I picked this up at Scale Model World. It's the 1980 release of the original 1971 kit. The Prince Henry has been called the first sports car as it was developed for a race in Germany sponsored by a Prince Henry. It proved to be so reliable with for the day excellent performance that Vauxhall decided to make a commercial version of it. The kit has all the limitations of a 70's kit, but went together surprisingly well. It's done almost OOTB here but I suppose if you wanted to you could add an engine as the chassis is pretty well detailed and could accept one relatively easily. The 'almost' reflects the fact that in all those years it sat on a shelf or was carted around by some vender only one small part, a headlight lens, got lost despite the box have two holes in the top. I replaced both headlights' lenses with ones made from clear acetate.

Willie Ley was a sci-fi guy back in the 50's and he 'designed' many space vehicles for various sci-fi mags. He drew national attention and some of his "designs" made appearances on major media outlets such as Disney with his moon rocket, which became the center piece of Tomorrowland in Disneyland. This is the Atlantis re-release of his Orbital Rocket. The kit came in two versions differing only in the space plane. It also seems that Mr. Ley stole a march on Mr. Trump and created a "Space Force" way back then. The decals include markings for this and I incorporated them into my version of his rocket. I also used some markings from my spares drawer. The kit is tough to get together without gaps and seams as there are many "working" parts, such as removable fuel tanks, etc, so much putty and some shimming is required, but it is a prototypical 1950"s space ship model and looks kind of cool on the shelf. I painted it in what might appear to be a more 'modern' scheme.

I just finished up the Revell "Everything is Go! kit and I would really like to put an IndyCals capsule on it. I have one on the Revell 1/110 Mercury/Redstone that I finished a few years ago. I really like the look of that capsule. IndyCals used Shapeways for their printer, and the capsule on the IndyCals site is still linked to Shapeways. I reached out to IndyCals, but have not received a response. Does anyone have one in their stash that they would like to sell or does anyone know of a new 3D print that's available? Thanks!

This latest kit is an offering from Fantastic Plastic. It is the Alpha & Omega Doomsday Missile seen at the end of the 1970 film Beneath the Planet of the Apes. In the first "Planet of the Apes" sequel, "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" (1970), the stranded human astronauts find a community of mutant humans living in the ruined subway system of the former New York City. Their ancestors having survived the nuclear apocalypse that destroyed the surface world, they reverently worship one of the last remaining artifacts of that bygone time -- a "Doomsday Bomb" bearing the ominous "Alpha-Omega" symbol. The kit is 12 parts in 1:24th scale. It looks much taller than it's 12" height. It is all 3D printed with all the attachment points cleaned off, but I gave it a light sanding anyway. It's not often that you get a garage kit. Leave all the parts in the box, shake it and it builds itself. This IS one of those kits. According to FP, it's a simple mock-ICBM (albeit it scaled down for filming purposes) with added fuselage texture and a pair of fins, the missile also has a weird hook on its upper body, its only function that of an easy point where the invading ape army can latch their ropes and bring the doomsday weapon crashing to the ground. Looking at the missile and the hook, there's no way it would last 10 minutes before I accidentally break it off, so into the parts box it went. And in one day the model was done. Next I started looking at the painting. The instructions says it's a golden color. But looking at the screen grabs of the movie (image above), it looked more to me like a silver or chrome with some orange tarnish on it. Since it's my model that's the way I'm going. I got out my trusted Rustoleum Chrome paint and gave it a shot. Looks great. I left it for a few days for the chrome to cure, and then hit with with a thinned sepia wash. That did little to nothing, So I decided to give in a little and added a mist coat of a gold from Vallejo. Adding a little more at the bottom I was happy with the result. while I was letting this last paint coat cure, I had to address the decals. FP uses an excellent printer, but being so thin, it needs a coat of Microscale's Decal Film. While the decal film is drying, I decided it's a good time to take break and think about the base. The kit comes with a small diameter 3D printed base, but I was thinking more of something like the set in the film. Check back for that soon. Thanks for looking.

Am posting for a friend who has an Italeri MBZ and an Italeri Opel Blitz that he is willing to give free for the asking. If you are interested call Jim at 909-335-3172. this is a land line so no texting, please. Kits are open but appear to be complete. Charlie IPMS 39729

Started and finished in the same calendar year! This is the Special Hobby kit, which is the basis of a bunch of Griffon-powered Spitfire kits. I took off the Seafire-specific features (the RATO attachments, primarily) and detailed the cockpit with Special Hobby's own photoetched set, plus a Barracuda Studios control column. The exhausts are from Quickboost and the wheels and from Barracuda Studios. I used the kit decals to build Roy Cruickshank's N0. 91 Squadron aircraft in which he was shot down by flak on April 10, 1945; he and his wingman were rescued by a USAAF OA-10 Catalina. Only 120 Mk. 21s were built - it debuted the new laminar flow wing, full wheel covers and a retractable tail wheel. The paints were ModelMaster dark green and ocean grey, with Floquil medium sea grey, all from my Museum of Extinct Paints (aka Evidence I Used to Habitually Overpurchase at the Hobby Shop). It was weathered with oils - I tried to keep it light since the plane didn't last more than three missions.

Hello all! These were finished at the beginning of the month, but I've had no chance to post them until now. Here are the latest ships to be launched from our Shipyards: Airfix 1/600 scale British heavy cruiser HMS Tiger: Trumpeter 1/700 scale French Battleship Jean Bart: And that's all for now. Hopefully more will be finished soon. Thank you for looking in and comments are welcome

While I'm on my "Canberra kick" and since it's been a while since I posted a full build ride-a-long, I thought I'd show how this model was being thrown together. The Falcon vac Canberra kit was made @1984, long before the Classic Airframe and Airfix kits were available. It's actually designed so you can build an RB-57B with the "fishbowl canopy" (my plan, and as shown in the drawing) or a B-57B with the tandem seating and traditional long canopy. In this pic the parts have already been removed from their backings and sanded down. Also, on the far left you can see that I had to stack and superglue two concentric cones together to make the engine intakes for each wing. The smaller parts with a "E" on them are the exhaust fairings for each wing. There was one unplanned complication due to this kit sitting in my stash for almost 40yrs..... The parts were on 3 sheets of plastic. It seems that the one sheet that faced out and was exposed to the most light through its plastic baggy turned a bit brown and also became somewhat brittle after all those years! If you look very closely at the wing bottom (2nd from the left) you can see a crack where the it broke in two while I was trying to flex it off of the backing. There were also smaller cracks along the edges that have complicated the build more than anticipated, but nothing superglue cannot overcome! The 2 pics above show a couple of interior circular bulkheads added to strengthen things as well as the wing spars made to make the wing attachment more secure. The tail spar is simply a piece of sheet plastic bent to shape. The thin strips of sheet plastic added under the long fuselage seams in an alternating manner can also be seen. These enable the fuselage to be fitted together and prevent the thin edges from sliding under each other. The resin nose gear well is from an aftermarket set made for the Airfix kit. I've also roughed out the opening for the fishbowl canopy and sawed off the solid nose in prep for the clear recon nose. These 2 pics show the test fitting of the assembled wings and tail planes to the fuselage as well as checking the sit of the model on its gear. The resin gear bays in the wings are aftermarket parts with some modification to the main gear leg holes so that my scratchbuilt gear legs will fit into them. At this point the gear legs are just basic parts without any of their detailing or actuators added yet. And yes.... the is a HUGE nose weight sitting in the fuselage to get that model to balance on its gear! Time to start working on the cockpit! Interestingly, the RB-57A was either a 3 seat arrangement (when designed and used by the Brits) or a 2 seat arrangement after being bought by the USAF in the late 1950s. Also, after some research, it seems that the USAF RB-57As COULD have a small window on each fuselage side behind the pilot or it might not, and it appears to be entirely random and arbitrary. So..... why cut and add windows if I don't have to? Also, why build anything behind the pilot's cockpit if it can't be seen anyway? On to the pics! The RB-57A appears to have had some sort of lining inside the fuselage, so I grabbed some fabric from my spares box and cut it to fit in each fuselage half. I used some sheet plastic and spare resin and plastic parts to add some detailing here and there. The wiring is all lead solder wire. Note the large fishing sinker that has been flattened with a hammer and added for nose weight as well as the support for the cockpit floor. The cockpit floor was made from sheet plastic. Its shape was attained through some judicious measuring as well as simple trial and error until I got what was wanted and needed. Note that the side console, main instrument panel, and other details are all spare resin parts. I cut and bent the main IP to give it the RB-57A's distinctive bend. I also added punched plastic discs for the instrument housings on the back of the panel as well as their cables made from more lead wire that was twisted together and routed over and down out of the way; all of which is visible from above through that big fishbowl canopy. Spare PE panels flesh out the side console. The rest of the cockpit parts are all from the spares box, as is the resin ejection seat. And last, note that the entire cockpit is offset to the left to allow for passage from the rear cockpit area all the way into the nose. Test fitting it all into the fuselage....... This should be enough to satisfy any prying pen light once it's all painted, although it's technically incomplete (without the rear cockpit section) and only "ballpark" accurate! This pic shows the addition of the engine intake housings and the exhaust fairings to the wings. As you might expect, their fit was marginal requiring some epoxy putty (Apoxysculp) to blend them in and eliminate steps. There's a home cast engine fan face in the rear of each intake and you can see the separate shock cones made for each one, designed so they can be added at the end of the build. The shock cones came from the spares box, but I did have to shorten them and use Apoxysculpt to give them their "bullet" noses. The exhausts each have some plastic hypo-tubing to give them some depth as well as a spare parts flame dampener up inside each; again just to satisfy any probing pen lights! Except for having primed the wings, that's where things stand as of today. Next up is to paint the cockpit parts and then assemble the fuselage, which I hope to have done by the end of the week. More pics when more significant progress has been made. Questions, comments, and critiques welcome, as always! Gil

In a rather surprise move IMHO a manufacturer has come up with a cryptid scale model. Earlier this year, Pegasus Models has released the Mothman.

This next build is the Hasegawa 1/48 scale A-4M Skyhawk. I chose this particular build for a couple of reasons. I have already built a few aircraft related to the “Blacksheep” Squadron and since November 10th was the U.S. Marine Corp 250th Birthday I decided this would be a proper build. I will be using Eduard’s photo etch detail set and Cutting Edge Decals . The A-4M Skyhawks Part 2 set CED48194. The kit also comes with decals for VMA-214 but I had purchased the Cutting Edge set prior to buying this kit so the decals may end up being a mix of kit and aftermarket decals. As usual the first section to be built is the cockpit. The ejection seat was the first to be tackled. The kit seat is six parts but the photo etch detail set has twenty five parts. After removing the kit levers and handles I replaced these with the photo etch replacements and painted the seat. I added the seatbelts and warning placards to finish off the ejection seat. The instrument panel was sanded down smooth and the photo etch sections were installed. I used clear gloss paint for the gauges and displays to replicate the glass faces. For the cockpit tub I sanded down the side panels and replaced them with the photo etch ones. The kit pedals were cut off and replaced with the photo etch versions. The control stick, instrument panel, and pedal assembly were installed completing the cockpit. I then prepared the inside of the fuselage for the cockpit area. I still need to detail the nose wheel bay and the rest of the inside of the fuselage and engine area before I can close up the fuselage. I am hoping to have the fuselage closed up by the end of the week. You can see all the photos and details from the start in the build log at: https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/1-48-a-4m-skyhawk-vma-214/

This is the out-of-production CollectAire resin B-57B Canberra built OOTB. The starting point...... this is one of CA's better kits with hollow cast wings and fuselage and very smooth cast resin parts with no warpage. It also has metal landing gear to support the model, which is certainly needed because it takes a LOT of nose weight to counter balance that long rear fuselage and tail. Being an OOTB build the only thing added was tape seat belts. The finish is Tamiya TS-30 sprayed over a base of gloss black enamel with MM International Orange trim and painted fuselage stripes. The markings were cobbled together from various B-57 sheets and spare letter/number decals. On to the rest of the pics! Critiques, comments, and questions are welcome, as always! Gil

These are 1/700 scale resin kits produced by Ralph Ratcliffe during the 1990's. They represent the Sturgeon class SSN 637, the early 688 Los Angeles class, the later 688I (Improved) class, with bow planes in place of sail planes, VLS hatches for the Tomahawk missiles, a ring propeller to protect it for under ice operations, and stern anhedrals for stability and housing countermeasure launchers. The final submarine is the USS Seawolf, lead ship of what was planned as 29 new SSNs. The hull diameter was increased from 33 feet (688 class) to 40 feet, and equipped with a pump jet propulsor. The Seawolf class hull was constructed of HY-100 steel rather than the previous HY-80, and this increased the test depth of the Seawolf class. The Seawolf weapons load out was much increased and 8 torpedo tubes fitted over the previous 4 of the LA and Sturgeon classes. With the end of the Cold War, the Seawolf program was drastically curtailed. The only Seawolf class submarines completed were SSN-21 Seawolf, SSN-22 Connecticut, and the modified SSN-23, Jimmy Carter.

One of the submarines in the last class (Benjamin Franklin class) of the 41 Polaris/Poseidon ballistic missile submarines. In 1979, the Bolivar entered overhaul and conversion of her ballistic missile system to support Trident C-4 ballistic missiles. She patrolled along with the early Ohio class SSBNs. Bolivar continued to make deterrent patrols, undergoing occasional refits at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. Bolivar successfully launched a Trident test missile. SSBN 641 continued to make deterrent patrols until 1994. The model is a resin and metal kit from the now defunct Yankee Model Works.

Following WWII, the US had a large number of relatively new diesel fleet submarines. Although these were very successful in the Pacific War, the technology and development of the German Type XXI U-boats pointed to a future in which more capabilities would be necessary. The US Navy embarked on a program to modify and upgrade some of the newer fleet submarines. The overall program was termed Guppy (Greater Underwater Propulsion Program, with the Y added). This meant streamlining the submarines by removing deck guns and adding a "step sail" in early conversions, upgrading batteries (and in some of the modifications such as Guppy II, doubling the battery cells) and adding a snorkel. The snorkel meant that the diesels could be run while submerged, recharging the batteries. These conversions (Guppy I, Ia and II) were carried out in the 1950's. With a lag in nuclear attack submarine building in the early 1960's, a small number of Guppy II submarines were selected for a further upgrade, termed Guppy III. These submarines already had the doubling of battery cells, and as an initial step, a new sail, termed the High Atlantic sail was fitted. This was an improvement on the earlier "step sails" which had the bridge watch crew at a lower level (see my earlier build of Becuna on this forum). In Atlantic storms, crews on the step sail would get soaked with cold water from waves coming over the bow. The Atlantic sail got the watch crew up higher off the deck. In addition, the submarines were cut apart forward of the sail, and a 15 foot long "plug" was added to create space for a dedicated sonar room. Also added was the BQG-4 PUFFS passive ranging sonar, which are the three "fins" on the deck. With PUFFS, the length of the submarine was used as a baseline to triangulate a bearing to a target by the time of arrival of the sonar signals at the 3 PUFFS sonar receiver units. The GUPPY III submarines filled the gap for patrols until the SSN program accelerated with the Permit and Sturgeon classes. In the early-mid 1970's, all of the diesel GUPPY III class were retired, some 30 years after they were initially built as WWII fleet submarines. This resin kit was from the now defunct Yankee ModelWorks. It depicts USS Clamagore in its GUPPY III configuration. Clamagore was the last remaining GUPPY III and was a museum boat in South Carolina. However the museum could not maintain upkeep and it was scrapped in 2022. I was fortunate in visiting in 2018 and took plenty of photos with my Nikon DSLR for reference.

This is the Iron Shipwrights 1/350 scale Richard B. Russell. It was the last numbered Sturgeon class submarine built prior to the Los Angeles class. In August 1977, the Russell was fitted with a large housing ("bustle") attached to her hull just aft of her sail, containing a tethered antenna buoy. Russell was one of the later "long hull" Sturgeon submarines, stretched from 292 feet to 302 feet in length. Russell was equipped as a Special Projects submarine and operated with other Projects submarines (Seawolf SSN 575 and Parche SSN 683) out of Mare Island.

This is the Iron Shipwrights kit of the last Seawolf class submarine. The Jimmy Carter had an additional 100 foot section added amidships for "ocean engineering". This gave it the capability to [classified], [classified] and [classified].

I am trying to put together for my grandchildren a little bit of my 20 years in tthe Army as a paratooper in the 82nd ABN DIV. I want to hang all the aircraft I jumped out of on the ceiling in our officee but I cannot find a C-141 that is priced reasonably. My hands shake something aweful from the medicine that I take and I would never get a model together.l A hobby shop mentionied your organization and I was wondering if I bought the kit mailed it to you could you put it together for me and mail it back and I coulid pay you for your service. Thanks in advance,

THis is my 1/48 scale Mongram Flak Bait . I have always loved this plane and wanted to do it justice as she sits right now. The interior is a combination of plastic from the kit and a paper model kit of the B-26 plus some other parts from paper kits for details. I will be doing the entire plane as she sits right now . Thanks for looking

These two finished models also represent history being made and a milestone achieved. These two are numbers 999 and 1000 in my small scale vehicle collection. Number 999, Takom 1/72 scale C-911 HET tank transporter: Number 1000, Hasegawa 1/72 scale JGSDF Rosenbauer 6x6 Panther Fire Truck/Crash Tender: And now my journey to 1000 small scale vehicles is complete, and soon I hope to have them all set up to display and shoot pics. That announcement will be made when plans are finalized, please pray I find a place that is willing to let me set up and display for longer than a few days. Thank you all for looking in, comments are welcome.

Copper was a physician stationed at American Antarctic research station, U.S. Outpost 31. The character appears in the 1982 film The Thing and was portrayed by the late Richard Dysart. His fate is also briefly touched upon in the 1991 comic series The Thing From Another World. The kit is another addition to The Thing collection of bust kits by Gillman Productions. As with the others, it is in 1/4 scale and the casting is very nice. There is only the slightest seam line across the hair and a bubble on one tooth. The scene depicts just after the Norris Thing's stomach munches off his arms. After the usual prep for resin, it gets a prime and then I start with the skin. And begin with my normal coat of pink. Continuing on when the pink is dry, it's gets it's base coat of flesh. Then a little Citadel Reikland Flesh shade thru the a/b to reinforce the skin shadows. If you try this technique, make sure to leave some of the pink showing... While that was drying I turned my attention to the base. It is basically a big hunk of resin with the Norris Thing's stomach teeth. Wow that was a large description... I've been watching the videos of pro miniaturist Eric Swinson, and in his critique videos, he's often said don't let the painted base rival the figure itself. So I've been trying to make my bases a little plainer. The next items on the agenda are his hair, the shirt, and the ... blood. The hair was fairly easy, as it just a salt and pepper look. Now off the top of my head I pictured more salt, but in looking at the images, I was wrong. So a little more dark colors went into the head. The shirt is a maroon red shirt, with a beige-white undershirt. V's Cavalry Brown suit the bill. I added a little beige to some of it to create a highlight. The blood was next. My feeling in re: to this is that less is more. But this a pretty gruesome scene. So the stumps have to be bloody, but I left enuff flesh where you could still see it, plus a bit of the bone. I also put a little so some of the arm got it, but used a purple wash to indicate bruising (not that bruising would happen that fat. Finally, I mixed a water down blood color and with the a/b created some spatter - a little on the arms some on the shirt - which the red color of that tones down the gore, and then a few dots of it hit his face. A finally spatter on the base and I was done. Thanks for looking.