Tcoat

Door handles and a mirror. Oh and an air filter before you ruin that beautiful engine!

Beautiful build! Keep brining the youngins' into the hobby! Us old guys can only keep the industry alive for a little longer.

Thanks! The model itself is done other than some muddy footprints on the wings and some dirt and tufts of grass stuck here and there. That of course can't be done until the colours for the base are settled on. The base itself will be just a very basic grassy plot so as to not distract focus from the main subject. I am toying with the idea of having a figure on a ladder placing the tarp. Again don't want to make it the focus but I like to work a figure in when I can to give an indication of scale.

Once it goes onto a base it is going to be shipped to a WW2 airfield museum in Briton where it will be displayed with a before version of the same model.

Nope.Trumpeter. Literally exactly the same as yours.

Old one broke and they just had to replace it is all!

Not to nitpick but depending upon the year of the RV the fridge should be just about any colour except white. Newer black or stainless. Older green, brown, gold, or even orange but very very rarely white. Unless of course it is a replacement home unit!

So here I was all proud of myself when I stumbled across a picture I had not seen in all my research. There in all their glory are the oxygen bottles. I thought they were further forward or had been removed since you can't see them in the other shots so had not included them. That would never do so... Now I just need to get around to doing the base up for it and throwing it into the diorama section.

Going to see it all here! Wasn't really a WIP but the finished products really needs the background so it all went in this thread.

All closed up and interior painted. Brace in place to throw tarp over missing engine. Torn skin not on until ready for exterior paint. Since the cowl will be off I need someplace to put the nose art. Sooooo Base coat on. Bubble canopy is for masking purposes only. Torn and buckled aluminum is made from ... well ... torn and buckled aluminum. It is the heavy aluminum tape used for duct wok. Base coat is covered with tinted Future (Pledge) to start weathering and give a good foundation for decals Decals on and more weathering added. All tarped up and prop in place. And with canopy. Most of a canopy. Half of a canopy? Tail And salvage pile of removed parts on a dirty tarp And done! Or so I thought.

This is a long one! Don Gentile was a leading Ace in WW2. On April 13, 1944 he was stunting for the press over an airfield in Briton when he crashed and totally destroyed his P-51 Mustang. He walked away but the almost brand new 'Stang did not fare so well. This is my journey to model that aircraft. So buckle up and join the ride. Before: After: A quick search told me a detailed Merlin engine was going to cost me more than I wanted to pay for the project so I was very happy when I found somebody had thrown a tarp over it. This allowed me to plan things out: Not surprisingly a kit with the appropriate markings was available. So time to dig into the plastic So everything that needed to be mangled or missing is cut off. Pretty much doubled the parts count of the kit! Then put it back together. Sort of. Since the aircraft was only in service a few weeks before he crashed it the cockpit was done up looking new(ish)

Beautiful! Buddy of mine had one that looked just like that (well more wear and tear) back in the late 70s. It ended life wrapped around a pole though. He was fine.

Nope. Anything left will be chassis parts only. All upper works succumbed to the Great BB Gun War of 1972.

I am going to buck the trend here and say that you have a better than 50/50 chance of getting a nice kit out of Atlantis. Their kits do seem to consist of the cast off molds from Revell, Monogram, MPC,Lindberg and even Aurora that nobody else wanted. Some of these molds saw heavy use and the modern day castings from them show it. On the other hand some of the more oddball things were sold once and the molds were packed away never to see styrene again for decades. These ones can be as nice and crisp with detail that rivels many modern kit in the same price range. The trick is to find reviews on the exact kit you may be interested in and remove the element of doubt.

The ride on those first tires would have been a tad rough to say the least.

Thanks. The stance is 100% accurate to the real one I had. The rear interior will be as well. Of course the doghouse, door panels and 318 masquerading as a 351 are not "accurate" but some paint and a bit of squinting when viewing put them firmly in the Close Enough category for me. Well... Ummmm... About those doors... While sanding in prep for primer I managed to snap not one, but two of those little receiver rings off. I barely touched them and BING gone. The Lindberg plastic is apparently far more brittle than I realized. So Everything has come off (pictures eventually) and I am starting all over with folded over thin styrene sheet as the receiver and fine wire as the post. On the plus side this method results in a much more scale and accurate depiction of the hinges. The bad part remains to be confirmed but I suspect they will not stand up to repeated opening and closing very well so it may end up with permanently open doors. That wouldn't be horrible since it can still be seen closed on the drivers side and the interior is really the star of the show for the passenger side anyway. I also need to get some coats of buildable primer on it to make sure I can get the slight curves of the transitions in the body creases correct. By using such thin material I sort of restricted myself to how much shaping I can do. If the primer fails I will try a very thin skim of filler putty for shaping. If that fails then I will build the doors all over again but with styrene of the next thickness up. If that doesn't cut it that will be the final nail in the coffin for closing doors since when open you cant see the outer skin anyway. I will eventually win one way or the other.

DERORA ROCKS!

There are things with most kits but the issue with these tail lights (the kit not Mario's work) is just how nice the rest is compared to how bad they are. Revell obviously spent some time and money cleaning up the rest of the molds and having great crisp details just to throw some huge red lumps on the back of it. As Mario has shown it can be built into a truly beautiful masterpiece even with them but they could be icing on the cake if they were even all the same size and fit in the holes they are supposed to. OK I will step away from my soapbox now.

Beautiful! The two tone paint really ups the elegance of these early 50s Chevys.

I have painted them 4 times now so have made up for some of the others!

I have invested about 8 hours into my tail lights and they don't look much better than that. For one thing they are three different sizes and to try to sand the large ones down means you will lose the outer ring. Even the smallest don't come close to fitting into the recess where they are supposed to go anyway. Since they are such a predominant part of the car it is a shame that they are molded so awful.

Ummm I think you missed by a thread!

And the middle one on each side should have a white center for the back uplights.There is no way to make those things look good as they came out of the box though.

Having owned a real one for many years and about 95% done this kit as my convertible I can attest that the accuracy is very, very good. It is indeed an exceptional kit with beautiful molding and sharp detail. EXCEPT FOR... Those stupid blobs of misshapen, different sized, ill fitting, monstrosities they call tail lights. I spent more time on those than the chassis and engine combined and still am not happy with them so mine will sit on the shelf of doom until I get the stuff needed to scratch build them.

Opening doors I can see since there is something to look at inside. Opening hood is needed if there is an engine in there. Opening trunk, well maybe, if you have filled it with something other than air. Opening tailgate on a truck? Why bother? are you planning to throw bags of cement in there and need the lowered tailgate? That is a left over function from when models were more toys. Glue that puppy shut and sleep soundly at night.