Skyhiker
Ben, you have some really cool kits.

Nathan Dempsey
Wow, that is a cool kit.

Ben M
Youtube Video I remember these ads. It's a giant kit!

Cuajete
Following.

Ben M
Source materials indicate raised panel line below cockpit are imaginary so remove them: airliners.net/photo/..27-256-Adv/1160936/L

Skyhiker
Using amunition as nose weights is a very bad idea. Gunpowder becomes unstable with time.

Ben M
1) I disagree - I regularly shoot smokeless powder from the 1970's in handloads w/o problems or degradation in accuracy / velocity. 2) All I used were the bullets, that is, they are small lead cylinders w/o any "gunpowder".

Ben M
Well I couldn't get the cockpit glazing to stay in place with micro crystal clear or Tamiya ultra thin. In both cases when I applied any pressure or assembled the fuselage halves it fell out. Looks like a wad of milliput solved the problem though!

Łukasz Gliński
Oh wow, dreaming of building that kit one day 😄 I have to follow this

Ben M
Found two photos of N9102. Scheme I have decals for is closest to #11. Should have added fences to wings! But too late, already have a good start on masking and painting them.

Ben M
I just finished doing panel lines on the wings. since they are painted with enamel, I had to come up with an acrylic wash. I ended up using 20 drops of tamiya x20a acrylic thinner to one drop of tamiya xf1 flat black. It works pretty good on gloss surfaces. If you get something outside the lines you can dab it off with a paper towel but I don't think that would work on a flat finish. I had the fuselage painted a nice uniform yellow and then I decided I had not enough paint on the cockpit canopy frames. When I touched it up I flooded it by accident and had huge runs and drips. Well hell. I did not take pictures of this disaster, I wet sanded down a bunch of the nose and I will try again. I bet I got a lot of paint under the canopy mask, will have to see that later and figure out how to resolve.

Łukasz Gliński
Nice progress. Regarding the windows - perhaps a back decal would help? Or I recall some companies are printing quite realistic window decals, not sure if 1/72 size is provided.

Nathan Dempsey
It looks mega shiny in the picture 🙂. Hopefully the paint didn't intrude your window masks too much.

Ben M
I repainted the nose. Came out pretty good, one small sag. The cockpit windows fared far better than I feared, they should clean up nicely with a toothpick.

wilky
I'm a bit late here but I reckon you're right about gunpowder Ben.
I've shot ammunition that's nearly a hundred years old with no issues

Łukasz Gliński
The windows look good, however I'd polish or matt them using some kind of cloth or sponge to get rid of the sharp paint edges. Just sayin'😉

Ben M
Starting decals... the stressful part of every project for me! I build a lot of old kits with bad decals so it usually goes wrong. These are newer and go on pretty well but still have some issues. Hopefully I improve at doing decals. The large window strips are kind of intimidating.

Nathan Dempsey
Looking nice Ben.

Skyhiker
Unless the decal has lost all of its stickiness I avoid using setting solution. Water usually does the trick. A little solution after the decals are in place helps.

Skyhiker
Nice job so far. Thanks for the new pics.

Ben M
The decals say they are from starfighter decals. I have never used ones that were so thin and tough. I was able to get the foot-long window decal on in one piece. They're really nice. The TWA scheme in the box is more attractive, but I built the hughes airwest version when I was a kid, and wanted to have a do-over. The door decal for this livery is missing the window, so I cut it out of the TWA decals and applied the decal over the other decal. If I had to do the kit over again, I think adding the wing fences and vortilons would be the next thing to add. I guess I could still do that, but I want to finish this one up and build another, I like getting them done. I would also block off the air conditioner intake or paint more of the interior black, I didn't do enough. I also put the tail decals on in the wrong position because I used the drawing in the instructions instead of a picture of the prototype. I just painted location lights on the wingtips, I did tamiya transparent green and red over molotow pen chrome.

Łukasz Gliński
Never trust the instructions! I learn it all the time 😄
Good to know the decals are ok, I'm just few steps away from ordering this kit as well😉

Ben M
Hi Lukasz, they are more than OK - these are the best decals I've ever used. I say that because last night I did the windows on the other side - and again I was able to do it without any problems. I've never had large decals not be a huge problem before. I've been enjoying this kit a lot.

Cuajete
Ben, you are getting a fantastic result. I love the effect of paint on the surface. Well done so far!

Andy Ball
I had that sucker on back order for over a year at Hannants- always loved that scheme! Watching!!

Ben M
Hi Andy, didn't know it was hard to find. I got it direct from classic plastic, they were selling from a booth at the rocky mountain hobby expo. I saw the kit and bought it because I'd built it as a kid. I recall it was molded in yellow then, and I didn't paint the fuselage, just left it yellow plastic. I just finished it up and will take nice pictures later today when there's more sun.

Nathan Dempsey
Looking great Ben. I'm jealous of your nice smooth paint work.

Łukasz Gliński
The result is sooo cool, weather too😉

Alex K
Love the result, Ben! Top banana!!! 👍 👍

Cuajete
Very good painting result. You can feel proud to have this unique model in your showcase. Congrats!

Robert
very nice...

Julian Herrero aka Yuri
Good work !!! Nice and clean.

Clifford Keesler
Very nice DC-9.

Cuajete
Very nice painting job. Well done.
Congrats!