SPA Modeler

Man I feel your pain. That's what happened with the X-29. Even after I coated them with decal film.

Yeah… and unfortunately there is not a lot out there for AM decals for the P-35. Definitely not wartime markings anyways. It’s all prewar stuff.

Carlos! Are these the same?

No, those are the pre war NMF aircraft markings. Although most would do in a pinch.


And after who knows exactly how many years since I first started it, I have this bird just about done…



I just need to add some final weathering and the pitot tube, and then I will call this complete, and get up a proper multi angle/multi shot post on this one.

That's looking excellent Carlos - the chipping is really good.

Thank you Stuart. This method was something new for me, and the end results were as hoped for.

Yeah it worked well. Chipping's not something I've done a lot of but should really get my head around one day.

Same here. I personally think that it is a way overdone fad in most cases, unless one has some solid references to back it up. Here and there, yes. But many folks online seem to go way overboard with the technique. Artistic but not realistic.

Agreed - I've seen some superbly weathered aircraft models over the years, but also some that definitely fall into the 'artistic' category - not really my cup of tea to be honest.

I’m with you on that Stuart. I’m just not a fan of the technique overall u less there is reasonable reference to back it up.

And returning back to my “Children of Doom”. I have pulled the oldest child off of the shelf… an old Monogram SBD that I started back in the mid 90’s. I am probably at the 85% mark of construction and finish when I pulled this back out



The biggest problem I had to overcome was a broken off antenna mast that I had tried to fix a few times until 2019, but none of my fixes worked. But during the in between years I had several other aircraft builds that needed broken off antenna masts replaced and I found a great replacement source - toothpicks. Sanded to proper shape and painted they worked great. But none of the toothpicks that I have were long enough so I had to find an alternate item. I found a source in cocktail sticks. Particularly the type that are frequently used to place olives in martinis…
Anyways I have saved many of those for hobby purposes over time, and I picked one to serve as a replacement mast. First I had to remove the broken off mast stump.





Once I had the stump removed I measured and shaped up a replacement antenna from the cocktail stick





Then I glued it in place and painted it to match



More to come soon…