Landing Gear Wheel Wells

The kit suggested to use cardboard that was supplied to make the landing gear wheel wells. I started adding more detail by making my own boxed off areas where the landing gear struts would go, just above the green cardboard. Will then use the panel lines on the cardboard as a template to add styrene strips then paint the interior green. Took a while to get to this point since the kit plans are designed for both static and flight versions and the directions are not very clear requiring a lot of analysis.

Revell P-51D Mustang

This week I took a trip to New York State and picked up a nice 1/48 scale Revell P-51D Mustang from,Wal-Mart for only $10 USD ($13 Cdn), what a deal! I verified at a local hobby shop and on eBay and the same kit would go for at least twice the price so I am pretty happy with what I will be adding to my stash. I normally prefer a higher quality kit but at this price I just couldn't pass up the deal.

Completed the First Step

Although building wooden models is fun I still prefer plastic kits so I decided to start work on the Revell Bell H-13H Helicopter. Tonight I completed step 1 with to my surprise a fair amount of difficulty. Two of the parts were not easy to instal per the plan and I had to check reference photos to make sure I got it correct. Not a great start to what I thought would be a simple kit to build... In the photo I used a Tamiya paint jar to weigh down the chopper to ensure that the tail section dries straight.

Covering the Fuselage

With the summer here and me being busy with outdoor projects I have not spent as much time as I would have liked to work on covering the fuselage with tissue. With a little persistence I finally managed to get this section completed, up next the wings!

Covering the Stabalizer

Today I started covering the aircraft parts in tissue. I decided to begin with the smallest parts, the vertical and horizontal stabilizers.

A little message

As with all my models I signed it and added a small message for Andy wishing him a happy 5th birthday which will be on January 30th 2018.

Wing Edge Sanding

Spent two evenings sanding the wing edges after having worked the over two weeks to build the wings. Had to cut out notches for so that the air intakes fit properly as instructed in the plans.

Wing Mid-Section Madness

It required a fair amount of analysis of the plans to get this far of the mid section of the wing. It's the area of the kit I have been dreading the most due to its complex inverted gull wing design. To be honest its not that hard to build, understanding the plans has been a challenge... The instructions themselves are very vague with additional comments in the plans so careful examination of the drawings was required. Despite the slow progress for this section it is coming along well and looks perfect.

Fuslage Complete

Completed the fuslage today, plane starting to take shape.

U-96 Photo Shoot