lasermonkey

There was a thread on this over at Hyperscale a few days ago. One of the guys there had a particularly convincing technique for painting them. Definitely worth a look. Cheers, Mark.

It's been a while since I airbrushed Lifecolour, but from memory, this is what I had to do to get good results. Firstly, don't let isopropyl alcohol anywhere near it! IPA will turn the paint into a horrible, gummy mess. Thin with water, plus a drop or two of Liquitex Slow Dry retarder. Aim for the consistency of skimmed milk, and you'll be fine. It's not particularly keen in being the primer coat. You will likely find that it tends to bead and pool. Mist the first coat on and don't be tempted to do anything about the beading. Lifecolour self-levels remarkably well and I haven't found any paint that gives a smoother finish. I found that cleaning the airbrush with hot water with some washing up liquid did the job well. Flush out with water afterwards. If you still get bubbles from the washing up liquid forming in the cup, you can kill them with a tiny drop of thinners or IPA. Hope this helps, Mark.

Just had a Meteor fly over, heading East, so I assume it's going to Duxford. Always a treat to see one!

Sorry to hijack the thread, but a question for Baggers: I have three of the Southern Expo sheets (2010, 2011, 2012)in 1/72 and they are exactly the sort of subjects I'm most interested in. Are/were there any others available by any chance? Do you have plans for an more? Sorry, that was two questions! Cheers, Mark.

A P-40 flew over earlier, went round a few times and disappeared from whence it came. A P-51D did the same thing a couple of days ago.

The Hasegawa kit is best of the mainstream manufacturers' IMHO. The only things that let it down are the covered wheel wells (you should be able to see the rear of the engine, etc) and a very poorly equipped cockpit. The Academy kit is close, but has several errors and omissions. The fuselage strengthening strips are missing, the tailplane trim tabs are missing, the pitot tube is on the wrong side, the under fuselage access panel is circular, rather than the "square with very rounded corners" of the original. From memory, I think the supercharger intake is poorly shaped and the small intake on top of the gun deck is missing. The sprue attachment points on the transparencies are badly placed too, resulting in damage which is nigh-on impossible to remove. The Tamiya kit builds nicely, but something about it seems to clunky to me. I'm not convinced about the 'sit' and the spinner is undernourished. I have the AZ D-13 which on first inspection seems very nice indeed. If I didn't already have five Hasegawa Dora Nines on the go at the moment, I'd be right on it. If my suspicions are right, it is probably the best of the bunch. Cheers, Mark.

I bought a couple of pairs of the ones Rick mentioned, on for modelling and one for use in my business, where I have to make a lot of circuit boards. It was more out of curiosity, as I had been used to using side cutters from RS which cost around ten times more. I have to say, I am very pleasantly surprised. They have stood up to what I would call professional use at least as well as the RS cutters. If they withstand that kind of use, they should be perfectly good for modelling.

Lots of traffic today: several great tits, blue tits, robins, dunnocks, goldfinches, greenfinches (numbers seem to be recovering slowly), along with the usual sparrows and squabbling starlings. Even though we only have a small garden, we have quite a few feeders out and get lots of visitors. The more exotic of these were a goldcrest, a somewhat lost reed bunting, a great spotted woodpecker and that make sparrowhawk I managed to get some pictures of last year.

^+2 Mark.

I bought nine of them! The Mk I/II stash consists of : 38x old tool Mk I 5x new tool Mk I 4x new tool Mk I/II 4x Tamiya Mk I 1x AZ Mk II LR 1x Heller Mk I 2x Hasegawa Mk I with an additional two Airfix Vbs converted to Mk Ib. Of those, only three haven't been started.

Just heard an unfamiliar turboprop. A quick look on FR24 showed it to be a Ukraine Alliance AN-12 at approx 15,000ft. I wish the weather was clear enough to have seen it!

The sad thing is, with the new Xtradecal sheets, I'm thinking about getting some more! Cheers, Mark.

In case you ever feel like you have a problem, may I offer some perspective? ...and I *still* haven't finished them all after starting them back in 2000 or thereabouts.

Just found the Aeroplane article. I will scan it and put it up on my photobucket page as soon as I can. When it's done, I'll report back and provide the link via PM, if it's of interest. Best regards, Mark.

I think I may have an Aeroplane Monthly article on this somewhere. Give me a couple of days to try to find it and if I have it, I'll put it up on my photobucket for you to access. I seem to remember it was quite a detailed account.

Saw three Gnats in v-formation over the RSPB reserve at Fowlmere. One in Yellowjack livery, one in Red Arrows livery and one in CFS colours. The last time I saw three gnats together was probably in 1979, so it was a real treat!

I'd like to see more in the way of RAF squadron codes in MSG. The old Modeldecal sheets are invaluable, but there are plenty of sizes and styles that still aren't covered. Some of the BoB era codes appear to be around 27"/28" or 33", or are squarer, narrower. I have had to mask and respray some modeldecal dull red codes before to get the right shape and that's something I'd rather not have to do again! So. Very. Fiddly!

That's gorgeous! I'm a big fan of Miles aeroplanes.

From reading his post, I don't think there is anything "imagined" about it. The poster communicated his experience of using the tool. Maybe his experience is different to yours, but implying that he isnt being truthful is just not on and his opinion is as valid as anyone else's. As I said before, if you know how to use the tool, why not offer some help? That way, any misunderstandings would be rectified and we'd all have learnt something.

Thirty quid is still way to much for a mainstream 1/72 kit, imo.

Personally, I'd be happy with even more RAF BoB fighters, and the period leading up to it. That, and Fw 190Ds.* *yes, I do have all the Eagle Cals, Kommandeur, Cutting Edge and Aeromaster, but there must be more!

£41.50? Think I'll pass.

Rather than allude to the ineptitude of the poster, maybe you could have offered some helpful advice, as you obviously know what he's doing wrong. That would have been the gentlemanly thing to do.

Lovely stuff, one of my favourite aeroplanes!

That'd look lush parked in front of the house! :-)