Small Scale Military Headquarters

Hello guys, I just joined the fourm. I have seen lots of good information here. Very impressive! Anyways, I started my collection of planes and have Red 3 109, Marines Dream, Killer, and a Stuka on the way.

Today while cruisng WM I came across Eileen P47 and Eaglston P47. WM had 2 of each and I picked the best out of them being the Eagleston. However, i am not really sure I want to keep it because the paint is I would say borderline. I know there are issues with the P47 So do I keep the one I have and fix her up or return and hope for a better one? Also are they planing on redoing the P47's or is this all thats there?

Ok and now to main ? how do you all feel about deatailing the aircraft? weathering and ect? and what are some of your techinques? and how do you deal with flaws such as excess glue or chiped paint?

Ok guys looking forward to spending more time learning and chating so see ya'll later and Merry Christmas!

Welcome aboard Geo71! There are many skilled folks in the weathering and detailing area here in the forum. (I'm not one of them )
You are sure to get some really good tips and show us your results!

Geo71 wrote:

Ok and now to main ? how do you all feel about deatailing the aircraft? weathering and ect? and what are some of your techinques? and how do you deal with flaws such as excess glue or chiped paint?

Ok guys looking forward to spending more time learning and chating so see ya'll later and Merry Christmas!

Quite a few folks here, including myself are modellers, and as such, look at these things much like artists look at a blank canvas. I'm sure many also, prefer not to dive into customizing, but it's really a thing an individual needs to judge for him/herself.

Detailing on this particular scale is quite easy, as it's large enough to lend itself to some incredible possibilities, cases in point:

- Cockpit: it's quite easy to scratchbuild with plastic card stock (found at most hobby shops and some craft stores) instrument panels with raised detail such as gauges, dials, knobs, levers etc. The seat can be easily detailed with a harness made of your choice of materials, metal foil painted, and small cut to fit nylon strips and plastic card can be cut for harness details as well. Canopy frame rails can be scratchbuilt, any material you see fit to use? Fuselage sidewall console details can be added in the same manner you address the instrument panel.
- Landing (NG and MLG) Gear wells: detailed again, with plastic card, and various "plumbing" to represent hydraulic fluid transfer lines, and there are tons of detail oriented books that show this type of detail up close and personal (Squadron Signal Books - Detail and Scale series) and it's very easy given this large scale, to do some incredible detailing.
- Access Panels: simply scratchbuild various access panels in the open position to depict ammunition loading mechanisms, radio/com gear, airframe skeletal detail etc.
- Control Surface details: same thing pretty much applies here as with the above described methods, scratchbuild detailed control surfaces
- Battle Damage: amazing what a hot knife (craft knife) hot glue gun, and a dremel can do! simply accentuate bullet holes, shrapnal with a bit of weathering type detail, oil/hydraulic leaks can be represented with painting/weathering.
- Lights: quite easy with technology today to light the cockpit, and do nav lights as well, using small LED's with battery packs, or you can go a step further and use fiber optics.
- Weathering: visit either one of these two three sites, and you'll see several methods of weathering both aircraft and armor.
http://www.hyperscale.com
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com
http://www.missing-lynx.com

As far as "fixing" some of the problems you mentioned, there are several ways to remove excess glue (depening on the type) and paint chips are actually a good thing, just take a look at older WW2 era Aircraft and you'll see quite a bit of this, and this is actually part of the "finishing" process that most modellers do when superdetailing an aircraft, in particular Japanese and German planes.

If you've got any specific questions, don't hesitate to drop me a line off-board P8ntguns4sale@aol.com and I'd be happy to help in any way I can.

Regards,
Todd

What are Lair's decals?How can I get them.Is there a link or website to buy from them?If they can make custom decals for aircraft I have a few I would like to have made.