jonbius.com

I’ve never been very interested in WWII Soviet aviation subjects. Not that I have anything against them, I just never thought to look into them. That is until I saw a 1/48 Accurate Miniatures Yak-1 with skis for sale on Squadron.com several months back for about $12. That got my attention!

The kit is pretty typical of AM’s work. Very nice detail, practically no flash, no sink marks that were too annoying…. except for the gear doors. The level of detail was quite good, and the kit didn’t have to wait to long in the stash before hitting the build table. Read the rest of this entry »

Just spreading some Christmas cheer! Read the rest of this entry »

I finished this 1/48 scale Spitfire Mk. IXc a week or so ago. I’d heard this was one of Airfix’s nicer kits. It wasn’t up to the standard you’d expect from Accutamigawa, but it was a fun build. Read the rest of this entry »

Though it’s been 20+ years since I built an Airfix kit, the news of their apparent demise kicked off some nostalgia to build some Airfix kits. Much to the delight of my credit card company, I’m single-handedly trying to resurrect Airfix. Just this week I bought the 5 plane, 1/72 70th Anniversary Spitfire kit, a Spitfire 1/48 Mk V/Seafire Mk III, and the one that arrived today- a 1/48 Spitfire Mk. IXc/XVIe. Read the rest of this entry »

I finished the little model that could yesterday- a 1/48 scale Revell P-40B.

I’d built this kit years ago, when it was under the Monogram label. I don’t recall much about it, but I do know I thought the teeth on the bird were the coolest, and it looked like what John Wayne flew in “Flying Tigers”.

So a few months back when I saw this kit in Walmart- with a price tag under $8, I figured “why not?” It can’t be that tough, right? Right? Read the rest of this entry »

I finally finished my Accurate Miniatures P-51A. I was pretty excited about this kit, as I’d seen quite a few good reviews on it, and knew AM has a great reputation. The detail in the casting was great, and the overall look of it in the pre-built stage made me feel like this would build up into a nice kit. So going into it, I had some high hopes for the final aircraft. Read the rest of this entry »

I completed painting and detailing the various components that make up the cockpit for my Accurate Miniatures P-51A. I feel like it’s the best work I’ve done so far on interior detailing, but a lot of the reason for that is AM put so much detail into the office. I’ve also learned that patience is the key- you’ve got to give paint time to dry before putting the next layer on, not panicking when things don’t turn out like you expect, and just plain stopping and thinking the next 3 or 4 steps through. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve not even finished the cockpit on my Accurate Miniatures P-51A, but when I saw the old Revell/Monogram P-40B last night at WalMart for less than $8.00….. well, you know what happened. I picked it up. I’ts an old kit, the molds are probably 20 to30 years old. Though it has raised panel lines and rivets, they aren’t too bad. Interestingly, it has small sidewall detail that is glued in. I find that interesting since most kits of this period have simple molded in detail. Read the rest of this entry »

A few months ago when I got back into building model airplanes, I started searching through EBay to find old kits I remembered building as a kid. I ran across this old 1/72 P-47B Thunderbolt from Lindberg. It was the first model kit I built. I actually found two of them- one was an opened kit issued in 1967, and another was an unopened, still shrink wrapped kit from 1974. The only difference was the box art, and the ‘74 kit was the one I built. Read the rest of this entry »

I finished up the Revell 1/48 scale Spitfire Mk. II. It had some issues along the way…. OK, more than a few. Overall, it built up into a decent kit, though, and looks pretty good on the shelf.

I’d originally picked it up at Walmart for less than $8. I knew being an old Revell kit, it wolud not have the detail or fit that a Tamiya or Hasegawa kit would- but those kits cost 3 to 4 times as much. Read the rest of this entry »