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Greetings from North Staffordshire


Pigpen

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Well after lurking on a number of forums for a number of years, picking up lots of hints and tips and often watching in some bemusement the antics of the members I've finally decided to join one. Why it's Britmodeller is no surprise I would imagine to many of the members. It covers my interests, I'm a Britt after all; but it's also because of the way it's run, setting a tone which is refreshingly distinct from much of the internet. This is quite a leap for me; I don't engage much with the TwitBook environment and usually find my "friends" down the pub or in their living rooms! 

 

Like many people I see here I modelled as a child and a teenager my parents buying me kit each week which was hurriedly assembled, painted and displayed before the weekend was over. However my skills grew and I still have the copy of Chris Ellis' "How to go plastic modelling" that my parents gave me for Christmas after realising I had it on more or less permanent loan from the library followed in later years by subscriptions to "Airfix Magazine". I recall making a number of quite good models but eventually I contracted the dreaded disease of starting far more kits than I finished. I was I think, frustrated, partly by my lack or skills and knowledge but also by not having access to the kits, tools and accessories I saw in the magazines and I drifted away from modelling. Then of course came my late teens with wine, women and song and I'm certainly glad I put down the plastic and spent my time in pubs and at gigs with mates. Not many women though... With university, career, marriage, houses, kids, voluntary work and other hobbies I never really missed plastic kits as I was fully occupied.

 

Then a few years ago, preparing for a holiday in Egypt I wandered into a secondhand magazine stall in a local market and bought a couple of modelling and aircraft magazines just to keep me occupied on the aeroplane and by the pool without too much mental effort. I was staggered by the quality of the kits, the accessories and above all the standards people were now able to model to. Looking back this also coincided with me finally reaching a point with our current house where we moved from  build/renovate mode into care and maintenance as well as a radical career move from being a scientist/engineer to a very different role as a civil servant. I think I missed "making things" and I suddenly got the itch to revisit my old hobby.

 

I dug around in the loft and found boxes containing a barely started Tamiya AFV together with some suitable tins of Humbrol Enamels and a few tools and took the plunge by buying a basic toolkit of knives, adhesives, abrasives, filler and above all a cheap single action spraygun. This I powered using the spare tyre from my wife's car which being a 4x4 actually worked to some extent proving far better than the gas canisters which frustrated me with my Revell spraygun kit as a teenager! I then invested in a discounted 1/48 Airfix Canberra which served as a mule for very many mistakes but I really enjoyed myself and the next Christmas got my father in law to buy me a cheap Chinese compressor with a couple of double action airbrushes and I continue to invest spending so far as much if not more money on tools and materials than kits.

 

I've got half a dozen models under my belt now trying 1/72 aircraft and AFVs, a 1/350 ship and a 1/20 F1 car but I keep coming back to 1/48 aircraft. I think my next build, which is likely to be one of Airfix's recent series 1 1/72 aircraft, I'm going to do as a WIP as I'm now at the point where I will benefit from advice and criticism of my builds so that is largely why I've decided to sign up.

 

This first post has turned out to be quite a bit longer than I expected and indeed I suspect is usual, but I've found it quite cathartic. My name is Dave and I'm a plastic modeller.

 

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Hi Dave

Welcome and you'll find that there are quite a lot of us up here in North Staffs!

If you get the time then I would recommend that you try to get to the model show at Nantwich at the  end of the month - the Universal Model Show - have a look in the events section on BM for info.

 

If there's one thing I've learnt and that is to buy one kit and then build it. I am one of those whose house is insulated with kits and its a habit which is hard to break so I am hoping that you can learn from us poor lost souls and avoid the curse!! I assume you know where all the best places are to buy kits in the area? On second thoughts, if you don't know then maybe I shouldn't tell you?!!

 

Cheers

 

 

Simon

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Thanks for the welcome folks!

 

Pigsty, Civil serpent covers an awful lot of ground, I just like to be cautious lest my personal observations be confused with those of my employer or people take their frustrations out on me!

 

Simon, I know there is a group who meets in Endon village hall just down the road from me and a few years ago I wandered into a show at the T/A centre in Cobridge where I bought a few odds and ends. Can't see me getting to Nantwich, we've just had a big building project completed on the house and I now need to decorate it all. As for model shops I sometimes go to Affinity Models in Longton but mainly use the Emodels shop counter because it drive past it quite frequently, I think I'm really lucky to have two within a few miles when you read of the effort people in other parts of  the country have to go to. Any I've missed? When I was a kid it was Bagnalls and Bratt & Dyke in Hanley and Pleasure Treasures in Burslem. Mind you Tescos actually used to have a model section in those days when it was more of a hobby for children as well as adults.

 

Typing this sat in a hotel bedroom in Newcastle (on Tyne) thinking if I drove up in the morning rather than tonight I could have actually got near a model instead of typing about it.

 

 

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HiThanks for the welcome folks!

 

Pigsty, Civil serpent covers an awful lot of ground, I just like to be cautious lest my personal observations be confused with those of my employer or people take their frustrations out on me!

 

Simon, I know there is a group who meets in Endon village hall just down the road from me and a few years ago I wandered into a show at the T/A centre in Cobridge where I bought a few odds and ends. Can't see me getting to Nantwich, we've just had a big building project completed on the house and I now need to decorate it all. As for model shops I sometimes go to Affinity Models in Longton but mainly use the Emodels shop counter because it drive past it quite frequently, I think I'm really lucky to have two within a few miles when you read of the effort people in other parts of  the country have to go to. Any I've missed? When I was a kid it was Bagnalls and Bratt & Dyke in Hanley and Pleasure Treasures in Burslem. Mind you Tescos actually used to have a model section in those days when it was more of a hobby for children as well as adults.

 

Typing this sat in a hotel bedroom in Newcastle (on Tyne) thinking if I drove up in the morning rather than tonight I could have actually got near a model instead of typing about it.

 

 

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59 minutes ago, Pigpen said:

Thanks for the welcome folks!

 

Pigsty, Civil serpent covers an awful lot of ground, I just like to be cautious lest my personal observations be confused with those of my employer or people take their frustrations out on me!

 

Simon, I know there is a group who meets in Endon village hall just down the road from me and a few years ago I wandered into a show at the T/A centre in Cobridge where I bought a few odds and ends. Can't see me getting to Nantwich, we've just had a big building project completed on the house and I now need to decorate it all. As for model shops I sometimes go to Affinity Models in Longton but mainly use the Emodels shop counter because it drive past it quite frequently, I think I'm really lucky to have two within a few miles when you read of the effort people in other parts of  the country have to go to. Any I've missed? When I was a kid it was Bagnalls and Bratt & Dyke in Hanley and Pleasure Treasures in Burslem. Mind you Tescos actually used to have a model section in those days when it was more of a hobby for children as well as adults.

 

Typing this sat in a hotel bedroom in Newcastle (on Tyne) thinking if I drove up in the morning rather than tonight I could have actually got near a model instead of typing about it.

 

 

 

Hi Dave

I must admit that, although I'm a member of the IPMS, I don't have time to go to club meetings - its hard enough trying to find the time to build models at home! The Endon people are IPMS though and your most 'local' branch and a decent set I would say. As far as shops, well I also include Nick at Model Hobbies but he isn't a retailer as such but, if you go about it properly, then he is very good. By that I mean that I treat him with absolute courtesy, don't take anything for granted and fit in with him to arrange visits but I'm only about a 10 minutes drive away from his place in Trentham and I picked up some Eduard and Quickboost stuff for the 1/48th Airfix Mossie and Tamiya Lanc last week, no trouble at all and with 10% off RRP and potentially less if its a cash purchase. I know some people don't have a good word for him from a mail order point of view but I find him very decent. 

 

In my day it was indeed Bratt's in Hanley but also Brookfields in Longton - just opposite Affinity now and, strangely, Tim of Affinity is married into the Brookfelds family. Then Bagnalls opened up in Hanley as well so we were well served although I never got much out of Pleasure Treasures. To be honest I would say that the shops we now have access to are better than any we had before so we are very lucky. Long may it last.

 

Regarding shows, pity about the Nantwich show but yes, you're right about the Cobridge affair but then also be aware of the one in mid March at Blurton - Stanley Matthews Academy. One worth supporting, especially as there is some doubt about the continued presence of the Cobridge show.

 

Simon

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Hi Dave,

 

I remember Bagnalls in Hanley: I had a friend studying at Keele and occasionally stayed with him, but that was 30+ years ago.

 

I've recently escaped from the Civil Service with what little's left of my sanity but the increased time available for kit mutilation modelling that I was hoping for hasn't materialised as I'm trying to arrange gainful employment at present.

 

Being trapped in darkest Bedfordshire, and relant on lifts from friends and public transport, I can't comment on clubs and shows in your area but there's the Milton Keynes IPMS show on April 23rd which is generally well attended by clubs and traders alike from almost all over the country.

 

Whatver you choose for your next project you'll get plenty of interest and encouragement around here, so please crack on.  Bearing in mnd your thoughts around Airfix series 1 kits might I suggest either the Defiant or Typhoon?  Both are massive improvements over their predecessors from when we were younger and with plenty of alternate (and alternative: see the "What if?" mob for details) colour schemes.

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