I thought it was about
time I try out some of these decals I've been producing
for the past couple of years. This is the World Wide Airways
Mosquito racer finished with my own Thunderbird Models
decals, 72-003.
I'm pleased to say the decals were excellent both in fit
and ease of application, and I can say this without fear
of inflating my own ego because it's down to the original
Whiskey Jack artwork and the quality of Fantasy Printshop's
work rather than my own efforts.
As for the build itself
there's really nothing fancy about it, though I must be
the only person on the planet that has difficulty with
Tamiya kits. This is the second I've built and I had even
more problems getting this to fit together than I did
with the Douglas
Skyray. I drilled out the exhausts and added
an antenna from Uschi elastic thread, replaced the pitot
with sections of Albion Alloys micro brass tubing and
flattened the tyres, but otherwise it's straight out of
the box. The radio was left out as this had been removed
from the full sized aircraft to save weight (replaced
with a smaller Motorola unit) and I added seat belts from
Eduard.
Paint is Humbrol 103 Cream
which is a very good match for the original aircraft's
Diana Cream. The green was mixed from Humbrol 3 Brunswick
Green, Xtracolour 151 Willow Green with a bit of blue
and white in to match the decals. Landing gear and wheel
hubs look very dark in photos; I went with Humbrol 85
Coal Black but they could just as easily have been painted
in the same green as the trim and spinners. There are
also natural metal panels behind the exhausts which I
represented with Bare Metal Foil Flat Aluminum. Note that
the forward edge of these panels do not follow the panel
lines as moulded by Tamiya, they are about 3/32"
behind them.
Below:
Other than Eduard's Superfabric seat belts, I didn't do
anything fancy with the interior as it is very difficult
to see any of it. This was really built to showcase the
decals anyway.
Below:
Tell me again how wonderful Tamiya kits are because, frankly,
I'm just not feeling the love. The bomb bay doors were
half a millimetre too long and there were large gaps on
the sides - an internal spreader bar in the fuselage would
be an advantage here. The crew hatch also didn't fit well
as evidenced by the copious amounts of Mr. Surfacer to
blend it in. Had I not been in a hurry to try and get
this done for display on my stand at Scale ModelWorld
2015 I would have done more test fitting prior to assembly.
Of course, I didn't get it finished in time anyway!
Below:
The worst fit was at the rear of the engine nacelles where
large gaps necessitated a generous helping of Tamiya putty.
The separate wingtips needed filler and the fuselage halves
weren't the best fit either. Note the clear parts masked
with Bare Metal Foil.
Back
to 1/72 Aircraft Main