Big Kev

I'm pleased to announce that Peter Castle's Building Race #80 Spitfire Mk XIVe in 1/18 Scale is now available! This 565-page eBook features Peter's award-winning conversion of the HpH Models 1/18 Seafire 47 to represent a Spitfire XIVe—specifically, Race #80, as flown by James McArthur in the Tinnerman Air Races at Cleveland, Ohio, on September 4th 1949. Peter rebuilt much of the airframe, scratch-built most of the detail parts in aluminium and brass, and covered the model in aluminium litho-plate for an authentic natural metal finish. Peter's model won the National Senior Champion award (among many others) at Scale Model World in Telford in November 2017, and its construction is presented here in forensic detail. Not only does the book contain a blow-by-blow account of every stage of the build, including how Peter fashioned many of the intricate details, but also: an illustrated account of the history of TZ138 by noted aviation illustrator and author Juanita Franzi; a 12-page tutorial on Turning Small Parts with a Rotary Tool; a 33-page tutorial on Designing Your Own Photo Etch Parts; a 16-page tutorial on Skinning Models in Metal; a 15-page tutorial on Forming Metal Around Compound Curves; bonus: seven full-page walkaround photos of a Spitfire Mk 19 seat. This book is a must-have for aspiring scratch-builders, Spitfire fans, and any modeller interested in learning from the best. The book is $22 Australian dollars as a downloadable PDF from our store. Please check out the sample pages below: Kev

Ah, so this is where you two disappeared to. Kev

So, I'm pleased to finally announce the availability of the Birddog book: https://www.klp.com.au/product/building-macs-birddog-in-132-scale/ Written by master modeller Eric Galliers, this 131-page digital book shows you how he built his award-winning 1/32 scale model of Macaulay “Mac the FAC” Cottrell’s Cessna O-1 Birddog. Using the Roden 1/32 scale kit as a basis, Eric modifies it to represent Mac’s Birddog as he flew it in Vietnam in 1968. The book also includes Mac’s recollections of his 47 years in the RAAF, along with his citations for the Silver Star and DFC for an action in Vietnam. We’ve also included an exclusive 53-page walkaround, featuring a whopping 95 photos by Rob Fox of Rob Fox Photography. AEG book should be next out the door. Thanks everyone for your support! Kev

So, the cat is out of the bag, and we've just announced our first title in the Build Guide Series: More information is available at our website or Facebook page. Kev

Apologies for dredging up this ancient thread, especially given that it's now nudging its 10th anniversary! But I'm on a mission to update the images in all my build threads, to remove the Photobucket pestilence. As it happens, the images were missing from this thread due to being posted back in the days when you could directly upload them, and they appear not to have survived one of the upgrades that have happened since. Never mind, I've reinstated them all now, even though they're mostly awful! I thought I might post a couple of photos I took since originally completing the build, as I think it shows the model in a better light: Kev

Good guess, Don, but not quite! You're in the right area, though. Kev

So, there's a delay with the Bird Dog book while we arrange a photo shoot of a more representative airframe for the walkaround section, so keep an eye on the website or Facebook page for updates and announcements. In the meantime, I thought I'd post a teaser image from one of our upcoming titles in the Build Guide Series: Anyone care to guess what it is? Kev

Thanks, Paulo. I'm not sure if you're referring to the Sabre book or the Bird Dog book, but there's a bit of a delay on the latter while we seek to obtain some more walkaround photos. We have a potential photo shoot opportunity in a couple of weeks, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Kev

Thanks, Steve. I guess I really should have said more about it! As with the Sabre book, it features a build by Eric Galliers, this time of the Roden 1/32 Bird Dog kit. Eric's build is a gem, and has plenty of hints, tips, and advice for getting the best out of the Roden kit. He builds the kit as the aircraft that Macaulay "Mac" Cottrell flew while on secondment to the USAF as a FAC pilot in Vietnam in 1968 (Mac spent 47 years in the RAAF). In fact, it depicts Mac's aircraft as it would have appeared on a particular FAC sortie in 1968 that would earn him a nomination for the Silver Star, and be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Eric and Mac met in person a few weeks ago at Model Expo in Melbourne, Australia, and Mac signed the display base of Eric's model - exactly 49 years to the day after the original mission. The book is as much a tribute to Mac as it is about Eric's model or the Bird Dog itself. Kev

Thanks for the kind words, Chuck! I'm glad you liked the Sabre book. The Bird Dog book is at an advanced stage of development, and I've just received a set of walkaround photos from Mark Jessop: We're also working on obtaining additional images of a Bird Dog in more standard configuration and finish. Kev

Howdy folks, I've cleared this announcement with Steve, so I hope it's OK to the membership generally. And apologies if you've already seen it elsewhere. Earlier this year I started a new digital publishing venture, called KLP Publishing, with the aim to specialise in digital books ("eBooks") for the scale aircraft modelling community. I'm pleased to say that our first book launched a couple of weeks back: Building Brick's Sabre in 1/32 Scale: A Scale Tribute to K.J. "Brick" Bricknell We've taken Eric Galliers' amazing build of K.J. "Brick" Bricknell's CAC Sabre, combined it with Brick's terrific anecdotes, and an exclusive high-quality walkaround of the Temora CAC Sabre, and turned the lot into an eBook. The book is in PDF format, and is priced at what I think you’ll agree is a very reasonable 15 Aussie pesos (that’s 15 Australian dollars, for everybody north of the border). It can be purchased from the link above, and along with Eric and Brick, it features contributions from Mark Jessop, Greg Meggs, and Dan Cooper. Feedback has been extremely positive so far, so I hope you'll check it out! We have many more titles planned, with our second book already not far from completion. I'll just leave you with this teaser image for now: If you have any comments, questions, or feedback, fire away! Kev

Just picked up this kit myself, and am disappointed that it's under-scale. Still, I love the Tunnan, and will be build it happily - and use the Austrian markings! Very much looking forward to Fly's upcoming 1/32 scale kit. Kev

I just had this issue myself, of being redirected after clicking a link to here in the Google results page. This is a known forum exploit that I know all too well as a site admin. It's caused by some malicious code being added to one of the language cache files in the forum software, and it also writes a cookie to your browser to ensure that the redirect only happens once per login session. I'll contact Steve about it and let him know it's happening. Kev

Hi guys, As Kurt notes above, our wonderful host (cough) removed the DNS entry for our forums. I have no idea why, but I've reinstated it now, and we're back online. Apologies to all for the inconvenience! Kev

That's an aggressive release schedule. Nothing in 1/32? Kev