Sailorman

Very nice. Great to have another boat model maker here! We tend to be outnumbered by the wingy ones!

Thanks .... I love liner models ...

Have put the Tristar aside for a few days to allow glues and fillers to shrink before final inspection/ filling/ sanding and painting. In the meantime I've been working on the DC10. Scribing took ages - there are so many panel lines. Still need to correct the errors and some more sanding and filling before attaching the wings and engines ....... should bring it to the same stage as the Tristar by the end of this week ..........Now the search begings for the colour schemes and decals!

Great build!

Lovely builds you guys!

Lovely stuff! Very well done.

A bit more progress on this build. Wings tail and engines are glued on. It has been primed and sanded with 1200 grit wet and dry sandpaper and the surface is silky smoot. All set for the next stage - painting. I won't start that yet to allow time for the filler and glue to shrink. Either way, I can't start painting yet as I don't know what colour scheme I'm going for! .... The problem is that mine is an old issue kit and the decals are past their sell by date!

Actually, the P1127 was a kit many wanted ....i want it and I still haven't managed to get it!

Interesting John ........Incidentally the Beach Buggy was in fact re issued last year. I bought one!

Hi Jeff you are a kindred spirit! I too build to a scale of 1:600 and though I have all the Airfix 1:600 ships, I've only built half of them. I am mostly interested in liners. Unfortunately, the Airfix range is rather limited so I too am into scratch building. My "fleet" numbers around 50 ships some 26 of them being liners. Most are scratchbuilt. I tend to post one or two pictures on this site of each scratchbuild as I complete it. This doesn't promote any other manufacturer so it should be fine.

To an extent it is possible to post pictures of kits by other manufacturers on this site but one must remember it is an "Airfix" website not a general model making site. Hence it should not be used to "advertise" other manufacturers!

WOW .... I've been after one for donkey's years ........ Lucky you. I built one some time around 1970 .... it was amazingly detailed for the time. I think you can get a vacform shroud to cover the open base .....but then you lose all the detail .....

Looking good!

You need to get to the Airfix Forum. The page looks like this. Then click on the box "Airfix" in the menue on the right hand side. This will untick all the boxes which will become white - empty. Then tick the subjects you are interested in your case Aircraft, military vehicles and Humbrol (techniques, tips.......) and you will only see the ones you are interested in. ou will see a list of different sections ....

I haven't buit that specific kit, but If it were me building it, I would mask the clear part and paint the full width of the invasion stripes in white then mask the white when it has dried in order to paint the black stripes. Alternatively, one could paint the white and then cut the black parts out of the white decal strip and fix those. Suggest you wait a day or two perhaps someone has built that specific kit and can offer other suggestions.

There are 3 fora: Airfix, Hornby (trains) and Scalextric. Be sure you are posting in the AIrfix one. You should be seeing the same page as the image attached to the post. If you tick the box in the menu on the right hand side where it says AIRFIX FORUM you will "untick" all the black boxes. You can then tick any one of the sections you are interested in .....for example "Aircraft" and you will see ONLY the posts that are in the Aircraft section. With them all ticked you see all the posts from all sections. This might be a bit confusing as the posts for all sections will be shown. If you have any specific questions post them here and Ratch and I will try to answer them.

A lot of panel lines have now been scribed. Some more work required on the Starboard fin ....but will get there soon. In the pic below you can see the lines have been painted very roughly with matt black. I do this to check for errors. They are easy to identify and I am in time to correct them after they are sanded. A quick sanding down with fine wet'n dry sandpaper using lots of liquid soap and warm water and the model ends up looking like the second photo. Incidentally, wings and tailplane have not been cemented in place yet. I'll do that after everything is filled and sanded. Unfortunately, the fuselage halve either didn't fit very well or I made a poor job of cementing them together. There is a lot of sanding / filling required to make the fuselage joint acceptable. When I finish this stage of the job I will assemble the wings, engines and tailplane and leave it aside for a week or two. I find that the glue / filler tends to shrink over the first few days and even though the joint is invisible it will appear again. Giving it time to shrink will mean I can go back and fill it again. Hopefully, it will then remain invisible.

In the meantime I've continued scribing panel lines. Main wings top and bottom are also complete. I'll scribe a few lines in the wheel wells to give a bit of interest and glue them together. Once dry, I will sand them down and clean out the panel lines ensuring that the points where they meet up are clean and tidy. Incidentally the black you see is just pencil lead as I run a pencil along each scribed line as I complete it so that I would know which are done and which aren't I need to glue the fuselage together before I can start to scribe its panel lines since these wrap around the full perimeter. Same for the engines.

More progress. Yesterday I built up a small plasticard "box" to serve as a container for the lead weight. I built this behind the cockpit bulkhead. Once the bits of lead were inside I pured in some resin to bind them all together and thus ensure they won't move around. Now I'll glue a plasticard lid to secure everything. I'll double check that I've put enough lead in before I glue the fuselage together. I've also painted some areas that might be visible later on in the build using matt black.

You can actually use the camera to help you when building. Take photos and zoom in on your pc. You'll see all the areas you need to fix. I do that .....especially with my ship models

Today I weighted the noses of both kits and painted the inside areas that will be visible with Matt Black. I've also started the tedious process of scribing new panel lines since the ones on this kit are raised. So nice to have recessed panel lines in the new kits! These are the Tristar tailplanes with their new scribed lines ready for sanding and cleaning up and then assembly.

I will be using Revell Gloss white No 70 for the upper fuselage. I will apply it using an airbrush.

Hi Chris. Yes we have a new site with all the whistles and bells. Much better than the old one though it needs a bit of fine tuning. You'll get used to it in no time but if you have any questions just ask.

First step is gluing in all the open doors and hatches. The Tristar has 12 of them. Leaving them open would mean scratch building the interior which I am not really interested indoing! thankfully the DC10 doesn't have any open doors. Less filling and sanding. Gone are the days when I used to love having opening parts ....! Once that is done I will assemble the planes using masking tape so as to determine the amount of lead I need to pack into the noses to ensure they don't end up as tail sitters. That will allow me to glue the fuselages together. Once this preparatory work is done I can get started on scribing the panel lines. Will post pictures as I go along.

Now that I've completed my scratchbuilt 1:600 SS Windsor Castle (see image below) ,it's time for something a bit easier. I've pulled these two beauties out of my stash and will be tackling them together. Amazing how similar the planes were to each other!