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HILLER VZ-1 in 1/48 PROJECT !
HI !
Here another project I have done in the past , if you like to view more pics , just follow this GOOGLE link :
https://photos.app.goo.gl/oY8cW5E3w14HXcSQ6
Enjoy !
Jmarc
Eduard 1:72 P-51D-10
The Silicon Valley Scale Modelers had a contest called "Build Your Name." Unlike Frank Babbitt (who did a Ki-84) or Eugenie Ray (whose pre-marriage initials were E.T., hence her little spaceship), I had no obvious options. I built the plane flown by Robert C. Buchholz of the Fourth Fighter Group (you can read his full story here: https://obscureco.wordpress.com/2026/04/12/metronymic-mustang-building-lt-robert-buchholz-p-51d-10-from-the-eduard-172-kit/ ) who was not a close relation (although his name is spelled like my family's was before they immigrated from Hamburg in the 1880s).
The Eduard kit is a step up in detail and accuracy from the Tamiya kit, but a step down in ease of construction. The surface is detail is... well, a bit overdone. Some areas of construction, like the instrument panel/rudder/windscreen, don't fit very well. The 108-gallon tanks in the kit don't fit particularly well; with Eduard's Brassin line, one could be cynical and say there was a reason for that. Different variants need you to scribe or fill lines; pay particular attention if you do a D-5 with a fillet. All that said, the cockpit looks great, they give you tank options we've never had before, and a bit of modeling is rewarded.
I used True North paint for the red and white trim and Alclad II for the fuselage. The wings were puttied, sanded and painted with Floquil old silver.
Academy 1/35 M3A1 Light Tank, USMC Bougainville 1943
Here it is finally finished, my build of the Academy M3A1 Stuart Light Tank, in the markings of the USMC 3rd Tank Battalion on Bougainville in late 1943. The kit comes with a fairly comprehensive interior, but I added some missing details in there, as well as some on the external extra fuel tanks and some reinforcement iron bars on the rear fenders that photos showed. I replaced the kit headlight brush guards with some 3D printed ones and an engine exhaust screen that I printed up from files that I bought off of Cults3D. Paints are primarily AK Real Colors, along with AK, Vallejo, and Humbrol acrylics. I used the kit decals, and surprisingly they did not cause any problems as Academy decals often are reputed to do.
And just for some size comparisons, this thing is pretty small…
Bigger than a jeep
Much smaller than an Easy 8 Sherman
and pretty close in size to WC-51 3/4 ton truck…
Thanks for looking, comments and critiques are welcome…
GRUMMAN TBF-1 and AS-3M AVENGER in 1/48 (MONOGRAM with a TWIST)
Hi !
Here a project I have done in the past using the MONOGRAM kit , if you like to view more pics, Just follow this link :
https://photos.app.goo.gl/5ujTjFCJ6F9YiyTn6
Enjoy !
Jmarc
The Duke's Newest Helicopters and Gliders
These four I just got done with two days ago; two helicopters and two gliders from WWII D-Day invasion.
First is the USAAF Waco glider by Italeri:
Next is the British Horsa Glider by Italeri:
Next are the two helicopters, starting with this Italian Chinook by Revell:
Finally the last one is the Israeli CH-53 by Italeri:
And that's all for now. We;ll see what next month brings. Meanwhile, thanks for looking in, comments are welcome!
The Duke Completes One More Armor in June
Finally after a long hard fight I managed to complete this Vespid Models Buffalo A2 MPCV which stands for "Mine Protected Clearance Vehicle". It is not complete as at least a third of the parts for the robot arm are missing due to breakage and just general flipping into Oblivion. I got to built with the remaining parts and it is done!
I made this one a Marine Corps Vehicle:
Now I can breathe again and work on something a bit less annoying and frustrating! Thank you all for looking in, comments are welcome.
Italeri 1/72 Sikorsky HRS-2
A nice little kit I built OOB.
Kazon Torpedo Quick Build
Started this kit to do a fun build of something outside my normal builds. It was a quick build, pretty much built in under 2 hours. Unfortunately, I will be needing to do lots of putty and sanding but I am still happy with it and looking forward to seeing it finished.
GODDARD 1926 ROCKET in 1/48
HI !
Here another project I have completed in the past , if you like to vierw more pics, just follow this link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/FwAUKo6UHKx1ixt86
Enjoy !
Jmarc
Anyone recognize the manufacturer of this Triceratops?
Anyone recognize the manufacturer of this Triceratops? It's not injection molded and the parts are not hollow....very solid.
1/48 F-89C Scorpion
This is the 1/48 Revell(ogram) F-89C Scorpion. It's a relatively simple and straight forward kit with very good detail inside and out giving you very good "bang for your buck".
I opted to add a Black Box resin interior which only needs the addition of some plastic to act as floor supports and the removal of the molded-in interior side fuselage cockpit detailing in order to fit the resin side panels in place. The kit interior is actually quite good though the rein seats with their harnesses molded in are a real step up from the kit seats. The rest of the build is OOTB except for the addition of sheet plastic wing tank fins that were commonly added to the plane later in its life.
This kit does come with raised panel line detailing so I did rescribe 90% of the lines on the kit using a razor saw. I used Tamiya TS-30 Silver leaf as the overall NMF sprayed over an undercoat of Gloss Black. I then masked some areas and used both Alclad and AK Metallics for the varying panels on the model as well as Steel, Titanium, and Jet exhaust for the exhaust area.
These are the kit markings and they gave me fits, tending to curl up at the edges badly. No amount of solvent would make them lie down, not even my strongest stuff so I resorted to "painting/plastering" some of them in place with some Future, which sucked them down in place when dry. I actually had to paint the black background for the tip tank stars as the black decals just wouldn't lie down and the edges frayed while trying to press them in place repeatedly. I also had to replace the nose numbers with black dry transfer rub on decals and use stars/bars and USAF decals from the spares box..
Except for the decaling phase, this was an easy build that took just 9 days. Now on to the next!
Gil
VICTORIAN HELICOPTER in 1/48
HI !
Here another project I have done in the past , of course it's scratch , You can view the WIP on this GOOGLE page :
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1aQYVACsXQoBYDGB8
Enjoy !
Jmarc
MiniArt D-7 dozer build
I've just started a D-7 bulldozer build from a MiniArt kit. At 1/35 scale I am amazed at the number of parts in the kit, especially the 8 sprues of track components. Suffice it to say that the tracks have given me fits. Instructions say to glue the cleats to the underside of the track plates but the tabs and holes are impossibly small. Some are so small they are not there at all. So I put together all of the cleats and connecting pins and will then glue on the track plates afterwards.
Anybody out there who has built this kit I would love to hear from and any suggestions other than what I have described for assembly of the completed tracks.
The Duke Completes Five Vehicles in June
Thanks to a few days of productivity, I managed to get a few models done for my armor collection. Unfortunately, some of these pics didn't turn out the best: my new camera lost the auto-focus function so I have to make do the best I can in getting things into focus.
First is the Vespid Models German KF-51 Panther, the newest tank in the German Army. And now one of my newest tanks as well:
Next is the Italeri Italian Ab-40 Autoblinda modified for railroad use:
Next up, my Meng M2A3 Bradley with the BUSK III upgrade:
Next is an ICM Russian ZiL 131 truck with a DShK machine gun mounted in the bed:
Again apologies for the bad pic. This was the best of the ten or so attempts I made, yet this shot is better for some reason:
Another ten or so attempts later and this is the best one of the bunch:
Finally there is the ICM trailer that was described as being used for a mobile office, ambulance trailer, portable workshop, command trailer etc:
Yes it looks like the roof is loose. It is.
This is why the roof is loose, so I could show off this. I chose to make this a portable workshop by adding some resin factory equipment inide:
And now we can show the truck and trailer together, even though they weren't necessarily paired like this. Still, it looks good! '
That's all for now. Maybe I'll get some other armor done this month but we'll see. For now, my apologies again for the pic quality; comments are welcome! Thanks for looking in!
1/72 Wisconsin ANG KC-135R decals wanted
Hi, I want to build a display with a 1/72 Wisconsin ANG KC-135R refueling a Wisconsin ANG F-16C. I have the 1/72 decals for the F-16, and am looking for the Wisconsin decals from the Caracal 72030 sheet.
My other option is to build this display in 1/144 scale as I have the 1/144 KC-135R decals, but then need the 1/144 F-16 decals, which don't seem to exist. I've tried scaling up and scaling down the decals I have, but can't get a good sheet of either with the tools I have.
Any advice or assistance is appreciated. Thanks!
Amodel's 1/72 Hawker Osprey
The Osprey was a navalized version of the Hawker Hart series. It was flown off of cruisers mainly. This is a detailed little kit but some of the parts, like the struts, are very fragile. It has a nice interior, which of course is hard to see. Everything fit pretty well if you were careful and did lots of dry fitting. The decals were very good except after dull coating there was some 'blush' on some so my bad on that. Amodel makes a float plane version of this a/c as well, which I have attempted, the but the directions for the float assembly are vague and the parts fragile and fiddly so it defeated me. This is my second attempt so I opted for wheels.
HASEGAWA 1/72 HEINKEL HE-51
HI !
Here another project I have done in the past , but this time as a challenge from a friend , if you like to view more pics, I have set-up an GOOGLE page for it , Just follow this link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/WT66f6uXkUP4kB8VA
Enjoy !
Jmarc
1/48 Classic Airframes F-5A Freedom Fighter
After taking almost 4 months on my last build I thought I'd "whip one out" to get back in the groove. Since our current club build theme is any kit manufactured after 1990, I grabbed this 2006 issued Classic Airframes 1/48 F-5A Freedom Fighter from the stash and built it OOTB in 11 days.
This is a good kit, but NOT a Tamigawavellogram shake-n-bake type of build. The model has a very nicely appointed resin interior, but is short on locating pins and the fit has to be tweaked to get the best results. Both of the tail planes and all of the pylons, drop tanks, ordnance, and even the tires had to be drilled and pinned for security. The very thin wing made drilling the holes in the underside a real adventure when trying to go as deep as possible without drilling all the way through!
I used True Color lacquer/enamel paints for the Vietnam era SEA paint scheme, masking it off using Silly Putty ropes at the edges of the patterns and tape to fill in the rest. I found the colors to be good, but looking at it now I'd go back and either slightly lighten the Medium Green or add a little black to darken the Dark Green to get slightly more contrast. I did some (but not all) of the panel lines in pencil where they could be easily seen on the lighter camo colors. I used the kit decals which generally went on with very few problems.
All in all this was a fun little build that went smoothly even if it required a bit more re-engineering than a lot of other kits. It's was also good to get one done and on the shelf so quickly.
Critiques, comments, and questions welcome as always! Cheers!
Gil
The Duke's Shipyards Launch Ten Ships in June
After a few productive days, my Shipyards were able to launch ten new ships for my navies. The first four are from a box set of four ships in one kit from Airfix, all in 1/600 scale. These are crude by today's standards but I did the best I could with them. After all, the three British destroyers were the only ones of those type that were available back then.
First up is the HMS Cossack, the largest of the three British destroyers. I had lost one of the anchors so I left them off until I can find some suitable replacements:
The second ship is the HMS Hotspur, one I knew very little about until I looked it up, Yes, the B turret gun is broken here, I saw it too late, but fixed it afterward:
The last British destroyer is the HMS Cambletown, one I had never expected to have in my Navy since no one had ever kitted one in either 1/700 or 1/600, but here it is. This is another 'Holy Grail" kit I've wanted for many years, even one as crude as this one:
This last Airfix ship is the German Narvik-class destroyer. The instructions claim it is the Z-28, but based on the next four German destroyers I built; it is more of a hybrid with features from different makes of Z-class destroyers Here it is built anyway:
Now for some actual versions of German Z-class destroyers, these are in 1/700 scale. Three are form Trumpeter, the fourth is Dragon. First is the German Z-7, one of the earlier makes of this ship:
Next is the German Z-28; the actual Z-28:
Followed by the German Z-31. This one is the Dragon kit:
The last one is the German Z-43, one of the latest marks of this ship:
Finally we get to the USS Springfield, a light missile cruiser by Revell in 1/500 scale:
The final ship we launched is a Japanese assault carrier I got in a Distressed kit Auction. It had no box; everything was in ziplock bags so I decided to build it before major pieces got lost. This is the 1/700 scale JMSDF Assault carrier Shimokita:
And that completes this news bulletin from the shipyards, thanks all for watching the parade of ships heading out to their shakedown cruises. Comments are always welcome.
By the way, completing these ten ships allowed me to break another milestone: I now have reached the grand total number of 1905 completed models of all genres and categories.
Not that anyone's counting that is.......
JOHANES WINKLER HW-1 in 1/48 !
Here another space related project I been working on , its the
JOHANES WINKLER HW-1 in 1/48 (SCRATCH) !
(JUN 08th) today ,I continue working on the structure !!
If you like to view the complete WIP , just follow this Google link to my personal page:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Rjsjms9BhTrbnhYDA
If you like to view the other space related project I have done so far , just follow this link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ov2R8HFSA26iDpms5
Enjoy !
Jmarc
