null_null981707818191
-
Posts
284 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Articles
Gallery
Posts posted by null_null981707818191
-
-
I’ve finished off the Nakajima B5N2 ‘Kate’ (A73012), and I’m pleased with the outcome of a very enjoyable build. I acquired the model some timed ago as the Club Special, but I decided to build it as the 553rd Kokutai version, largely out of the box, rather than as the repainted, captured version in ‘Surrender’ markings. I made this choice for two reasons – firstly, I’ve got another Club special edition anyway if I decide to build it as boxed, and secondly, it will go better with my two IJN liveried Zeros.
As is usual, the kit starts with cockpit assembly. There are loads of parts for this, but it’s extremely well engineered and went together nicely. I like to include crew figures, but the ones that came with the kit were the standard BoB-era RAF ones, so I used the PJ Productions Japanese Pilots instead. My only criticism of the supplied cockpit details was that it would have been nice to have some moulded detail on the instrument panels to enhance the decals.
The rest of the build was relatively straightforward as well. Everything went together very nicely and with very few gaps – I just used a smear of filler on the wing roots – although this join was largely covered up anyway with the walkway decal.
I went for the torpedo option rather than all the bombs (they might come in handy for another build…) and this view shows the underside wheel-wells painted in a sort of ‘aotake’ finish (mixed aluminium and IJN black green).
The kit has plenty of different options for the canopy. Fully closed, fully open or with just the rear gunner’s section open, which is the one I opted to use, simply because I wanted to include the sole armament of the aircraft on view! I found the purchase of a Montex mini-mask set well worth the cost thereof!
I brush painted the model using Vallejo Model Air IJN Light Grey Green and IJN Black Green. The decals went on very well using Microset and Microsol, and I finished off the whole thing with a couple of coats of brush-applied thinned Vallejo matt varnish (which dries to a very slightly satin finish).
All in all, a very enjoyable build and I’m pleased with the way it turned out. Thanks for taking a look.
-
So here’s a somewhat esoteric trivia question… I’m building the Airfix 1/72 Nakajima ‘Kate’, and stage 28 of the instructions suggests trimming off two little protruding triangles of plastic from the top of the wing if modelling the aircraft with wheels up, so presumably they are wheels down indicators… and my model will be wheels down. So the question is, what colour should they be – I’m painting the model in IJN Black Green if that makes any difference. I can’t find any reference pictures, and there’s nothing on the colour guide. But I bet someone knows….
-
I've actually had this for a while (since last year, in fact), but I've only just unwrapped it so hence posting as a "latest acquisition"...
I've made a start on it - very intricate but well-engineered cockpit, but the crew members OOB are standard BoB RAF figures... so I've also invested in a couple of packs of the PJ Productions Japanese WW2 pilots, largely because I'm going to finish it in IJN colours rather than the white painted version.
-
I must have had more down-time than usual recently, or it was just a much more simple build, but having posted this as a recent acquisition on June 16th, I've finished the Fiat G.50.
Nice not to have to contend with bare metal finish or a very high (and fiddly!) parts count, but it does show the limitations of brush painting when it comes to mottled camouflage. Still, it's another one to add to my Desert Air War group.
-
Saw this starter set of the Jeep in a jumble sale, and so obviously had to buy it!
The other two items are not of course Airfix - but I'm sure they'll be very useful. My old sprue cutters have just about given up after four year's use - the spring has broken and they're not as sharp as they once were and these American made ones came highly recommended with rave reviews. The razor saw is an up-date on my existing one and seems to be rather more robustly constructed; it also comes with the interesting slotted blade for deeper cuts, and the triangular blade for getting into little spaces - but it takes the old blades as well. They might not improve the quality of my models, but they might make things easier.
-
Just a suggestion - but have you tried e-mailing Customer Services at Airfix direct with a proposal along the lines of "We are a bona fide educational organisation, and we'd like to buy a dozen or so Spitfires for a group build project for children at wholesale prices - or better still, free as a community supporting project!". Sometimes a direct approach bears fruit... But speaking as an ex-teacher (33 years in front of the blackboard!) I wish you luck.
-
Thanks for the warning!
-
Thanks for that update Kenneth. As "H14 French Blue" still exists as an acrylic colour in the Humbrol range, I shall investigate!
-
I looked in all the usual places (websites!) for the Airfix one, but to no avail. If you can remember, which shade of blue did you use? It looks very close to the colour/tone that I remember from seeing the 'real' thing in my childhood when it was an exhibit on Southampton Pier. And your excellent model has inspired me to get cracking on it fairly soon. Thanks for sharing.
-
The first one was meant to be an easy build after the trials and tribulations of building and rigging the 1/72 Demon - although the paint job will be a bit tricky just using brushes to finish this Fiat G50:
And the second one rather contradicts my determination to avoid rigging for a while - but it links logically to my Spitfire obsession - just a shame that I had to look at other than Airfix for this Supermarine S6B:
-
Thanks for the kind words Randall. Hope you enjoy the build - and good luck with the rigging!
-
Rather misguidedly (in some ways) I was so enthused by my recent build of the Airfix Vintage Classic Bristol Bulldog that I decided the similar vintage (but much older packaging and moulding) of the Hawker Demon 1/72 was a logical follow-on. Note to self: next build will not be bare-metal finish, and will not involve complicated rigging.
I found it quite a tricky build – usual problem of not enough fingers to get all the struts aligned correctly – and also there were one or two fit issues, but nothing that a bit of judicious sanding and quite a bit of filler couldn’t disguise. I knew from the start that the decals that came in the kit were totally ‘shot’ – they’d gone extremely brittle and a fairly uniform yellow, so the above view of the finished aircraft shows the replacement set from Model Decal quite nicely – I liked the colours and patterns of the 600 Squadron Auxiliary Air Force ‘City of London’ based at Hendon in 1937, so that’s what I ended up with. The Model Decal set 108 also includes options for lots of other Hawker Hart, Hind, Audax and Osprey variants – though maybe they’re for another day…
One good thing though was that the decal set also included instrument panels for all the various aircraft, so that helped to fill the otherwise totally empty cockpit (with the addition of a plasticard 'backing' panel). I also added a 'leather' coaming and a little windshield.
The pilot and air-gunner were standard Airfix aircrew from the kit, but by giving them white overalls, hopefully I kept them ‘period’.
Having cut my teeth on rigging a biplane with a simplified version of that required for the Bulldog, I tried to add a few more wires to the Demon, again using AK Super-Thin. There is not much room to work at 1/72 scale, but I was quite pleased with the rigging outcome. The propellor was given a semblance of woodenness by a series of various colours of streaked paint, finally gloss varnished.
The paint finish, incidentally, is all brush applied, and I tried out the Ammo Bare Metal Air Set, using Silver for the cowling, and Matt Aluminium for the doped surfaces, and Gun Metal for the exhausts (the ends of which I also painstakingly drilled out). The Matt Aluminium areas - after application of decals – were sealed with Vallejo Satin Varnish, again brush applied.
So that’s the Airfix 1/72 Hawker Demon done and dusted. The next build is going to be a lot more modern, and will not be silvery coloured, and will not require rigging! But I’m sure the spare decals will get used eventually.
Thanks very much for reading my rambles and for looking at the pictures.
-
Hi Ratch
You're right about the need to get quantities right, but I would have thought that the demand would be quite high for the enamel badge. I too have a couple of oldish ones.
As to the tee-shirts, I'm sure Airfix could link up with a tee-shirt printer from whom the order could be made, meaning that Airfix wouldn't actually have to hold the stock themselves.
-
Just a thought - whilst I think that the benefits to be gained from Club membership are fine and actually good value - not least the Club 'special' kit, and the magazine, and of course the 10% reduction and Air Miles - might it be possible for the Club to have Airfix tee-shirts available, and perhaps also an enamel Club badge? IPMS (as an example) has a very nice enamel badge available to its members, and I'd certainly order a couple of tee-shirts with a suitable Airfix logo. Perhaps the Club could run a competition to design one?
As I say - just a thought - but I guess if Airfix thought that there might be an easy (and profitable) market for such items, they could be persuaded...
-
I've just checked my original text - and the floatplane kit was actually made by PM Models, not AM as I posted. Apologies. I can only blame the time of day (pm rather than am...). That said, if you're willing to overcome some of the fit issues of the kit, and don't mind using lots of filler, it does build into a reasonable facsimile of a very rare variant.
For info, the base is just a piece of foam board with bits cut out to take the floats, and painted/textured using thick artist's acrylic paints.
-
Although I do actually build other aircraft (and AFVs!) as well, I have to confess that the plethora of Spitfire variants available, combined with a fascination for such an iconic aircraft, make the Spitfire a definite “go to”, so I’ve just completed a more or less simultaneous build of three more Spitfires to add to my collection – and of the three latest builds, two of them were Airfix!
The first was the Airfix 1/72 PRXIX model. I’d already done one in Swedish livery, so this one was built to represent the other set of decals in the box, that of 81 Squadron in 1954, based in Malaysia, which is interesting in itself because I was living there at the time (although as a two year old, I wouldn’t have much recollection thereof!). I added to the OOB decals with some spare stencils for late variant Spitfires, and also I put a bit of wheel-well detail in before putting the wings together. The driver was an addition from the spares box as the kit supplied one was completely out of scale.
The second of the trio, again an Airfix model was the delightful to build new mould 1/72 Mk Vc – again built OOB and representing the 307th Fighter Squadron based in North Africa in 1942. Interesting to do it as a ‘different’ colour scheme, complete with blotted out roundels on the upper wing, and the shark mouth decal – whilst needing a large amount of Microsol – enlivens the look. It was a real pleasure to build this one – being a new mould, it’s exceptionally well-engineered and went together very well.
The third one saw a deviation from Airfix, because it was the AM Models 1/72 scale Floatplane variant, of which only a very few were actually built – three, as far as I could discover. And it was a nightmare to build! What a shame Airfix don’t do this otherwise rather interesting and impactful version. To get the lower extension to the tail plane involves a certain amount of micro-saw surgery and lots of filling to get the supplied part to fit and blend in with the back of the fuselage, and the lack of locating pins was an additional headache. If I were doing it again, I’d buy the kit just for the floats (which seem to be quite accurate) and graft them on to an Airfix model, also using the AM supplied tail-plane bottom. I also had to source replacement decals because the AM-supplied ones were more or less see-through, and fell apart anyway...
So three inevitably similar looking – in terms of basic shape anyway – aircraft, but each with a very different story to tell, and each, in their own way, enjoyable to build. They were all brush-painted, using my usual Vallejo Model Air acrylics. Thanks for looking.
-
One advantage to reaching the ripe old age of 70 is that you can ask for a special present, so here is the first one that I've received:
And here is the second one, which I've been trying to find for ages (at a sensible price) to go with my recently acquired Walrus:
Happy Days!
-
A few of you might have glanced at a post I added recently (‘Vintage Classic Bristol Bulldog’) about my first attempt at biplane rigging. Well, I must be a glutton for punishment, because I saw this Hawker Demon at an unavoidable price, so even though I can see through the blister-pack that the decals are totally shot, I thought I’d have another go at a silver biplane with a need for rigging. But I’ll finish the new tool kit that I’m currently working on first!
-
Hi DB - thanks for the info ref the Jupiter, and also for the pic of very Heath-Robinson looking starter device.
-
Just for a change from WW2 (and 1940 BoB in particular) I fancied having a go at something a little earlier – although there is of course a connection to my more usual period in that it was in a Bristol Bulldog that Douglas Bader had his crash. So I decided that the Vintage Classic Bristol Bulldog should be next to come out of the pile waiting to be built.
It was certainly an absorbing build. For a kit of its age (or VINTage) it had lots of extraordinary detail, not least in terms of the engine which I presume (by comparing it to pictures) is a fairly good representation of the Bristol Mercury III radial engine. It certainly was a mini-kit in itself, and I had lots of fun with a variety of metallic paints! And I tried my best to get a reasonable varnished wood effect on the propeller by starting off with a base coat of yellow then a thin coat of dark brown and then a very thin coat of dragged on light brown and finished with gloss varnish. The tip of the spinner would have had some kind of lifting bolt or shackle (again according to pictures that I found) so I added a semblance of that by drilling a little hole and inserting a bit of stretched sprue.
The only bit of the build that was not scratched or OOB was the instrument panel which came from Yahu. As it was an open cockpit, I wanted something to fill the hole in front of the pilot!
After a bit of experimentation, most of the airframe was painted using Vallejo Silver, whilst the front of the fuselage was painted with Vallejo Aluminium (which is just different enough to give an idea of different materials being used). I stuck to the paint scheme by using Vallejo Dark Green on the top of the fuselage. All the paint was applied using a variety of brushes. Once the decals had been applied (and because of its construction, the upper wing decals and the little stencils on both the upper wing and lower wing have to be applied prior to joining) all the silver painted areas were given a coat of Vallejo satin varnish, making the engine cover seem even more metallic (in my eyes, anyway!).
Putting the upper wing on to the cabane and wing struts was an absolute nightmare – I needed at least six very much smaller fingers, but I managed it in the end with not too much touching-up to be done to cover up the scratches. And then it was on to the next part of the challenge, which was to add the rigging. It’s the first time I’ve tried to add rigging to an aircraft (other than wireless antenna), and arguably perhaps a larger model might have been a better introduction to this part of the modeller’s “trade” – but overall, although I simplified the rigging shown on the box-art, I was pleased with outcome. For the rigging I used AK Super-thin.
So it was a not entirely straightforward construction project, but I learned a few new skills, and I’m actually very pleased with the outcome. I hope you think I did a reasonable job, and thanks for taking a look.
-
I've been looking for an Airfix 1/72 scale Supermarine Walrus for ages (still think it would make a great new mould, paired with a new mould RAF
ASR Launch!) and finally found one at a sensible price. The box is a bit battered, but the contents seem to be OK. -
Mainly aircraft - at the moment, all 1/72 scale, and principally WW2. Particularly interested in BoB era, and available display space precludes large heavy bombers, so mainly fighters. Also, I've tried to build all the types that are covered by the Airfix Magazine Guides of Fighters of WW2 (haven't done the Havoc yet...) and all the types that flew from RAF Warmwell (just down the road). That said, I've also had a go at AFVs, and lots of vehicles to enhance RAF airfield dioramas. No ships yet, but I've got a 1/600 HMS Belfast on the shelf awaiting my attention. So a fairly broad approach - I just enjoy the opportunity to sit quietly and concentrate; I also enjoy the opportunity to research the individual models and perhaps vary the decals - but I usually build out of the box. And lastly, I'm a 'returning modeller' - but thoroughly enjoying it after an almost 60 year break!
-
I’ve long been an admirer of the box art that has adorned Airfix kits for so many years and so rather than just build a model for its own sake, I decided to attempt a recreation of some Vintage Classic box art – in this case, the Scammell Tank Transporter, complete with the Churchill tank (featured on the box, though not included!).
I must say that the instructions for the Scammell were as vintage classic as the moulding! In some areas, it was very difficult to work out where bits went as the curvy locating arrows in the diagrams were about as much use as a chocolate teapot. The only extra ornamentation for the Scammel were a few scratch built bits in the luggage locker under the cab, glazing for the cab and a few oil drums made from suitable sized sprue and also a chain joining the ends of the ramps. The green paint was Ammo Mig British 1939-45 Smart Set SCC15 Olive Drab, with Vallejo being used for the tyres and mud.
The Churchill tank was very much as I remembered it from when I last built it when I was very much younger. The tiny little wheels and springs were somewhat intricate, and quite tricky to align, but it was actually quite an enjoyable model to build. One advantage of the design of the tank was that you can hide the track join under the side skirts. As for the Scammell, it was very much OOB, with a couple of aerials being added, and a driver and commander (from the WW2 British Infantry set, suitably carved about). The hardest bit was drilling out the gun muzzle. Paint was as for the Scammell.
Whilst the Mig Ammo paint is apparently very accurate in terms of colour, it dries to a more or less gloss finish, so both models were brush-painted with Vallejo Matt varnish at the end.
The base for the mini-diorama was constructed using household filler applied to a bit of plywood with a spatula, and the tyre-tracks created by dragging a suitable scale (in terms of wheel width) die-cast car through it. It was then painted using acrylics, with a suitable background created to mimic the box art.
Altogether, a pleasing little project. Hope you like it.
-
Thanks peebeep. I'm building the Lysander as the 2 Squadron plane that was lost when flying from Abbeville on 17/05/1940.
Airfix - What's your Latest Acquisition?
in General Discussion
Posted
I know I said that I wanted to avoid biplanes (and rigging) for a while, but at least these aren't bare metal finish! I feel a dog-fight coming on...