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ccoyle

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  1. Nope. Halinski provide very little information at their website other than a list of kits currently in print. Clicking a name in the list brings up a very small image of the kit cover, but nothing else. The best way to get information on a Halinski kit is to google it and find info at another site, either a vendor or one of the various dedicated card modeling forums. I have found kartonowki.pl very useful in this regard, and it is pretty easy to navigate, especially if you use Google Translate. There are presently three finished examples of this kit available for viewing at Kartonowki -- here's a link to one of them.
  2. Introduction: Back on the Halinski horse! Okay, for anyone wondering where the Bloch build went off to, let's just say it ran into a terminal combination of issues (kit design, print quality, & builder interest) and has been packed off to the Land of Misfit Models. But let's not dwell on the past -- on to brighter horizons! Maybe! I say "maybe" because this kit is a Halinski publication, and Halinski are the Tamiya of the card modeling world. I have a lot of Halinski kits in my stash, but I have only ever attempted two of them, a Polikarpov I-16 that I completed successfully and a Brewster B-239 that sadly never made it past cockpit skinning, though I have another copy of it in the stash. The killer issue for me with Halinski kits has been the fact that the cockpit areas are double-skinned (inner + outer), and if the inner skit fit is not absolutely perfect (i.e. no gaps at all), the outer skin(s) will not fit. At some point I need to get myself past the Halinski Hurdle if I am to progress up the card modeling curve, so here I am. I actually had another kit in mind for this task, a P-39N in Soviet markings, but I discovered that the canopy for that kit got a slight kink at some point in its life and is slightly fogged as a result, so I will need to replace it. That leaves the Spitfire Vb as the next easiest option that doesn't have a radial engine but does have the desirable laser-cut frames and canopy. For those who are not big WWII aviation buffs, the Spitfire Vb is the mark that was in widespread service when the Germans sprung their Fw-190 surprise on the RAF. It was later phased out in favor of the Mk IX. This kit portrays the personal mount of famed Polish ace Jan Zumbach at the time he commanded the equally famous 303 (Polish) Squadron. As is the norm for Halinski kits, the cover is beautifully illustrated. Right around 2002-2003 is the time that Halinski was transitioning toward exceptional graphics in its kits, with a high level of detail and realistic weathering. This transition was completed prior to 2005, so this kit exhibits the high printing standards that Halinski is famous for. And as I said, I have the laser-cut frames and molded canopy, so I'm all set. I know I said elsewhere that I was looking for a quick project for my next model, and this kit definitely is not a quick and easy build. But eventually I decided that I'd rather focus my efforts on a model that will (hopefully) look great when finished. This kit will definitely challenge my abilities and require a great deal of patience -- which is okay. I plan to treat each sub-assembly just like wooden ship modelers are encouraged to treat those on their models -- each a miniature kit in its own right. Okay, I'm off to mix edge colors!
  3. I do, too, but it's actually an optical illusion produced by the artist's rendering of the wing surfaces. Pawel's ability to depict this feature has matured over the course of his career, and as you can see he's gotten quite good at it. Not all card model designers have reached this pinnacle. 😬
  4. Jimmy, you are experiencing the joy of discovery -- the joy of discovering all the niggling little foibles in this particular kit. Corel have a good reputation as a kit manufacturer, but it is my sincere belief that when it comes to their products, you get what you pay for. Their expensive kits get rave reviews, and their less expensive kits, like FF, often appear to be crappola grande. In the case of FF, they tossed in a lot of off-the-shelf fittings that are either period-inappropriate, out of scale, or both. You can see my version here. I took many liberties with the kit in order to make it somewhat representative of a West Coast bald-headed schooner. BTW, I ran into some of the same difficulties you have described, e.g. the round stern, which the kit instructions do not describe at all. I actually wrote a rather unflattering review of this kit on another now-defunct forum. It really is not much fun to work on a kit that frustrates rather than rewards, and I would hate to see your enthusiasm for the hobby wane simply because your kit is a bad design. As I said in your other thread, don't hesitate to set this one aside if it gets too maddening. Kit design and manufacture has come a long, long way since FF was produced, and there are many excellent kits out today that are designed specifically for beginning modelers -- and they can actually be built. Cheers!
  5. Wow! Your close-up shots have been hiding the fact of your diorama's small size -- all the more amazing, considering how much detail you have packed into it. Well done!
  6. Hi, Jimmy. I have built that Corel kit, and I can verify that it is not an ideal beginner's kit. Should it become too frustrating to complete, don't hesitate to find an easier (and probably better) project to work on. Good luck!
  7. You may need staff to take care of this for you. Provide me the links, and I'll do the deed for you -- dirt cheap.
  8. I still haven't made up my mind yet, and I've changed it at least half a dozen times already. Nothing in my stash is crying out, "Build me now! Build me now!" with sufficient conviction. 🤔
  9. Believe it or not, even here in little SC we have regional rivalries. The state is geographically divided into the Low Country, the Piedmont, and the Upstate. The Upstate, where I live, seems to be largely populated by recent arrivals from the Upper Midwest.
  10. Welcome aboard, Dan! As a long-time former resident of Humboldt County, I feel compelled to correct your notion of 'Northern California' -- Lafayette is definitely in what we called Southern California. Northern California ended at the Mendocino-Sonoma county line. Just kidding, of course! Well, half-way, maybe. We can accept you as an honorary NorCal resident as long as you root for the Giants and not that other California Team That Shall Not Be Named (and to head off any potential wisecracks out there, the Angels and Padres are not considered worthy enough adversaries to qualify as Teams That Shall Not Be Named). Good luck with your pram, and hopefully you'll share some pictures of it!
  11. The Big Reveal! All done! Believe it or not, quite a few fiddly bits 'n' pieces were added between today's update and the last one: exhaust pipes, two venturies, control horns, actuator rods, control cables, fuel line, and pitot tube. I am really quite pleased with how this turned out. Again, much of the credit must go to the excellent design. There were no "mystery parts" left over or construction sequences that weren't apparent in the diagrams -- truly a great kit and one to recommend without reservation. So, on to the pictures! And as a bonus, here's a family portrait of the Tiger Moth and three of her biplane sisters (clockwise from lower left: Fiat CR.42 Falco, CWL WZ.X, Polikarpov Po-2). Gotta love those Zweideckern! Cheers!
  12. The previous discussion on this thread has been pared down. Please, folks, be civil in any replies you make in a topic regardless of how you feel about the subject. If you feel for any reason that a post or topic thread needs to be evaluated by MSW staff, please PM a moderator. Thank you! P.S. Please consider the discussion on this particular matter closed and move on.
  13. I will echo James' comment about issues like this being handled by private message, as those of us who are reading this over our first cup of a.m. coffee have no idea what this is about and can therefore form no opinion on it.
  14. Landing gear, prop, and tail skid done. Only odds and ends to do now. The next post will be the big reveal.
  15. Okay, here are the goodies I received-- second batch arrived today. For those of you who were too slow with your wallets, these serve as examples of what you could have had. 😁 But don't worry -- there's still plenty of stuff left. Okay, since this is a ship modeling forum, I'll start with the ships. I picked up two kits from Paper Shipwright, the steamship SS Shieldhall and the turret ship Huascar. Shieldhall is preserved as a working maritime heritage ship; Huascar served in both the Chilean and Peruvian navies and can be depicted as she appeared in either service. I also picked up the pilot ship Ditmar Koel from HMV. Most of what I ordered are aircraft. I snagged three early Kartonowa Kolekcja kits (the publisher of my current project, a DH.82A Tiger Moth): a Fokker D.VII in the markings of Ernst Udet's personal mount, a Mitsubishi A6M2 that depicts the aircraft that struck and sank the escort carrier St. Lo in 1944 (first ship sunk by a kamikaze),and a Nieuport 11c that can be built in one of three versions including one that depicts an aircraft of the Lafayette Escadrille. And now for the good stuff. I got hold of no less than nine Halinski kits: a Messerschmitt Bf-109E-4/N flown by Adolf Galland (printed on glossy stock, which I wasn't aware of and which I don't care for), a Curtiss P-40E in Flying Tiger markings, and the Bf-109F-4 flown by Hans-Joachim Marseille . . . . . . a North American P-51D (John Meyers' Petie 2nd), a Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate (code name "Frank"), and an RAF Mustang III . . . . . . a Yakovlev Yak-1b ("Jak" in Polish), a Bf-109E-4 flown by Walter Oesau, and a Supermarine Spitfire Mk. Vb Tropical that can be built in either RAF or USAAF markings. Three of the Halinski kits came with laser-cut frames -- a sweet bonus. Finally, a Fiat G.50 Freccia published by Answer. The desert camo on this model is done very nicely and will complement my Fiat CR.42 (built) that was likewise published by Answer. So, lots of good stuff. Am I happy with my new acquisitions? Why, yes, yes I am. 😁 Now go and get yourselves something!
  16. Hi, Ian. I'm a California ex-pat living in SC. Grew up and went to college in Humboldt County (fisheries major), and my adult children lived in Morro Bay for a time, so I'm very familiar with the type of boat you're wishing to model. They have a lot of character. Before we moved to SC, we lived in Mariposa for 12 years; we playfully referred to you Valley dwellers as "flatlanders." The kits that James H referred to are "hot off the press," so to speak, and they are cutting-edge kits of stylish working boats, even if they are not West Coast types. Cheers!
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