Łukasz Gliński
Looks great already 👍

Michael Kohl
Thanks Lukasz. So far I am also quite happy with it.

Michael Kohl
the locking mechanism of the canopy is quite a prominent feature of this bird. So I want to replicate it. The PE sets are only a rough guidance. Most will be scratched.

Pipeman86
Very nice Cockpit-Work!!! The red belts looking awesome!!

Michael Kohl
Thanks Pipeman86. I do like the red belts too.

Finn
Looking soo good, will you place it in a dio?

Michael Kohl
Thanks Finn for your nice comment. Yes, actually I am thinking about placing the machine on a Californian airfield with a Bambi Bucket beside it and a (few) palette(s) of fire retardant in the rear. Building the Bambi Bucket is a challenge. Cross your fingers. 🙂

Finn
Will do and best of luck!

Michael Kohl
Took me a while to figure out the antenna layout of my Cal Fire plane. This differs significantly from what the kit provides. To make matters even more complicated it changed during the planes life cycle and is not the same for all the Cal Fire Broncos. But now I think I am not too far off with the setup I chose.

Alec K
Wow, brave reset and excellent looking project 👍

Robert Podkoński
A little late, but joining the party! Fantastic job so far!

Michael Kohl
Welcome Alec and Robert. Nice to have you around and thanks for the motivating remarks.

Nicolas
Intrestng, I will follow.

Michael Kohl
Welcome Nicolas. Preshading unfortunately did not lead to the desired result. Let's see how it looks withe a coat of white on.

bughunter
Beautiful livree and great work so far! As one can expect from your skillful hands 👍
And DRAWdecal, I used them on my Piper Cub recently. I found a comment about them: "uses UV-curing inks. The inks are fairly thick and very stiff, so your decal doesn't conform to curves very well without dynamite." 😉 Be careful!

Rando
Really like seeing your process, looks great!

Michael Kohl
Thanks Frank for the hint. That will tip the scale even further towards masking and airbrushing.
I have to admit, that - as much as I like their subjects - I am rather disappointed by the decals themselfs. They lack crispness. Particularly the borders of black items such as Numbers or letters or lines are quite blurry. Areas of color are not evenly printed but have a grainy appearance. So for an endeavor that specialises in decals I was unpleasantly surprised when I inspected them.

bughunter
Yep, so I masked the bigger black parts of the marking. The small elements were ok, and the white was printed very bright on top.

littleblackbear
I'm following this project closely! I have plans to build a Cal Fire Bronco in 1:48. I live close enough to MCC, their main base near Sacramento, and see them flying in and out regularly. Such a fascinating plane, and I'm doubly keen on their new role in helping fight wildfires.

Excellent work on this build. Stunning detail and I have so much respect for being able to do that at 1:72!