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Thanks! But man, I'm bugged by the rough texture of the paint. I'm going to have to experiment a little bit. Maybe I'm laying it on too dry, maybe I need a bit more flow improver.

Decals are on, but there's a bit of touchy work still to do. The decals for the red nose flash fit terribly and did not look right at all. I'm going to have paint it. I have frisket paper, which should be pretty good for this sort of thing. The top line of the red runs along a panel line, which...

Paint's on! I started with black primer and then a coat of dull aluminum because I was afraid leaving it black would make the dark blue just too dark. It may have also had the benefit that I got no peeling at all from the masking, which I almost always got before with Vallejo. Now for some...

Ah sir, but that is the M2 in .50 cal. The F9F had the M2 20mm. I know, there's so many wildly different pieces of equipment designated M1, M2, M3, etc. in the US military it's a little absurd

You know, I was going by the size of the barrels that I removed without thinking to check if they were in scale themselves. I can't find the outer diameter of the AN/M2 20mm barrel, but 20mm in 1/72 is .27mm. The tubes I had in were .9mm, so yes, those will be too big. I have .5mm on hand, so...

Color me surprised, with some minor cleanup this might actually work. I have a wad of blue tack in the nose cone so I can pull the barrels out, re-pack it a bit and then reinstall the cone on the fuselage. After painting and decaling I can just stick the gun barrels back in and not worry about...

Well... 💩. I noticed that the nose decals would have to go over the gun barrels, which would have been tricky. I could have slit them during application but I decided to push my abilities and try to drill out the barrels and replace them later with brass tube, since I have the right size on...

Thanks! There's just something I find cool about it, even more so than the F-86.

Yeah, it helps with the carrier landings. Bit of a headache when it gets out of phase in turbulence though.

Back at this one, finally. Part of it was just life but also I was waiting for an order of some brass that arrived incomplete anyways. I got the cockpit put together. The directions for the photoetch would have you sawing the kit head rest off and adding it to the photoetch seat. I just...

I wouldn't worry if they weren't very clear. The side panels are only plexiglass and between playing in the dust and very often getting wiped down with dry rags, they get a little hazy over time. The top glass gets just plain dusty and seems to stay that way.

Off the east coast of New Guinea. The battle was really more of a turkey shoot where Beaufighters, A-20s, and B-25s smashed a Japanese reinforcement convoy there.

I love Jugs (cue the Beavis and Butthead chuckle) but they don't lend themselves well to a shark mouth. But as a canvas for a Vargas-style pinup, there's no other fighter to match it!

Rapid deployment, WWII-style.

I'm looking forward to seeing this one go together. I haven't done an Arma kit yet but I'm really interested in one of their B-26 kits.

Done! There's not much to say about this one. I'm not sure the 3D interior decals were worth it, since it's pretty hard to see them.

I love birds with lots of guns! And, I'm on a kick of doing SW Pacific Theater aircraft. Although my intent was to model a Beaufighter that would have been at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea and the TF.X was too late for that. Oh well.

After some weeks away, I had an idea for my F9F build to hopefully improve the cockpit, but as usual it will be a few weeks until I get what I ordered. So, in the meantime I'm blitzing this Beaufighter. This is actually my 2nd one. The first fell victim to missing parts (mine or my cat's...

No sir, unfortunately not. Well, I'll be closing that door up again.

To Eduard: WHY?! For some reason, AFTER I cut out the landing wheel door, I looked at photos of the F9Fs on the ground. Apparently the wheel door stays up, even after the aircraft is shut down! I found one photo with the doors down, but on an aircraft that had suffered battle damage. Why have...