So I was getting industrious one day recently and decided to take some new pictures of builds that I have done. These are by no means all of my builds, they are just the ones I was most easily able to get to.
Tamiya 1/48 F-117A Nighthawk with a hummer
Monogram 1/48 P-38J Lightning Pathfinder
Academy 1/48 F-5 Lightning Photo Recon
These are the most recent of my builds. Those P-38s fought me for nearly a year (I was also building an F-84F Thunderstreak which met an inglorious end on my workshop floor). After that I needed to build something quickly and something that would not fight me every step of the way, hence the Tamiya kits.
I actually have a lot more to post but have run out of time. I will continue posting pictures this weekend.
This one actually has a story to it. Some time in the fall of 2013 I decided I wanted to build a WWI biplane. I happened to have the Eduard 1/48 Sopwith Camel in my stash, so out it came. After several weeks of construction and painting and prepping the rigging, I got to the point of attaching the upper wing. Utter fail. Could not get the cabanes to align, and eventually lost one in a minor fit of rage. That one took a quick flight that ended against the wall.
Flash forward a couple of weeks. I still wanted to build that Camel, so I acquired an Academy 1/32 kit and set about doing work on it. And again, when I got to the upper wing, disaster, and that kit ended up getting smashed out of by now what was raging, fire-breathing anger.
I found a product on ebay that is called a biplane jig. It is basically a stand with 2 prongs with a maximum of 4 bars that can be attached. It essentially allows one to rest a model on the lower bar and align the upper wing to whatever the angle needs to be.
No more Sopwith Camel, but I had an Encore 32nd scale German Albatros D.III in my stash. The jig was a life saver this time, and even though I still fought an alignment battle, the jig gave me essentially an extra set of hands so that I was able to get the cabanes aligned properly and attach the upper wing. I think the Encore kit might have started life as a Roden kit.
So here she is.
This is the most fragile model in my collection. I can do something as simple as blow on her and she will noticably wobble on that trapeze landing gear. Other than that seam right behind the cockpit I thought I did a good job here. Experimented with oil paint to replicate wood grain in the cockpit and on the propeller.
Can you tell that I like these Curtiss warbirds? The first model I ever built, when I was 3, was that Monogram Flying Tiger. I cannot even guess how many times I’ve built that kit. I have 2 more un-built, one in the stash and the other displayed in my model cabinet (an actual 1965 dated kit with the blue box that Monogram used to use). I have a Pro-Modeler -E and that Encore release that Squadron just sold, a repop of the ERTL kit I think. Plus I have the old P-40E Revell kit in 1/32 scale. Yeah, I like these Tigers.
The P-36 has after-market details for the cockpit and the flaps, whereas I custom built details for the wheel wells and chin cooler for the two Monogram Tigers, which also include True Details cockpits - the IP in that Monogram kit is actually for an -E, not a -B.
One of my other all-time favorites is the F4U Corsair, of which I have built two of the Tamiya kits. I also have a Birdcage from Tamiya (48 and 32), as well as the old Revell 32nd kit.
Very nice collection there, Aggieman. Keep the pics coming!
I can sympathize completely with your travails over the Eduard Camel. I’ve been doing biplanes for almost 50 years, starting with the old Revell 1/28 Camel back in the '60s, and I’ve never been so close to doing a “high impact crash test” (via the nearest wall) with a model as with the Eduard Camel. After about three fits and starts I finally got the wing sort of on–with largish globs of super-glue readily visible–but it’s still my most frustrating modeling nightmare to date. (Having said that, of course, I’ve got two more waiting–someday–in the stash.) Jigs are definitely the way to go for those bipe alignment issues, but I’ve learned that serious dry-fitting, and occasionally trimming of struts, is pretty much a necessity for anything but the very best kits.
