Fokker DVII

Revell 1/72 Fokker DVII (Rudolph Berthold) - Kit No. 04194

Scratch built the dash-board from sprue - not too bad but overly fiddly and not that great in camera close-up

Machine gun cocking lever detail made from brass parts from an old photo-etch set and hollowed out the exhaust pipe end with a tiny drill bit

The lozenge camouflage paint nightmare!

Painstaking painting of each lozenge square by hand - thankfully the kit has a complete decal with all the lozenge shapes on a black & white outline.

Stretched sprue for the rudder and elevator control rods/ cable

Aileron control rod detail made from cut sprue and stretched sprue

Since the struts were way too thick for an accurate scale model, I carefully sanded each one down by 50% in thickness making sure not to snap them (which I did once!)

Finished rudder and elevator control cable/ rods

Contact..!

Ju88A4 Mistel 1

Ju88A4 Mistel 1 with Bf109F4

Brief Blurb on type

The Mistel was a late war idea that originated at the german glider school in Bavaria and ended up using (initially) worn out old JU88s as flying bombs with either a Bf109 or FW190 strapped to the top as a control aircraft. I used the following book as a build resource:

Mistel: The Piggyback Aircraft of the Luftwaffe 

• ISBN-10: 0887406688
• Hans-Peter Dabrowski

Kit

I used the Italeri 1/72 Mistel 1 kit (No 072) which came with both JU88A4 and Bf109F4 models. The set comes with lots of additional JU88 kit parts except the front cockpit glass and fuselage. The kit is ok to build but the engine nacelles were awful to align correctly and near impossible without a lot of filler putty. I painted the kit with an airbrush for the 1st time ever and perhaps over weathered the wings. The kits says to use a Testors model master Field Green FS 34097 colour which is actually very bright (perhaps not correct tone for RLM 71).

Stretched sprue was used for the Bf109 antennae wire and paint blobs for the detail.

0.06in copper wire was used for the control and fuel cabling on the Bf109 supports (fore and aft)

The cockpit came pre-cut into 3 sections which was a nice treat!

Overall a nice build from an old 1995 Italeri kit.

Lego Star Wars Hoth Base

My Son's 9th Birthday present started off as a discussion in the midst of playing Lego with my boys (9 and 5). The iconic 1976 Star Wars Empire Strikes back movie with the full sized Hoth ice base and hangar set is a favourite of most 35-45 year olds who now have young boys! So I decided to create one for my 9 year old's next birthday based on a set of design requirements from my son of course!

The main design requirements were as follows:

1. Must be able to actively play with the set (needs to be rugged and light)
2. Had to fit under my son's bed for storage
3. Needed to be able to access all areas easily
4. Set had to be able to be added to with Lego parts as the boys imagination evolved
5. Needed some working parts (doors and Ion cannon) and LED lights
6. Finally, it needed to be representative of the Hoth main scenes from the movie:

    a. Luke in the Hoth wampa cave
    b. Luke in the medical bay and bacta tank
    c. Leia and Han in the Command centre
    d. Main hangar for snow speeders
    e. Imperial attack in the shield generator and base

The master design document!

I used 30 x 20 x 3/16 inch white foam board to construct the Hoth Base hanger. I simply taped the sections together without gluing since the later foam stages would hold everything in one piece easily. The hardest part was to create the 2 sliding blast doors inside a frame.

The entire hangar was mounted to a single 20 x 30 inch board as the base. I wired up a set of small blue LEDs in series with 1K resistors and run back to a simple push button switch and AA battery pack. The battery pack was hidden in a compartment (accessible from under the playset).

I added the shield generator from circular bits of foam board and the Ion cannon base from a cut down plastic drink cup. Cutting up a large Lego base sheet, I glued the parts into the Hoth Base using contact cement. Next I used my favourite building material - expanding foam! Any type works but I used "Great Stuff" for windows and space filling. The key is to use a little as it expands 2-3 times its volume.

After the foam dried, I took a long exacto blade and trimmed the entire set into snow banks and ice covering the Hoth Base including around the top and inside the hangar in some sections.

The foam makes natural crevasses and hollows which are perfect for snow and ice scenes. I used a large circular ice cream tub for the structure of the ice cave at the rear of the set.

The Ion cannon was made from a Lego planet that I stuck thin strips of tape around to create the look of structure and detail. Parts of Lego were used to finish the cannon muzzle and handle. Blast doors were painted various shapes of grey acrylic paint and I used blue acrylic to tint the nooks, crannies and crevasses on the foam structure. The Ion cannon base was painted with grey plastic model enamel paint to avoid chipping and flaking later on. Finally the entire foam was painted using white acrylic paint (note - acrylic paints doesn't stick well to any uncut sections of expanding foam so its key to trim everything).

The final effect with the blue LEDs, Ion cannon and shield generator.

 For the details on each side (since this was designed to be a well used play set rather than a model or diorama) I made up the Hoth command centre and radar screens. The large red button on the wall is the LED on/off switch. All of the base walls were painted with a white Beauti-Tone textured paint (Flex-Rock) normally used for interior decorating. This paint is thick and can be used to create rough rocky (or ice in this case) surfaces.

The whole base cost around $35 and took approximately 20-30 hours to build and finish.

- 3 1/2 Foam sheets (20 x 30 inch) - $3.99 each
- Flex-rock paint (1/3 tin used) - $15
- LED set and battery box - $6.50
- Old 16 x 16 inch Lego base (cut up)
- Expanding Foam (2 cans) - $4.99 each

The final base all set up with figures, imperial troops and snow speeder. Ready for a 9th Birthday.

Ju-87B Russian Front

As usual I bought the kit then set about hunting for an image to create a diorama out of. The image below is a Ju-87B1 of II StG1 somewhere on the Russian Front getting rearmed in its dispersal bay. Not sure how urgent that unit was as the armorer is taking it easy lying down on the wing!

My Version

I didn't have a 1/72 scale horse lying around so I made do and the background I used isn't blue sky so the finished diorama looks a bit different.

I used the Airfix JU-87 B set (set # A03030A) for this diorama. As usual I cut open the canopy supplied (even though it is too thick for 1/72 scale) and scratch built up the inside cockpit walls and added tin foil seat belt harnesses. I brush painted everything as usual (no airbrush yet) but then used a fine grit paper to sand away and achieve some basic weathering (excessive weathering bugs me since aircraft rarely lasted long enough in WW2 to become weathered!! yet it seems to be a norm for modelers these days)

I started the diorama on wood block with old wall trim as relief.

Lashings to plaster Paris created the snow banks for the dispersal.

Old dried hydrangea blossoms painted white substitute for russian birches and I used the pine tree kit from Woodland Scenics. Additional scrub and trees were added later.

The 2 amigos re-arming the aircraft were originally Airfix RAF ground crew figures re-painted although this set is made from a very soft polyethylene or similar plastic and is awful to trim and sand (stick with resin or harder ABS mix plastic). Still, they are 1/72 scale after all.

I painted the plaster snow with tints of blue since thats what snow looks like in shade areas and mixed plaster with brown paint and weathering pastel to create muddy snow. I then used baby talcum powder for the top covering although it made the diorama stink like perfume! Overall the effect worked well and I shot pictures with a Canon T3i DSLR camera outdoors in natural sunlight to get the right shadows and snow glare.