bull-nut

SimonL: Don't want to derail the thread too much. Tamiya's standard callout for Allied armour seems to be XF61, but I think XF81 Dark green 2 (RAF) looks better, it's slightly warmer, and even has a hint of brown in it. I'll see if I can put an image of one of mine into RFI at some point soon. IIRC Mike Starmer advises the following mixes for SCC15... 5pts XF61 + 2pts XF62 + 2pts XF3 OR 5pts XF81 + 1pts XF58 + 1pts XF71 You can see from the above why I went with XF81 for an easy option, its probably too dark out of the bottle, but I allow weathering to vary the colour.

Put me down for this one please, I'll be digging the Revell 1/72 out of the stash.

I'll have a stab at this please, likely with an Australian Matilda 2 CS.

Sgt S: Perhaps I meant the QLT? The difference between 1/72 and 1/76 isn't much of an issue with me, as I can get the Airfix kit locally without a run into town or paying shipping.

Preiser do a large selection of 1:48-1:50 scale figures of all shapes and sizes, do you need male or female? Civilian or Military? Here's a Preiser 1:50 civilian with Tamiya's 1:48 Type 83 'Beetle' I made for my SIL. Got mine from Ebay, but I think Gaugemaster carry them as well.

That's coming together nicely. If I may ask, where did you get the stand that you Mossie is sitting on?

Looks like a nice little kit and you are making a lovely job of it. Just wondering, the QLC saw RAF use, but did the RAF ever use QLD's as airfield transports on bomber bases? I need something to lug the crews around in.

I'd love too, but in my case it wouldn't just be a look, she would probably actually kill me if I came home with something that big, I think even a universal carrier would cost me!

If you are doing the 3 colour (caunter) scheme, I'd suggest double checking the colour choices with Mike Starmer, I expect airfix got them wrong.

Looking good 'Stix. Is it just my monitor or does it look much greener in those photo's? Business end next?

I cant see the floats being that big a problem, IIRC from a floatplane build many years ago, just make sure you gave the strut joints plenty of time to set before you put any weight on them. I'd suggest at least 24 hours upside down before you sit the 'fish on its floats. Maybe I should pick up the floatplane version as well while I can.

Thanks Beard. Fairly straight forward build so far, check the instructions carefully when you put the upper cowling on the office, they aren't the clearest, and you'll need to clamp the upper fuselage between the pilots seat and the back seats, mine kept separating until it had been clamped up for about 12 hours. Also on my example the upper main plane center section struts over the forward fuselage were a tight fit into the center section locating hole, I ended up having to sand a fair bit off of the locating tab to get them to fit. Drilled the mounting holes for the underwing stores this morning, not worth pics though, next job is final Halifax assembly to clear space on the station for building the swordfish wing assemblies. More updates this weekend.

No fair Stix, you're making me want to build another Crusader now! With regards to your colour choice, I also used Anthracite for the disruptive pattern, but what did you use for the sand base coat?

Nice looking Bedford. If I may ask, did you end up using the Warlord decals for it or not? Any plans to put a couple of Lee-Enfields in that rifle rack? I may have some knocking around if you want them(and I dont keep them for mine ).

No fussing involved, she's been asking for hints, clarifying construction stages and borrowing my toolkit, but its all her own work so far. Though I did prime the office for her. I don't think she would let me help more than she needs anyway, she has a thing for certain classic RAF birds, and the Hurricane is amongst them, her Grandfather was posted to a Hurricane squadron early in his RAF career, while his penultimate posting was as a Vulcan crew chief, Here's were she's at for now. Office colour is Hu78, applied with a hairy stick. As the sprue image shows, the kit came with both the IIa and IIc wingframes - the hook parts are on the IIc sprue, so if she doesn't want to use them to practice on, I'll be nabbing them for experimenting on.

Thanks guys. Iconic indeed. The wife grew up down the road from Brough were a flying example was restored, I think its now flying with the RNHF? The above pics were taken a few days ago, but I've had no time at the computer until today to get them posted. I've been able to get the office done and installed, it took a little jiggling, but thats likely my clumsy fingers more than the kit design, it's in now anyway. Tail surfaces and uselage wing struts are in place, I put a slight droop in the Elevators and shifted the rudder slightly to Port. Upper mainplane spar is cut ready for the combination fold layout And sandwiched into the upper centre section This will give the Starboard wing folded and the port in flight configuration. Tossing up what to do about stores, do I load a torp, bombs, or did Swordfish carry both at the same time?

good job with the stripes.

One of each? Saw it done on the new Hellcat in AMW and thought it added something different, plus it'll take up less space in the cabinet when its finished.

I've already been informed that cutting the hook opening will be my job The wife did look at the Swordfish instructions when we opened the box. I think she had a small corronary when she saw the stage count!

In parallel with my Swordfish build. My wife will be building the Sea Hurricane from the same box. I know the Airfix MkII has some shape issues, but it's her first build so we won't be correcting any of them. Box Sprues This will be an OOB build, keep things simple for the first one.

I thought I'd join in with this as I will be building it anyway before I start on the first of my familial projects. Here's the obligatory box shot: And the sprues

Really coming together now. I must confess to something of a soft spot for the A15. It sometimes gets a bad rep for its time in the desert campaign, but it was what we had, and for all that, they seem to have pulled off some great things in a virtually obsolete design. It's a real shame Cromwell wasn't ready early enough to see desert service.

I've been looking for 1/48 injection modern armour myself with very little luck. The only Challenger in that scale that I know of is from Academy, and at the time of writing this, was available in small numbers from Antics or Hannants. I can't speak for the mold quality, since I've not build any of the range, however a quick look in the box at my LHS showed them to be very simplistic kits, detail was soft, parts count seemed to be very low, and I wouldn't like to speak for the accuracy. I think they are repops of the old RC models, but without the motorisation option. Is there any reason you are confining yourself to 1/48? If you were to broaden your options to 1/72 or 1/35, you would have heaps more choice.

Looking good, I do like a nice Hurricane.

Academy (I think) have a selection of 1/48 modern MBT's, I saw some in my local Antics before Christmas. They are very basic kits, lacking in detail and what is there is rather soft, but maybe as a starting point? I'm sure I've seen Merkava 1, T-55, M60, and I think a Chally and Leo?