Danstream

Your paper planes look amazing. I know, others have already said that, but this is just what it is. Best regards, Dan.

Dear all, I completed the front office with the gunsight and glued the windscreen on. The windscreen part was masked with a combination of masking tape and masking liquid. I will see later how to fill the remaining gaps between the transparent and the fuselage. Probably, I will try to have several applications of diluted writhe glue. This is how the cockpit looks like now: At the end, what is visible of the front cockpit doesn't look too bad. The characteristic vertical white strip, which is a trademark of Soviet fighters, is well noticeable. Then, I had fun adding some weathering to the jet engine. As I anticipated above, I tried to reproduce the discoloration due to the heat by selectively spraying a very diluted red brown. This is the rear fuselage dry fitted with the front part. Finally, it starts to look as an airplane and not just as bullet. The unmistakable lines of the Mig 15 can be seen. Its short fuselage and the huge swept backward tail surface can be noticed resembling to some extent the configuration of the Focke Wulf 183. I posed the engine next to it because now I have to decide what to do with it. Once fitted inside, the installation of the rear fuselage becomes a bit problematic. The fuselage seems not to fit well the engine and a lot of force is needed with the risk of scratching the paint of the engine. A solution could be to glue the fuselage and scratch build a trolley for the engine so to pose it next to the aircraft. That's it for now, best regards, Dan.

Hi Denis, if the engine and airframe turn out good enough, I will have the possibility of removing the aft half of the fuselage to leave the engine exposed. Unfortunately, there is not a trolley for the half fuselage supplied in the kit. I will see when I will be there. Kind regards, Dan

You have to be commended for your perseverance and aptitude to stay focused on the building these old kits. 👏 I am following even if I am not commenting much. Kind regards, Dan

Lot of work on the camo. Just one comment about the feathered edge camo. RAF used rubber mats that once laid on the aircraft surfaces were used to delineate the areas to be sprayed. Hence, the resulting edges were more likely sharp than soft. At any rate, your model looks good whatever the the look of the edges will be. Good luck and best regards, Dan.

Hi all, while working on addressing all the fit problems of the fuselage, for a change, I started working on the Klimov-vk1, the Russian version of the RR Nene jet engine. These are the various components just painted. I searched on the web for pictures of this engine to find which colors were more likely to be used for it. I painted the matt parts of the jet pipe with a mix of Tamiya matt aluminium and matt white, while for the shiner parts I used various shades of Vallejo metallic colors. The black parts are painted with Tamiya flat black mixed with few drops of Tamiya clear. I replaced the pins used to suspend the engine with brass tubes for added strength. Then I dry brushed the black parts with Humbrol gun metal to highlight some details and finally I used the Tamiya black and brown panel liners on the metallic parts to hint to some weathering. Next, I will spray some light shades of brown to simulate the heat scorched parts of the engine. That's all for now, best regards, Dan

Very nice and sharp build. The decals really finish it off. You are on the home stretch now, Best regards, Dan

It looks rather spiffy in its camouflage. Very good job. Regards, Dan

Hi all, some small progress on this build that I thought to be an easy out-of-the box one, but instead is requiring a lot of interventions beacause of the very poor fit of some of its parts. This is the ammunition compartment where I replaced the plastic barrels of the two 23 mm guns with aluminium tubes. They look white because I primed them with a Tamiya white primer. The kit box advertises the possibility to leave this compartment exposed, but I am not interested in that and I wanted to mount it closed to better reveal the lines of the fuselage. This was the begininning of some fit problems because the lid and the guns seem not to designed for that. When I tried to put the parts together, unexpected awfully wide gaps appeared everywhere. In addiotion, lot of filing was required to persuade the gun barrels to fit into their slots. Perhaps it was my fault, but I am really surprised by such bad fitting in a modern kit. To fill the gaps, I started to contour the parts with strips of styrene card (the white parts visible in the photos). Before committing the lid into place, I stuffed the weapon compartment with pieces of lead wire: The lid was glued into place and the tip of the 32 mm barrel was removed to be replaced later with an Eduard part. I completed the final filling of the gaps with pieces of styrene cards and stretched sprue. I also dry test fitted the Eduard muzzle into its fairing: Now sanding and further filling will follow, trying not to obliterate too much the surface details. Clearly not an exciting job, but I am afraid one that I cannot escape. See you soon, Dan.

Are the white sprays to check the junctions?

Nice work on the cockpit and the closed model looks cleanly done. Waiting for seeing more, best regards, Dan.

As already said above, one key point is to use thinned paint and many layers. At the beginning the coverage is very poor, but it quickly improves by adding layers. It also helps to have a very light fine sanding in between, it allows paint to 'bite' and makes the surface even and free from strokes and irregularities. Matt paint is easier than gloss paint. In several occasions, I started with a matt color and then switched to the gloss version of the same color. For the a gloss finish quality of brushes is essential, especially for the last 2-3 layers. Good luck, Dan.

Hi all, going on at a slow pace. I did not make up my mind about exposing or not the jet engine provided in the kit. Usually I am a bit critical about these items, especially when they come with movable parts as in this case. The posable parts have generally a toy-ish design which I do not like. This case is not an exception being the details used to join the two parts of the fuselage very obvious. For the moment, I will give it a try and I will defer the final decision to a later stage. Hence, I pulled the engine bulkhead out of the box and found not a very nice part, afflicted by extractor marks. These marks are located on a web that shouldn't be there. I presume that these triangular holes are the air ducts, therefore they should be opened up. This is what I did, adding two curved wall that should mimic the internal walls of the air ducts: The remaing horizontal sect should represent the rear wing spar that crosses the fuselage (and the ducts) in the middle. In the air intake, on the vertical sect that splits the airflow, there was a headlight faired in the sect. The transparent part of the headlight has an annoying extractor mark on its concave surface which deserves some cares because it will be a focal point of any frontal view of the aircraft. Therefore, I first sanded off the circular extractor mark, then I sanded the part with gradually finer sand paper and finally polished it with a Tamija fine compound. A coat of floor polish followed to restore the shine and protect the part from the fumes of the glue. Here, the trasparent part is completed with its edges painted by a black paint to kill reflections inside the glass and ready to be glued on its part holder on the right. The three tiny holes on the part holder should help to make the headlight cavity not gas-tight. The headlight on its support and finally inside the air intake: Ok, not perfect, but less obvious than before. Best regards, Dan.

Very nice and sharp work on the cockpit. Best regards, Dan.

Dear all, I have finished the cockpit parts with a coat of Tamiya matt clear which has removed the shine and improved the overall look. However, I encountered a problem with fitting the modified parts. I already wrote above that the cockpit is quite cramped and indeed the added lateral handles of the seat could not fit in the small space between the walls and the seat. I hate when this happens, but I decided that life is too short for wasting time with this type of problems, so I cut out the handles and I will proceed without. Well, I said that this will be a closed-canopy model and nobody will peer into the model to check whether all the handles are in there. Then, the nice Eduard instrument panel went into place: As I sad earlier, I do not know much about Soviet planes, but, at the end, I am satisfied with the look of the cockpit which appears to me to have a certain 'Russian' character. Seen the fit problem I had before, I tried to dry fit check all the parts to be sure that all components will fit inside the fusalage halves: Now, I think I have understood the reason for the narrow cockpit: the air passages the bring the air from the intake to the engine are located on the sides of the cockpit and this gets squeezed in size to avoid a resulting too wide a fuselage. Anyway, everything seems to fit quite well. Next, the inner sides of the air intake need to be painted and the fuselage can be then definetively closed. That is all for now, best regards, dan.

Dear all, I am posting a small update on the progress of the cockpit. I am following the colors seen on various pictures on internet. I colored the ejection seat, added a seat belt set from Eduard and discolored a bit the belts using a diluited brown oil color from a tube: I have the impression that the seatbelts are a bit oversized, but they look the part. The basic color for the interior is a Tamiya dark sea grey mixed with white (3 d.s.g. + 2 white) according to proportions that I mixed by eye. I would like to give the cockpit a 'used' look, therefore I am liberally applying various washes on its parts. The seat pan was treated with a Tamiya brown panel liner, while for the floor I used the brown oil color from the tube after a coat of floor polish. This is the floor treated and the side walls with the floor polish only. Finally, also the side panels are treated with the Tamiya brown panel liner and a hand made black wash to pick up panels and controls. Few old instrument decals were also used. The instrument panel and the pedals are from Eduard, specifically made for the new Bronco kit, but the parts can be reasonably fitted also on this kit. Now I have to add a couple of red handles from the Eduard set and a coat of matt varnish. This all for now, best regards, Dan.

Thanks for the likes and your notes. It is surprising to learn about how many of them are flying in the US. Surely there are some one-seat specimens flying as I watched them in several videos on youtube. There is at least one where it is flying together with an F-86 (yellow striped). So far, the only opponent I can pose with it is my recent Hawker Sea Fury (although the Dutch markings do not match with it). Yes, rugged and basic aircraft, but quite lethal a weapon for its time. I was also surprised to note how small it was (likely to contain weight) and how cramped was its cockpit: Probably, like the pilot in the videoclip, I wouldn't fit well into it. Best regards, Dan.

Dear all, being currently interested about cold war, I am starting a new kit which represents one of the protagonists of cold war, the MiG 15 bis. The story of this plane is quite known, so I am not repeating it here. Quite surprisingly, its jet engine, which was a russian copy of the Rolls-Royce Nene, was practically simply purchased from UK. It was one of the first operative jet fighter with a swept wing for operating in the high subsonic regime. For this iconic plane, I chosed the 1:48 Trumpeter kit, a brand that I never tried before. My intention is not to spend too much efforts in detailing the cockpit because this is going to be a closed canopy model. However, when I saw the supplied ejection seat, I was disappointed by how the headrest was reproduced. Being the headrest the most prominent detail that can be seen through a closed canopy, I decided to detailing it a bit. Trumpeter moulded a 'boxed' headrest, probably copying one of the restaured MiG flying in US, but the original one was actually quite different. Above, you can see the difference and the little improvements that I made with some Evergreen strips (the kit comes with two seats). To give a little 'busier' look to the cockpit, I also added few wiring along with the engine throttle which cannot be absent in a pilot's office. Before a coat of paint, I embellished a bit more the seat adding two side handles which can be well spotted from outside: This is my first Soviet aircraft, I know little about russian aircraft, hence I am curious to see how will this one turn out. I hope you will be interested too. Best regards, Dan.

Thanks for your words, Popeye! Yes, I will definetively start another build and post it here. I will not miss the opportunity to enjoy the warm hospitality of this forum. Best regards, Dan.

Hi Edwardkenway, if you have not yet considered it, I might suggest to apply drops of white glue, in successive applications, to the knobs of the PE levers to make the knobs to appear more 'rounded'. Good progress otherwise, waiting to see more. Best regards, Dan. PS. Are you sure the cockpit interior was yellow and not green?

If it is your first with PE, a couple of suggestions, if I may (this is what I do): - Cut the parts from the fret with a sharp blade on top of a very thin cardboard which is on top of a hard surface (a glass tile), keep a finger on the part to be cut, because often they fly away entering in a spacetime wormhole you did not suspect you had in your room. - File the edge with a diamond file, do not try to cut away the residual fret attachment. - If the part get deformed, try to flatten it by rolling a round rod (the aluminium handle of a cutter knife) on top of a glass surface. - Sand slightly with a very fine sand paper the surfaces to be glued. - If you need to fold a part, do it on a glass surface, pressing a blade along the folding line and lifting the part to be folded with another blade. Doing this under a magnifier lens helps a lot. - A good sharp pointed tweezers will help a lot to handle and position the parts. - Do not rush, as soon you get tired or bored, stop the work and come back to it later! Good luck, Dan.

Awesome models, excellent workmanship and paintworks. With no reserve, your weathering technique looks very credible! Bravo. Best regards, Dan.

Thanks Mike for your words. At present, I do not know which kit I will choose as next build, but once started I will post it here. I am attracted now by aircraft of the cold war period, which I connect with my youth. However, I am not yet sure. Good luck with your builds and best regards, Dan

Dear all, thanks for the likes and for the very generous comments to @ccoyle, @mtaylor, @Old Collingwood, @Canute, @Egilman, @Edwardkenway, @lmagna which made me blush 🙂. I understood that some of you would not dislike if I will show again my WIP posts when I will start another model. I will be very pleased to do so, but I might have a question to our administrators. Before this build, I was used to publish my WIP posts on an another forum dedicated to aircraft modelling. Would it be acceptable if I have WIP posts on two sites (this and the aircraft one) at the same time on the same subject? Thanks for clarifying that. Now I have to progress on my Mayflower which is languishing on my workbench. Thanks again and best regards, Dan

Hawker Sea Fury FB 11 Koninklijke Marine - 1953 Airfix 1:48 Dear all, this is the final istalment of my Sea Fury build. I enjoyed very much this model from Airfix which reproduces quite well the lines of this powerful and handsome aircraft. The fit of the parts is very good and well engineered. Decals are also of very good quality. On the downside, the surface details are a bit heavy and few details are missing, but these negative point are dwarfed, in my opinion, by the positive ones. On a scale of 1 to 5, overall, I would rate between 4 and 4.5. For my model, I chose one of the versions offered in the kit, namely an aircraft with the livery of the Koninklijke Marine (Royal Netherlands Navy) which in 1953 was part of an aerobatic team called AeroBats. A big thanks to all who followed my build and provided suggestions and support. Best regards, Dan.