Muro

Dave Burgess
A had an old bottle of Testors clear lacquer. Tried airbrushing it on the sheet, but it needed a much thicker coat, so I ended up brushing it on, full strength. (BOY does that stuff stink! Ended up wearing my respirator!)

Mr D
Thanks Dave, l purchased some new soviet stars for my Current Beriev project, but couldn't find numbers the same, so I'm hoping l can use them ?
There from the 90's
I'm going to paint the red stripe.... So will use the decal stripe to experiment with see what to expect or what l can do to make useable.
Cheers Dave... Cracking S-sabre 👌

Dave Burgess
Gonna have to modify the LG a bit. This old Hasegawa kit molded the landing strut and hydraulic oleo in one piece. There are two mount points in the wing, one for the strut and the other for the oleo. Unfortunately either they made the strut too long or the oleo too short, because if you cement it into the two mount points, either the gear lean too far forward, or too far inward. I'm going to nip the oleo at the strut, straighten the struts, and then re-attach the oleos to the struts only a bit lower. I can't leave it the way it is - the aircraft looks bow-legged compared to my other F-105 (Trumpeter).

Ben M
My solution has been to scan the old sheets and if they shatter/are too much of a hassle, I print new ones via sts decals. I recently purchased some decal paper for my printer and next time I'll try making my own. I have cut out simple ones from scans with my cricut to make masks to paint the markings, another option.

Dave Burgess
The problem there is that MANY of the decal nufacturers print on light blue paper (intentionally, I think), so that if there is much clear carrier (like around letters), the printed decal sheet has a blue tinge. You can play around with the image to get rid of that, but it usually changes the colour hues of the images on the sheet. I did that very thing with all of these T-Bird sheets, and the results were disappointing. Also, the print 'thickness' is much less than the silkscreen, so that unless you're printing on white decal paper, the model colour tends to show through. Printing on white is not really an option for lettering (like 'USAF').

Dash Rendar
Looking really good!

Treehugger
Haha Revell with a 1:72 kit, are they feeling well? 😄 Ofc, this must be an old kit.
This is one of some other kits I've always wanted to have.

Dave Burgess
It (and the Babylon 5 space station) were released in 1998. Tough to find now, even on EBay, and they want silly-bugger prices.

Finn
Cool

Dave Burgess
The subject of this album is NOT the F-16 in the foreground (ship #6); it's the F-16 in the background (ship #7). Thought this would make a good flight line forced perspective shot (1:48 F/G, 1:72 B/G)

Mojo DeVirus
Wow !!!

Dave Burgess
Mojo DeVirus: Can't WAIT to get to the Battlestar Pegasus!

Dave Burgess
First photo in the album is a forced perspective shot. The subject of this album is actually the F-16 (plane #7) in the background (1:72); The foreground F-16 (plane #6) is the 1:48 kit I completed a few weeks back.

Villiers de Vos
Very nice work.

Dave Burgess
Tiny little model - one of my smallest. But since it's in 1:72, I can compare it to a lot of my other models (SF included) for size comparison.

Curatorm
Very nice model 🙂 As seen in the movie "A new hop" ^_^

Dave Burgess
Curatorm, yeah, I think I saw that film. I believe it was funded by a group from the Seventh Day Advent Hoppists 😉

Dave Burgess
I took this one on as a one day build challenge, after watching Adam Savage (Myth-Busters) slap it together in a one day challenge. His guest was the actor who played the engineer in the BSG reboot. He put the kit together in an hour or so, then hit it with a couple of rattle cans (2 min), and voila! Took me back to my youth when building a model was a single day's entertainment, and it turned out pretty well too!

Spanjaard
wow, impressive! quite some thought put into it, but certainly worth it.
impressive collection too 😉

Dave Burgess
Thx.

Spanjaard
cool idea with the open bookcases!

Mr D
Looking good.. nice job 👍

Villiers de Vos
Very nice work on this iconic subject.

Spanjaard
very nice!

Villiers de Vos
Very nice work on this unusual subject.

Spanjaard
quite a collection 🙂

Villiers de Vos
Very nice work.

Dave Burgess
Ben M I didn't have rivet problems with mine: I built the Project-X vacuform 1:72 Thunderceptor, No rivets on that kit. It also provided a 'butterfly' tail option, which I did. The butterfly tail was installed after the second prototype crashed and the tail of the aircraft destroyed. It's in this collection. I assume you have one of the vintage XF-91 kits (Lindberg 1:48?). If it was mine - I'd sand off the rivets!

Ben M
Yes I have the Lindberg. It's got more rivets than a WWI tank. Not sure if I'll sand them off or go with a "vintage" build. I recall when I built it when I was a kid I brush painted it testors red metallic enamel.

Dave Burgess
I'm calling this completed, for the moment. The model is missing the two exhaust cans. I bought the model about 10 years ago, but never checked the parts until I started building it a few weeks back and realized they were missing. I've contacted Arnold from Anigrans and he is sending two replacements. One I've received and attached them, I will do a complete photo-set.

Dave Burgess
Mr D. Don't confuse my model (1:48) which is about 7" long from some of the shots of the studio model which I included in the album. That one is somebody else's and yes, it's 4-5' long!

Mr D
AHH ok...🤣 I thought it was big in photo....need big display cabinet 🤔

Dave Burgess
It was just good fortune that I got THIS one! I've wanted a model of this for decades - didn't even know ther WAS a model. This popped up when was browsing EBay around 2016.
P.S. The entire 26 episode season of UFO is available on Youtube

Dave Burgess
Skyhiker. Interesting story behind that (from Gerry Anderson himself). Gerry needed backing from a U.S Network in order to make season 2 of UFO. But the network executive wasn't interested. Apparently he was fed up with all the Earth based science fiction series being peddled. Gerry persisted, until finally the executive said he would ONLY produce the show if it had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Earth. When Gerry suggested that they base the entire series on the moon and didn't do any Earth based scenes, that STILL wasn't good enough. Then Gerry suggested that in the pilot, they have an accident on the moon that blows the Moon out of Earths orbit, the executive finally relented, and Space 1999 was born.

Peter Hardy
I got this one in my stash!

Ekki
Great work!

Dave Burgess
Thx. Another addition to my U.S.Fighters collection. 72 completed; just 31 more to go.

Dash Rendar
Awesome, well done!

Dave Burgess
Thx. Working on the Mk.II version with lighting and lots more details

Dave Burgess
Updated photos (better lighting)

Dash Rendar
Great build, well done!

Torsten
Awesome build and pant job 😎 😎 😎

Dave Burgess
Updated photos (better lighting)

Dave Burgess
Updated photos (better lighting)

Dave Burgess
Updated phtos (better lighting)

Dave Burgess
Updated photos (better lighting)

Hans-Jürgen Haag
Extrem Nice!👍

Dave Burgess
Pictures updated. They were originally taken before my hobby room renovation, and the lighting was very poor. The new pictures are much better lit.

Łukasz Gliński
Nice, I love that livery 👍

Lorraine Lin
Following

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat too.

Dave Burgess
Decals were a bit of a bugger the blue ones are pretty fragile, even when softened with decal set. They cracked in a few places on the 'Eagle's wing'. I was able to match the paint to the decal and hide the problem areas. Turned out pretty well.

Alberto
Great finish 👍

Dave Burgess
Decals only

Dave Burgess
Thanks, folks! I've got another one upcoming in the next few months - gonna take the Execuform 1:72 XP-54 Swoose, and convert it into the XP-68 Tornado. Vultee was going to upgrade the engine to drive contra-rotating pusher props. The project neverr left the drawing board, and the XP-54 project was canceled.
It involves a) working with the very BASIC Execuform kit, and modifying the fuselage to include intake scoops in the fuselage above/behind the canopy, and modifying the vertical stabs to a more rounded appearance. First tho, I have a number of Anigrand resin kits to complete in this US Fighters series.

Villiers de Vos
Fantastic work.

Dave Burgess
Interior completed with photo-etch. A few touchups to be made. Wings & tail surfaces attached. Just need to mask canopy then we're ready for airbrushing.

Dave Burgess
White primer and gloss white applied; Waiting for a few days for paint to cure properly before beginning decalling.

Ekki
Excellent work!

Dave Burgess
Thanks, guys! My favourite CH-113 of the two is the old red, white & blue RCAF version, not for the paint scheme as much as dealing with the missing parts, replacing them with resin cast replicas and finishing the model. Nice thing was - the guy who I bought from on eBay refunded my purchase and let me keep the kit. So the price was certainly right.

Dave Burgess
Continuing the build, while I wait for the decals to arrive. It's at the painting stage now. I still have to mask the canopy.

Dave Burgess
First problem: Got the white base coat down, and started to apply the decals. Unfortunately, the Microscale decal sheet is so old that it's dried out and the first decal completely fractured when I tried to apply it. So before doing any more, I need to trip down to the local hobby shop and get some decal fixer. I've also scanned the decal sheet, and in the event that the decal sheet can't be used, I'll print another. That's plan B, because the pale blue colour of the backing paper means you have to colour adjust the scanned image to remove the blue background, and the dark blue of the decals comes out more black. Kinda ruined my day!

Nicolas
Following

Dave Burgess
Continuing the build, while I wait for the decals. It's at the paint stage now; just have to apply the canopy mask.

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat here!

Dave Burgess
This project turns out to be a bit more complex than converting the Bell P39D into a Bell P-45 (P-39C) by snipping off a couple of wing guns. In this case, three P-3Ds were modified for ground & flight testing. The intended engine was the Continental 1430, but they were only ever flown with the AlLison V-1710. They were used to test various wing and tail configurations, and the fuselage was lengthened by 21". The production variant was to be called the P-76, so the designation used during testing was XP-39E. The only pic I have, shows one of the XP-39E's with clipped wings and tail surfaces, like the P-51. The wingspan was 35'10" almost 2 feet greater than the P-39D (34'0")
So - the plan is: get a P-51D kit; scavenge the wing and tail surfaces (i.e. chop off the back end of the Mustang fuselage); do the same with the Airacobra and graft on the Mustang's tail; re-sculpt the Mustang's wing to match the contour of the XP-39E; remove the wheel wells from the Airaicobra's wing (which I stupidly glued in already; cut openings into the Mustang wings to accommodate the Airacobra's wheel wells. Sounds like a LOT of putty's gonna be involved in THIS one! Wish me luck!

Dave Burgess
Bell P-45 (P-39C) Airacobra. A fairly simple conversion:
"After completing service trials, and originally designated P-45, a first order for 80 aircraft was placed 10 August 1939; the designation reverted to P-39C before deliveries began. After assessing aerial combat conditions in Europe, it was evident that without armor or self-sealing tanks, the 20 production P-39Cs were not suitable for operational use. The remaining 60 machines in the order were built as P-39Ds with armor, self-sealing tanks and enhanced armament. -Wiki
Since the added pilot armour and self sealing tanks are not visible externally, a couple of snips to remove a wing gun on each side, converted this P-39D model into a P-45 (P-39C). I stuck with the decals provided (Soviet A.F.)

Dave Burgess
According to Wiki - the trapeze and belly tank were a P-39D modification, but the interior of the tank was critical for me to get enough weight forward of the main LG to keep this model from being a tail-dragger! The interior construction of the forward fuselage and placement of forward LG made it VERY difficult to get enough counter-weight in there; a problem I did NOT experience with the RS Models kit.

Ben M
For my next project i have tentatively I was going to try making my own decals. I've also used stsdecals in the past.

Robert Podkoński
Good job as always, Dave!