propeller

HKM 1/48 Lancaster B1 Special “Grand Slam”

/ Bruces Scale Models / 1 Comment
  • Purchased; 2024
  • Completed; 2026
  • Enhancements;
  • Gun Barrels- Quickboost
  • Exhausts-CMK
  • Seat belts- Eduard
  • Wheels- Armory
  • Decals – combination of 1man Army and home made masks

The reasoning behind my decision to make two 1/48 Lancasters at the same time must surely rate as “It seemed a good idea at the time”. It also sounds like it would be a long involved 6 month slog a build. But it really wasn’t that onerous or painful to be honest. In major part, due to the not-as-complex-as-it-looks HKM kit. The main reason for this build was an old ADS decal sheet I unearthed whilst researching my other Lancaster build One of the schemes was a post war Lancaster in Light Earth and Green with Ocean Grey undersides and red outlined yellow codes, the opposite of the normal yellow outlined red codes that came into being in 1944.

This scheme quite appealed to me as it would really ring the changes of the Grand Slam model when placed alongside my previous build.

Construction Notes

Nothing too different here compared to the other Lancaster obviously. HKM have done a good job calling out the Grand Slam specific parts in their kit, and noting any modifications needed such as cutting off the head armour on the pilot’s seat. It would have been nice if they had included the Stabilised Automatic Bomb Sight though as this was fitted to all B1 Specials. It and its associated supports are very noticeable in all photos. Also missing but needed for the B1 Special is a canopy with the tall astrodome. Whilst addressing the SABS, the kit astrodome was not modified.

Again all the rear windows will need to be filled and the surface details rescribed. These Specials were late war builds, and the rear windows had been well and truly deleted from the production line by this stage. Again, a lot of the interior was left out as it will never been seen.

My SABS was cobbled together using parts from a Norden bombsight and is nowhere close to the real thing. I just wanted a bigger bombsight to be visible through the Bomb Layer’s blister. Again I had to pare down the rear decking to allow the canopy to fit properly. It was glued with Tamiya Extra thin and clamping gently applied to ensure it sat correctly. All this ensuring it was well and truly glued down came back to haunt me, as we will see.

As the exhausts on the Special are unshrouded, more detailed aftermarket items from CMK were used rather than the bland kit ones. The fairings for the covered turrets are not a bad fit. With a bit of care a better fit than on my model can be easily achieved.

The slots for the tail fins and holes for the tailplanes will need gentle easing out to assist the fit of these parts. The slots on the wings that fit the tabs on the fuselage were also sanded to allow easier sliding on of the wings.

Painting the beast

Again, the model was painted as subassemblies comprising fuselage, wings and tailplanes with the fins left separate at this stage. This makes painting and handling the model so much easier, especially if like me, you only have a small paintbooth. There has been much conjecture on the scheme of these Grand Slam/Tallboy bombers. Some people subscribing to the theory they were not Light Green/Light Earth at all but normal Dark Earth and Dark Green that had faded. The ADS instructions state my particular aircraft was examined close up by the noted aviation artist C Rupert Moore and he indeed noted it as LG/LE with Ocean Grey undersides. Looking through various responses to the question of Grand Slam bombers on Britmodeller pointed me to the original article on the colours being published in a Scale Models issue from 1973. As an aside there was a bit of dismissal of Moore’s eyewitness account of the colours, until a poster reminded members that dismissing the knowledge of these people was done at people’s peril.

A lot of these UK aircraft spotters kept quite detailed contemporaneous notes of aircraft they had viewed on wartime airfields. In Moore’s case, as an Aviation artist he also had with him samples of MAP colours. I was reminded of various so called experts dismissing the notes and observations of wartime spotters who called out blue Mustangs. Despite being close enough to write down the code letters and serial numbers!

A shout for help to a good friend who has the entire collection of Scale Models resulted in me gaining a scan of the relevant article. It contained much useful information on YJ-Z, the subject of the decal sheet and also alerted me to a few faults that ADS had made with the decals for this particular aircraft. In particular, the codes on the top and bottom of the stabilisers were yellow only and did not have the red outline the fuselage codes did. The top of the letters were closest to the elevator hinge line, not as ADS have them reading from the trailing edge of the elevators.

There is no conclusive evidence as to why these particular bombers were painted in this scheme, the best theory being that the day camouflage scheme in the lighter colours made them stand out to the rest of the formation as the lightly armed Grand Slam/Tallboy bombers. The Lancaster was very much operating at its all up weight threshold carrying these weapons and all excess weight that could be removed from the aircraft was. C. Rupert Moore details in his article how they followed a fully laden Lancaster down the runway. Upon takeoff he described how the wings flexed “quite alarmingly” As well as removing the pilots armour and radios, the navigators chair was replaced by a wicker one! I didn’t try to portray this on my model though.

Recipes for mixing the Light Earth and Light Green using Tamiya colours were again sourced from Britmodeller. The LF Camouflage masks were reused for the upper surfaces with blutack being used to extend the colours down the fuselage sides. It really does look quite smart in the lighter colours with the grey undersides. To the point, the choice was made to keep the weathering down to a minimum.

Masks were again cut for the national insignia and codes.. The yellow codes with the red outlines were trialled due to the red codes not standing out enough against the lighter camouflage. I have no idea of the results of the trial, but to me, reversing the colour of the codes would not have made that big a difference.

As with the Lancaster some panels were masked and post shaded with lighter shades of the colours to mimic oil canning. This time around, it worked quite well. Moore describes in his article how a lot of the aircraft had red doped patches around the top turret blanking plates. No doubt to fix leaks. In my model I initially used thin strips of Tamiya tape to portray this, but it just didn’t look right, so resorted to just a rough painted ring.

Exhasust stains were applied as per previous Lancaster article

And now for this model’s stuff up……..

Final assembly done and time to unmask all the transparencies……..which revealed I had inadvertently left a couple of the interior masks on

Of course the canopy had been glued down with extra thin rather than PVA which I keep meaning to use, but never actually do. Until something like this happens, making me vow all over again to “use PVA next time”. The bright idea of pushing in the side panel occurred to me. The stupid things kept coming loose anyway. Of course now that I wanted them to actually come out, the stupid panel refused to budge. Eventually the Flight Engineer’s side fell in landing on the cockpit floor. Tweezers could not get to it, and shaking the model left me with the horrifying vision of it disappearing down into the rear of the fuselage. Ever increasing violent shaking did not dislodge it. This left me with the only option of removing the whole canopy. Remember how I made sure it was securely glued down?

Well it came away very cleanly, leaving no glue marks at all to clean up.

In. My. Dreams!

Of course it didn’t come away cleanly, in fact snapping and leaving a remnant firmly still glued in place.

No option now but to order a new clear sprue from HKM . This duly arrived costing me about AUD35. It also left me fairly impressed with HKM’s after sales service. Communication from them was excellent. I’d imagine if they were replacing missing or faulty parts there would be no charge, but don’t quote me!

This time around handles for the sliding portions of the canopy were fashioned from thin copper wire, being glued into place with small drops of PVA. Removing the canopy masking this time revealed no interior masking unintentionally left on. Well it wouldn’t would it as I only used an exterior set this time. What it did reveal though was a smudge near the central windscreen frame. AAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH. I can remove the canopy as PVA glue was used this time, but honestly, to quote Doogs Models, I’d run out of fucks. At least the option is still there to safely remove it if I want to sometime down the track. The handles on the inside do look good though.

The Specials had treaded tyres, so a set from Armory were used as the kit only provides smooth tyres.The Armory wheels slipped straight onto the HKM axles without needing further drilling out. The rear turret was pushed in and a small whip antenna from thin wire added along the spine for the one radio that wasn’t removed.

And with that, she’s done. And Im done with 48 scale Lancasters!

Final Thoughts

Not much to add that hasn’t already been said about this kit in my last Lancaster article. The modified day camouflage scheme certainly rings the changes on this version and stands it apart from the standard bomber version. HKM’s Dambuster boxing also graced my stash along with these two, but it’s since been moved on.

I think 2 Lancasters are enough……..Or, are they?

Avro Lancaster B1(special). 617 SQN RAF Woodhall Spa UK 1945

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HKM 1/48 Lancaster B1

/ Bruces Scale Models / 2 Comments
  • Purchased; 2021
  • Completed; 2026
  • Enhancements;
  • Instrument Panel -Eduard Look
  • Seat Belts-Eduard
  • Propellers- alans3dmodels.co.uk
  • Gun Barrels – Quickboost
  • Wheels- Brassin
  • Radiator screens-Eduard
  • Bombsight -Eduard.
  • Decals- Combination of 1Man Army, Top-Notch and home made masks

Avro’s Lancaster always loomed large in my childhood. Growing uo in Perth West Australia, one only had to visit the Airport in the 70s and 80s to see a real one up close. Parked at the entrance to the airport – for a while next to a Mosquito – in a fenced enclosure, it had been donated to the WA RAAF Association by the French Aeronavale. Once a month it was open to the public, and you could even clamber inside for a small fee.

Consequently in my mind, it has always remained as THE most iconic strategic bomber of The Second World War. Although this has not really been reflected in the number of Lancaster models completed by me over the years.

First there was the Revell 1/72 model completed as S Sugar during my childhood, then the Airfix one., which was completed as G-George. The Tamiya 1/48 kit was also purchased upon its release, but I have no recollection of actually building it! The yellow outlined codes and quote on the nose stayed with me though, and I determined to pay homage to it with this model.

The Hong Kong Models 1/48 Lancaster

If you still have the Tamiya kit in your stash……Sell it and buy this one! There no comparison. It really does make the old Tamiya kit obsolete. Fine recessed surface detail, a far more detailed and accurate interior, not that you can see much of it, and, most importantly, it contains most of the parts you will need to also build a late model Lancaster including the larger Bomb Aimer’s blister, which was sadly lacking from the Tamiya kit, thereby limiting it to a early Lancaster only. This boxing only has the needle propeller blades though, so again limits it to early and mid life Lancasters. It would have been great if HKM also included the paddle blades as well, but early and late style pitots are included as are various aerial fits. The fit and engineering are also good with solid locations for the undercarriage, as well as the option to have dropped or retracted flaps. As this kit models the early S-Sugar, some modifications would be needed to reflect R5868 in the later stages of her life.

2 references were invaluable here. Ton-Up Lancs by Norman Franks and Wingleader Photo Archive No.5

I should add here, I rarely go into this much depth researching my builds, mainly because I want a speedy build, but for some reason, absolutely went down the rabbit hole on this particular aeroplane. I can see why some modellers are fascinated by this aspect of the hobby. What I found out was R5868 was a bit of a unique girl as her nose was a very early build, but in 1944 was attached to a new build rear fuselage, so had many late war features that would not otherwise be found on an early build aircraft like this.

Anyway, using the above two books the following list was compiled of changes that needed to be made to the stock kit to make a late war S-Sugar.

Paddle Blade propellers

Large Bomb Aimer’s Blister – comes in kit

Late Model rear gun turret -comes in kit (phew!)

Monica and Rebecca Aerials- included in kit

No rear fuselage windows,

H2S radar – comes in kit

All easily done as most of the parts were in the kit, aside from the paddle bladed props. Briefly, I considered contacting HKM to see if I could purchase the propeller sprue from their Grand Slam boxing, but scouring Britmodeller put me onto a UK modeller who has done a 3D set, so this problem was then solved.

Construction

Because I didn’t want to write ‘ construction started with the cockpit” (Hang on, did I just type that anyway!). I started building the wings and engine nacelles. Forewarned that the nacelles were a very tight fit over the engines, I left off the cam covers, parts M7 and M8. This made the fit a lot better, although you will still have to sand and rescribe the panel lines around the top of the engines. I found the radiators didn’t have the most solid of joints, so make sure you glue them securely. You don’t want them coming adrift once you’ve closed the nacelles as they are a bastard to get back into place. How do I know this? Well………

Whilst on the wings, HKM have moulded the aileron actuating rods as solid. I cut mine away and later replaced them with stretched sprue. Another small tweak was adding bare metal foil to the rear of the landing lights once they were cemented into the wing to represent the reflectors. A minor annoyance with the HKM instructions is that they do not clearly indicate where to glue the cable cutters or the engine intakes in Step 41. Looking closely at photos and using a simple jig like a piece of tape is your friend here.

Once the wing halves were glued and drying I glued the rear fuselage windows into place before slathering epoxy over them from the outside. Once this had dried they were sanded to remove all trace of them. From around late 43, these windows were removed completely from Lancasters and not just painted over. In a first for me, one of my many riveting wheels had exactly the same spacing as the kit rivets, so this was used to replace all the lost detail, and again once the fuselage seams had been filled and sanded. Whilst on the subject of windows, the wireless and navigator’s windows stood slightly proud of the surrounding fuselage, so these too had CA applied around their edges and were sanded back flush with the fuselage. Their clarity was then restored with Tamiya polishing compound and micromesh.

In building the interior, a lot of the parts aft of the Navigators station were left out, as they will not be visible anyway. An Eduard Look! Instrument panel was used instead of the kit panel. Take a bit of time with the cockpit as you will be surprised how much can be seen through that big canopy. Being an early build Lancaster, my interior was painted with SMS RAF Interior Green. The turrets were also completed at this time. Id suggest sanding the slots in the rear turret a touch wider to allow the PE spent shell chutes to sit a bit more securely.

Being initially an early build Lanc, the nose turret interior was painted silver, whilst the top and tail turrets were painted black as befitting a later build Lancaster. Gun barrels were replaced with Quickboost items after ever so carefully drilling holes in the breeches once the plastic barrels had been cut off. It’s annoying that you cannot add the nose turret fairing without first adding the turret, so both items were left until well after painting to add. The beauty of this kit is all major airframe parts can be completed separately, even to the painting and decalling stage. This feature certainly aids handling the model on the workbench, even so, as usual, I managed to clang wings and fuselage against desk lamps, spray booth etc! The turrets can also be left off until the final stage, which certainly helps with masking aside from the nose turret. I replaced the kit bomb sight with an Eduard 3D item, although the kit one is fine for all intents and purposes.

Unlike the Tamiya kit, HKM includes many late model Lancaster parts in their kit. In 1945 Sugar was fitted with the H2S radar , Rebecca aerials and large Bomb Aimers blister with the Z fitting. All these parts being included in the kit made building her in this configuration so much easier. It was just a matter of finding photos and following them. A bit of research also revealed the rear of the H2S blister was clear to allow the rearmost downward facing ID lamp to still be seen.

The Wingleader book was massively helpful here in pointing out various points on the airframe and differences between various builds. I cannot recommend them highly enough, nor the Britmodeller forum and the many helpful folk on it. You will find that you need to sand or scape away a bit of material from the rear deck where it meets the sides of the canopy to allow the canopy to sit down properly. Also the holes for the rear tailplanes need boring out a bit. This, the canopy and the nacelle tops were about the only major fit issues I experienced. The small gaps around where the nacelles sit into the undersides of the wing were easily filled with a bit of Perfect Plastic Putty. I found fitting the small Eduard etched screens for the side intakes quite fiddly until I decided to cut the small PE brackets away and just mounted them directly onto two thin strips of plastic card glued directly to the front of the intakes. From the side they are not noticeable and the strip is far sturdier than the thin folded PE.

Painting and Decalling

The topsides were first painted in SMS RAF Dark Earth. To this was added a healthy dollop of Tamiya Desert Yellow to give a bleached looking Dark Earth. This colour was used to paint the upper forward fuselage to the field break just in front of the main spar, as photos show the nose looking very faded. The rest of the upper surfaces were then sprayed SMS Dark Earth with just a touch this time of Tamiya dark Yellow to lighten it slightly. LF Models Lancaster Camouflage masking set was then applied to set all the correct demarcations and Tamiya RAF Dark Green Type 2 applied. Both these colours were then mottled with various lighter and darker mixes to produce a battered looking finish. Lancasters got absolutely filthy, very quickly, as evidenced by numerous photos, in the Wingleader book. So don’t believe the old “they didn’t last long enough to get dirty” line. Once the upper surfaces were done, they were masked off ready for the undersides to get painted. R5868 came from the factory with a higher than normal demarcation line above the line of the rear windows. The rear fuselage would have had the normal demarcation line just below the window line. (Told you I went down a rabbit hole on this!)

I added a stepped demarcation line to reinforce that this aeroplane was made from an early nose section mated to a rebuilt rear fuselage. The demarcation line under the Portside canopy was also freehanded as photos showed a lot of overspray her from touchups.

Another thing that stood out when looking at photos of Lancaster’s was the rippled skin, or “oil canning” on various parts of the fuselage and wings. Modellers have used scalpels along rivet lines or built up the individual panels in the past to portray this. I wanted to try just paint.. White pre shading was applied in various patterns along the rivet lines using tape and super thinned paint through the airbrush. SMS Camo Black was then sprayed over the top in very thin coats until the effect I wanted was achieved. I’m not saying this is the best or only way to mimic oil canning, but I was reasonably happy with my results when viewed from normal viewing distance. The black was also treated to various mottles with other shades of very dark grey and different blacks such as rubber, NATO Black, CARC Black etc. Codes and national markings were all sprayed through 1man Army and Top Notch masks. Getting consistent yellow outlines was an absolute Pain. In. The. Arse. The masks for the codes on the tail ended up getting completely mangled and deformed beyond all recognition. In the end I cut my own masks on my Silhouette machine. The tail codes were applied before the camouflage went on. This was a much easier way of doing it and I wish I had done all the markings this way

The below photos outline the process.

1Man Army even supply the Goering quote and the bomb tally as masks. I mangled the quote and crew decorations, but applied the mission markings successfully. an extra 2 rows were added to correctly reflect Sugar’s end of war tally, being 132 (125 officially). I even painted the bombs in different shades of yellow! The exhaust shrouds were painted Tamiya Deck tan, followed by a coat of hairspray. Black was then applied and a stiff water moistened brush used to chip away the black to achieve the effect of the black burning off exposing the asbestos underneath. Exhaust stains were done by first spraying a cloudy diffuse layer of Deck Tan over the wings and nacelles before adding Tamiya Black and Red Brown to the mix. In all honesty they should have been far more pronounced, but I chickened out a little.

Conclusion

I won’t bore you with all the final assembly steps, subject to say the wings were REALLY hard to push in to their proper locked location. Despite not being glued, they’re not coming off in a hurry! The only real faff was positioning the flaps, especially the inner ones, not sure there is any easy way to do this, apart from growing a third hand

So what do I think of Hong Kong’s Lancaster. I absolutely enjoyed every minute of it.which is just as well, given I built 2 in parallel. It has some minor accuracy issues, but I’ve long since stopped caring about these. There are a few flaws in my build, but it’s probably my favourite build of the year, and I just love looking at it in the cabinet. A lot of my builds either get sold or thrown out to make way for new models, but I think this and its Grand Slam brother will be gracing the cabinet for quite some time yet. Highly recommended if you have the room.

Avro Lancaster B1 467 SQN RAAF. Waddington UK May 1945

2 responses to “HKM 1/48 Lancaster B1”

  1. andyk21 Avatar
    andyk21

    Another great build and finish Bruce! Fantastic!!

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  2. HKM 1/48 Lancaster B1 Special “Grand Slam” | Bruce’s-Scale-Models Avatar
    HKM 1/48 Lancaster B1 Special “Grand Slam” | Bruce’s-Scale-Models

    […] kit. The main reason for this build was an old ADS decal sheet I unearthed whilst researching my other Lancaster build One of the schemes was a post war Lancaster in Light Earth and Green with Ocean Grey undersides and […]

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Accurate Miniatures 1/48 Tarpon MkII

/ Bruces Scale Models / 2 Comments
  • Purchased: 2024
  • Completed: 2026
  • Enhancements
  • Seats, – Brassin
  • Exhausts – Quickboost
  • Instrument panel and seatbelts – Eduard
  • Wheels – Eduard
  • Decals – custom made masks

Introduction

1/48 Avengers are the subject for this years “Thunderdome Build ” A small semi group build a few of my modelling mates conduct each year. Some finish, many don’t! ( Talking about YOU Gary ) The main contender for the kit choice being that we all have to have the chosen kit in our respective stashes.

My stash held two Avengers, one an original AM boxing, the other, an Italeri re-release. The intention was to build one and sell the other, however an inspection of both revealed one had been pre started and the other had many parts off the sprues.. That’s what you get for not checking boxes at swap and sellsI guess. Therefore it was decided to build both. One would be a Fleet Air Arm machine and the other, a USN machine. This would be my second AM build of the year, the first was the Dauntless, which I found an enjoyable build. This looked like it would be an equably enjoyable build..

Build Notes

Being a FAA machine, the first thing to do was build the second cockpit position FAA machines had behind the pilot instead of the radio equipment the USN aircraft had, and the kit provides.

The moulded on detail on the floor was cut and chiselled off and a new floor using 15 thou plastic glued on. A spare Wildcat bucket seat was then added with a mounting frame made from brass wire. Sutton harness from Eduard was added to all seats. I didn’t go overboard on the detail figuring A Not much would be seen, and B. There are scant references available for how this area looked. As my chosen subject was an Eastern Motors built aircraft, the whole interior was painted Interior Green with SMS. The bomb bay and engine cowling were then painted Yellow Zinc Chromate with Tamiya XF4. Again I found the AM instructions poor in regard to where parts actually located, despite the written descriptions, particularly when it came to assembling the turret interior.

The airframe assembly proceeded without problem. I cut off the moulded on wingtip formation lights to allow me to add CMK blue lamps later on. A MV lens was also added to the leading edge landing light as out of the box, there is nothing, just a blank bulkhead. The fuselage small oval windows were also faired in to the surrounding fuselage using CA. This was sanded down and then polished to restore the window clarity. The kit windows had quite pronounced framing which I couldn’t see on any photos and look much better with the filling and sanding work. Being a FAA machine large bubble windows were fitted instead of the large rectangular windows. Accurate Miniatures, showing excellent foresight, include the bulged windows on the clear sprue in the kit. For a FAA machine, ensure that the raked back aerial post is used, the post on the real aircraft being hinged to allow the aircraft to be stowed in the lower height British Hangars. Aside from the above little refinements, the model was pretty much built as per the instructions, and went together with no great difficulties.

Painting and Finishing

Being Eastern Motors built, my Avenger would be wearing ANA substitute colours. As far as the modeller is concerned, the main difference from the standard FAA colours is the use of ANA613 Olive Drab instead of Dark Slate Grey. MRP ANA Olive Drab was used for this The other colour used on the topside was ANA612 Sea Grey, which is pretty much Extra Dark Sea Grey. Tamiya XF24 standing in for this colour. All colours were lightened a touch with white. Undersides were Sky ANA 610. This shade was mixed from Tamiya colours using a recipe found on Britmodeller. After careful mixing, I was quite surprised the resultant colour wasn’t that far removed from RAF Sky, perhaps a touch greener. I was expecting a greyer colour as that’s what I have seen used on other models on line. For future FAA models of aircraft painted in ANA colours, I’ll just use a RAF sky straight from the jar.

All these colours were gone over with lightened and darkened mixes of each colour to make the aircraft look weatherbeaten and patched up in appearance. Reading about the raids conducted by these aircraft, very few escaped unscathed, in fact I would not be surprised if this actual aircraft was lost. All this battle damage repair, I’m sure would have lead to a multi hued surface, and then there is fading and being exposed to the elements on flight decks to contend with.

This website https://www.destinationsjourney.com/historical-military-photographs/grumman-avenger-in-british-service/ has some excellent photos of British Avengers.

Markings for the aircraft I wanted to do were not available as part of any decal sheet, so using an Aeromaster sheet to get the dimensions of the roundels, masks were cut on my Silhouette. The codes were sized against the photo and also cut, although these should probably have been about 2 mm less in height. Serial numbers from the Aeromaster sheet were rearranged to get the number. These and the maintenance stencils were the only decals used on the model.

I have to admit to feeling quite pleased with the results, especially as the markings had been completed in one go without all the touch-ups normally needed on one of my models.

Alas, I spoke too soon

In hindsight, YES, shaking a paint pen with the lid off AND over the model was reckless! This then led to repeated rounds of sanding priming and touch-ups to get back to where I had been a day ago. I would get a lot more models finished if I didn’t continuously have to do things twice.

If there was a silver lining to this, it was that I could introduce even more colour variations to the model. These aircraft suffered greatly through battle damage and exposure to the harsh sun and salt air, so would have started to look fairly tatty after not too long

Finishing

Modellers World grey brown wash was flowed into all the panel lines with the excess rubbed off. The transparencies were then added including that dreaded turret everyone seems to complain about fitting. In the end, it actually wasn’t that difficult. My next Avenger post will contain step by step photos on the procedure. The landing gear was added, fitting very securely into its large location slots. In fact, the engineering all through this kit was well thought out and resulted in a solid airframe. Quickboost exhaust pipes replaced the rather thick kit parts. They were base coated dark earth and then stippled with rust and light grey tones. You will need to remove the small location tab in the fuselage exhaust cutouts before glueing the resin items in place. The transparencies were then unmasked and an aerial line added from EZline (Yes, I know I said I would not use this stuff again )

Final Thoughts

It struck me halfway through this build in my 56 years of modelling this was the first time I had built an Avenger!

The kit itself went together reasonably quickly and painlessly and was an enjoyable build. On the shelf it further reinforces my thought EVERYTHING looks good in FAA colours!

Eastern Motors Avenger MkII. 857 NAS. Royal Navy FAA. HMS Indomitable 1944

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Accurate Miniatures 1/48 SBD-3 Dauntless

/ Bruces Scale Models / 4 Comments
  • Purchased: 2024
  • Completed: 2026
  • Enhancements:
  • Wheels – Brassin
  • Exhausts – Quickboost
  • Seatbelts – Eduard
  • Decals: – Furball Colours & Markings SBD Dauntless

This is the second AM Dauntless kit that has crossed the bench. The first being completed just after its release waaaaaaayyyyyy back in 1997. That one was an SBD-1 finished in the very striking “yellow wings” scheme. It stood out at the time as a fun build, and I’m happy to report the second time around the experience was the same.

Build

The build proceeded quickly and smoothly. This was an original boxing of the kit so I was surprised to find flash on some of the finer parts. The dive brakes were also warped, although this was a known feature of the kit, the thinness of them probably pushing the limits of moulding at the time.

Examining the parts also revealed just how much detail AM had moulded into them. The model certainly bears the hallmarks of Bill Bosworth’s time at Monogram. Time to get stuck in!

The cockpit was painted SMS Interior Green with details picked out using various Vallejo colours. Detail and Scale’s Dauntless book was used at the reference. AM supply clear plastic instrument panels with the dials being provided as a decal which is attached to the rear of the panel. The decals though are just black circles, so instead, the whole panel was painted black and drybrushed with various greys. The raised dial details were then touched in with a sharpened white pencil. A drop of gloss into each dial represented the glass. Seatbelts came from an Eduard SBD-5 set rather than using the lame kit supplied decal seatbelts. A point of annoyance with Eduard here. Eduard only give you lap belts though. No shoulder straps are provided at all. By the time of the -5, and indeed the -3, the USN was fitting shoulder harnesses . This is just Eduard being lazy again and probably relabelling an existing early Dauntless set.. All the cockpit components fitted securely in their given locations although the rear bulkhead on my kit needed a little bit of sanding to reduce its width to enable the fuselage halves to close without any gaps.

Very little filler was required on the model. The biggest application being where the bottom wing joins the fuselage. The fit here is not bad actually, and if the modeller doesn’t do as I did and manage to induce a step, it would just need some Mr Surfacer run around all the joins. However, my join needed an application of super glue to smooth it all out. During this process, the identification lights were drilled out to accept MV lenses. There is also a gap between the top dive brakes and ailerons that will need filling with plastic card.

Filler was needed around the cowl scoop and gun trough panel. Here I used Mr Surfacer, removing the excess withy some Mr Thinner on a cotton bud. The kit blast tubes were cut from the cowl gun breeches, to be later replaced with drilled plastic rod.. No filler was needed at the wing roots, the join being very tight straight from the box. Prior to commencing my build, online builds were consulted to see what other people had experienced with the build. Some comments were made about the AM instructions, which surprised me as my recollections of AM instructions were that they were incredibly helpful. Now, with the passage of time, my opinion has changed to……… Not. So. Much! The written description of the build sequence contains lots of helpful information, but the drawings are sadly lacking in both detail and precise locations of where to glue the parts. However, they are still streets ahead of Italeri’s woeful efforts with their reboxed AM kits. I briefly thought about riveting the airframe, but in the end decided not to.

Painting

This was going to get finished as the box Coral Sea scheme, but my eye was drawn to the scheme USN aircraft wore before this. Overall Flat Light Grey. It still had the early war stars complete with red dot, although sadly not those gaudy fin stripes. And It was a lesser modelled scheme, which is also a box ticker for me. Furball offered such a scheme on their Colours and Markings Dauntless sheet, out of print on their website, but I managed to source one locally from Star Hobbies and Collectables. (locally, being Australia)

MRP Light Gull Grey was used with the interior areas of the dive brakes being SMS Flat Red. Initially all the interiors were painted red, but a local club member pointed out that the well for the central flap/dive brake was supposed to be the underside colour. Thanks Geoff, who doesn’t love even MORE masking!

Prior to the sheet arriving, I decided to take a chance on the kit decals. The underwing roundel went on with no issues, bedded down on some Mr Setter. Some sparingly applied Mig AMMO decal fix saw it sink it the panel lines. The luck ran out though using the stencils as they broke up in the water. Time to stop for the day.

The next day started off well with the Postie delivering the Furball decals. It then took a dive when the decal set applied to the wing top star stained it due to my slightly too liberal application of the decal solvent. As it had to also lay into some vents on the wings, the decision was made to instead mask and paint the star in this location. The walkways were also painted rather than using the supplied decals. Furball decals were used in all other locations, including the stencilling.

The Jeffrey Ethell collection on Flickr has a photo of the actual aircraft.

I’ve reproduced it here, as I believe it’s actually an official USN photo taken over San Diego.

Comparing the photo to the Furball sheet, one sees Furball did not include the small number 14 on the wing leading edges. These can be made up from the various other numbers included on the sheet. The wingtop numbers were also placed more towards the front of the wing than Furball show on their instruction sheet.

As you can see from the photo, she’s a fairly clean airframe aside from that exhaust stain. There being no evidence of even oil leaks from the cowling. Note no spinner is fitted and the propeller tips are still the early three colours of (from the tip) red, yellow and blue Modellers World Brown Grey was used for the panel line wash. The exhaust stain was airbrushed with very thinned ( not thinned enough though!) Tamiya black XF1 and red brown XF64

Final Details

The landing gear locates very positively, thanks to AM’s excellent engineering. I wish more kits were like this, talking about YOU Eduard!

The small struts that link the gear doors to the oleos were replaced with .20 plastic rod. This is far easier than cleaning the kit parts up. The gunner’s rearmost canopy was very carefully cut from the one piece closed canopy AM provide. You can’t use the provided open canopy due to it being too small as its designed to be stacked under the other canopies

The aerial wire was lycra thread with small brass tube lengths used for the insulators. Small 2.4mm MV lens were used for the underside ID lights. These are like the MVP of my bits bin. Try to find small lenses these days! The Brassin wheels were superglued on after having the axle holes drilled out larger. Really Eduard, this could have been done at manufacture, you say on the packet they are for the AM kits. I’m sure some modellers will label this as nitpicking, but I find it incredibly irritating. Reskit are also the same, labelling their wheels as specific to a particular kit, but again, the axle holes always need drilling out to suit the kit axle. And with that, the Dauntless rolls off the bench -not literally I hasten to add – as my first completion for 2026.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed this kit, perhaps because I set out from the start with the view of just making it a quick straight forward build. To me, Accurate Miniatures kits, even when looked at with a 21st century eye still stand as great model kits . A true testament to the work that went into designing them at the time. Although there is more aftermarket out there for them now, you can still build a detailed kit straight from the box. Its streets ahead of the Hasegawa Dauntless and will probably wear the crown of “Best Dauntless in 48 Scale” for some years yet.

Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless. U.S Navy VS-5 USS Yorktown 1941

Hasegawa 1/48 B6N2 Tenzan

/ Bruces Scale Models / 1 Comment
  • Purchased; 2023
  • Completed: 2025
  • Enhancements: OOB
  • Decals: Myk-Design

For modellers that first built these kits upon their release, there is something comforting about returning to a Hasegawa kit, many years later. Yes, far better examples of their subjects can be found in other manufacturers ranges these days. However, there is still that wonderful emotive box art by Shigeo Koike. Those nicely moulded grey parts with their sharp, but shallow engraved panel lines the crisp detail, and, for the most part, a fairly uncomplicated build. Of course, there were also the odd fit issue, the not-quite-white decals, sometimes vague instructions, and not-quite-crystal-clear transparencies. The builds were usually very enjoyable, albeit the models could be a bit bland, Hasegawa not generally offering options for open hatches or separate control surfaces to give your model a bit of individuality.

Construction Notes

And so we come to Hasegawa’s Tenzan. It is a fitting end to my year’s builds. This one was going to be purely built from the box. It serves as a pause from my other sometimes long and protracted builds. The complication (there’s always a complication!) added by me was the decision to rivet the surfaces to add a bit of “busyness” to the airframe. To be fair, this wasn’t that much of a complication. It involves finding suitable drawings that show the rivet details. In this case, the drawings come from a Kagero Top Drawings book. The next steps are scaling the drawing up and transcribing the lines onto the model. A riveting tool is then used to push the rivets into the plastic. Search YouTube for “The Model Guy” who has a video of how to do it step by step. I couldn’t post the video here for some reason. After the riveting was completed, a black wash was run into all the rivets and panel lines to assess them. there were a few wonky lines! And as a friend mentioned there should also be river lines alongside all the panel lines as well.

The actual build proceeded with few real issues. There was a gap when joining the front cowling to the rear cowling, despite all the parts being lined up correctly. Talking to other modellers who have built the kit, it’s a known issue. Plastic card took care of this. after the problem was discovered far too late in the build.

I would suggest adding the cockpit sidewalls to their respective fuselage halves rather than the floor as the instructions illustrate. I found building the kit as per instructions, my sidewalls sat a bit proud from the cockpit sills. The kit includes the option of folded or extended wings. Poly caps hold the wings in either position. This allows the modeller to change the attitude of the kit, even after completion. I thought I was smarter than Hasegawa and left their wing ribs out choosing to reinforce the wings with plastic strip. Turns out I’m not smarter than Hasegawa though, as the floppy wingtips prove!

Painting and Decalling

MRP Super silver was first laid down on the centre section of the wings and fuselage. The next coat to follow was a lightened version of Tamiya IJN followed by another application, this time straight from the jar. All paints were thinned with Mr Hobby thinner.

Undersides were SMS Storm Grey, which is a grey with a slight tinge of green in it. I think it does a reasonable job of standing in for IJN Grey, of which I had none. Once the colours were set, a small worn piece of 800 grit wet and dry was used. This gently abraded the inner wings, just enough to allow the rivets to show through. While researching the unit’s history, I found out they were ferried to Truk Island and only flew a couple of missions after arriving before being wiped out. Thus my weathering on this aircraft is only slight. There is just some staining and touchups on the wings. Additionally, there is chipping around the cowling. None of the photos examined showed any sort of exhaust staining. Japanese contemporary photos are pretty much universally of poor quality though. Rather Ironic, really ! Speaking of the cowling, this was finished with SMS Blue Black, and the propeller with Tamiya Red Brown. Gunze Metallic Blue was used in the wheel and flap wells.

Decals were a brand called Myk-Design that I picked up whilst roaming hobby shops in Japan. The instructions are all in Japanese, but they do have a website with English instructions on how to apply. It was here that I discovered they had peelable film, like Eduard and HGW, Unlike Eduard though, the film on these is designed to be peeled off. They were applied over Mr Setter and left for 12 hours as per the instructions. The film peeled off very easily, , usually coming away in one big sheet. An oil wash mix using Abterlung dark green and black oil paint was applied to the upper surfaces with dark brown used on the undersides . The excess being wiped off before the final matt coat was applied.

Final Assembly

Somewhere along the way, the kit aerial mast was misplaced so a replacement was made from brass rod. It was filed to a rough aerofoil section before adding it to the model. The pitot tube was also fabricated from brass rod.. Whilst we are talking about fumbles, I also managed to glue the retraction struts to the wrong gear legs, and then snapped them off trying to remove them. In addition the locating holes for the gear doors were mistakenly filled as I thought they were ejector pin holes. I probably should have just built this as an in -flight model! Did I mention the gear door that I also managed to snap in half?

The included torpedo is one of the weaker parts of the kit, and a resin replacement was almost purchased before deciding it was going to be underneath, so not really visible. The kit part was therefore used. All these parts plug in due to Hasegawa’s copious use of poly caps as locating aids throughout the kit. In fact I don’t think Ive seen another aircraft kit that uses so many of the things, even Tamiya kits!

The antenna wire was EZ Line. My enthusiasm for this product though has started to wane. Its just too easy to introduce twists into the elastic, unless you reeeeeeaaaaaly stretch it out, which just puts undue stress on everything. Although in this case I had also glued a small length of micro tube to the top of the tail fin, The EZ line was just run through this and then glued in place

Conclusion

In the end, quite an enjoyable painfree build. Yes there are some compromises in detailing and paintwork, but I long ago reconciled myself to the fact that not every model built will be a showstopper. Its a compromise that needs to be made if you want your end game to be building as many models from your stash as you can, before you are forced to give up the hobby through age or medical issues.

To close, the Jill is quite a pretty aeroplane. There will be more Japanese builds in my future.

Nakajima B6N2 Tenzan. 251st Attack SQN. 551st Naval Flying Group. Imperial Japanese Navy. Chuuk Lagoon 1944

Trumpeter 1/48 Vickers Wellington Ic

/ Bruces Scale Models / 5 Comments
  • Purchased; 2016
  • Completed; 2025
  • Enhancements;
  • Gun barrels. Master Details
  • Flaps- Brengun
  • Fuel Dump Pipes – Quickboost
  • Decals: Xtradecals

I remember being quite excited at the news that Trumpeter was releasing this, as it filled a major gap in 1/48 RAF WW2 subjects. Its not a kit that has graced many competition tables or on line sites though, so that to me tends to indicate not many are getting built, perhaps as its a sizeable model once done.

Accuracy wise, it suffers from a too narrow undercarriage and very overstated surface textures.The undercarriage I could live with, the surface detail though had to be reduced. There is a reasonably complete interior, albeit somewhat simplified, that pretty much gets hidden away once the fuselage is closed up. Fit for the most part is good, but the kit shows its age as one of Trumpeter’s earlier releases with the parts not as sharply moulded as some of their later releases, and also exhibiting fine mould seams along mating edges. Perhaps the biggest plus of the kit are the THREE sprues of early RAF type bombs Trumpeter includes to load the bomb bay with various types of bombs. Transparencies are lovely and clear, but the decal sheet, as per usual with Trumpeter RAF subjects has markings with colours that are far too bright.

Construction

Even before construction started, several thick coats of SMS surfacer grey to the wing and horizontal stabiliser parts. Once dry, it was rubbed back until the kit surface detail showed as bare plastic . After being repeated a few times, the Trumpeter geodetic pattern had become somewhat subdued. This probably could have been taken further as it shows as quite subtle in photos, but I chose to leave it as was.

The colour call outs in the instructions were disregarded as mine would be an early war bomber and research on Britmodeller had uncovered more correct colours.

So on my kit, cockpit is RAF grey green as is the bomb aimers position. Mid fuselage is a brick red colour with silver framing. Floors are black. Bomb bay interior and insides of doors are silver.

Turret interiors are also silver. Black turret interiors seem to have come later after the RAF doctrine had changed to night bombing.

I would recommend that the turrets complete with guns are built as a whole rather than doing what I did, and leaving the guns out to be added later. This resulted in me having difficulty aligning them. The kit barrels were replaced with brass items at final assembly.

Aside from the ventral turret and rear ammunition runs, the complete interior was assembled , although not a lot of effort was expended in painting it as very little can be seen. Don’t forget to paint the underside of the front turret as this can be seen through the bomb aimers window. Trumpeter have not included a bomb sight, so one will have to be scratch built should you desire.

The engines assembled fine, just ensure you double check the instructions to ensure the parts are correctly orientated. Don’t bother with after market engines as you can see very little of the completed engines.

Why Trumpeter made the wheel well interiors from PE, is a bit of a mystery to me, but they must have been made by Bluescope Steel! Have fun removing them from the frets! I also took the precaution of drilling all the holes out so that the landing gear assembled easily. Apparently the wheels and therefore struts are too narrow., not something that bothered until me until found out, then it did!

Back in the day when this kit was first released CMK did resin wheel wells for it, but these have long since disappeared from shops (as has most AM for the kit). The kit rubber tyres needed to be dunked in boiling water to soften them enough to conform to the rims. Although I did have Brengun resin wheels, they were even narrower than the kit wheels so were not used.

The only major construction issue faced by me was, when locating the bomb aimers window, it was found to be wider than the fuselage cutout. This must have been me as the rest of the transparencies fitted like a glove. In the end a piece of clear CD cover and a shim were used to bring out the fuselage to match the bomb aimers window.

If you are reluctant to test fit the wings fearing, like the Tamiya Mosquito, they will never be able to be removed again, don’t be. The wings are a very sloppy fit, and hardly a friction fit to the support boxes, so can be slid on and off with carefree abandon. To attach these, you are best off using epoxy glue , ensuring the wings are level to get a nice solid fit. There were no gaps on my kit . The PE ?cable cutters were left off my kit as I could not find any photos of machines with them fitted. My references were the 4+ book and images from IWM website.

The Brengun flap interiors fitted nicely into the kit flap wells, once the required material had been removed. I do wish these companies though would engineer the flaps to fit far more solidly. Small glue contacts areas such as PE hinges just don’t cut it.

Painting and Decaling

From the start, my Wellington was going to portray an early war bomber to pay homage to these early Bomber Command crews that starting taking the war to Germany just a few days after the Declaration of War. An early war scheme of overall DE/DG almost won out, but the toned down roundels on the Xtradecal sheet really appealed to me, bringing home these early attempts at toned -down markings, plus it had an early fin flash, replacement rudder and those lovely large codes. What’s not to like there?

SMS Camo black is my favourite black these days, having a warmish brown tone to it. Over this was sprayed various shades of greys and other blacks such as NATO and Rubber Black. This was done through two different splatter type masks. Not forgetting to also do the flaps and bomb bay doors at the same time

For the top sides, LF camouflage masks were used with the Dark Earth being SMS, and the Dark Green GSI Gunze.. Darker and lighter shades of these colours were used to break them up. Oil paints were used to depict oil leaks and staining trailing back from the nacelles across the wings. AK Starbay sludge was used for this. A shade which in retrospect is far too browny -grey . I should have used black or Sepia

The Xtradecal decals performed well. As they are printed by Microscale, they really only needed the mild micro products to settle into any detail. As I had nil micro sol, I used Mr Setter, which was far too hot and damaged one of the roundels. It was repainted with a mask created on my silhouette machine.

Final assembly consisted of bringing the various components together and adding all the fiddly little details such as gun barrels, flaps, propellers and aerial mast. Oh! And the 30 separate bomb bay doors.

Conclusion

It’s a large model!

In the main, it was a fun build, let down by the very exaggerated surface detailing and some strange engineering choices such as the requirement to fit the turrets before closing up the fuselage

That aside, it was an enjoyable build, and most likely the only 1/48 Wellington we are likely to see, although back in 1975 we all thought the Tamiya Lancaster would be the only 1/48 Lancaster we would ever see!

The Wellington has a lovely quaint ungainly look, belying it being one of the mainstay bombers of the RAF throughout the war. Im looking forward to the ICM Hampden joining it in the cabinet to represent Bomber Command in the first year of the war.

Vickers Armstrong Wellington Ic 149 SQN R.A.F Mildenhall UK 1940

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Eduard 1/48 P-51D Mustang

/ Bruces Scale Models / 5 Comments
  • Purchased; 2023
  • Built; 2024
  • Enhancements:
  • drop tanks Eduard Brassin
  • Wheels. Eduard Brassin
  • Decals; OOB

Whoever said “Box art doesn’t sell” obviously has never laid eyes on this particular box. Because it absolutely made me pull the kit off the shelf at Frontline Hobbies in Newcastle NSW and march straight to the checkout.

Prior to this, a few friends experience with building the Eduard Mustang had left me with the impression it was one of Eduard’s more fiddly kits to assemble. That and the fact there were a few 1/32 examples of the Mustang resting in the stash made me slightly ambivalent about building the Eduard 1/48 example.

Construction

There is certainly some merit in the suggestion, the better the kit, the better the result will be. Of course a decent result can be achieved from any kit, but when, say, talking about the Walrus I did earlier in the year, far more effort is required to deliver a good result as opposed to a newer tooled kit like this Eduard kit. From opening the box to applying the final navigation light took me about a fortnight, it would have been less if I had not diverted some effort into filling the wing panel lines to represent the puttied wing joins of the Mustang’s laminar flow wing. Initially this seemed like a simple task, super glue being flowed into all the lines with a toothpick. In fact I was congratulating myself on my fast work and how easy this simple task had been.

Until the first coat of primer revealed a few infuriatingly still visible panel lines. These stubbornly remained so despite 2 other filling and sanding sessions. They finally disappeared when medium super glue was used instead of the thin CA that had previously been used.

The rest of the model assembled flawlessly, with very few fit issues, although part PE42 left me perplexed. It appearing far too small and having no real locator of any substance, It wouldn’t surprise me if there is a larger plastic piece in Weekend Edition boxings

Ensure also that you sand flat any burrs or glue globs off the top of the assembled wheel well top and bottom before sandwiching it between the wing halves. talking about the wheel wells, John Colasante from Matters of Scale FB page and PPP Podcast fame has generously shared a mask set he created for painting the spars Yellow Zinc Chromate , if you want to finish your well this way.

Download is here https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdrive.google.com%2Ffile%2Fd%2F1_YhMnMfNkFKw5rmcnJnBeAj5_50ol1pn%2Fview%3Fusp%3Dsharing%26fbclid%3DIwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0qu-N6dP3icPgdzLQSvrnG57iiswOR74Mj3EGm1xqwj8IIM2nq5VdSCd8_aem_o4kzKpw0kSuFAi7NWiVYYw&h=AT3evXFZRQLjhfcgPEo_QMAZkIQJOXXKapXGveyzuhWuLvYF6DEZHIQXvvDB_Nkv4ONbbYu9WaeYNhREejFgU7DeC4hxFmBzu40k4FlY6nnaBi9lbdbJ3a_ufUCqUFR2E3j_ag4&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT12ShwH-ekLdtqAN0q6n7vwcTOyXALRjvAl7585CMtWeF4k3TCOKjMNAnQuUGE_WDYITGq-GvFQNXhbf8YRCEIhBGR2VbWJv_5fhdZpXxVkQYMfHIZQH_HMrCHm66ocDise3DSDbhmQtQF9c3UUyukbKenF5HkUemHw85N4hDgDZWCbYbeX2QZC238qaYk. And I highly recommend having a look around John’s page at his fabulous work whilst you are there.

The tailplane was also a little bit of a loose fit on mine. Another fit issue I had was the spinner halves. A dry fit without the blades gave a nice tight fit, with the blades………. Not So Much, with a gap between the front and back of the spinner.

Leading me to assume the prop hub was the issue. To resolve this, the blades were cut from the hub and inserted once the spinner halves had joined. I have seen no other mention of this issue in any other build blogs, so maybe it was something I had done. On my next Eduard Mustang, I will shave the little boss moulded onto the spinner backplate that you glue the hub to, and see if this also resolves the problem.

These niggles aside, the model flew together. The Mustang, does suffer from the Achilles Heel of all Eduard kits, in that the location tabs for all control surfaces and undercarriage legs are weak and poorly engineered..

Eduard also deserves a smack on the arse for the very poor attachment points on the ordnance and pylons and having the modeller assemble PE sway braces for the stores. This is just silly.

Painting and Decalling

One of the prime aims with this was to simulate a worn natural metal finish. To this end all parts of the aircraft that were left unpainted are primed with Mr Surfacer black, the wings having previously being primed with Mr Surfacer Grey, then sprayed with Tamiya LP11 before being masked. The Black primer was then rubbed down to remove any irregularities. The next stage was to apply a light grey random mottle through a splatter mask. Alclad’s Polished Aluminium was then sprayed followed by Alclad Hi Speed silver , this time through a very fine splatter mask. I have seen people use a torn piece of of teased out scotchbrite pad to achieve the same effect. Alclad white Aluminium was then sprayed, again through a fine spatter mask to leave me with a variegated silver finish, which is exactly what I was after.

The red nose was sprayed by way of upscaling the Eduard paint instructions to the actual kit size, then cutting a template from the painting guide. To do this measure the kit fuselage and then the drawing fuselage size. It’s then a simple matter of dividing the kit part measurement by the drawing measurement. In this case it was 1.16, so the drawing was enlarged by 116%. Instead of using the kit red rudder border decals, I cut a mask on my silhouette machine and sprayed it. The anti glare panel was SMS OD lightened with middle stone. The panel immediately in front of the windscreen was left in neat OD to suggest a replacement panel.

The model was then clear coated with Alclad AquaGloss to prepare for the wash, in this instance Tamiya Dark Grey panel Line accent. However wiping this off with odourless thinners also removed some of the red and Alclad Polished metal. Not sure what the underlying cause of this was. Polished Aluminium is notorious for its fragility, but I thought the clear coat would protect it. Either way, the damage was repaired and the Polished Metal binned. I’ve amassed quite a selection of different branded paints over the years, but these days the ones that don’t consistently perform get binned rather than getting pushed to the back of the drawer.

Eduard’s decals performed magnificently, being bedded down between Micro Set and Micro Sol. The carrier film was removed with nil damage to the underlying decals. The decals then being sealed with another coat of Aquagloss.

As one would hope, the resin 108 gallon drop tanks are far superior to the kit provided ones, being one piece with better defined detail. Although Eduard provides the PE fuel lines, I decided to complicate things by making my own from thin copper wire.

The kit exhausts were drilled out and added, the fit being very tight. Eduard’s resin wheels must have been reprinted. A couple of mates who have built the kit previously, reported their resin wheels were slightly too big in diameter. This necessitated them trimming the bottom of the strut where it joins the yoke, so the wheel fit without rubbing.

Conclusion

Eduard’s Mustang for me was a throughly enjoyable build. There are two more in the stash, and they will get built. Is it the best 48 scale Mustang out there? That will depend on what matters to the builder. I loved the finesse, surface detail and overall buildability of it, with the caveat that some modellers my find it a bit too complex and “over engineered” for their liking, but the modeller can virtually build any sub variant of the Mustang from any boxing. That has to be a plus. For me, it’s the best Mustang currently available, well, until Tamiya decide to retool their ageing 1/48 P-51D.

Well, that’s the “Would I build it again” answered. My other question is always “Where could I have improved?” Well on this one, whilst happy with my general construction, my finishing skills again let me down. The mottled NMF technique still needs a little refinement, as does my weathering, especially the blending of the oils, and – again- I can see Ive not cleaned up the wash too well in some places. You always find this out once the matt varnish has dried!

There’s only one way to fix this.; Build. More. Models!

P-51D-10. 355th FS. 4thFG. 8th AF U.S Army Air Forces Debden UK 1945

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Tamiya 1/48 Mosquito NFII

/ Bruces Scale Models / 4 Comments
  • Purchased; 2024
  • Completed; 2024
  • Enhancements
  • Wheels. Brassin
  • Gun barrels and pitot tube Master Detail
  • Landing Lights. AK lenses
  • Decals; Xtradecals 23 SQN RAF 1940-1990

This model filled the need for a bit of a short sharp build interlude from my rather large ongoing 1/48 Hercules project.

This particular came into my collection earlier this year after being sourced for me by a friend, who had in turn sourced it from another modeller. It came half started but given I paid only 10 AUD for it, I was happy to take it on. the work done though wasn’t great. The wings had been glued together without first placing the landing light lenses in their holes, the nacelles had also been glued to the wings leaving a few steps, and one set of undercarriage struts had been assembled including the wheel with an untreated join. The original builder had also glued on the flame dampeners without first adding the exhausts.

Whilst these were all annoying, they were not unfixable, save the exhaust dampeners, they would just have to be left empty and see through .

Construction

Although one of their earlier kits from the 90s, Tamiya’s Mosquito still exhibits their legendary fit and ease of assembly. The cockpit is very simplified, even by Tamiya standards, so didn’t take long to build and paint at all. As this was going to be a quick build, I was not too worried about accuracy, so did not delve into the correct radio fit, in itself a rabbit hole, for the particular machine I was doing.

With the cockpit completed, and the wings already done, assembly of the kit was achieved in no time! I deviated from the instructions in joining each nose half to its respective fuselage half before gluing the now whole fuselage halves together. Should you build the kit as per instructions though, rest assured the completed nose mates very neatly with the completed aft fuselage.

The centreline nacelles seams proved particularly stubborn to eradicate , needing several applications of CA glue and sanding. The seam on the wheel well rear bulkhead was hidden by skinning with a thin piece of plastic card. The steps the previous builder had introduced when glueing the nacelles to the wings were somewhat lessened by rehydrating the glue join with tamiya extra thin glue and then reglueing the rear of the nacelles. They still required some filling to make a gap and step free join at the rear of the wing .

The top of the fin was reduced by 2mm by the simple expedient of tracing the outline of the one fin half onto the inside of the other fin half 2mm lower measuring from the top of the fin. The fin above this line then being cut and sanded down to this line. When the fuselage halves are joined, the other fin half is sanded down to match. The rudder hinge line will then have to be rescribed 2mm lower than the existing one. To be honest, Im really not sure it makes a very visible difference to the look of the model, this modification was called out by a thread on Britmodeller. If I build any more tamiya Mossies, it won’t be a correction that will be repeated by me. The clear under fuselage hatch will also need to be filled and its outline eradicated as it was not present on the fighter bomber version. Tamiya including it as the fuselage parts are also used in the bomber version which does have the hatch. The assembled undercarriage leg had the wheel cut away, and both legs had their axles replaced with brass tube. The holes in the lovely Brassin wheels being drilled to match. The mudguards also had the lightening holes added.

Painting and Decorating

My chosen scheme was a 23 SQN Night intruder based in Malta. This decision was arrived at purely by spotting the scheme whilst going through one of my decal folders looking for something else. How many of us have done this! there is a good photo of the actual aircraft on there Imperial war Museum site that confirms Xtradecal have got the scheme correct, although the machine did not have the radar aerials as depicted on the sheet. So starting off on the top surfaces, Gunze Medium Sea Grey was airbrushed on. The helpful camouflage plan tamiya include was photocopied before the grey bits were cut out and taped to the model so the green could then be airbrushed on, in this instance Tamiya RAF Green type 2. Blu tac sausages were used to mark out the upper camouflage delineation line and the black undersurfaces sprayed with SMS German Grey and SMS CARC Black highlights. The black demarcation on this aircraft was unusually high and also formed a wavy line on the nose and nacelle sides , all of which were reproduced on the model, although I could have possibly gone higher on the nose.

The model was then gloss coated before a wash was applied to all engraved detail using tamiya panel line colours, in this case dark grey and dark brown over the MSG and DG respectively and black used along the control surface and openable hatch lines.

The upper wing roundels gave me a few problems with them refusing to settle down wrinkle free, three different roundels having to be used before I was happy. The roundel that lies over the stiffening rib also refused to mould itself to the rib, instead tearing regardless whether I left the decal alone or tried to mould it over the rib with the aid of a cotton bud. Eventually we got there after another 3 roundels. No wonder people paint on markings! The wing do not walk squares had their inside carrier film cut away to reduce the chances of silvering. I didn’t do this nearly neatly enough. You can see the ragged edges on the model, although there was no silvering.

Photos did not show the overall paint finish looking too worn, although there was a fair bit of grime around the nose and spinners. I probably didn’t add enough, jut relying on some airbrushed brown /black stains around fuel fillers and along wing roots. Piant chips were applied with a silver pencil.

This just left the final assembly and again, a bit of earlier sloppy modelling came back to haunt me when adding the machine gun barrels. I had earlier during assembly, cut the barrels away from the breeches, knowing I would be replacing them with the master brass barrels. What I didn’t do though was be precise in drilling the holes to accept the replacement barrels, consequently, I had great difficulty in. adding and aligning the barrels. The thing to do would have been to leave the nose cap off until final assembly as it was a good fit, and this would have ensured straight barrels that would have also been far easier to add to the breeches. Little lapses in planning like this and not thinking through all steps constantly let my builds down.

I really need to address it – despite saying “I will on the next model” – to lift my models.

The underwing landing lights were represented by using AK 4mm light lenses glued with white glue to a supporting plinth of blu tac.

The wheels were weathered with a wash of Mr Weathering Colors “sandy wash” with the excess being wiped off with a cloth. Finally the masking could be peeled off the canopy, and I was happy to see on this occasion nothing had leaked or marked it, despite Eduards ill fitting mask set.

Conclusion

This was a quick build done on an impulse to build a machine that I liked the look of. The opportunity was also taken to get this half built model out of the stash and provide a bit of a respite from a bigger build. Consequently, a lot of short cuts were taken with the finish. This aside, I am still quite happy with the completed model. There are two more tamiya 48 scale in the stash, a bomber and another fighter. I enjoyed the build enough to still want to build them at some stage in the future.

De Havilland Mosquito NFII. Royal Air Force. Luqa Malta 1942

WingNut Wings Rumpler CIV Early

/ Bruces Scale Models / 3 Comments
  • Purchased; 2012
  • Completed; 2024
  • Enhancements;
  • Gaspatch turnbuckles type A
  • Decals; kit

Construction

Im going to let the photos do the talking for this one, as it was pretty much a trouble free build, thanks to WNW quality engineering and production.

As with all my builds, construction started with removing all parts that WNW mark as “not needed”. This minimises the chance of using the wrong parts for your version.
The cockpit and engine components were all prepainted prior to being assembled. the wood areas were base coated with MRP Middle stone, then the wood colour added with Burnt Sienna oil paint. Like all aircraft models, once the interior was completed, the airframe build up fairly quickly, more so when doing a WNW kit as all the wings are one piece. The ailerons were reinforced with bits of brass wire so as to provide more strength rather than relying on the very small glue area.

Painting and Decalling

Painting was achieved on this occasion using Tamiya paints using the colours called out in the instructions. the exposed engine being first wrapped in GladWrap to ensure no overspray marred its finish

This would be a clean build, so no weathering was undertaken, however some shading to emphasise the ribs was done with some highly diluted black/brown airbrushed over the masked wing ribs. A tedious job, but I liked the effect.

Although masks had been cut on my silhouette machine for the markings, only the stripes were airbrushed on, the decals for the national insignia being used on this occasion. Micro sol and soft ensuring they all hunkered down over the surface details. And just like that, we were ready for the GULP…….Rigging!

Rigging and Final Assembly

Although WNW don’t advise using turnbuckles in their hints and tips section – due to them looking overscale – my thought was they would at least make the rigging easier.

Plus, there were about 4 packs of Gaspatch turnbuckles in my aftermarket tub. Care needs to be taken when fitting these into your pre drilled holes that they will lie roughly in line with the rigging line. In the case of the Rumpler, turnbuckles were only fitted to the lower wing end points of the rigging wires. Model Kasten line was used rather than my usual EZ Line. It seemed to take to the CA glue a lot better than the EZ line, which in my experience just curls away when introduced to the glue. The Model Kasten line is also round in section, so you don’t get the twists that you do with EZ line. The downside however, is its a lot more expensive than the EZ line.

Using the turnbuckles allowed the rigging to proceed far more quickly and trouble free than any of the others methods Ive used to rig my biplanes this year. I did manage to cut the actual rigging line when trying to trim the line on a few occasions, but this was easily repaired.

Also in my AM tub were brass barrels for the Spandau and Parrabellum guns, but the kit PE jackets were rolled using a rolling set and looked convincing enough. They were finished using Humbrol Gunmetal which can then be gently buffed using a cotton bud to impart a nice metallic sheen.

With the addition of the propeller and REXX exhausts – which should really have been added at the time of building the engine- she was done.

Conclusion

This was without doubt the most enjoyment Ive had from a model over the last couple of years. The parts fit is exemplary, as is the moulded detail and Wingnut’s instructions. Once you have the various interior components painted, the model builds up very quickly, and precisely.

If you are sitting on some WNW kits, so yourself a favour and build one≥. They are simply too much fun to build to have them sitting unbuilt in the collection, unless that is actually your thing.

Rumpler C.IV MFA Varsenaere. Flanders 2017

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Arma Models 1/48 Hurricane MkIIc

/ Bruces Scale Models / 3 Comments
  • Purchased; 2023
  • Completed; 2024
  • Enhancements;
  • Guns; Master Detail
  • wheels ASK distributors
  • Decals; Eagle Strike Night Hurricanes Part 1

Introduction

The Arma Models 1/48 Hurricane was the perfect antidote to the preceding Walrus It is a lovely fitting, well detailed model that builds up very quickly. the surface detail is some of the best out there, Arma using both raised and recessed detail to achieve the multitude of rivets on the wings. The fabric surfaces are not overdone, also being rendered subtly. Heres hoping Arma follow it up with the Mk1.

Construction

Really there’s nothing that I can add here that the many YouTube builds of the kit don’t already cover. The cockpit whilst being a little fiddly to clean up fits perfectly. It even clips into place without the need for any glue, although obviously you do need to use glue. For one thing, your seat will fall out! Talking about the seat, the kit one is a little thick, my boxing came with a lovely resin item, making the kit seat redundant. Same for the exhausts.

Some further thoughts;

Be precise cleaning up all sprue stubs , ensuring all mating surfaces are flat as this determines how much filling you will need to do.

If you are fitting the drop tanks, you can dispense with filling the shell ejection ports as suggested by Arma as the drop tank pylons cover the holes that need filling

Added details,; Obviously this is entirely up to the individual modeller how far he goes with adding all this, but Id suggest, at a minimum, the radiator bracing, upper nav. light, brake lines and rudder control lines although only the prominent brake lines were added to my model. I did open up the slot in the rear armour plate to allow the shoulder harness tail to fit through.

When choosing a particular airframe to model, check such details as round or rectangular rear view mirror, cockpit ventilation slots present or not, glare shields fitted or not and IFF aerials as these details varied greatly from airframe to airframe. As an example the aircraft I modelled had the cockpit ventilation slots fitted and no glare shield whereas other planes in the same Sqn did not have the slots or had the glare shields. Photos are your friend, and for RAF Aircraft, Flickr and the IWM website are the first places I visit. If I have any questions, Britmodeller will usually have the answer.

Finishing

A mate of mine, being Kiwi likes to finish a lot of his WW2 aircraft as aircraft that were flown by NZ pilots. Obviously he can’t do this with modern day subjects as NZ don’t have an Air Force of note anymore ( Sorry all my Kiwi followers, Im assuming you all have the same sense of humour as my mate that requires you to keep on kicking that dead horse until its completely lifeless!!)

So when I found an 87 Sqn, machine that was flown by an Aussie, Sgt B Bawden from Sydney, I decided to take a leaf from Calum’s (rather thin) book. My model was always going to be finished as an 87 Sqn machine so an Aussie pilot was the icing on the cake. Of course there were no available decals for Sgt Bawden’s machine in 1/48 scale meaning the scroll and NIGHT DUTY title would need to be hand painted. The below photo shows the actual machine, and Yes, I keep referring to aircraft as machines because thats how Biggles referred to them !

Researching the 87 Sqn machines revealed they were a Night Intruder Squadron, with overall black aircraft, however as the aircraft were required for daylight missions over the Dieppe beaches to support the landing their top surfaces were hastily painted with brushes in the temperate land scheme which at that stage would have comprised of mixed grey, (not Medium sea grey as Ive used) and dark green.

To achieve this rough look the model was first painted overall black, then a very patchy coat of MR Paint MSG applied by airbrush. Panzer putty was then used to mask off the grey areas and the green applied, this time using Gunze . The demarcations o these aircraft were not standard and differed from machine to machine.

There are some excellent articles on Britmodeller regarding these schemes, well worth a read if you love getting into the minutia of these things. It appears on this particular aircraft, the green covered the black quite well, but the grey, not so much. The plan was to brush tamiya MSG around the codes to emphasise the brush painted nature, but of course, I didn’t have any.

The wing roundels were sprayed on using masks from Hawaiian Air Depot https://www.hawaiianairdepot.com/shop/p/coming-soon-87-squadron-hurricane-night-intruders-for-the-148-arma-mk-iic

The rest of the national insignia were from the kit decal sheet. Codes came from a generic Xtradecals RAF code sheet. Colours for the wing roundels were Tamiya Flat Red mixed with a bit of Hull Red until a matt with the decals was achieved. The blue was Royal Blue with a few drops of Flat Black.

With regard to the HAD masks, I thought a real shortcoming with the set was no masks for the underside demarcation. Aircraft from this squadron had quite distinctive wavy demarcation on the empennage, and HAD should really have included these on their otherwise very complete mask set as its a unique feature of these schemes

That just left the scroll. The Eagle Strike Night Hurricanes Part 1 sheet contains a red scroll of the right size, but it reads – actually I can’t remember what it reads, but it certainly wasn’t NIGHT DUTY!. Underneath this red decal, the modeller applies a slightly larger white decal which allows the white border and lettering to appear.. Current sources suggest the scroll on Bawden’s aircraft was red with yellow border and lettering.

This was achieved – after a night of thinking about it in my sleep – by cutting out the underlying scroll shape from yellow decal using the Eagle Strike decal as a template. this only took 4 goes!

The lettering on the red scroll was painted out and I found some tiny tiny yellow decal letters to spell out Night Duty, as you can imagine, these were incredibly difficult to apply and I resorted to (untidily) brush painting the I and Y

No one seems sure how long these aircraft stayed in this scheme so I went light with the weathering. Just some black chips around access hatches and wing roots and exhaust stains as evident in the photos. The chipping on the canopy was achieved with the hairspray technique.

The exhausts were painted an orangey colour as the real things were coated with a paint that reduced glare, hence why this particular machine is not fitted with the glare guards./ Feedback from a couple of modelling friends led to me darkening them up as my mates felt they were too orange. They were shaded with a black brown mix, which I feel does make them look better. They are 3D printed by ARMA and have incredible detail. Far and above better than the kit offerings.

Conclusion

The Arma Hurricane is highly recommended. Although Arma market the IIc and IIc Trop as separate boxings, all the IIc boxings come with the parts to make a tropical or Night Fighter, so it doesn’t really matter which boxing you buy unless you are after one of the particular kit schemes. The only thing I wish I had done differently was use a mixed grey rather than the Medium Sea Grey for the camouflage.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable kit and I have already ordered a Sea Hurricane and a IIb . As Molly Meldrum would say ” Do yourself a favour”

Hawker Hurricane IIc 87 Sqn. RAF Charmy Down UK June 1942

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