"New Early Jets in 6mm" Topic

My latest Shapeways order included four interesting post-war jets: an M-4 (sometimes Mya-4) Bison bomber from Prairie Hawk Gamers, a Do-31 VTOL transport from Dragoman, and an F-94C Starfire from der Kampfflieger. The Bison is big, expensive, and very impressive. There are two versions of the Do-31, one in flight and one on the ground with landing gear and loading ramp extended. The Starfire interceptor is a very pretty model with good detail. You'll find pictures on the Shapeways website at link

Hmmm, now we need Prairie Hawk to do some of those in 1/600 – he has them in 1/285 or 1/700, but there's a big gap he'd be filling with those Chinese planes in 1/600. Nevermind some of those experimentals.

How rough textured are the results?

Those look like WSF examples, I'd go with FUD, which is what I've gotten for all my aircraft, except for one Il-76 AWAC, which would have been crazily expensive in FUD. The Bison and the B-36 would probably have to be the same (the 1/300 B-36 is $90 USD…).

Some people are getting 1/144 WWI a/c in WSF though and are happy with it. I've found that if you hit WSF with enough primer, it smooths it ok. Other people have taken different approaches.

The F-94C is in frosted ultra detail (FUD), so it's very smooth. The Bison was in polished WSF (white, strong and flexible) and looks fine. I made the mistake of not getting the Dorniers in polished WSF, so they're pretty rough. I'll let you know what they look like after a couple of coats of acrylic floor polish and several layers of paint. The surface detail on the Starfire still shows through a coat of acrylic primer and three layers of silver paint.

Shapeways has added some more postwar US Navy airplanes to their inventory: the F3D Skyknight, the F11F Tiger, and the AM Mauler. They're beautiful models in frosted ultra detail. The Mauler even has the rockets and torpedoes shown in the famous Martin publicity photo. You'll find pictures on the Shapeways website.