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1/72 Pavla/Octopus Seafire Mk III with Skyfarer Intrusions


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On 28/05/2017 at 19:27, The Spadgent said:

Great to see you rattling along on those little details Alex. They will add up and make for a ruddy great model in the end.  :lol:

 

First Shortbread now Quiche. 

Mmmmmmm quiche. :chef:

 

Johnny bob

 

Hello Jonny - thank you for your kind words; we can only hope!

 

On 29/05/2017 at 09:56, bbudde said:

Hello, good to see you back . Looks good or well I think.

 

 

Good to be back - albeit in fits and starts. Thank you for your kind words, too.

 

I ordered the drill bit that I need form RS Components Australia, but the items still has to come from the parent company in the UK. Can't be many people doing micro-engineering in Oz. Or much engineering at all, come to that. We flogged it all off, as many other other Western nations have. We can't complain and blame China, India, or the next low-wage, low spec flavour o' the month, because we did it to ourselves. Sheer greed.

 

Anyway, rant :rant: aside, the drill bit will be here in about a week, although I haven't had the promised 'item shipped in one day' email yet. There were sixteen in stock when I ordered, so I hope that I wasn't unlucky and the entire lot was swiped from under my inordinately long beak. Squawk.

 

In other news, I have been tweaking the aft end of the wing seat on the Skyfarer, and it's starting to look a bit better. I was considering doing some non-cockpit stuff stuff on the Seafire, but there isn't much that I can do until I've got the cockpit done. Maybe painting the gyro sight from the Eduard kit, and replacing the short-shot wheel-well stiffeners, but that would be about it.

 

Cheers,

Alex.

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I finally remembered to take some snaps of the Tomato Plant:

 

 

1. Creepy-crawly tomato plant: it has aerial roots down into the lawn...expansionist tendencies

 

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Creepy-crawly tomato bush by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

2. The tomato plant on the march towards the house <shudder> ;)

 

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Heading towards the house! by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

3. Small tomatoes, ripening...

 

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Small tomatoes, ripening... by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

My RS Australia invoice says that the drill bit will be delivered on the 6th of June, and it has apparently shipped, so fingers crossed. Although having viewed some of the latest stuff going on on BM, I'm not sure why I'm bothering. I'm not a good enough modeller to do - or persist with - 1/72.

 

Cheers,

Alex. :sheep: <-- doesn't know why I bother either

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Crikey Alex those plants are lively :o!

 

Watch out, it looks like it could end up like this: 

 

 

Regarding builds here on BM:

 

I don't bother with comparisons much on Britmodeller Alex. My stuff is really rubbish compared to 90% of the stuff here. 

 

I have never taken anything like the care you have for your Seafire interior on any model on any scale. I really haven't the brain or motor skills for it.

 

I really admire the work of others, and it's quite nice to just relax and watch someone do the really hard stuff. Can't do it myself.

 

Best to just model away, Not think too much about it and use it for relaxation.

 

I know we're all different, but if I complete just one this year, and can stand to look at it, I'll be very happy :).

 

Best to avoid the comparisons. There's always someone like a completely unreal Russian or Japanese modeller, that has scratch built (using home made Titanium sheet) a  1/288th scale model of the Tupolev Maxim Gorki,  complete with working internal combustion engines :thumbsup2: 

 

All the best

TonyT

Edited by TonyTiger66
Seafire
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Hello Tony,

 

That limits me to not viewing others' threads (which I have been quite happily (not) doing over the last couple of months), since I habitually compare in a dissatisfied way. This is also compounded by the for me unfortunate 'L' word.

 

Unless I can work out some sort of opposite strategy in my head (I still haven't managed to do so yet).

 

I liked your 1/288 Tupolev with working IC engines! Stuff of, um, er...nightmares? ;)

 

The BBC radio serial of The Day of the Triffids is my all-time favourite radio serial. Bar none. And that includes all of the Big Finish stuff, good as it is.

 

Don't worry, I've got my eye on it and its two siblings which have so far stayed in the garden bed - BUT FOR HOW MUCH LONGER?

 

We have a powerful lawnmower, however ;). A couple of passes, no more triffid. Which will no doubt happen once we've harvested its fruit.

 

Cheers,

Alex.

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Woo-hoo!, as Blur would say1!

 

It worked:

 

1. F11 with new 0.2 mm drill bit; The target hole is in bottom RH corner

 

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F11 with new 0.2 mm drill bit by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

2. 0.2 mm nickel silver rod passes though the hole now :)

 

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0.2 nickel silver rod passes though the hole now by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

3. 'Bolt' in place, seen from the rear of F11

 

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&#x27;Bolt&#x27; in place, seen from the rear of F11 by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

I shouldn't have been so astonished that the drill worked - but you never know...

 

Smasll but significasnt progress :).

 

Cheer,

Alex. :sheep:  <-- not a drill bit

 

1 

 

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 Thank you Johnno - yes ineed, a great relief to have the right tool :). Nice and sharp, too!

 

I have Mr Tiger to thank for remining me not to get something cheap!

 

I'll glue the wire in place tomorrow (been busy this arvo helping cut fire trails, and now rather stiff and sore!).

 

Cheers,

Alex. :sheep: <-- not doing very much at the moment

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Things caught up with me a bit, so I have had very little time for the Seafire, but this progress has been made...

 

1. Seafire F11 with starboard lower bolt glued in place. Port lower bolt has been glued into its recently-drilled tube, and partially pruned (the rest will be carefully filed to length when I do the other three)

 

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Seafire F11 with starboard lower bolt glued in place by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

2. F11, all four bolts in place, viewed from the front. The lower two need filing down to the same length as the top two

 

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F11, all four bolts in place, viewed from the front by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

3. You can never have too many clamps - er magazines... mostly RCSI and Air Modeller, with a very old issue of Scale Modeller on the top

 

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You can never have too many clamps by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

4. Scale Modeller, October 1973 issue. This was around the height of my plastic modelling 'abilites'. It really was down-hill over the next year and thereafter, then I stopped

 

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Scale Modeller, October 1973 issue by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

5. 3/4 view of Skyfarer fuselage and wing; the fuselage is sitting on my brand-new (the board, anyway), home-made DIY fuselage alignment jig

 

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Another 3/4 view of fuselage and wing by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

6. F11, armour plate bolts finished - rear view. Hole also re-drilled in F11 after it was accidentally filled with CA

 

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F11, armour plate bolts finished - front view by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

When I say that the bolts are finished 0 the loer port one still needs some filing. It broke loose from its glue and started moving about freely, so will need some more glue before I get it to final length. I think that the Roket HOT is starting to get a bit more viscous as the bottle level drops: some thinning with a small drop of acetone require, methinks.

 

I have now got my photo-posting sorted out and up to date, after a hiatus caused by another forum's image requirements (grrr) and the camera debacle. The little SONY was still the best of the lot, but sadly is no more. And of course after destroying that, the Boss understandably doesn't want me to use the new Olympus very much.  And I don't blame her - I got a bit upset by that myself, and it reveals a certain lack of situational awareness, to crib a term from the military. Getting the Skyfarer snaps all sorted out and triple-handled >grumble< took a vast amount of time and effort that could have been much better put to other activities. Done now, so I can forget about it - and contrive that that situation doesn't happen again. Not very likely, fortunately

 

And I might even have a bit o' spare time to visit other threads a bit more.

 

I'll be using the back camera of the iPhone in its 'square' format' for the foreseeable future - said phone has been encased in a heavy-duty rubberised case since day one for obvious reasons. Not my optimal solution, but clumsy beggars can't be choosers...

 

Piano gets tuned today, hooray!

 

Cheers,

Alex. :sheep: <-- not a camera

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I did some pajnting >gasp<

 

1. Front side of an upside-down F11, after a coat of ModelMaster RAF Interior Green slapped on with a brush

 

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Front side of an upside-down F11 by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

2. Painted F11, the right way up

 

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Painted F11, the right way up by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

3. Rear face of painted F11. I need to paint the voltage regulator behind the armour plate, and the odd thing underneath it, black - Humbrol coal black, I think

 

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Rear face of painted F11 by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

Here's a little something from one of my six favourite electric guitarists, David Gilmour  (the others being Fripp, Hendrix, Smith, Manzanera and Knopfler - in no particular order)

 

 

 

Mr Gilmour again, in Pink Floyd, with Guy Pratt (ex Icehouse and The Orb, and Gilmour's son-in-law) on bass (one of my three favourite bass players, the other three being Tony Levin - who plays on A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Simon Gallup and Bill MacCormack, in no particular order ;))

 

 

 

And while I'm on a Pink Floyd spree, here's the jawdropping AndOmidA:

 

 

 

I've decided that the next model is going to be one of the half-finished kits languishing in the shelves: in fact, I will work through the lot and get them out of my hair. Only one is 1/72; there is a 1/35 Land Rover ambulance (i.e., not an aeroplane) in there, too. Hopefully none of them will take too long, and I may even add learning to use an airbrush to the mixture. Won't that be fun, kids? Hmm...

 

Cheers,

Alex. :sheep: <-- not an airbrush

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By the way, for the one or two of you still hanging in there by yer fingernails:

 

THAT POST ABOVE WAS A FLIPPIN' MILESTONE! 

 

And greeted as such by the broader community. I don't think. My days on BM may well be numbered - I have better things to do than wasting my time having my enthusiasm for modelling being sucked completely dry.

 

:sheep: is a bit cross too

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I was digging through a cupboard looking for somehting entirely different for our daughter, when I found this:

 

1. The simple, innocent present from our cleaners that that (re)started it all. They would have been horrified had they known what it triggerd;  I then went beserk buying the things...

 

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The simple present that (re)started it all by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

2. Contents of the Tomcat box, no. 1

 

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Contents of the Tomcat box, no 1 by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

 

3. Contents of the Tomcat box, no. 2

 

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Contents of the Tomcat box, no. 2 by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

 

That looks like bags o' fun, dunnit, kids? It even has swinging wings 'n' stuff. Bit on the crude side, but with a bit of filler should make up into a nice 1/144(?) F-14. And it's not as though the trenches are any worse than a lot of the surface detail gracing current kits.

 

Cheers,
Alex.

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Well done on the milestone Alex :thumbsup2: :).

 

What's left to do on the interior now?

 

The little Tomcat looks ok; I've never seen that kit before, who's the manufacturer?

 

Your 1973 magazine has a cool picture of a couple of PZL 23's on the front. 

 

The Skyfarer is looking very impressive, and vast!

 

Mr. Postman delivered a PZL 23 kit to me today so I'm off to have a good covet :)

 

All the best

TonyT

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What a coincidence! I thought that you would be interested in the planes - I will do a full scan and pop it up :). Have a nice covet ;). Ahem.

 

Just been scraping off nearly-set epoxy glue from the forward part of the wing seat where a couple of 'hooks' hold the LE down onto the seat. The glue had nearly set; I was out at a rehearsal this evening) so had to leave it and hope that the cold weather would stop it setting hard. Sort of almost did... forgot to put glubs on so had to clean very sticky glue off ye fingers. Idiot. It should prevent the wing from fluttering away in flight - I hope!

 

The glue that I used holds sea-going boats together so hopefully it will hold the plate into the fuselage. Although, on further thought (wassat?), sea-going (or other types of) boats aren't constructed from un-scarphed, narrow butt joints (there are notable but not-quite-relevant exceptions which involve multiple plates (or planks) - this is just one, with two feeble butt-straps, and tiny glue fillets). Anyway, fingers and toes crossed.

 

And hopefully some time on the Seafire shortly. Thank you for the kind words thereon :).
 

I have a 1/48 Super Flanker made by the same crowd, I think - a lot more refined than the F-14. It's in my Scalemates list, the Scalemates link is here. The Super Flanker, that is, not the F-14. Chinese, at any rate - from memory.

 

Bit more digging in Scalemates reveals the F-14 kit to be a 1/103 scale 'Silver Corn' brand model, which can be seen here. So it's not - or probably not - by the same crowd. I think. My brain hurts ("Got me 'ead stuck in a cupboard").

 

The box-art of the Super Flanker, for those interested, looks something like this:

 

148892-11494-pristine.jpg

 

Whoosh!, and other jet-like noises.

 

Cheers,

the alex. :sheep: <-- not a PZL 23

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On 2017-6-7 at 9:15 AM, AlexN said:

 (one of my three favourite bass players, the other three being Tony Levin - 

I have a rather nice photograph I took of Tony Levin at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1982 when he was playing bass for Peter Gabriel. If I can find the slide in my archives I'll scan it and send you a copy Alex.

 

Nice to see some paint there, it really makes that detailing you've added spring to life now.

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Wow, please do! I had the very great fortune to see him in Gabriel's lineup here in Oz at the Womadelaide ('world music') Festival in March 1993. Mr Levin was the absolute standout for me, even though he was up the back in a corner and in a group of very good musicians. What an amazing musical presence - not just for the fact that he is very large. He has an interesting pedigree as a student, since he was at the Eastman School of Music, and played under the baton of Igor Stravinsky, the lucky so-and-so.

 

I couldn't believe what I was hearing back in 1993. An extraordinary player. He sounded even more extraordinary, however, in the recording I have (via the DGM website) of ProjeKct Four in October 1998 in the US, with Fripp, Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelloto - one of my favourites, in fact.

 

Thank you for your kind words regarding the poor beleagured F11, too. It does look a lot better now that it has some paint. I'm going to stick it onto the cockpit floor next, as that will make it easier to handle, and to paint the remaining details. It may also preserve it a little longer while it remains outside the protection of the fuselage.

 

I love your little lathe, by the way - excellent!

 

Cheers,

Alex. :sheep: <-- not an electric bass

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I found this on the DGM Live! web site :).

 

 

Strangely, I haven't located the ProjecKt audios yet; the web site has changed significantly, though...

 

 

Edited by AlexN
Changed and added text
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Gone very quiet... there must have been summink important going on. I wonder what it was...

 

Anyway, I have been pondering my next steps with this wee beastie, and was going to glue F11 to the fuselage 'floor' when I decided to hold off for a bit. Just as well:

 

1. Here's the Eduard instruction booklet for their recent Spitfire Mk IXc 'late version' kit - specifically, the F11/seat assembly bit. Everything © Eduard, etc., etc., etc.

 

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Eduard Spitfire Mk IXc &#x27;Late Version&#x27; instruction booklet snap by Alex1N, on Flickr

 

I need to add the seat support frame and the seat to F11, so thought that, since I am using copied Eduard parts, I would check out the sequence. I will play with the Eduard parts first, to see what traps lie in wait for me, then transfer the knowledge onto the Pavla/copied parts, and see how the sequence looks then. Oh, and I have to cut out the seat armour plate from my new sheet of 0.13 mm plasticard. I am going to have to scrape some paint off before doing anything else - and watch as  everything disintegrates into powdered resin before my very eyes, no doubt. I got my Skyfarer wing seat hooks sorted out over the last couple of days, very neat, works a treat, after some backing and filling (actually, un-filling). That is a milestone which will let me get back to the Seafire for a little bit - and some much-needed reed-tying, gurgle gurgle.

 

Cheers,

Alex. :sheep: <-- not a Mk IX Spitfire

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Hello Benedikt, thank you very much for the David Gilmour clips :). Perhaps I should change the name of this thread to 'David Gilmour and Friends [Past and Present]'. Then I would get more tags back, too...

 

I have no idea of the provenance of the F-14 and Su 35 plastics, except that they were made in the PRC - probably. I'm not sure if that answers your question or not. If it hasn't, my apologies.

 

This is descriptive update as I haven't taken any snaps of stuff that I haven't done. I lined up the Eduard seat support and F11 parts - so far so good, as one would expect - then lined up one of my resin seat support copies with my adulterated Pavla F11. Not so good, of course: in the ripping-off/stealing process, the part (as with all my 'white stuff' knockoffs) enlarged, and it is too big. I will check the Eduard part against the Pavla F11, but it looks as though I will be fabricating the seat support frame from styrene sheet and maybe Albion Alloys bits and pieces.

 

I still have to do the seat armour plate yet, which in my negligence and laziness I have lazily neglected to do (I have rough-cut out some replacement parts for the Skyfarer's battery box in some nice flat plywood).

 

I am gradually catching up on the various threads that I was following before I went on my extended 'holiday' from BM, but these days I am being exceedingly parsimonious with 'likes' - so if any of you have got a 'like' from me in recent times, consider yourselves extremely lucky.

 

More when I have actually done something and taken some halfway viewable (without squinting, from t'other side o' t'room) snaps. Whenever that is.

 

Cheers,

the alex. :sheep: says: "The alex is far too grumpy and should be ignored for the time being..."

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3 hours ago, AlexN said:

[...] these days I am being exceedingly parsimonious with 'likes' - so if any of you have got a 'like' from me in recent times, consider yourselves extremely lucky.

 

I only 'like' when I can't think of anything to write as a comment.

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