mustang1989

I've got two Badger 200 airbrushes that I picked up last year when Micheals had em on clearance for 20 bucks (yep I said 20 bucks)new and still in the boxes . I ordered two quick disconnects for both AB's and THAT made just as big of difference as having an internal mix AB over the BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH Badger 350 AB I started off with! The QD's make things nice for a quick swap out of ABs if one is giving me a lot of static in the middle of a big job. Just switch out AB's real quick and continue working. I also use a Badger 1/6 HP compressor that is super quiet in the mornings (about 4 am) to not wake anybody else in the house. I have had really good luck with the 200's so far. I do have a Renegade Velocity if I get down to the detail work though.

Thanks Ray and Mark! I've always favored this bird. It was never the fastest nor armed to the tee but it's like the 57 Chevy of planes. Whoever designed this aircraft sure knew how to sculpt some cool body lines!!

Here is the cockpit flooring and related parts as well as the gunners ring with the twin .30 cal setup. I first painted the seat with "rattle can" Testors Metallic Silver enamel followed by a coat of Model Master acrylic Zinc Chromate Green. I then took a toothpick and chipped the Chromate as to provide a scratched seat back surface from parachute buckle and seat belt buckle contact for that worn in look. The seat belts were made out of lead foil with PE buckles from Tom's Modelworks. I must have worn that stupid visor for 30 minutes trying to feed those belts through the buckles and through the seat belt end latches! I painted the seat belts a linen color from Humbrol and after the paint cured out hit them with a dry brushing of ground up black pastel to dirty them up. I also applied a black wash to the cockpit tub for the used effect as well. I had to be careful with that because carrier based aircraft are usually corroded and not dirty. The raised detail on the side consoles was completed by using a white lead pencil to bring out the details. The gunners ring , while not totally accurate, at least resembles the reference!!! Seat belts for the gunners seat were made from lead foil as well with PE belt latches/ ends. As you can see, this is a FAR cry from the out of box offering that the Monogram kit offers!! The only thing missing from the gun at this point is the PE gun ring sight and the PE .30 cal ammo leading from the ammo boxes to the guns. Those get installed later.

On to the rear gun and turret assy. This kit was supplied with a rear gun but it has absolutely no accuracy at all. A half moon shaped gunners ring is supplied along with what looks like a modified "potato gun" for the rear firing .30 cal machine gun. The next photo shows that: This is how the gunner ring is supposed to look: I am going with a twin .30 cal setup in the back so heres a so-so photo of that : The next shots will be of the completed cockpit floor and related items and the rear gunner ring with the twin .30 cal set up that I used from the Hasegawa kit.

There's another one completed. Great job and as others have stated really nice stance! I like the decal in the rear window too. Gives a little bit of personalization.

Ok this will be my first official WIP here. This will be the last aircraft I build before I start restoring my 31 year old Monogram Dodge Challenger that has managed to survive all these years relatively in only a couple of pieces. This SBD is going to be a Confederate Air Force Edition Monogram 1/48 scale SBD Dauntless that was boxed in 1988. The only thing different about this kit from prior boxings is the decal sheet really. I decided to take this kit on largely because I built this thing when I was 12 years old, as I'm sure a lot of us have if we are aircraft buffs, using minimal paint which consisted only of "no name" acrylic black and "green apple green" (no zinc chromate but it was real close), silver enamel, acrylic yellow for the prop tips, some enamel red for the dive flaps, and an enamel grey for the undersides, thinner (which consisted of gasoline-hey gimme a break here, my dad was a mechanic) , and basic model glue. I swabbed the paint on the interior (what little it had) and the undersides. No paint on the top because it was molded in blue, didn't paint the tires or the prop(except for the yellow ends and the silver hub) because they were already molded in black and I guess I did try my hand at painting the canopy frames with some blue paint that I ended up with. Back then I was as happy as a clam! By these days standards it was a disaster! Anyways I thought I would show the build here as well using todays skills and some of todays upgrades. These I will cover in the WIP but will tell you that Hasegawa has a hand in this, even though it too has some inaccuracies, because the cockpit is SO lacking. I robbed a lot of parts from this spare Hasegawa kit and will use the decals from it as well. Is this going to be my best build?? No. But I intend to have fun taking a trip down memory lane building this plane. So without further delay I'll begin. We start off with the kit boxing: Followed by the internals of the kit which are molded in blue and black (just like when I was a kid!!) And of course the crappy decals and canopy pieces that came along for the ride too. I'm not going to deviate too much from the "toy like" functions of this model. I am going to be as accurate overall as I can and still maintain the old Monogram intent of the kit. I think the only things that will not operate are the prop and the tail hook. Dive flaps , landing gear and the dropping bomb I fully intend to have working as the original model I built did. Any how here is a picture of the cockpit minus the crappy molded pilot and note its molded in black. Yep this is it folks! All two pieces of it! .............and here are the first of many robbed interior parts from the Hasegawa kit. The pilots seat, control column, rudder pedal pedestals and the pedals themselves. If I were to just add these parts and nothing else to the interior it would be a VAST improvement over the stock Monogram cockpit area. There are some that may wonder, "How come he didn't just build the Hasegawa build?" . The whole point is to take a kit that looks awesome from the outside with all that rivet detail and make it look just as good on the inside. And that's where today's stopping point is. Will resume more tomorrow at some point.

Now THAT is truly remarkable and impressive!!! I'm a little biased because I'm a Mustang fan but aside from that, to get a model car to look as realistic as you have built here goes far above the call here. From the headlights to the tail lights you've really nailed it here Erik. Your photo taking ability is also top notch capturing such a good build at all the right angles Great job man.

Hey man ya gotta hand it to him. Its creative!

Eduard for the most part is da bomb!!! Every time I've used it it's been right on. All of that PE shown above was Eduard. The kits are really killer! They are coming out with a 1/48 Bf109 G6 next year and I'm all over that like a rat on a cheetoe!!!

Somebody else may know besides me but the only one I know of is from Monogram but its a 1993 Cobra. A little tweeking and an LX might be made out of it.

Thanks Mark! I'm anxious to try the German camo that looks like a dang slug left a trail all over the whole plane. Really it aint all that bad though. The mottle effect here was done with a mask. I'm learning that high air pressure (30 psi) , barely, and I mean barely, opening the needle on the AB, really thinned paint and keeping the AB moving are all key elements in applying this pattern. My 190 A8/ R2 was done that way.

Keep using it you'll come to really like it. The possibilities for true detail are endless. I tried my first PE pieces in 1998 when I first heard of the stuff and it was hit or miss. Then I tried it again in 06 with a little resin to go along with it and again it was a limited success. After I got on model forums early last year and started learning how to work with it I got a little better and nowadays although I still have a lot to learn , I feel a lot more comfortable with it. More often than not pure luck comes into play when installing or bending a piece. Particularly pilots seat belts!!!! Yeesh!

Good start Jeff ! And its a Trumpeter!! What's the parts count on that kit anyway? Aww man PE is the best! At first its a little tricky but you learn after a little bit just like anything else. If you don't already have one get some PE bending pliers and the superglue in the gel form. There aint nothin worse than trying to install a little PE part with regular super glue. When I built my Eduard Fw190 A8/R2 Royal Class kit there were 6 sheets of that stuff that came in the box. Example given here: This is truly a kit for somebody who is LOVE with PE!

I usually save them especially if its a kit that 1) already has a lot of "goodies" in it or 2) I purchased a lot of "goodies" for it so I can keep all the spare stuff in a box that I can look at and use stuff from. I have a couple of old kits that I may keep parts of the box for just to cut and put under my glass on my workbench.

I was checking out the parts count in the instructions and I don't remember a car having such a high parts count. Granted some of these pieces are for the police car , but still that's a few parts in the 160 range.

Thank you Ray , Wayne and George! The only downer of the Trumpeter kits is that there are over engineered. I don't know about the smaller scales but the 1/24 parts count is WAY too high. On crazy stuff too like the landing gear. I think each leg was 8-10 parts!!!!

Thank you Wayne. I knew when I started it all with this kit that I was going to have my hands full. My thinking was (and still is) when I started off to build it , I had to build something better than you can go out and buy. There are a lot, and I mean a lot , of pre built die cast or plastic 109's as well as other aircraft out there that you can just go buy and get it over with. With that said, I had to build something it a lot better than that. I chose probably one of the most challenging camo patterns and littered the engine and cockpit with whatever detail I could obtain / build. The wing guns were just a plus. I wasn't even going to install them until I was looking at the guns and thought to myself, " Man this gun pod would look great opened up!" So I cut the access panel open on the L/H wing gun and went to work on the cannon. Hek the gun ejector chute/ ammo feed was already opened up on the gun itself so it made total sense to feed a couple of rounds into the weapon and then lead them up into the wing with the links. The links took a LONG time to build because I had to scratch build each link. Took a week and a half on the whole pod/ gun assy to build.

Thanks Ed ! I've got Part 2 posted right behind this thread!

Ok you all. Back for Part 2 here. After I applied the basic camo theme and the mottling I moved on to the decals: Before this I knew nothing of really HOW to apply decals. I had the whole gloss coat thing down but never used decal set or Microsol until here. I will never NOT use them again!!! These decals were a dream too. They were Eagle Strike decals #24006. Moving along to the plane with a few more items on it and opened back up after the dull coat was applied I used after market wheels too. Can't remember the manufacturer but those turned out decent too. The dang tail wheel strut broke early on in the build so I had to wait till this stage to drill out the strut going up into the fuselage and the other half that was still attached to the tailwheel side of the strut. I then inserted a metal rod into both halves and pressed fit together using epoxy to secure the rod at both ends. It worked!!! And this is a heavy bird!! A little up close of the engine detail and weathering of the nose: I also weathered the engine here after I had learned some tricks on how to do it! And finally some finishing pics: This is the only picture I have with the cowlings closed. I should have taken a couple more this way. ..............and with the cowlings open. This next one below is outside and though it's unfinished, it shows the color off well. and then there's the scratch build deluxe for me on this whole build pictured below. I bought a 1/35 scale 3.7cm brass ammo kit and used the shells from it. I opened up one of the wing gun pod access covers, sanded the door and inside of the pod to scale and displayed the 20mm cannon. This was SCREAMING for something stoooopid in here so I cut the 3.7cm shells a little short so that they would fit into the ammo chute of the wing cannon. Then I used aluminum tape to scratchbuild the belt links and weathered the ammo and belt links. I weathered the cannon as well and drilled out the cannon barrels at the ends. Here's all that stuff in a picture: And that's that in a nutshell. All in all I was happy with it. It took me about 8-1/2 months to build largely because of my inexperience and my taking extra precautions as to not do double work or screw this thing up. I will say this: 1) I have gone back to building 1/48 scale stuff because that's where I belong , 2) that Trumpeter has to make some of the most over engineered stuff I have ever seen. You know, 8 parts to accomplish building something that should have only taken 2 or maybe 3 and finally, 3) the friggin ejector pin marks!!! Good Grief there were tons ......and all in the wrong places!! Really I got past this build ok. While looking back and knowing that there were some things I wished I could have done differently or better I also feel a sense of accomplishment.....and had fun doing it. Thanks for looking, Joe

Thought I would post this little jewel here. I built this as part of a Bf109 GB last year. It was my first attempt at a model in 6 years and the one 6 years prior to this I didn't have half of the skills that I used in building this thing. There are some things throughout the model here and there I know could be better and have been working on those in the last two builds but I'm fairly proud of my first time creation using weathering effects and more proper painting techniques. I have built this as a Bf109G-14 and have it displayed as it was in May of 1945 with JG5. The pilot was Helmut Nuemann and with this machine he managed to achieve 62 aerial victories. The addition of the 20mm wing mounted cannon is incorrect for this particular aircraft but I couldn't help myself but to build one of these "up-gunned" beauties! So without further delay I'll turn to the presentation: I built the engine first by painting and assembling all of the plastic kit parts. I used the Verlinden update set #2062 which has some engine updates and a few parts of the firewall and ammo boxes. It also has a bunch of stuff for the cockpit but we'll get to that later. The engine coolant pipe was a piece of copper wire that came in the update set. I used electrical wire heat shrink that I acquired from Radio Shack cut to the proper length to simulate the rubber hose sections and heated up to shrink and actually "look" like sections of rubber hose. The hose clamps were a combo of left over PE sprue and .015" solder that was flattened and formed in the shape of clamps. The supercharger inlet screen was taken from a Chevrolet 4.3 litre V-6 distributor that I removed as part of a GM service Recall at my dealership. (You just never know when youre gonna need stuff like that!! I weathered everything later when I started learning more about that. On to the cockpit: I then started on the cockpit floor. I painted it a coat of silver and then after that dried shot a coat of RLM 66. After that dried I chipped away the 66 from the high areas to allow the "aluminum" floor/skin to shine through. Then I started installing the aftermarket seat belts that I acquired (cant remember the brand but I bought em through Squadron). The rest of the goodies came from the Verlinden update. You know the stuff like rudder pedals, control stick, drive chains for the control pullies on the L/H side of the seat, cannon all that stuff! More completed shots of this coming up. Almost forgot that top view of the engine with the guns and coolant crossover pipe /hoses installed. So anyways back to the cockpit: I built the R/H wall first concentrating my attention on the oxygen apparatus and all that stuff. The hose came from the update set as did the guages on the wall. I used instrument panel decals from another kit in the guage holes with a drop of clear on top of them. The knob is from an aftermarket nitrous oxide bottle I had from a 1/24 scale car upgrade set. The chain/ sprocket arrangement in the foreground was a little off center but it doesn't show when viewed from the other side. Also have the shoulder harness seat belts installed here. Skipping to fuselage assembly I really hated to have to "button this thing up" because I couldn't get over the amount of detail that was in this thing. This was quickly turning out to be a favorite build of mine even though I was still learning all of the tricks of the trade at this point( and still am really). Next: The fuselage assembly and wing installation. Here it is all buttoned up with the wings installed. No primer, no paint.....nothing. Had the gaps filled and all the panels buttoned down. As a first time for doing it this way I glued a spare canopy on and sealed it off. No paint inside you know...... Here she is primed and ready to go........using Tamiya "rattle can" primer. I had mixed feelings about the mottle effect. Looking back I rightfully should have faded the edges a little bit but this was my first time ever applying such a crazy camo pattern. I used an Eduard 1/48 scale mottle mask from a 109 masking kit. I would apply anywhere from 1 to 5 or 6 mottle patterns at a time. Hell my then 8 year old son even applied one!(and no I can't remember which one was his!!lol). Even without the fading I was decently pround of what I did. The scheme is just friggin wicked!. And that's where this picture build stops for now. To be continued in Part 2 coming up.

Thanks Swamp Dog

Thanks so far guys. The kit should be here within the week!! (now for that corrected body.....................)

Man! Some of you guys have studios! I've got a room to myself inside the house for all of my building. Its better than it was at the beginning of last year when I re started this hobby. The first picture is when I started in January 2012: and then here's the current status of the bench. I don't forsee it growing much bigger than this but who knows? Compared to some of you guys on here its a quaint little space but it works for me right now. There's a guy named fermis in the modeling community on forums here and there who has entire ROOMS dedicated to his building / display space. Anyhow here goes: I don't know what is making my pics so grainy lately. Some are and some aren't but its really irritating when it happens.

This should be fun to watch! Good concept.

Thanks Lee and Fred! I'm really liking this Dora for sure. Its basically the same plane as the A/F series of 190 from the engine firewall back except for lengthening the fuselage about 8" to offset the weight/ length of the modified nose for a V-12 but it just looks friggin cool, they are bad "A" and the color schemes for the D's were just crazy! The germans upon the first D series arriving to the units in late 1944 deemed them "Focke Mustangs". Fast and able to roll on a dime coupled with a nasty surprise in the armament department, they were a force to be reckoned with in the hands of a skilled pilot (which was far and few between by wars end).