East Kent Scale Modellers club night, second Tuesday of the month, new tool Airfix Shackleton, Beaufighter

 Second Tuesday of the month is club night for the East Kent Scale modellers group. The group meets at the RAF Manston history museum. Only my second visit. The recent finishes and/or current builds go on the table along with photo albums, books and magazines. A chance to look at the latest museum exhibits and rummage around the shop, enjoy some modelling chat and pick up hints and tips of all sorts!

The new Airfix Shackleton in and out of the box ...

..new-tool Airfix Beaufighter finished by Stuart - liked Stuart's mix for the engine cowls; gun-metal and dark earth..

Hasegawa Bf 109 G-2 1:48 JG 54 Geschwaderkommodore Trautloft, summer 1942, Russia

 

Hasegawa Bf 109 G-2 1:48th

Having finished the Eduard Gustav, I picked up the Hasegawa G-2 that I last touched back in October 2013. Painting well under way and I'm hoping to get this finished for Tuesday night's model club meet at Manston (East Kent Modellers)

finishing this one as per the box-top; the machine of  JG 54 Gruppenkommandeur Trautloft wearing large white chevrons and painted in various greens and browns

..and then popped up to the Battle of Britain memorial this afternoon to see the Vulcan on her last farewell flight

first look in the box new-tool KP Mustang P-51 B/C and early P-51s in 1:72nd scale and the trouble with wing kinks

First look at the new-tool KP P-51 B/C Mustang in the box.

As a general rule most 72nd scale early P-51s are pretty inaccurate and a bit of a minefield. The Hasagawa kit - although probably the best looking model in this scale - had a number of errors; a cowling that flattened out over the exhausts, a P-51 D wing and a very shallow wheel well. Academy, although beautifully moulded, features an overly long windscreen which makes the canopy a little short along with the shallow style wheel well. Revell P-51 B/Cs apparently look good overall but the kit is let down by a very narrow seat and very poorly moulded clear parts and again a shallow wheel well. I am told that both the Academy and Revell wings are still not correct for a P-51 B/C. I haven't actually built the Revell kit yet but here is my Academy B/C (alongside the new-tool Airfix D in 72nd). I have a few of these in the stash and aside from the canopy which doesn't appear to fit too well, they are a decent kit..

The biggest problem on most 72nd scale P-51 B-Cs is the wing 'kink' but after comparing with the drawing below, the new KP kit looks to have this reproduced this area well. The problem on other kits seems to occur because the 'kink' on the P-51 D starts both further forward on the fuselage and further outboard on the wing than the earlier versions. Hasegawa put the start of the l/e kink at the right place on the wing, but too far forward (P-51 D place) on the fuselage; Revell did exactly the opposite, getting the fuselage location correct, but using the -51D wing starting point. Academy got the kink shape right, but by basically copying the Hasegawa kit fuselage, made the wing too broad.

drawing below by Martin 'Occa'

more from the KP kit - the 112 Sqd 'sharkmouth' option looks great...

Eduard 1:48th Bf 109 G-6 Gustav - build review (4)

My completed Eduard Bf 109 G-6 model finished in the markings of ace Alfred Grislawski JGr. 50 summer 1943 Wiesbaden.

Unfortunately it is not possible to achieve a decent 'sit' out of the box and a bit of surgery is required. In the end I cut off the oleo part of the gear leg and replaced it with a shorter length of wire. I then carved out a bigger insert in the wheel well so that I could angle the gear legs forward much more than is possible if they are plugged in as intended. Not very neat at all I'm afraid, but good enough for photos. Otherwise this is a decent kit, very nicely detailed, lovely surface engraving, but just a little too large for 48th scale!

Eduard new-tool 48th Bf-109 G-6 - build review (3)

..hard to believe that it is over a year since I started the Eduard new-tool Gustav (yes, that one!) - see here for a previous installment back in August 2014, putting the etch in the cockpit. Having picked the kit up again in June 2015 I've almost finished putting it together and have started painting. Fitted the wrong pilot head armour for the version I actually wanted to build, so I've had to do a heavily mottled example...
Below; showing off the radiator etch in the lower wing insert.

Here I've used the canopy mask from the Profipack edition - a little on the small size in fact, perhaps not surprising given that the kit is slightly - and famously now no doubt - overscale!

finished with my favourite Luftwaffe colours, Hannants Xtracolor enamels. The white tail is a clue to the example I'm building ...and a nice scoreboard for the rudder..

new tool Airfix Spitfire Mk I 48th ( part 5) - finished

.I don't do many 48th builds or even Spitfires ..but my new Airfix Mk I is finished. Neat kit, lots of options, possibly a little 'over-engineered' in places, while the design of the gear legs is frankly a bit of an aberration; two parts that butt-join on the pintle in the well. In the markings of 602 Sqn's PO Osgood Villiers Hanbury who shot down his first Dornier on 15 September 1940. Osgood Villiers Hanbury was a local Kent boy, attending boarding school in Broadstairs before Eton and study periods in France and Germany pre-war, prior to getting a job in the City with Shell, where he made the acquaintance of one Douglas Bader as detailed in Roderick-Jones nice Grub St. bio entitled " Pedro.."... of course I've just seen Andy L's pic of this machine on britmodeller.com with its 'non-standard' leading edge, might change that later...Airfix don't provide a decal for the personal emblem under the cockpit presumably because its impossible to see any detail on the only photo that shows it..