Gnats in Portugal

[DogfighterZen]

I hadn't.  I have now.
I thought it looked a bit like this.

I see what you mean. but just imagining masking for that gives me a headache...

Now applying decals, and but i'm really not in the mood for this task... lets juts say i had a wild night out with my friends...

[Weaver]

Wow that looks good! I only tried masking stripes once and it went horribly wrong, so well done.

[strobez]

Wow.  I already think the Gnat looks like a fast plane, but this one looks like it'll blast through concrete and leave a Gnat-shaped hole...

Striking colour scheme, razor sharp mask lines... I dunno... this baby looks like a contender for sure.

[DogfighterZen]

Wow that looks good! I only tried masking stripes once and it went horribly wrong, so well done.

Wow.  I already think the Gnat looks like a fast plane, but this one looks like it'll blast through concrete and leave a Gnat-shaped hole...

Striking colour scheme, razor sharp mask lines... I dunno... this baby looks like a contender for sure.

You're too kind kind, guys, thank you!
let's see if i can finish it before midnight, still have 50 decals to put on it and final assembly to do...

[DogfighterZen]

As i expected, everything went wrong... even managed to snap the nose gear leg in two...   i've just finished gluing it back on...



just have to get the mask off the canopy but it's already past mid night so, obviously not finished before the end of the deadline... i tried...

[AXU]

And yet...you made a very beautiful model 
Maybe Chris will still allow to participate at the poll...99,99% is done!

[DogfighterZen]

And yet...you made a very beautiful model 
Maybe Chris will still allow to participate at the poll...99,99% is done!

Thank you, Axu! But i'm never gonna rush a build again... almost ruined it so even if it means missing the dead line by 4 and a half hours, i don't care.

So here is the Folland Gnat T.1 of the PoAF aerobatics demo team "Asas de Portugal", in 1976, when the team was formed.













Well, done in less than a week because i started it on Tuesday so, i'm very satisfied with the result, even though i didn't finish it in time, but i'm ok with it, this build was very fun and i thank all you guys for the kind words in your comments!

So, what's next?

[Glenn Gilbertson]

Never mind the timing - you have produced a real beauty!

[zenrat]

Gorgeous.  Better to finish late than not to finish because you screwed it up rushing.

[TheChronicOne]

Damn that's cool, it's beautiful!!!! 

[DogfighterZen]

Glad you like the little bugger, guys!

Gorgeous.  Better to finish late than not to finish because you screwed it up rushing.

Yup, i won't do it again cause i'll really be p*ssed off if i do it!
Yesterday things did not go as planned once again, i had to leave the house after lunch when i was going to finish the decals, only got back at it around 10.00 p.m. and there was just too much to do, to get it finished in 2 hours.
I managed to break all 3 landing gear legs, scratch the paint job all the way down to the plastic on a few spots...  but, fortunately, i managed to fix everything up at end... i have to say that the decals were very good, quick to come off the backing paper, strong and easy to handle as they had no tendencies to curl up,  reacted well to Vallejo's medium decal softener, conformed well to all panel lines, excellent print as you can read most of the stencils, even the ones you'll have to read with a magnifying glass... They're so good i had to use the whole sheet and i think it adds nice detail to the overall look of the model. The Portuguese roundels and numbers came from Colorado/Carpena PoAF roundels and a G.91 in Africa sheets.
I can say that i was expecting to take longer, even though i'm still on vacation so, i'm satisfied with my result and truly impressed with everyone's work on this GB, loved it all! 

[TheChronicOne]

As a side note... them stencils... now, I have REALLY good eyesight so I can read some of the tiny little things and I SWEAR every once in awhile I come across one or two on a sheet that say NONSENSE things. Most will be correct like, "warning, ejection seat blah blah blah" then I'll find one that seems to be half gibberish... real words, mind you, but ones that don't make sense.  ::::shrug::::    You ever see anything like that?

[DogfighterZen]

Well, i don't normally check all the words in the stencils but in the ones i have checked, so far i've only found "Envergency" and "Poll" in one of Italeri's 1/72 F-16 sheets...

[CANSO]

As i expected, everything went wrong... even managed to snap the nose gear leg in two...   i've just finished gluing it back on...
just have to get the mask off the canopy but it's already past mid night so, obviously not finished before the end of the deadline... i tried...

And yet...you made a very beautiful model 
Maybe Chris will still allow to participate at the poll...99,99% is done!

I'll suggest the same - let this model be part of the finished builds! It's neither a glue-bomb, nor kind of halfway done "something".
It's pretty damn' hard not only to finish a model in a week, but to keep it intact and not ruin it in the last 20 minutes. I had that same feeling yesterday when trying to dry the camo-paint with a hair dryer, apply Future, dry it in the same sppedy way put decals and finally cover all with matt varnish in less than 1 hour! Even the pizza-man is slower than this! And than have a photo-session, crop, resize and upload the photos to the www and write a final post within 5-10 minutes.
I vote to add this model to the finished builds!

[DogfighterZen]

 Thanks for the words, Canso, you're too kind! I understand if it's not eligible, rules are rules and i agree they should be respected... in most cases, that is, or else i wouldn't be whiffing, would i?