Agape Fourms member Honza Knetl shared these pictures of RS Models’ 1/72 Arado Ar-66 “Legion Condor”. Honza finished the kit in Romanian markings. He built the kit for RS Model’s website. Great work Honza! He shared this information:

The model itself is very nice, some problems come with rigging, like usually… 

Next time I’d use more aggressive weathering and color differences, because some of the things aren’t visible in the photos.

Rusty Keeler, also known as Agape Forum member Flattop LSO, posted these photos of his excellent F4B-4, sitting on one of Rusty’s carrier decks. Great work Rusty!

After almost 4yrs, it’s finally done. Two thirds of that time was getting over the fear of mounting the upper wing. All in all this was a very fun build and I’m pleased with the way it turned out. Hope you enjoy.

I’ve depicted this F4B-4 as one from VF-6 stationed on the USS Saratoga in the mid twenties.

Agape Forum member Lee Rilea (chopperlover) shared his results on Tamiya’s mini Cooper kit. Great work Lee!

Forum member Raleigh Lamb posted his finished photos of Monogram’s classic 1/48 P-51B, which has recently been re-issued by Revell, incidentally. Raleigh built this as part of an Agape Models Fellowship Build focusing on Monogram kits. Raleigh added a Legends resin cockpit to the kit, and rescribed the panel lines. You did a great job on this kit, brother!

Why don’t you join us for some fun, Christian fellowship and modeling on the AgapeModels.com forums? We’d love to have you!

Osprey's Modeling US Armor of World War 2

Drew Hatch shares his thoughts on a new armor modeling book. You do know armor is not Corsairs, don’t you Drew?

Whoa! Hold everything – Stop right there! What the heck is this crazy airplane guy doing reviewing an armor book? Has the tide changed or celestial bodies become reachable through warp drive? Nope – but you’re getting close. This book was given to me as part of the Agape Models Forum’s Secret Santa Fellowship Build this year (I swear I’m being set up for something) as I was sent so many armor subject references to get me moved over to the dark side – all that was left out was the infamous chocolate chip cookies. Probably swiped by Cookie Monster again no doubt.

Ospreys Masterclass series has many fabulous titles and this one is no exception. If you are familiar with some of the many armor publications out there then you have heard of Steven Zaloga, the author of this book. His works are well documented through the specialty magazines and Ospreys other fine armor books. The 192 page hard cover book left me with a sense of ambition to learn what some of the tricks of the trade are for armor builders. The book features several how to features and many step by step instructions to some very much over looked and under appreciated techniques. The spiral binding is a fantastic touch allowing the reader/builder to have the book open for easy reference on the bench without being in an awkward pose. My kudos to Osprey for that! Now how about the binding in the rest of the series? Read the rest of this entry »

Most folks that join the Agape Models forum take a little while to get oriented. Vin Wragg jumped right in- I received this  build report from him about the same time I got his information for joining the forums! Bless you Vin for jumping right in! Let’s take a look at his thoughts and pictures of World War II’s dreaded “Eighty-Eight”.

History:
The 88 mm gun is a German anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery gun from World War II. They were widely used throughout the war, and could be found on almost every battlefield. Developments of the original models led to a wide variety of guns.

The Kit:
This is easily the most detailed model kit of any description that I have undertaken. The kits credentials are impressive. The gun barrel is aluminum, which has been turned to the correct dimensions. Brass sleeves are provided for the shock absorbers,  and photo etch components and separate vinyl tires that really do look the part. This together with the multitude of plastic injection molded components gives an extraordinary level of detail. I think this kit is a super-detailed one even as an Out of Box build. My only recommendation is that this one is for the experienced builder, with the amount of photo etch and metal components used, as well as the overall  complexity. Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Budd submitted these details of his Tamiya 1/48 Bf109E-3 build, using Possum Werks decals created by our late brother in Christ, Tom Meyers.

When the idea of a memorial build for Tom Meyers was first mooted I was spoilt for choice; Tom had previously and very generously sent me a selection of his 1:48 scale Possum Werks decal sheets covering the B-17, Hellcat and (unusually for a decal release) a pilot – Johannes ‘Macky’ Steinhoff. These, together with the Accurate Miniatures (AM) kits I had in the loft, presented a pleasant conundrum deciding which would best honor Tom’s memory.

Instinctively, I felt that the right selection would be a decal sheet, rather than an AM kit. I reasoned that as Tom’s role at AM was Art Director and the decals were of his own creation, that a Possum Werks sheet was the right thing to go for. In tandem with this, it is a little off mainstream for a decal sheet to cover a pilot as I mentioned earlier and so it was obvious that ‘Macky’ Steinhoff must have held a particular and significant appeal for Tom. Well, that clinched it and all that remained was to select which of the four aircraft Tom had included, would wind up on a kit. All the choices are interesting, all are Bf109s and range from an E-3, an F-4, a G-2 through to a G-6. I chose the Battle of Britain E-3 as a natural display shelf partner to my Spitfire MkIIa and Hurricane MkI.

The sheet is printed by Cartograf and includes markings and stencils sufficient to cover all the options featured (very well done Tom!) – many decal sheets don’t cater for the purchaser in this way and that aspect alone makes the release superb value for money. I’d better ‘fess up now – me and decals don’t have an easy time. I own virtually every softener going and still have difficulties with silvering and dropping into panel lines and so forth. These decals actually responded best to Micro Sol; Daco Strong and Gunze Mr Softer beaded up and were ineffective, while good old fashioned Micro Sol had no visible surface tension problems and stayed.

I cured the panel line thing by carefully gliding the tip of a No11 scalpel blade through the markings. Micro Sol then finished them off. The Stencils did have a propensity to silver a little but this was cured by picking them off the wet backing sheet with fine tweezers and touching their under surfaces to a pool of Klear (Future in the US). The silvering occurred despite a very high gloss surface, courtesy of Gunze’s acrylic clear varnish. The Klear eliminates air completely and once the stencils were dry, a semi-mat (eggshell) coat sealed them perfectly.

The Tamiya Emil is a little gem, as you’ll know but with one telling flaw that affects decal placement – the rear fuselage stations (the vertical panel lines on the fuselage) from the the rear of the cockpit back to the tail, should be equidistant but aren’t. This means the fuselage crosses overlap stations, when they should sit the exact width between. This is no fault of Tom’s and the markings are correctly sized so my only option was to overlap.

I hope Tom would have been pleased with the result – I deliberately left the markings un-weathered and as vibrant as they were on the backing paper; as it just felt like the right thing to do.

As a pleasant postscript, the finish, together with Tom’s decals, combined to pick up a very positive and welcome on-line compliment from Lynn Ritger, whose highly respected two part Modeller’s Datafile publication on the Bf109 was a key reference used on this project. I was pleased for Tom and thought it would make him smile – I’ll ask him if I got that right in person one day…

Now go build something!

You can’t go wrong building a P-40. Though it was one of the underdog aircraft of WWII, it was used by practically every Allied participant, and despite it’s status even then as “obsolete”, it delivered when other airframes were not available, and continued doing so even after newer models arrived on the scene. Tough and rugged, it was the little fighter that could.

Though AMT no longer produces aircraft, for a while they had nearly every P-40 model available in kit form, with the exception of the P-40B. (Too bad…..) Their earliest P-40 release, as I understand it, was a re-box of the Arii/Otaki kit. Later, they would release their own mold of a P-40. All of AMT’s P-40s that I’ve built were great fun, and this E model was no exception.

The kit was given to me by my good friend and fellow Lafayette Scale Modeler member Bob Fisher, who loves P-40s (and Spitfires) as much or more than I do. Thanks Bob for this blessing! Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping up with the Corsair theme, forum member Roy McKenzie posted his great work on this Fleet Air Arm Corsair. I’ve always loved those FAA colors!

Why don’t you join us for some fun, Christian fellowship and modeling on the AgapeModels.com forums? We’d love to have you!

I’m calling her done.  This is Hasegawa’s 1/72 F4U Corsair in Fleet Air Arm markings of 738 Squadron FAA, 1944.  There is a True Details Resin Cockpit that can’t be seen that much . I used Polly Scale Acyclic Paints, British Sky Type S for the bottom with British Extra Dark Sea Gray and British Dark Slate Gray on top.

AgapeModels.com forum member Steve Budd (Dances with Wolves) shares his gorgeous final result from a kit rescued from the “not quite done” pile that most modelers have. Great work Steve!

Why don’t you join us for some fun, Christian fellowship and modeling on the AgapeModels.com forums? We’d love to have you!

Having brought ‘Macky’ Steinhoff’s BF109E-3 to a close I had a gander among the many ’started – should I finish?’ contenders in the stash. Tamiya’s 1:72 Corsair F4U-1D kit nudged into pole position and is now ready for inspection.

I quite fancied the look of Ira Kepford’s F4U-1A and as this was a within scope backdate from Tamiya’s beautiful 1:72 F4U-1D kit, ran with that. Ira Kepford devotees will spot the kill markings are not aligned with the white tank tape (I knew about it some time back but forgot while decaling). I love the US Navy tri-colour scheme and the Corsair so this was a double pleasure to finish off. The pitot went awol in the intervening years and the arrester hook broke and pinged off into another space / time dimension so both were scratched up. I’ve since discovered that these island bound Corsairs had their tail hooks removed, so live and learn and therein lies part of the fun of this great hobby.

I didn’t get back into the hobby of modeling until February 2006. I’d last built a model in the mid-80s. I’ve since found that in the intervening time, I missed out on some great kits. One group of kits in particular I (almost) missed was AMT’s fine line of P-40s.

Thankfully, there’s Ebay.

I’d already built AMT’s P-40N and thoroughly enjoyed that kit. And I’d picked up most of the rest of AMT’s P-40 line since then. Since I can’t let too much time elapse between my Spitfire and P-40 builds before I get twitchy, I grabbed my AMT P-40K off of the shelf.

The P-40K was an interesting version of the P-40 line. While most people associate it with the “big tail” version, only the first P-40Ks had that feature. Later K models had the extended tail that is more familiar to M and N models (and the late F and L models with the Merlin engine). AMT shipped the kit with an E fuselage, which had the shorter tail. A resin tail from Black Box was included, with a diagram on where to cut the fuselage to add on the larger K tail. Read the rest of this entry »

Forum member Eric Larson (eclarson) has completed his Wingnut Wings 1/32 LVG C.VI. it’s been a treat to see his in-progress posts as he detailed his wood grain effects, rigging techniques, and much more.

Why don’t you join us for some fun, Christian fellowship and modeling on the AgapeModels.com forums? We’d love to have you!

Drum roll please….{rattaa tattaa ratta tatta….}

After 9 months of loving labor I am delighted to announce that I have COMPLETED my Wingnut Wings LVG!! WOO HOO!!! (Can you tell I’m excited?).

I want to first thank God for helping me with one of the most challenging yet enjoyable model projects I’ve ever undertaken! Then, I want to thank all of you for the wonderful compliments and words of encouragement posted after each of my WIP installments in the forums.

So, without further ado, here’s my newest baby!

I love Airfix Spitfires. So I was really happy when I was able to get their 1/72 scale Spitfire Mk. XIX. It was a great little kit. No fuss putting it together at all. Some folks may wish for more interior detail, but then again, I appreciated the $9 price tag. And I think Airfix is pursuing (or seems to be) a pretty smart strategy. Make models that will appeal to kids and adults. The new builder and the experienced one. Have fun at a reasonable cost.

The assembly was very simple. Interior detail is minimal, but with the canopy closed, you really couldn’t see a lot anyway. The fit was very good, with just a small gap at the wing roots. In fact, if you cement the upper wing portion to the fuselage, and then the lower wing parts on, there won’t be any gap. (I know this because I did it on the new-tool Mk. IX, which is very similar in fit.)

Painting the exterior is easy- one or two colors depending on your marking selection, of which two are supplied. One is an RAF PRU bird, and the other set of markings is Swedish. I chose the latter, as I’ve not seen many  Swedish Spitfires. Actually, I’ve never seen any Swedish Spitfires. I did resist the temptation to place a Swedish Chef character from The Muppet Show in the seat. Read the rest of this entry »

Forum member Chris (unimodeler) posted this wonderful work showing his beautiful Monogram F-4J, built OOB except for  some really stunning decals. This was his entry into the Monogram Aircraft Fellowship Build.

Why don’t you join us for some fun, Christian fellowship and modeling on the AgapeModels.com forums? We’d love to have you!

OK..so I had a monogram F-4J Phantom in the pile…I was fondling the plastic and decided that I was worthy to test my skills against this venerable kit.  I can still remember my older brothers friend had built one in the early eighties and it was one of the coolest models I had ever seen…. so out it came…

It’s been a little more than a year since Thomas Myers went home to be with the Lord. He was called home from this earth far to soon, if it were up to me. But it’s not, and it’s in the Lord’s hands. I have great faith that God knows far better what He’s doing than I do.

Still, hardly a day goes by that I don’ think about Tom. Sometimes I even see something and think, for just a minute, “I need to show this to Tom…” And then I remember.

There’s no other way to say it. I miss him. I really do.

However, I do take great joy in the knowledge that when the Lord calls me home, Tom is going to be there to greet me.

Over the last year, we’ve had a Fellowship Build going in Tom’s honor. (The rest of the world calls it a Group Build.) The rules were simple- build something that in some way or another was tied to Tom. Maybe an Accurate Miniature’s kit. Or one with some of Tom’s Possum Werks decals on it. Maybe simply a kit that was discussed with Tom.

So here are the results of the Thomas E. Myers Memorial Fellowship Build. Tom’s brothers in Christ, paying tribute to him in a simple but fitting way. Because as Tom would say, quite often, ‘Go build a model.” Read the rest of this entry »

AgapeModels.com forum member Mark Lay (AirBorne) posted these photos of the excellent results he got with Eduard’s F6F hellcat kit. great stuff Mark!

Why don’t you join us for some fun, Christian fellowship and modeling on the AgapeModels.com forums? We’d love to have you!

Wow, I can’t recommend this kit enough.  Superb detail, fit and decals.  It just fell together.  Picked this one up at Squadron’s open house last year for $9.99… because the box had some water damage!  Nope, not the weekend edition but the whole shebang.  Photoetch, masks and all!  I wish I could have done it justice!

Forum member Lee Rilea (chopperlover) posted these pics of his super Revell 1970 Mach One, in a very nice blue color.

Why don’t you join us for some fun, Christian fellowship and modeling on the AgapeModels.com forums? We’d love to have you!

Welcome to 2010!

For the new year, I have a simple challenge- when was the last time that you did something for the first time for Christ?

Make this year the year you serve the Lord in new ways! That is a resolution that has eternal purpose!

The Airfix 2010 Catalog

I love what Hornby has done with Airfix…..

First was the release of the 1/48 Spitfire Mk. I in 2007, then the Club Kit 1/48 Spitfire Mk. XVIe bubble top in 2008. This year, 2009 brought new toolings of the 1/72nd Mk. IXc and a Mk. XIX.

Apparently, all that was a warm-up….

The 2010 catalog includes….

- A new tool 1/72nd scale Spitfire Mk. Ia
- New tools of the Mk. XII and Seafire XVIIc
- A Douglas Bader Spitfire Mk. Va

My son will be interested in new 1/48 toolings of the Bf-109E and E-Trop also.

There’s also a nice BoB 70th Anniversary set with an He-111, Bf-109E, Spitfire Mk. I and Hurricane Mk. I, all in 1/72nd scale.

To say I am pleased with Airfix’s 2010 plans would be an understatement….

There are lots more kits for 2010- more new toolings and releases of the classic kits. Of course, with all that Spitfire plastic, who needs anything else?

The new-tool 1/72nd Spitfire Mk. Ia

The brand-new 1/48 Spitfire Mk. XII

Merry Christmas from AgapeModels.com!