bull-nut

Well that didn't to according to plan, though it did confirm my nagging thoughts that the Composimold wouldn't be the best thing to use to cast metal in. Off to get some silicone I go then. On the up side, Mrs Bull-nut is happy with me getting it because it is food safe, so she can use it for custom chocolates etc.

Master glued to a sheet of plasticard and boxed in with Lego raided from the boys room. I figured I'd try something different from the normal RTV Silicone for this mould, as I only need 1 good copy, I picked up a tub of Composi-mold For those unfamiliar with the product, it is melted in a microwave and poured into the moulding box, then left to cool and harden to a consistency not unlike that of RTV Silicone, except that after you are done with the mould, it can be re-melted and re-used many times over. So after an hour or so, it looked like this The straight "flaw" running from the tip of the plubg is a piece of cocktail stick I put in to provide a vent in an attempt to prevent bubbles. And with the lego's removed. Trimmed the meniscus build up at the edges with scissors so it sits flat on the table. First attempt at a cast tomorrow after the surveyor has been around. Wish me luck

Work has been slow recently, but I have been able to get the majority of the Vampire construction finished, which basically amounted to adding the airbrakes, gear legs and doors and filling those gaps in the fuselage and wings. Pics when my ISP decides to play ball. I tried sitting her down with the wheels dry fitted, and she tail sits quite dramatically. Amodel would have you scratch build a 10mm strut to support the tail pipe area of the fuselage, but I don't think they were used IRL. If anyone has a pic of a Vampire F1 with a supporting strut in place, I'd love to see it. However in the meantime, I have made a Milliput plug for the nose. Next stage is to take a mould of it, recast it in white metal, and see if it's heavy enough too keep the nose down.

I'll add my name to the list for this please, I've got a Typhoon, Tempest, and a couple of Harriers in the stash, And I'm sure Mrs Bull-nut won't object to another Hurricane

Thought I'd replied to this, but I guess not. I'd like to jump on this one please. Most of the stash fits the bill, but I am considering a Vickers Medium Mk3, from scratch, in 1/48.

Lovely looking DR. I really need to get one of these myself.

More rapid progress than I thought would occur today, wings and booms together. I put a piece of sprue into the boom mounting points to improve purchase, it's just butt joins otherwise. Booms attached And with the whole kit and caboodle mated to the fuselage pod with the horizontal stab in place Need to try and get those Airbrakes? in place tonight. Tomorrow: Filler and Undercarriage, I hope.

Nil Time: Latin, Fear Nothing. Motto of No 501 (County of Gloucester) Squadron, RAuxAF, RAF Filton, Bristol. I'll be building two DH types from my local squadrons life in this GB, and they really couldn't be more different from each other. Firstly, A-models 1/72 Vampire F1 as VF/272 RAB-N. in overall high speed silver. Secondly Airfix's splendid little Tigermoth as R5252 in counter shaded TLS / yellow. This is a placeholder post. I'll update it later when I have something to show! Update! Box and sprue shots. I managed to make a start on the Vampire today, which was a surprise as I was supposed to be wandering round an Elizabethan house for the day. The mouldings were fairly flash heavy, but it is, I think, a short run kit, so maybe the moulds are made from Aluminium rather than steel? This is supposed to be the pilots seat. So I managed to get the office together, fairly lacking in detail, but it will hardly be visible once closed up anyway, and I've thrown some paint on. Sorry, no pics of the seat etc, I think the web has eaten them. And closed up the fuselage. Gun pack and shell chutes in place, going to need some filler here I think!

I'll let you know how the A-model offering works out when I finish, it'll be my first single seat Vamp as well, and my first Eastern European kit come to that!

I'll join in this one in a bit if I may, got an Airfix Tiger moth and an A-model Vampire F1 in the stash, both of which I'll be building as aircraft from my local RAuxAF unit, 501 (County of Gloucester) sqn. I'll put up a placeholder thread tomorrow to tide over until I can get started.

If you are up to scratch building them, and there aren't too many fiddly bits on early tanks, you could try the paper Mk1 model from the WoT Russian site Here as a starting point. It says 1/50 scale, close enough?

Some nice looking models you have there Steve. Good luck with the Pinkie, a friend of mine used to ride around in one on active service a good few years ago, not with the SAS though, I keep meaning to build one for him. Little tip I picked up a while ago for painting eyes, paint the ball in an off white or pale ivory colour before painting the skin colour in, add a vertical dark (grey/blue/green) line across it where the pupil will be, then paint the skin tone up to the eye lids, this saves touching up the skin after painting the eyes, and avoids the thousand yard stare look that can result from painting the eyes at the end.

If the water is fully frozen over, waterline the model, and spray a piece of thin transparent plastic sheet, such as comes with the afore mentioned photo frame, with a window frosting spray from your local DIY store. paint the baseboard black, and glue the plastic sheet down to it, then the destroyer to the sheet and blend the seam with your choice of fine snow scatter. The black paint gives the illusion of depth, while the frosting spray gives the sheet the appearance of thick ice. For added detail, dripping hot candle wax, very carefully, onto the plastic sheet after spraying, and ironing beneath a cloth, gives the look of air pockets trapped beneath the ice. If the water is not frozen over, I've seen some nice results using transparent silicone sealant from the same DIY store, just make sure it is labelled as TRANSPARENT, the stuff labelled CLEAR actually dries cloudy, which thinking about it, may work to blend in an ice locked ship in conjunction with the sprayed sheet.

Also glad to see this back, good job on the nice smooth paint job. Crusader looks good in overall green, it's not a scheme I'd considered doing until now. Maybe I should pick up another one

IIRC some vehicles did carry a vertical plate on the front, used to show the bridging rate of the vehicle. In which case it would be painted yellow and show one or more numbers, in black, depending on if the vehicle was towing a trailer/field gun or not.

I would use something like Photoshop to cut and size each piece separately. IE clip out each wing separately, as close to the root/tip as possible, then size it to the length of the wing, keeping the Length/Width ratio constant. The wrap around upper fuselage camo may prove more complex, needing to merge 3 different angles. The other option is precut mask templates, such as these.

1/72, rather than 1/48, but here is the aerial line on my Academy B24, built to remember my Great Uncle, who went down aboard her in 3/45 And the rigging on my Airfix 1/72 Swordfish Both done with 0.5mm EZline in charcoal grey.

AFAIK if the aircraft served in North Africa, and the time frame does suggest it, then the underside Sky Type S, would indeed have been overpainted Azure, probably at the same time as the Dark Green was overpainted with Middle Stone. There is a colour pic of a Kittyhawk in NA on 112's Wiki page.

Lovely conversion work there Bull, out of curiosity, is there a reason you used sprue rather than plastic tube/rod for the howitzer barrel?

I second Tamiya, never built a Tamiya armour kit that didn't practically build itself. I prefer 1/48 myself, they are a little smaller, And the Link and Length tracks build up easily, but they also have fewer small, fiddly components. The range is still big enough that you should be able to find something you like, though be aware that many of the older armour kits in the 1/48 range have die-cast metal hulls, which can catch some people out. Check the kit description on the Tamiya website if you are unsure. Best of luck.

I got my local gaming club into bolt action last year, and it has really taken off, to the point where I have been getting some "good natured banter" about costing the guys there a load of money, I pointed out that nobody Forced them to buy up loads of models!. As far as I know, the field officers in the Motorised Platoons would have worn standard infantry fair of peaked cap or, if they had any sense, an infantry helmet. Bren gunners. IIRC when a section split down into MG and rifle sections, the Corporal would lead one and the LC the other. In that light, it seems un-natural for the man in charge to have the most complicated weapon in his section. I think it much more likely that your info is correct, and the Bren gunner was a Private, thus letting the section 1IC/2IC concentrate on commanding his men and maintaining his situational awareness. Vehicle markings, white was for the Brigade command battalion I believe. If I can make one suggestion, I'd keep the UC's for things like command/AT/MG teams, ATG/AAA tows, etc and get yourself a few M3/M5 half tracks, or 15cwt trucks, to haul the PBI around in (7th AD being what it was, I'd go with the half tracks for the ETO). You are never going to get 10 men into a UC, those thing are tiny, even in real life. Also, as the BA rules stand, to get both the Cromwell and Firefly into one game, you will need to either split a squad down into two 5 man units and field two platoons, or buy more Cromwell's and play the tank war supplement. In a normal game of BA, you can only take one tank per "reinforced platoon".

Sorry to drag the thread slightly OT. Have a look at Green Stuff World, they have a range of leaf punches in various scales and species, all colour coded, As to materials, have you considered using actual dried leaves? Badder: congrats on a very impressive dio, and sorry to hear about the little hiccup at the end. I think I'm going to have to try your foliage technique, it looks great.

Another one from me. Tamiya 1/48 Humber armoured car, and local farmer. If this was set in south-west England, I'd call it "Get orf my land!", but as it isn't, I'm stuck for a title. Anyway, pics:

With "The reunion" under my belt, I turned my attention to the second project for this GB. With the sealant set, I punched some holes with a BBQ skewer, thus: I then sprayed a piece of inkjet transparency with a green hobby lacquer, keeping the coat fairly light and uneven to give variation, and punched out plant shapes using a pair of steel punches from Green Stuff World. And glued them into the holes I punched earlier, along with some lengths of matchstick to play the part of fence posts. Then misted a light coat of Tamiya Buff over the whole thing, A wooden coffee stirrer was split along it's length, roughened up, and glued across the posts, while the roadway at the back of the base got a covering of Citadel Armageddon Dust texture paste, and the gaps between the posts filled with yellowed static grass, before the woodwork was given a heavy wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade. Meanwhile, this is the second figure for the setup, primed: And in place with my Tamiya Humber MkIV: More pics in the Gallery thread. Argh, black finger print on the rear deck! I'll get it later.

"The reunion" Not done as quickly as I would have liked, and there are some aspects that I'd change if I did it again, but I'm mostly happy with it overall, WiP thread is Here Edit. Just noticed that the mechanic on the engine deck isn't seated properly. I'll fix that and re-upload pics later