New purchase in July

2 x 200ml Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner on Ebay.uk for 17£ incl. shipping. I used to go crazy when local dealers always were out of stock of important stuff. Nowadays I don’t care I just buy what's out of stock off the Internet.

Pegasus is a new Chinese manufacturer of snap together kits. The kits have few parts and require no glue. Decals comes both as stickers and wet transfer type. Some kits are toy-like but their Me-262 and Hurricane are OK.

Revell 1/72 Me-262

According to SAM-Magazine this is one of the best offerings in 1/72 scale and it's also one of the cheapest Me- 262 kits around. But the canopy seems to be poorly done in my kit.

Hobby Boss 1/72 F-86 Sabre

I hope Hobby Boss F-86 is a better offer than Airfix's recent release but dry fitting of the parts reveals some tricky seams to fill.

Humbrol has a new tin and possible a new formula for their acrylic paint and they works fine for both airbrush and brush painting. It's nice to finally have access to the Humbrol palette in acrylic medium. I've bought some tin's for Airfix new Sea Harrier.

Marivox 1/72 FFVS J-22

I discovered an old kit of a FFVS J-22 from Marivox when I was going throuh som storage boxes in my basement and decided to give a go. The kit went together easily except for the under carriage which was a bit fiddly. The color scheme is the standard dark olive top side and blue Grey underside which were applied to most Swedish air force aircraft during the late 1940's and 50's. I used Vallejo model color and mixed my standard recipe:
Blue Grey:
992 - 20 drops
951 - 10 drops
808 - 2 drops
915 - 1 or 2 drops
Olive Green:
915 10 drops
950 3 drops
The decals went on nicely but unfortunately I didn’t have enough "P" to cover both sides but decal sheets with letters are available. The kit is a perfect weekend project and today there is an upgraded version in the stores from Marivox with a new decal sheet and a smal fret of photoetched parts.

Airfix 1/72 F-86 Sabre

I really like the new Airfix kit's but the new F-86 Sabre is a bit of a lemon. There were some fit problem, warped parts and the wheels were poorly done but the decal sheet is superb. Well with some filling and sanding it went together without to much hassle. I airbrushed the plane with Vallejo Air Aluminum and gave it a cote of gloss varnish before decaling.

 

Tamiya 1/48 Lancaster

I always wanted to build Tamiyas big Lancaster but up until now it has been hard to get and when it's been available it's usually been the grand slam or dambuster version. I wanted to build a generic Lancaster and when the latest edition of the Mk I /III kit hit the stores I bought one. This edition has new parts for the engine nacelle, propellers, wheels and rear turret. A new decal sheet is also included. For some strange reason I opted for the version that used the old parts, if I ever would build another one it would be option "C" with all the new parts and a fancy nose art. Regardless of which option one would go for, the kit will build up to an impressive model indeed.

SAAB J21

After an inspiring visit the Swedish Air Force Museum at Linköping I decided to build a SAAB J21. The kit is an old Heller but it's quite nicely done and it goes together with out any problem. A new kit from special Hobby is currently available and it has all the bells and whistles of a modern kit and it will be exiting to comparing the two kits in the future.

Any one with an interest in building the Swedish Air Force must be grateful to Heller whom released a stream of really nice Swedish Air Force kits in the late 70's and early 80's all which were of high quality and quit accurate. All the kits has raised panel lines but with some care when assembling most of them will be intact.
 

There are two good books about the SAAB 21, Flyghistorisk revy Nr 29 from 1981 in Swedish with English summary and the new one from Mushroom publications by Mikael Forslund in English. Both books also includes the J21R Jet version. The "Flyghistorisk revy nr 29" are sometimes available at Hobbybokhandeln in Stockholm or at the Swedish Aviation Historical Society. 

I brush painted the cockpit in olive (a shade darker than on the outside) and the instrument panel black. I dry brushed the hole thing with some colors from different Tamiya Weathering Master sets.

There are plenty of space for weighing the nose down I used some lead shoots mixed with Gator Glue.

All the major parts are assembled and the fit is very good. I use Tamiya thin cement and it helps melting the parts together.

I used Army Painter white primer which turned out to be a  bad call, the paint went on gritty and I had to rub it down with some 1200grit wet and dry paper after it was dry.

The aircraft were painted in a standard two tone scheme of W26/058 Blue grey and W25/325 Olive green. I mixed up some Vallejo paint to match. For the Blue grey I mixed as follows:

992 - 20 drops

951 - 10 drops

808 - 2 drops

915 - 1 or 2 drops

The end result came quit close to my NCS paint chip. 

The Olive green is very simple to make (actually not green at all) just mix:

915 - 10 parts

950 - 3 parts

After the olive went on I notice that the primer were still a little gritty in places but I decided to let it be and it's only visible close up. The Vallejo Model Colour is a really good choice when trying to mix up your own paint it has a drop bottle that makes it very easy to control mix ratios But it needs a primer before applying to plastic. All the clear parts were glued with Gator Glue which dry clear and do not harm the clear parts.

The decals supplied in the kit are not up to today’s standard, fortunately there are after market decals for the kit. I used a sheet from HC-decals.

The Swedish Air Force Camouflage colors.

Name	NCS	RGB 0/255	FS595 Match in %	Note.
032M	NCS S2002-G	193, 198, 191	No close match.	Underside JA37 & J35J
033M*	NCS S5000-N	142, 142, 141	FS36375 98%	Topside JA37 Topside J35J (add 5-10% black)
058M	NCS S5010-B30G	90, 109, 108	No close match.	Underside many types.
226H	NCS S1070-Y50R	238, 99, 22	FS32473 96%	Ambulance planes
322M	NCS S6030-G30Y	43, 73, 18	FS34108 95%	Four color scheme.
325H	NCS S8005-G80Y	39, 39, 30	FS34084 97%	Topside many types.
326M	NCS S8010-G30Y	26, 41, 12	No close match.	Four color scheme.
328M	NCS S8005-G50Y	42, 45, 27	No close match.	Two color scheme J35
438M	NCS S8010-B10G	0, 19, 24	No close match.	Two color scheme J35
5431-17M	NCS S5502-B	91, 95, 97	FS36173 97%	Topside JAS39
5431-14M	NCS S3502-B	141, 145, 148	No close match.	Underside JAS39
507M**	No close match.	92, 78, 68	Ca. FS30051	Four color scheme.
RAL6003	NCS S6010-G50Y	89, 94, 76	FS34159 98%	Topside SK61
RAL7001	NCS S3010-R80B	147, 156, 163	No close match.	Underside SK61

* Initially the J35J were planed too use the same colors as the JA37. But after some testing the 033M was considered too light to be used as topside color on J35J so they mixed in some black paint to tone the color down a bit. (5 to 10 percent) This was done locally.

** 507M Is no longer in use and is removed from inventory it has no match in the NCS System but the 507M is in between NCS S7010-Y50R och NCS S6010-Y50R. The 507M discolord badly over time and offseted the Camouflage effect. Nowadays the Air force uses mostly modern grey colors but the army still uses the three ramaining colors in the four color splinter scheme.

Heller AJ-37 Viggen

After a raid to my basement a found an old Heller kit of a Viggen. The kit is, despite it's age, quit good and the raised panel lines are not overly done but the cockpit is a little bare thou so I bought an after market Ejection seat and photo-etch set from Maestro Models. The camouflage is a challenge so I also bought a set of paint masks from Gator.

The etched details are pre painted and will enhance the cockpit considerably.

Last time I built this kit I had some problems with the joint between wing and fuselage. The joint is very weak and any sanding will destroy the panel lines so I took care when I attached the upper half of the wings to the fuselage. I filled the joint from the inside and reinforced with super glue.

I experimented with some mixes of Vallejo paint for the camouflage and came up with the following mixes:

Light Green = 3 parts 967 + 1 part 894
Dark Green = 2 parts 967 + 1 part 894
Brown = ?
Black = 862

(I will re-evaluate this mixes when I decide to continue the build)

This build is currently on hold but I intend to continue it in the future.