lasermonkey

Well, considering that at least one of their competitors uses a different anti-skinning agent that results in a considerably better product, there's no reason that Humbrol can't. Whether they want to is another matter entirely.

I'd pay twenty quid for it too. Trouble is, it's thirty quid!

Brilliant! I had no idea there was such a model! I like that a lot.

I'm convinced it is. My first encounter with Airfix's awful plastic was when I bought four of the (then) hot off the press 1/72 Spitfire Mk Is. Of those, two went together very well, two didn't, and I built them all at the same time. Since then, I've built Airfix kits that have gone together flawlessly when others have had a terrible time with them and vice-versa. When I started my B-17G, I noticed that the Cheyenne tail turret parts were undersized, leaving a 1mm step on the underside. It was like that on both of my two B-17s. Other people have found the same issue, when others have the same parts that are correctly sized. I don't know anything about the injection moulding process, but I can only surmise that something is going awry as the frames are taken out of the moulds, with some parts contracting. It's bloomin' frustrating! Anyway, my Tempest should be arriving any day now and I might start it right away.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the shortcrust pastry* that Airfix uses in lieu of plastic. Simultaneously soft and brittle (seriously, how on earth do you do that?) and prone to coming out of the mould in varying sizes. I can't think of another manufacturer that has those kind of issues. *I am prone to exaggeration.

A good day today: a Miles Gemini and Chipmunk in formation, a Leopard Moth and a Spitfire TR.9. Also quite a few butterflies, mostly small tortoiseshells and peacocks. It’s unusual to see this many butterflies in mid March, certainly in this neck of the woods.

An Airfix Tempest. I saw someone on eBay doing them for £12.99 posted and it seemed reasonable. They still had a few left last time I looked.

I find it hard to believe anyone would still entertain buying these magazines, let alone care.

It's why I almost never buy new any more. I haven't done for a few years now. With the way second hand prices are going, I doubt I'll be buying anything at all soon. Oh well, at least I have a stash.

Trouble is, it’ll still be over twenty quid with postage. I’d been looking forward this kit, but alas, no.

That’s awful news. My condolences to his family, friends and workmates.

Twenty quid! No thanks.

Ah, Airfix. You can always rely on them to snatch defeat away from the jaws of victory.

Had an RCAF C-130 over last night, looked like the same route as the Tunisian C-130 the night before. I'll keep my ears open tonight.

I ordered an Arcus paint set of Battle Of Britain colours. They’re enamels, were a good price and are made in Ukraine. I’m intrigued as to what they’ll be like.

Just had a Tunisian Air Force C-130 fly over. I heard the sound of turboprops and looked on FR24. Not what I expected, for sure!

Beautiful job there, and in the correct scale too!

Lovely job. I'm a big fan of the Lysander and despite being old, the Matchbox Lizzie is one of my favourite kits.

I’ve been going through a large amount of my paint stash recently, including some from the 60s and 70s and have found a few like that. Most were recoverable with considerable stirring and some thinners. Just try the thinners *outside* the tin first, as you don’t want to contaminate it with something incompatible. I was surprised at what I was able to bring back. Let’s put it this way, what have you got to lose?

I bought four of the Pavla Messengers. It’s a challenging build, but I enjoyed it. That’s not going to stop me getting some of these kits though. Those civil schemes!

Just scored a Revell 1/72 MH-47E off eBay for just over thirteen quid, posted. Result!

Funnily enough, I have endless patience for things like that, but when it comes to things like DIY, I lose my temper (and sense of humour) really quickly! I've been in the electronics industry since 1983, so I'm very much used to testing hundreds of the same thing. I also have to test and label every single transistor that I buy in, as when used in fuzz pedals, you can't just whack a transistor in (even if it is the correct part) and expect it to sound good. They need to be sorted for gain and, in the case of germanium transistors, leakage current. It just has to be done, there's no getting around it. And if you're building an octave fuzz, you also need to match the forward voltage drop on the clipping diodes. That means testing and labelling those too. It might help to explain why some pedals seem expensive for a low component count.

A little something I just knocked together: It's a cut-down clone of the Musitronics Bi-Phase effect. I used the PedalPCB circuit board, though I did a couple of modifications. Firstly, I swapped out the LFO timing capacitors for a larger value to enable slower sweeps. Although it slows down the maximum speed somewhat, it will still do convincing fast Leslie (rotating speaker) effects, just not the mad, alien wibble of the original. I also added bi-colour LEDs which flash in time with the LFOs. Not strictly necessary, but it looks kinda swish. What you basically get is two Phasor II effects in one box, with some extra functionality. The Phasor II is a six stage phaser which uses optocouplers in the all-pass filter stages. The original used an incandescent lamp with photocells, but the Cadmium Sulphide in those is now on the prohibited list, so this uses LEDs along with light dependent resistors (LDRs). I had to buy a whole bunch of LDRs and make a test rig so I could get 12 which were within +/- 2.5%. Basically, the closer matched the components in the all-pass stages, the stronger the phasing effect it. It took bloomin' ages to go through around 200 LDRs, but I did get a good few matched sets for future builds. The LEDs are also matched. I'll explain why in a bit. Right, with two phasers in one box, each with their own in and out jack sockets, the can be used as two totally separate effects. It also uses switched jack sockets so that if you only use channel A's input, the output of channel A is automatically routed into channel B for two phasers in series. You can then have, for example, one phaser doing a fast Leslie speaker type effect while the other does a long, slow sweep. You can also sync the two oscillators so they both sweep in time. This results in a 12-stage phase shifter which sounds wonderful. Matching both the LEDs and LDRs mean that both phasers are closely matched. There's a good reason for this, as if you use them in stereo and invert the polarity of channel B's sweep, one channel will sweep upwards whilst the other sweeps downwards, in time and by the same amount. I'm very happy with how this has turned out. I've hankered after a Bi-Phase ever since I first heard one on a Lee "Scratch" Perry record some thirty-odd years ago. They were always rare in the UK and even if you could find one, chances are it was massively expensive. OK, this one doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it does do pretty much everything I want from it on guitar. I will probably buy the Dead End FX Lola Phase at some point, which is effectively a 1:1 clone using modern components and I'll build that into a 19" rack enclosure and do a couple more mods which I would have liked to do on this one, but there wasn't room. The next phaser I need to finish is a clone of the EHX Polyphase.......

I built one recently and if it’s any consolation, I had to sand the windows down a touch too. I’m sure you have noticed, but they only fit a certain way, ie you have to locate one end in and pivot it down. At least, that’s what I found. Otherwise, I found it to be a lovely kit. I usually find Tamiya kits to be a bit uninvolving, but there was enough here to keep me interested. Cheers, Mark.