Greek Ghost

Special Hobby's Mirage 1/72 F.1 was greeted with excitement by jet modellers, as the long overdue replacement for the Airfix and Hasegawa 70s kits. The hype was largely justified, as the new kit has lots of fine detail and options, although I did encounter a few surprising fit issues. Finished in Greek camo.

Percival's younger brother

Hot on the tail of the S&M piston-engined Provost was this build of the jet variant, the new-tool Airfix 1/72 Jet Provost JP.3. This was a pre-release version built for Airfix Model World mag so there were no decals, but fortunately Xtradecals had just released their set for the kit. The build itself was simple and straightforward enough, with just a couple of glitches and omissions, mainly the various intakes on the fuselage spine and the spurious centre-frame on the canopy which had to be removed. Great little kit though, I really enjoyed it.

Hunting in Malaysia

I'd never heard of S&M Models until Airfix Model World magazine asked me to build this kit. After decades, finally a replacement for the venerable Matchbox 1/72 Percival-Hunting Provost. It was a joy to build, well detailed with good fit (although the three-piece canopy was a bit fiddly). Malaysian markings were one of the options on the decal sheet but I modified the scheme to represent a different aircraft, which required new serials and the checkerboard cowling and fuselage band.

Under my skin

There are some aspects of this hobby that I really dislike. Masking canopies is one of them, and so is making seat harnesses. My most intense loathing though is reserved for photo-etch. It can't be sanded, paint won't stick to it, it bends at the slightest touch and the tiniest parts launch themselves into oblivion. So it was with some trepidation that I accepted a request from the editor of Airfix Model World to build the Eduard 1/72 strip-down Fokker. Apart from styrene wing spars, cowl, prop and a few odds and ends, the kit is almost entirely photo-etched brass. Fortunately it's superbly engineered and the problems I had were all self-induced: folding parts back-to-front, and knocking the model off the workbench for example. I can't honestly say I enjoyed the build, but it did overcome some of my fear of photo-etch. The full article is in the August 2014 issue.

Eduard 1/72 Bf110E

Another couple of months have gone by without a post, but then again I haven't been at the bench much so not a lot to report. A full build article of the 1/72 Eduard Bf110E that I built a few months back has just been published in the June 2014 issue of Tamiya Model Magazine, and currently on the bench is the old (albeit in a new box) Airfix 1/144 Boeing 737.

Summer Blues

As we approach the beginning of September it's alarming to me that my last blog post was at the end of March; five months later I'm still in the same state of modelling lethargy. Over the last few months I've barely touched plastic, which I can attribute to various factors. Firstly, it just feels downright wrong to head downstairs to the bench in the basement while my wife's on the deck in the hot sunshine... Secondly, I'm feeling burnt out after a few years of intensive article writing, working to deadlines and cataloguing every stage – I enjoy it, but it can begin to feel more like work than recreation. Thirdly, several (though fortunately not all) of the forums that I used to visit on a daily basis for inspiration seem to have been taken over by snide, cynical, short-fused posters. And now the English Premier League is on TV again, how am I supposed to get any building done at weekends?

The last completion, back in February, was an Airfix 1/72 Curtiss Helldiver. Any rational person wanting a SB2C model would have started with the beautifully engineered, reasonably priced, readily available, highly accurate Academy kit. In my defense I was asked by the editor of Airfix Model World to build the old 1968 kit (albeit in a new box with lovely decals). To be honest, I probably derived more enjoyment/satisfaction from updating this old beast than I would have from building the state-of-the-art Academy kit, although the latter would undoubtedly have been way more accurate and a nicer model. The full build article has just been published in the September issue of AMW.

Feeling Snarky

This is the re-released old Revell Snark, box-scale approx 1/81. Biggest task was sanding off all the rivets and raised decal-placement mouldings. Revell provide white decal stripes for the markings but I wasn't sure how well they'd fit so they were masked and painted. The build article is in this month's (March 2013) issue of Airfix Model World. 

Japanese paper planes

The Kayaba ram-jet fighter was very much an IJA '46 project, never proceeding beyond a single glider prototype. After the Eurofighter struggle I needed something quick and simple and Meng's 1/72 kit(s) did the trick; two in a box, superb fit of parts, good surface detail and no accuracy questions to anguish over. Both schemes are spurious of course, I did the camo a/c straight from the box, but added a little more cockpit detail and some panel lines to the orange plane. They were published in the Dec 2012 issue of Tamiya Model Magazine International. Based on the quality of the Meng kit I ordered their 1/72 F-102, which is en route from HobbyLink Japan.

Circuits and Bumps

The Saab Draken in the previous post was the last build for Scale Aviation Modeller International magazine's 'Circuits and Bumps' series, which I've been writing for the last 2 years. Here's a link to pics of all the models in the series.