Luft46's Blog

So the model desk is tidied up and everything is packed away.

The Arado 234 and the Okha floatplane have been packed away. The first one suffers from too many faults and the second needs a miracle to get the floats on. I suspect both will sit a long while before I attempt them again.

A few unfinishable kits like the Planet FW1000x3 have been binned. Short of vacforming a new canopy an over large canopy is impossible to fix. Searching online confirmed other people had the same issue.

This pretty much concludes my troll through the boxes of doom which has left me with two boxes of kits that can be primed or painted in the near future.

I am away for much of the rest of March so I do not expect much modelling to get done though I expect to visit two model shops in that time.  I will also be picking up some kits from a friend so the stash will definitely be growing.

As April is very much autumn I’m going to get stuck into serious air brushing practice and hopefully start finishing some kits off.

Recent work has mostly been on the Ar 234. I have just finished a second coat of primer after the first main PSR cycle. I’m trying to carefully balance how much work I do on this kit given it’s age and quality. A good example of this is the cockpit consists of  a crude overscale seat and a pilot figure with the front instrument panel the only other element. There is no real point in doing extra work here so I haven’t.

I will do one more PSR cycle and probably call it quits there.

The Lippisch P13 has been and gone as I have done all I can short of airbrushing on this. Having made the decision previously that I would leave the canopy open due to it’s poor fit the cockpit is now detailed to an adequate standard with the skid and U/c bay now detailed.

I also briefly had the Unicraft (Unicrap) Okha Model 53 resin missile kit out. It would have been really lovely if the four parts of the tail surfaces fitted or each pair was roughly equal in size or thickness. As it is I’ve decided that it is bound for the tip.

Someone else doing this model would be lovely.

And lastly on the kit list is the Okha on floats. This is a very conjectural plane from Justo Miranda, it is very whiffy and even less likely than some of my other L46 stuff. To do this you need a set of Jake floats and a Hase Okha along with the float struts.

The struts were initially removed and metal pins added to ensure that the fit would be solid particularly for the rear ones that will be more at a 45 degree angle than the 90 degrees of the front one. They meet the body rather than the front ones that drop down from the wings.

Plans of sorts.

The biggest issue here is to get the floats attached with the minimum of swear words possible. My next update will be  whether I have been successful.

The photo above is with the front struts resting under the wing only.

The Shinden is now back in the box but this time it’s for all the right reasons.

I have finished all the pre priming tasks, the X-4s are now fixed with missing fins all back in place. These are in a scheme of 76 body with a yellow warning nose. I have consciously avoided the wood grain finish favoured by many. It’s now late 1947 and there is some capacity to camouflage weapons again in much the same way as the earlier Hs 293s were.

The canopy was attached with Deluxe Photo etch glue which is a PVA type glue that flows thin. This was after a quick light buff with toothpaste to get rid of some scuff marks then a dip in Glass coat Gauzy from AK. This treatment for canopies seems better than Future.

I’ve also test fitted four metal guns from Master Model. Next up will be an order to Super Hobby for more of these. In particular they do about half a dozen Fw190 sets so you can get exactly the combo you want. Particularly useful for Luft 46 modelling and at a reasonable price.

The only real difficulty was the wheels which are not well defined and in the case of the front u/c it is all one piece. Much back and forth painting before I was happy.

Next up is the Revell reboxing of the old Frog Arado 234 kit from the 1970s.This is a blast from my youth that I had built. As a teenager I built it in the basic version but not with V1 on the top.

Yeah basically it’s a dog of a kit that manages to make the Dragon version look acceptable. Detail is pretty crude especially in the cockpit, u/c and the elevator balances. And of course the sink hole on one side of the tail. I particularly remember the cockpit to fuselage joint being a pain. I recall using sprue goo that was my filler of choice at the time, now it’s Milliput.

As I used to hang my models on fishing line from my ceiling all kits were wheels up which given the crude nature of the U/C was a good choice.

Some assembly had been done on this kit by me but I’d obviously got sick of how crude it was. I will be bringing it all together over the next while, but  I’m not looking to polish the turd too much.

The downside of looking through all these old part done kits is that some kits just no longer spark any joy! The Planet Models resin He P1073 kit is now in the bin, there are many other kits that are more worthy of my time. 

And lastly I found an imaginary kits site on Facebook so here are a few favourites

It’s been too hot and moist the last week or so. Whilst most of my modelling is done in my new indoor room any airbrushing is consigned to the garage.

This means the weather needs to be a little milder before I can get stuck in favouring Autumn and Spring.

In the meantime I have been going through my boxes of Doom. In my last blog I’d rejected one railcar kit but I’ve now rejected the other one too. I think this is scale issue. In 1.72 the plastic is not strong enough to deal with all the fiddling neccessary to get six wheeled bogies lined up. Everything gets bent out of shape and is just too frustrating. This was a double kit box so the untouched kit will be sold.

The extra strength and size favours doing this in 1.35 sometime.

Next up was the Dragon Helldiver, now part of the pooch screwing here was my fault but basically it is not well designed if you want to have the cockpit and gun position open as was often done with this plane. If I see the Academy one I will give it a go. Again I just can’t be bothered so parts were stripped and the remainder is another paint mule.

So next up is this 1/700 Bandai Anime kit from Future Boy Conan. I bought it because I liked the shape and didn’t mind the movie. Initial thoughts were to Germanify it in a Luftwaffe bomber scheme. I got it out and fixed a couple of bits and then was about to reapply some primer. The more I looked at it the more I realised I had no further interest in this kit. It’s back in the box but I think it’s going to Melbourne with a $1 sticker on it to give it away!

And lastly today I had a look at my Hase Shinden that I was Germanifying with X-4s and a Luftwaffe Fw190 camo scheme.

This one is a bit different, it just needs a few things done. I need to do the 5% things before painting. I often don’t test fit my undercarriage and other bits like guns,  wheels, cockpits etc so this time I’m getting all those done in the next few days. After that it will go back in the box but it will be in my painting pile.

And this time like the other tanks etc already there I will know it’s truly ready to be finished.

As I’m not going to live to 200 which is what I probably need to finish all my kits I have become a bit more fussy about the kits I build.

Which brings me to todays’ kit. Modelcollect do a 1/72 plastic German railcar. I’d previously had a go at this kit and ran into problems. Hence it was in one of my Boxes of Doom. Actually the first of these.

So I got this out to reassess it. And very quickly it becomes apparent why it was set aside. Modelcollect have a tendency to do in 1/72 what Miniart does in 1/35. Namely if one part would suffice why not divide it up into three parts and make everything harder for the modeller.

And that’s what they’ve done so it’s more like herding cats than modelling. So after trying for an hour I’ve given up. I will strip out a few useful parts and save the box but the rest is bound for the bin.  

In the same Box of Shame ( one of seven) is a comparable kit from T-model of the same wagon. Better instructions and fewer parts with metal wheels and a nice paper wood strip to put on top along with lots of brass this is a much better kit than Modelcollect’s effort.

More later on how I make out this kit which has two wagons able to be built from it. I’m sure it was much more expensive but worth it.

A few days ago I finished my first kit for the year. Now this is not my usual fare. It’s laser cut wood with over 300 parts over eight frets. This has been overall a fun kit with some fit issues. I made one mistake that I repaired with Milliput so that’s a very typical kit for me.

The kit is a marble run that works by cranking a handle and runs through a few cycles to add2 interest. It’s fun cranking the handle and watching people’s faces as it cycles through.

Not my usual fare but good fun as a pallette cleanser and now I’ve finished my first kit for the year. I’m still yet to start practicing my airbrushing but I need cooler weather as it is in my garage.

I’ve wrapped up work on both the KV related turrets I was working on. At least for the pre painting part.

Both being resin had issues around straightness and required hot water, some brute force and a bracing piece of Plastruct to move against. Some serious sanding with a 320 grit sanding stick was also required for the second one.

The first one is also now finished . It actually required two attempts as I needed to remove the bottom centre section which was fouling the plastic strips on the underside of the turret. Some PVA was applied to ensure the underside gaps were filled.

I’m now getting stuck into wood construction kit I got as a Xmas present whilst I watch some airbrush YouTube videos to get ready for painting the big turret KV1 next week.

And lastly a couple of shots from the Australian War Museum in Canberra. When the renos are finished next year all the aircraft should be back especially the Me163 and 109 but the F111 and Blackhawk are nice in the meantime.

I’ve sprayed one side of the tracks so far and if not for being so moist today I would have done the other side. 

The turret rear has been pulled into line agaist that bar and a new top step done.

A set of steps for construction and painting has now been mapped out so that this can be completed.

I’m in Canberra for a few days so not much progress until next weekend. I hope to see the War Memorial and take a few photos.

In the meantime whilst giving the turret time to set the Ziv20 conversion has also been dug out. As much of this is again cleanup its a good space filler whilst waiting on paint/glue drying.

The turret has already been started with the usual care around cutting resin. The rest of the parts are either 3D printed or metal. The barrel and muzzle brake are particularly nice.

Unlike some people over on Facebook I usually leave my yearly review until the last day, not before Christmas!

So here it is – all the kits I finished this year

So what happened, well seven weeks Europe vacation that I can’t complain about, heaps of house renovations including my new indoor model room. The new model room can’t be complained about but again I didn’t do much modelling. And then of course there was the FW Ta183 disaster that killed that kit. On top of all that was some family stuff and managing to cut the back of my leg did not help either.

The last month or so has been better and I have made some real progress on the U19 KV1 conversion. Unlike previous years there has been a serious determination not to rush things to get a model finished by year end.

Today the missing piece from the conversion turned up with another KV1 project turret from bolddivision so it will be full steam ahead on that.

And lastly another BNA delivery with some varnish, sanding sticks and etched brass for my next KV2 and one for a 1/48 Okha.

And well this says it all about many parts of 2025.

you’re partner/children/friends etc bring you tricky modelling adjacent projects.

Today’s effort was this – ” I really like this champagne style bottle but I want to put this stopper in the top to replace the original cork. Of course the cork on the stopper is too large for the bottle and needs the diameter reduced.

Cue scalpel work then the  advice that it will need to look nice so it will need to be sanded.

Anyway the job is now complete!

For Christmas I got the Bovington book on tanks and a Ugear assembly for a marble run which will get a start sometime. And it’s patriotic as it’s made in Ukraine.

At 355 parts and a 71 page instruction sheet this may be a long build in the new year.

And now a cartoon that summarises AI well.

And a blast from the past