Christmas Airfix!

Ah. To be fair my Islander ended up looking like neither.

I probably broke it up and incorporated into my train set with a load of German soldiers, some tanks and a couple of Harriers.

^^ That WNW Brisfit is superb. I’m currently part way through a Roden 1/32 Sopwith Triplane but have ground to a halt. Doing it well requires a lot of time (and talent) neither of which I have in spades but I don’t want to thrash through and just get it finished without care. Plus I bought an airbrush to paint it with – which I haven’t used before…

I really like the Mig up there too – the weathering is spot on. You see too many builds where the weathering seems to be the main event.

Beaufighter made from the 1958 moulding Airfix kit. Cost me £3.

Went to the LMS for paint and bought a Panzer too for next to nothing and knocked it off in a day.

making the most of the crap weather.

@HTS – you made an excellent job of the Beaufighter, I’ve a 1/72 Airfix Mirage with mouldings that date from 1964. Nothing fits, panel lines are raised and ejector pin holes abound.

I’ve finally managed to figure out how to do a pin wash that doesn’t strip paint – mix a solution of 9/10ths Pledge, a dash of Tamiya gloss black and Tamiya red-brown and et voila! My Hobby Boss Shooting Star is back on the shelf – I need to strip the paint and start again, despite airbrushing very thin paint I’m losing fine detail.

Ta.

It went together OK actually. There were some trenches to fill around the wing and tail roots, but other than that it was fine.

My big “wins” on that were using BluTac worms to get a soft demarcation on the camouflage, painting the invasion stripes and hiding the “thickness” of the canopy by painting the mating face of it black so that the inside edge isn’t visible. The canopy on the Beau’ is about 2mm thick and looked rubbish.

Nice work Harry!

I too have a Revell Lanc to build, although the non DB version. I’m not generally a rivet counter but I do seem to remember the dihedral on the wings is quite noticeably too shallow – you going to have a go at correcting it? I’m sure I’ve seen a couple of articles where people do a ‘cut and shut’ job on the wings to increase the angle. It looked fiddly but not impossible…

That’s the plan. Join the upper and lower surfaces together, cut the underside and the upper leading edge, then pack it with plasticard until I get 7° of dihedral.

I’ll fill and sand the joint and if that looks crap put a thin strip of card over it. This won’t stand out as it looks like there is one moulded into the detail anyway.

http://tedtaylor.hobbyvista.com/132-revell-lancaster/page-132.html

The alternative is to cut the top, but the risk of leaving a visible scar is too great for me.

Nice one – I will watch with interest. I have to say it seems an odd mistake for Revell to make given what a major feature the wing angle is of the Lanc!

I’ve not had airfix in years but pre-ordered the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander in April 2019 ahead of the 50th anniversary. Amazingly it’s still not available so eventually cancelled the order. No Airfix for me.

Nice one – I will watch with interest. I have to say it seems an odd mistake for Revell to make given what a major feature the wing angle is of the Lanc!

Pilot’s seat is about 6ft too far back also. If moved it all forwards otherwise he would have to press the buttons with a broom handle.

Update. Nothing to fear with the Cut & Shut. Although taking a perfectly good, if inaccurate, wing and chopping it in half was a little counterintuitive.

I’ve just picked up a WW1 Fokker 1/72 scale. Quite fancy having a go at the optional rigging. What would be the recommended material be?

Prym knitting elastic, superglue, a tiny drill bit in a pin vice and then home made turn buckles made out of copper wire from an old mains lead.
It’s much easier like this than using cut up guitar strings like I used to use.

Rigging @ 1:72 is quite a challenge. For larger scale EZ Line is the stuff I believe but it might be too thick. Stretched sprue?

The Prym elastic/EX line is easiest, plus a handful of pcb drills, but as hamishthecat says it may look a bit big at 1/72 unless you really stretch it, so monofilament (fishing line or invisible mending thread) may be a better option – it also provides strength to the model unlike the elastic. I probably wouldn’t bother trying to do turnbuckles at 1/72 but that’s a personal thing.

My 1/72 scale Walrus with elastic and turn buckles.

^ nice. I’ll never be brave enough to tackle rigging.

Lancaster cockpit.

That you can’t see.

I’m building a 1/48 F-80 Shooting Star and am attempting a realistic metal finish. I’ve prepped the model with Tamiya X-1 gloss black (top tip, airbrushing neat thinner on top of a gloss coat will help to level it nicely), but I seem to lose detail when I spray Tamiya X-11, no matter how much I thin it.

A subsequent sponge off with kitchen cleaner means that I am back at square one, so I need some advice on getting a decent metal finish. Either I am spraying the X-11 wrong, or I need to find a dedicated NMF paint – I am somewhat bewildered by the options out there that I’ve either had only partial success with in the past (Humbrol Metalcote) or taking the plunge into the unknown with Alclad that is apparently pretty nasty stuff to airbrush. Ideally, I’m looking for something acrylic, would really appreciate some pointers and recommendations if possible please?

Lancaster taking shape.

I need to find a dedicated NMF paint

I’ve been having passable success with the Vallejo Metal Colour stuff. Acrylic and plays reasonably nicely. Its all in the quality of the prep though, which is arguably my failing. The Mustang on p23 of this thread was done using them.

Having finally re-managed to log into Flickr again – here’s a couple more.
Tamiya Mosquito, 1/72. Shake’n’bake. Aftermarket seat and IP, plus some additional detailing in the cockpit, which is mostly invisible once the canopy was on. Feel like I oversprayed it a bit as all the preshade has vanished.

Then an Airfix Spitfire PRXIX. Resin prop and exhausts to replace the anorexic kit ones. Looks a bit toy-like in the pics. Again, some extra cockpit bits. Again, they can’t really be seen!

I’ve been having passable success with the Vallejo Metal Colour stuff. Acrylic and plays reasonably nicely. Its all in the quality of the prep though, which is arguably my failing. The Mustang on p23 of this thread was done using them.

I haven’t tried the Vallejo metal paints (yet) but a visit to Hobbycraft the other day netted me a few tins of Humbrol metalcote for another try at using it. I test sprayed a couple of very thin coats on an old (and unpainted) model. I left overnight and gave the test area a buff with a soft cloth. Initial results are extremely promising, the quality of finish is far better than I expected.

I’ve duly given the F-80 three coats of very thin Humbrol 27002 and have left the model to dry, tomorrow I’ll have a bash at buffing it and we’ll see what happens.

BTW, very impressive work on the Mosquito and Spitfire. The Mosquito is excellent, even more so for being in 1/72!

I’ve been having passable success with the Vallejo Metal Colour stuff. Acrylic and plays reasonably nicely.

I used this as well on my P51 (also on page 23). It sprays nicely and looks very good, be careful with masking though as I found it was easy to peel it off the primer coat. A good thing with it is that you can touch up mistakes easily with a brush, unlike Alclad!

Here’s where I’m at with my Stug, next on the to do list is to modify some figures for it.

The Mossie looks fantastic.

My job finishes on the 31st March, so I’ve fourteen days’ holiday pay incoming. I’ve bought a couple of kits from Amazon to help me get through Covid-19 lockdown.

…and having very little else to do, finally got my poo piled neatly enough to sort photos of the latest…

Aldi special Curtiss Tomahawk. Bollocksed up the transparencies, so ended up buying another (proper, non-beginner edition) kit, which came with a full set of stencils. Pretty happy in the end. Also tried Uschi line for the aerials, which is bloody amazing.

Been thinking of having a go at doing a model as will have time to spend on it.

Is there a basic tool kit someone could recommend? Don’t want to spend loads..
And which manufacturers do the best kits?

Absolute basics are a craft knife, sandpaper and some glue. After that you soft of find your own way.

I like Tamaya acrylic paint and Revel liquid adhesive.

Kit-wise, Airifx starter sets are about a fiver in Aldi and there are loads available from other manufacturers for under a tenner. The only really bad kit I had was from MisterCraft. The others Airfix, Italeri, Revell, Hasegawa, Esci, Heller and so on have all been fine, but older mouldings aren’t as detailed as the newer ones.

Thanks Harry 🕷
I used to do models years ago but those were the basic Airfix 1:72’s (apart from a 1:24 Spitfire).
I guess spraying is the best way to finish them but can you get by without a spray gun? Don’t think I could justify the added cost too..
I’d like to do a 1:48 Tomcat 🙂

Gotta love the shark’s mouth on the Tomahawk 🙂

Don’t think I could justify the added cost too..

Compressor and cheap airbrush will set you back £80ish.

And which manufacturers do the best kits?

If starting from scratch I’d suggest one of the newer 1/72 Airfix kits. For tools you’ll be able to get away with a Stanley knife blade, Emery board or nail file, and nail clippers to cut parts from sprue.
Try brush painting for your first effort as you can get decent results from several thin coats. I would stay away from Tamiya paint for brushing as it doesn’t play nicely. Lifecolor, Vallejo, or Mig will work ok and you can buy sets of paint for specific builds.

The newer airfix kits are up there with the best in my opinion but be careful, they have an annoying habit of re-boxing very old kits into shiny new modern looking boxes. As an example I bought a 1/72 Grumman Widgeon the other day, nice modern box but the tooling is from 1959! In this case I already knew it was an old kit but its easy to get caught out. Modern kits are massively better than the old ones.

you can buy sets of paint for specific builds.

Where from? I’ve only found individual paints so far..

Just Google it.

“SU35 paint set” returns this: https://www.scalemodelshop.co.uk/product/su-35-flanker-e-colors-set-ammo-mig-jimenez-a-mig-7219?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI94jwv7i16AIVRLDtCh3gDwblEAQYAiABEgJSp_D_BwE

Simples 😉 Hadn’t thought of that

I’d recommend a Tamiya 1:48 if you’re after an aircraft (or anything else, tbh)| the fit and engineering, and moulding and quality of plastic tend to be far better than even the new releases from Revell and Airfix, and the kits aren’t hugely difficult to put together, as well as having good instruction sheets. Makes it easy to get a decent result first time round. IMO. Tamiya extra thin liquid cement is a revelation to those of us that grew up in the 60’s and 70’s.

Depending on what you want to build, prices range from under £15 to around £70, the only turkey in the range off the top of my head is the Harrier. I use Tamiya acrylics and Vallejo model air for airbrush, Vallejo model colour for brush. Advantage of Vallejo paints is that Amazon sell them so they’re quick and easy to get hold of.

I’ve burned many a pound on here…

https://www.jadlamracingmodels.com/models/aircraft-military/?search_query=&page=1&limit=80&sort=priceasc&Scale=1%3A72&category=38&is_category_page=1

This firm is good for Lifecolor sets, got a few from them and they deliver quickly.

Airbrushes.com

Tamiya 1:48 Sea Harrier is not up to their usual standards. I really do like their motorcycle kits though