95 articles · 8.1K karma · 19 friends · active 3 months, 1 week ago

I have been modelling since 'Before Plastic' when balsa was the popular material. Thank heavens for modern technology!
My interest is aircraft; preferably 1/48 & 1/32 scale & mostly WWII ,1950's & '60's. I like a challenge & while a perfect kit is always welcome, some are just plain scary with all the intricately engineered parts' provided. It's a relief to get hold of something that requires some ingenuity but is cheap enough so that a mistake is unlikely to cause a financial disaster.

Spitfire Vc. from (mostly) Airfix 1/48

Another Spitfire! This time it's a Mk. Vc as flown in Malts by Wing Commander Peter Prosser Hanks DFC, who commanded the Luqa Spitfire Wing. BR498 was delivered via HMS Furious on 17th August 1942 & unusually, was not fitted with a [...]

Airfix Sea Fury FB.11

Well done Airfix! Having read all the reports about this kit, I thought I would pre-empt any problems by getting in a few resin after market bits & pieces in advance. In the event I hardly used any. In the cockpit I chose the resin [...]

Fleet Air Arm Corsair IV

This is the Tamiya 1/48 scale kit of the F4U-1D Corsair as supplied to the British Fleet Air Arm & represents a Corsair IV in the markings of 1842 Sqn. as flown from HMS Formidable in July 1945. The markings are those adopted by the [...]

Aero L-39 ZO Albatros in 1/48.

This pretty little bird has been sitting in my stash ever since I bought it at a 'bring & buy' day at our IPMS meeting a couple of years ago. The kit included a swag of after-market bits, most of which I didn't use as my eyesight is [...]

Airfix P-51D Mustang “Short Fuse” in 1/48.

Having built a number of Mustangs in the past I was convinced that nothing could hold a candle to the Tamiya kit. While I'm still of that opinion this offering from Airfix has come a long way towards shaking my convictions. The surface [...]

RAAF Tomahawk Mk.IIb by Airfix

This is my second Airfix 1/48 scale P-40; this time in the guise of a Tomahawk IIb as flown by Wing Commander Peter Jeffrey, 3 Squadron RAAF, in the western desert in 1941. Our IPMS-NSW club has a group build coming up later this year [...]

Hawk’s F2H-2 Banshee….. Reworked!

Firstly, a confession. This is a re-post of one of my favourite aircraft & like many others (I think) I was hoping that the new Kitty hawk kit would bring me the satisfaction I have been waiting so many years for. Didn't happen! There [...]

P-51K Mustang Mk.IVa, 3 Squadron RAAF, Italy, 1944/45.

This was originally intended to be the Tamiya 1/32 kit, but I got distracted when I just opened it's 1/48 cousin & at the same time came across a wealth of reference material for this squadron on the internet. Pretty much [...]

FM-1 Wildcat in 1/48

This is the Hobby Boss kit which I picked from the stash as something easy... You've probably done that: Parts fit was excellent, detail sharp & restrained but the undercarriage; that's another story; very fiddly & the prop needed [...]

Tamiya Beaufighter Mk. VI

This kit was built originally as a RAAF Mk.21 shortly after the kit was released. I later felt that the foliage green overall finish didn't do it justice & decided to re-do it as a Mk. VI from 30 Squadron RAAF. This gave me a lot more [...]