Airfix - What's your Latest Acquisition?

[T2B]

Arrived in post during the week ......

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The Special Hobby Douglas Boston Mk.III

 

But my love affair with Airfix is never far away and on a visit to a LMS (Local Model Show) on Saturday I couldn't resis a couple of purchases?

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The Spitfire and Bf109 is to continue my expanding collection of WW2 RAF & Luftwaffe collection. I don't often do helicopters but couldn't resist the new tool RN Sea King HC.4

[Kenneth ONeill]

@T2B - The moulding for the folded tail rotor on the Sea King (all variants) needs some work (lightening holes, drive shaft). That may not affect you.

[T2B]

@ P4T 

 

You mean some extra detailing? I've looked at the instructions and was considering doing the folded tail/rotors option so when I get round to it I'll see if I'm able to add any detail to the blank bulkhead at the fold? But thanks for the heads up ☺

[Kenneth ONeill]

@T2B - Yes; the part is completely blank solid apart from the hinge.

[Ratch]

[John Symmons]

5 Swan-Morton No 11 scaple blades, these are a bit like hen's teeth in Cape Town. Had to pay premium prices at a surgical chemist.

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Also picked up another of these. Just finished one and I was so impressed I wanted to build another, maybe in winter camourflage. If you ever open these boxes you'll here a strange sound, like the grinding of teeth or the licking of lips, but it's just the carpet monster getting ready for a feast. Loads of ultra small parts that are almost guarented to go pinging in all directions. Luckily on the first one I didn't drop a single bit.

Remember we do this for fun                         Jpohn the Pom

[Heather Kavanagh]

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We paid a visit to our local model emporium last week. I was after paints, but ended up with this as well. There is a better, more comprehensive, kit on the block, but this rather ancient Heller repop will do for now. It was cheap, too.

 

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I was following a work in progress thread of this on another forum. I succumbed. The first two planes were built as mail carriers, and were impressed into the RAF in 1940. They flew on VIP and courier work with 271 Squadron, so the Albatross fits my 1940 theme nicely. My plan is to kit-bash the airliner into the mail carrier, which will entail some window filling and other minor variations. I have opted, so far, not to buy the extra internal detail kit. Research is ongoing, with a view to starting construction before the next decade begins! "Franklin" or "Faraday" will join the Valom Bristol Bombay and HP Sparrow in due course.

 

It was while doing some Albatross research I discovered the 271 Squadron were also custodians of the former Imperial Airways Handley Page HP42 biplane airliners. 🤔 I think I will have to draw a line somewhere, or I'll end up with all manner of miscellaneous prewar airliners that were pressed into military service!

[spadgent]

i got a 1/72 twinpack consisting of a F-16 A/B and a mirage 3 C off ebay

[David Jones1707820337]

 Working in Edinburgh, so dropped into Wonderland Models and emerged with the Whitley GR VII which I plan to make as a civil version.

(Just reading a very interesting book on the Empire-class flying boats, which has made me far more aware of the scope or - and risks of - civil aviation operations during the war).

 

I seem to be getting hooked on 1/72 kits....

[Kenneth ONeill]

The relatively old Hasegawa "eggcraft" SR-71. Sadly it has now lost the globe stand from the original release which means that the cartoon "Russian" will need a new home. The rest of the tool stands up very well considering it's about 30 years old.

[Gluey fingered Dave]

Grabbed the Airfix Vampire  T.11 giftset with NZ markings at the local hobby store today. Took Miss 5 to buy whatever kit she wanted as she's been asking to build with me, she bought a snap fit Revell car, and saw the Vampire on the way out. 

So Miss 5 built her car and expressed her disgust at it neither needing painting or 'stickers'/decals so now she's helping me build the Vampire... Wish me luck, tomorrow we try the airbrush.

[spadgent]

good luck with the airbrush.  i dont think i'll get my little sister building with me quite yet (just under 18 months old).  got her hr first lego the other day though and she seems to be coping with that. 😎

[Kanyiko]

 My very first post on the forum, so I guess I'll better make it count.

 

Starting from January 1st, I filled in some holes in my stash (cough!).

 

Airfix:

01079 Airco DH-4 - picked up three of them from various sources, including one with a resin set for a DH-9 conversion.  It's 2018 this year, after all!

01081 Spad VII

A01087 Fokker E.III Eindecker

A02339 Willys Jeep

A03311 WWI RAF Vehicle Set

61062-3 Sopwith Pup

 

Non-Airfix:

1/35 Revell 03247 'German Staff Car Type 82E' (Volkswagen - MPM rebox)

1/35 Revell 03250 'German Truck Type 2,5 - 32' (Opel Blitz - ICM rebox)

1/35 Revell 03270 'German Staff Car Kadett K38 Saloon' (Opel - ICM rebox)

1/35 MasterBox MB3557 'Women at War: Germany, Luftwaffe Helferinnen'

 

1/72 Aoshima 9 Kawasaki Ki-61-I Tei Hien

1/72 AZModels AZ7374 Morane-Saulnier Type H

1/72 AZModels AZ7525 Gloster Gauntlet

1/72 Bronco GB7008 DFS 230B-1

1/72 Eastern Express 72161 Nieuport 11C-1 (Toko rebox)

1/72 Eduard 70103 Avia B.534 Early Series Combi Kit (Avia B.534 Series 1 & 2)

1/72 Fujimi 722641 Mitsubishi A5M2a

1/72 Italeri 118 Waco CG-4A

1/72 Kovozavody Prostejov KPM0064 Piper L-18C Super Cub

1/72 Revel 03954 De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter (Matchbox rebox)

1/72 Revell 04116 Fokker Dr.I

1/72 Revell 04384 Breguet Bre.1150 Atlantic

1/72 Revell 04903 Vickers Wellington Mk.II (Special Hobby rebox)

1/72 Revell 04947 Douglas DC-4 Skymaster

1/72 Roden 045 Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a

1/72 Roden 723 Opel 3.6-47 Blitz Omnibus Stabswagen

 

I desperately need to improve on my stash/built ratio though, as the former is currently outnumbering the latter a bit, even for this year with 29 acquired/6 built... 😳

[John Symmons]

Hi Kaniyilo

Welcome to the forum. you don't say if you're in Japan or the UK. Thats some selection you've aquired and welcome to the ever growing stash club. I'm at present making the Roden Opal Blitz Staff/Comand bus. A couple of words of advice don't try to make the front wheels rotate or steerable you'll drive yourself bananas, also I'd re-enforce the frount axil before removing from the sprue. I found that trying to remove that part on the Blitz  truck impossible without it breaking, so now I re-enforce them with very thin piano wire bent to shape and epoxied to the axil part. Also made the tanker version. Good luck with the engine although on the bus it can't be seen.

 

Remember we do this for fun                John the Pom

[Kenneth ONeill]

@Kanyiko - Yo dude!!

@john Symmons - I know the guy from elsewhere; he's Belgian.

[T2B]

@ Kanyiko

 

That's quite a list of recent acquisitions but don't worry I think most of us buy more than we can build so the stash keeps growing. Mine currently stands at about 380 lol

 

@ JS

 

I have just ordered the Roden Opel Maultier of eBay at a very reasonable price. And following your comments and looking at a couple of reviews am trying to add the Roden Opel Staff/Command Bus to my collection without paying silly money

[dabhand]

on impulse i bough the airfix 1/72 curtis p40 tomahawk gift set for a 'quick project'.  nearly done too.

recent buys include the phantom and the mitchell.

[John Symmons]

Hi T2B

I'm building the Roden Maultier at present Good luck with the rear drive train, looks OK on the instructions, but acually building it is a right female-dog. Drilling out the holes in the gear-bok & Diff to 1.2 mm will help and if you manage to get the staff bus use those instructions to assemble the engine; much clearier than the maultier instructions. Actually it might be better to use the bus engine in the maultier if you're leaving the engine covers open as I found that the bus engine is better moulded than the maultier. in the bus the engine is hidden so i'm not bothering with most of the detail. just adding the exhaust manifould. Would be interested how you would glue the tracks, mine seem about 10mm short.

 

Goog luck with both kits. They can be built, even though half way through you'll be wondering why you desided to build then. Oh; and re-enforce the front axil as its very fragile and all those tiny steering bits don't help, best assembled solid with the wheels posed. I did that on the blitz truck and tanker. Both very nice if ultra fiddely, and fragile.

 

Remember we do this for fun                                John the Pom

[Ratch]

A friend came round this afternoon and gave me these

[T2B]

@ JS

 

Thanks John for the heads up and advice. Actually I won an auction last night for the Command Bus, £8 plus postage which I think was a steal. I need to try doing a vehicle with my airbrush as I have only done aircraft since putting my brushes aside so will see how I get on? 

[Kanyiko]

 @Paws4thot: Hi!  I thought I recognised the username! XD

@JS: Thank you so much for the advice.  It'll be needed, as I'll be attempting some 'Blitzbuilding' in the near future.  I already did, in fact, but the Revell/ICM Opel Blitz is an entirely different beast with its own peculiarities...

@T2B: I know the feeling, oh how I do know the feeling.  I never properly inventorised my military vehicle kits, but when it comes to planes, my 'to build' stash currently stands at about 600 aircraft (I'm just about to finish a Revell/ex-Matchbox Noorduyn Norseman).

 

... *sigh*

The stash made another unforseen growth.  Went into a modelling store to see if I could find something, only to discover they were throwing out all their non-Revell kits at a 50% discount.  Sadly the only Airfix kits present were the old Harrier GR.7 boxings (which I didn't pick up as I already have the newer kits) and a Heller/ex-Airfix Puma (also in the stash); I did pick up some Italeri kits, though.  Add to that an order that I had already placed but not yet collected, and this is the full list:

 

1/72 Italeri 162 MiG 37B 'Ferret E' (Yes, I know it never existed, but at 50%, it was too big of a steal not to...)

1/72 Italeri 1029 Junkers Ju 86

1/72 Italeri 1117 Junkers Ju 188 'Rache'

1/72 Maquette MQ-7206 Airco DH-9A

1/72 Roden 710 Opel Blitz

1/72 Roden 720 Opel 3.6-47 Omnibus

 

I noticed the Roden Opel Blitz (freight truck) comes with only a partial and mutilated decal set - the instructions offer 6 decal options, but the decal sheet only offers 3 sets of numberplates, one of them 'censored by marker pen' as it belonged to an SS-unit. (The censor apparently did some overtime, as they not only censored the SS-markings but even the engine hood Blitz logo on the instructions)  HOWEVER - I wasn't planning on using the set decals, but I felt it was an issue that needed addressing.

[T2B]

@ Kanyiko

 

That's some impressive stash numbers, you'll have to live twice as long as I to complete them all. My total of 380ish includes approx 100 non-Airfix AFV's and trucks etc.

 

Noticed in your latest acquisitions you picked up the Italeri Junkers Ju86. I have just completed the D-1 diesel engined version. I couldn't do a full post on it but I have included a picture of it completed at the start of my Junkers Ju88 build post if you care to have a look, page 1 of the Aircraft threads. It's an old chunky mould from the 70s but makes up fairly well with care but i think the crew figures once cleaned up are excellent!

[John Symmons]

Hi Kanyiko

That's some impressive stash numbers, you'll have to live twice as long as I to complete them all

 

Ditto to what T2B said above.I can't believe someone has censored a decal sheet, isn't this taking political correctness to the ultimate madness, or being hyper-afraid/sensitive of others hyper-sensitivity, Seems like someone needs to get a life, actually there's a name for it it's called co-dependency or it's a part of the co-dependency mental illness, and maybe they need to go to a CoDa meeting. Swastikas I can unbderstand. I had a nieihbour who lived through the Walsaw uprising and wouldn't even come into our house if I I had one of my Luftwaffer books open. But SS number plates in a plastic kit?????  ---------------- End of rant.

 

Just finished assembling the furniture of the staff /command bus and those chair legs are super fragile, only managed to remove two without breaking them, fortunately the four broken ones are easily mended.

 

Remember we do this for fun                         John the Pom

[Kanyiko]

@JS

 

Actually, it's a very common practice for kits that are distributed via a German distributor - which is a downside one frequently encounters as a modeller on this side of the puddle.  Not only swastikas, but also markings of SS-units are routinely subjected to such treatment.  As a result of this, different marques have adopted different approaches to this when laying out their decal sheets - Eduard and Tamiya, for one, always make sure that any swastikas and SS-markings are printed in such a way on their decal sheet that they can be removed with a single cut by German censors.  However, other manufacturers which do not take this approach routinely find their sheets rather crudely censored for the German market.

 

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The above pic shows the instructions and decals as included in the kit - notice the marker-censored SS-plates and - yes! - 'Opel Blitz' lightning marking on the picture of the hoods.  Oddly enough, no such censorship marks for the 1. SS-Pz-Div LAH markings, though.

 

As illustration I also included two decal sheets from other kits in that picture that show what I mean - namely the 'censor-cut' lay-out of a recent Eduard kit (70103 Avia B.534 Early Series Dual Combo), as well as a rather surprising decal sheet of a relatively recent  Revell kit, namely that of their 8.8 cm Flak 36 kit, which circumvents the censorship by including a two-part numberplate decal for SS number plates (with the runes included in two separate parts); the separate instruction sheet also rather cryptically describes the gun as 'from an unknown unit in Russia, 1942' - even though the sheet also includes the unit markings of the 3rd SS Panzer Division 'Totenkopf' for that paint option.

 

... used up my 'beginners quotum' of two posts for the day, so I'm afraid I won't be able to reply after this one for the next 24 hours. 😳

[Kanyiko]

@T2B - the kit I purchased is the diesel-engined civilian version (Ju 86B/Z), so unfortunately the military crew are 'out' for that kit.  Sadly, it has a few parts too much in common with its military version - the center wing section comes with cut-outs for the bomb bays and crew entry hatch, as well as a partial cut-out for the ventral gun turret which obviously didn't feature on the civilian versions.  It also doesn't come with a cabin interior, luckily I still have an unbuilt (civilian) Ju-52 lying around, so I can use that as a pattern for some scratch-built seats...

 

 @js - Actually, I live in Belgium, so a part of the kits I acquire go through German distributors, which are subject to German law.  As a result, these kits are often 'censored', i.e. swastikas and SS-markings are routinely either removed or blotted out by marker pen (depending on the actual importer).

 

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Included above is the censored set of instructions and decals - as you can see, the SS license plates both on decal sheet and instructions, AND surprisingly also the 'Opel Blitz' lightning logo on the instructions have received some attention of the censoring pen, even though the latter has nothing to do with Nazism. (In fact, the 'lightning' logo introduced on the Opel Blitz truck series nowadays still features in the Opel company logo).

 

Also included for illustration purposes are a decal sheet by Eduard, which shows how some companies abide with German laws: they include both partial swastikas, as well as a set of whole swastikas so located on the decal sheet that they can easily be removed by a censor.  As a curiosity, I've also included the decal sheet of Revell's 1/72 scale 88-mm Flak 36; rather exceptionally for a recent Revell kit, it actually includes an option for a gun with SS license plates, although the instructions simply identify it as 'unknown unit, Russia, 1942'.