Zenrat's Flying Circus

[Old Wombat]

I wonder what nefarious cargoes the zi van surrepticiously carries!

[NARSES2]

  Some numbers are used on two different models at different times.  Still, it has helped me identify which releases I have in case I get really obsessive and try to collect them all...

Oh dear, I think you've just started off down a path ? 

I've got a fair number of Hasegawa kits of that period and I gave up trying to understand the colour band, letter, number combination meanings years ago. There's also those where Japanese script is primary and those where it's secondary. The collectors must love it ? I just know I can spend some time making a well fitting, reasonably accurate kit. Plus you get a really good choice of Japanese subjects 

[zenrat]

I wonder what nefarious cargoes the zi van surrepticiously carries!

Beer and Vodka.  And a small bottle of sweet sherry for the ladies.

  Some numbers are used on two different models at different times.  Still, it has helped me identify which releases I have in case I get really obsessive and try to collect them all...

Oh dear, I think you've just started off down a path ? 

I've got a fair number of Hasegawa kits of that period and I gave up trying to understand the colour band, letter, number combination meanings years ago. There's also those where Japanese script is primary and those where it's secondary. The collectors must love it ? I just know I can spend some time making a well fitting, reasonably accurate kit. Plus you get a really good choice of Japanese subjects 

No, no, no, no.  I will not get obsessed.  I'll know i've reached that point when I start translating the japanese script on the boxes (now I hadn't thought of doing that until now...).  The only Japanese aircraft I have (so far) are a zero and the Kawanishi Type 94.  I must admit I get slightly confused by the number of different single engined Japanese military aircraft there are - prolly due to the insistence of the IJN and IJA that they would not use what the other did.  It's a shame that Hasegawa didn't use the same box top design scheme on the bigger boxed kits.  The Kawanishi Type 97 (H6K) would have looked great done that way.  The art was as good but they didn't have the groovy graphic design angle to the aircraft name.
With the exception of the F4EJ Phantom II and the F102 I have to agree about how well they build.  But maybe it was me?  I have another Phantom to have a go at so we'll see.  The Me 109 (sic) i'm working on at the moment is certainly going together very nicely.

I've been doing some rummaging in boxes in preparation for the Floaty McBoatplane GB.  To an Airfix Grumman Duck I have added parts from an Airacobra, Mustang, Pe2, Fw190 and Bf110.
What this will turn into is anyones guess.  In my head it was evolving into a sleek soviet racing seaplane (Schneider Trophski if you like) until I realised that it was going to be too large and that a competition aircraft almost certainly wouldn't have been an amphibian due to weight considerations.  I like the hull side windows and plan to keep them so maybe it'll become some sort of light transport for the swampier regions of the Rodina.

Didn't get much actual modelling time today but I did manage to glue the Me262 "bomb" onto it's trolley again.  This time it is staying upside down until I am sure the (5 minute epoxy) glue is thoroughly dry - so far its had 9 hours...

[zenrat]

Me 262 Mistel WIP 31-10-17 02 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr
Now I need to finish the top half.

[NARSES2]

Does look good mate 

[DogfighterZen]

Does look good mate 

Second that!

[PR19_Kit]

Looks positively lethal to me! 

[Old Wombat]

Is good!

[rickshaw]

Is good!

x2 

[zenrat]

Thanks folks.

[zenrat]

Worked on an Airfix F3 Lightning today.  I'm not impressed by some of the fit.  I've had to fettle the internal bulkheads to improve the closure of the fuselage halves (and it will still need filler) and the parts that go in the hole at the front of the belly bulge definitely did not want to go in without sanding.  This isn't what I was expecting from a new Airfix tool.  Is it me or are they all like this?

[PR19_Kit]

If it really is an F3 it's anything BUT new! The basic mould goes way back to their original F1 of the late 60s, and the only real F3 bit is the fin.

The pur sang modern Airfix Lightnings are the F2A and the F6 kits, which are magnificent, even by Haseiya standards.

[zenrat]

(1/72) F2A, not F3.  Yes it is one of the new ones and no it is not magnificent.  It's good, it's even very good but it's not as good as I was expecting based on reports and experience of other new Airfix kits.
Maybe the moulds are wearing as there is (minor) flash and some male ejector pin marks big enough to interfere with closure of parts.
The kit design is excellent although I can't help thinking they should have filled the huge hole in the belly and produced different fuselages for different marks.
Still. it's all part of the process of building a model.  It'd be boring and easy if they all fell together without a struggle and we'd all be driven to wilder and more crazy acts of whiffery in order to keep interested.

[NARSES2]

Not sure how old your Lightning is (It's not my interest) but Airfix have improved a lot over the last 3 years even. When they first started bringing out the "new tools" they were a huge improvement on the re-releases we'd had up until then, but they really have learned with each new kit and the most recent kits (a lot of which are from LIDAR scans I think) are a huge improvement on those from even a few years ago. Having said that because they've, in a lot of cases, taken an innovative approach to the kits breakdown and construction you do have to think about them a bit and read the instructions otherwise they can turn around and bite a blase modeller.

[PR19_Kit]

Ooer, I've built two F2As, and they both fell together, but they were very early ones, so maybe the moulds are wearing out fast. They sell like hot cakes so that's possible I guess.