2020 - A Year in Review

 Well another year has come to an end, and what a year. With the pandemic and thus spending a lot more time at home you'd think I'd have been able to punch out a heap of models. Sadly this hasn't been the case.  I started the year well but bogged down from August on the dual Skyhawk builds.

That said I managed 8 completions one 1/32 Scale Aircraft (my 2nd) , one 1/72 Aircraft, four 1/48 Aircraft  and two 1/48 Tanks. 

Favorites for the year are the 2 tanks and  surprisingly (for me) Ju-88

1/48 Tamiya Crusader Mk II - Ist Armoured Division - El Hamma Tunisia - March 1943

I love British Armour and the crusader in this camo looks cool

1/72 Airfix Vickers Wellington Mk. Ic  - No 75 Sqn (NZ) RAF

This was a quick 3 week build. It went together with no issues at all. It is the start of my WW II Bomber collection.

1/32 Tamiya Supermarine Spitfire Mk IXc 485 (NZ) Sqn RAF

Only my second 1/32 kit and whilst it's a great kit I really enjoyed building it did confirm these bigger projects aren't really for me.  That said there will still be an occasional 1/32 scale build in my future.

1/48 ICM Junkers Ju-88C-6 - KG 40 Luftwaffe 

This was built as part of challenge with a mate. He managed to finish the tail of his Dornier 17... Needless to say it was another victory to me :-) . I chose the spotty scheme for something different.

1/48 Eduard North American P-51D Mustang - Miss Steve

Great kit over all bar the stupid cowl design (Airfix did that part better) and stencil decals which resulted in me stripping and repainting.  

 1/48 Tamiya F-117A Nighthawk  - Final Verdict

Bought this kit on a whim but about half way through the build I wondered why. Still it's in cabinet now. 

1/48 Tamiya Churchill Crocodile 

I was pretty happy Tamiya did the Churchill, it's one of my favorite British Tanks. I decided to make a slightly more involved base this time and was pretty happy with the results.  

1/48 Eduard Spad XIII

Another impulse buy. It confirmed to me that 1/32 is the best scale for WW I aircraft.

Well that is a wrap. Lets hope 2021 brings the world some better times and my modelling more completions. Thanks for reading. 

1/48 Eduard Spad XIII

 

Depicted as a aircraft flown by Captaine René Fonck, Escadrille SPA.103 ( GC.15 ), Fall, 1918

This wasn't on the radar at all but one came in one of my shipments of stuff to sell. And for some reason I decided I wanted to build it.

The Kit 

1/48 Eduard Spad XIII - Weekend Edition - Kit No. 8425.

Certainly not a weekend build (for me at least) as there are a ton of parts in the kit. For the scale it has an excellent cockpit although nothing of it will be seen. The decal instruments look great and seem much better than their more modern decals.

The idea was to build this straight from the box - decal seat belts in all. I first put applied the decal to some Tamiya tape and then carefully cut them out. Not ideal and to be honest the harness looks a little over scale. I'd probably should have used some generic PE belts

The fit on this kit isn't the best. I glued the 2 halves together but they were considerably (1.5 mm) thinner than the top piece. So I cut it down the centre and added some shims to widen the top. Not ideal.

This obviously meant the cockpit piece was to narrow so some evergreen stock was needed for it sit on. 

Some serious clamping was needed to get things into place. I still had a slight overhang so this was removed with a standing stick.

I'd posted this on my Facebook page and comment was asked about whether I'd considered the fit of the nose cowling after shimming the fuselage width. Well I hadn't  so I rushed away to check. 

Surprisingly, and thankfully it fit almost perfectly. This doesn't really make sense but I'll take it. 

There were some differences in length between the top and bottom pieces and the main   fuselage bits. I filled these with some card and sanded it flush (or nearly) using my Aluminum sanding blocks.

The kit survived the threat of Andering (i.e. getting binned)  and moved towards the paint shop.

The Paint

• Tan - Mr Color 44 Deck Tan
• Light Green  - SMS RAF Interior Green
• Dark Green  Mr Color Dark Green 320 JASDF F-1
• Brown  -Tamiya Nato Brown
• Black  - Gaianotes German Grey 
• Underside - Mr Hobby 85  - Sail colour 
• The Blue band was mixed from a couple of random blues and a purple to match the decals

These aircraft were, apparently, brush painted so I went with a hard edged scheme . I up-scaled the instructions and printed them out on self adhesive label paper. Then cut the masks out with scissors.

The Eduard decals went on without an issue. 

Rigging

• Ezy Line
• Ammo Fine rigging thread

One of the aims of this build was to try and improve my rigging. I really struggled with it on the Camel. Initially it went well as I decided to rig as much of it before I put the struts and top wing on. 

It all went to custard once I tried to add all those. The fit (and my preparation) wasn't up to it. In the end I managed to get it all together , but not without a few breakages and lot of swearing.  The photos, if you look close enough, will reveal some poor work.

 The Base

Another excuse to use the static grass applicator and use up a old crappy MDF base I've had lying around.

The Photos