Nobody Significant

Thanks, but it's "finished" now, so like you I'm not going to bother re-painting etc. After your head-up, I put some "shims" (is that the right word?) on the gun-port pieces before fitting to the wings to help them force the wing halves into better alignment. I had no trouble with the cockpit fitting into the fuselage - it just needed to be in EXACTLY the correct position, which isn't obvious, and it all literally "clicked" together. had a bigger issue getting the lower-wing to fit UP correctly into the fuselage, but I got there. Maybe some other time, but not in the immediate future. I bought this kit especially for this homage-project. I think I'll go back to the stash for whatever comes next - which I still have absolutely no idea what that might be right now. I still have several Bandai Star Wars kits that are begging to be built, along with a couple of Shelf-of-Doom projects that I might return to? Still considering. ☺️

Thank you. I wasn't 100% happy with my seam-work, but it was my first ever bare-metal finish, and I'll know to take better care next time.

My blessed father, the man I had idolised for all my life, passed away from cancer in the autumn of 2016 age 88. Ever since then, I had had it in the back of my mind to try and do a small tribute to him in some form or other. I won’t try and give his full biography here, but he joined the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) in 1948, and became an armaments fitter. He worked on many aircraft in his ten years of service, including, in no particular order: North American P-51D Mustang (Dad called it: "the armourer's joy") Avro Lincoln Bristol Beaufighter De Haviland Mosquito Consolidated PBY Catalina Lockheed P-2 Neptune Gloster Meteor De Haviland Vampire North American F-86 Sabre English Electric Canberra In his time in the RAAF, Dad was posted to different air stations all over Australia many times, on average once every nine months, and spent several postings training and re-training at the Air Armaments School in Sale, just outside Melbourne, Victoria. As each new aircraft was brought into service, he would get training on all the weaponry for that aircraft before then going out to service said aircraft in-the-field. However, of all the aircraft Dad worked on, it was the Mustang that he would always wax-lyrical about. He always called it “The Armourer’s Joy”. Normally I am not much of a “prop” man, only finding a handful of pre-jet aircraft of interest to me personally. That’s just me, but Eduard’s 1/48th Mustang had been getting such high praise, I thought it would make a fitting tribute to my Father. After some research I found that Red Roo Models (not surprisingly, based in Australia), did the decals for a pair of RAAF Mustangs that had been at the Sale Air Armaments School at the same time as my Dad was there between at vartious times 1948 and 1958! So it is extremely likely that he would have worked on this example. So I present: "Mongili I" from the RAAF East Sale Air Armaments School, circa 1948-50. After seeing BlackMike's beautiful Mustang's "Ridge Runner" and "Big Beautiful Doll", I am embarrassed to post my glue-bomb/train-wreck up here; but here it is anyway, as I finally managed to extract the proverbial digit from the proverbial orifice and actually finished it. This was my first ever attempt at any sort of bare metal finish. The wings were sprayed with Vallejo Metal Color, and the fuselage and flaps etc are in Gunze Mr Metal color with me attempting to emulate the "dry-brushing" method pioneered by Peter Eccles of the 580 Lazy Modellers. Prop and cowl paint-chipping done (over-done?) using the ripped-sponge technique.

My concept of "therapy" usually involves a large malt whiskey and SWMBO being out somewhere, anywhere... 😁

Ditto! Great start, but you'll never see me doing anything WWI-ish. Just the thought of trying to do the rigging on a biplane gives me the screaming heeby-jeebies.

Yes, briefly. Very nice. 0.3 needle vs the 0.2 I have in my old H&S, and the paint flows better, less clogging. Not quite as easy to take apart for cleaning though, but I can see myself using the new Grex more often than the old H&S. Plus the paint nozzle is stainless steel, not brass-coloured cheese as the H&S's seems to be.

...and an actual sign seen in an office complex in south India...

I don't want to change the tread topic, but I can understand what you mean. The prequels had bad acting (Haydn Christiansen in particular - plus no "chemistry" whatsoever between him and Natalie Portman, his supposed "one true love" (TM) ) and really bad dialogue; but at least the three movies had a coherent story arc, and followed known Star Wars Canon. Whereas the sequel trilogy it was very obvious that they had absolutely no planned story arc whatsoever but just made it up as they went along, broke known Star Wars Canon over and over, and walked all over the known characters and their story-lines. So it's almost a coin-toss as to which trilogy was worse, but given that Rogue One showed how it could and should have been done, my personal coin-call goes to the sequels for awfulness. Of course everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and this is just mine. Rant over. And back to the topic in hand.....

New shiny toy arrived just before Christmas - my present to myself.

Yeah. The "new trilogy" of movies (Force Awakens, Last Jedi, and Rise of Skywalker) just don't exist in my personal head-canon. Worse even than the "prequel trilogy"...!

Das Boot (original 1981 TV-series version) is far better IMHO.... Other suggestions: Secret Army (BBC 1977) Colditz (BBC 1972) Danger UXB (BBC 1978) Wings (BBC 1977) Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan (PBS 1980) From the Earth To The Moon (Tom Hanks 1998) Being a big Star Wars fan, although I'm not retired yet, during lockdown I have managed to binge-watch all of "The Clone Wars" and "Rebels" animated series, which were both far better than I expected.

!!!!!!!!! Blimey guys, we've got a real speed-merchant in our midst! That build would be maybe 2½ MONTHS for me. At best, assuming I'd got my act together and got a real "wiggle on" as the saying goes...

Lovely build. And great to see a wheels-up config, which IMHO is when aircraft look at their best - it's their "natural element" after all. Most aircraft look like ungainly waddling ducks on the ground, yet that's how 90%+ get built... Of course, I am terrible at following my own advice, as I've only built one aircraft wheel-up since I re-found the hobby ten years ago... I got to ask where you get the wooden base from?

At least it is less expensive than a part-work version would be....! I agree this is one of the best looking F1 cars ever made. I had the 1/43rd Corgi diecast version when I was a kid.

My personal take on how "good" a model is can probably be summed up in one question: How much filler-putty does it need?