Landlubber Mike

Oh wow, a 1/32 US catapult? Do you have the Kitty Hawk kit? That would look really cool. I'm planning to put my Walrus on the NeOmega catapult, and also have the HpH catapult for my Arado and the NeOmega catapult for the Hurricane. I think these seaplanes look really cool on catapults, which ends up being a nice diorama setting for the model. For biplane yellow wings, I have some of the old 1/32 Hasegawa and Williams Brothers kits, along with some from Silver Wings and Lukgraph. I really like the interwar paint schemes.

Hey Lou! I know i complained along the build, but looking back, it wasn't too bad. Although there were lots of fit issues, particularly with the canopy and windows, I think most of it probably boiled down to me having a lack of experience on tackling these types of issues, along with the time pressures of getting it done before the expiration of the LSM group build. The scratch landing gear itself probably took me 20 hours to do, mostly because I hadn't used a lot of the materials before. All in all though, a fun build that turned out nicely that taught me a ton. This will help me go back and finish the Vindicator and Buffalo that I stalled on, as I wasn't sure how to approach certain areas of the builds. Also, I have a Pro Modeller PBY-5A kit in 1/48 in the stash that I wanted to start, but worried about hearing all the nose weight one needs to include yet the landing gear tends to collapse - now that I scratched it on the JRS-1, I think I feel comfortable scratching it for the PBY-5A. On other flying boats, you definitely gave me a case of hives with a lot of itches to scratch. I have quite a few flying boats in the stash as I find them quirky yet very interesting. Sorta like how I prefer to model IJN auxiliary ships over the typical warships you see. Except for two, I've always bought them second hand at significant discounts from retail, though the aftermarket usually ends up making up the difference and then some. Here are the ones I have in the stash - would love to see your list! US: Sikorsky S-38 and S-39 (Czech Master Resin 1/48), J2F-5 Duck (I Love Kit 1/48), Grumman Widgeon JF-1/JF-2 (Signifer 1/48), Grumman Goose (Signifer 1/48), PBY-5A (Pro Modeller 1/48), OS2U Kingfisher (Kitty Hawk 1/32) Japanese: F1M2 Pete (Hasegawa 1/48), H8K2 Emily (Hasegawa 1/72) UK: Felixstowe F.2A (Roden 1/72 and WNW 1/32), Sunderland Mk. III (Special Hobby 1/72), Walrus (Airfix 1/48 and HpH 1/32) German: Hansa Brandenburg W.29 (WnW 1/32), Dornier Do 24T (Italeri 1/72), Blohm & Voss BV222 (Revell 1/72), Arado Ar196 (Revell 1/32). I also have a Ju 52 kit that I might use a conversion set for to add floats. French: Caudron Hydravion (Copper State 1/48) Ouch, that's a lot more than I thought I had. I need to be more efficient on my builds 😵‍💫

Wow, thank you for the very kind words gentlemen! I'm especially flattered coming from modelers with immense talent as yourselves. Really appreciate it!

Glad to have you Dave!

Thanks Dave!

Thanks Dave and Ken! Thankfully, a lot of the AM is plug and play, minus some cutting out of panels, etc. in the fuselage and wings. So, it hopefully shouldn't be that bad. There's definitely some duplication amongst the AM sets, so I'll just pick whatever looks best.

Thanks Dave and Ken!

Thanks Alan! Hoping it goes well! Thanks EG! It would have been fun to try and model that scene - flat tire and all - but I have a lot of aftermarket to open the plane up so I probably will just model it undergoing maintenance or something. There are some other cool pics out there of US and UK soldiers coming across fields of wrecked Hs 129s in Tunisia. That would be another fun diorama to try out.

When I was researching this a few weeks ago when the GB topic was being considered, I think I found a picture of the particular plane I will be modeling: The caption for the photo I believe said something to the effect of US soldiers inspecting a captured Hs 129 in Tunisia in May 1943.

For the "Sandbox" group build on the LSM sister site, I'll be building (and hopefully finishing) the Hobby 2000 Hs 129B-2. I've got probably every piece of aftermarket for this kit so I'm planning on showing this bird fully opened up. I hadn't heard of Omask before, but when researching, I found they offered a lot of great AM for this kit, including a 3D printed Mk 101 cannon (which I couldn't find elsewhere in this scale) and stencil masks for the two color schemes offered in the kit. I'm planning on building the one on the cover: I also managed to find some scale camels to add to the diorama. Should be a fun ride!

Thanks OC!

Thanks guys!

I found a 1/72 scale Navy WW2 pilot from CMK and a picked up a resin concrete tarmac off of eBay the other day, so decided to use them for a simple diorama with the JRS-1. I like adding figures to help better show scale. Here, the figure shows how big this plane was.

Finally finished! This thing has been fun, but a bit nerve wracking. There are so many PE and other fragile detail pieces, that I kept breaking things off. I figured out a way to hold the model, but one time I accidentally held it a little too firm a popped one of the windows into the fuselage - let's just say, I said a few not so nice words 🤬 Somehow, after shaking the fuselage for a few minutes, the window popped back down into the slot. It took a while, but I managed to get it glued back in. It's not perfect, but better than terminating the build. Thanks to everyone for your support and help!

Thanks EG! I agree - the colors really make for a beautiful color scheme. You can build later war schemes but I knew from the beginning that I wanted to do one of the yellow wings.

Finish line is in sight. Finished adding the decals, did a little shading/weathering, and just sprayed a final semi-gloss coat. Just need to rig, add the props and canopy antennae, and maybe add some last bits of weathering for things like the wheels. Thanks for looking in!

Thanks Alan!

Great work Craig! I really like that brown simulated leather for the interior. Is that Ascot Brown? Can I ask what paint manufacturer? It really looks good.

Productive [late] night yesterday. Got the decals on the underside of the wing, fully assembled the plane minus the antennae on the top of the canopy (which is too fragile to really install at this stage), and sprayed the fuselage and top of the wing with a gloss coat. Almost to the end finally! Just need to add decals, a little weathering/shading/highlighting, and then the rigging. Fingers crossed the tape comes off the windows ok. This kit fights you all the way, but it's looking like a nice model in the end. The struts in particular where a pain the posterior to try and fit and glue. Thanks for looking in!

Thanks Ken and Brad! I found the key to reds and yellows is to put down a primer coat of white (or even pink) for an even tone. It's a pain though when you have to do touchups, as you really need to re-prime and then paint. I've learned the hard way from my earlier yellow wing builds 🙄

Thanks Glen and Gary, really appreciate it!

Thanks Andrew!

Thanks Craig! I totally agree with what you said. Masking is definitely not something you want to skimp out on. Good to know. I like buying paints from Spraygunner too. Otherwise, in a pinch or on a whim I'll order paints off of Amazon or even eBay if I'm having trouble finding something.

Thanks Alan! I did my F3Fs using Vallejo Metal Colors - they came out ok. Paints were really easy to use, but another time or two I got what looks like pooling spots where the paint doesn't seem to adhere very well (looked almost like a smear). It could have been I was spraying too much/too close/too much pressure in that particular spot, but I didn't seem to have problems with the rest of what I painted. It sucked having to strip the paint and try again. The Mr. Color paint had none of those issues whatsoever. Not as easy to use as Vallejo, but when you have to paint a big area in metal, because the metal paints already magnify any imperfections, I'd rather avoid compounding issues.

I've made some good progress the past couple of days. I managed to finish painting all the parts, including touch ups just a bit ago, and have started adding a gloss coat for decals and weathering. Lots of Tamiya masking tape was used! The kit gives you decals for the upper black stripes and anti-glare at the nose, but I decided to paint them instead since the underside of the fuselage and the floats is also in black, and I wanted to avoid potential color mismatches. Paints used: Primer: Mr. Surfacer 1200 Red: Tamiya Flat Red XF7 with a bit of brown mixed in to tone down the bright red look. Yellow: Decanted Tamiya Camel Yellow TS 34 Green: Vallejo Game Air Sick Green with some Vallejo Model Air Green mixed in. The kit shows a very emerald looking green, but I wanted mine toned down a bit (similar to how I used a more toned down red color). Aluminum: Mr. Color Super Metallic 2 (SM 201) - Super Fine Silver 2 (for undercoat, I used Mr. Color GX 2 Ueno Black gloss). I really loved how this paint sprayed! I like Vallejo's Metal Color range, but I've had issues at times with getting a smooth coat and sometimes it doesn't adhere very well. I'll probably keep using Vallejo for smaller items like engines and details (and I used it for touch ups on this model), but this Mr. Color line might be my new go-to. Black: Tamiya Nato Black XF 69 Thanks for looking in!