SPA Modeler

speedgraflex wrote:Kari!

Hmmmm. Indeed. 1/24 Hellcat!

How is your “assistant” doing? Still feeding on pocket change, I assume?



Cheers.

- Kari

What do you guys think of the 1/24 Airfix Typhoon kits?

That kit looks amazing. It’s on my styrene bucket list. I just like going to town at least once with over 500 parts in an aircraft kit. I think the Henschel from ZM in 1/32 ranks higher in my “parts-buster” list. That looks impressive to me, John. Why? Are you thinking about building a Typhoon?



385 parts.

No, just curious what you guys thought of it. Right now, 1/32 scale is big enough for me. It must be an impressive sight to see one built up but no... it's not on my list. I still have the Special Hobby 1/32 Tempest and even that one isn't really beckoning. I could imagine doing another Dora or maybe the 109K-4 on my shelf before I start the Tempest.

I believe my grandfather would be most pleased if I built a Spitfire. I have been eyeballing the Spitfire Vb Trop ever since I saw this photo—



What have you heard about the Hobby Boss Kit? I wrote a fella who built one asking him if he had any advice. What do you think about the quality?

Haven't really heard about Hobby Boss 1/32 kits. If they are anything like their parent company (Trumpeter), it would need to researched carefully. A cursory look at some of builds online says that it is a decent kit.

Them lap belts look great in there, you're doing a great job on them they don't even look like PE

Clint—Those lap belts so far have been a real challenge, so I am glad you are picking up on them. I really believe those belts are the most complicated weathering and "fluffing" techniques for me because they are subtle. I started with a light graphite wash, then I toned down the buckles with light brown brush marker, but the real break came by adding areas of white glue. I wanna explain this well, so here goes! By adding a thin line of white glue on top of the etch where the straps are raised I added more height. It's easy to overdo this, but I figured that the "straps" were gonna be the only areas where I would try this, and that was the right move. I also ground down the throttle as much as possible tonight. That's still over-sized but I'm happy that it is smoother and slightly smaller. And I'm real happy that the trench I dug in the slot welded with CA to the support held up to the grinding. For a delicate little detail it's as tough as I can make it.

White glue on PE belts i'm going to have to try that. You've done a great job on that throttle too once it's all closed up it will really stand out.