ccoyle

The H had a redesigned fuselage, giving it a chunky look compared to the refined lines of the D. If you see a 'D', and it just doesn't look quite 'right', it's probably an H.

As I stated in post #1, one of the things I hoped to accomplish with this model was to avoid some of the mistakes I made during my E-4 build. One of those mistakes was not getting the vertical stabilizer perfectly vertical, as the name suggests it should be. To correct that, I went about constructing the aft fuselage slightly differently this time around. First, here's the last fuselage piece and the stabilizer framing. Let's zoom in a little closer. The part I've circled is where the difference is. As you can see, there's two bulkheads glued together there. The left-hand one is the aft bulkhead of the fuselage section. On the E-4, I glued that bulkhead into the fuselage and afterwards attached the stabilizer, essentially creating a dreaded butt joint (shudder!). This time, I glued that bulkhead to the stabilizer before it gets glued into the fuselage. This allowed me to perfectly align the two bulkheads; there are tic marks on the fuselage bulkhead that will make plugging it correctly within the fuselage a fairly straightforward process. That should produce a nicely vertical stabilizer. That's all for now!

I agree, in this instance, given the popularity of the subject and the fact that fans of Surprise have been waiting for over two decades for this announcement. I suspect such a thread will attract a lot of attention. I'd be happy to split the relevant posts off into a new topic for you, @chris watton.

Good luck!

I'm quite sure that this announcement will spark waves of rapture throughout the period ship modeling world!

Chris Watton designed both kits. The Caldercraft version is one of his earliest efforts -- the Vanguard kit is light years ahead of it in terms of design. That said, the Caldercraft kit is very buildable and can easily be super-detailed. I built it as my second POB kit. It's worth a crack.

Last one for the day.

If you have enough deck planking to replace those pieces, I'd do that, but wait until after you are sufficiently far along in the build to remove the bulwark extensions first.

Making a little magic happen during one of my vacation days I have to use up!

Very nice, Steven!

The nose is all skinned. Here's the top with the machine gun channels added. And the bottom, with the various lumpy, bumpy fairings. I have one more lumpy, bumpy 109 in my stash, a T-2. The others are F and G variants, which had a redesigned forward fuselage that streamlined the aircraft by eliminating the various lumpy bits. Construction will now transition to the rear fuselage!

I'm thankful that my college major only required one semester of calculus. Graphing calculators had just come on the market, but our instructor was a monk and an old-school math guy who insisted on doing all of his calculations by hand (but, fortunately, he didn't require us to do likewise). For me, calc was one of those skills that I never had to make use of after college 😬. Mind you, I'm thankful for all the folks who do need it and know how to use it!

I know I said this build would probably slow down a bit, but darn it, it just goes together so well that I can't drag myself away from it! Here's the finished oil cooler scoop and the next skin section. The oil cooler inlet is a real booger to shape properly, and this was true on the E-4 as well. The best I can say about this effort is that it doesn't look worse than the E-4's. I do think the yellow on the E-4 did a better job of hiding the workmanship than the light blue RLM 76 on this kit. I do like that this camouflage pattern is great at obscuring tiny seam imperfections. The new paint pens have helped in this regard, too. You can see there's a seam right down the middle of the JG 27 unit badge. Here's how it looks with the next skin section added. The pens were very helpful in patching up that particular item.

Some nose progress. We start by adding the interior of the oil cooler air intake. The fuselage skin that surrounds the intake is then added. And then the skin between that piece and the cockpit section is added.

Hi, Madison, and welcome to MSW. I'm no expert on old models, movie props or otherwise, but your post raises a few questions: How do you know this is a movie prop? From whom did you acquire the model? Did they know it was a movie prop? If so, how did they know? Without some hints about the model's provenance, I doubt there's anyone in our ranks who can fill in the missing details. Kind regards,

Outstanding!

Yeah, that's the first I've ever heard of a manufacturer doing that for a customer. Can't beat that for customer service! I wonder if Chris'd do the same thing for anyone building HMS Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis? 🤔

Model Expo has sales coming and going all the time. Never pay MSRP for one of their kits -- it'll go on sale sooner or later. This being October, they'll probably be offering "spook-tacular savings" before long.

Handsomely done! Looks like Academy went a little overboard on the rivets, but one really only notices that on the close-up shots.

Congrats on finishing your lovely model!

Up here in Greer, most of the damage was caused by falling trees -- LOTS of falling trees! Fortunately for us, we live in a neighborhood built just five years ago, so there aren't any mature trees, except on the properties adjoining the neighborhood. A couple of those did come down and cause minor damage. Outside the neighborhood, it was a different story -- trees down everywhere, roads washed out, lots of downed power lines. There are still people without power a week after the storm. It's a mess!

I have used watercolor pens and markers for edge coloring off and on for many years. The trouble with them is they tend to bleed into cut paper edges. So, of late, I have only been using them when they are a very close color match and/or in places where the bleeding will be difficult or even impossible to see. As you know, I mostly use custom-mixed acrylic craft paints for edge coloring. They are dirt cheap, but mixing them can be hit-and-miss, and then of course they have to be applied with a brush, which is kind of a pain. Enter AK Real Colors acrylic paint markers. When I learned of the existence of these markers, I knew I had to try them. And, since they are not terribly expensive (though by no means cheap), I decided to get the 34-color boxed set. Real Colors are aimed at the plastic modeling world and thus come in a variety of specifically military colors -- not the gaudy colors that watercolor pens typically come in. The boxed set has been out of stock everywhere for months, but AK has them back in production now. I ordered directly from AK -- took three days to get here via DHL. Fast, but again, not cheap -- though the price from AK + shipping was probably about what I would have had to pay from a US supplier. Anyways, I have tried out several colors on the 109, and they are close matches, though not exact. No bleeding at all. The real test will be when I get around to doing some seams. Stay tuned!

Fantastic model, Andrew! Love the crew figures!

Mmmmm, beefy!

Welcome aboard! One of our members shared some thoughts on jumping directly into the 1st rate waters. There are lots of quality kits available these days that depict smaller men-of-war, e.g., cutters, schooners, gun brigs. Still plenty of guns and rigging, but on a scale more conducive to beginner success.