Phil's Bench is back.

[skypirate]

Nice variety, Phil.
I have built that Phantom out of the Italeri box. And I have one more in the stash - of the Wild Weasel variety. These days we can be picky about the raised panel lines, but they were cheap and good-looking in their day.

cheers,

David

[philp]

Hey, I finished a model, two even. Ok, both from the same kit but two separate vehicles so am counting them as two builds, first finished this year.

The Hasagawa 1/72nd Vanship and Vespa from the Last Exile. Not too bad of kits but the decals must be a little thick as they didn't want to conform around sharp curves like the side of the vespa and rear of the vanship. Still 2 done is 2 done.





Had hernia surgery last Tuesday (never hurt before the surgery, still hurts pretty good now) but have vowed to get to the workbench and finish these off as they have been in the Review kit backlog for way too long.

Now a set of US GIs in 35th and the last reviews will be done and I can get on to all those GBs I have signed up for.

[Softscience]

I don't know what that is, but it sure looks cool, and well made.

Good luck healing up. Try not to laugh.

Hey did you ever hear the one about Meryl Streep and that horse?

[PaulBradley]

Nice work, Phil!

Hope you feel better soon...

[ShaunW]

Great bit of sci-fi building there Phil. Hope the pain goes soon!

[philp]

Ok, finally finished another kit thanks to the Blitzbau.

This is the 1/72nd British Bofors 40mm AA gun from Zvezda. Decent little kit and builds up nice but some of the smaller parts were a bit hard to handle. Still got her done well before the required 24hrs was up.

[philp]

Well just finished by second build of the year.

First was the rerelease of Moonbase Alpha from Space: 1999 but since it is a review kit and not posted yet will have to wait for the pics.

This one was for the Screen Stars GB and I have finished 4 days over.









The build thread is here if you care to peruse it.

Finishing the body has caused me no end of grief and further added to my "why in the world would I build a car model" issue.

Some of my problems were first the replacement decals I ordered didn't come printed on white (Herbie is an offwhite body color) and were a bit translucent so I decided to put some white down and mask it for the decals. After about 4 coats of white with some sanding and colorful language in between I finally got a coat I could live with. So measure the decal stripe and it was exactly 5mm wide, same as my Tamiya tape, happy days or so I thought. Obviously I can't measure in metric because after masking and getting a decent coat of my final color the decal stripes were just a little thinner than my masked area.

So, looking at the model and following the motto "Finished is better than perfect" I decided you can't see the extra color on the body too much but the rag top needed some touch up so out with the spray can grey, make a puddle on a lid and touched up with a brush. Hey, that isn't too bad, from 3 feet.

Next fun was the moulding and window frames (which were molded to the clear part instead of the body). How am I going to get them shiny? Real Metal Foil would be the car guys go to but I didn't have any. My son had been trying to use some Chrome tape on a wooded sword (he finally gave up and painted it) so I checked a piece and seemed thin enough. Let's test on a small bit. Hey sticks great, a little too great. Yep, up came the body color and the bit I cut didn't even have the decency to stay put. Ok need another option.

I did have this nice silver paint pen. Not quite chrome but should pass. A quick 10 minutes and that doesn't look too bad. Gave everything a day to sit before trying decals and see how it goes.

Ok, got to sand the paint ridges from the masked areas but have some thin sanding pads, no problem. Uh, what is that discoloration on the body? Oh, look, the paint pen hasn't really dried and every time I touch it I am smudging it all over the place. A little water and a paper towel and luckily it cleans off ok but would haunt me the rest of the time putting the decals on and adding the last bits to the body. Not sure how many times I have cleaned it off and still think I see smudges in the pics.

Anyway, she is done now and on the shelf. Just got to remember to watch out the next time I pick it up.

So, what's next? Oh, look, I am signed up for the What If GB that has already started, it is Blitz month and I am in a small airforces GB over on Britmodeller. And I still have one more review kit to get to. So, better clean off the workbench and grab another kit.

[mjatx]

The trouble you had, will only be known by you. Herbie looks really amazing! The shine on the hubcaps and chrome is absolutely mirror finish. Fantastic job.

[Clashcityrocker]

Looks great despite your woes with the finishing.

Nigel

[skypirate]

Great looking results all round.
Top stuff!

David

[philp]

OK, way behind on posting up my builds this year. Lets see if I can remedy that.

First up, a Review kit I did for IPMS/USA. Moonbase Alpha from Space 1999.





And the Command Center.





A few lousy pics of the interior.





No real issues other than they don't give you enough tube material to make all the passages on the base set and the measurements on the instructions are off for cutting. Through some judicious measuring and cutting I ended up only one tunnel short. See if you can find it.

[philp]

Next up is the Maquette 1/72nd scale SA-2 done up in Egyptian markings. This was done during the Blitzbau in February.







Think I like the Airfix kit a bit better though this one came with some great decals for the missile. Too many to do for the GB and since I want to do a full SAM site will have to wait and see if I end up using any of them.

[philp]

Next was a What If build of the Academy 72nd scale P-51D.

This one is done up as a Mormon Mustang (yes, I live in Utah, no I am not LDS). Premise was the Louisiana Purchase never took place so North America is divided into several sections with bits controlled by France, Russia and Mexico. Texas is a separate country as is Utah. The markings and scenario were designed by one of the guys over at Whatifmodelers and the camo by another who did a profile for me.







I kept debating on what the land would be called. Originally it was Deseret but Zion was another contender. I thought LDSAF might cause a few concerns on the display tables here so in the end went with UAF (Utah Air Force) because all I had to do was cut the S out of USAF. Hey, I am lazy.

[philp]

Britmodeller has a Sci Fi GB going on and I have completed a couple for it and have another one or two I am going to try and do.

First the Moebius Dragonfly from Johnny Quest.







This is a really simple kit with 13 parts and painted white. Simples.

[philp]

The 2nd Sci Fi build was also a Review build for IPMS/USA. The Hasagawa 1/1500 Arcadia from Captain Harlock.

There are at least 2 different versions for this ship (possibly 3) and both are kitted by Hasagawa. I think I like the look of the other version (the Green one) a bit better.











There is a lot of gold scrollwork on the fuselage and on the quarterdeck. The kit comes with some great decals for these and then molds them raised. I tried decals on the back and that pretty much showed me there was no way they would conform so I ended up using a gold paint pen. Luckily the pictures are small enough you can't really see the mistakes.