22 articles · 1.5K karma · 5 friends · active 1 day ago
I'm presently 77, a retired middle school music teacher, musician (cello, conductor), sailor (Pearson 28 in Buzzards Bay, MA), model builder (mostly 1:48 aircraft). I've been married to the same woman for 54 years; we have two grown children and one cat whom we adore.
Knowing the reputation of Fonderie Miniature kits, I probably would never have gotten around to building this one had it not been for my club's annual build theme of "Blue." The kit epitomizes short-run multi-media: rough [...]
I built the kit mostly OOB, but added an Ultracast resin seat with molded seat belts, and turned brass gun barrels from Master Model. The latter were really necessary because Tamiya only provides decals to represent the cooling holes in [...]
I won this kit with the extra photo-etch detail set in a club raffle a few years ago and finally got around to building it. Although it's well engineered, I found it a challenging project due partly to the complex paint job and partly to [...]
I'm not a huge 109 aficionado, but I wanted to do something with RLM 81 Brown-Violet, and I wanted something on which to try out my recently acquired Paasche Raptor airbrush. I settled on the venerable Hasegawa kit, one of two or three in [...]
Not a long story to tell for this one. The Airfix 1:48 Hunters are pretty nice kits; they've got some clever engineering, especially in the intake area, although it's not done with the finesse one would find in a recent Tamiya kit. I added [...]
I finished this on February 1, 2024, just about a month after completing the Tamiya 1/48 F-14A, which I thought, given its size and complexity, was the best engineered kit I had ever built. Well, this Ki-61 is obviously smaller and [...]
I built this back in 2018, but just came across it during some tidying up and thought it might be worth sharing. It's the venerable AMT/Ertl P-40K kit, released in 1996, the second of their own moldings for a semi-modular series of the [...]
Developed in the early 1930s, the B.534 made its service debut in the Czechoslovak Air Force in 1935. At the time, it was one of the most advanced biplane fighters of any nation. Its license-built Hispano V-12 engine gave it a top speed of [...]
My club has an annual group build theme that culminates with a Show-and-Tell display at our December meeting. Our 2022 theme was "O Canada" comprising any subject built by Canada, manned in Canadian service, or manned by [...]
Formed by a number of ex-Hasegawa employees, Trimaster was active from 1987 to 1991. During that time the company produced some of the first “mixed-media” kits with photo-etch, metal tubing and white metal parts along with molded [...]
