaped with the 'opening' towards the inside, quite narrow, like 500 mm, bolted together. They created a 'ribbed' interior surface. Are you building one of the laser-cut plywood kits? AFAIK they represent a type of shelter that was built in Poland. Apparently there were regional differences. All in all I don't have solid answers, but maybe it helps a bit. Rob

Here's a list of printers: https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/decals.htm#custom Rob