Thanks for the kind words and warm reception folks, I am humbled!
Red Baron - not sure what the "hump" is for, but I notice it in photos on the majority of RAAF DH-9s and DH-9As, though I do not see it in photos of non-RAAF aircraft. My guess based on photos is that it is another storage area. Given the size of Australia and the overland flying that the early RAAF pilots had to endure over plenty of desolate land with unreliable engines (the Puma engines had a sordid history of unreliability in Australian service), the more supplies they could carry the better. There are plenty of stories of RAAF pilots landing at small towns in the middle of nowhere to effect repairs.
Dave - was great meeting you on Sunday as well! Glad the kits went to a good home
On the question of the base - the base is chipboard, which I picked up from a hardware store and stained with a dark stain. The "wooden" boards are thin strips of thin balsa wood, glued down and "stained" with some brown and black oil paints. Once the oils had dried, I then lightly sanded over the planks to give them a slightly worn look. Some model rail road grass poking through some of the boards finished off the look. Quite a quick and easy little base to make and it's something different from the standard "grass" bases.
For the PC-10 - this was my first time playing with Enamel finishes. There was no exact formula, but I basically made the colour up from Humbrol straight black, bright red, yellow and some Tamiya dark green. It turned out a little more "brown" than I wanted but I think it still looks ok. Similarly, the battleship grey was made up with simple Humbrol black and white, with a drop or two of dark blue. Not very helpful I know, but I really did just eye-ball it.
Thanks again!
BC
