Ian Meadows

I have one from "The Inner Nerd", very good especially as I don't have a dedicated workbench so good to hold the model safe during the week when the workbench is the office desk. The old method of paint pots often saw the odd crash landing!

Thanks both - quite pleased with it. Varish and decals this weekend hopefully.

Thanks again for the advice - it's not going to win any prizes but I am quite pleased with results so far.

Thank you all - glad I asked as painting them first was not an option I'd considered. I'll give that a go, thanks again. Ian

Hi Probably a daft question but I've never done an aircraft with the D-Day stripes before, and I am starting the Beaufighter TF.X now. Any advice on the invasion stripes? Do you paint the aircraft as normal, mask off then couple of coats of white, then add the stipes or would you when painting leave "a gap" where the stripes go to avoid having to add lots of white to cover the colour? I've given up on airbrushes for the moment, so I'll be using brushes if that makes any difference? Also, would the lines have crisp edges? In my head I would think they would have been done quickly at airfields so may not be that crisp but not sure. Thanks in advance Ian

Looking very nice. Leaving the engine open as well?

Good luck with whichever you go with. I am going to wait a bit before I start - not even sure if my desk will be big enough to build it!

Look forward to seeing further progress, looking good so far. I am trying to decide on brush or airbrushing mine. I recently bought a cheap airbrush and my "skills" are still limited so I am leaning to brush painting this - are you airbrushing?

Looking great so far!

Thank you everyone - glad I can leave this without, but that liquid gravity stuff looks amazing, will be getting some of that for future projects! Thanks again for the help.

Thank you for getting back to me - interesting to see any other thoughts but I am going to get some of that liquid gravity. That's a new one on me and shows how far the hobby has come on since I was a kid! The days of gluing old nuts and bolts inside the nose have ended! I'd only found one build video and the person fixed the model "in-flight" on a stand so had no issues with tail strikes. I thought about it but the option to do with the radar out and the lack of crew in the kit put me off. Thanks again Ian

Sorry this is probably a daft question but... I've not built a nose wheel model since starting this building stuff again, sticking to WW2 models. In the past I remember having a number of models blue tacked to my shelf as a teenager as I'd forgotten nose weight. I recently bought the Phantom FG.1 (RAF) and I've been looking through the instructions and I can't see any reference to nose weight, plus I fancy the idea of the open nose anyway so not sure where to put any. Anyone done this model and can confirm that it doesn't need weight adding? Thanks in advance.

Cheers - it's how I normally do it but the last few cutting round the stencils even with a scalpel was virtually impossible the blade was almost wider than the gap. Maybe a razor blade is needed going forward.

I was wondering what others think about some of the modern decal sheets? The quality is very good and the colours etc are great but I have found a few recently the sheets are so small the individual decals are squashed together making it difficult to use without damage. Just working on the 1/48 mk1 Tropical Hurricane and had a nightmare with the wing stencils. Upper and lower all mixed together and so cramped together a couple got damaged when I was cutting them out. I appreciate that smaller equals less cost but a fraction larger would make a big difference. Is it just me seeing this? Am I approaching decals wrong? Should I be doing upper and lower stencils for example at the same time - ie just cut all out at once, soak the lot and work quickly? Any thoughts or tips?

Looks great - I've just attached the wings and fuselage on the Mk1 Tropical. I've plucked up the courage to open one of the gun bays! No airbrush so mine will be hand painted which is going to be fun with the silver leading edges etc.