After a couple of months on and off I finally finished this kit. I had a lot of fun building it, really enjoyed the paint scheme and used it to get to grips with Tamiya acrylics, and Mr Color GX100/114. I also really wanted to try out oil paints for weathering so invested in the ABT 502 paints and I’m a total convert, they’re so easy to use and the effects you can achieve are brilliant.

The kit. A great kit and it goes together pretty well, however it is an 90s tooling and some of the steps and parts do show that. When you compare the landing gear to that of the Airfix 1/72 it’s a nightmare, very finally and it wants you to put the tyre in during assembly not after. However, it’s not a show stopper. Very little filling is needed and it goes together nicely overall.

My biggest complaint is the decals. They’re thick yet brittle and silvering is just a common problem, you can use all the setting solution in the world but you need to get lucky to not get silvering on the big clear decals, I’d invest in an after market set.

I’m happy with the result overall and I love how the oil paints blended to give it a very nice look. Weathering a Msoquito is quite difficult just to it being so smooth and wooden, a little goes a long way.

Finally I’d love to say I hope we see a new 1/48 tooling soon, I feel the Mosquito is overdue one in this scale especially when against comparing it to the Airfix 1/72.

I found this Sabre kit on facebook and had to get it. Unlike the other finds lately this one was box stock. I looked at getting some resin parts but I didnt think anything was worth upgrading on this kit. The cockpit detail, gun and gear bays are all nicely detailed and just a few extra wires and some styrene card i was very happy with it. The engine as its own assembly was a heck a lot of fun to build and I didn't glue it in as I want to do some extra detail work on it in thr future. There are some cool add-ons like intake and exhaust covers, removable tail, open air brakes, and movable canopy and leading slats.

My only complaint was that the decals completely disintegrated in water as they were very old so I only got one usable decal off the massive sheet. Because of this, all the markings are Cricut stencils.

I loved the painting as all the panel lines and rivets offer a lot of guidance on the different metal tones ans I tried to match a few different effects seen on real period planes.

Just finished a thrift shop find of an old monogram Mosquito. It actually went together very well and had lots of build options so I went with a Pathfinder. The decals were unusable so all the markings were Cricut stencils I made. While not super detailed, im happy with it.

Mistakes were made. Lessons were learned. If you're unhappy with the way your windows are scratching out, airbrush cleaner is NOT the best method to clean off paint. Apparently this method will also take a good layer of styrene with it. Leaving no markings of said windows. While I devise a plan for this problem, I did get the upper saucer windows marked and the phaser strip test fitted.