nmertes

Last 1 I built many years ago, I taped off the end 3/16” of an inch or so (not sure of the exact measurement), painted it white, then used parts of red letters cut a little longer than the width of the blade, applied, let them dry a couple days, & airbrushed them with Future. Worked well until we moved & a box with completed models went missing.

I’ll take bids on the bottle I have. We’ll start the bidding at $50.00. ;}

Beautifully done as usual, Gil.

Have that kit in my stash. One option to avoid putting weight in the nose is to use the boarding ladder. Orions sitting on the ground regularly had the boarding ladder in place with the door closed. Spent 2 years with VP-30 when they were at Pax River, MD in the late 60's.

Maestro Models has a decal sheet for the Hasagawa 48th scale Drakens. The red scheme looks to be no problem coming up with a close enough paint. The green scheme calls for Tamiya XF-13 among other brands. When I look at the Tamiya website, XF-13 looks a lot darker than the color on the decal sheet. I haven't been able to find any pictures on line for this scheme to confirm the color. Do any of our wizards know where I can find photos of this scheme?

Another overseas shop I've bought from that carries a lot of products not available here is the48ers.com. They only deal in 48th scale products. One of the brands they carry is Kasl Hobbies. Excellent resin upgrades for a lot of kits. I found them while looking for a recon nose for an F-5E kit. My only complaint with their website is they don't offer a foreign currency conversion.

I'm not trying to start any arguments & would never shut out any of the stateside mail-order shops. Anytime I'm looking for PE or other add-on items that the stateside folks are either out of or don't carry, Hannant's in the UK is my go to shop. Their shipping is higher & it takes about 10 days to get to me here in AZ but, their prices are 20-30% less than stateside. My last order was almost $30.00 less than the shop I usually buy from. Shipping was $27.00. It was all Eduard & Res Kit items that the stateside shops have been out of for some time. I understand that the stateside shops have to pay customs to bring the the items in and I only order from Hannant's if I can't get it here. Anybody else ordered from them?

It will probably be awhile before I get to it. I also have the Testor’s kit and will probably build them together. I’ve been in contact with the folks at SAC. They’ll have a landing gear kit for it in February or March.

I got the new ICM OV-10A Bronco from kitlinx.com last week. It looks like it will go together well. On page 24 of the instructions a drawing of canopy masks is shown. Don't go looking for them. I filled out a support form on the ICM website & got this response from them today: Dear Nick, Thanks for your request. They are mask templates in instruction that are just printed on paper. It is up to you to make a copy or cut them from the instructions and glue on the parts before painting. Hope my info will help you. Best regards, Daryna Support manager I'll be using Tamiya tape instead of "gluing" paper copies to the canopy.

I'm with Ralph. The Donegan Optivisor is a very good choice. I've had 1 for over 40 years with their #7 (2.75X, 6" focal length) lens set. It works very well for modeling.

Have any of ya'll built the Modelsvit XP-55 Ascender & used the Scale Aircraft Conversions landing gear & nose wheel well kit? The nose wheel well in the SAC set I received is about 1/8th short. I contacted SAC. They're sending me a mailing label & will recast a new wheel well for me. They indicated it looked like Modelsvit replaced the kit wheel well with a resin part. The gray piece in the photo was cut off sprue E. No resin in the kit. I've been emailing Ross at SAC about the problem with the nose wheel well part. It appears they made their molds from the original version of the kit. Modelsvit re-did the sprue with the wheel well to correct the length.

Thanks for the suggestions everybody. Now I just have to decide which color to use.

Can anybody confirm that the wheel wells of the XP-55 were actually yellow? The Modelsvit instructions show Humbrol 81 Pale Yellow which I assume to be zinc chromate yellow is the color to be used. I haven't found any pictures online in color that show the wheel wells.

I'm with Mark. Very nicely done. I also have 1 in my stash with plans to mark it for VP-30. I spent a couple years with the squadron while they were at Patuxent River 67-70 as a still photographer.

Thanks, Mike. I'll have to check those companies out.