My New Year's Honours List

With the customary lull between festive parties I am able to compile my own list of promising new items for the New Year, some of which are already being offered for sale on eBay by enterprising dealers.

There is the new Spitfire from Tamiya, which the media has battered us with for a few weeks now. Yes, it's a beautiful kit, I may build one some day. But it is yet another Spitfire.

And what about the new Fiat BR-20 from Classic Airframes, or the Ki-43 'Lily' from AtoZ Models? And the new Arado 196 Seaplane from Italeri and a new Sukhoi Su 24 from Trumpeter? That's quite a list and it's just for starters. Most of these are out, ready and waiting. There are also some old favourites returning to the list - Revell are giving us the Dornier 217 and the ancient 1/32 Hurricane is back too. Got to take the rough with the smooth.

I'm hoping to get a chance to build most of the above this year, and I'll be sharing the details right here with you, patient reader. It looks as though 2010 will be even better than 2009; new kits, new projects, dioramas, articles, lots of photos. Feel free to contribute if you have a special interest, or just want to join in.

To all my visitors, whether you are an enthusiast or just interested, thank you for your time, and maw we wish you a very happy and healthy New Year.

Philip and Kim Goodier

Turning Japanese II

The Seiran Seaplane, with its clean lines and standard paint finish, calls for some special input to get a really eye-catching look. To start with, I sprayed the entire model in the underside grey.


I then sprayed the upper side dark green before I added some assorted shades of green and tan. This gave me the requisite patchy, sun-bleached finish - something rather more realistic than a flat colour offers. On the photo you can see the difference between the panels - two are different shades altogether.


I then fitted the decals. All the kit decals were crazed and broken up, so I had to find alternatives - there's another hour or two gone. The orange-yellow de-icing boots are painted on.

In this photo you can see the completed wing. I chipped and faded the paint for a authentic field look. The matt varnish, when it dries, brings all the odd shades together and the picture began to make sense.


Many Japanese wartime aircraft are shown in appalling states in photos, especially the fighters. They show heavy exhaust staining and large sections of flaked paint, demonstrating weeks of heavy fighting. Many aircraft would be lost before they had a chance to get battle-worn, but a reconnaissance seaplane, flying from some remote Pacific island, would survive intact having endured some very rough treatment. This was the look I was going for.

I've been through similar feats of endurance this week and here's what's come out of it. I'm very pleased. What do you think?

Recently completed

The Classic Airframes Gloster Meteor NFII and the La-5FN from Zvezda - you coudn't find two more dissimilar aircraft, but here they are joined by a common theme - both are extremely labour-intensive.

Both kits have good detail, especially the Meteor. Both have problems with wing attachment and cockpit, though mostly just basic fit issues. Overcoming these problems can be a bit frustrating for sure, but in a good way, very rewarding. Even with the effort put into producing a huge variety of kits, with hi-tech modern methods, if you want to build something a little different you have to put in the commensurate amount of work. I've been building models since boyhood, and that much hasn't changed. But both models have turned out okay, so the work speaks for itself. I hope they both become their new owner's pride and joy.

Turning Japanese

There are certain elements of my job that are determined by a metaphorical throw of the dice. I have just landed two Tamiya kits, both Japanese subjects, within a couple of days of each other.

The first is a Kawanishi N1K1 'George' and the other is the Aichi M6A1 Seiran Seaplane. Both are excellent kits and will build up into real head turners.

Japanese wartime aircraft have always been a big hit with me. The more of them I build, the more enthusiastic I become. To get to build two at once is an ususual pleasure and luck indeed. There will be more on here about these builds soon. For the moment, here are a few photos of their early stages. As you can see, the Seiran has its own trolley - almost a model in itself.

I will be delighted if anyone has a favourite that they'd like to discuss. If you are a big Jap fan like me, what pushes your buttons?

Taking Shape: the A-7E in 1/32

One of the things I enjoy about working in this scale is its relaxed nature. With so many parts and options, the builder can slow down and gradually build the model up.

I still have the copy of SAMI magazine (Vol 12 Issue 7) in which builder David Francis illustrates a bang up job of the kit. He added resin parts but I don't think it's necessary. This build is straight out of the box - always a good test of the build when you don't feel you need after- market parts to make a lovely job. These days especially, new toolings are so well-detailed, it seems a shame to discard them.

All went smoothly. The only real difficulty I had was jockeying the fuselage halves together around the cockpit and the intake trunking. You have to get all the little tabs in all the right slots for a good line up.


The trunking has a large tab that slots into the nose cone. I did this last and used a little cyano.
Getting it all together was tricky, needing at least three hands. Once in position the fuselage fitted together very well, needing only a little filler. I added weight to the fuselage to ensure a three point sit. The wing section fits 'saddle' fashion and wanted a bit of maneuvering to achieve a flush fit. With that section fitted that was the main assembly sorted. Apart from some odds and ends, the build is now ready for undercoat.

The kit is no Tamiya, but it's by no means a poor relative. There are no real hitches, just challenges - the heart of the hobby. To paraphrase Bones McCoy, I'm a modeller not a kit assembler!