Models by Chip Jean
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Monogram F84-F

I figured 20 years in my closet was long enough; it was either build it or sell it, and since I started painting the cockpit when I first bought it, I had to finish it. I was gonna build it out of the box, raised panel lines and all, but the fit was bad enough that I was losing too much detail in sanding and had to rescribe after it was all assembled...not the preferred way to do it. Lesson learned, ok? Airframe is painted in various shades of Alclad, with the tanks done in polished SNJ. Decals are SuperScale and were uncharacteristically troublesome. The red decals (the major feature of the sheet) were very brittle and broke and cracked easily. Fortunately, Tamiya gloss red was an exact match. In a one last kick to the groin, during final construction last night, I dropped it a few inches....just enough to break off one of the main gear legs at the base. I drilled a hole into the leg and the wing, inserted some stiff wire and super glued the leg back on. So far it's holding."

La-7 (3 Gun Version)

False Built out of the box with no serious issues except the Eduard masks...they kept peeling up anywhere there was a curve on the canopy and windscreen. Fit and detail on the kit are okay...but nothing special. The kit decals are very nice. The only self-induced problem I had was breaking off the antenna while I was peeling off the canopy masks. Since I'd already added the antenna wires, reattaching the antenna was a bit touchy.